‘Yeah. Thanks, man.’ He sat down again. Tom waited in the ensuing silence.
‘This is my mother and my brother,’ Lucia said grudgingly. Tom had seen this before: the truly well-brought-up could no more dispense with the social graces than fly to the moon. Tom had once been punched in the eye by a bereaved husband who’d prefaced the blow with ‘Mr Patrick? I’m sorry to trouble you …’
Lucia’s mother nodded at him minutely and said, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but obviously didn’t give a shit about meeting him or anyone else any more. Louis had slumped again and was staring at his own hands.
Tom looked at Lucia. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
Her eyes widened and he realized his words echoed those he’d used in the club that first time. Before the Motel 6. Before he’d held her smooth-skinned body against his. Before she’d …
His face must have betrayed some kind of acknowledgement of his own stupidity because she said, ‘Sure.’
They went to the coffee bar closest to the gate. Now that she was no longer hostile, Lucia just looked dog-tired and very young.
‘I couldn’t call you back.’
She shrugged, like she hadn’t really expected him to anyway, and that bugged him enough that he told her the truth. Or the truth without touching on his relationship with Ness. Why he left that out, he wasn’t sure – as if a whore gave a shit who her clients went home to.
She stopped meeting his eyes around the point where he told her he’d been bundled into the trunk of a Thunderbird in the Sawmill parking lot, and he knew he’d lost her. From that point on, the story seemed unreal, even to him.
At the end, he said, ‘You think I’m lying.’
She was drawing idly in the foam on her cappuccino with a wooden stirrer.
‘Look,’ he said, and pulled up the leg of his jeans to show her the freshly stitched lacerations. ‘And my car’s still in the lot behind the Sawmill. At least, it should be. The black Buick, remember?’
She half smiled: ‘That beat-up old car.’
‘Believe me now?’
‘Look, I don’t even care.’
Of course she didn’t. Her sister was dead. Why should she give half a good goddamn whether he called her or not; whether he told the truth or not; whether he was alive or dead.
‘Can I get your number again?’ He pulled a pen and a five-dollar bill from his pocket.
She looked wary.
‘In case I can help.’
He knew that was a lie and hated himself for how easily it came to him. He wrote the number on the bill when Lucia gave it to him in a tired voice.
As she spoke, he let his eyes drop to her V-neck T-shirt and saw the start of her firm little breasts there, then forced his gaze elsewhere. Ogling the bereaved would be a new low for him, and he’d only just caught himself.
‘Listen,’ he started. ‘About your sister—’
‘Let’s not talk about it, okay?’ she said quickly.
‘Sure.’ He wondered what the hell they were supposed to talk about instead. Her schoolwork? Her pool-hustling career? Read any good books lately? Fucked any nice johns?
‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘My mother’s flight is boarding.’
‘You’re not going with her?’
‘Louis is. I’m going back to LA. I got to work tonight.’
He jerked his chin at her mother and brother. ‘Do they know where?’
‘What do you think?’ There was no anger in her voice, only contempt.
He shrugged apologetically.
‘Yeah,’ she said wearily, and stood up.
‘I’m going home too. You want to try and sit together?’
‘I want to be alone. Thanks for the coffee,’ she said, and walked away. Well brought up, even in the face of his crassness.
He saw her briefly later as they boarded but her eyes were fixed on the back of the woman in front of her, and she worked hard at not looking around.
*
He met Ness in the parking lot of the Bicycle Club. Her cheek was swollen and her eye half closed. ‘Don’t stare,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ he said, but couldn’t stop.
‘I’m not coming in with you.’
‘Okay.’
