their backs, the most dreadful thing a little child can see, and Charlie began to wail. But Mary's footsteps never faltered because a woman's love is strange and cruel and nearly always clear-sighted, love that sees is always horrible love, and she knew walking away was right and so she walked, dismissing the cries as only another part of the boy's development, like smiles from gas or scraped knees. And he had felt a pain in his chest so sharp, so physical, that he had wondered if he was having a heart attack, and then the pain had just passed, leaving him shaken and unable to interpret it, but now he thought that the pain had been plain old prosaic good-bye. Parents' backs aren't the most dreadful thing. The most dreadful thing of all is the speed with which children dismiss those same backs and turn to their own affairs-to the game, the puzzle, the new friend, and eventually to death. Those were the awful things he had come to know now. Charlie had begun dying long before he got sick, and there was no putting a stop to it.
'Bart?' she was saying. 'Are you still there, Bart?'
'I'm here.'
'What good are you doing yourself thinking about Charlie all the time? It's eating you up. You're his prisoner.'
'But you're free,' he said. 'Yes.'
'Shall I see the lawyer next week?'
'Okay. Fine.'
'It doesn't have to be nasty, does it, Bart?'
'No. It will be very civilized.'
'You won't change your mind and contest it?'
'No.'
'I'll . . . I'll be talking to you, then.'
'You knew it was time to leave him and so you did. I wish to God I could be that instinctive.'
'What?'
'Nothing. Good-bye, Mary. I love you.' He realized he had said it after he hung up. He had said it automatically, with no feeling-verbal punctuation. But it wasn't such a bad ending. Not at all.
January 18, 1974
The secretary's voice said: 'Who shall I say is calling?'
'Bart Dawes.'
'Will you hold for a moment?'
'Sure.'
She put him in limbo and he held the blank receiver to his ear, tapping his foot and looking out the window at the ghost town of Crestallen Street West. It was a bright day but very cold, temperature about 10 above with a chill factor making it 10 below. The wind blew skirls of snow across the street to where the Hobarts' house stood broodingly silent, just a shell waiting for the wrecking ball. They had even taken their shutters.
There was a click and Steve Ordner's voice said: 'Bart, how are you?'
'Fine. '
'What can I do for you?'
'I called about the laundry,' he said. 'I wondered what the corporation had decided to do about relocation.'
Ordner sighed and then said with good-humored reserve: 'A little late for that, isn't it?'
'I didn't call to be beaten with it, Steve. '
'Why not? You've surely beaten everyone else with it. Well, never mind. The board has decided to get out of the industrial laundry business, Bart. The Laundromats will stay; they're all doing well. We're going to change the chain name, though. To Handi-Wash. How does that sound?'
'Terrible,' he said remotely. 'Why don't you sack Vinnie Mason?'
'Vinnie?' Ordner sounded surprised. 'Vinnie's doing a great job for us. Turning into quite the mogul. I must say I didn't expect such bitterness-'
'Come on, Steve. That job's got no more future than a tenement airshaft. Give him something worthwhile or let him out. '
'I handy think that's your business, Bart. '
'You've got a dead chicken tied around his neck and he doesn't know it yet because it hasn't started to rot. He still thinks it's dinner.'
'I understand he punched you up a little before Christmas. '
'I told him the truth and he didn't like it. '
'Truth's a slippery word, Bart. I would think you'd understand that better than anyone, after all the lies you told me.
'That still bugs you, doesn't it?'
'When you discover that a man you thought was a good man is full of shit, it does tend to bug one, yes.'
'Bug one,' he repeated. 'Do you know something, Steve? You're the only person I've ever known in my life that would say that. Bug one. It sounds like something that comes in a fucking aerosol can.'
