THE ONLY NAME I HAVE FOR HIM IS PHIL. IT COULD BE HIS name. Who knows? Age, I would say, late twenties. I think he is Italian. Maybe Jewish, but I would think Italian. On the short side. Maybe five-foot-seven. A little shorter than myself, I would say. Dark hair, black, not too long and not too short. No part, just combed straight back. A pointed face like a piece of pie, you know what I mean? Like a triangle. Long nose. Thin lips. Pockmarks on his cheeks and chin. Walks with his shoulders hunched forward. Thin in the body. Very nervous, with the hands moving all the time…
When we’d been over it three times, when we had all he had to give us, I told him he should forget he ever saw us. “You shouldn’t worry,” he said. “You were never here, I never met you, you shouldn’t worry.”
We left the store, walked two blocks, turned a corner, stood waiting for a cab. Jackie was overdue now. She said, “Oh, Jesus, we got to get home. We got to get home. Is it cold out, Alex?”
“Not very.”
“I’m shivering. See how I’m shaking? He gave it to us straight, though. He didn’t want to, but he gave it to us straight.”
“Like you said, we bribed him and we scared him.” She shook visibly again, and I put an arm around her to steady her. “You think he’ll tell Phil?”
“Are you kidding? Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
A cab drew up. She said, “Later,” and we got in. She gave the driver the same false address half a block from her building. I sat back and she shrank against me. I put an arm around her and drew her close. She buried her face against my chest. She was shaking, and I held her tight and tried to steady her. Her whole body kept tightening up, then relaxing, then going tight again.
It was a long ride in bad traffic. From time to time she would get hold of herself and it was better, but then the shaking and twitching would come back worse than before. She was a wreck by the time we got out of the cab. I tried to talk to her on the way to her building but she was incapable of speech. She held onto my hand and hurried me along.
Inside her apartment, she said again, “You don’t want to see this,” and disappeared into the bedroom. I walked around the living room until she came back. I thought about what it was like to need something more man any person should need anything. A drink, or a woman. I thought first that those needs were different, that they didn’t make one shake that much or sweat that way. Then I decided that they were the same after all, that one hangup is the same as another, that the shakes were always there.
When she came into the living room she told me that she wished she was dead. I told her to cut it out. She said she meant it. I kissed her, and she started to cry, and I held onto her and kissed her until she stopped.
I left her sitting on the couch, eyes closed, while I made us some coffee. When I sat down next to her I asked her how she knew the man would not tip off Phil.
“The same reason he finally told you. He’s scared.”
“That I’ll come back and kill him? I think I meant it when I said it but-”
“Not that. You didn’t see his face.”
“I thought I did.”
Then you didn’t read it right. When you said that to him he was looking right at you, at your face, and that’s when he got it. He recognized you, Alex. He knows who you are.”
“Oh, no-”
“I should of thought of it right away. Maybe I would of been afraid of it. The one thing he doesn’t want is to get involved in a murder. That would put him up tight all around, he couldn’t stand it. So all he can do is put you onto Phil and hope the two of you kill each other or something and that it doesn’t ever get back to him.”
“He won’t call the police?”
“Never.”
“He could call anonymously. Tell them I’m wearing an army uniform, something like that.”
She shook her head. “He wants you to get away for now. If you get picked up now, he knows you’re going to talk about that watch. All he wants is to keep out of it.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t think he would ever of told us otherwise. You want to know something, baby? People are just too much. When he thought we were just a couple of people who got robbed he wouldn’t even tell us what time it was. But as soon as you’re a murderer, then he wants to give us his right arm on a silver dish. People are beautiful.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Alex? I got to fall out for a little while. I won’t be asleep, just sitting. But I can’t talk. You want to watch the television? Or put on some music on the radio?”
“Maybe some music.”
“Something slow and quiet. I had a little more just now than I should of.”
“Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You sure?”
“Ummm.”
I took the cigarette from between her fingers and put it out. She sat virtually motionless for a little over an hour, now and then nodding her head slightly in time to the music. When she came up out of it she asked me for a cigarette. I lit one for her. She took two puffs on it and gave it back and asked me to put it out. I did.
She said that I must hate her. I said I loved her, and we went to bed.