He never knew when she was coming, that’s why he had to pay close attention to all the omens. Otherwise she would take him by surprise.
This morning, for instance, in Indianapolis.
He was playing cards all night with Maxie Hearn and two guys who made TV commercials. They were in Maxie’s penthouse on top of a building on English Avenue. He won twenty-six thousand dollars.
The sun was rising when he showed them his last hand. A king, two aces and two eights.
‘Hey!’ Maxie said. ‘Bad news!’
‘What?’
‘A pair of eights and a pair of aces. You know what that means?’
‘No.’
‘They call it a deadman’s hand.’
That was all the warning he needed. He got out of there. Fast.
He got off the elevator on the third floor and went down the service stairs to the back exit. He was trembling, sweaty, his lips were chalky, there were black dots swirling all over the walls. The old familiar symptoms of pure funk.
He cut through an alley, hid behind a tree.
She was there!
Sitting on a bench on English Avenue, watching the apartment entranceway.
He ran back through the alley to Prospect Street.
He didn’t bother to go to his hotel. There was nothing there worth keeping. Christ! How many neckties had he left behind in how many hotel rooms in how many cities? How many books, cigars, jackets, extra pairs of shoes, toothbrushes …?
He had a getaway valise in a locker at the bus terminal. He took a Greyhound to Lebanon, another to Crawfordville, another to Lafayette.
Once, years and years ago, he’d written a song about his many narrow escapes.
Ho! ho! ho! ho!
Just go Joe go go go!
She’ll get you if you go too slow!
Not much of a song. Not much to ho! ho! about. But it was better than a requiem.
It was raining in Lafayette.
That night he flew to San Francisco. She wasn’t on the plane, thank God!