Going to Bend (11 page)

He chose a table in a back corner, where the traffic would be light
and the lighting would be nil. No sense in adding to Petie’s skittishness, plus he wasn’t as fond of a risk as he used to be. In fact, it had been a very long time since he’d taken any, much as his reputation had it otherwise. He didn’t really know why that was. He wasn’t nearly the cad women seemed to want him to be, hadn’t been in a long time. There must be something about the look of him, despite the little gut he carried now. He did have a mouth, he’d grant you that. But he didn’t mean anything by it; these days, talking dirty was just something to pass the time.

Suddenly Schiff heard a woman talking about penises. He was sure of it. She was talking quietly, but Schiff had excellent hearing and knew how to use it. She sat two tables away from Schiff’s, with a very young man whose back was turned.

“No, no, a plethysmograph. A penile meter. They put it on the defendant’s penis and then show him pictures to see what gets him aroused.” Schiff saw the edges of the young man’s ears get pink. A penile meter, for Christ’s sake.

Then they started talking about something else, something about law school, and Schiff got bored and stopped listening. He hated lawyers, anyway. All they wanted was money. Then again, sometimes he thought maybe he’d become a lawyer himself, so he could sit around all day fast-talking for big bucks. He’d never met a lawyer yet he thought was any smarter than he was. A penile meter—who thought up shit like that? He actually felt sorry for anybody who was perhaps at that very minute hunched miserably in some dingy courthouse room with his poor middle-aged dick stuck up some kind of tube or encircled by a tape measure or something. On the other hand, he had no use whatsoever for people who messed with kids. Schiff had woken up one night when he was nine or ten to find one of his mother’s boyfriends working his hand under Schiff’s covers while Schiff slept. Schiff had kicked him in the chin and the guy had beaten the crap out of him. But he’d never tried anything again, not with him or with Howard. For a long time after that Schiff had slept with scissors under his pillow.

A waitress approached Schiff’s table with water and silverware. Lemon slices floated around inside the water pitcher like pond scum; no
ice. The waitress had on a long droopy black dress, black canvas kung fu shoes and a leather thong that looked like it had been around her neck since sometime in the late sixties. She wore a bleary, stoned expression. “And how am I today?” Schiff asked her as she poured him a cloudy-looking glass of water.

“Fine—what? Oh.” She looked annoyed and walked away shaking her head. Schiff loved that line, he really did. It threw them every time. He grinned and relaxed back in his chair to wait.

P
ETIE CIRCLED
the block three times before she pulled the car up to the curb outside The Recess and punched down the door locks. As though anyone would steal the poor thing, especially a half a block from the courthouse. Still, Eddie had put in a new radio only a couple of weeks ago, celebrating the first payday on his new job, and she’d hate to have it ripped off before they’d even made the first payment. She got out of the car, stamped twice to get her jeans seated over the instep of her boots, and shouldered her purse. She’d eat lunch, she’d go home. People did it all the time.

Inside, she paused by an old washstand set up as a hostess station, to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. She’d never been here before. Rose would like it, because of all the plants. Petie didn’t think much of it herself. The chest of drawers beside her had an old lace doily on it, like you were supposed to be eating lunch in someone’s grandmother’s bedroom; desserts were displayed on a pie safe and a couple of rickety tea carts. Petie didn’t see the charm in old things. All they meant was you couldn’t afford new ones.

She scanned the room mechanically, without hope. Schiff’s truck hadn’t been parked outside: the asshole wasn’t even here yet, and it was already five minutes after they were supposed to meet. Plenty of people were looking her way, too. She was the only person in the place wearing jeans. The men were all in coats and ties; the women wore little skirts and blouses and scarves and shit. Everyone but Petie was wearing
cologne. Petie smelled like onions. They’d been making jambalaya. She clamped her old purse under her armpit and hung her thumbs over her belt buckle—well, Eddie Coolbaugh’s belt buckle, silver plate, big as a saucer, with a fancy brass
C
right in the middle; a belt buckle that on Petie’s small frame said
Screw you
.

Suddenly, from the far back of the room, a big easy smile reached her like a perfectly shot arrow. Schiff was slouching like a lazy old tomcat at a table that looked much too small. Despite the heat of the place he was wearing his Pepsi jacket, and in front of him was a glass of milk.

