“That’s when she lost her temper?”
“At the hospital that night. I was just banged up a little is all. Till she started laying into me. Called me every name in the book at the top of her lungs. It got so bad, they wanted to give her a shot of something and strap her down. I told them to leave her alone, ’cause I had it coming. And I knew she was just scared because of what I almost done to myself.”
“And you think she might have lost her temper like that with Inman?”
“I think she could’ve. He was always pushing, always digging. Always accusing her of this and that. For all I know, they really were off to someplace warm and then he started in on her. Calling her a slut, a whore. Saying she fucked this guy, she fucked that guy. Maybe she just lost it. With him, she was damn close to the edge most of the time. And she could cut you when she wanted to. She’d say shit that’d make you bleed like a stuck pig, whether it was true or not.”
“So what do you think she might have said that night?”
“His big thing was… I mean, the thing he was always throwing in her face was the sex stuff. It was like, ‘How many dirty cocks did you suck today, bitch? Who’d you fuck today, slut?’ If he wasn’t accusing her of fucking, he was telling her she was too ugly to fuck, she was all used up. She was just a fuckbag is all. That was his nickname for her. Fuckbag. That really used to piss me off.”
“And you think she might have finally had all she could take of it.”
“I can hear her, man. I mean, I didn’t; I don’t know for sure. But I can hear what she might have said. It would’ve been like, ‘You want to know what I did today? I sucked some stranger’s dick, then Huston fucked me three times, then DeMarco came in my ass. Then after lunch, I sucked DeMarco’s cock and licked out Huston’s asshole.’ And on and on and on. She could be as crude as they come, I’ll tell you that. But she was no whore. She did Inman because she was afraid of him, plus she had a couple of private customers who treated her right. But she was no goddamn whore. And I am glad as hell that sick, twisted motherfucker is dead. I just wish I’d had the balls to be the one who took him out.”
By now, Moby was sitting huddled over, scrunched up in misery with the plastic coffee mug pressed to his chest.
DeMarco sipped his coffee for a while. It was only his second of the morning, but it tasted bitter already. It tasted like his fifth cup, when his stomach would start to sour and a tight astringency would rise into his throat. He set the half-empty cup on the table beside the full one. I need to start treating my stomach better, he thought.
Then he looked at Moby again. A small man in a too-large suit, stubbly cheeked, hopeless and alone, wet eyes blinking back tears.
DeMarco told him, “You can’t be falling asleep in here with the heat turned off, Moby. Have you been like this since the funeral?” He was answered with a look from baleful eyes, a look that asked him, What difference does it make?
DeMarco told him, “I could get you into a place in Erie if you’d let me. Sort of a community house. You’d have your own room probably, but there’d be a few other people around. It’s a place where everybody sort of watches out for each other.”
“You’re saying I can’t take care of myself. Maybe I don’t want to.”
“Fine. Turn the heat off and fall asleep. The kind of sleep you don’t wake up from, is that what you want? If so, I hope you like the idea of rats crawling around in your stomach, because that’s what’s going to happen in a day or so. The minute you start to stink. You’ll be a rat smorgasbord in no time at all. They start out anywhere they can find an opening—eyes, nose, asshole, you name it. Eat their way inside, invite the family and all the neighbors in, then they just slurp and chomp away. You end up as rat shit scattered all over your own floor. It’s a very efficient process.”
Moby hugged himself and shivered. After a while he said, “They going to let me drink in that place?”
“You know better than that.”
Another minute of silence. Then, “Am I going to get Bonnie’s car back at least?”
“When you’re ready for it, I’ll see that you get it. Same thing with Bonnie’s house.”
“Is there blood all over it? The car, I mean. Where she was sitting.”
“You can have the seats replaced. There’ll probably be some money coming to you as well. Did she own Whispers or rent the building?”
“Rented.”
“So that’s one thing you won’t have to worry about. You get yourself right, and I’ll see that everything of hers goes to you. But not unless you get yourself right.”
“If it’s mine, you can’t keep it from me.”
“You’d be surprised what I can do, Moby.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a decent guy.”
“You think Bonnie wants you to be rat shit? I’m doing this for her, whether you like it or not.”
Moby sniffed a couple of times. “What about him?”
“Who? Inman?”
“Where’d they bury him?”
“He was cremated.”