After Midnight

Without even pausing to think, I said, “We met at a bar. The Cactus Bar and Grill.”

“Really?” She set a couple of beer bottles on the counter, then reached up and opened a cupboard. “I ate there with him once. I’m surprised he went back. He thought they had lousy margaritas.”

“He sure put down a lot of them the night we met.”

“No kidding.” Shaking her head, she filled a pair of glass mugs with beer. Then she turned around and handed one to me.

“All he could talk about was you,” I said. “And how much he loves you.”

“Really?” Her smile seemed a little sad.

“Yeah. He’s miserable.”

We went into the living room. Judy sat in the armchair, and I took the sofa.

I still had no idea what I was doing.

That’s not quite true.

I was stalling.

Playing things by ear.

Because I had no idea what to do.

Shoot her?

I was sitting on Tony’s pistol. It made my butt hurt on the right side, and I would’ve been glad to take it out of my pocket.

But shoot her?

Gunshots in a place like this, at an hour like this, would probably wake up half the people in the building.

I’d be shafted.

“So you don’t think you’ll get back together with Tony?” I asked, then tried the beer. It was very cold and bitter and I liked it a lot.

“Not a chance,” Judy said. “Did he tell you why we broke up?”

For a while, I couldn’t answer because I was busy swallowing that wonderful beer. Then I said, “I think it was too painful for him to talk about.”

“He was probably too embarrassed.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s not the sort of thing you want to tell people about. Especially not a woman.”

“Oh, well, you don’t have to…”

“I’ll tell you. Hey, I’ve got to tell you, if you’re going with him now. He beat me up.”

“He beat you up?”

“Yeah.”

“My God! Why’d he do that?”

Judy’s face suddenly changed from nicely tanned to bright red. “Well, he was drunk. It was a sex thing. He wanted to do something, and I wouldn’t let him.”

“So he pounded you?”

She nodded. Her face was scarlet.

“What did he want to do?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

An idea struck me. Frowning, I leaned forward and said, “Do you want to know why I’m really wearing Tony’s shirt? Because he ripped mine off me. Tore it right off.”

She looked shocked. “Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Jeez. Was he drunk?”

“As a skunk,” I said.

“’Cause, I mean, he’s not usually like that. How long have you known him?”

“Just a few days.”

“He must be in really bad shape. I mean, we went together for months, and he never pulled anything like that. He drank too much a few times, but he never attacked me. He was always so sweet. You wouldn’t have thought he had a mean bone in his body. Till that night he went berserk on me.”

I nodded eagerly.

We’ve both been there, girl!

“Tonight,” I said, “was the first time he ever got ugly with me. I couldn’t believe it. He’d seemed so gentle, before. Like a really sensitive, sincere guy.”

“Exactly,” Judy said.

“But, boy…” I shook my head. “Not tonight. He scared me half to death.”

“What did he do?”

I drank some more beer, sighed, then set the mug down on the table in front of the sofa and said, “Well, he came over to my place for dinner. After that we went and saw Independence Day. Everything was fine till after the movie. We went back to my place and had a few drinks. We were planning to fool around, but my roommate came home. She always shows up at exactly the worst possible time.”

Judy smiled slightly. “That’s what roommates are for.”

“Do you have one?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“Not since college.”

“They can be a real pain in the butt,” I said.

“No kidding.”

“Anyway, the three of us sat around and had a few drinks. And I could tell that Tony was starting to lose his patience. He wanted to…you know, mess around. But we couldn’t do it in front of Jane. Finally, he said it was time for him to go home. And he asked me if I wanted to come with him. So I said, ‘Sure,’ and we left.”

“Was he okay to drive?” Judy asked.

“No. Hardly. But neither was I. I mean, we were both pretty looped. We shouldn’t have driven at all. But I wanted to get out of there, too, before something happened between him and Jane. She was starting to look at him a certain way, you know? Besides, I was interested in seeing where he lived. He’d been kind of funny about the place, like he didn’t want me there for some reason.”

“Strange. He had me there all the time.”

“Well…” I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe that had something to do with it. You know? The way he feels about you, maybe he thought I might—taint the place, or something.”

“That’d be really strange.”

“Anyway, he didn’t take me there, after all. He drove us into the woods, instead.”

12

TONY TALES

“Drove into what woods?” Judy asked.

“Miller’s Woods.”

“You’re kidding. At night?”

“Yeah. Tonight.”

“You let him?”

“Like I said, we were both a little smashed.”

“My God.”

“We went to that picnic area. With the fireplaces and tables?”

Judy nodded. “I’ve been there a few times. Never at night, though.”

“Well, that’s where we went.”

“Was anybody around?”

“Just me and Tony. Which is what he wanted, I guess…to have me out there alone. Anyway, we went over