Road Dogs

TWENTY-TWO

LITTLE JIMMY WAITED ON HIS KNEES IN THE CONFESSIONAL for the window to slide open. He could hear the faint sound of a woman's voice on the other side of the priest but not her words. The priest's name was on the middle door, msgr. william easton. Jimmy had entered the door on the right to kneel here in the dark waiting: Msgr. William Easton, higher up than a priest and maybe was old, having been a priest long enough to be made a monsignor. The next higher title was a bishop. Jimmy had never heard of a bishop hearing confessions. Now he heard the woman's window slide closed. A few moments later his window came open on its tracks and he could make out the priest through the screen leaning toward him, his hand supporting his head, close to Jimmy but not looking at him.

Monsignor Easton said, "Yes?"

Little Jimmy said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," making

the sign of the cross as he offered this admission. "It has been twenty-seven years since my last confession." He paused as Monsi-gnor Easton raised his head from his hand. "Twenty-seven years."

"Yes, Father. Since then I have missed Mass almost fourteen hundred times, though I go to midnight Mass sometimes at Christmas if a friend desires to go, and also on Easter Sunday when I was still living in Cuba, my home."

The monsignor asked Little Jimmy if he was married.

"No, I have never the desire."

"You keep company with women?"

"Not to speak of. Though in the past year I have been more with women than before. I thought to myself, well, as a new experience it wasn't so bad."

"Up to this time you've been chaste?"

"You mean, Father, by dudes? If I like the guy he don't have to chase me."

"You're saying you have relations with men."

"Almost all my life."

"Did you ever tell it in confession?"

"No, I didn't think I was committing a sin. The dude was always willing. You know, a single guy. We fool around, we not hurting anybody."

"Possibly not, but it is a mortal sin."

"Why? They don't say in the Bible don't do it."

"Not clearly, but it's implied," Monsignor Easton said. "Are you involved in the sale of drugs or other illegal activities?"

"No, I hardly touch it. I smoke weed, you know, but only a few times a week to relax my mind. The illegal activities? I'm not sure of this. Some funds have been used to pay prison guards, but it wasn't for me, so I don't see I was committing a sin. It was for my boss when he was an inmate in Florida."

There was a silence, one long enough that Little Jimmy wondered if the monsignor had fallen asleep, bored from hearing the same old thing; though some of the confessions he heard in Venice, man, might be hard to believe.

"Can you tell me," the monsignor said, "why it's been twenty-seven years since you've been to confession?"

"The last time before this," Little Jimmy said, "I was in prison in Cuba for a crime that didn't hurt no one. I was afraid I would die at the hands of prisoners desiring to make love to me in an excessive manner. But I was save by my boss, also in that prison, Combinado, before it could happen."

The monsignor said, "And this time, why are you confessing?"

"I want to be on the safe side, confess to missing Mass fourteen hundred times," Little Jimmy said, "because I'm going to dinner in honor of my boss. There is a possibility he could have the fortuneteller, who's preparing the food, poison me."

Again there was a silence.

"This is the same boss who saved your life the time before, when you were in prison?"

"Yes, I don't think in my heart he'll have her poison me. He would be more likely to have someone shoot me. But there are times, since he's with this fortune-teller woman again, he acts crazy. Is why I don't want to take a chance. You know, if I have sins on my soul."

Again he waited.

This time the monsignor said, "Do you remember how to say the Act of Contrition?"

"Yes, of course," Little Jimmy said. "Oh my God I'm heart'ly sorry for having offended Thee-"

"Wait," Monsignor Easton said. "Let me give you your penance first."

Little Jimmy came out of St. Mark's making a sign of the cross with the hand he'd dipped in the holy water font and approached his Bentley standing at the curb. His driver Zorro, resting against the front fender with his arms folded, took his time turning to open the door.

"You confess your sins? Tell the priest everything you been doing?"

"Everything."

"Some sins he never heard of before?" "Nothing outrageous."

"What do you do for penance, flagellate yourself?"

"Don't be disgusting. I say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys," Little Jimmy said, "and anything I did to get God pissed at me is forgiven."

