The Best American Mystery Stories 2008

Thisbe Nissen Win’s Girl

From The Cincinnati Review

I’m not ever going to be Win Cryer’s girl — still, I’m here at the Quarry Bar to hear him play every Friday, up front, watching him like I am someone Win Cryer loves. I get off work at the slaughterhouse at five, and that’s enough time to drive home, have a shower, heat something for dinner, open the mail, watch a little TV, and make it to the Quarry to get my table near the stage. By nine the bar’s filling up, most folks not even changed from their work clothes — some guys from the cheese factory shooting pool in their coveralls, a young, pimply drunk zipped into his Jiffy Lube jacket hunched over a tall glass of bourbon. Lonny Bondorf — Officer Bondorf — walks toward my table like he’s ready to arrest me.

I take out a cigarette, and Lonny’s there with a lighter so fast he nearly burns my nose off. “Here for Win’s show?” he asks.

“Always,” I say.

“You think Win knows you? Think he remembers you every week?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“So how’re things?” Lonny is a thirty-eight-year-old bachelor who’d like not to be. You could probably say nearly the same about me: over forty, not a lot of prospects.

“My money from the accident just came through,” I say. Lonny was first on the scene that night they pulled me from my truck, blood running out my knees like garden spigots. I was on my way home from work, stopped at a light waiting for it to go green, when a drunk from Fairfield jumped the divider, plowed me head on. He didn’t die either, which I’m glad about.

“You should get something nice for yourself, Doreen,” Lonny says.

“I’m thinking I’m going to have the house rewired,” I tell him.

“Well, that’s fun,” Lonny chides.

“Funner than frying in some electrical fire. You know how overdue that house is for an upgrade?”

“So you got someone to do it already?” Lonny asks.

“Rudy Hatch had a look at it a while back. Since he moved I’ve been nervous about finding someone else, getting bids.”

“My sister-in-law had some work done on her fuse box couple months ago,” Lonny says. “Some guy drives in from Solon. Said he did a good job.”

“You remember the name?”

“Duane.” He pauses. “Duane... Miller maybe?”

“Duane Miller,” I repeat. “I’ll look him up.”

Onstage, Win turns to his bassist. Then a drumbeat starts in, and I’m recognizing the intro of one of my favorites. And for a second, as Win turns back to the audience, I think maybe he’s playing it for me, because even if that smile tucked under the shadow of his hat brim is for everyone out here, I’m out here too.

Monday on my lunch break, I call Duane Miller, who sounds like the nicest guy in the world, but he’s over his head in work and doesn’t foresee an end anytime soon.

“Shoot,” I tell him. “I really want to get this done...”

“Hey,” he says, “I know someone might be able to fit you in. He’s union, so it’d be off the record. Got a side business, totally legit tax-wise and all, but the union’d bust the hell out of him if they found him out. But it’s totally cool,” says Duane. “Only way some of these guys can make a go of it.”

I’m thinking that Duane surely knows more than me about this. And that maybe it’s not a bad idea to have something on the guy I hire, something that’d make him scared to do me wrong.

“Here, I got the number,” says Duane. “His name’s Rich. Rich Randall. Real good electrician. He’ll do you what needs done.”

Rich Randall’s answering machine says, “Hey, you’ve reached Rich at A-1 Electric. Can’t catch you right now. Leave a message, and I’ll give y’a ring.” He sounds young and laid back, and I don’t feel stupid leaving my name and number, my little story.

He calls back that very afternoon, and the fact that I’m at a desk at work to answer the phone makes me grateful for my accident, again, in that weird way you can be grateful for something bad. I used to be on the floor, standing all day, sawing carcasses, but my legs can’t take it now. Lots of people thought I shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place, but I’m no small girl. I had the strength.

“Hey, Doreen,” says Rich. “Thanks for your message. Love to have a look at your wiring. When’s good for you?” He agrees to come over after I get off work. “Look forward to meeting you,” he says.

