18
VIRGIL OPENED THE DOOR. He stared solemnly at the look on Ryan’s face.
“You the one been calling?”
Ryan came in past him. “Where is she?”
“I believe she making wee-wee.” Virgil closed the door and watched Ryan as he looked toward the hallway at the bathroom door and back to the low table where the two glasses and the half-gallon bottle, almost empty, stood among the paint tubes and pots. A cigarette burned in the ashtray, its smoke rising in the light from the chrome lamp. There were no other lights; the kitchen and hall were dark.
“How much has she had?”
“That one, one before it,” Virgil said. He put a leg over one of the bar stools and leaned against the counter. “She likes the sauce, don’t she?”
The inscription on the wall had been finished.
“We talking,” Virgil said. “Taking turns. I tell her something, she tell me something. You haven’t talked to her like that, have you? Shit, she so surprised, I don’t believe you told her
The toilet flushed.
“What I like to know,” Virgil said, “how much is it the man wants to give her and where the man lives. This Mr. Per-ez? He the one you work for, huh?”
Denise came in from the hall. She looked at Ryan and past him to her glass on the low table and picked it up as she sat down. She looked at nothing then, at the wall opposite her that was stark white, bare.
“I called you,” Ryan said. “I’ve been calling since about five.”
Denise took a drink. She said, “Big fucking deal. You go to a meeting?”
“At Saint Joe’s.”
“How’re the bleeding hearts?”
“Why don’t you go to bed, okay? Get some sleep and then we’ll talk.”
“Why don’t you fuck off?” Denise said.
A low sound, a laugh, came from Virgil. “Soon as she start drinking. I remember that from before. She used to sit still, not say anything. Then the sauce start working in her, man, she don’t shut up.”
“But why don’t
“Man, you the one crashing the party,” Virgil said. “We having a nice time.”
Ryan walked over to him. Virgil didn’t move, leaning with his arm on the counter, his hand hanging limp.
“I don’t want to hit you,” Ryan said.
“Shit-”
“I mean it. There’s no sense in us breaking up the place and making a lot of noise, maybe get her kicked out. But that’s what I feel like doing,” Ryan said, holding on to the quiet tone. “I feel like punching the shit out of you. Maybe you got something on you, a gun, something, I don’t know. I’d be willing to take a chance. That’s how strongly I feel about it. But if we get into that, what good would it do us? We got enough problems. Right?”
Virgil shook his head, grinning. “You go waaaay out and then come back around and all you’ve said to me is nothing.”
“No, I said you better get out of here,” Ryan said. “What you’re doing, maybe you don’t know it, you’re killing somebody. I can’t, I’m not gonna stand here and see it happen. I can’t do it.”
“Where’s the man live? Mr. Per-ez.”
“How about if we talk tomorrow?” Ryan said. “I’m not kidding you, if you don’t get out of here we’re gonna be bouncing off the walls and somebody’s gonna go through the window. Okay?”
“You don’t do nothing else without me,” Virgil said.
Ryan shook his head. “Right, I’ll call you, get your permission. Now leave, okay?”
Virgil came off the stool slowly. Ryan let him take his time.
“Is there any more wine?”
“That’s it. What she’s got,” Virgil said.
“Okay, I’ll see you.” He wanted to push him, run him through the door, but he stepped away and let Virgil take his hat from the counter and put it on, holding the crown lightly with one hand and setting it on his head at the right angle with an easy motion, where it belonged, and not having to adjust it.
“That’s a good hat,” Ryan said.
Virgil gave him a mild look. His eyes moved to Denise. He said, “Take it easy, now,” and walked out.
Ryan closed the door. Denise was pouring the last of the wine into the ten-ounce glass, filling it more than half. She put the bottle on the floor next to her. Ryan waited in the silence. She wasn’t going to look his way. She was Lee again, but with short hair and clean slacks and the navy-blue sweater. Her glasses were on the drawing table. She seemed determined not to look this way. She was getting ready for him now, waiting for her cue.
Ryan walked over and sat down in the chair facing her. She was drunk but she didn’t look bad: a little glassy-eyed. Her hair was combed. She seemed at ease, looking past him in thought, calmly ignoring him. Inside she was crouched, waiting.
Ryan said, “Well, here we are. You having a nice time?”
She didn’t answer him.
“I’m gonna get the silent treatment, huh?”
“Fuck you,” Denise said.
“Fuck you, too,” Ryan said. “You dumb broad.” He waited, watching her take a drink. “Can you hardly wait’ll tomorrow, when you wake up? Be fun, uh? Listen, if you want, I’ll tell them over at the A&P you’re sick. They might want to know how long you’ll be out. What do you think, a week? A month?”
“Jesus,” Denise said, “is that how you do it? What do you call it? Twelfth Step work.”
“To tell you the truth,” Ryan said, “I’ve never done it before. You’re my first one.”
“You want to help me? Really?”
“Sure I do.”
“Go across the street and get another one of these.” She kicked at the empty bottle with her bare foot and missed and kicked at it again. “Get a couple.”
“Why don’t you go? You can walk.”
“Oh, you’d let me?” She put on a slightly prissy tone.
“If I didn’t,” Ryan said, “then you’d have all the more reason to feel sorry for yourself. You already think it’s my fault. If I don’t let you out, then you’d know for sure I’m a heartless bastard, I don’t care anything about you, I’m in this only for myself.”
“You’re a prick,” Denise said. “Like all the rest.”
“All the rest of what? Men? Jesus, you gonna give me that one? You poor little thing. Suck on your bottle.”
“Asshole.”
“What am I, parts of the anatomy? Prick, asshole. What else? How about knee? You fucking knee. Or shoulder. You rotten, miserable shoulder.”
“You’re really funny.”
“I’m literal, if that’s the word,” Ryan said. “I don’t have much imagination. I see something, I say what it is. I see you sitting there drinking wine. Maybe you think you’ve been getting a rotten deal and you want to pay me back, or you want to pay back your husband or your mother, I don’t know. I don’t know why you drink, but what I see, I see you killing yourself.”
“And you don’t want that to happen till I get the money. How much you gonna make, anyway?”
Ryan didn’t say anything.
“Then you work on me some more,” Denise said. “What do you have in mind? I mean, how do you get any of it out of me? Unless maybe we got married. Jesus, there must be an awful lot in this.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand,” Ryan said. “You were going to get half, but the way they’re thinking now, you
