Penny brought their drinks.
They were silent for a while, and then they talked for a few minutes about Bobby Valdez, and then they were silent again. There were about sixteen or eighteen people in the bar. Several of them had ordered sandwiches. The air was filled with the mouth-watering aroma of sizzling ground sirloin and chopped onions.
Finally, Frank said, 'I suppose you're wondering why we're here like this.'
'To have a couple of drinks.'
'Besides that.' Frank stirred his drink with a swizzle stick. Ice cubes rattled softly. 'There are a few things I have to say to you.'
'I thought you said them all this morning, in the car, after we left Vee Vee Gee.'
'Forget what I said then.'
'You had a right to say it.'
'I was full of shit,' Frank said.
'No, maybe you had a point.'
'I tell you, I was full of shit.'
'Okay,' Tony said. 'You were full of shit.'
Frank smiled. 'You could have argued with me a bit more.'
'When you're right, you're right,' Tony said.
'I was wrong about the Thomas woman.'
'You already apologized to her, Frank.'
'I feel like I should apologize to you.'
'Not necessary.'
'But you saw something there, saw she was telling the truth. I didn't even get a whiff of that. I was off on the wrong scent altogether. Hell, you even pushed my nose in it, and I couldn't pick up the right smell.'
'Well, sticking strictly to nasal imagery, you might say you couldn't get the scent because your nose was so far out of joint.'
Frank nodded glumly. His broad face seemed to sag into the melancholy mask of a bloodhound. 'Because of Wilma. My nose is out of joint because of Wilma.'
'Your ex-wife?'
'Yeah. You hit it right on the head this morning when you said I've been a woman-hater.'
'Must have been bad, what she did to you.'
'No matter what she did,' Frank said, 'that's no excuse for what I've let happen to me.'
'You're right.'
'I mean, you can't hide from women, Tony.'
'They're everywhere,' Tony agreed.
'Christ, you know how long it's been since I slept with a woman?'
'No.'
'Ten months. Since she left me, since four months before the divorce came through.'
Tony couldn't think of anything to say. He didn't feel he knew Frank well enough to engage in an intimate discussion of his sex life, yet it was obvious that the man badly needed someone to listen and care.
'If I don't get back in the swim pretty soon,' Frank said, 'I might as well go away and be a priest.'
Tony nodded. 'Ten months sure is a long time,' he said awkwardly.
Frank didn't respond. He stared into his Scotch as he might have stared into a crystal ball, trying to see his future. Clearly, he wanted to talk about Wilma and the divorce and where he should go from here, but he didn't want to feel that he was forcing Tony to listen to his trouble. He had a lot of pride. He wanted to be coaxed, cajoled, drawn out with questions and murmured sympathy.
'Did Wilma find another man or what?' Tony asked, and knew immediately that he had gone to the heart of the matter much too quickly.
Frank was not ready to talk about that part of it, and he pretended not to hear the question. 'What bothers me is the way I'm screwing up in my work. I've always been damned good at what I do. Just about perfect, if I say so myself. Until the divorce. Then I turned sour on women, and pretty soon I went sour on the job, too.' He took a long pull on his Scotch. 'And what the hell's going on with that damned crazy Napa County Sheriff? Why would he lie to protect Bruno Frye?'
'We'll find out sooner or later,' Tony said.
'You want another drink?'
'Okay.'
Tony could see that they were going to be sitting in The Bolt Hole for a long while. Frank wanted to talk about Wilma, wanted to get rid of all the poison that had been building up in him and eating at his heart for nearly a year, but he was only able to let it out a drop at a time.
***
It was a busy day for Death in Los Angeles. Many died of natural causes, of course, and therefore were not required
