“And I guess he wanted you bad enough.”

“He called incessantly. He sent me letters, flowers, Hallmark cards, like that would do it. A bottle of champagne brought by a bozo in a gorilla suit. He was a real charmer, all right. But one night, Jimmy was out of town with his wife. In a fit of absolute boredom, I called him.”

“One last dance.”

“Well, it was easy, you know. