“This is Jane.”
“Nina.”
“How’s it going, Mata Hari? You catch that four-pound walleye yet?”
“Very funny. So far so good. I’m invited to his pad for the night. He says he’ll sleep on the couch. And I sort of believe him. He’s this odd mix of Eagle Scout and the Sundance Kid. I can’t tell if he’s going for it or going along with it.”
“We gotta try, right? Hollywood wants to know how you assess your security.”
“My first impression, he’s got some dangerous baggage but it takes a while to get down to it. The other guy in the bar was more edgy. But this Ace, he’s…”
“He’s a tricky guy, Nina; and he’s got some social skills and maybe even some depth of character. But so did Darth Vader.”
“I hear you. So far he hasn’t discussed his business.”
Hollywood came on the phone. “We can’t cover you all the time, Nina. Not in a small town. We talked about this. If you go forward you’re on your own.”
“Understood.”
“We need some idea of his pattern, his contacts, any sign he’s anticipating something big.”
“I got it, Holly.”
“Okay. And we set the ball rolling. Jane has the local cop hunting down your husband.”
“I said…”
“I heard you.”
“Okay. Here’s Kit.”
Nina shut her eyes. The bathroom smelled of cheap disinfectant on monotonous yellow linoleum. The walls and floor closed in; claustrophobic. She was quick to fight it off.
“Hi, Mom.”
“You did great, honey. Thanks.”
“Are you done working yet?”
“No, I got to keep going a little while longer. But, hey, Dad’s on his way to pick you up and take you home. What are you and Auntie Jane going to do tomorrow?”
“She said there’s an outside pool, in a park.”
“Remember, you need lots of lotion even if it’s cloudy.”
“I know.” Then Kit’s voice quavered. “Are you going to come home, too?”
“C’mon, honey, we talked about this.” Nina tapped her teeth together.
“Fine,” Kit said sharply. “I know-don’t quit, don’t cry unless you’re bleeding.” Kit had obviously mastered Jane’s cell phone because suddenly the call was over. The connection went dead: she had hung up on her mother. Nina couldn’t afford the luxury of remorse when she was working, but she couldn’t stop a memory. Eight years old, about Kit’s age. An elementary school in Ann Arbor.
Focused now, she finished up in the bathroom and washed her hands. She regarded herself in the mirror. The alcohol she’d consumed dragged on her, like the middle of a Ranger run wearing full equipment. Deliberately, to test her timing and reflexes she applied fresh lipstick, taking pains to perfectly match the line of her lips.
She blotted her lips on a paper towel and surveyed her makeup.
Well, this is what she wanted. To be a D-girl and hang it way out there, going after something big. On her own.
Which brought her to the subject of what was going to happen tonight. Nothing in her training had exactly prepared her for this assignment.
Would Ace change his story when they were alone and expect to sleep with her tonight? Would he get rough? She took a fast inventory of the men she’d gone to bed with in her life. More than half of them had been a waste of time.
This was the first time she’d had to evaluate a potential sexual encounter professionally. Like a hooker or a particularly calculating trophy wife.
She squared her shoulders, grabbed the doorknob, took a deep breath, and pushed it open.
She walked back to the table, sat down, and said, totally spontaneously: “I’m a lousy mother.”
“You’ll live. C’mon,” Ace said, standing up.
“Where to?” Nina said.
“Take a ride. Eat supper. Get you a toothbrush.”
“Big of you.”
“Got nothing else going,” Ace said.
Chapter Seven
An hour later they were in another bar and Ace was still playing Dr. Phil. “I mean,” he said, “we only got a few more years of this.”
Nina screwed up her face. “What do you mean,
“I mean, what are you-thirty-five, thirty-six? ’Bout the same as me. We ain’t like wine, you know. We don’t get better as we age. Like, right now-today-bang,” he snapped his fingers, “you can walk into any bar, anywhere, and make something happen because you got some looks and a body. But in five years…”
Nina slouched in the booth and held up her glass in a grudging salute. “Forty,” she said glumly. She didn’t have to fake this conversation. Uh-uh. This was a subject she thought about all the time.
“And you know what the stats are on divorced women over forty getting remarried. Ain’t pretty, sweetheart. Us boys definitely got more shelf life.”
“You’re depressing the shit out of me. No wonder the population of North Dakota is rock bottom, if this is the way you court your women.”
Ace shrugged. “Just saying, you should probably give the marriage a little more work, that’s all. Bird in the hand.”
Nina leaned forward. “A bird in the hand bites. My husband is a total
They stared into their empty glasses. Nina had switched to vodka sevens. She’d had a lot of success drinking vodka with a crazy bunch of Russian paratroopers in Kosovo. A new round of drinks arrived. The way Ace spread his hands before he spoke, Nina could see him behind a pulpit.
“Okay. It’s like this,” he said. “You’re strung out. Strung out means you talk a little too fast. And there’s off- the-wall thoughts come out of nowhere and bash through the conversation at random times. Like just now.”
“You know this for a fact?” Nina said.
“Sure. I’m strung out, too. But mine is more long haul, more like holding off deep space. Mine’s sadder. Yours is madder.”
“So what do we do?”
“Drink. Booze tames down the brightness and buffs the edges off so it don’t make the air bleed.”
“Jesus. You been thinking about this stuff way too long, Ace.”
“I’ll say.”
And that’s the way the afternoon went into sunset: the ironies of marriage counseling, Ace’s slow-hand seduction and booze. One bar, two bar, red bar, blue bar. Not quite a blur. Maintaining. Hey. They were both obviously competent folks.
