I waited while Greg thought about it.
At length, he said, “That is acceptable.”
I nodded, then got my bag out of the trunk and crawled into the backseat. I changed into a pair of shorts, a sleeveless sweatshirt, two pairs of socks, and my high-tops.
“What are you doing?” Greg asked.
“Jim’s expecting me. The most comfortable ritual for us is to shoot—” I realized how Greg might misinterpret that just as I said it and quickly corrected myself “—play some basketball, so I figured I might as well be comfortable. It also gives me an excuse to carry a bag.” I put the stubby shotgun in the gym bag, then covered it with a couple of small sweat towels and the basketball. I left the gym bag in the backseat, tossed the duffel back into the trunk, and climbed into the front.
I turned to face Greg. “What will you do with Jim when I give him to you?”
“As we have discussed,” Greg said, “we are operating beyond the guild rules. That fact must not come to the guild’s attention. So we must not allow James Peterson to be accessible.”
“Let’s talk about ways to make that happen,” I said.
Greg listened as I talked, and when we had a deal, I headed the car up Sixteenth Street to the old community center.
* * *
After the lunch at the Mexican restaurant I didn’t see Louise or Jim again until she surprised me by calling and asking me to join Jim and her for dinner at her place. Her home was a small but lovely old brick ranch house not far off Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. I knew no post-doc paid enough for her to afford the place, so I figured her parents were still helping her out. I felt the same mixture of disdain and envy I always experienced when I learned that other people’s parents were helping them pay their way.
I arrived on time. Jim pulled in behind me just as I was getting out of my car. We walked up to the door together and knocked.
When Louise answered we were both so visibly shocked that she had to speak to get us to move. “Will you two stop staring and come in, please? I’m not contagious or anything like that.”
Louise looked like a skeleton wrapped in parchment. Gone was the hair I had always adored, her scalp now completely bare. Her cheeks and eye sockets were sunken, and she moved slowly, carefully. I had thought she was thin in high school, but compared to now she had been plump then.
She led us to a living room with a sofa, a couple of chairs, a granite-topped fireplace, and framed photos on all the walls. I recognized many of the people in the photos, found myself in quite a few, and also noticed some with her and men I didn’t know. I knew I had no right to the quick flash of jealousy and suppressed it.
After we all sat, I asked, “What’s wrong, Louise?”
“That depends on what you’re talking about,” she said. “If you’re talking about the way I look, the answer is the combination of radiation, chemo, and drug therapies I’ve been taking for the last four months. If you’re talking about what’s really wrong, it’s the cancer.”
“What kind do you have?” Jim asked.
She laughed. “I wish it were only one kind. The doctors don’t know what came first or why, but I have both ovarian and renal cell.”
She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and she looked so frail I was afraid her arms would crumble under her own weight. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. I’m at peace with it, or at least I’m at peace with it most of the time. I’ve already stopped the therapies because I couldn’t bear them any more. I didn’t want to spend however many more days I have going to the hospital for therapy and then feeling sick afterward. I called you guys because I didn’t want you to find out later, and because I wanted to see you while I was sure I could still have a decent time.”