“What’s your theory, Miss Dixie, if I may be so bold as to inquire?” I said, affecting a Southern accent.
“Take advantage of them before they take advantage of you,” she said, her smile as thin as glass.
“Nice. Romantic. I better write that down.” I pretended to make a note on the palm of my hand.
“Well, it’s not nice but it’s practical. In case you haven’t noticed, most men don’t give a shit about romance. They want to get in your panties and let it go at that. What else can I say?”
“That about covers it,” I said. “May I ask, why him? There were dozens of cops at the Honky-Tonk back then.” She hesitated, apparently considering what posture to affect. “He was very good,” she said, with a trace of a smile.
“I didn’t ask for an evaluation. I’d like to know what went on.”
“Why the attitude? You seem so, belligerent. In the end, you’d have left him anyway, so what do you care?”
“Indulge me,” I said. “For the sake of argument.”
She lifted one thin shoulder in a delicate shrug. “He and I were an item long before the two of you met. He broke it off for a while and then he came back. Why attach anything to it? We were not in love by any stretch. I might have admired him, but I can’t say I liked him much. He had a rough kind of charm, but then again, you know that. I wouldn’t even call it an affair in any true sense of the word. More like sexual addiction, a mutual service we performed. Or I should say, that’s what it was for me. I don’t know about him. It’s a question of pathology. He probably couldn’t help himself any more than I”
“Oh, please. Don’t give me that horseshit about sexual addiction. What crap,” I said. “Did it ever occur to you that wedding vows mean something?”
“Yours didn’t seem to mean much. Until death do us part? At least I’m still married, which is more than you can say. Or am I wrong about that? Rude of me. You might have married someone else and had a whole passel of kids. I would have asked before now, but I didn’t see a ring.”
“Were you with him the night Benny Quintero died? ”
Her smiled faded. “Yes.” Flat. No hesitation, no emotion, and no elaboration.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Did you really want to know?”
“It would have helped. I’m not sure what I’d have done, but it might have made a difference.”
“I doubt that. You were such a cocky little thing. Really, quite obnoxious. You knew it all back then. Mickey wanted you spared.”
“And why is that?”
“He was crazy about you. I’m surprised you’d have to ask.”
“Given the fact he was screwing you,” I said.
“You knew his history the day you married him. Did you seriously imagine he’d be monogamous.
“Why’d you take it on yourself to tattle when Mickey asked you not to?”
“I was afraid he’d get a raw deal, which he did, as It turns out.”
“Did Eric know about Mickey?”
There was the tiniest flicker of hesitation. “We’ve come to an accommodation.”
“I’m not talking about now. Did he know back then? ”
She took a long, deliberate drag on her cigarette while she formed her reply. “Life was difficult for Eric. He had a hard time adjusting after he got back.”
“In other words, no.”
“There was no emotional content between Mickey and me. Why inflict unnecessary pain?”
“How about so your respective spouses knew the truth about you? As long as there’s no love, as long as it’s simply sexual servicing, as you claim, why couldn’t you tell us?”
She was silent, giving me a wide-eyed stare.
“The question Isn’t hypothetical. I really want to know,” I said. “Why not be honest with us if your relationship meant so little?” I waited. “Okay, I’ll help. You want the answer? Try this. Because we’d have kicked your respective butts and put an end to it. I don’t know about Eric, but I have no tolerance for Infidelity.
“Perhaps there are things about loyalty you never grasped,” she said.
I closed my eyes briefly. I wanted to lift her front chair legs and flip her backward, just for the satisfaction of hearing her head thud against the stone floor. Instead, I silently recited what I remembered of the penal code: An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another …. A battery is any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.
I smiled. “You think it was okay to make fools of us? To gratify your whims at our expense? If you think that’s loyalty, you’re really fucked.”
“You don’t have to be crude.”
Someone spoke from the far side of the patio. “Excuse me. Dixie?”
Both of us looked over. Stephie stood in the doorway.
For once, Dixie seemed embarrassed, and the color rose in her cheeks. “Yes, Stephie. What is it?”
“Ms. Yablonsky’s here. Did you want to talk to her now or should I reschedule?”
Dixie exhaled with impatience, stubbing out her cigarette. “Have her wait in my office. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Sure. No problem.” Stephie closed the sliding glass door, watching for a moment before she moved away.
“This has gone far enough,” Dixie said to me. “I can see you enjoy getting up on your high horse. You always liked claiming the moral high ground, ”
“I do. That’s correct. It’s mine to claim in this case.”
“When you’ve finished your drink, you can let yourself out.”
“Thanks. This was fun. You haven’t changed at all.”
“Nor have you,” she said.
SEVEN.
I was halfway down the driveway, heading toward the road, when I saw a vehicle coming my way. It was a custom van of a sort I hadn’t seen before, sleek, black, and boxy, with Eric Hightower at the wheel. I’m not sure I would have recognized him if I hadn’t been half expecting to see him anyway. I slowed the VW to a crawl and gave a tap to the horn as I rolled down my window. He drew alongside me and pulled to a stop, rolling his window down in response. Underneath the tank top he wore, his bulging shoulders and biceps looked smooth and tanned. In the old Honky-Tonk days, his gaze was perpetually glassy and his skin had the pallor of a man who’d made a science of mixing his medications with alcohol, LSD, and grass. Then, his beard had been sparse and he’d worn his straight black hair loose across his shoulders or pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a rag.
The man who studied me quizzically from the driver’s side of the van had been restored to good health. His head was now shaved, his skull as neat as a newborn’s. Gone were the beard and the bleary-eyed stare. I’d seen pictures of Eric in uniform before he left for Vietnam: young and handsome, twenty-one years old, largely untouched by life. After two tours of duty, he’d come back to the world looking gaunt and abused, ill-humored and withdrawn. He’d seemed to have a lot on his mind, but nothing he was capable of explaining to the rest of us. And none of us dared ask. One look at his face was sufficient to convince us that what he’d seen was hellish and wouldn’t bear close scrutiny. In retrospect, I suspect he imagined us judgmental and disapproving when in truth we were frightened of what we saw in his eyes. Better to look away than suffer that torment.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Hi, Eric. Kinsey Millhone. We hung around together years ago at the Tonk out in Colgate.”
I watched his features clear and then brighten when he figured out who I was. “Hey. Of course. No fooling. How’re you doing?” He leaned his left arm out the window and we touched fingertips briefly, as close to a handshake as we could manage from separate vehicles. His dark eyes were clear. In his drinking days, he’d been scrawny, but the process of aging had added the requisite fifteen pounds. Success sat well on him. He seemed substantial and self-possessed.
I said, “You look great. What happened to your hair? ”
He glanced at himself in his rearview mirror, running a hand across his smooth-shaven skull. “You like it? It feels weird. I did that a month ago and can’t quite decide. ”
I do. It’s better than the ponytail.”
“Well, ain’t that the truth. What brings you here?”
“I’m looking for my ex-husband and thought you might have a line on him.” The possibility seemed farfetched and I wondered if he’d press me on the subject, but he let it pass.