Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke [29]
“Harry?”
“What?”
She turned towards me, cuddling close, her voice different, coquettish. Denise knew every game in the book, knew them so well they bored her. Which was why she didn’t bother to play by the rules anymore.
“What would you do if I had an affair?”
My guts churned, third time that night. Denise knew all about Gonzo and Celine, it was her last resort. I took a deep breath.
“You have to be married to have an affair, Dee. We’re not even seeing each other anymore.”
“Okay then. What would you do if I fucked someone else?”
“Have you?”
She laughed, delighted at my sullen tone.
“Of course I haven’t. Don’t be daft.”
She kissed my cheek, the touch no more than a breath. I closed my eyes, balled my fists, tried to breathe. I wanted to leave the room, the house, to emigrate – whatever it took to slough off the sick emotional seesaw. But I didn’t move, knowing that I had nowhere to go that I wouldn’t want to kill myself for leaving behind the tow-headed thug in the next room. Seething at the power she possessed, the ability to reduce my entire existence to gut instinct. And if she didn’t know it for fact she sensed it, teasing: “It’s just a question, Harry.”
“Just a question?”
“You know what I mean. A rhetorical question.”
“You’re not supposed to answer rhetorical questions.”
“It was in a questionnaire.” She was flirting by now. “It’s a questionnaire question.”
“Know your problem, Dee?”
“I only have one?”
“Too much Cosmo and not enough Viz. Those magazines are fucking with your head.”
“Maybe. But better that than no fucking at all.”
And she began stroking the inside of my thigh, her palm cool and soft. I closed my eyes. Too weak to stop her, not wanting to anyway, half afraid it was another wind-up and too desperate to believe that it wasn’t.
“You still didn’t answer my question,” she murmured. Brushing my erection, holding off, teasing. I turned until my mouth was at her ear.
“If you fucked anyone else, I’d kill him and cripple you.”
There was dead silence. Then she eased herself slowly on top of me, sending bolts of pain ricocheting through my body. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter.
“Mmmmmm,” she said, slipping me inside her. “Right answer.”
Afterwards she slept sound. I cuddled behind her, spooning, my elbow resting on her hip, my hand flat against the ribcage under her breast. Feeling her heartbeat rumble through my palm, up my arm. I drifted off trying to work it out, knowing that if I never slept again I still wouldn’t understand her.
11
I crawled out of bed just before noon, drank a pot of coffee. Smoked a couple of twists, coughed up everything that wasn’t nailed down. Then I smoked some more, read the note on the kitchen table that said Denise was gone shopping, be back before Christmas, but didn’t specify what year. I stood under the shower until the water ran cold, drank some more coffee, went outside to find the car not there. The walk into town finally sobered me up.
The sleet was coming down again, soft, not sticking, the day mild. I took the long way into town, left Herbie’s number on redial, getting an engaged tone. Dropped a padded envelope through his letterbox, not knocking him up, I had reeled Herbie in from cyberspace once before and it wasn’t a pretty sight.
I made the office by one, ignoring the navy Mondeo parked across the street, the two blokes looking bored and doing it in all directions. When I got upstairs I rang down for coffee. Then I started counting to ten. They kicked the door in on twelve.
Brady accounted for two-thirds of the boarding party. The small guy was dapper in a charcoal-grey three-piece, patent leather shoes. The tie had a Windsor knot and his skull was shaved close to the bone. He had big, round eyes, narrow cheekbones, and the lips were no thinner than a paper-cut. He was a fruit, a banana, bent for sure but so yellow about it people didn’t really notice. Pushing sixty, looking at retirement and liking the view.
“Let me guess,” I said, eyeballing Brady.