“So you did try to see her,” I said.
He didn’t answer. The dog at his feet rose suddenly and made off with its nose to the ground. The two others followed. They went over the hill on the far side and out of sight and in a minute we could hear them yelping.
“Rabbit,” Pomeroy said.
I waited. The yelping faded, then stopped.
“I wanted to see her. After all that time, I… the month I was with her was…” He shrugged, spread his hands. “It was my best month,” he said.
The dogs trotted back, single file, and sat and looked at us again.
“She wasn’t friendly,” I said.
“No. She… what the hell. She’s a big star and I’m… look at me, you know?”
I nodded.
“But you persisted.”
“Persisted,” he said, rolling the word around like a piece of strange candy. “I wanted to see her,” he said finally. “I’m not much, but I am married to her.”
“Still?” I said.
“I never divorced her. I never heard from her. Far as I know we’re still married.”
“Was Jill Joyce her name then?”
“No.” For the first time since I’d met him Pomeroy almost smiled. “It was Jillian Zabriskie.”
“She born in San Diego?”
He nodded. “I never met her parents,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure they were around there somewhere.”
“Why’d she run off?”
“She never said. One day I came home and she wasn’t there and she was never there again.”
“You look for her?”
“Sure. I told the police and stuff. Everyone who knew anything about her knew she was wild. Everyone assumed she run off with somebody.”
“You think so?”
“She always liked men,” he said.
“What was the name of the bar?” I said. “Pancho Doyle’s,” he said. I knew he’d remember.
“Still there?” I said.
“I don’t know. After I got discharged I never went back to San Diego. I just come home here. I was a radar man when I got out. I went to Worcester Tech for a semester, gonna be an engineer, but…” He shrugged.
“Honorable discharge?” I said.
“They kicked me out,” he said. “I was drinking.”
“Worcester Tech?”
He nodded. “I was drinking more. I dropped out.”
“Still drink?” I said.
He shook his head. “AA,” he said. “Been sober five years in March.”
“So you called Jill Joyce and she told you to take a hike, and you kept calling and finally a guy named Randall came to see you.”
“He was very scary,” Pomeroy said. He was staring down at the ground in front of him.
“What’d he say?”
“He shoved me around a little, and he said I was to stay away from Jill Joyce or I’d be sorry. He was kicking my dogs too.”
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I kicked him in the balls a few days ago.”
Pomeroy looked up at me, a little startled. “You did?”
“Thought you might like to know that.”
“I would. Ah, you… you must be pretty tough.”
“I think so,” I said. “You ever threaten Jill Joyce?”
“Me? No. I couldn’t…”
“You know anyone named Babe Loftus?” He shook his head.
“You work?” I said.
“A Iittle, lawns in the summer. Shovel some sidewalks. Mostly-mostly I get welfare.”
“Anything from Jill?” He shook his head.
