61
HE SHOULD’VE left her his number at La Habana Inn. Why didn’t he leave her his number?
Because he knew she might not call it, that’s why. And he didn’t want to give her that chance.
The bar is smooth gray marble, and Daniel keeps running his hand over it, his fingertips dipping into only one or two chipped veins. The room is loud with happy voices, the jazz music turned to rock and roll now, a song he doesn’t know, nor does he know the man looking back at him in the mirror behind the bottles of rum and bourbon and scotch. He’s dressed in a light green “summer-weight” jacket and open-collared silk shirt, and the expensive sunglasses sitting on top of his head make him look like the kind of guy who does all his wheeling and dealing on the golf course or some boat and he’s just ducked inside to make a few calls. His eyes are still too close together, and he has his mother’s long hooked nose, his father’s jutting ears, and his work glasses hang from his neck, but he appears to be a man at the peak of his powers, all of his hard work paying off, and why not look like this when he finally sees her again? Why not look like the kind of guy who can take care of her now?
An ivory cocktail napkin is placed in front of him by a young hand. “Good evening, sir. What can I get you?”
The bartender’s hair is dark and greased back like McGonigle used to wear his, though this kid’s eyes have life in them.
“Just wine.”
“Red or white, sir?”
“Red.”
“I just poured a California Pinot. Would you care for a taste?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He should call her back. He should ask if he can come to her house. But then what?
Daniel sits in the bar chair beside him. It’s upholstered in a soft fabric and receives his weight as uncomplainingly as an old friend you can count on, though that’s nothing he knows anything about. At the end of the bar, a black couple lean close to one another over a blue votive candle and a bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket. She’s all dolled up with red lipstick and styled hair, her gold earrings big circles that touch her brown throat. Her man is in a dark jacket and tie, his shirt a deep orange, his forehead nearly touching the woman’s as they both laugh over something.
Pee Wee Jones could still be alive, he could. He also got second-degree, so he could be out now. Felons aren’t supposed to be around other felons, but Daniel’s parole’s been over for years. He should look him up on the computer. Maybe he’ll even do it at the one in that Business Office back at his inn. But what’s Pee Wee’s real name? Daniel never knew his real first name.
The bartender could be McGonigle’s little brother. He sets an empty wine glass on Daniel’s napkin then pours in a splash of red. Daniel waits for him to continue, but the young man just holds the bottle and looks at him and waits. Daniel looks back at him.
“Would you care to sample it first, sir?”
Daniel sips it, and the wine tastes like the sun on the torch pines over his trailer, its heat sifting down into him like good news he’s forgotten to celebrate. He nods and the waiter fills Daniel’s glass then asks something about dinner, and Daniel must have nodded or said something because there’s a long black menu on the marble in front of him.
A woman laughs. Daniel turns toward her sound, but two chairs down a big man leans against the bar with his back to Daniel blocking his view, so Daniel looks at her reflection in the mirror between bottles of gin and vodka. She’s a deeply tanned blonde, though her hair looks like a wig, and she’s a large woman and he thinks of Lois. He wonders if she’s still alive. She’d be in her eighties now, but she could be. She could.
It is a crime they’re letting you out. I hope they hurt you in there. If you come looking for Susan you will be sorry.
The pain he caused that woman. Did she take it with her to the grave? Or is she still carrying it around the way he carries his?
But he’s breathing, isn’t he? Sitting here in his new suit drinking wine at a fancy bar. He’s got a pocket full of cash, and he should go find his daughter and give her every penny of it right now.
The young bartender is passing by, two bottles of Heineken in one hand, two frosted glasses in the other. He stops and leans close to Daniel. “What’s that, sir?”
Daniel shakes his head at him and says, “Nothing. I’m all set.”
“No dinner?”
That’s not what he means, but sure, no dinner. Who the hell is he to eat in a place like this? The bartender nods with a kind of automatic respect they must teach in bartending schools, and he heads to the end of the bar where the black couple sits. Daniel’s lower back and hips may as well be sitting on a throne of heated razor blades. He takes a long drink of his wine. His stomach is as empty as it’s ever been, and the wine has snaked into his head and lifted his brain and sent it floating. The big man to his right raises up off his elbow and lifts three fingers to McGonigle to bring them all another round.
But he should eat something. He needs to eat.
The woman laughs again, and Daniel stares at her in the mirror. Her plump shoulders are deep brown, and there are thin white lines in her upper throat where her double chin didn’t allow in the sun. Daniel pictures her lying in some lawn chair with a book, her large breasts fanning out. Around her neck are three wide gold bands, and she lifts her martini glass and laughs again before she sips. She’s like a lady from another time, the kind at the center of the room everybody relies on for good food and good cheer, and he thinks of one of those Sunday dinners at Lois’s brother’s house. Linda had had the baby, and she sat on the couch with her sleeping in her arms. For these dinners Uncle Gio and his wife would set up a long folding table in the living room because it was the biggest one in the house, and it had a bay window that looked out over the yard and the street. Lois sat at the end of the table telling a story. It must’ve been a funny one because her brothers and their wives were all laughing. Danny kept looking from Lois to his wife and baby on the sofa. It was dusk outside, and his little family sat up against that bay window in shadow. Linda smiled at him sleepily, and it was clear to Danny that whatever story Lois was telling, Linda had heard it many times before, but the thing is Lois looked so happy telling it again. This lady in this hotel bar is telling a story now too, her eyes lit up the way Lois’s had been, like life is one big party full of one good story after another, and you shouldn’t let anything keep you from telling them over and over again. Ever. Nothing should keep you from seeing life like that.
Daniel sips more wine. Shards of glass might as well be scraping his thighbones, and he shifts in his seat. He needs to get that tin of aspirin in his truck. And shit, he’d told that valet kid that he’d be right out. But he’s thinking of how Lois looked in court at his sentencing. She went up to the stand and read a statement. Her words had stayed with him a long time because she talked about Linda as a little girl. She talked about what a worker she was. How she took care of her little brother Paul, how she was good with numbers and could read a whole book in one day. How beautiful she was, though she never “flaunted” it. Flaunted. That word hung in his head all the way from court to lockup to Walpole to Norfolk. It hung there a long time.
Lois wore a gray sweater over a black dress, and her hair was up high on her head like always, her makeup heavy, her lipstick dark, but even with all this it was like looking at a rosebush that had faded in the sun, and he kept thinking of how happy she could get at her brother Gio’s table, like loud good-time joy was the only thing that could come out of her, and then along came Danny “The Sound” Ahearn.
The big man with his back to him laughs now, and Daniel raises a finger to McGonigle to bring him back the menu. He has no right to eat, but Daniel can feel his strength ebbing like a low tide that may never rise again, and he should’ve jumped off the Tobin Bridge that Sunday morning so long ago. He should have done at least that much for Lois and her family. And maybe he should’ve done it for Suzie, too. Suzie whose house he’s going to drive to just as soon as he gets something inside of him, something he does not deserve but will take all the same.