switched on the CD player, and put on a Benny Goodman disc. The first
notes of “King Porter Stomp” brought the dead room to life.
In the kitchen again, he got a quart can of eggnog from the
refrigerator. They had bought it two weeks ago for their at-home, New
Year’s Eve celebration, but had not opened it after all, on the holiday.
He opened it now and half-filled the water glasses.
From the bathroom he heard Julie make a tortured sound she was finally
throwing up. It was mostly just dry heaves because they had not eaten
in eight or ten hours, but the spasm sounded violent. Throughout the
night, Bobby had expected her to succumb to nausea, and he was surprised
that she had retained control of herself this long.
He retrieved a bottle of white rum from the bar cabinet in the family
room and spiked each serving of eggnog with a double shot. He was
gently stirring the drinks with a spoon to blend in the rum, when Julie
returned, looking even grayer than before.
When she saw what he was doing, she said, “I don’t need that.
“I know what you need. I’m psychic. I knew you’d toss your cookies
after what happened tonight. Now I know you need this.
” He stepped to the sink and rinsed off the spoon.
“No, Bobby, really, I can’t drink that.”
The Goodman music didn’t seem to be energizing her.
“It’ll settle your stomach. And if you don’t drink it, you’re not going
to sleep.”
Taking her by the arm, crossing the breakfast area, and stepping down
into the family room, he said, “You’ll lie awake worrying about me,
about Thomas”Thomas was her brother-“about the world and everyone in
it.” They sat on the sofa, and he did not turn on any lamps. The only
light was what reached them from the kitchen.
She drew her legs under her and turned slightly to face him. Her eyes
shone with a soft, reflected light. She sipped the eggnog.
The room was now filled with the strains of “One Sweet Letter From You,”
one of Goodman’s most beautiful thematic statements, with a vocal by
Louise Tobin.
They sat and listened for a while.
Then Julie said, “I’m tough, Bobby, I really am.”
“I know you are.”
“I don’t want you thinking I’m lame.”
“Never.” :
“It wasn’t just the shooting that made me sick, or using the Toyota to,
run that guy down, or even the thought of almost losing you-‘
“I know. It was what you had to do to Rasmussen.”
“He’s a slimy little weasel-faced bastard, but even he doesn’t deserve
to be broken like that. What I did to him stank.”
“It was the only way to crack the case, because it wasn’t nearly cracked
till we’d found out who hired him.”
She drank more eggnog. She frowned down at the milky contents of her
glass, as if the answer to some mystery could be found there.
Following Tobin’s vocal, Ziggy Elman came in with a trumpet solo,
followed by Goodman’s clarinet. The sounds made that boxy, tract-house
room seem like the most romantic place in the world.
“What I did… I did for The Dream. Giving Decodyne’s Rasmussen’s
employer will please them. But breaking him somehow… It was worse
than wasting a man in a fair gunfight.”
Bobby put one hand on her knee. It was a nice knee. All these years,
he was still sometimes surprised by her slenderness and the delicacy of
her bone structure, for he always thought of her as being strong for her
size, solid, formidable.
“If you hadn’t put Rasmussen in that vise and squeezed I would’ve done
it.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You’re scrappy, Bobby, and you’re smart and
you’re tough, but there’re certain things you never do. This was one of
them. Don’t jive me just to make me feel good.”
“You’re right,” he said.
“I couldn’t have done it. But glad you did. Decodyne’s very big time,
and this could’ve put us back years if we’d flubbed it.”
“Is there anything we won’t do for The Dream?”
Bobby said, “Sure. We wouldn’t torture small children with red-hot
knives, and we wouldn’t shove innocent old people down long flights of