I hang up relieved. I’m taking care of my parents’ house the way a grown person should. It’s mine since Dad passed away. He was a house painter by trade, a handyman of all sorts, though since he’s been gone I’ve found out my father didn’t know quite all he thought he knew about house repair. Last year I started blowing fuses right and left — that’s when I had Rudy Hatch in to see what was going on. Rudy was howling at some of the rig-ups my dad had going. Crazy wiring systems strung like daisy chains, all the parts salvaged from junk, hung together with duct tape. The bid he made to bring me up to code came in just under four thousand dollars, which I didn’t have then. Plus, it seemed sad to get rid of all my dad’s work just like that.

Rich Randall arrives at my house a few minutes behind me, just enough time to clean out the cat box. He’s younger than me, maybe thirty, and the first thing I think is he looks like my ex-boyfriend Walter, but in a good way. The bad parts of Walter usually overtake the good ones in my memory. Walter told me he was a roofer. We went out five months before I found out he was making methamphetamines in his bathtub. I’m not someone to date a drug dealer, and a liar on top of it, but somehow, in the end, it was like I got dumped for not being a cool-enough girlfriend for a big-time Iowa meth dealer. Same with the car accident: Lonny Bondorf made me press charges, found me a lawyer and everything. I’d’ve never done it otherwise. I’d have found some way to think that sitting at a stoplight and getting head-onned by a drunk guy in a Blazer was 100 percent my fault.

Rich removes his cap, holds out a hand. “Real good to meet you.”

He reminds me of things I liked about Walter, like he’s a little bit of a brute, but sweet too, balding too early but owning up and shaving his whole head. His sweatshirt says LOCAL #329, UNION YES! We go through the house together, him apologizing for every bureau and plant stand he has to push out of the way, me apologizing for them being in the way in the first place. Rich speaks with authority, explains his terms, talks me through what he’s doing and stops when I don’t understand — “Pigtail?” I repeat — and then he hides under the bill of his cap while he backtracks, embarrassed by his own failure as my guide through the world of electricity. “It’s just the word we use,” he says. “How you attach the new wire to the old wire?”

“Got it,” I say.

“You’re great,” he says. “Most people don’t want to know what the hell’s going on inside their walls. They’re just like You do it and tell me when you’re done. And then you get done and show them the bill and suddenly they’re all real interested in what you’re doing.”

“My dad was a house painter,” I say. “He’d get so mad about the people who’d hire you and then sit watching over your shoulder. Or they’d change their mind five times about what color they wanted for the vestibule, and then it’s your fault when the paint looked different on the wall than it did on the TrueValue Hardware card. I guess I also just hate feeling ignorant.”

“And that’s great.” He’s looking right at me. “Everyone should know as much as they can about stuff.” He pauses at the top of the stairs, leaning on the banister. “Take for instance: I play the guitar...”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a band, kind of edgy, lots of technology? Samples? So like I was saying, when I need someone to work on my guitar, I want to know what he’s doing. I want to know he’s not saying Oh you need new pickups and the action adjusted which’ll be like five hours of labor and then really all he’s done is solder one minuscule fucking wire and I’m paying through the nose... It’s the same thing. I mean, here’s this thing you don’t know jack about, and I’m here and this is what I know, you know? I mean, I know electricity. And I could tell you Anything, and you’d have to be like Okay, sure, whatever you say.”

“I did have a couple other people look at it,” I tell him.

“And that’s why you’re the best kind of customer,” he says, “because you’re informed. You’re not just letting someone tell you what to do.”

“I hope so.”

“Here’s what should happen,” Rich tells me. “You need to think about this. Make sure I’m the right person for this job. I can get you some numbers of references, if you want...”

I shake my head, embarrassed. He’s already been recommended by Duane Miller.

“Well, I can give ’em to you. I’m a good electrician. I’m an excellent electrician, really. You don’t have to have any doubt about that.”

