She said, 'Let's brush our teeth and go for another, okay?'
'After you.' He watched her get out of bed naked and go in the bathroom. He waited for the full frontal shot when she came out, and heard the doorbell. He got out of bed and went over to the bathroom to tell Denise through the door someone was here.
She came out wrapping herself in a pink kimono. 'It's the paperboy. He comes to collect once a month.' She said, 'Don't get dressed. Put the robe on and we'll have a cup of coffee first, okay?'
She picked up her handbag from the vanity and went downstairs barefoot.
She was seriously thinking of selling the house, but would hold on for a while, see what happens. It was way too big for one person, dark, sort of Victorian, frosted-glass panels in the double doors of the entrance. She could see a figure waiting on the porch, a dark shape more than an actual person, opened the door and said to Hazen Grooms, 'You're not the paperboy.'
'What I am,' Hazen said, 'is hungover. You get horny when you're like that? Man, I sure do.' He stepped inside and took the lapel of her kimono between his fingers, feeling it, saying, 'Honey, you're a sight for horny eyes. I bet you got nothing on under there, have you?' He looked past her saying, 'What I need more'n anything right now is a cold beer. Get the spiders outta my head.' He started across the foyer saying, 'I bet they's some in the fridge,' and went on through the hall that passed beneath the staircase landing to the big kitchen in the back of the house.
Denise followed, handbag hanging from her shoulder, not saying a word. She opened the refrigerator, brought out a can of Bud and placed it on the table in front of Hazen. He said, 'We not talking this morning. Still seepy-eyed? We could go back to bed, you want.' He popped open the can and Denise watched him pour the beer down his throat, his Adam's apple bouncing as he swallowed, watched him lower the can, his eyes shining wet, and say, 'Jesus, I've come back to life.'
She brought a glass ashtray from the sink and placed it with her handbag on the other end of the table from Hazen. Now she took a pack of Winston and a Bic lighter from the bag, lit a cigarette and dropped the pack and lighter back inside.
'Gotta have that first smoke, huh?' Hazen said. 'What I want you to do for me is call Mr. Ben Webster, get him to come over here.'
'Why?' Denise said.
'Settle our business.'
'I thought you changed your mind - your dad going back to prison and all.'
It got him to hesitate. 'Where'd you hear that?'
'My cleaning lady.'
'Your cleaning lady.' Hazen squinting at her now. 'How'd she know?'
'What difference does it make?' Denise said, and blew smoke at him. 'You're leaving, aren't you?'
Now he changed again, using his sly Jack Nicholson eyes.
'If I am,' Hazen said, 'we got one last chance to go upstairs and fall in love.'
She saw Ben in the terry-cloth robe too small for him appear in the doorway behind Hazen, and said, 'I don't think Tenkiller would like it.'
Hazen said, 'Who?'
Now Ben came in past Hazen to Denise's end of the table, looking around to say, 'I wouldn't waste any time. I think you ought to get out of here's fast as you can.'
Hazen put his beer on the table and stared at Ben in the fluffy skin-tight robe, the sleeves short of his wrists. 'Jesus Christ,' Hazen said, 'you go around in women's things, you're actu'lly queer, aren't you? One of those fellas likes to take it in the butt. You hear the one, the Indin goes in the whorehouse with a bushel of corn?'
'Front hole money hole,' Denise said, 'back hole corn hole. I told it to Ben in the eighth grade.'
Ben remembered it and turned his head to Denise. Hazen said, 'Look at me, goddamn it,' and they saw him holding a black semiautomatic pistol on them but mainly on Ben, a big one Denise believed was a Colt .45, like one her dad used to have, Hazen saying now, 'I'm through talking,' raised the gun to eye level and put it dead center on Ben.
Ben said, 'You're gonna shoot me? For what? It won't get you my land.'
Hazen sighted down the barrel. 'I'm not talking to you no more.'
Denise's hand went into the bag close in front of her.
Ben said, 'How's Brother?'
It stopped Hazen because - Denise saw it - he didn't know and had to ask.
'What happen to him?'
Her hand came out of the bag and laid the pack of Winston on the table.
'He fell off a roof,' Ben said. 'He won't die, but has to be put back together.'
'Goddamn it,' Hazen said, 'what'd you do, push him off?'
Denise's hand went back into the bag.
'I'm trying to get away from him,' Ben said, 'and he's shooting at me up there, and he lost his balance.'
'You care so much,' Denise said, 'why don't you go to the hospital and see him?' She waited a moment and said, 'You shoot Ben you'll have to shoot me, too, won't you?' Threw that in and got Hazen to look at her and saw his eyes lose their fire, his eyes turning heavy so she'd think he was cool.
'You know your brother,' Ben said. 'He likes to fight but doesn't know how. He's too quick on the trigger.'
'He's a moron,' Denise said to Hazen. 'That's why you never let him hang around with you. I really think you ought to take off while you have the chance.'
Ben said, 'Why bust your ass dealing in truck parts? If I was a hardcase like yourself, shit, I'd rob banks. My granddad, a famous deputy U.S. marshal in his day, used to tell me robbing banks took nerve, but was the quickest way to get your hands on real money. Even if you get caught and put away, you're looked up to in prison.'
Denise said, 'Really? Is that true?'
Ben said, 'Yeah, bank robbers are among the elite,' and looked at Hazen. 'You've done time. Isn't that right?'
'Hijackers,' Hazen said, 'don't take any backseats to nobody.'
'It's a lot of work though, huh? Heavy work.' Ben said, 'You want another beer?'
'No,' Denise said, 'he's running out of time. Let him go.'
Hazen put his sleepy eyes on her, looking more tired than cool, and she softened her tone saying to him, 'Go on, Hazen, get out of here while you can.' She paused a moment and said, 'For my sake. Please.'
And it seemed to move him. Hazen said, 'Sometimes it works,' shaking his head, 'and sometimes it don't.' He looked at Denise again to say, 'This one wasn't my trip,' and walked out with his big Colt .45.
Neither one of them moved until they heard the front door slam.
'What did you mean,' Ben said, 'you told him to leave for your sake?'
Denise's hand came out of the bag holding her SIG Sauer and laid it on the table.
'So I wouldn't have to shoot him.'
'You think you would've?'
'If it looked like you and I were through before we even got started? I'm not a victim type.' She said, 'That man is really stupid, isn't he?'
'Carl said nine out of ten criminals have the brain of a chicken.'
'Your old granddad, known for his wisdom.'
'He could tell a story,' Ben said.
