“Choked? Did you—”
“No. I did not kill him. I wanted to, but instead I just scared him plenty.”
Charlie was quiet, staring at Joy’s gloves clinging limply to the edge of the bucket. “Well, good for you. I’m sure the little bastard deserved it.”
Tünde shrugged. “In the moment, yes. But now I have lawsuit. Which is why I need money. To leave town before they make me pay. Anyway, I must go to other job.”
Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, carefully counting out the money he had agreed to pay her when they’d spoken on the phone the night before. When he handed it over, Tünde counted the bills again then pulled on her coat and scarf and walked to the back door. Things might have ended between them right then and there, but that’s when she stopped. “Oh,” she said, reaching into her pocket and turning around, holding something out to him. “I almost forgot. Receipt for groceries from the Whole Foods.”
“Thanks,” he said when she came closer again and he took it from her.
“You are welcome. But I think now you are the one forgetting something, yes?”
Charlie stared at her, then stared down at the receipt, trying to figure out what she meant. And then, all at once, he realized and reached into his wallet again, pulling out the amount equal to what it said on the receipt, rounding up a few dollars for change. When he handed the bills to Tünde, she smiled then turned again and walked to the door, pulling it open. At the sight of her about to leave, he braced himself for the silence and loneliness to follow, except there came a cloud of thought drifting through the blank blue sky of his mind just then. It made him say, “Wait.”
She turned to look at Charlie. “Yes?”
“I think . . . No, I know that I already gave you the money for groceries before you left for the store.”
“Of course you did not. I would remember.”
“Well, you should remember. Because we stood right here in this kitchen, I’m sure of it, and I took out my wallet and handed you the money. So you need to give it back.”
“You said yourself your head is not working in right way. I help you to straighten out your medicines. You swallow few pills and like that you have brain of Einstein. I don’t think so. Now, I must go.”
“No,” Charlie told her.
“You are just like your wife,” she said in a disgusted voice. “She accused me of stealing too. Then fired me. I did not steal then. I did not steal now.”
The thunderbolt, the squiggly line—those things flashed in his mind, but Charlie tried not to get distracted. He glanced at the face of The Pig silently watching the moment unfold.
“I don’t know what my wife accused you of stealing, but I know I gave you the money. Give it back now and we’ll both walk away. And I don’t think you should come here anymore either.”
Tünde closed the door. She walked slowly across the kitchen until she was standing impossibly close to him. Charlie looked up into those deep inset eyes of hers. His heart pounded in his chest. A buzzing rang in his ears until he heard those kids screaming in some long-ago memory: In this corner, we have the Hungarian Barbarian! Standing at a hulking six-feet-one and built like a brick shit-house, the other ladies in the ring better get ready for an ass-whooping like they’ve never seen!
“So,” she said, “I ask you, Mr. Charlie Webster, are you calling me thief?”
“All I’m saying is that I already gave you the money. Maybe it was a simple mix-up. But I know that I did. My mind is not totally gone, after all. So you can’t just—”
“Funny how you have so much to say now. But you never did then.”
“What are you talking about?”