I guess I felt sorry for her.”
“Why?” I asked.
He shrugged. “She looked so damn lost, I guess. Depressed or something. I could tell. So I started talking to her. She wasn’t what I’d call easy, that’s for sure.”
“She wasn’t easy to get to know,” I agreed.
“She was hard as hell to hold a friendly conversation with. I asked her a couple of simple questions, like ‘This your first visit here?’ Or Where are you from?’ That sort of thing. And sometimes she wouldn’t even answer me. It’s like I wasn’t there. But it was funny. Something told me to hang in there with her. I asked her what she liked to drink. We started talking about different kinds. It sort of loosened her up, caught her interest. Next thing, I’m letting her try out a few favorites on the house. First a Corona with a twist of lime, which she went nuts over. Then the Barbancourt, like I fixed you. That was real special.”
“No doubt that loosened her up quite a bit,” I remarked.
He smiled. “Yeah, you got that straight. I mixed it pretty strong. We started shooting the breeze about other things, and next thing you know she’s asking me about places to stay in the area. That’s when I told her I had a room, and I invited her to come see it, told her to stop by later if she wanted.
It was a Sunday, and I’m always off early on Sundays.”
“And she came by that night?” I inquired.
“It really surprised me. I sort of figured she wouldn’t show. But she did, found the place without a hitch. By then Walt was home. He used to stay at the Square selling his shit until dark. He’d just come in, and the three of us started talking and hitting it off. Next thing, we’re walking around Old Town, and end up in Sloppy Joe’s. Being a writer and all, she really flipped out, went on and on about Hemingway. She was one smart lady, I’ll tell you that.”
“Walt was selling silver jewelry,” I said. “In Mallory Square.”
“How’d you know that?” PJ asked, surprised.
“The letters Beryl wrote,” I reminded him.
He stared off in sadness for a moment.
“She also mentioned Sloppy Joe’s. I got the impression she was very fond of you and Walt.”
“Yeah, the three of us could put away some beer.” He picked a magazine off the floor and tossed it on the coffee table.
“You both may have been the only friends she had.”
“Beryl was something.”
He looked at me. “She was something. I’d never met anybody like her before, and probably won’t again. Once you got past that wall of hers, she was some fine lady. Smart as shit,” he said again, resting his head on the back of the chair and staring up at the paint-peeled ceiling. “I used to love to hear her talk. She could say things just like that.”
He snapped his fingers. “In a way I couldn’t if I had ten years to think about it. My sister’s the same way. She teaches school in Denver. English. I’ve never been real quick with words. Before I bartended I did a lot of things with my hands. Construction, bricklaying, carpentry. Dabbled a little in pottery until I about starved to death. I came here because of Walt. Met him in Mississippi, of all places. In a bus station, if you can fucking believe that. We started talking, rode all the way to Louisiana together. A couple months later, we’re both down here. It’s so weird.”
He looked at me. “I mean, that was almost ten years ago. And all I got left is this dump.”
“Your life is far from over, PJ,” I said gently.
“Yeah.” His face turned up to the ceiling, he shut his eyes.
“Where is Walt now?”
“Lauderdale, last I heard.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said.
“It happens. What can I say?”
There was a moment of silence and I decided it was time to take a chance.
“Beryl was writing a book while she was here.”
“You got that straight. When she wasn’t trapping around with the two of us, she was working on that damn book.”