Under the Skin

who—”

“It’s not like that,” Youngblood says. “And I said to quit calling her that. She aint that no more.”

Hartung leans and spits into the cuspidor at their feet and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He stares at Youngblood in the backbar mirror. “How’s it like then?”

“She don’t know whose it is except she’s sure it aint mine. She wanted me to be real clear on that before I asked again.”

“When she tell you?”

“Last night. Wanted me to know it’s a chance it was a sixteen-year-old kid from Chihuahua City. Boy’s daddy wanted to give him an American girl for his birthday.”

“The daddy might be Mexican?”

“She recollects having a problem that night with her whatchacallit…that thing they use to keep from having this kind of trouble.”

Hartung sighs and stares into his glass. Then clears his throat. “Don’t you think this whole thing calls for maybe a little more consideration?”

“It’s all I did last night was consider it. The news didn’t set too good with me, let me tell you, none of it, especially the part about it’s probably Mexican. She said the first thing she thought to do was go see somebody… you know, somebody who could…eliminate the problem. But she rather not do it. Said it’s hers, no matter what. Said she never knew before how much she wanted to be a momma, have her a normal life. Said if I was still wanting to get hitched she’d be willing to lay low someplace till it’s born. Back home we can say it’s her sister’s, say she died borning him. Say the husband was a Mexican armyman and got killed in all that mess down there.”

“Sweet Baby Jesus.” Hartung shakes his head and studies his drink.

“She said she’d sure enough understand if I said no. Said she wouldn’t have no choice then but to go see somebody about it.”

“She’ll get rid of it if you won’t marry her, but she won’t marry you unless she can have it?”

“That’s it.”

Hartung lets a long breath and stares at him in the mirror.

“I walked all over town and thought about it till sunup.”

“Then went ahead on and asked her again.”

“I’ll rent a place in San Antone where she can stay. I’ll go see her every weekend till it’s born. Then I’ll take them home and tell the neighbors meet the new wife and her baby nephew whose momma died. Or maybe niece, I guess.”

“What about its name?”

“We talked about that. Decided it’d be better to let him be Youngblood than have a Mexican name. I mean, he’ll be my nephew too. No harm he can have my name.”

Hartung rubs his face and sighs. He takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair and stares into the hat as if it might hold some sensible explanation for the ways of men and women and the whole damned world. Then puts the hat back on and looks at Youngblood in the mirror.

“I don’t even know what to say anymore. I been standing here thinking you were crazy but this goes way past crazy. This takes crazy all the way to the end of the goddamn line.”

Youngblood meets his friend’s eyes in the mirror and sips his drink.

“Jesus, bud. I never knew anybody to have it so bad.”

“I know. But that’s the whole thing, don’t you see? The plain and simple of it is I love her. Can’t help it, I just do. And if it’s the only way to have her for my wife, then it’s how I aim to do it.”

He turns from the mirror to look at Hartung. “I’m tired of how I been doing, Frank. And I aint getting any damn younger. Which by the way neither are you, but that’s your business.”

Hartung spits into the cuspidor. “I give up. There’s no making sense with a crazy man.”

He stares into his whiskey for a time, then sips of it. “Damn hopeless case.”

Youngblood grins. “Guess so.”

“No guess about it.”

“She’s really a sweet girl.”

“I’m sure.”

“Wait’ll you meet her.”

“I done met her.”

“No you aint, you just seen her and said howdy. I already told her you’re gonna visit us real often.”

“I am?”

“You damn right. You’re gonna have many a supper with us.”

Hartung drains his drink and contemplates the empty glass. “Supper, huh?” Then steps back from the bar and gives Youngblood a look of alarm. “Whoa! Is she gonna do the cooking?”

It takes Youngblood a second to catch the allusion to the hapless McGuane—and they burst into loud barking laughter.

If she is a mystery to others she is hardly less of one to herself, a fact that troubles her not at all. No one will ever learn anything of her life prior to her arrival at Mrs. O’Malley’s. There were witnesses to that earlier life, of course, but none are known to anyone who now knows her or will come to know her. Only her own memory can bear testimony to her past, but not in all the years to come will she permit herself even a passing thought of where she’s come from or who she’s been, and thus will her previous history disappear to wherever the world’s vast store of unrecorded past does vanish.

The last recall of it she allowed herself was when Youngblood returned to her after a full night of pondering her disclosure that she carried another man’s child, returned to her with the morning light and held her hands and said it didn’t matter. And asked her again to be his wife.

She had searched his eyes for any hint of uncertainty but saw nothing in them but love.

Love. The very thing in Cullen Youngblood she had wagered on. A love whose power she dared not test against the truth but which proved equal to the lie. And in the moment of staring into his eyes and marveling at the blazing force of that love, she had the final thought she will ever have that touches on her earlier self:

And they used to call me crazy.

We wore good suits and hats and freshly shined shoes. Brando and LQ carried briefcases stuffed with old newspapers. Anybody who checked us out as we came through the Jacinto’s revolving door would’ve figured us for three more members of the East Texas Insurance Association attending the year-end convention.

The lobby was brightly lighted and well appointed with dark leather sofas and easy chairs and ottomans, embroidered carpeting and tall potted palms. Business types stood chatting in clusters and huddled around documents laid out on coffee tables. Most of the action at this hour was in the hotel dining room, which was jammed with conventioneers and other New Year’s celebrants and pouring out music and laughter and the loud garble of shouted conversations. The smell of booze carried out from the room. Even though Prohibition was two years dead and done with, you still couldn’t belly up to a bar in Texas and buy a hard drink, not legally, but you could bring in your own, and this bunch must’ve brought it in by the carload. Through the open double doors I caught a glimpse of the mob inside, and of a man and woman seated on a dais—the man grayhaired and wearing a white toga and a sash that read 1935, the woman young and goodlooking in a white bathing suit with a 1936 sash.

A couple was embracing at the bank of elevators as we came up, the man holding the woman close and nuzzling her neck, running his hand over her ass. The woman glanced over at us and pushed his hand away and hissed, “Will you just hold your horses?”

The little arrow over one of the elevator doors glided past the arc of floor numbers to stop at number one. The doors dinged open and another loud bunch of conventioneers came surging out and headed for the dining room. We moved fast to get into the car ahead of the couple and LQ turned and raised a hand to them and said, “Houston police business, folks. Yall take the next one, please.”

Brando smiled at the pretty blond operator and made a shutting gesture and she closed the doors on the couple standing there with their mouths open. She had nicelooking legs under her short skirt and wore her cap at a