asking, 'Do you really think about me?' And telling her almost every day.
But not saying it was with a longing, or even understanding why her face kept showing up in his mind, until he saw her again. He was in love with her was the reason. Had always been in love with her except... Carl was the problem back then, Carl and Jesus, Carl getting him bummed about going to Hell, while Denise's idea was to 'experience life' and she dared him to do things with her. Like buying weed in the black section of Okmulgee, Denise asking the young guys about their life and listening to stories about dope house busts and guys getting shot, Denise natural, standing there in her miniskirt, but not putting on any kind of airs, and they were nice to her. She talked him into leaving college to get his rodeo ticket, and by that time they weren't even seeing much of each other.
She had been way ahead of him back then and now he'd caught up. When they were still on the floor, settling in, and for a while they were quiet, he said to her, 'Denise... 'You're the reason God made Oklahoma.' '
She looked at him and without changing her expression said, ' 'There's a full moon over Tulsa, I hope it's shining on you.' '
Ben said, ' 'In Cherokee County there's a blue norther passin through.' '
Denise said, 'Boy, have I missed you.'
'I'm surprised you know that one.'
'Wayne covered it with some girl, but their cut didn't compare to David Frizzell and Shelly West.'
'That song'd come on,' Ben said, 'and if I wasn't thinking of you already I would then.'
In the library, on their second beer, she said, 'Now that you're a grown man, how many girls have you slept with in your life?'
He began thinking about it, looking for faces.
She said, 'You're counting?'
'You asked how many.'
'I meant in round numbers.'
'About ten.'
'In over twenty years?'
'Wait. Fourteen.'
'What'd you have, four at one time?'
'In one afternoon, at a whorehouse in San Francisco. With some rodeo buddies.'
'I bet that was a party. Four times isn't bad.'
'Average for a bull rider.'
'How about some who weren't hookers?'
'Yeah, about ten. I spent time with a girl when I first went out to the Coast and... a couple years with a girl one other time.'
'You were in love.'
'To some extent. The one, we talked about getting married 'cause she wanted to have a child - even though in Hollywood you don't have to be married.' He wasn't going to ask Denise how many men she'd slept with, but thought of something close to it and said, 'You ever cheat on your husbands?'
She took her time, close to each other on the couch, and put her hand on his thigh. She said, 'I gave you the wrong idea. Really, the only reason I asked - I've imagined rodeo bunnies and starlets coming at you in packs.'
'Packs?'
'Droves. I thought you'd say, modestly, 'Oh, only a few hundred,' and it could be true. I didn't bring it up to compare notes with you. I was never Denise the piece and I don't sleep around. You want to know if I ever cheated on those two jerks? I did once. When I was married to Arthur, bored out of my mind.'
'And a little horny.'
'Probably. I could've had a shot at the club tennis pro, but I didn't.'
'Who was the guy?'
'The UPS man. Arthur goes, 'You're doing what seems to me an inordinate amount of ordering from catalogues lately.' Swear to God. The UPS guy was funny and kinda cute, but it was recreational, no way it would come to anything.' She shrugged and looked at her hand on his leg.
Ben said, 'You think you'll marry again sometime?'
She looked up at him, her smart eyes holding his, looked away and nodded a couple of times like she was thinking about it and came back to him.
'Let's say I'm madly in love.'
'Yeah...?'
'And he's the kind of guy isn't afraid to ride a two-thousand-pound pissed-off animal with horns.'
Ben said, 'I doubt he'd step up on one today.'
Denise said, 'It wouldn't matter.' She said, 'Ben, I'll marry you first thing in the morning if you'll spend the night.'
And he said -
He turned off the interstate to pull up in front of the Shawnee Inn.
He didn't know what to say and she told him not to say anything if he didn't want to. She said, 'I'm not putting you on the spot, I'm telling you how I feel.'
That was when he said, 'But it's like we just met,' and she started shaking her head, smiling at him.
Ben went up the stairway and along the hall toward his room. He saw the guy at the end of the hall by the Coke machine, a big guy looking this way, about to put money in the machine, but now was coming toward Ben in a hurry - Brother in his cowboy hat - running, pulling a gun, a revolver, from under his jacket. Ben got to 220, shoved the card in the lock slot and a goddamn red light came on, shoved the card in again and now the green light showed and the door opened as Brother reached him. All Ben had time to do was step and jab a left hand hard into the nose with adhesive tape on it, stopping Brother long enough for Ben to get in the room and this time hit Brother in the face with the door as he tried to swing it closed and heard Brother yell out as he stumbled back, Ben already crossing to the balcony, sliding open the glass and now was looking down at the pool about twenty feet from the building, no lights showing, Ben not knowing how deep the water was. He heard the door to the hall bang open and pressed himself against the stonework framing the balcony, felt handholds between the stones, and hoisted himself to the tarred gravel roof, rolling onto it as Brother reached the balcony.
Ben looked around. There was no door to a stairs going down, only metal shapes housing the air- conditioning, no place to hide. He could stay up here if Brother was afraid to climb the stonework. But if Hazen was around - he couldn't be too far.
Ben got down flat on the roof, put his eyes over the edge and there was Brother with his gun raised, pointing straight up at Ben and firing in the night as Ben rolled away from the edge and crawled back a few yards before getting to his feet. He'd have to run and dive for the pool - the way he dove off the roof of a motel when they were filming at Angola, the Louisiana State Prison, did it on a bet and caught hell from the stunt coordinator. 'You want to lose your SAG card, asshole?' Hell no, it was worth $636 a day whether he worked a stunt or not. He remembered now the trouble he had at Denise's trying to get his new boots off in a hurry. He'd have to leave them on - goddamn cowboy boots when he ought to be wearing high-top sneakers.
Brother surprised him.
Ben started for the edge - four strides and dive out as far as he could - and Brother's cowboy hat and shoulders appeared above the roof edge, arms clinging tight to the tarred gravel, Brother trying to raise the gun and hold on at the same time. The gun fired in the moment Ben reached Brother to kick him in the face: Brother going back, falling, Ben pressing to keep his balance and then lunging out at the dark, Brother missing the balcony but not the concrete floor of the patio, as Ben landed flat in the water in his wool shirt and his windbreaker and began swimming to the side of the pool, till he found out he could walk.
Denise opened the door. Ben gave her time to look at him wringing wet and say whatever she wanted.
She said, 'You change your mind?'
VI.
