Fourteen   

Dooley rolled out of bed the next morning with every intention of doing the right thing. He was scheduled to work that night. Schedules were posted every Saturday for the coming week and once they were set, they were carved in stone. Dooley had started at the video store right after he moved in with his uncle, so that made three months he’d been working there. He’d never missed a shift. He’d gone in a bunch of times when other people called in sick, but he’d never called in sick himself. Rhodes’s get-together was tonight. If Dooley wanted to go, he had two choices: switch with someone or call in sick. The only person he knew well enough to ask to switch was Linelle, and she was already working tonight, which meant he’d have to call in sick. He would also have to tell his uncle. At least, he should tell him. He could imagine how well that would go. His uncle would want to know why he was telling the store he was sick when, in fact, he was perfectly healthy. Then Dooley would have to make another decision—tell the truth: I’ve been invited to this party; or lie: maybe something like, I asked this girl out. If he lied, his uncle would want to know why the hell he had asked a girl out when he knew full well he was scheduled to work. He’d also want to know who the girl was. Then he’d tell Dooley, take her out some night when you’re not working. If he told the truth, his uncle would want to know why the hell he had accepted a party invitation when he knew full well he was scheduled to work (in other words, tough shit, Ryan, obligation and responsibility trump party time). He’d also want to know who was having the party and, tell me the truth, Ryan, are we talking booze, maybe a little smoke? Because if we are… no party time for Dooley.

And that was just too bad, right?

Then Dooley’s uncle came into the kitchen, fully dressed, a mug in his hand, which he refilled from the coffee machine, and said, “You working tonight?”

“Yeah,” Dooley said. “Until closing. Why?”

“Jeannie has some charity event she’s been working on. One of those fancy dress things at a hotel downtown. We’ll be late. Later than you.”

“No problem,” Dooley said.

And there, just like that, he had an opening. Still, he might not have taken it if he hadn’t run into Rhodes in one of the school bathrooms that morning and if Rhodes hadn’t said to him, “So, you’re going to be there tonight, right? Because the more people who show up, the more money we raise, and I guess I don’t have to tell you what that would mean to Beth.” And, just like that, her face appeared in Dooley’s head and the opening his uncle had given him became the door that he just had to walk through.

The rest of the day unfolded like every other mind-numbing weekday: class, lunch, class, class. Then home—which was deserted—where he called the store and prayed that Linelle would answer. When she did, sounding bored as she rattled off the name of the store, its location, and, “How may I help you?”—all of it delivered in the same prairie-flat tone—he told her, “I’m calling in sick.”

Linelle perked up immediately. “Kevin’s gonna be pissed,” she said with delight. “He’s gonna go all spluttery and red in the face. Thanks, Dooley. You made my day.”

“Do me one more favor?”

“I’m going to expect payback.”

“If my uncle calls the store—he probably won’t, but if he does—tell him I’m on a break. Ask him, does he want to leave a number where he can be reached. He’ll probably say I can get him on his cell. If he does, call my pager, okay?”

“This is getting complicated, Dooley.”

“He probably won’t call. He’s going out tonight. But just in case. Okay?”

“You owe me big time.”

“Goes without saying,” Dooley said. He didn’t know why, but he felt comfortable talking to Linelle. He knew she knew all about him, but she didn’t seem to care. The thing about Linelle, though: she didn’t seem to care about anything.

Next: Shower and get dressed. Put on something nice but not too fancy. Or should it be fancy? Shit. He didn’t know. He finally decided on clean black jeans, shoes (not sneakers), and a black shirt he had bought with his first paycheck from the store. All nice, but casual, comfortable. Ready to go.

He stopped at a bank machine on his way to Rhodes’s place. Rhodes had said the party was to raise money for a scholarship in Everley’s name. Dooley wondered how much he should give and how much other people would be giving. The kids who were going to be at the party had actually known Everley. They were his friends. Dooley hadn’t really known the guy and, anyway, he hadn’t liked him. He withdrew two twenties, broke one of them buying a pack of gum, and set aside the other twenty and a five-dollar bill to put toward the scholarship.

