The Judas Goat (20 page)

“I’m very powerful,” I said. “A lot of people died this trip out,” she said. “Yes.”

“That bothers you some.”

“Yes.”

“This time worse than many.”

“There was a lot of blood. Too much,” I said. “People die. Some people probably ought to. But this time there was a lot. I needed to get rid of it. I needed to get clean.”

“The fight with Zachary,” she said. “Goddamn,” I said. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

“I don’t miss very much about you,” she said. “I love you. I have come to know you very well.”

“Yeah, the fight with Zachary. That was a kind of-what-sweating out the poison, maybe. I don’t know. For Hawk too, I think. Or maybe for Hawk it was just competition. He doesn’t like to lose. He’s not used to it.”

“I understand that,” she said. “I begin to wonder about myself sometimes. But I understand what you mean.”

“Do you understand that there’s more?”

“What?”

“You,” I said. “The shower assault. It’s like I need to love you to come back whole from where I sometimes go.” She rubbed the back of her left hand on my right cheek. “Yes,” she said, “I know that too.” The cab pulled up at the Post Office Tower. I paid and overtipped. We held hands going up in the elevator. It was early evening on a week night. We were seated promptly. “Touristy,” Susan murmured to me. “Very touristy.”

“Yes,” I said, “but you can have Mateus Rose and I can have Amstel beer and we can watch the evening settle onto London. We can eat duckling with cherries and I can quote Yeats.”

“And later,” she said, “there’s always another shower.”

“Unless I drink too much Amstel,” I said, “and eat too much duck with cherries.”

“In which likelihood,” Susan said, “we can shower in the morning.”