Early on, Mac and Benny had decided that Bill was a royal pain in the ass.
Mac's eyes drifted to the coffee table in front of the sofa with the soft pillows; it was extra long, custom made. A bowl of fruit, the latest issues of
Field and Stream
and
Redbook,
along with a dish of Spanish nuts, waited.
Rage rushed through Mac. He wanted to smash the room, to rip and gouge everything in his sight. He'd had the feeling before, and it always left as quickly as it surfaced. All of this was by Sadie's choice. If she wanted to live in a fantasy world, who was he to say she should or shouldn't? Downstairs she was as normal as everyone else. Probably more so. The tension in his shoulders eased.
It was a room, and that's all it was.
It was dark outside, Mac realized. He switched on the lamp and closed the draperies, loving the way the room took on an even cozier atmosphere when the fireplace at the far end was lit.
“Mac, you here?” Benny called from the foyer.
“In here,” Mac responded.
“Sadie said to put these in water. She said there's a vase in the bottom of the sink. Good to see you, Mac,” Benny said, slapping his friend on the back. “I called you a couple of times over the past month, but Alice said you guys were busy. So I said shit on you and waited for you to call me.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Mac said with friendly sarcasm. “Let's get those flowers into a vase, and then I want to talk to you. There's something I want you to do for me while I'm away. Are you hungry?”
“No, I'm not hungry. I eat a big lunch because Carol is such a lousy cook. We don't have a cook the way some people do. What do you want to talk about? We can do two things at once.” Benny grinned.
For some reason, Phil Benedict would do anything Mac wanted, and that included letting him call him Benny. He'd deck anyone else. He was tall, pencil thin, with big ears and reddish hair the color of ripe wheat. Light brown freckles danced across his cheeks and nose. His eyes were soft, warm, mellow; Mac called them cow eyes. Benny always retaliated by saying they were good enough to get him the prettiest girl in New York City. He had a dashing, sporty grin which lit up his whole face. Benny was a good friend, a caring friend.
“I want you to find Bill Trinity for Sadie.”
“You want
what
!”
“You heard me. I'm going to give you a check, and you hire a private dick and tell him to find Bill. Snitch one of those pictures off the mantel. With what we both know, maybe we can give the guy enough to come up with something. I don't care what it costs. Don't tell the dick that though. Make him earn his money. Whatever it takes, do it. The only thing is, if it turns out he's dead, don't tell her. If they find him, I want you to go to him, wherever he is, and talk to him before you bring him back, providing he doesn't have a wife. Then I want you to beat the living crap out of him for running out on Sadie.”
Benny's freckles bunched up. “Are you sure we should be sticking our noses into Sadie's business?” he asked worriedly. “I'll do it, I'll do it,” he added hastily. “Have you given any thought to him not wanting to come back? Jesus, Mac, it's been a hell of a long time. I can't force him.”
“When you tell him the way it is here, he'll come. Sadie said he loved her, and women know these things.”
“It's probably going to take forever.”
“So what? You aren't going anywhere but back and forth to the Pentagon.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Benny asked with an edge to his voice.
“It means I'm getting edgy. I guess I didn't tell you I'm going down to Charleston tomorrow. I kind of want to see my uncle Harry again.”
“Is this the same Uncle Harry who never wanted to see you or talk to you after your mother died?” The edge in his voice was rougher now, almost jagged.
“That's the one. I'm gonna ask him some questions.”
He looked nasty, Benny thought, which meant he would be like a terrier with a rat between his teeth. He also wondered why his friend had waited so long to visit his mother's old home. He knew for a fact Mac had only been there twice in his life, and he'd been too young to remember one of those times.
“If it's something you gotta do, then you gotta do it,” Benny said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He carried it to the Formica table and sat down. Mac joined him.
“Look, I don't want to get into all that family jazz. I wanted us to have a friendly visit so I wouldn't feel so damn bad about leaving you behind. I figured we'd reminisce about the good old days, belt a few beers, and then shake hands. I screwed up. Sorry about that, Benny.”