“Hey,” he said after he’d watched her walk every inch of the way across the room and sit down across from him.

“Hey, Schiff.”

“Happy to see me?”

“Give me a break.”

“You don’t like me much, do you?”

“No, not much,” Petie acknowledged.

“Is it because I’m supposed to be a womanizer?”

“Are you?”

“A womanizer? Hell, if I did half the things I’m supposed to be doing, I’d be smiling a lot more.”

“Then why did you ask me over here? Is it about Eddie, did he do something wrong already? We can’t afford for him to lose this job, Schiff. Was it something he did on purpose, or was it an accident?”

“Neither.”

Petie looked at him warily.

“I just thought, you know, it would be nice to talk.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“You mean it would be nice if I slept with you.”

“That
would
be nice—” Schiff lifted a slow eyebrow.

“You can just go and
fuck
yourself,” Petie hissed.

“—but the fact is, I couldn’t sleep with you right now, because Carla would kill me and I’ve already been divorced and wiped out once and
Carla wouldn’t just wipe me out, she’d ruin me. Carla doesn’t like me much, either. I miss having someone to talk to. So I thought, you know, I could tell you some things and you could pretend to listen.”

Petie reached for a glass. “Is that my water?”

“Careful, I might have spit in it.”

“Who do you remind me of?” Petie said. “Maybe my youngest son. Except he’s mature for his age.” She drank around the wilted lemon slice for something to do. The waitress came to take their order for hamburgers, looked hostilely at Schiff and stayed on Petie’s side of the table.

“For instance,” Schiff continued once she had gone, “one thing we could talk about is, I got an offer from someone for one of my dirt bikes. A good offer.”

“Was it Eddie?”

“Well, it might have been,” Schiff mused. “Or, it might not. You know, a good salesman never gives away his prospects.”

“So what was the offer?”

“Two hundred even. Nothing down, four equal payments to be made monthly, with possession after a hundred.”

“So it’s a good bike.”

“A very good bike.”

“Then why are you selling it?”

“I’m tired of getting mud in my teeth. I’m thinking of getting a road bike.”

“We’re just getting back on our feet, Schiff. What do you want me to say?”

“Well, there could be another buyer approaching me with another good offer.”

“Is there?”

“If it would help,” Schiff said.

“He really wants the bike. He talks about it with Loose all the time. Would it last, is it sturdy?”

“Sturdy enough.”

Petie sighed.

“Or,” Schiff said, watching Petie closely, “I could change the terms.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say I lowered the asking price to, say, thirty-five a month for four months. Eddie still gives me fifty, but I return fifteen a month to you when I see you. Which I would do, say, every now and then. To talk.” Without looking away he tore open a paper packet of sugar and up-ended it into his mouth, neatly tapping out the last several granules.

Petie stared back, and the two of them bore down on each other like oncoming trains. Schiff palmed another packet of sugar.

“Son of a bitch,” Petie whispered.

“Look,” he said, leaning towards her abruptly over the tabletop. “I know you don’t trust me, I know you think I only want to jump your bones. Not that I wouldn’t like to, don’t get me wrong. They’re very, very nice bones.” She could feel his feet and legs burning away, reaching towards her under the table. “But that’s not it. Okay? Think about it. If I’d wanted to find someone to play with, I would’ve picked someone easier. Not to mention someone whose other half doesn’t work for me.”

Petie regarded him frankly. “Are you done?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a piece of work.” But she’d started smiling.

“So are you,” Schiff said, grinning. “So are you.”

Petie’s cheeks were in high color as she accepted her plate from the waitress. Schiff could almost feel the heat coming off them, heat radiating through the thick shiny Indian hair pulled away from her face with a rolled-up bandanna. He could imagine what it would feel like on his bare chest. He’d always liked long hair, liked it dark, too. He wondered if she’d start getting gray soon. Old Man had been grizzled by the time he was forty-two, Schiff had heard; but there was the mother. He’d never heard much about the mother, not from Petie or Old Man or anyone. She had a few years on her already, Petie did, but she looked good to him. Damn good. He drained the rest of his milk.

