“I’ve seen his unfinished business,” I said. “She’s got black hair and a body, and she deserves finishing. Maybe the two of us can get together. We could weep in each other’s gin.”
Then there was nothing else to say, so I took her back to the table. Ivan stood up and bowed to me and I bowed back at him, and we were so polite and civilized about it all that I felt like vomiting. I said goodbye. Hannah didn’t say anything because there was suddenly a catch in her throat, and Ivan looked sad in a way that made it plain he hated what he was doing to me.
I turned and walked back to my own table, feeling like the last act of Othello. There at the table was the black hair and body, with quite a bit of the body showing. The name, I’d heard, was Eva Trent.
“Mind if I join the discard?” she asked.
“Not at all. You may join me in a drink, too.”
“Thanks. Make it big and make it strong.”
I ordered two double shots. You can make them bigger than that, but you can’t make them stronger. Anyhow, I wasn’t ordering for the road. I intended to keep right on going for quite a while, and if she wanted to go along for the ride, she was welcome. I watched her down half the double and gave her extra points.
She was a lovely gal. Ordinarily, any guy in his right mind would have quit looking when he got to her, and it was a lousy piece of luck that she had to run up against Hannah. Just as lousy as it was for me that Ivan had to come along. She looked across the floor with eyes that were hooded and brooding, and she seemed to be in tune with my cerebral vibrations.
“We did each other a dirty trick, darling,” she said.
I shrugged and worked on my double. “An eye for an eye.”
“She’s something. It must jar a guy, losing that much prime stuff.”
“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. That’s someone’s poetry.”
“Tennyson…and it’s a damned lie.”
“Isn’t it! You’re one who should know, sweetheart. That big hunk of male Latin. Ivan, yet. I wonder how the hell a Mexican ever came up with a name like that.”
“He’s only half Mexican. His mother was a White Russian. Once upon a time there were White Russians all over the place.”
“I had a feeling right along that the Commies were to blame.”
She emptied her glass and lifted one corner of her mouth in a sour grin. “Don’t work so hard at it, darling. Your heart’s showing.”
“The show goes on. Would you like to hear me sing something from Pagliacci?”
“Stop it!”
It was about time, so I did.
A waiter brought us two more doubles. She drank some of hers, leaving her mouth wet. There was a candle burning in a little glass chimney on the table, and the light flickered on her face, making her lips shine. They were full and soft and darkly sullen, dropping at the corners.”
“He’s a louse,” she said. “He’s a beautiful, greedy louse, and he isn’t even worth killing, but I want him back. I want him on any terms.”
“Big love and little pride.”
“To hell with pride. I want Ivan.”
“It seems to be a phobia with women…you and Hannah among others. The names are legion, no doubt.”
“I’m just a girlfriend. Hannah’s a wife…yours, in case you’ve forgotten. If you have, you might start remembering.”
“I just got through explaining to myself that marriage is just a technicality in these matters. A body is not a wife. At the moment, it’s all quite clear, and I’ll thank you not to confuse me.”
“If you want to lie down, little man, it’s your business.” She finished her second double and stood up. Her eyes were smoky with contempt, and the contempt was for me, the little man lying down. She moved away through candlelight and shadow, the body that deserved better than a jilting in a white gown that hung on for dear life. I thought to myself that competition was hot as hell when something like that finished second.
After a while I moved in to the bar to get closer to the bottle. I had two more quick ones, and they helped a little, but not much, so I had a third one. Next to the dull pain, the feeling of degradation was worst. Losing a wife in public is worse than a public flogging. A guy who loses his wife is a comic sort of character.
Why had I hung on? Why had I stayed around after Hannah moved out of our rooms, and was obviously Ivan’s future and my past? To show my independence, I told myself. To make it plain that Carey MacCauley was not a guy to run from a nasty situation. I lied to myself fluently, but I was never a guy who could distort the truth with much success, and I didn’t even believe me when I was drunk. I stayed because there was always a chance that Hannah would come back. I stayed for salvage.
The third drink at the bar made progress. I began to feel a little numb, and my mind developed a warm and comfortable furriness. It was like having my thought processes bundled up in a raccoon coat. I ordered number four and began to nurse it. That’s the trick. You reach a certain point in solution, then you start nursing. You nurse the alcohol just right, it keeps you preserved without getting you pickled. You can go on and on for hours and hours in a delightful fog.
The minute hand went around the face of the clock behind the bar several times. Time passed…a lot of time. At some point between earlier and later, a brown and white blur appeared at my shoulder.