Downstairs, Rich sits at my kitchen table doing some calculations while I make him a cup of coffee. Then I sit down and we go over them. He points to some numbers: “Here’s materials,” he says, “and projected labor.” He points again: “And here’s your total. Might be a little higher than the bids you got before, and I know that I do charge a little more for labor than some, but I stand behind the fact that my work’s worth it. I lose some business probably, people who aren’t willing to pay for a job to be done right. People who are willing to cut corners. And I’m just not. Not with electricity. We’re talking about safety here.” His bid is not too far over Rudy’s, given that he’s talking about dealing with the grounding in the basement and the outdoor sockets Rudy never even thought about. “Not to dis your old electrician,” Rich says, “but some people don’t think of everything, you know?”

I wait a day before I call Rich back to tell him yes, let’s start, whenever he’s ready. “Actually just had a cancellation on another job,” he says. “Haven’t wanted to take too much on, with the move and all...”

“Oh! You’re moving?”

“Yeah, we’ve been out in Texas part-time a while, back and forth, seeing how hard it’s going to be to find work and stuff. My wife’s there now, in fact, trying to find us a place, so I’m on kid duty till she gets back. But I can start Monday, if that’s good with you, Doreen?”

“You have kids?”

“Seven and three,” he says, and for a second I think he’s telling me he’s got ten children.

“That’s great,” I say.

“Yeah, we’ll see how great it is by the end of the week. They miss Mommy. Tell you the truth, I miss Mommy too.”

I laugh a little.

“So I’ll see you Monday, Doreen?”

“Great,” I say, and it all seems way too easy. “Um, I work, but the door’s unlocked. You can just come in...”

“That’s okay with you?” he asks. “You’re okay having me there while you’re not home? Some people are funny about that — s’why I ask.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I say as the doubt washes over me, sudden as a sickness.

Rich hedges. “I hate to bring money into this, but I guess that’s what makes work go ’round. The way I usually do it is you give me half up front, for supplies and materials, and half upon completion.”

“That sounds fair,” I agree. I try to think what I’m supposed to ask. “Should... could I leave a check for you on Monday?”

“A check’s fine... Oh, also,” he says, “I just wanted to make sure — Duane told you about the union stuff, right? We all do it — only way to hack it with how everything works nowadays — I just wanted to make sure Duane let you know about that. That you were okay with that and all.”

“Yeah,” I stammer, “yeah, he said about you doing stuff on the side.”

“That man is a fucking prince,” Rich says. “When you said it was Duane sent you, I knew I’d take your job. He always puts me on to real nice people.”

After the accident the doctor at the hospital assigned me to a lady at the Community Mental Health Center to talk to if I wanted, about the wreck or anything that was bothering me. Honestly, I think it was about my job. When that doctor found out I worked on the slaughterhouse line, he went a little white. Men worry like that, can’t believe what I do — what I did — for my job. He meant well, so I took the number, and then when I got sort of blue afterward, working in the office, feeling washed-up and old, Sherry, who works next to me, Sherry said, “Why don’t you go see that counselor, Doreen?”

The therapist’s name was Brianna, pronounced like royalty: Bree-ahh-nah. When I first went to see her, she pried a while into the accident, but more into my job, sure I had a whole world of rage under my skin that she was dying to tap. She scheduled another appointment; I was too embarrassed to argue. I see her every other week now. Mostly she tells me the sagas of her love life, which are always turbulent and interesting in a soap-opera kind of way.

The day after I meet Rich, I’m scheduled with Brianna, and when she politely asks how I am before she launches into her latest drama, I find I’m talking about the electric job and about Rich Randall.

“Is this a man you’re attracted to, Doreen?” Brianna asks.

“No,” I say, too quick. “No, I mean, no, I mean: he’s married.”

Brianna switches tactics: “Is it...? Are you... nervous having this man in your house while you’re out? That can feel very invasive, Doreen. Your home is a private place. It’s your nest, you know, where you’re most yourself... Maybe think about taking Monday off work, Doreen? The slaughterhouse can get along without you one day. You let yourself get worked too hard.” This is Brianna’s perennial suggestion, and I’ve run out of ways to tell her I’m fine. Unless you’re lower than low or happier than God, no one believes a thing you tell them when they ask how you are.

