you people too. My God. And when I get a drunk in here that wants to tear the joint down, I have to bounce the bastard myself. It’s enough to make you cry.”
I took another sip of the drink. It was too sweet, but it was cold.
“Cheer up,” I said. “Suppose you worked here.”
“Well, I’ve worked in better places than this,” she said, and grinned. Somehow she looked like an impish kid when she did that. I liked her. And still I’m chiseling her out of twenty-five dollars every two weeks, I thought, and wondered if the headache was getting worse.
“You never do any business here, do you? Except this.”
“No,” I said. “What the hell, you think I’m crazy?”
“Cut it out, Jack. My girls are clean. You can take my word for it.”
“Yeah, I know. And they’ll give you your money back if a parachute doesn’t open, too.”
“Well, it’s a good thing all married men aren’t as cautious as you are. I’d go broke.”
I shook the ice in the glass. “Buford asked me to give you a message, Abbie. He says for Christ’s sake don’t let any more kids in here.”
She took a deep drag on the cigarette and exhaled smoke into the blast from the fan. “Is he still crying about that?”
“Look,” I said. “He’s been sweating blood for a week, and so has the so-called police force. That kid was Buddy Demaree, and Buford’s really had the heat put on him.”
“I know, I know. I’ve heard enough about it. Look, Jack, I try to keep those lousy high-school punks out of here, but Jesus, I can’t watch the door every minute. I don’t want ‘em in here any more than Buford does. I’d rather have a skin rash. They smell of a cork and they’re drunk, like that dumb bunny. And they never have a crying dollar on ‘em—all they want to do is to feel up all the girls and then go out chasing their lousy jail bait.”
“Well, try to keep ‘em out. Buford may not be able to smooth it over the next time one of ‘em gets plastered down here and wrecks his old man’s car. And that preacher is getting worse all the time.”
She looked at me. “Yeah, how about that guy? I’m paying you people to do business here—why don’t you keep him off my neck? God, I never know but what he may come in here some night with an ax like Carry Nation and chop the joint up. Can’t you muzzle him before he closes the whole town up?”
“Maybe Buford’ll think of something.” I stood up and started for the door. “I’ll see you, Abbie.”
She waved the drink. ‘Tell Buford the girls are working for him.”
I walked across town in the heat, thinking of the lake and of trees hanging over water very quiet and dim back out of the sun. It had been months since I’d been fishing. The car was parked in front of the house, and as I went past I noticed the white sidewalls were black again. I grinned sourly, thinking of Louise and curbs.
She wasn’t in the living room. I went down the hall. A cold shower, I thought, and a bottle of beer out of the icebox, and maybe this headache will go away.
“Is that you, Jack?”
I looked in the bedroom. “You’d be in sad shape if it was somebody else, wouldn’t you?” I said, smiling.
She was lying on the bed in nothing but a pair of pants and a brassiere, reading the latest copy of Life. The electric fan was running on top of the dresser. Louise was very pretty, a taffy blonde with wide, green eyes and a stubborn round chin. She took a great deal of pride in her clear, pale skin, and didn’t go in for suntan because she always blistered.
“You’re home early, aren’t you? I called the office to ask you to bring in some steak, and Lorraine said you’d already left.”
“I had an errand.”
She reached out a slim arm for a cigarette and looked at me questioningly. “You did? Where?”
“Abbie Bell’s.”
She flipped the lighter and took a deep puff, letting the magazine slide to the floor and looking at me quietly through the smoke.
“Well, that’s nice. How were the girls?”
I sat down and started taking off my shoes, thinking of the shower. “All right, I guess. I didn’t see them.”
“Well, then, how was Abbie?”
“Cut it out, Louise. You know what I was there for.”
“Men are always on the defensive,