aren’t they? Really, dear, I’m not accusing you of anything. I was just asking about them. After all, I don’t get much news. The husbands of most of my friends never go to whore houses.”
“At least not on business,” I said.
“You’ve got a dirty mind.”
“O.K.,” I said.
“I don’t see why you have to go there in broad daylight. Suppose somebody saw you?”
“Nobody did.”
“Well, it seems to me Buford could send somebody else.”
“You know why I don’t ask him to send somebody else.”
“Yes, it’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s being done,” I said, feeling too rotten to argue.
“Maybe she’d raise your cut if you went down there and worked as a bouncer or something after hours.”
“Maybe so. You want me to ask her?”
“And your father was a judge.”
“You tried to buy anything with that lately?” I asked.
“Maybe I should go down and help Abbie out on Saturday nights.”
“Oh, cut it out,” I said.
She slapped the bed with an arm. “Oh, why do we always get in these arguments?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wish we didn’t.”
She was silent for a moment. I went on undressing for the shower and started into the bathroom in my shorts when she said, “Cathy and Mildred are going down to the beach for a week. They asked me to go with them.”
“How can you?” I asked.
“After all, it’s only for a week.”
“I don’t know where we’d get the money.”
“Well, it certainly wouldn’t take any fortune.”
“With those two? You know how they throw it around.”
“They do get a little fun out of life, if that’s what you mean.”
“And you don’t?”
“Sometimes I wonder.”
Here we go again, I thought, off on the same old rat race. We were strapped with payments on a new Oldsmobile we didn’t need just because Cathy bought a Cadillac. In January we had to go to the Sugar Bowl because Mildred was going. Cathy’s got a new Persian lamb. Mildred’s getting a Capehart for Christmas. They could afford it. Cathy’s husband was Jim Buchanan, who was vice-president and a stockholder in the bank, and Mildred was married to Al Wayne, who was in the real-estate business.
“Sometimes I get a little fed up with those two,” I said.
“Yes. I guess you do seem to prefer Abbie Bell.”
“Oh, for God’s sake—”
“If you’d like, we could ask her over for bridge. After all, we’re practically in business with her. She could bring over one of the girls for a fourth.”
“You could ask Mildred,” I said. “Al Wayne owns the hotel and that whole block.”
“I doubt if many people know it. And he doesn’t have to go down there in broad daylight to collect the rent.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll quit going down there and to all other places. We’ll live on my salary.”
“Your salary!”
“Well, there you are.”
“You could have had Buford’s job if you’d run against him last time.”
I sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette, forgetting about the shower. “I couldn’t beat Buford, and you know it. He’s been sheriff for twelve years. And I haven’t got his personality. Nobody in the county could beat him.”
“You were in the war.”
“Who wasn’t?”
“Buford,” she said impatiently.
“He was over draft age. I’m telling you, if I’d run against him I would just have been beaten and then I’d be out of a job completely. I thought about it plenty, but it can’t be done. He’s just one of those people. Even people who know he’s crooked like him.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too sure he’s going to be there forever,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“You know what I mean. Or who I mean. That new minister, the Reverend Soames or whatever his name is. I tried to get you to go to church with us yesterday. You’d have heard plenty.”
“Well, before you crow too much, remember that if they get Buford over a barrel I’ll be right there with him.”
“Yes. And isn’t that something nice to think about? And for the crumby few dollars you get out of it. Think of what he’s made.”
“My God, Louise, do you want me to take it, or don’t you? I can leave it alone.”
“So you’d like to blame it on me, would you? Well, I like that!”
“I’m not trying to blame it on anybody. But, for Christ’s sake, if I’m going to take it the way Buford does, let’s take it and shut up about it.”
“You can do whatever you want to,” she said coldly. She reached out and smashed the cigarette with a vicious stab at the ash tray, long slim legs sprawling