When he got to Rhodes’ house, he stood outside on the sidewalk for a few minutes, looking at the house and thinking: Wow! The place looked like a castle. It was made of stone and even had a turret on one end. Dooley bet it would be cool to have a room in that turret, with windows all the way around. The house stood on a property that was flanked on both sides by wide lawns edged with flowerbeds. Tucked away behind the house, but still visible from the sidewalk, was a six-car garage. All the garage doors were closed, so Dooley couldn’t see if there actually were six cars inside. However many there were, he bet they were high-end. All the other houses that Dooley had walked past on Rhodes’s street were as big as Rhodes’s. Some were even bigger. Dooley wondered how come a guy who lived in a house like this in a neighborhood like this went to a regular school instead of some exclusive private school.

It wasn’t Rhodes who answered the door when Dooley rang—of course not. It was a small, brown-skinned young woman in—a maid’s uniform! Dooley had never seen anything like it outside of the movies and TV.

“I’m here for the party,” Dooley said.

The young woman stepped aside so that Dooley could enter. She was pretty but seemed shy and didn’t look him in the eyes. She gestured to her left, where Dooley heard the babble of voices underlaid by the pulse of music. He followed the noise and found Rhodes in what looked like a gigantic games room filled with people and all the big-ticket toys money could buy—a pool table, a pinball machine, a couple of arcade-style video games, a flat screen TV—plus a wet bar and a table spread with snack food. He stood in the doorway and scanned the room. There was a large photograph of Mark Everley trimmed in black sitting on an easel near the bar. In front of the easel, on a small table, was a glass ball with an opening at the top—it reminded Dooley of a goldfish bowl. It was half-filled with money—olive green and pink, which meant twenties and, Jesus, fifties—as well as what looked like checks. Rhodes was sitting on a couch near the easel, a skinny blonde beside him. He had a bottle of beer in his hand. Everyone in the place had a drink of some kind. Rhodes spotted Dooley and waved him over.

“Glad you could make it,” he said. He introduced Dooley to the people around him, including the guy Landers, whose first name turned out to be Peter and who obviously remembered Dooley (he stared at him as if he were a stain on the carpet before leaning over and whispering something in Rhodes’s ear) and another guy, Marcus Bracey. Both of them, judging from their clothes and accessories—check the shoes, check the watch—looked to be out of Rhodes’s league financially. Dooley glanced around to see if he recognized anyone else and saw Gillette on the other side of the room, watching him. He wondered how Gillette had got himself in with this crowd.

Rhodes smiled pleasantly as he listened to something Landers was saying—Dooley wasn’t paying attention; he was looking at Gillette. Then Rhodes said to Dooley, “What can I get you to drink? We got beer—domestic and imported. Also the hard stuff. If you’re into smoke…”

“Ginger ale would be fine,” Dooley said.

Rhodes laughed. “Come on,” he said. “It’s a party. People are supposed to have fun remembering Mark. Like a wake, you know?”

“Ginger ale would be fine,” Dooley said again.

Rhodes shrugged. “Then ginger ale it is,” he said. He turned to the skinny blonde beside him on the couch, who was, in Dooley’s opinion, wearing too much makeup, and said, “Be an angel, Jen, and get the man a ginger ale.”

“Why can’t Esperanza get it?” Jen said, her voice whiny.

“Esperanza is on the door,” Rhodes said. He had a soft way of speaking that didn’t have much effect on the blonde. When she didn’t move, he leaned over, whispered something in her ear, and kissed her on the cheek. That got some action. She giggled and staggered to her high-heeled feet. She was back a few minutes later with Dooley’s drink.

