Act of God

you came in the night before?”
    Teagle smiled, like he’d been smarter than he thought. “Yeah, yeah. Coulda been. I was kinda lit coming home.”
    “Friday.”
    “Friday.”
    “After your clubbing.”
    “Right.”
    “Did Darbra tell you she was going away on vacation?”
    “Yeah, she told me.”
    “She say where?”
    “Where she was going?”
    “Yes.”
    Cagey again. “Just Jersey somewheres.”
    “But you don’t know where.”
    “Uh-unh.”
    “You hear from her while she was gone?”
    “Never did.”
    “You think about going with her?”
    Teagle weighed something. “Not. Darbra and me, we’re both sun freaks, you know, but you don’t like bring sand to the beach, and you don’t like take a date on vacation.”
    “You and she were seeing each other back here, then?”
    “On and off.”
    “For how long?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Estimate.”
    “That’s what’s tough, man. I think she like had her eye on me from Jump Street , but didn’t make her move till maybe a month ago?”
    Her move. “You see each other a lot?”
    “Man, we don’t exactly go out for a malted, you know? It’s more like a physical thing.”
    “How did you spend the week?”
    “Huh?”
    “How did you spend the week she was gone?”
    An elaborate shrug. “Just hung out.”
    “Where?”
    “Beach, clubs, practiced like always.”
    “With the other guys in the band?”
    “Uh, no, actually. They couldn’t... we couldn’t all get it together for a session this week.”
    “You played a club on Saturday without practicing together all week?”
    “Yeah, man. We had plenty of time for a good sound check, and like I said before, we’re tight.”
    “And you were boss.”
    Teagle didn’t like the way I said it. “Right.”
    “You make enough money from the music not to need a day job?”
    “I don’t need much, and I write some songs.”
    “Songs to sell, you mean?”
    “Yeah. You gotta do that, otherwise the band you’re in breaks up, you don’t have any product except a couple of audition tapes, you doing the leads on them.”
    “So you sell your songs to other groups?”
    “Yeah. I’m not into the political shit, man. Like, I don’t know nobody, I don’t owe nobody, and I don’t blow nobody. I just write the music people want to hear, the basic pure. Rock and roll.”
    “How much do you get from a song you sell?”
    “That’s not really the point.”
    “It is if you have to pay the rent.”
    “Like I said, I don’t need much, and I saved from the tour, remember?”
    “When did the tour end?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know when you started living around here?”
    “Awright, awright. It was like... March, maybe?”
    “Three months ago.”
    “Man, when you’re young, you don’t worry so much about time.”
    “Darbra ever mention any other men to you?”
    “Not.”
    “You think you’re the only one seeing her?”
    “Man, what she does is her business, what I do is mine, awright?”
    “No jealousy?”
    A smirk again. “I’m too young to worry about time, and too young to worry about love, man. That’ll like work itself out, you know?”
    “You have a key to Darbra’s apartment?”
    “No. Why should I?”
    “You’ve been seeing her.”
    “When she gets the urge, she calls me. When I get the urge, I call her. It works out, it works out.”
    “You like her cat?”
    “Her—Tigger?”
    “Yes.”
    “Not especially.”
    “Why not?”
    “Darb lets him sleep in her bed. Not the kind of pussy hairs I like in my mouth come morning, you know?”
    A really special guy, Rush. “She ask you to feed him while she was away?”
    Teagle paused again. “No, I think Traci was taking care of that.”
    “Seems kind of odd, Darbra leaving you a note she was back but not telling Traci.”
    Rush Teagle stared at me. “Darbra, she like don’t always do the considerate thing, you know?”

8

    A volunteer at the information desk inside the pneumatic doors suggested I’d find the Orthopedic Associates by following the yellow line past the gift shop to the elevator, the elevator to the third floor, and the yellow line again to a clearly worded sign. I did as I was told and found myself standing at a counter behind a Hispanic, woman leaning forward on crutches and a black man leaning sideways on a cane. When my turn came, I told the woman in the print dress staffing the counter the name of the doctor Elie had recommended. The woman found my name near the end of what upside