But when my alarm goes off Monday morning, I don’t want to go to work. By seven thirty, I’ve convinced myself I’d be irresponsible leaving my parents’ home in the hands of some stranger. For the first time in ten years — not counting after the accident, when I couldn’t even walk — I call in sick.

It’s almost noon before Rich arrives. “Doreen! Didn’t expect you here!”

“I got the day off.” I get a rush of panic that he thinks I’m going to scold him for showing up so late, and then I suddenly, desperately, miss my father. Dad took care of things, and even if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing, he felt like he did, and I felt sure in his sureness. His absence thwacks me in the chest, and I’m breathless.

“Great,” Rich says. “Great to see you. Guess I’ll get to work then, if that’s good with you.” Rich hoists his tool belt on his hips and aims for the nearest socket with something that looks like a screwdriver with a crank to wind it like a music box. He unscrews the outlet cover, me feeling dumb just standing there watching.

“How are your kids?” I think to ask.

Rich laughs. “Surviving!” He pauses, leans against the wall as though he needs a rest. He’s shaking his head in near disbelief. “They’re such a trip, you know?”

“I don’t have any.” I gesture around the house: no children hidden anywhere.

“Ha! It’s a crazy thing...”

“Crazy?”

“God, you ever just listen to the things kids’ll say? I mean, just the shit that comes out of their mouths? It’s such a trip! Kaylee, my daughter, she’s three...? She’s got these really bad allergies and we have to pump her full of Benadryl at bedtime. And before she goes to sleep, she’s wandering around the house all doped up, saying the craziest, trippiest things. Last night some guys from the band were over, and I followed Kaylee around with a mic, just picking up the crazy shit she said. It’s going to be awesome when I get it looped onto a track.”

I’m laughing, almost not believing what he’s saying, but laughing anyhow because he is.

“God, you should totally have kids, Doreen. They’re so damn awesome.” Rich turns back to the socket then and pulls a wire from the wall, inspects it. “Okay,” he says, “I see what we need here. Hey, so, if you’ve got that check on you now, I can go ahead and get the supplies I need...”

“Oh, sure!” I’m way too chirpy. I get my purse and make out a check to Rich Randall for twenty-five hundred dollars. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” I say, and Rich laughs like I’m actually funny, and I’m grateful for it. For the second time in ten minutes I feel the loss of my dad again so hard it could’ve been yesterday.

Rich is gone a couple hours, comes back carrying an old, worn cardboard box full of tools and screws and nails and stuff, which he plunks down in the dining room and starts digging through. “Menards was all out of the wire I needed, but I hunted some down through my distributor.” He holds up a spool. “So we’re good to go.” It’s nearing three o’clock.

Rich works steadily until four thirty, when he comes and finds me in the living room reading a magazine and tells me he’s got to go pick up his kids from his wife’s mother’s place. “Looking good,” he says. “We’ll have you all safe and up to code in no time.”

“It’ll really be a relief,” I say. “I never had the money to do it. Until now. I was in a car accident, and the settlement just came through. I mean, I don’t usually have money. It was this crazy thing...”

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Rich says. “How you get a bunch of money all of a sudden and you think it’ll make everything easier, but it just gets super-confusing. I mean, for instance: me and my wife, we came into a bunch of money kind of recently — like a good chunk of money, you know? And we thought, oh it’ll all be so much easier now. But then there’s all that shit about what do we spend it on, and her being like You are not using our money to buy that vintage guitar, and me being like I sure as fuck am!” Rich smiles. “And here you are doing the responsible thing, like my wife’d do, not like me. I’m bad. I’ve been sober five months now, but before that I used to get into some shit. In my youth, you know? Maybe it’s not the most responsible thing, but you gotta live, you know? I mean, you ever do coke?”

I shake my head.

Rich’s eyes are almost closed like he’s reliving a great pleasure. He breathes in deep. “Oh, boy.” He lets his breath huff out in resignation. “Man, we used to do some incredible shit down in Mexico. You know how they make coke?”

Again, I shake my head.