Dooley sipped his ginger ale and listened while Rhodes told Bracey, yeah, it was true his dad had paid what sounded to Dooley like a fortune for the latest addition to his Fender Stratocaster collection, which was a Fender that had belonged to Eric Clapton for about five seconds. He told Dooley that his dad also had Fenders that had belonged to Muddy Waters, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Richie Sambora, and Tommy Castro, whoever the hell he was. Dooley just nodded. He also had (the information provided by Bracey) a gun collection that included a Colt six-shooter that had supposedly once belonged to Wyatt Earp and a decommissioned automatic weapon that had been featured in a Schwarzenegger movie—all of it, like the Fenders, under lock and key.

Dooley looked around while Bracey and the others talked. He wondered where Beth was and if she was really going to show up.

“Hey, Dooley,” Rhodes said. “You shoot pool?” He nodded to the pool table that dominated the far end of the room.

“Not in a long time,” Dooley said. And, boy, hardly ever sober.

“Come on.” Rhodes stood up. As Dooley got to his feet, he saw Gillette across the room again, still staring at him. Rhodes noticed, too.

“Eddy mentioned that he knows you,” Rhodes said. “He wasn’t big on details, but I get the impression you and he aren’t exactly best buddies anymore.”

It would surprise Dooley if everyone in the room didn’t come to that conclusion. Gillette was glaring at him like he wished he could take a chainsaw to him, or a baseball bat.

“How did you two hook up?” Dooley said.

“Well, he is part of our school community,” Rhodes said. It took Dooley a moment to get that he was trying to be funny. The principal at their school always referred to the place as a community and was always reminding them that in a healthy community, people make allowances and accommodations and everyone tries to get along.

“There’s all kinds of geeks and losers that go to that place,” Dooley said. “I don’t see all of them here.”

“Eddy got off on the right foot with me,” Rhodes said with a smile. “He trashed a car of this guy I know, a guy who lives right across the street.”

Dooley could think of a lot of ways to get a friendship off to a good start, but that one sure hadn’t come to mind.

“It was over some girl,” Rhodes said. “And the guy is a total prick. So I—” He ducked his head a little, just like he had out in the schoolyard when he’d stopped Landers from hammering Warren. It made him look modest and kind of shy. Dooley bet the girls liked that look. “I kind of alibi’d him,” he said. “I know it was wrong. God, my parents would kill me if they found out I’d lied to them—and to the police. But it served the guy right. He’s one of those guys who thinks that just because his parents are loaded, he can be a dickhead and no one will call him on it.”

Dooley guessed that Rhodes had a different view on what it meant to have rich parents.

“Eddy’s nothing like most of the people I know,” Rhodes conceded. “But he’s okay. He can be a lot of fun.”

That had been Dooley’s experience, too, once upon a time.

Rhodes nudged Dooley toward the pool table, and Dooley let himself get roped into a game, which he lost and which Rhodes seemed to have a good time winning, although he was a gentleman about it. Dooley started to relax a little and even let himself think, Jesus, it must be nice, living in a place like this, being able to entertain so many people—he couldn’t begin to figure how much all the booze and food and what-have-you was costing. Rhodes played Landers next, while Dooley and Bracey watched. Landers turned out to be a better pool player than Rhodes, but Rhodes didn’t seem to mind. He leaned on his cue and watched Landers sink three balls in a row. Landers was lining up another shot when all of a sudden he straightened up, glowering. Rhodes and Bracey both turned to where Landers was looking. Landers thrust his cue at Bracey and strode across the room, muscling a few people aside.

“Here we go,” Rhodes said. He handed his pool cue to Dooley and went after Landers, who by this time was shoving a guy who had been making it with a stick-thin girl in a tiny black skirt. The guy Landers had shoved staggered backward, but he recovered fast and came back, ready to deal with the situation. The stick-thin girl was tugging on Landers’ arm, trying to pull him back. Landers yelled something at her. Rhodes stepped in between Landers and the other guy. He had his arms out, keeping Landers and the other guy away from each other, and was talking mostly to Landers. Dooley remembered the scene in the schoolyard. He had the impression that Rhodes was used to breaking up fights between Landers and whoever Landers was pissed at for whatever reason. He wondered if things might have been different if Rhodes had been there with Everley and Landers that time. The stick-thin girl was still hanging onto Landers. Landers shook her off, like a horse flicking off a fly. Rhodes leaned into Landers and said something else. Landers grabbed the girl by the wrist and dragged her away from Rhodes and the other guy. Rhodes turned then and said something to the other guy, who was shaking his head and shrugging. You didn’t have to be a lip reader to get what he was saying: It wasn’t my fault. Rhodes waved Jen over. Jen guided the other guy to the bar and popped a beer for him.

