she used to go out once a week, but she’d never go the same place. Didn’t want to get a reputation, you know. Bad for the kids, she said. So she wouldn’t go to any place regular.
She’d always go where nobody knew her. She was a good mother, man.”
“Sorry to have to ask, but did she go to meet men, you think?” .
“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t she? We was
divorced. She was free. She liked sex, I know that. I mean that’s pretty much what we had was sex, and after a while, when I wasn’t working and didn’t do much but play ball and drink with the guys, we didn’t even have that.”
“Because she didn’t want to?”
“Because I wasn’t much good,”
Portugal said.
“Too much defeat,” Jesse said.
“And be. er,” Portugal said.
“Way too much heer.”
“You got an arrangement with the trucker’s wife, though,” Jesse said, and smiled. “Looks like you’re mak-lng a comeback.”
Portugal shrugged.
“Arrangement is just that, we both like to get laid, it don’t mean much.”
“You have any thoughts on who might have killed your ex-wife?”
Portugal’s eyes teared again, lie lowered his head.
“No,” he said.
They talked in the anachronistic restaurant for nearly an hour. Jesse asked about male friends of the deceased, about female friends. Had she ever worked anyplace? Had she any enemies? Had he any enemies? Did she have debts?
Did he? How often did he see her? When had he last seen her?
When it was through, Jesse paid the small bill and they left the restaurant. The fried-egg sandwich remained uneaten on Portugal’s plate.
“I wasn’t such a loser,”
Portugal said, “she’d be all right. She figured she was marrying Mr. Big, guy that was going somewhere. And look where I took her.”
“MaYbe you’re taking on more than you need to,” Jesse said.
“And maybe I ain’t,” Portugal
said.
Jesse had nothing else to say about that and he got in his car and drove away while Portugal stood on the corner looking down Sumner Avenue at Jesse’s receding car.
that tables were set up outdoors and people sold handicrafts and bakery products and pumpkins to benefit the Paradise Woman’s Club. Inside the meeting Cissy Hathaway in a mop hat and apron was selling cider and donuts. Jesse stood with Abby against the far wall, near the door.
“The Paradise Woman’s Club,”
Abby said. She shook her head. “Makes me blush.”
“Maybe it has evolved into a powerful force for feminism,‘’
Jesse said.
“And maybe pigs fly,” Abby said.
“And whistle while they do it,” Jesse
said.
They got in line for cider. In line ahead of them was Jo Jo Genest, massive and alien in the Saturday-morning suburban crowd. When it was his turn he lingered at the counter talking to Cissy. Jo Jo stayed too long. The line built up behind him with people looking toward the front to see what the holdup was. Jesse watched Cissy as she talked to Jo Jo. Her body seemed to lose some of its stiff ness and her pale face seemed to gain color. She shifted behind the cider table in a way that made her hips move.
Jo Jo finally moved on, the crowd parting crefully as he moved ponderously through it. He didn’t look at Jesse and Cissy’s eyes followed him before she turned back to the next customer.
When it was his turn Jesse ordered two ciders and two donuts, paid for them, and carried them away from the table to where Abby was standing.
“She’s not as mousy as she
looks,” Jesse said.
“Cissy?”
“Un huh.”
Abby looked at him as if he were crazy, as they walked across the common toward the wall across the street where the burnout kids usually sat.
“How could she be more mousy?” Abby said.