“They do this whole process thing,” he explains, “but the guys we knew down there, the guys who were making it, they’d have the purest kind, like the first, most pure stuff, and it’d be cut with peaches, or coconuts. I mean: peach cocaine! You never had anything so incredible! But I got kids now. Family to think about. No more of that shit for me. No more heaven,” he says, his head beginning to wag back and forth like he’s watching it all slip away.

The next day I go to work, but I drive home on my lunch hour just to see how things are going. Rich isn’t there, and it doesn’t look like he has been. I make myself a sandwich. When the front door opens suddenly and it’s him, I start, like I have something to hide.

“Doreen!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. I just came home for some lunch.” I hold up my dirty plate as evidence.

“I just didn’t expect you is all. I’m a little late getting started. It’s been a hell of a morning. Jesus,” he swears, running a hand over his head. “Jesus, it’s been such a fucking morning. And I’ve got work to do. I’ve got a job to do here!” He looks around my house like this old place is the most important thing in the world. “I’ve been on the phone with lawyers all morning!” he blurts out. “They’re holding my wife in jail! In Texas! Can you believe that bullshit? They want two thousand bucks bail to get her out. So I’m down at the bank trying to get money fucking wired to Texas or some shit, and trying to get a lawyer out there for her. It’s going to be a fucking fortune!”

“Wait,” I say, “wait — what? Your wife’s in jail?”

“It’s total bullshit,” Rich says. “Something about the place she’s working out there. Or the place she worked last year. The company’s being investigated for tax fraud or something, and everyone who worked there during that time in question, they came and arrested them all. They’re saying my wife knows something, which is bullshit — she doesn’t know anything. And now I have to come up with two thousand bucks to get her out of jail. Such bullshit!”

“Wait,” I say, trying to slow him down, trying to back this up to where I can understand it. “Wait, here, sit down.” I pull him out a chair at the table. He looks like he’s about to bury his face in his hands and cry. I take a seat across from him. “Okay,” I say, “go slow. Tell me what happened.” It’s how Brianna would sound, if Brianna ever did her job right.

“Do they even understand the fact that she’s got fucking kids? That there’s two little kids at home saying Where’s Mommy? Jesus!” He drops his head, and I’m afraid he really is going to cry.

“Okay,” I say, “wait: your wife worked for some company that’s in trouble with the IRS, and they arrested all the employees? That can’t be legal... They can’t just...”

“Yeah, well, they did,” he says. “Now I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to get to Texas and get her out of jail. And I’ve got this job to do for you, and...”

“Rich, you can finish here when you get back. It’s okay.”

He looks at me, then away, like he can’t bear the kindness. “God, I’m glad it’s you I’m working for right now. A union job and they’d say That’s shit for luck, man. Your wife’s gonna have to find some other way out of prison, ’cause you ain’t going nowhere!” Then there’s resolve in his voice: “No,” he says. “You know, my wife’s mom’s got the kids, and there’s nothing I can do till the damn lawyer calls me back.” He pats his cell. “So I’ll stay here and get as much done as I can so I can finish tomorrow maybe and have it off my mind. I tell you what, Doreen: I’ll get to work, get a jump on this. Hey, and I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about this, just for the kids’ sake, really. I just don’t want everybody going around knowing Hailey Randall’s in jail, you know? There’s people who’ll judge you without knowing anything about it, you know?”

“No problem,” I tell him. By my watch it’s ten past one, and I’m about to be late to work for the first time in my life.

Rich is not there when I get home at five fifteen. At eight thirty there’s a knock on the door.

“I’m really sorry to bother you, Doreen,” Rich begins, “I’m just trying to get all my business taken care of before I leave for Texas, and I’ve got a flight out the day after tomorrow, so my kids are with my old partner, Butch, tonight. He’s looking after them so I could buy some time, get things finished up. I got everything inside the house done today. I’ve just got that stuff we talked about in the basement. If I can get that taken care of tonight, then I’ll finish tomorrow.”

Now, I admit, I’m feeling a little bit scared — wary, like this is too much, too irregular. But he’s in such dire straits that I don’t know what to do. “How’s your wife?” I ask.