“This coffee is fine; my stomach's been out of whack for a week or so. I think I have an ulcer. Beer would kill me right now. Besides, how in the hell could we reminisce downstairs in the bar with all that racket going on?”
They talked for a long time, Benny doing most of the talking. Mac plucked an orange from the luscious bowl of fruit on the table. Benny watched as his friend ran his thumbnail up one groove and down the other, his thoughts everywhere but on the subject at hand. Finally, their conversation slowed and disappeared into a depressing silence.
“Goddamnit, this is turning into a wake,” Mac said sourly after a few moments. “This might be a good time to clap one another on the back and head home. Me to Alice, and you to your happy little family. Jesus, I envy you, Benny, but at the same time I'm happy for you. Can you understand that?”
“Sure. Look, Mac, why don't you go home and make some sort of peace with Alice?
“Did I ever tell you the only time Alice and I had good sex was the night before her beauty parlor appointment? On Thursday nights she didn't worry about her hair getting mussed up. That's a hell of a thing, isn't it, Benny?”
“Yeah, it is, Mac,” Benny said, straightening his tie. He felt like crying for his friend. “Listen, let's go downstairs, hug Sadie, and shoot two darts at your old man's snoot. Winner buys drinks for the entire bar.”
“Dead center on his nose. You never even came close. It's a sucker bet, but I'm game,” Mac said tightly.
Sadie watched the two favorite men in her life walk over to the dart board. She immediately reached under the bar for a picture of Judge Carlin, blown up three times its original size. She personally thumbtacked it over the bull's-eye and moved back. Tears glistened in her eyes when Mac squared his shoulders before pulling on his cap. This was something new, she thought. Mac never attacked his father when he was dressed in what she referred to as full regalia. Benny either.
The room grew quiet. A dart game required everyone's full attention.
“You first, Benny,” Mac said, stepping back.
Benny felt the urge to cry again. Mac had been right, he'd never even come close to hitting the judge's nose. Usually he got him high on the cheekbone or low on the chin. He squinted, crossed his fingers on his left hand as he said a silent little prayer. He threw.
Sadie's eyebrows shot upward. “Dead center, Mac. You can see the hole real clear.”
Mac waited for the round of applause to quiet down. He adjusted his cap at a rakish angle before he stretched his neck muscles. He didn't wind up, didn't stare at the picture the way he usually did. He threw.
Sadie expelled the long breath she was holding. “You hit the same hole, Mac. Now it looks like there's a pimple on his nose.” No one laughed. They weren't supposed to.
“Two rounds of drinks for the house, Sadie. Benny's buying one and so am I.” He ripped the picture off the dart board and handed it to Sadie, along with two twenty-dollar bills. Benny forked over the same amount.
“I'll . . . guess I'll see you around, Sadie,” Mac said in a choked voice.
Sadie bit down on her lower lip. “I'll be here, Mac. Write, okay?”
“You bet. Allow extra time for the mail, you know . . .”
“I will. I'll write once a week and send you packages. Come here, you big lug.”
The bar grew suddenly noisy, the juke box blared “The Witch Doctor” as Mac folded Sadie in his arms. “Thanks for everything,” he whispered. Sadie struggled from his arms and ran upstairs. To cover the emotion of the moment, Mac playfully punched Benny on the shoulder before he shot off a salute that was so professional, Benny blinked. His own was sloppy in comparison.
“See you, Benny.”
“Yeah.”
When Benny left Bill's Bar and Grill, there was no sign of Mac or his car. He cleared his throat three times before he could take a normal breath. “Fuck you, Judge Carlin,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
Â
M
AC GARAGED THE
car. It was a clear February night and extremely cold. Overhead, the sky was black and sparkling. So many stars. He wished, the way he always had when he was a boy, for peace within himself. He always wished for the same thing when he saw the first spring robin. He'd never told anyone, not even Benny.
