being hauled in anger into the trunk of someone’s car and the spray of gravel in the driveway. It was nothing I wanted, but on the other hand, given the way the day was shaping up, I would probably hear about this sooner or later, and four hours of standing in the sun had made me thirsty.
I took a can and sat beside him. It was good beer, something Belgian I’d never had before and wouldn’t expect to find in a can.
“I think I had something on for a while there,” Pete said.
“There you go.”
He ran a hand over his damp hair. The flesh around his jowls and neck had a kind of looseness that made me think he’d been heavy as a kid, not truly fat but big enough that certain things had not come easy, and that this might explain a good deal about him.
“Didn’t have a good guess what to do about it, though. I was actually sort of relieved when he got away. Tell me again, why is this fun?”
“Couldn’t say. People seem to like it, though.”
“So to you, this is all just a day at the office.”
“Never had an office, not the way you mean.”
Pete sighed good-naturedly and rolled his eyes. “He couldn’t say. Christ.” He pulled on his beer and looked at me. “You are one monosyllabic son of a bitch, if you pardon my saying so.”
“You think?”
He laughed, getting the joke before I did. “Touché.”
For a moment we sat and sipped our beers. Bill, still trying to cast through the wind to the Atlantics below the aqueduct, had closed the gap by wading out another ten feet into chest-high water. I thought about saying something to reel him in a bit, but then figured what the hell, it was his vacation. The worst that could happen was a long, wet walk back to the truck.
“So,” Pete said, “I screwed Bill’s wife. Did I tell you that?”
This, of course, was exactly the sort of thing I had expected to hear, minus the specifics. “Can’t say you did, Pete. That’s something I’d remember.”
He rubbed his eyes and squinted out over the water. “You don’t have to worry, he doesn’t know.” He gave his head a little shake. “Christ, you should see her. Beverly, I mean. It’s his second wife, you know. The first one—” He waved his beer out over the water, to mean long gone. “So, Carol and I had just split up, over all kinds of other crap—you know, stupid stuff that basically added up to we couldn’t stand the sight of each other another minute, and I ran into Bev at, get this, the office Christmas party, and she’s wearing this thing, showing off her brand-new rack, flirtatious as hell, you know how that is.” I had no idea, needless to say, not that it mattered. “I’d heard she liked to horse around a bit. We got to talking, and next thing I know I’m calling her up and the two of us are up in Boston riding the linens at the Copley Plaza.”
At just this moment Bill’s rod bent hard; he swiveled his head quickly to look for me, like a kid showing off to his old man, shouting, “Woo-hoo!”
“See?” Pete said to me, lifting his can toward the water. “Dumb-ass doesn’t have a clue.”
“You don’t mind my asking, where was Bill while all this was going on?”
Pete drained the last of his beer and crunched the can in his fist. “Oh, off in East Jesus someplace, tramping around in the cattails with some douche bag from the EPA. He really loves that stuff.” He frowned suddenly and gave me a worried look. “Why do you ask? He say something to you?”
A crazy question; of course he hadn’t. That Pete would ask it told me just how tippy the whole situation was. “Just filling in the details.”
“So he didn’t say anything.”
“No, but let me toss an idea your way. You guys always take vacations together?”
Pete mulled this over. “I see what you’re driving at. I do. But I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If he knew, I would have heard about it. Believe me.”
We sat another minute, watching Bill fighting what looked to be a pretty-good-size Atlantic. I just hoped he had the good sense to break off before it dragged him into the drink and filled his waders with water the temperature of a thawed Popsicle. I was figuring by this point that Bill didn’t just suspect