“A mess,” he says. “She’s a total wreck. She’s freaking out. It looks worse than she thought. I guess it’s looking like she did know about what was going on in the office and all, that she was aware and didn’t do anything, or just went along with it or something. I don’t know what. She’s just totally freaking out now.” Shaking his head, he stands there a minute, then says, “Hell, might as well get some work done, keep my mind off it all.” He starts fast toward the cellar door.

Late in the night when I know Rich is gone I go down to the basement. There’s some sawdust on the floor beneath an outlet, which looks new, but I have no way of knowing what he’s done. If he’s done anything. In the morning I wake up panicked and take the day off work again. Rich shows up just past nine, looking like he hasn’t slept. I have thought up a long story of why I am not at work today, but Rich doesn’t even seem to notice I’m home when I shouldn’t be.

“How are you holding up?” I ask.

“Tell you the truth, it sucks,” Rich says. “To tell you the God’s honest truth, it’s so much more messed up than I can even describe.” He sinks down at the kitchen table. I pour him a cup of coffee.

“What happened?”

“Well,” he says, sipping, “the truth is that my wife did know about what was going on with her boss and the money and stuff. The thing is, I knew about it too. It was like a totally low-key thing. Sort of a Robin Hood thing. The only people — and I mean the only ones — getting screwed were the fucking asshole feds. It was just this thing that had been going on forever at the company, just like something you went along with when you got hired. So now after all those years, they finally get caught, and now it’s my wife facing jail time! It’s so fucking backwards!”

I have no idea what to say.

“There’s not that much I have left to finish here,” Rich says then. “I’ll be done today with pretty much everything.”

“What is left?” I ask. I wish I had an inventory, had it all written down in front of me, but it’s beyond too late for that.

“Well, let’s see, there’s that fuse box...”

“And the outside switches,” I remind him.

“Oh, yeah, right: the outside switches.”

“And you did all the pigtailing already?” I ask.

Rich smiles, slow and deep, like he’s remembering a joy he’d thought was lost. “All pigtailed,” he assures me. “Okay, let’s see, I’ll go out and get those switches now. Could I ask you, Doreen, if you could lay out the money for that? I left my checkbook at home, and... this is so fucking embarrassing, but they froze my fucking credit cards while all this stuff gets sorted out. Can you lay out for this material, and we’ll subtract off what you still owe me?”

I’m frozen. Somehow I manage to ask how much he needs.

“Fifty’ll do it. Or just make the check to Menards, and I’ll fill in the amount. Whatever’s good.”

I am in a panic. Everything in me says don’t give this man any more money, but he’s standing right there, acting like this is just how these things go. And for all I know, maybe it is. I tell myself about the union, that I can report him if I have to. I can give him cash or a check, and I know one of the two is probably safer, but I can’t get my head to figure out which. I head for the stairs. “I think have I some money in the bedroom.” I tell myself: Doreen, you are a moron.

Rich is gone for two and a half hours. I spend them practicing what to say when he comes back: Rich, you can’t tell the person you’re working for that you’re part of criminal activity. How can someone trust you with their money when you tell them you’ve stolen, even if it is from the IRS? When he breezes in the door like he’s been gone ten minutes, he unloads a pile of switches that don’t look like they came from a store at all.

“Doreen?” he asks. “Do you think I could use your telephone for just a minute?” He looks like he’s going to cry again, and I don’t know what I can say but “Sure.”

He dials, leans against the wall, and waits. “Pumpkin,” he says. “Pumpkin, it’s Daddy.” At least he wasn’t lying about the kids. “Hey, sweetheart, go get Uncle Butch and put him on the phone for Daddy now, okay? Good girl.”

“Dude,” Rich says after a minute, “if she calls, you tell her to keep her mouth shut. I’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll figure it out. Tell her just to stay quiet till then, okay?” He pauses, listening. “Thanks, man. You’re my hero.” He hangs up, turns to me. “Oh, Doreen, what a fucking mess.” He sinks down at the table and lays his head on the switches and wires.