He entered the house through the kitchen door, but he didn't stay long in the kitchen. Once it had been his favorite room in the house. It was the place where his mother took him to give him sugar cookies and milk. Sometimes in that room, she told him stories about giants and kings and queens. Now it was for him a tidy, sterile area where food was prepared by a woman whose name changed monthly.
Alice was sitting on the sofa with her legs curled under her. She looked pretty, Mac thought, but she evoked no emotion in him. She wore a mint-green peignoir with lace ruffles. She had one in every color imaginable. He craned his neck to see if she had on matching mules with feathery tendrils. She did. Benny's wife, Carol, didn't own things like that. She wore a pink flannel robe with a belt and slipper socks. He knew because he'd seen her once when one of the twins was sick. He'd stopped by to give Benny a ride to work so she could keep the car that day. The house had smelled like perked coffee and fried bacon.
“Alice,” he said curtly.
“Mac,” Alice said without taking her eyes from the television screen.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E
was her favorite show.
“I need to talk to you, Alice. Now. I have to be up early. I'm going to Charleston, and from there on to the West Coast. I want to discuss a few things. Are you listening to me, Alice?”
“I can hear every word you're saying, Mac. What do you want to talk about?”
Mac walked over to the television set and turned it off. He stood with his back to the screen and faced his wife. “I want to know how it is you got pregnant when you used a diaphragm?” He asked though he knew that diaphragm or not, the baby couldn't be his; he wanted to know how she would explain it.
“What an insidious thing to say. You wait here and don't you dare move. I'll be right back.” She was off the sofa, her peignoir flying behind her, the heels of her mules clicking on the polished floor. She was back a second later with a plastic pouch in her hand. Her face was triumphant. She led her husband over to the table lamp, from which she removed the shade, and held the round piece of rubber against the light. A minute hole appeared as a bright little spot in the latex. “I knew you would say just what you said, that's why I didn't throw this away. It's not my fault!”
“Isn't it going to bother you being alone in a strange country? If you stayed here, at least my father could look after you. All your friends are here.”
“Friends? I don't want them to see me looking like a blimp. I want to hide, don't you understand?”
“No, I don't understand.” He remembered Benny's wife and the way she had trundled along, waddling like a duck, up until the day she delivered. She constantly made jokes about her appearance, and she had let him put his hand on her stomach when the baby kicked. He'd been awestruck, as awestruck as Benny. Benny had worn a sappy expression for the whole nine months. He'd loved the way his wife looked. But then Benny and Carol were in love.
“It's not important for you to understand. As long as I do, that's all that's important. Anyway, why are you going to Charleston? What did your father say?”
“I want to see my uncle Harry, and my father didn't seem too interested in becoming a grandfather. I asked him to keep an eye on you. As for money, I took care of everything.”
“I want
enough,
Mac. Make sure you understand that.”
“I understand, and I said I provided for you. Now, I want to talk about us.”
“Not again, Mac,” Alice said wearily.
“Yes, again. Because I'm not happy, and I don't see how you can be happy. I don't love you, Alice. I want you to think about this marriage. I meant what I said this morning. When I get back, we're going to discuss a divorce seriously.”
Alice felt a flutter of panic. He sounded different than he had this morning. She believed he meant what he said. Where would that leave her? Out in the cold with a kid, that's where.
“I never understood what it was you wanted from me, Mac,” she whined. “Tell me now. If I'm supposed to think about this while you're away, I have to know what it is you
think
I did wrong,”
“I wanted you to be, a wife,” Mac said coolly. “Do you know that in our entire marriage, you never even made me a cup of coffee?”
Alice's laugh was shrill. “Listen, Mac, you were the one who hired the cook. You said you didn't want me to do anything but be here for you. That's exactly what you said. And that's what I did. I got used to this way of life to please
you
, and now you tell me you're going to take it away from me when you get back? No you're not. I'll fight you. I've made a life for myself, and I'm going to keep it, and that's all I have to say about it,” Alice snapped. “Is there anything else?”