“So,” Petie said when the waitress was gone. “Do you come here often?”

“Not too often.”

“I mean, God, Schiff, the place looks like where old lawyers go with
their secretaries when they die. See that guy over there? I think he’s the one that nailed Old Man on his last DUI. Mr. Leather Suspenders and Fancy Pen. Guy probably kicks butt all morning and then comes in here to scarf down a Lawburger or something before he has to go pick up his dry cleaning.”

“He sure was plowed,” Schiff said.

“Who?”

“Old Man.” Schiff had been the first one to discover Old Man blindly trying to drive his way out of a ten-foot-deep ditch by the side of the road one night. No one ever figured out how he got in there in the first place, his truck and himself being in nearly perfect shape for two old beaters, not a fresh brush-nick or roll-mark on either of them. Old Man never got his license back after that; people just stopped and gave him a lift if they saw him walking along in the rain or cold. Some kid from Sawyer eventually bought his truck for a hundred and twenty-five bucks and a tow.

“Hell, he drove like that all the time,” Petie said. “There was a bunch of people used to pull over whenever they saw him coming. When I was little, he and my mother used to really go at it about his driving when he was stewed. The drunker he was, the more he wouldn’t let her drive. When he was really wasted, he wouldn’t even let her sit up front with him. She’d climb in beside me in the back and hold my hand.”

“I’ve never heard much about your mother.”

Petie shrugged. “She died. It was a long time ago.”

“Was she pretty?”

“No.”

“Car accident?”

“Cancer.”

Schiff nodded. “My father supposedly died of cancer.”

“Supposedly?”

“That’s my mother’s story.”

“You don’t think so?”

Schiff shrugged. “I never met him.” He pressed a few sugar granules onto his fingertip from the tabletop and brushed them into the ashtray.

“That’s too bad.”

“It certainly didn’t stop me from turning out wonderful.”

“So where’s your mother now?”

“Delia? Beats hell out of me. We don’t talk.”

“Ever?”

“Not since 1968.”

“What happened in 1968?”

“Me and my brother Howard left home. It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.”

“Now’s good.”

“Mmmm.” Schiff raised an eyebrow.

“For the
story
.”

“No.” He pushed back his cuff and checked his watch, pulled out a Pepsi credit card and picked up the check. “Meet me next week and I’ll tell you then.”

Petie slung her old purse over her shoulder. She stood up and reached across the table, brushing his cheek lightly with her fingertips. He neither flinched nor ducked.

“Nice try,” she said.

I
T WAS
only once she was in her car that she allowed herself to slip off her denim jacket. She had soaked her shirt completely through. She must be in worse shape than she’d thought, to be thrown so badly. But there was something about the man, besides simple gall. He had a sleepy, feral look, cool as cool, unblinking, sure, in no hurry. No one had looked at her that way for years. Hell, no one looked at her much of any way at all anymore. She and Rose didn’t so much see as breathe each other, and Eddie Coolbaugh—well, God, Eddie Coolbaugh. Who knew what Eddie saw anymore. Eddie didn’t see, really; things just got blown into his eyes and stuck there for a while. Jeannie Fontineau, and so on.

Quickly, before Schiff could come out, she cranked over the engine, rolled down all the car windows and headed for the Crestline
Apartments a few blocks away, where she had promised Rose she’d drop off an envelope with Gordon.

In her rearview mirror as she pulled out she saw Schiff amble out of the restaurant, set a toothpick between his teeth, bury his hands deep in his pockets and watch her drive away.

A
T THE
Crestline Petie pulled up beside Gordon’s Peugeot—what the hell kind of car was that, anyway, a Peugeot?—reached under the seat and pulled out the fat envelope Rose had given her that morning. More cookbook pages. Rose was spending every free minute working on the damn thing. For no money. It wasn’t the first time Rose had been taken advantage of. Petie had tried to talk her out of the project, especially now that Christie was back, but Rose had turned stubborn, which was rare with her. She just said that she liked doing it, and that Gordon was being very encouraging.

“Then they should pay you,” Petie had muttered.

“You know they would, Petie, if they could. Don’t you think they’re good people?”