Mohawk

drinking too much, Dallas was subject to flights of wild admiration for his new best friend. “
Helluva
guy,” he would say once he and Anne were alone.
    “Yes.”
    “One helluva guy,” he insisted, bleary-eyed, as if he had detected some implied reservation. “I want us all to be best friends. We should all four of us get married right away. Til’ death do us part.”
    Many an evening would have ended in a fight overan imagined insult had Dan not been present. Dallas was ambivalent about the fact that no matter where they went, Anne was likely to be the prettiest girl. He took great pleasure from the fact when the night was young and he was still relatively sober, but later the knowledge weighed heavily, especially when other young men intruded on their happy foursome, wanting Anne to dance. Dan often defused the situation by taking Anne onto the dance floor himself, the quarrel fizzling for lack of a prize. Though he drank as heavily as Dallas, Dan was older and accustomed to it; Dallas went out with the idea of getting tight, and succeeded by forced marches.
    At the end of these evenings, back in her bedroom in her father’s house, the walls turning visible in the early morning light, Anne would try to hold onto the evening. But soon there was little but gray hopelessness. If things seemed fine when they were all together, when she was alone the fact that Dan belonged to her cousin, that they could not simply change partners, could not be ignored. To make matters worse, she had always been fond of Diana and genuinely pleased that the family prediction of spinsterdom would be foiled. If she was annoyed with her cousin at all, it was the result of a realization that came to Anne during the course of the summer—that Diana and Dan were actually lovers. At first she rejected the possibility as absurd. Diana had always been comically modest, not wanting to change into her swimsuit in front of other girls, failing to see the humor in dirty jokes. Moreover, she and Dan seldom showed the slightest public affection. Dallas always made sure he and Anne held hands, and often kissed her if he thought it was likely to be noticed. Though Dan and Diana were far more circumspect,the more Anne observed them, the more subtle signs of intimacy she began to detect. For the longest time she was unable to think what Diana and Dan reminded her of, then it came to her: a married couple.
    Ironically, Anne’s realization was compounded by a second intuition oddly out of synch with the first—that Dan Wood might have feelings for her. There never was anything overt between them, of course, and Dan never paid her any special attention, except when Dallas got too drunk to function, at which time Dan’s attentions would take on the air of dutiful friendship by holding a chair or offering an arm.
    Dancing had always been one of Anne’s passions, and Diana, who danced indifferently, was always cheerful about lending Dan. Dallas danced like he did everything else, with wild enthusiasm and little staying power. The energy he put into a jitterbug often seemed comic, his arms and legs flailing about; with him for a partner, you danced at your own risk. In his rampant fits of dancing, his feet seldom firmly planted on the floor, fueled in part by drink but not quite drunk, he was always a threat to hurl Anne into tables of unsuspecting drinkers. Dan, on the other hand, moved effortlessly, always within himself, and he seemed as aware as Anne of the song’s nuances. Their signals to each other were neither false nor obvious.

14
    As usual, Wild Bill Gaffney stopped at the Mohawk Grill at three in the afternoon. He never used the front door like the real customers, but came through the door that opened onto the alley. As always, he waited until the midafternoon dead time when Harry was alone. If there were customers, he waited patiently outside until they left. Then Harry would be glad to see him, at least after a fashion, and maybe even treat him to coffee without being asked. Today nobody was in the diner to make him uncomfortable, but Wild Bill discovered after climbing onto his stool at the end of the counter that it was impossible to appreciate his new winter coat indoors. Harry’s grill gave off enough heat to warm the whole place, and Wild Bill’s stool was right next to it.
    To make matters worse, Harry was acting suspicious, and when he asked where the new coat came from, Wild Bill didn’t know what to tell him. The man who