I said won't that be awfully expensive Arnie, and he said not to worry about it because his credit was good - '
'Slow down.'
She was crying again. 'His credit was good because he and someone named Jimmy Sykes were going to do some errands for Will Friday and Saturday. That's what he said. And . . . I don't think the errands he does for that sonofabitch are legal!'
'What did he tell the police when they came to ask about Christine?'
'He told them about finding it . . . that way. They asked him if he had any ideas who might have done it, and Arnie said no. They asked him if it wasn't true that he had gotten into a fight with Buddy Repperton, that Repperton had pulled a knife and had been expelled for it. Arnie said that Repperton had knocked his bag lunch out of his hand and stepped on it, then Mr Casey came over from the shop and broke it up. They asked him if Repperton hadn't said he would get him for it, and Arnie said he might have said something like that, but talk was cheap.'
Dennis was silent, looking out his window at a dull November sky, considering this. He found it ominous. If Leigh had the interview with the police right, then Arnie hadn't told a single lie . . . but he had edited things to make what had happened in the smoking area sound like your ordinary pushy-pushy.
Dennis found that extremely ominous.
'Do you know what Arnie might be doing for that man Darnell?' Leigh asked.
'No,' Dennis answered, but he had some ideas. A little internal tape recorder started up, and he heard his father saying, I've heard a few things . . . stolen cars. . . cigarettes and booze . . . contraband like fireworks. . . . He's been lucky for a long time, Dennis.
He looked at Leigh's face, too pale, her makeup cut open by her tears. She was hanging on, hanging onto Arnie as best she could. Maybe she was learning something about being tough that she wouldn't have learned otherwise, with her looks, for another ten years. But that didn't make it any easier, and it didn't necessarily make it right. It occurred to him suddenly, almost randomly, that he had first noticed the improvement in Arnie's face more than a month before Arnie and Leigh clicked . . . but after Arnie and Christine had clicked.
'I'll talk to him,' he promised.
'Good,' she said. She stood up. 'I - I don't want things to be like they were before, Dennis. I know that nothing ever is. But I still love him, and . . . and I just wish you'd tell him that.'
'Yeah, okay.'
They were both embarrassed, and neither of them could say anything for a long, long moment. Dennis was thinking that this would be the point, in a c & w song, where the Best Friend steps in. And a sneaking, mean (and randy) part of him wouldn't be averse to that. Not at all. He was still powerfully attracted to her, more attracted than he had been to any girl in a long time. Maybe ever. Let Arnie run bottle-rockets and cherry-bombs over to Burlington and fuck around with his car. He and Leigh could get to know each other better in the meantime. A little aid and comfort. You know how it is.
And he had a feeling at just that awkward moment, after her profession of love for Arnie, that he could do it; she was vulnerable. She was maybe learning how to be tough, but it's not a school anyone goes to willingly. He could say something - the right something, maybe only Come here - and she would come, sit on the edge of the bed, they would talk some more, maybe about pleasanter things, and maybe he would kiss her. Her mouth was lovely and full, sensual, made to kiss and be kissed. Once for comfort. Twice out of friendship. And three times pays for all. Yes, he felt with an instinct that had so far been quite reliable that it could be done.
But he didn't say any of the things that could have started those things happening, and neither did Leigh. Arnie was between them, and almost surely always would be. Arnie and his lady. If it hadn't been so ludicrously ghastly, he could have laughed.