“Problem?” Dooley said when Rhodes joined him and Bracey again at the pool table.

“Girls,” Rhodes said. “They can fuck you up, right?”

“I guess,” Dooley said. He started to hand one of the pool cues to Rhodes, but Rhodes was already walking away from him again. No wonder. Beth had entered the room.

“She is definitely not as advertised,” Bracey said, eying her appreciatively. “Not even remotely.”

Dooley had no idea what he meant and didn’t care. He watched as she hovered near the door, scanning the room. She was wearing a pink sweater and a black skirt with high, black boots. Her hair hung loosely over her shoulders. When she spotted the photograph of her brother, she went still. Even from where he was standing, clear across the room, Dooley could see the color in her cheeks fade. It was clear she loved her brother. He thought, even if she knew what an asshole he could be, it probably didn’t matter to her. She’d probably forgive him. There were guys he knew, guys who had gone out of their way to put other people into the hospital with serious injuries, whose mothers used to come to visit them and hug them and kiss them and tell them over and over, “I love you,” not that it made much difference.

Rhodes greeted her, taking both of her hands in his and holding them, talking to her and nodding at the glass bowl with all the money in it. Dooley had to hand it to him, the guy was always on the mark. He knew exactly what to do and his timing was impeccable. He was smooth, too. Maybe that was bred into him. Or maybe he learned it from his old man. Dooley admired the easy way that he introduced Beth around to the people she didn’t know. After that, he stopped the music and clinked a knife against a glass until everyone settled down. When the room grew quiet, he began to talk about Mark Everley—what a great guy he was, what a cut-up he was, the guy could have been a comedian, what a fantastic photographer he was, even better than he was a comedian, how he maybe could have been the next Richard Avedon or the next Yousuf Karsh (Dooley thought, Who?) and, finally, how much everyone was going to miss him—in other words, the kind of stuff people said about somebody who had died, no matter how much of a jerk the guy had been. Beth wiped a few tears from her eyes, but she didn’t start bawling. Rhodes talked next about the scholarship Beth wanted to establish in her brother’s name and pulled something from his pocket—a check, Dooley guessed—and made a big deal of showing it to Beth, enjoying how her eyes widened, before putting it in the glass bowl.

Dooley was wondering how much Rhodes’s check was for when he noticed Beth looking across the room at him. He started to smile at her, but something in her eyes stopped him. She looked angry about something—probably the fact that he hadn’t called her about the hypnosis thing. Now he wasn’t sure what to do. He’d only come to the party so that he’d have a chance to see her, maybe talk to her, and here she was looking at him like he was something a dog had deposited on her front lawn. The hard look that she was giving him threw him.

Someone—Bracey—thrust a glass into Dooley’s hand.

“Champagne,” he said when Dooley began to protest. “We’re gonna do a toast.”

It turned out to be a toast to the memory of Mark Everley. The toast was done not by Rhodes but by Landers, who referred to Everley as the best friend he’d ever had and then knocked back his glass of champagne. Everyone else did the same. Dooley saw Beth looking at him from across the room, so he raised his glass to his lips—he didn’t want to make her any angrier than it looked like she already was by being the only person in the room not to toast her dead brother—but he didn’t take a sip. Bracey went around refilling glasses before another guy—a guy Dooley recognized but didn’t know by name—made a second toast. Beth crossed the room and stopped in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” she said. He couldn’t believe how hard her eyes were, like iced pebbles. “You didn’t even know my brother.”

What was she so mad about?

“Rhodes invited me,” he said. “Look, I was going to call you.”

