had broken a finger in the past. He would live with the pain.
He examined his shape in the mirror for the second time in as many days. He knew he needed to work out more aerobically. His big upper body and skinny legs distorted his symmetry. The extra weight around his hips and waist didn’t help either.
He wondered if that’s what had finally triggered his wife’s leaving him. Lisa was five years younger than Charlie. Her lover was a year younger than she was. Charlie couldn’t help but wonder if it had always been just a matter of time for him and Lisa once she was intimate with John Denton two years earlier. The man his wife referred to in her good-bye note was an athletic attorney in near-perfect shape.
Was it his shape or his age?
As he walked the length of Las Vegas Boulevard to avoid the phone call Lisa had mentioned in her note, Charlie contnued to wonder about his wife and her lover. If there were signs of his wife having an affair again, he had missed them a second time. Except for a few telephone hang-ups at the house, Charlie hadn’t noticed anything peculiar.
They had grown distant the past few months. There were long periods of inactivity between their sexual relations. There were frequent gaps in their communication. They had stopped being friends to each other and had started doing things alone instead of together.
Charlie thought back to the night of the fight at the New York nightclub. It was a week before they had left for vacation. He had tried to buy tickets for an opera the same night Lisa was supposed to go dancing with a friend. When the opera was sold out, Charlie decided to join his wife instead. She became furious with him. It was as if she suddenly hated him.
The tension was thick between them at the club, and they decided to leave early. As Lisa wove her way through a group of men around the bar, one of them grabbed her ass. She slapped the man in the face and was immediately slapped back. She landed on the floor at Charlie’s feet, and he reacted without thinking. He ran behind the punch and knocked the man unconscious.
Now Charlie wondered if Lisa had made plans with her lover that night. He wondered if John Denton was there at the nightclub during the fight.
It seemed obvious to him now. Charlie had ruined his wife’s plans by going dancing with her. It was why she was so angry with him.
Of course John Denton was there. He was the “friend” Lisa was supposed to have met.
When he finished his walk, Charlie realized there was something else bothering him about his fight at the New York nightclub, something about one of the men who had threatened him after the altercation. One of them had made his way up close to Charlie before the bouncers were able to pull him away. He had said something. Maybe it was a name. Charlie couldn’t recall.
He let it go. He promised himself he wouldn’t wonder about his wife again. She was history. His marriage was over. The sooner he accepted it, the better.
Chapter 6
He napped at the pool in the late afternoon. He skipped his second meal of the day when he felt hungry. When he was starving, Charlie picked at a fresh fruit salad from the poolside cafe.
When he returned to his room, it was nearly six o’clock. He immediately dressed himself as close to formal as his wardrobe would allow. He wore beige pants with a black polo shirt. He spent several minutes grooming in the bathroom. He had a problem combing his hair straight back with the bandage behind his right ear.
Charlie decided to finish the week-long vacation. He would take the drive to the Grand Canyon. He would visit Hoover Dam. He would even take the long drive through the desert his wife had wanted.
He would need the time to heal, anyway. Charlie was supposed to return to the hospital in three days to have the wound behind his ear checked. In the meantime, he would listen to his opera, read, and maybe catch some extra sun.
Lisa hadn’t left a phone message so far. Maybe she had changed her mind about speaking to him. Maybe she was already in Los Angeles with her lover. Maybe she had returned home to remove her things from their house. Or maybe she was consulting with an attorney about a divorce.
He disguised his wounds as best he could and made his way down to the casino bar, where he was convinced he had made a total ass of himself the night before. He remembered that he was fairly drunk at the bar. He remembered singing an aria. He cringed at the thought of his singing voice.
Charlie also remembered the bartender, a redhead with freckles and a prettysmile. He remembered the way she wore her hair up and how she had spoken with an accent.
He adjusted his sunglasses in the reflection of a restaurant marquee as he made his way to the bar. He wondered how bad his bruises would look to the redhead.
“Devil’s Lake, where?” he asked her.
She was wearing the standard casino uniform: black pants, white shirt with ruffles, and a checkered vest with a nametag. Her red hair was up again. It was held in place by a white barrette.
Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw him. “Charlie?” she asked.
“It gets even worse,” he told her. He flipped his sunglasses down to expose his two black eyes.
“Ouch,” she said.
“I was mugged. After I left here last night.”
She was still looking him over. A customer called from the opposite end of the bar. “I’ll be right back,” she told him.
He watched her fluid movement behind the bar. He could tell she was experienced. She reached for bottles in the bar well without having to look at them. She poured drinks without having to measure.
Her body wasn’t bad either. He guessed her to be 5-4, no more than 120 pounds. He put her age somewhere between 30 and 35 years old. When she was up close again, he noticed she had bright blue eyes.
Later, when the bar was less active, Samantha Cole answered his original question.
“North Dakota,” she said.
Charlie was caught off guard. “Huh?”
She pointed to her nametag. Charlie read it aloud. “Samantha Cole, Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.”
“But you can call me Sam,” she said. “We already did this last night, you know. You probably don’t remember. You were pretty drunk.”
“Let’s do it again anyway.” He extended his bruised right hand across the bar.
Samantha took his hand carefully and smiled.
“See? Now I remember.” He was looking into her eyes then.
“What?”
“Why I came back down here tonight,” he said. “Your pretty smile. I remembered your smile.”
He was there the night before. He had left her a good tip and never caused her trouble. He had actually made her laugh a few times.
Tonight he was banged up from a mugging, he told her. She wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, but he wasn’t making anything more of whatever had happened to him. He told her he was mugged. He showed her his black eyes and bandages. There were no excuses or macho story to go along with his bruises. He had remembered her and wanted to see her again.
Because she had a pretty smile.
Between serving drinks, wiping down the bar, and running tabs, Samantha enjoyed her brief conversations with Charlie. She watched him watching her as she worked behind the bar. Last night he was drinking gin and tonics. Tonight it was straight club soda. He had told her he was staying off the booze to regain his equilibrium.
“How long you here for?” she asked.
“Few more days,” he said. “I feel kind of awkward going back home like this. I’m hoping some of the bruises will clear up.”
She had noticed he was wearing a wedding ring the night before. Now he wasn’t.
“I was a little worried I acted stupid last night,” he said. “Being so drunk and all. Tell me I wasn’t
