Chaingang

She wondered about the wives of the MIAs. How many months and years of wondering go by before a part of you tunes out? It all depended on the woman, or the man, she supposed. How does a person cope when his or her mate vanishes from the face of the earth? How long can you sit and wait for the word that never comes? Others couldn't begin to know the strain and the anguish until it happened to them.

Only a few weeks had gone by, and Mary was already tired of the weight of worry. Tired of wallowing in what she perceived as disgusting self-pity. Tired of not knowing.

Tired of the nice people who kept saying things to her that made her flinch, cringe, shudder, or weep. Tired of the limelight already. Even in a town of less than seven hundred, there were nuts who'd call—one in particular phoned every afternoon with a hang-up.

There were sickos out there. She'd opened up a handwritten envelope with one of the reward announcements folded up inside. Some wit had written, “Sam Perkins is now a forward with the Lakers.” She'd had to get Royce to explain the thing to her, assuring her that it was some cretin's idea of a joke.

She was tired of shocks and surprises. Tired of opening the top drawer of his dresser and finding all those white shirts stacked up so neat and clean, the shirts done the way he always preferred them, the collars just so. The second drawer with his button-down oxfords. The bottom drawer containing Sam's cashmeres. The sweaters he loved to wear on Saturday, soft and cuddly to the touch, folded and waiting.

His clothing smelled so sweet and clean. She had opened his closets and examined all his suits, ties, and shoes. Tried to remember exactly what he'd been wearing that Friday. Tried to think if anything else was missing. Shamed herself as she hunted for luggage pieces and shaving gear and airport carry-alls from old trips.

She was tired of knowing less than she imagined, of wondering what to fix that evening and then realizing it didn't matter, of remembering the look of his square-trimmed fingernails, of hearing his voice inside her head.

Tired of asking the same question: Where the hell are you, Sam?

It was beautiful. God, it was something. Perfect. The sky was bright blue and full of cottony clouds, the sun was shining, it was warm, fragrant, spectacular, and Royce Hawthorne was in the salty darkness of the beer joint, sitting in the stall of the men's room, breathing disinfectant and tooting flake. He did another hit and put his coke spoon away. His sinuses felt frozen.

He was so cool, his jones was frozen. His johnson was asleep. His brain, however, was going eighty-four thousand miles a second. He tipped back the can of Oly Light he'd brought into the john with him, and tossed it unerringly into the corner basket, his over-the-stall-top blind free throw, made from lots of practice.

Get it done, chump, he said to his legs, and he got up and walked into the main room of The Rockhouse.

“Yo, Royce.” Vandella said.

“Gimme a shooter."

The bartender gave him his drink and started wiping glasses. The day was fabulous, but by ten-thirty the place would be lousy with boozers, dopers, and bust-out degenerate gamblers. Hawthorne took his tequila and moved away from the bar, settling down in the first-base chair of the open twenty-one table.

“Morning, sir,” the dealer said. Crisp. Young. Very quick, and cold as the thermometer in an L.A. anchorwoman's poot-chute. He had a name tag that read “Doug."

“Morning, Doug. Wanna play some blackjack?” The man shuffled and made a show of putting a new shoe together. There were maybe six decks in there at the moment, as if The Rockhouse had to worry about a card counter cleaning them.

Doug-baby was all business. Very good, in fact. He took three or four hundred off Royce before he had time to pull the wedgie out of his crotch.

He asked for a pile of quarters and dimes and played push with Doug for the rest of his shift, pushing twenty-five-and ten-dollar chips back and forth.

Dougie finally took his crisp white shirt and string tie out of Royce's face about forty-five minutes later, with a heavy early lunch shot starting to pack the bar. Tia came in on Doug's break, and he was more than a little pleased to see her—wrinkles, artistic brows, and all.

“Hi, doll."

“Good morning, sir.” She smiled professionally, flipping in a new shuffle with her Dracula fingernails and long, slim fingers. Her hair was the color of anthracite coal, the Shadow Blue Coal.

“Rock and roll,” he told her, feeling a rush through the nasal passages, feeling the tequila earn its keep.

She dealt him a succession of dime-ante bust-out losers, and he pulled everything in his pocket out onto the felt. James Brown was on the juke and he felt good, y'all. Royce's heart was keeping time with the Rockola. He bet it all.

“Let's ride that—you want to?” This time he imagined he could see it register in that pale, expressionless face.