worn short and fluffed, making her face look even larger. That hair was rapidly flecking with gray, and the large face picking up wrinkles. She was forty-one, five years older than he, also far better educated and from a better family, a wealthier family, a family that considered her marriage beneath her, as she reminded him often enough.
“How can you know,” she asked, “when you’re either at the store or under the covers?”
He sat up, chuckling, though she wasn’t joking, had practically no sense of humor.
“What are you cackling about?” she snapped.
He looked at her then, none too kindly. “I was laughing.”
“Ah, the grammarian wants to indulge in semantics.” She put her hands on her broad hips, ready to engage in combat. “What were you laughing about?”
“Just glad it’s the weekend,” he muttered, and went into the bathroom. He took his time showering and shaving. Only when he heard Lila leave did he come to the bedroom to dress.
She returned as he was finishing, and asked what he wanted for breakfast.
He said he felt like eating out at the IHOP.
“I’ve eaten,” she said. “And I’m not driving you.”
I’ll drive myself, dear.”
“After ruining your car’s transmission you want to ruin mine? No thanks.”
“I’ll walk to Schwab’s,” he said. “I can use the exercise.”
She was silent a moment, and when she spoke her voice had changed. “Frank, have you considered what can be done about your mother?”
He made himself look puzzled, but his heart began to thump.
“I mean a nursing home.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He moved toward the door.
“I understand how you feel. I felt the same way when they put Edith into Clairmont.” Edith was her mother. “But it was necessary.”
“Because Edith was wandering away from home,” he said, “forgetting who her children and grandchildren were, losing control of her . . . her natural functions.” His heart hammered. He knew from the way her eyes flickered that she was going to tell him something awful.
“Your mother has been fouling her bed the past two weeks.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Frank! You forget yourself! I do not lie!”
“Then you’re mistaken!”
She began to speak, and he whirled on her. “Shut up! I won’t hear any more! Fucking whale!”
She stepped back, and he realized his fist was drawn up before her mouth.
“Frank,” she said weakly, and burst into tears.
He dropped his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“You called me . . .” She wept. “You never used to say such things. And I hid what your mother did . . . other things too . . . I wanted to spare you as long as possible.” She sank to the bed, big body shaking, hands over her face.
He sat down beside her, his heartbeat quieting. The more she wept, the calmer he grew. Until he was able to draw her hands from her face and kiss her cheek and tell her he appreciated her above anyone on earth and couldn’t do without her.
She dried her eyes.
“We’ll talk of it again,” he said, “later on. Just give me a little time.”
“All right. But she wandered away last Wednesday and I had to call the police. Luckily she was only—”
He rose. “Later on,” he said firmly. And still firmly, “I’m going to take your car.”
She looked up then, gaze hardening. But he met that gaze, and she nodded.
He went to the kitchen, to the counter-top bowl where she kept her car keys. His mother was sitting at the table, so small, so very fragile-looking lately. He turned his eyes from her.
She said, “Well, Frankie, how did you like your father’s singing in the shower last night?”
He was shocked into brittle laughter.
“His favorite,” she said. “ ‘Red Sails in the Sunset.’ ”
“C’mon now, Mom. You know Dad’s gone. Six years . . .”
“He still doesn’t know all the words,” she said, shaking her head.
He walked past her . . . and caught the distinct scent of urine.
Lila made no further protest when he took the car. He drove to the IHOP, listening to the all-news station on the radio, and heard about the “pointless killing.”
Before entering the restaurant, he bought a newspaper from the machine out front. But it was too early for the story to have made print.
He ate hugely—a large order of pancakes, two eggs over easy, a ham steak, home fries, double order of toast, and coffee.
The aging orange-haired waitress asked if he wanted anything else; pencil poised to total his check, she let her eyes flicker to the front where people were waiting for tables. But he said, “Yes, a piece of cherry pie, please,” and poured himself a third cup of coffee from the thermos pitcher and lit a cigarette. The smoke felt wonderful, even though he was down to six or seven a day and planning to quit within the month. He ate his pie slowly and had another, leisurely cigarette. Lila could wait for her car and the waitress for her empty table and the cheap Sunset Boulevard crowd for their lunches.
When he did leave, he drove to Fairfax Avenue and a great delicatessen, to make certain that his dinner wouldn’t be one of Lila’s diet plates that did neither of them any good since they both cheated. And Mom loved that thin-sliced roast beef . . .
Later, at home, watching the news on TV with Lila as his mother napped. he learned that the cab driver had been identified as Arnold Latrile, once a blackiack dealer in a Las Vegas casino. Latrile had been sought by Nevada authorities for questioning in a robbery of that same casino . . . but his employers apparently had found him first.
He chuckled a little. Lila glanced at him and began to speak. He tried to hear what the announcer was saying about Carla Woodruff, but Lila was going on about his mother again. And he was getting a headache again.
Lila had to stop when his mother came in for dinner. But sitting at the table with both of them ruined the joy of deli cuts, pickles, and potato salad.
He left them still eating, saying he was going for a walk.
Outside, he turned away from the street, going up the driveway and around to the back yard and the bushes near the master bedroom windows. He dropped to his knees and felt beneath the bushes and found the gun in its plastic bag.