“Right,” she said, like she didn’t believe that for a minute, like he was one of those guys, the kind that slept with girls (Jesus, he wished he could sleep with her) but never called them afterwards, and then bumped into them, say, at a party.

“You know,” he said. “About the hypnosis thing.”

“You’re not going to do it, right?” she said, snapping the words at him. What was going on? Why was she so pissed off? “I talked to that homicide cop again, the one who they called when Mark… when he died.” Her eyes were burning into him. “When I told him I’d talked to you about getting hypnotized, he told me about you.”

Oh.

“I bet some people think you’re pretty cool,” she said.

It was true. A certain kind of person found him very cool. A certain kind of girl, too.

“Well, I don’t,” she said, confirming what Dooley had already figured out. “Not even remotely. I think what you did is despicable.”

Geeze, the cop told her that?

“So you don’t want to help me, fine, don’t help me. Just stay away from me, okay? Stay away from me.” Tears glistened in her eyes, but they weren’t sad tears. No way. They were mad tears, like what she really wanted to do was hit him. She looked hard at him for a minute longer. Then she spun around and walked back to Rhodes, who frowned as he listened to whatever she was saying and slipped an arm around her. That’s when Dooley walked through a second door.

He looked at the champagne in his hand and at the big photograph of Mark Everley up there on the easel. What the hell? Here’s to you, asshole. He downed the whole glass in one long swallow and turned to leave, but there was Bracey, refilling glasses again. Refilling Dooley’s glass.

Dr. Calvin: Say you find yourself in a situation where your peers are drinking or doing drugs. What do you do, Ryan?

Dooley: Join the fuck in.

Dr. Calvin: Let me rephrase that, Ryan. What should you do?

Dooley: Why is it a guy’s always supposed to do what he should do? Why can’t he once in a while do whatever the hell he wants to do?

He knocked back the second glass of champagne and headed for the door. At least, he started to head for the door, but then he detoured, weaving through people until he reached the other side of the room where Beth was standing, her head bowed a little, saying something in a soft voice to Rhodes, who was looking at her, all blue eyes and sympathy.

“Hey,” Dooley said. Rhodes looked at him, but Beth didn’t. Dooley poked her in the arm. “Hey,” he said, angry now. “You think you know me, is that it? You really think you know me?”

“Hey, Dooley, are you okay?” Rhodes said.

Beth looked at him. What he saw in her eyes was what he used to see in the mirror some mornings.

“You don’t know me,” he said. “You don’t know anything about me.”

A hand fell lightly on his shoulder. It was Rhodes. He steered Dooley gently but firmly away from Beth.

“You don’t know me,” Dooley yelled over his shoulder at her. He was thinking maybe he should have eaten something because, boy, that champagne had gone right to his head.

“Hey, take it easy,” Rhodes said, his voice soft and soothing. “Come over here.” He led Dooley to the bar and sat him down. Dooley saw Beth across the room. A couple of girls were pressed in around her, talking to her, looking like they were comforting her. “Hey, how about something to take the edge off?”

Dooley said no. He said he had to go. Across the room Beth had turned her back to him. So what? What did he care? The only thing he knew for sure about her, other than she was pretty, was that her brother was an asshole. Maybe she was one, too. Maybe behind those coffee-colored eyes, she was some kind of bitch. She heard a cop tell it and she thought she knew everything about him. Maybe she was telling all those girls, “Hey, that guy Dooley over there, what a loser. You know what he did?” Well, so what if she was?

Rhodes was handing him a glass. Coke. With a kick.

He took it but thought he should go home.

“Bracey’s looking for someone to play,” Rhodes said. “He’s a good match for you, Dooley. Come on, you’re not going to run off because of that, are you? She’s just upset. She loved her brother. You know how that is.”

Dooley didn’t know.

Rhodes steered him to the pool table, where Bracey was shooting by himself. A girl wandered over. It was the same stick-thin girl Landers had dragged from the room earlier. Rhodes introduced her: Megan.

