even two. We talked about the money, whispered about it because of Whitey. Sonja made me swear again and again that I had not—would not—tell anybody.
I’m scared as shit. You should be too. Keep your eyes open. Don’t slip up, Joe.
Then we’d talk about what I should do with the money. Sonja made me promise I would go to college. She said she’d wanted her daughter, Murphy, to go. She’d named her baby Murphy because it could never be a stripper name. But her daughter had changed her name to London. If I could go back in time, said Sonja, I never would have left my daughter with my own mother when I was working. My mother had a bad influence on her granddaughter, if you can believe that.
Sonja liked the talk shows, the old movies. Sometimes I fell asleep while we were watching, but before I did I tried to suspend myself for as long as possible between sleep and wakefulness. A door might open momentarily into a dream, but instantly I’d shift back to the couch. Her soft weight on the far cushion. The warmth of her that I could feel if I edged the bare soles of my feet from under the sleeping bag, which became my favorite thing to sleep under because it disguised my hard-on.
Every night, Sonja gave me a pillow off her bed. The pillow smelled of apricot shampoo and also a dusky undertone—some private erotic decay like the inside of a wilted flower. I buried my face to breathe it in. I dozed, dreamed, returning to the flickering TV light. The laugh track, turned low. Sonja tranced in a blue haze, drinking cold water now. Outside, the seething of summer insects. The dogs occasionally rousing to bark once or twice at a deer far across the pasture. And Whitey, thankfully, snoring it off behind the bedroom door. The third or fourth night, when I was passing in and out of heaven, Sonja cupped my heel in her palm and squeezed it. She began absently to rub my instep and a bolt of blind pleasure shot through me too sudden to contain. I came with a gurgle of surprise and she dropped my foot. A moment later, I heard a snap and sneaked a look at her. She was eating a pretzel.
Whitey loved kamikaze pulps. He had a wall of shelves built just the right height for grocery-store samurai romances, ninja attack plots, spy thrillers, Louis L’Amours, sci-fi, Conan. He began his morning at six a.m. with a cup of coffee and a paperback. As I ate beside him, he read selections aloud, murmuring, her lithe haunches quivered with a predatory anticipation as she fixed on his position in the moonless light bereft of soul and decided exactly how to snap his spine . . . Ragna’s dagger-sharp eyeteeth glinted in the reflected beams of the headlights . . . knowing his life would end as soon as his eyes met that implacable obsidian gaze . . . If he was deeply engaged in a plot, he kept reading as Sonja set down a platter of bacon and a pan of her one breakfast specialty—a mixture of grated potatoes, eggs, diced peppers, and ham, laid out in a baking pan and broiled until the cheddar cheese topping bubbled up and toasted. She called it breakfast casserole. Right after we ate, Whitey marked his page and put the book down. Sonja quickly scrubbed up the dishes, we jumped in the pickup, drove to the gas station, and unlocked the pumps. We opened at seven a.m. There was always someone waiting for gas.
That day, a couple of things happened that were not good. The first thing was Sonja’s stud earrings, which Whitey said he’d never seen before.
You have too seen them. She flashed a flirty smile.
The earrings sparkled in the dim kitchen. She had on yellow rubber gloves and she was vigorously scouring the broiler pan before we took off for work.
They’re rhinestones, she said.
Nice rhinestones, said Whitey. He gave an underhanded glance. Then he looked at her boldly, meanly, while she was not looking at him. Her blue jeans also looked brand-new and clung to her in a way that made me think of Whitey’s book, haunches quivering in deadly etc. We got in the truck. Whitey didn’t turn on the music. Halfway to town, Sonja reached over to switch on the tape player and Whitey smacked her hand off the controls. I was sitting