By six Tico was sitting in the kitchen of Cundo's home drinking red wine with Dawn who wasn't drinking, quiet for a change, not bothering Tico with situations from his past life, Tico talking, asking why Cundo bought fifteen-dollar wine-the price sticker still on the bottle-when he could afford to pay fifty, a hundred dollars a bottle and serve his guests a vintage they could swirl in their big fishbowl wineglasses and smack their lips over. "Is the man cheap? Let me start over. Is the man a cheap motherfucker? I'm forgetting my heritage, my sweet mama getting out of Arkansas soon as she hears big-city niggas talking, they visiting Tunica, Mississippi, to lay money on the gaming tables. Soon as she understood what they saying she's gone. My mama say to me I'm high-yella with a Costa Rica tan. What I have to do, talk to some of these stone-ass hip-hoppers, get me the latest nigga expressions, so I ain't going around saying, 'How you doing, my man?' stead of 'Sup, bro?' Walk away I say, 'Have a good one.' Foley I bet could teach me how to talk and his speech is mostly pure white. Tha's where you learn the expressions, among the bad boys, the jive-ass gangbangers showing off, dying to get out and shoot some dude, anybody, it don't matter."

They sat at the kitchen table, two ashtrays and the bottle of red on the clean round surface.

"You're rambling," Dawn said. "Is it the wine or your nerves?"

"I'm a ramblin' man," Tico said, wearing a white shirt mostly unbuttoned and a lavender scarf over his black curls. "You hear me ramblin' means I feel good."

"But no rambling at dinner," Dawn said, "when I'm talking to Cundo. I have very specific things I want to tell him."

"This man with the temper, stings you with his talk and slugs you in the belly."

"Slaps my face when he feels like it."

"Be the revenge of the fortune-teller. You see it working?"

"Sweetie, all you have to do is serve, exactly the way I told you, leaving the top on the silver platter you place at Cundo's end of the table. You don't remove the cover."

"Want to keep the food hot."

"That's right. I give you a nod and you take it off."

"I never been a waiter, but I can do it with style," Tico said. "What's Cundo up to?"

"Sleeping off lunch. He had a few La Yumas, what he calls straight rum over ice."

Tico grinned. "He's having a good time being out of prison. What about Little Jimmy?"

"He'll be here."

"You say he scared to death of Cundo. You sure he's coming?" "I told him not to worry about Cundo, I'll see he behaves himself. Jimmy's in love with me. You know I'm his first woman."

"What about Foley?"

"He's in love with me too, but it's giving him problems."

"No, what I ask, is he coming?"

"I'm afraid Dr. Jack's gonna miss the party."

"He don't want to be here, you cooking dinner?"

"He's trying his luck with Danny Karmanos. If he can't play the ghost expert," Dawn said, "he'll try to dazzle her with close-call situations from his life in crime. Like he's about to leave a bank just as the police pull up in front. Danny can't wait to hear how he gets away."

"How does he?"

"You have to hear him tell it," Dawn said, "lets you know how clever he is. One of his tricks, he says something funny and closes in while you're laughing."

"Takes you by surprise," Tico said.

"With Danny, I can see him trying to kiss her and she stops him cold. Who does this phony baloney think he is? Dr. Jack is not in her league and she lets him know it. Danny's a movie star and he's what, a fucking bank robber."

"She say that to him?"

"In a nice way," Dawn said.

The way Foley told it to Danny:

"The time I almost got caught I was lucky. It was the rainy season out here. I pulled the job in a raincoat and stuffed the money in an umbrella I kept closed. I'm almost out of the bank and there's a black-and-white Crown Vic in front, the two uniforms out of the car stopping people from entering the bank, telling them a robbery's in progress. They waved to us, just inside the door, to come out, and that's how I managed to slip past the cops, with the rain people. As soon as the police stepped inside, I took off. Remember

Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain? That was me splashing along Hollywood Boulevard with an umbrella full of money."

This was earlier, Foley telling true-crime tales on Danny's patio, the two sipping vodkas with lime juice, Danny grinning, shining her eyes at Foley, though Peter was still around somewhere.

Time for a swim. The best time, Danny said, dusk settling in.

Foley now in his low-rise briefs rather than a pair of Peter's trunks-even the ones Danny said Peter had never worn-Foley preferring to look like a Calvin Klein ad in the low-rise grabbers. Danny had a towel around the skimpy bottom of her two-piece, reminding Foley of Sports Illustrated, the one with all the chicks in their swimsuits. He always referred to those bits of cloth the girls wore, ones you could ball up in one hand, as swimsuits. His favorite was the chick standing with her thumb hooked in the waist of her panties. They hadn't been in yet but stood holding or wearing towels, Foley hanging his in front, then after a while over his shoulder. Hey, let's go if we're going.

