The staked Goat

as Nancy came in with the drinks, hers a Scotch and water from the look of it. I didn’t think I had dropped off, but Nancy had changed from suit to jeans and a red cowlneck sweater. A lot like Jacquie’s.
    I started to stand. She pushed me back and handed me my drink.
    ”To life,” she said, lightly pinging her glass against mine.
    ”To life,” I agreed.
    We sipped. She nestled down Indian-style on the floor.
    ”Tell you what,” she said, carefully placing her drink on the low table. ”Let’s pretend, O.K.?”
    ”Pretend?” I said.
    ”Yes, let’s pretend that I’ve already fed us two steaks from my freezer, and plied you with liquor, and asked you if you were ready for bed. Let’s pretend that you said you were and that I gave you the choice of my room or the couch and you chose the couch. O.K.?”
    I grinned sheepishly. ”O.K.”
    ”Good. Now we can both relax and maybe even enjoy each other’s company.” She picked up her glass and took a long draw.
    ”Well,” she said, replacing the glass and cradling back on her elbows, ”tell me about what happened.”
    I told her. It took through dinner and beyond, but I told her. Most of it.
     

Twenty-one
     
    I WOKE UP WITH A START. T HERE WAS A LOT OF SUNSHINE in the room. Too much. Then I remembered Nancy’s parlor would have southeastern exposure and get a lot of morning sun, even in winter. I wondered why she didn’t grow more plants. I also wondered what time it was.
    I didn’t hear any stirrings in the apartment. I swung my legs out from under the covers and off the couch, sitting up. I felt about fifty percent better than I had the night before. I walked to the bay window and looked down at the street. Her car was gone.
    I went into the kitchen. A pencil and a note were on the table.
     
John, I’m going to the bank and one other stop. Be back by 10:30.
N.M. 8:45
     
P.S. I looked in on you twice. Your face is angelic when you’re asleep. Maybe you can tell a book by its cover.
     
    I smiled and glanced up at her wall clock. 9:10 A.M. I penciled a circle around the ”10:30” on her note and wrote, ”So will I.”
    The door to Nancy’s bedroom closet was open, and she had a couple of oversized T-shirts at the bottom of it. She probably used them as nightgowns. Beth always did.
    I tugged on a couple of T-shirts for insulation and tried not to notice her perfume or feel like a transvestite. I pulled on Amie’s clothes and figured I was warm enough for the short walk, even in March. There was a chance that somebody would spot me, so I rummaged rudely through Nancy’s closet shelf till I found a watch cap that wasn’t too feminine looking. I pulled the cap down and put the collar up.
    I looked in the mirror. Only one person would recognize me. The only one who really mattered.
     
    By the time I entered the gate, I was hungry. I walked up the main car path, then took the second right-hand walkway, as always.
    As I approached her, I thought how most people felt that snow on the ground made places more dreary. Sorry, but that was not possible here. Neither spring flowers nor winter storms affect a cemetery. It’s always the lost part of lost and found, even though labeled by marble markers.
    I reached her, hunching my shoulders a little against an edge of wind from the harbor.
    ”It’s been a while, Beth,” I said.
    She agreed.
    ”I saw Al’s family, out in Pittsburgh. Martha, his wife, is taking it well. His son, Al Junior, is too young to realize yet. They’re really strapped, though, so he’ll realize it pretty soon. You see, Al let everything go. No insurance, no support from his company. Martha has some real close friends out there, a woman with a little boy older than Al Junior, and a gay guy across the street. With just a chunk of money, maybe twenty-five or thirty thousand, they’d be O.K. They could hold onto the house, at least long enough to sell it reasonably instead of at sacrifice. But that means finding somebody to pay, that means...”
    Beth asked me about the ”other woman” in Pittsburgh.
    I winked and laughed. ”Well, she was pretty cute. She hasn’t had it too easy either, a bum for a husband, but that was years ago, the divorce, I mean, and now she’s pretty solid.”
    I sighed and went on. ”At least I hope she’s solid. I had to tell someone out there what I thought about Al’s death being a cover-up for something else. Martha was in no shape, she was just coming out of it, the shock and all.