“Did something else happen?” I am a little kid, squeaky and dumb.

He lifts his head, wagging it back and forth. “What a fucking disaster, this whole thing,” he says. “It was supposed to be so easy. We were just going to do it and be done, and that’s it. It was so fucking easy.” He looks right at me, then back down, like he’s ashamed. “I haven’t told you the whole story,” he says. “There’s a lot more going on than... It was such an easy plan, and it worked so damn well. This guy, the one Hailey worked for — works for, I dunno — he got this RV, you know? One of those huge honking ones? And he got the whole inside hollowed out, and all Hailey has to do, for two-thirds the profit — two-thirds! — all she has to do is sit in the goddamn passenger seat and pretend the guy’s her lover and she’s going over to Mexico with him for the day — just going over with her little boyfriend for the day to have their little affair.”

I don’t want to know this, and still I don’t want him to stop until I know it all.

“So they get pulled over on the way back into the States,” he says. “Done it five, six times, no problem. This time they get pulled over. And you got to understand: the take was so good. You can’t say no to money like that. We thought, we’ll do it a few times, be able to get the kids some nice Christmas presents, just live comfortable. You know? We weren’t trying to strike it rich or anything, just trying to make things nice for our kids.”

I’m nodding, I think. At least I mean to be nodding.

“So they get pulled over. And Hailey, Hailey’s fucking intelligent. When the cops find the stash — the whole back of the RV’s filled with pot — marijuana, you know? — so when they find it, Hailey starts doing a whole act like What the fuck is going on, you bastard? You invite me to come over the border with you for a little fun and really you’re running drugs? You fucking bastard! She’s making like she’s got no idea except that she’s having a little fling with a married man, no idea about anything in the back of the RV. She’s fucking brilliant. Only they bring her in with him anyway, seize the whole fucking RV — we’re talking five hundred grand in the back of that bus, sitting in some federal pen — five hundred grand of really fine marijuana, drying out in some government warehouse... It fucking kills me!”

“But she did know? She knew the pot was there, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we all knew. There was just Hailey and me and the guy driving the RV, really. Marshall. Butch’s brother.” Rich gestures toward the telephone.

I nod. I’m thinking: One-third was Marshall’s, and the rest — two-thirds for Rich and Hailey. I’m thinking: I don’t know how to live in this world.

When Rich leaves that night, there is a pile of old electrical switches on my kitchen table. When I get home from work the next day, the pile is still there. When I call Rich’s number, the machine picks up, same voice as before: “Hey, you’ve reached Rich at A-1 Electric...” Of course, he’s in Texas by now. If I believe that much. In the days that follow, I leave so many messages on Rich Randall’s answering machine that I’d be scared if he ever did call back. I try being nice at first, but then I lose nice. I threaten to report him to the union. I threaten to sue him for the money he’s taken, the work he hasn’t done. I threaten to report him to child welfare. It’s easy to threaten an answering machine. The threat I do not make regards what I know of his drug-smuggling operation. The words drug-smuggling operation make me feel like I’m playing Nancy Drew. And for all I know the drug story’s as much of a lie as everything else. Maybe Rich Randall hasn’t gotten to the end of his tale?

I’m at the Quarry one Friday night, about a month after Rich disappears, sitting at my table just before Win’s second set, about to light myself a cigarette, when the bar door opens and there shaking the snow from his wool cap and stamping his feet on the indoor-outdoor rug is Rich Randall.

My stomach hollows. My lighter’s shaking so hard in my hands I can’t even raise it to my mouth. I just sit there, dumb and shaking and staring. I’ve had two beers and part of a third, and maybe that’s what kicks in once the nausea passes, because what I’m left with is a kind of fury I have never known in my life. I stand.

He recognizes me from a few feet away, a friendly recognition, eyes lit up the way they do when you come back to a place you’ve been gone from and start spotting the people you used to know. First you don’t realize who they are, just that you know them. A split second later they come into focus: a name, or a context, a placement, history. All this happens in Rich Randall’s face as I walk toward him across the Quarry Bar. His expression shifts from recognition to realization to fear. And then from fear — a tiny little millisecond of fear that I see, and that I know he knows I see — he crosses seamlessly into disdain: a clear, smirking, righteous grin. He tries to pretend he’s never seen me before in his life.

