of the settlement and there's only so much in the kitty. Otherwise I don't give a shit who you get.'
Mickey almost smiled, for the first time since she walked in. She said, 'Watch it, spunky. There's always Freeport.'
He asked Mickey if she was going to open that can of worms again and reminded her that you can't get blood out of a turnip. He was moving out and she could have the house until they agreed on a settlement. Mickey watched him pour a splash of vodka and finish it. He was trying to come back up, regain some of his swagger. Well, let him, she thought. He was the original Frank Dawson-- considerably less than he appeared to be--and what's her name could have him.
Frank said, 'Can I ask you something?'
'Sure, go ahead.'
'Did they, you know, rape you or anything like that?'
Mickey shook her head. 'Unh-unh.' 'Something happened to you,' Frank said, 'you're different.' He walked out.
Mickey went to the breakfast table and picked up her purse, then walked to the doorway that opened on the front hall and stood facing the stairway, looking up. About fifteen seconds passed before Frank's voice came down from the bedroom.
'What the hell happened to my closet!'
The jerk.
Louis picked up the phone. He said Hello and then said, 'Hey, it is, isn't it? I don't believe it. How're you doing?' He listened, nodding. 'Yeah, I finally found out a few things. Really crazy, the whole thing. Weird.' He listened again and looked over at the coffee table that was still littered with debris, with crusts of pizza and the carry-out box, beer cans, napkins, dirty glasses, ashtrays full of cigarette butts and roaches, the box of Halloween masks, Mickey's bra. . . 'Yeah, it's here ... Sure, no, it's no trouble at all. No inconvenience. Are you kidding? ... Fine, okay then.'
He walked over to the coffee table, fished Mickey's bra out of the debris, then walked around to the La-Z-Boy where Melanie was lying in a halter top and cut-offs, long brown legs following the contour of the chair, her eyes closed. Louis lifted her hand by the wrist and removed the joint from between her fingers. It was dead. When he dropped her hand on her tummy again, Melanie half opened her eyes.
'Fire inspector,' Louis said. 'Go back to sleep.' He went out to the kitchen.
Ordell was standing at the stove holding an iron skillet of mushrooms with a big mitten, smoke rising out of the pan.
'Turn your fire down. It's too hot.'
'How long you cook these things?'
'Few minutes,' Louis said. 'You don't cook 'em, you get 'em hot.'
'Big girl say yeah, she knows how to cook. She either in the bed or the reclining chair,' Ordell said. He glanced toward Louis, his eyes going from the bra Louis was holding to Louis' face, then looked at him again and saw Louis' expression, the man waiting to be asked something, but not wanting to answer.
Ordell knew. He said, 'You don't tell me. That was her called?'
Louis nodded. 'Honest to God.'
'She coming right here?' Ordell began to grin.
'We don't know enough yet,' Louis said. 'What do we know? The broad's stoned since she's been here.' He seemed edgy.
'We know,' Ordell said. He was still grinning a little.
Louis looked over at the stove. 'You're burning your mushrooms.'
Chapter 23
LOUIS WAS WAITING ON THE SIDEWALK in front of the apartment building, looking toward Woodward Avenue and the 6-o'clock traffic. The sun was still hot. He'd been sleepy most of the day, had smoked a couple of joints with Ordell and the big girl; now he felt like moving, doing something. He was excited and tried to stand still.
When he saw Mickey's Grand Prix turn the corner he stood at the curb and raised his hand as the car rolled by--she saw him--noticing the scraped sheetmetal and the fastener holes where the side molding belonged. He walked down and waited as she backed into a parking place, then, as she turned the engine off, opened the door for her.
'I don't believe it,' Louis said.
'Who does?' Mickey said.
He stepped back to look at her, making a little show of it. 'I thought you were so anxious to change your clothes.'
'I did. White pants look alike, but this is striped.'
'I remember,' Louis said. 'The one you had on was like a work shirt, light blue. And no bra?'
'I've got a bra on. I have more than one bra,' Mickey said. 'But I'll tell you something-- You hear that?'
'What?'
'That, 'I'll tell you something.' I sound like you.'
'I say that?' Louis' face was composed; he seemed very happy, relaxed. But he was looking toward Woodward and holding back a little as they approached the apartment building.
'The something I want to tell you--I really didn't come to pick up the bra.'
'You didn't?'
'I felt like talking. I feel like talking, and I don't have anybody to talk to who really understands me, I don't think.'
'You got to e-nun-ci-ate your words,' Louis said.
'They don't see things the same way I do or something. I don't know what it is, but I feel like talking and having a drink, one of those things you made. Is that all right, to invite myself?'
'Sure it is, but there's one problem.'
'I talked to my husband--well, it was a couple of hours ago, and I got antsy, I couldn't sit around or watch television, I had to talk to somebody ... What problem? I know--Ordell's back.'
'Ordell and somebody else.'
'No, really? They're together?' Mickey stopped and Louis turned to stay with her.
'The way things've been going,' Louis said, 'how can you be surprised at anything?'
'But why would they be together? Didn't she come with my husband?'
'She said your old man went home, wants to start over with you.'
'He told her that?' Puzzled. 'He wants a divorce. He hasn't changed his mind.'
'I don't know, it's what she says. Listen, this broad could tell you anything. Opens these big blue eyes--'
'How old is she?'
'I don't know. Twenty-one.'
'She have, you know, big boobs?'
'Nice size.'
'My husband, he even wants to marry her. I asked him and he said yes. He said, 'I hope to.' The asshole. I forgot to call him that.'
'You don't want him to marry her?'
'No, I don't care. He's an asshole whatever he does. God, you can't imagine how good I feel, relieved. It's like I've been tied to him with a heavy rope and finally I got loose.'
'I was thinking,' Louis said, 'you want to talk, we can go to a bar somewhere, have a drink.'
She thought about it and bit at her thumbnail looking toward Woodward Avenue and hearing the traffic, feeling the heat and the air close, unmoving. She was not used to the feeling, being in a city in the summertime. She was aware of experiencing something different and caught glimpses in her mind of tenement fire-escapes and