“Hi,” Megan said. She had one of those little-girl voices that Dooley couldn’t decide, was it natural or was it put on? “I’ll keep score,” she said. Dooley couldn’t help staring at her skirt. It didn’t cover much. She had big lips that were bright red. Her eyes were spacey.

“You break,” Bracey said.

Dooley set down his glass and picked up a pool cue. It turned out to be a long game, and Bracey turned out to be a funny guy, the one-liners spinning out of him one after another, keeping Dooley laughing, which was something he didn’t do a lot of. Megan got Dooley a refill on his Coke. He glanced across the room at Beth, who was sitting with Rhodes and the blonde, Jen. He wanted her to notice him—See, I’m still here and you know what? I’m having a great time. But she didn’t even glance in his direction.

He missed his shot. Bracey walked down one side of the table, sizing up his play. Megan stood so close to Dooley that he could feel the heat coming off her body.

“You like to party, Dooley?” she said.

“Depends.” Party was such a fun-sounding word, but Dooley had learned that it meant different things to different people.

“I bet you do,” she said. “I bet you’re a party central.” She pressed against him, wriggling and smiling.

Bracey sank the last ball on the table and grinned.

“Let’s go again,” he said. “Hey, Megan? Get lost.”

She stuck out her tongue at him and snuggled closer to Dooley. Dooley wondered if Beth was watching. He hoped she was.

“Hey, Dooley?” Bracey said. “Trust me, you don’t want the grief.” He nodded to his left. Dooley looked and saw Landers scowling at him from the other side of the room. He glanced at Megan.

“He’s your boyfriend, right?” he said.

“He thinks he is,” Megan said. She turned her back to Landers, concentrating everything she had on Dooley, moving when he moved, staying with him for the whole game, which Bracey won. He whooped and jumped up and down.

“Let’s go again,” he said, pumped with victory.

Dooley glanced around, looking for Beth. She was still over there with Rhodes. He didn’t see Landers anywhere.

“Sure,” he said to Bracey. “Let’s go again.”

Then his pager vibrated. He checked the readout. It was the store.

“You know where there’s a phone I can use?”

Bracey pointed to the bar. “There’s one behind there.”

Beth was over by the bar.

“Some place quiet,” Dooley said.

“There’s a phone in the kitchen,” Bracey said. “Out that door, hang a right.”

Dooley took his drink with him and set it down on the counter while he made the call, praying it would be Linelle who picked up, not Kevin.

It was.

“Your uncle called,” she said. “I told him you were in the can. He said for you to call him.”

Dooley was thinking, shit. If he called from here, his uncle would see on his display on his cell phone that he wasn’t calling from the store. Shit, shit, shit.

“He gave me a number,” Linelle said.

“He’s not on his cell?”

“He gave me the number of some hotel, Dooley. You want it or not?”

Dooley listened closely, repeated it to himself as he punched it in, and came up with what he thought was a pretty good plan B. (I’m on a cell. Someone at work is letting me use theirs. I don’t know why you won’t let me have one… His uncle would get impatient then, wanting to get to the reason he’d called Dooley in the first place. Yeah, that could work.)

One problem: Bracey was only partly right about the kitchen. It was quieter, but it wasn’t quiet enough that his uncle wouldn’t catch the party sounds. Dooley left the kitchen and moved through the house farther from the party, looking for a quiet place with a phone in it. He passed one room. The door was partly open. Through it he saw Landers with the maid, Esperanza. Landers had her by one arm and he was muscling her, pulling her toward him even though it was clear she didn’t want to go.

“Please,” she said, her voice soft and Spanish-accented. “Leave me go or I will tell Mr. Winston.”

Mister Winston? The maid looked like she might be a year or two older than Rhodes. Dooley wondered how she could bring herself to call him mister. He wondered how she felt when she said it. He wondered, too, if she called Rhodes that to his face and, if she did, he wondered how it made Rhodes feel.

“You sure about you want to do that, Esperanza?” Landers said. He yanked her close to him and held onto her with both hands. “You sure you want to tell Mr. Winston? Because if you do, I’ll have a talk with Mr. Ray. You want me to do that, sweetheart? You want Mr. Ray to fire your ass and send you back home?”