“Did you just plan on never coming back, on never finishing what you started?”

Rich Randall just looks at me, his eyes gone deliberately blank. He blinks. “’Scuse me?” He looks around, like maybe I’m talking to someone else.

“You fucking bastard,” I say. “You fucking...”

“Whoa, lady.” He backs up a step. “Take it somewhere else, sister.”

I’m so angry I feel like I’m spitting. Then I realize I’m actually crying: I’m standing in the middle of the Quarry while Win Cryer takes the stage, tears running down my face, and my voice is a threat of death. “Get out of here,” I’m telling this stupid, cowardly, criminal man. “Get out of here right now. You don’t deserve to hear a note that man plays. You’re a thief. Get out. Get out now.”

Onstage Win starts strumming, and I can see Rich’s body respond to the music, soften and find the beat, relaxed as anything. He looks right at me, then losses his head and laughs, turning back to the stage, grooving along to the music.

I spin and run for the ladies’ room, where I splash my face, pull myself together. Without looking at Rich, I walk back to my table where Lonny Bondorf is sitting now, MGD in hand, staring up at Win like he’s in love with him too. I fish a cigarette out of my purse and hold it up for Lonny to light. My hand is shaking, and Lonny sees something’s wrong.

“Doreen, are you okay?”

I make a quick glance back at Rich, standing smug in his spot by the door, hands shoved in his pockets, head nodding in time to the music. I say to Lonny: “I don’t know.” I say: “See that guy over there?” Lonny nods. I say: “I was waiting for the ladies’ room, and he started sort of hitting on me, and then he just started saying weird stuff...”

Lonny looks like he can’t decide what kind of suspicious to be: suspicious like an older brother, or a boyfriend, or like a policeman. “What kind of weird stuff?”

“Sort of crazy stuff, like do I want to see the gun in his pocket, and do I know it’s loaded. And that he’s got all sorts of other stuff out in his car. And do I want some drugs — he’s got pot if I want, or coke. He was trying to get me to come out to his car to smell some peach-flavored cocaine. I said, ‘No thank you.’ Then he just said, ‘Bitch.’ ”

Lonny stands without a word, sets down his beer, pushes in his chair, and starts walking toward Rich with the kind of purpose in his step that makes people afraid of policemen. Onstage, Win and the band play the final chord of a song, and it’s like the whole place is holding its breath. Win’s mouth is moving, which makes me realize I’m staring right at him, but I can’t hear what he’s saying, like it’s just his mouth moving but the volume’s gone mute, or I’ve gone deaf, and I’m frozen, staring, waiting for the world to start again, only it’s like everyone else is staring too, and who they’re staring at is me.

The first thing I hear again, breaking through my ears like they’re popping, is some man yelling from the back of the bar. “Yo, lady, what friggin’ song you want to hear? Let’s get a move on; the man ain’t got all night!” And I’m confused and disoriented, and suddenly I’m afraid he’s talking to me and I don’t know what I’ve missed, and everyone seems to be waiting for something until finally it’s Win who’s talking again, and now I can hear his voice, and he’s looking like he doesn’t understand what’s going on either, like I’m crazy as they come, and then to the audience it’s like he’s saving go figure, only what he’s really saying is, “Well, I guess we’ll just go and choose one ourself,” and then he shrugs and turns to confer with the band. From the back of the bar I hear someone say, “What the...?” and I turn and see people clearing the way for Lonny, who’s coming up on Rich Randall, and down the path that’s cleared for Lonny in the crowd, I can hear him saying to Rich, “Would you please step outside with me a minute, sir?” and Rich is just looking at him, like No way, fuck off, dork, so that’s when Lonny gets to flash his badge and say, “Sir, I’m going to ask you to step outside, and I’m not going to ask you again.”