He sat at the bar, his feet planted on the rail, his fingers knotted around the half-empty pilsner. The room was silent, the piano covered, all the lights out save the few small ones that burned all night even when he wasn’t in the place. He wondered how many nights he’d spent this way, sitting alone after the place had closed, staring at his own face in the mirror across the bar. That was the thing about being alone, it numbed you after a while, so that you really didn’t notice just how alone you were. Then suddenly, someone showed up, and she had a certain look and spoke a certain way, and you realized how much you’d lost.
What he had not imagined was the sheer, heart-stopping excitement he felt in the simple thought of her. The moment she came into his mind, all the old songs made sense again. He felt their tingle and their fever, and the strange exquisite jeopardy they conveyed. He wanted to put his foot down, get a grip, but he knew he couldn’t, not with this one. He wanted to believe that she was just a woman, like others, just a woman passing through his life. But each time he tried to do that, he remembered some little thing about her, and all his will went flying out the window, and he knew that she was not at all like any other woman he’d ever met.
But what made her different?
The answer came so quickly, he knew that it was true.
What made her different?
A courage so raw, he could almost see it bleed.
He didn’t know what was eating at her, whether it was real or something inside her head. He knew only that she was trying desperately to stay ahead of it, and that you had to have guts to run that long and hard, always alert for the sound of footsteps behind you, always glancing over your shoulder. He didn’t know how long she’d have to live this way. He knew only that it was part of the package, something you signed on for if you signed on for her.
And that’s what he’d done, he knew, he’d signed on. But for what exactly? He shook his head at his helplessness. If it were a movie, he’d know what to do. If it were a guy bothering her, he’d be like Gary Cooper or somebody like that. Man of the West, that was the movie he thought of. He’d be like Gary Cooper in Man of the West. The problem was that in the movies it always ended with that final showdown. No cops came around later to investigate. No guys in lab coats examining fibers. No grand jury mulling it over. No fourteen-page indictment, no lengthy trial, no heart-stopping conviction… no consequences at all. In the movies, a bad guy was dead, and, quite rightly, nobody gave a fuck.
The door opened and he saw Mortimer’s face hanging like a funeral wreath in the air.
“Hey, Abe,” he said.
“Mort,” Abe answered dully, his mind still on Samantha, how at sea he was.
Mortimer took off his hat and flopped it down on one of the stools while he slid up on the one beside it.
Abe poured him a drink.
“Thanks,” Mortimer said. He knocked back the scotch, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. “So, what’s new?”
“Not much,” Abe said. He’d meant to say nothing more, but suddenly he thought of Samantha again, and despite the fact that Mortimer was hardly the guy he’d normally have talked to about anything important, he said, “I met this woman.”
Mortimer seemed delighted not by what Abe had said, the fact that he’d met a woman, but simply that Abe had mentioned it to him. “No kidding,” he said. He idly circled the rim of his glass with a single finger. “Good for you.” His finger abruptly stopped its circuit and he looked at Abe like a guy who wanted to give good advice. “ ’Cause we ain’t got long, you know?”
Abe wiped the bar with a white cloth. “No, we don’t.”
Mortimer glanced away, his eyes now fixed on the front window, the gray, cascading rain. “So don’t let this one get away,” he said.
“I may have to,” Abe said.
“Why’s that?”
Abe realized that he didn’t know Mortimer Dodge nearly well enough to be talking to him this way. He laughed. “Ah, nothing. She doesn’t talk about it, but, I don’t know, it’s got me thinking maybe I should start packing a gun.”
“A gun?” Mortimer asked. “What for?”
Abe waved his hand, now sorry that he’d brought it up, since the whole thing had finally sunk into nothing more substantial than a cowboy movie fantasy. “In case some guy’s bothering her, which maybe there is and maybe there isn’t.”
“More like a chance of it,” Mortimer said thoughtfully. “Like it could be a guy.”
“Yeah.”
Mortimer nodded. “So, you got a gun, Abe?”
Abe laughed. “Of course not,” he said. He poured Mortimer another drink. “So, what’s new with you, Morty?”
“Same,” he said without emphasis.
“Nothing new on your… condition?”
“I’m a dead man,” Mortimer said. “So what?”
“So what?” Abe asked.
Mortimer looked at him without expression. “It ain’t like I got much to lose.”
“It’s harder, I guess,” Abe said, thinking of Samantha again. “It’s harder when you do.”