Jonah Man (12 page)

The Madame appeared again at close, a bottle of clear liquid in one gloved hand, a full glass in the other.

What do you drink? she asked Jonson.

Most anything.

By preference?

Whiskey.

Max, she called. A bottle of whiskey and a glass. You can straighten in the morning.

They sat at a corner of the bar, Jonson with his bottle, the Madame with hers.

Tell me something about yourself, she said. Her speech wasn’t slurred, but the vowels were long, the volume turned high.

I don’t want to bore you.

And I don’t want to be bored. Start with your wife.

She’s dead.

That much I know. How?

An inch at a time.

Cancer?

Not that anyone could name.

Doctors are gods or they’re useless.

They charge either way.

Was she a looker?

Not at the end.

No one is, she said. Jonson watched her in the mirror behind the bar. Light pooled in the foundation beneath her eyes. This time of night, everything about her appeared rucked and water-buckled. She had been young, Jonson thought, but never beautiful.

You talk like you live, she said. Not a jot more than what’s needed. I’ll tell you what I think I know. Your wife was all the people you had, and you were it for her. She was the talent, you were the man of qualities. You made her feel safe. You know how to handle yourself, and you don’t mind playing the supporting role. That’s a rare combination in a man. You loved her, or else you feel you owe her. I know because you haven’t fucked one of my girls yet.

I thought they were off limits.

She sniggered.

You can’t legislate fucking, she said. If you could, I wouldn’t be in business.

I guess you wouldn’t.

All right, she said. Your turn. What about me?

I couldn’t tell you.

I think you could. We have things in common.

Like?

You’re a widower and I’m a widow. Neither of us has the stomach for what most people would call real work.

True, Jonson said.

But I’ve been where you are and even then I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t stall. I wouldn’t know how to.

Is that what I’m doing?

She must have been one hell of a woman.

Jonson nodded.

But either way, he said, I never wanted much.

An invaluable trait in a man of qualities.

His son woke him for the first time in a long while; Jonson sat, drew the cot close to the crib, started the crib rocking. He patted the boy’s backside, found it dry.

He lay back down, shut his eyes but couldn’t sleep. Switching on the light, he pulled his wife’s photo, the only photo he’d kept, from between two books. It showed her in profile, standing on the porch of a newly restored farmhouse. She had a dancer’s body, lean, with a young girl’s flesh still padding her face. The picture had been taken on the last day of their country vacation. There had been corn out front and out back, near ripe, the stench of fertilizer floating in from a larger farm to the south.

We’re trying on a new life, Ginny said.

It smells like cow patty.

They sat on a swing on the wrap around porch, watching the sun decline, Jonson with his feet on the railing, Ginny lying with her head on his lap, wearing the striped shirt he sometimes wore onstage.

Look at that, Jonson said, letting his feet drop.

What?

Hawk, he said.

Where?

Right there.

Where?

Right in front of us, he said. Coasting with its wings out.

She stood, shielded her eyes.

Beautiful, she said.

You can’t see it. I know you can’t.

I need you to tend bar, the Madame said.

Max been fired?

He’s coming with me. We’ll be gone overnight.

All right, Jonson said. I can pour liquor as good as anybody.

I’ve marked the bottles, she said, so keep the money right. The girls will look after themselves.

Yes ma’am. Going anywhere in particular?

Family visit.

If I need to reach you?

You won’t.

Jonson looked at her. It was as if she wanted him to know that she was lying, that there was no family trip. She was peeking his curiosity, planting a seed.

When do I start?

Now.

Jonson spoke little, drank what the patrons left behind. He studied them without pretending not to. They had money; they wore ascot ties, handspun lisle socks. An octogenarian wrapped in a carmine scarf sat sipping from a kir, trembling slightly. A fiddlebacked father counseled his obese son over a carafe of lemon vodka. Jonson imagined Cynthia beneath their bloated hands, their flab, their breath.

It was late when he closed. He cracked a window against the smoke, locked the French doors from the inside, sat with a near-empty bottle of calvados and another of scotch. He dropped the cadavers in the bin, uncapped a fresh gallon of bourbon, drank it a quarter down while he polished the zinc and mopped the floor. The mix of liquors turned the sconce lights candent, sent the pulse of his footsteps caroming up his spine.

Downstairs, he found Cynthia lying on his cot, reading. She sat up, swung her feet to the floor.

I’ve been thinking, she said, looking over at the crib. You could take my room. I wouldn’t mind it down here.

