Page 98 of Shadow Ticket
“Daphne, I would never have—”
“Sh-sh. Yes, of course, I’ve been out there looking for you ever since.”
“Thought by now you would’ve just gone back to the States.”
“I would never have done that. Not without you.” Eyes gazing nowhere for the effective beat and a half, and when she does look back into his, even a stumblebum like Hop understands the emotional disarray this has already begun to collapse into.
He reaches for a highball glass, where he’s been keeping a couple of reeds soaking in slivovitz, drinks what’s there, pours in more.
“U-uhck! That’s disgusting!”
“Dunno, gives it a sound somehow.”
—
A busy echoinginterior comfortably dim with all-night cigarette and kitchen smoke, young runners who never fall asleep in and out bringing seafood fresh from the Adriatic, a continuous wind outside, down from the high limestone, a theremin of uneasiness, sliding around a narrow band of notes, in which it’s said you may come to hear repeated melodies, themes and variations, which is when you know you’re going bughouse, with only a very short period of grace to try and escape before it no longer matters.
“What’d I do now?”
“How about what you were doing then.” Daphne lights up and sits there deadpan and puffing.
Hop goes through it again and of course it keeps coming out even less convincing, as it has each time around.
“So…all this time you were pretending to be a klezmer clarinetist, romantically involved with an heiress to an American cheese fortune, meantime gathering intelligence on the sly, sending faithful summaries, about what and back to whom, exactly, not for the likes of me to imagine.”
“Not exactly the way I’d’ve put it. But—”
“But we both know the headline, Empty-Headed Good-Time Girl Finds Love at Last, meantime falling for one of the sorriest routines in the history of male deceit, congratulations, lady-killer, what it must’ve cost you—my yes, the stamina, the patience. All those tea leaf readers and penny scales were right all along. Cheeziness is my destiny. Should have stuck with Rodney, least there’d’ve been some class in my life.”
“Wait, second thoughts about—”
“You bet. Especially since he went literary.”
Having reluctantly given up on scheming after Daphne’s fortune, G. Rodney Flaunch has recently publishedHow to Lose a Million and a Half and Bounce Back Smiling, already named a Book of the Month and picking up a devout group of followers growing larger every day, including indicted embezzlers, retired moonshiners, and perpetual litigants, with plans for afurther series ofHow to Losebooks plus a Dale Carnegie–style lecture-seminar to go along with each. “I can get you signed copies, if you like.”
“You have every right to feel this bitter—”
“Just your sensitive, caring side coming out, don’t let it bother you, it won’t last long.”
“Someday this will all ease up. Someday, some heat wave of danger and crisis safely behind us, released into the first autumn breezes of rational adult behavior, I’ll be tracking some long-held secret bank account, you’ll be shopping for a hat to celebrate the new fashion season. We’ll cross paths in the bar of some grand hotel…”
“Traveling sales-rep talk, yes spare us both, Hop, or whatever you’re calling yourself these days. Don’t even bother to come looking, you won’t find me that useful anymore.”
“Useful. I want useful, I go to a hardware store…”
But she’s already out the door.
—
Hicks runs intoDaphne down at the harbor, busy wrapping up some arrangement with Drago Pebkac, skipper of a little coaster making break-bulk runs to Split, Dubrovnik, Corfu, and points beyond.
Focusing in on his right earlobe, “We’re both wearing the same earring, that Morcic.”
“Wouldn’t cast off a line without it.”
“Never thought I’d need that kind of luck, but— Eek! why Hicks, you did make me jump.”
“Only havin a look, no need to act furtive or nothin, jake with me if you’re hightailin it, Daphne, long as you don’t mind signing a release, keep ’em all happy back in Milwaukee.”