They were standing by the open cabana on the patio side of her California hacienda, looking at the swimming pool as Danny said, "Wait, you're about to see it." She turned, shading her eyes to look at the sun, and brought her gaze back to the pool. "Watch the water. The sun hits it at just the right angle and there's something spooky about it and yet you want to dive in. There! Watch the pool, the way the sun takes its last look and seems to lie there, dark all around before it seems to sink in the water and I start to shiver. Look, I'm shivering right now."

Or putting it on.

"Can you cry when you want? I mean acting." "I'm not good at crying when I'm overwhelmed with happiness. I have the happy crying scenes rewritten. I told the director

I'm a tough born-again but can show little hints that I'm moved by what's happening to me. It's fun." She said, "Last night I took a dip with the pool lights off."

With only the moon, Foley thought, lighting the scene.

"With a dreary moon, dark clouds passing in front. What do you think sneaked into my mind?"

What if Peter is here? Foley thought.

"What if Peter is here?" Danny said. "Dawn believes his spirit is still in the house, or someone's spirit. Her manner put me off, the way she judges you with that condescending tone. But I believe most of what she told me. You saw the rocking chair."

"What I do," Foley said, "is not think about it."

"But I live here with it."

"Give it away. Or, if you want, I'll bring a smudge pot the next time I come. Dawn swears it'll run any spirits hanging around. Or, she said if you stand up to the ghost you can get rid of him. Tell him to get out, you have a new life about to begin."

She said, "Do I?" unwrapping the towel, ran to the pool and dove in.

The scene from a number of movies: the girl says the line and runs out to dive in the ocean, not a swimming pool, and the guy either waits or goes after her. Foley, with some reluctance, followed her, did a nice flat dive from a run and scraped the bottom of the shallow end. He did a few underwater strokes and came up to stand with his chin above the surface. Danny, floating in the deep end with effortless moves, said, "Why don't you come and talk to me?"

Foley didn't believe he could talk and tread water at the same time. He was honest about it and said, "I'm not much of a swimmer. I think because where I've been lately they don't have pools."

"But you like to dive," Danny said, "and jump off high places, don't you?" She seemed to know that, not waiting for an answer, and said, "Peter and I didn't care much for diving, why there isn't a board. He'd swim a few lengths to relax, come out of the pool and say, 'There. I can read the fucking script now without tearing it apart.' " Danny smiling now. "He meant ripping it up with his hands."

"You ever see him do it?"

"No, he was reminding himself he had to be tough. He had no patience with screenwriters who tried to make scene descriptions sound literary. Peter called them 'Look-at-me-writing' scripts. He'd say, 'Now look at the Coen brothers screenplay of No Country for Old Men. It's spare but it's all there, without one extra word.' He'd allow the studio to give him predictable stories like Born Again, and he'd put his writer and DP on it and come up with scenes you'd swear were for a documentary. Peter loved realism, and Terry Malick. Days of Heaven was Peter's favorite picture."

She said, "I'm serious about his ghost in the house. Or whoever it is." She said, "But not serious enough to do anything about it. Aren't you tired of talking about ghosts?"

They came out of the pool and she said, "Don't move. I'm going to take off my suit and put on a robe. Are you all right? Help yourself to the bar in the cabana. I'll get some dry undies. New ones," she said, "still in the package. I remember buying them for Peter."

He said, "You're kidding, aren't you."

She paused before saying, "If you don't want to wear them, don't."

Foley sat on the patio smoking a cigarette. Not anxious to show off in her husband's underwear. He realized he should never've told her she had a new life about to begin. She said, "Do I?" in a coy way, because she knew it was her line. "Do I?" Playing the part. But that could be all it was, a reaction.

She could be feeling Peter's presence, not as a ghost but on her mind and she wasn't ready to let go of him, whether she knew it or not.

Foley believed he could make the premoves and if she softened her eyes it was okay, they'd keep going and in time they'd be acting like they were in love or on their way. Giving it a try because they were comfortable with each other.

Or, she was already into her new life; she could do what she wants and not hold back. It came down to does she or doesn't she.

He believed Peter's underwear could be the key, if he put them on and they didn't fit or they looked funny.

Or, she might not even bring them.

He was patient. Waiting, wondering if Dawn had fixed the little guy something Cuban, one of his favorites, though he wouldn't bet money on it.

He looked up to see Danny in her bathrobe coming out of the cabana with a pair of men's white underwear in her hand.