He been complaining about me? Jonson said, sitting beside her.

Of course not.

Listen, Jonson said. Why you?

What?

Why you? You’re pretty enough.

I don’t understand.

Why’d she stick you with the baby? You buck in bed?

No.

Did something happen? The money must be better upstairs. Don’t you like fucking?

It’s not that.

Show me.

Show you what?

Show me you like fucking.

I can’t.

Why not?

I can’t.

She was standing, open-mouthed, rubbing her hands over her arms, tamping down goose flesh. Jonson moved toward her. She stutter-stepped through a half-circle, began to run.

All right, then, Jonson called, dropping sideways onto the cot.

He pulled the lamp’s plug, lay scrolling through the Madame’s girls, able to conjure their names but not their faces, their costumes but not their bodies.

The Madame returned as the bar was opening, asked Jonson for a glass of ice and a bottle of gin.

Ice?

A special occasion.

So the trip was good?

No small talk.

All right.

It was a great fucking trip. Every bit of it. How’d we do here?

Fine.

Let me see.

He reached under the bar and pulled out a lidless shoebox packed with rolls of cash, one roll per denomination.

Looks about right.

That all?

I’m too damn happy to count.

She slid the box toward her, took out a thick roll of ones, handed it to Jonson.

A down payment on your loyalty.

I won’t say no.

Of course you won’t.

Max came in, looking frayed, beat down, his belt running
outside the loops, scratches on his neck showing through a full day’s growth.

What happened to you? Jonson asked.

Nothing.

Looks like something.

I said it’s nothing.

He plays too rough with my nephews, the Madame said. He forgets he’s not a child, that somewhere in the world he has a son of his own.

That ain’t right, Max said.

To Jonson he said, Get out from behind my bar.

Sit and have a drink with us, the Madame said.

It’s almost time to open.

I say when it’s time to open. Now drink.

I ain’t thirsty.

You’re not anything. Sit your ass down and drink.

To Jonson she said, Whiskey. In a pint glass.

No, Max said, standing.

Do you always have to spoil every goddamned thing? she said. Sit or get the fuck out and don’t come back.

Jonson set a glass on the bar; the Madame pulled a capsule from her brazier, split it open and emptied the contents into the whiskey.

Drink, she told Max again. I need you relaxed. And quiet.

I am relaxed.

Bullshit. I won’t listen to any more of your goddamn whining.

OK, he said. You’re right.

Show me.

She stood, lifted the glass. Max clasped his hands behind his back and opened his mouth.

That’s right, she said, resting the lip of the glass against his
teeth, tilting it up.

Jonson, she said. You’ve got the bar one more night.

He was up and dressed when Cynthia came for his son.

I’m sorry, he said. For what I remember.

It’s all right.

You like eggs?

Sometimes.

This one of those times?

It could be.

He led her to the kitchen, sat her at the head of a narrow table and lowered his son into a high chair. The day’s milk was standing at the back door. Jonson searched the cabinets, the ice box, toured the scullery, gathering an assortment of fruit, a hunk of marbled cheese, a half dozen eggs, a sack of pearl onions, a wire basket filled with green and red peppers. He peeled a kiwi, a banana, a tangerine, broke them up and arranged them in a ceramic bowl.

Finger food, he said.

You know your way around a kitchen.

I had practice.

The omelets filled their plates, browned peppers and onions jutting up through patches of singed egg white. Cynthia cut bits from the edges, fed them to Jonson’s son.

You’re going to give him gas.

He likes it, she said. Better than cereal.

She took a bite herself. The boy grabbed at her sleeve, tugged her arm back.

See?

Don’t let him bully you.

This is nice, Cynthia said. You did this for your wife?

It’s just breakfast.

It’s nice.

He sat looking at her, trying to forget the thing he knew about her. She was just a woman, a little older than a girl, eating breakfast, wearing a modest autumn dress, a full-moon locket dangling from a lanyard around her neck.

What’s inside? Jonson asked, pointing.

The locket?

She slid the lanyard over her head, set the locket on the table and sprung the lid, revealing an intaglio print of an old woman in profile.

Who’s this? Jonson asked.

I think she’s my grandmother.

You think?

I’ve had it since my mother died. Since before I can remember.

Jonson set the locket on his palm and lifted it closer. The woman appeared bone-dry and unblinking, a fossil baked in a desert landscape.

I talk to her sometimes, Cynthia said. Or else she talks to me. She gives me advice. Comforts me. She tells me the world is different than it seems.