Catherine went back to doing her thing. I couldn’t hear everything she was saying, but it sounded like small talk. Whatever information she was getting was coming at a leisurely pace, and she didn’t seem interested in speeding up the process. My grilled cheese arrived; I’d never had a better sandwich in my life.
Depressed Guy muttered something to himself. I glanced over at him. He said: “Ever love someone or something so much you can’t live without them?”
I remembered the way the sapphire dog had made me feel. Depressed Guy suddenly had my full attention. “Yeah, man. I think I have.”
Encouraged, he turned toward me. His eyes looked a little bleary and he had trouble focusing, but he could talk without slurring. “It hits so hard at first. It’s like … all the love in your life is
Catherine did this for a living, I thought. She drew people out, listened to their stories, and found the information she needed. Not me. Everything I’d ever learned about investigations had come from being on the other side. I couldn’t play this game her way; I had to do it mine.
“I don’t know, man. Who did you lose?”
“My wife.” I immediately lost interest. Still, he kept talking. I glanced away and saw that one of the pool players had joined Catherine’s conversation. Whatever they were talking about, she seemed interested. Was she a good actress, or did she enjoy this? “She dumped me over the phone. Can you believe that? After ten and a half months of marriage.”
I glanced around the room. Pratt was looking straight at me. I looked back, and he didn’t look away. In some places, that would have been an invitation to brawl, but I haven’t had much luck with bar fights.
Depressed Guy wasn’t finished. “Almost eleven months! I thought we were in love.”
“That’s rough,” I said.
He went back to his beer. “I’m keeping the damn fish tank, you can believe that.”
I imagined a tank full of dead fish, and it suddenly occurred to me that Pratt might have completed his job already. Maybe this was his victory meal, as pathetic as that sounded.
I slid off my stool and crossed to his booth. He was dipping his spoon into a bowl of grayish chowder when I sat across from him. Before he could tell me to get lost, I said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
I met his stare. Apparently, he wanted me to talk out loud in front of all these people. “Well, have you taken care of that dog?”
“I don’t report to you.” Which was true, but he struck me as the boasting type, so I figured the job wasn’t done.
“Fair enough. How about another supplemental report?”
“You don’t file reports,” he said. “I get those from the smoke.”
For a moment I thought he was talking about smoke signals, or visions in magic smoke or something. Then I realized—duh—he meant Catherine. “You’re a real charmer.”
He stirred his soup. “Get out of here,” he said without looking at me, “before I break both of your legs.”
So much for warning him about Yin’s ghost knife. I glanced back at Catherine. She was looking at me, and her expression was difficult to read. I stood and went to the men’s room, washed my hands in the dirty sink, and walked toward my original spot. As I passed Catherine’s stool, the bartender said, “Hey, man. Are you Clay Lilly?”
I stopped. “My name’s Ray Lilly.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Catherine said, her voice lilting. “I knew that was you. How is your mother?” She slid off her stool. “Excuse me, Rich,” she said to the bartender.
I heard the bartender curse under his breath, but it was too late. Tonight’s entertainment had walked off with another guy. I led her to the table and picked up my soda. “Did—”
She interrupted me right away. “Is your mother still working at that law firm?” We had a conversation about a woman I hadn’t seen for years. While we were talking, Pratt laid a couple of bills on the table and walked out.
Eventually, I said I had my mother’s phone number out in the car, and Catherine smiled as though I was learning the game. I paid for my food, and while we were waiting for the slip to sign, Depressed Guy looked blearily over at us.
Catherine couldn’t resist. “How are you, honey?” Her tone was maternal.
“Alone,” he said. “My wife just left me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?” If she was pretending to be interested, she was damn good at it.
“Thass the thing. I don’t even know! This afternoon everything was great between us. An hour later, she called me and said that she didn’t love me anymore. She said she’d found someone else. Someone with stars in his eyes.”
Catherine looked at me. I looked at her. I fought down the urge to grab the guy and shake him until he told me more.
“That’s terrible,” Catherine said. Her voice was shaky and she’d lost her grip on the kind, maternal, cry-on-my- shoulder character she was playing. “Where did she call from?”
It was a crazy transition, but Depressed Guy was drunk enough to take it in stride. “She rides out at the stables three nights a week.” He took a pull off his beer. “He’s prolly a cowboy or something.”