Dooley guessed that Mr. Ray was Rhodes’ father.

Landers backed Esperanza up against the wall and pinned her hands to her sides. She squirmed and twisted her head to one side, as he moved in toward her.

“Hey,” Dooley said.

Landers turned his head around to look at him, but he kept his grip firm on the girl.

“I don’t think she’s interested,” Dooley said.

“Who asked you?” Landers said. He reached out with one leg to kick the door shut in Dooley’s face. Dooley put out a foot to stop it closing all the way, then pushed it open again.

“Why don’t you go see what your girlfriend is up to?” Dooley said, stepping in close to Landers, crowding him. In a soft voice meant just for Landers, he said, “Gillette told you about me, right?”

Landers hesitated. Dooley could see he didn’t want to back down, but he also didn’t want to take Dooley on, not one-on-one. He released Esperanza but gave her a menacing look, the kind that suggested that he’d be back when she was alone and that, boy, she’d be in for it then. He shoved his way past Dooley.

“You okay?” Dooley asked her.

She nodded, but she looked scared.

“Esperanza,” someone called. A girl. Dooley didn’t recognize the voice. “Esperanza, Win said to tell you they need more potato chips.”

Esperanza straightened up. She rubbed her fingers under her eyes to dry her tears, and went back out into the kitchen.

Dooley continued his hunt for a phone in a quiet place.

He found another room, wood-paneled, with a desk over by the window and a phone on it. He dialed the number his uncle had given Linelle. A man answered and gave the name of the hotel. Dooley asked for his uncle. He glanced around while he waited for his uncle to come on the line. All the furniture—a couch, a couple of armchairs, the big chair behind the desk—was black leather. The desk was neat—nothing on it but the phone and some framed photos, not even a speck of dust. One of the photos was a woman. Rhodes’s mother, Dooley guessed. Another was a family shot—a man, the same woman, a kid who looked like Rhodes, only younger, and a girl who had to be Rhodes’s sister. Two more: single shots of the same two kids.

“Ryan?” It was his uncle, shouting into the phone, it sounded like, but his voice still almost drowned out by music and voices. “Ryan, you there?” he said. It turned out Jeannie had left her cell some place, she couldn’t remember where, and she had been using his all day checking last-minute arrangements, and now it was out of juice. “Jeannie took a room at the hotel,” his uncle said, getting to the point. “We’re going to stay over. I’ll be home some time tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Dooley said. “You want me to call you when I get home?”

“What time’s that going to be?”

“I’m on until closing. Then mop and vacuum and get home, so maybe quarter to one.”

“Hell no, don’t call me,” Dooley’s uncle said. “Just be good, okay?”

“Okay,” Dooley said.

He went back through the house to the kitchen. Gillette was in there now, perched on the counter, an open beer bottle in one hand, talking to someone. At first Dooley didn’t see who it was. Then, as he entered the room, he saw that Esperanza was there, too, pouring potato chips into a couple of bowls, talking softly to Gillette, even smiling at him. She didn’t look nervous around Gillette the way she had around Landers.

Dooley glanced around.

“Looking for this?” Gillette said. He picked up a glass from the counter next to him—Dooley’s glass, with Dooley’s drink in it—and handed it to Dooley. Dooley took it with him back to the party room where Bracey was waiting for him.

“Everything okay?” Bracey said.

Dooley looked around the room. He didn’t see Beth any-where and wondered if she had left. He scanned the room again. Rhodes wasn’t there, either. What did that mean? Jesus, figure it out. A guy like Rhodes, living in a place like this, the guy probably had his pick. Dooley walked over to the easel with the picture of Mark Everley on it and looked down into the glass ball. Rhodes’s cheque, unfolded, was lying right on top. Five hundred dollars. Right. Dooley knocked back half his drink and headed back to the pool table where Bracey was waiting. He picked up his pool cue again. It was early. If he wanted, he had all night.