“What was that?” Roy said. He reached across the table, pulled the towel away, not roughly, but he pulled it away. “What was that?”
“Those stupid lips of hers,” Rhett said, almost inaudible.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rhett looked up, met Roy’s eye; yes, fierce, defiant. This was new. Roy had no idea how to handle it.
“You can go,” Rhett said.
“I’m staying.”
They sat. The bleeding stopped. Rhett left the room and didn’t come back.
Roy heard a car, went to the front door, looked out: not Marcia in a taxi, but Barry in his Benz with the BARRY plate. Roy took out the inhaler, sprayed it down his throat.
ELEVEN
Barry came into the kitchen.
”Moving in?” he said.
”You know why I’m here,” Roy said, standing by the table, wishing some sarcastic put-down had come to mind.
Barry dropped his briefcase, loosened his tie, shrugged off his suit jacket-there were sweat stains under both arms of his striped shirt-and hung it on a chair. “Bail the kid out already?”
“His name is Rhett.”
“Super,” said Barry, opening the fridge. Roy saw what he’d seen before-Absolut, yogurt, lemons-plus a few cartons of Chinese food. Barry removed one, sat at the table, began eating from it-round balls, possibly chicken, in a congealed orange sauce-with chopsticks. His soft, pudgy fingers handled the chopsticks with a skill that took Roy by surprise; he himself had tried chopsticks once or twice, out on a date in high school or college, but never actually learned to use them. Barry steered several of the little balls quickly into his mouth, suddenly looked up.
“You’re with Globax, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything unusual going on there?”
“Unusual?”
“Here, sit down. Something to eat?”
“No.”
“You could throw it in the microwave.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“How about a drink?”
“A little early for me,” Roy said.
“Yeah? Woulda taken you for a bit of a shooter.”
“Shooter?”
“You know, guy who throws back a few, knows how to have a little fun.”
“No one’s stopping you.”
“Drinking alone’s not me. I’m a social animal.”
Don’t I know.
Barry plucked another chicken ball, started talking again before it reached his mouth. “You were some kind of football hero? Played for Tech?”
“Georgia,” Roy said.
“What position?”
“Tight end.”
“Yeah? You weren’t on the small side?”
“That’s the way it turned out.”
“Played high school myself,” Barry said. “Offensive tackle. Screwed up my knee or I would have gone a lot farther.”
Roy said nothing. Barry popped the chicken ball in his mouth, reached for another.
“So now we have something in common, what’s the story at Globax?” he said.
“Story?”
“Stock’s been behaving strangely the past week, ten days.”
“In what way?”
“Some big blocks changed hands, bing bang bing, in the millions-starting to make a move, right? So I took a position, and when I take a position I don’t dick around. Then what happens? Poof, it all goes soft.”
Roy didn’t really know what he was talking about.
“Something’s going on, I got it from several sources.” He waited for Roy to tell him what it was.
“They changed the name from Chemerica,” Roy said; he couldn’t think of anything else.
Barry gazed at him. “Hard to get, huh?” He kept chewing, but slower, more thoughtful. “Suppose I made it worth your while. Say some little nugget of information came your way, why couldn’t we work out a mutually beneficial arrangement, you and I?”
“About what?”
“I don’t blame you for being careful. Total discretion guaranteed, up front. I’ve got an offshore setup, if that eases your mind.”
Roy missed the significance of that. “What kind of information?”
“Could be anything-anything that’ll let me know what’s going down. It’s all about knowing the future today.”
“That’s what Carol says.”
Barry stopped chewing. “Who’s Carol?”
“No one you know.”
“She wouldn’t be on the financial side, by any chance?”
“Financial side?”
“At Globax. That would be sweet, a contact on the financial side.”
Roy shook his head. They watched each other. Roy had no idea what Barry was thinking. He himself was having a thought he knew was arrogant and unworthy, but couldn’t help: I can see why she’s coming back to me.
“When do you expect Marcia?” he said.
Barry finished eating, pushed the carton aside, leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head; the sweat stains had spread. “Familiar with the term POV?”
“No.”
“Point of view. I only know it from my Hollywood connections. Why I bring it up is I’m starting to see things from your POV.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Just that now she’s diddling me,” Barry said, “the way she diddled you.”
That sent a jolt through Roy. Had Marcia told Barry that she and Roy had slept with each other again, that they were getting back together? Roy could think of no other explanation, but why would she do that? A horrible possibility struck Roy: to make Barry jealous. Why make someone jealous unless you were still interested? Roy ruled it out. The man across the table wasn’t jealous. Neither was he angry, bewildered, humiliated, crushed: none of the things Roy had been when he’d found out about Barry. So Barry didn’t know Marcia was leaving him, at most had sensed something and was fishing for information.
“Where are you from, Barry?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Because where I come from we wouldn’t be talking about her like that.”
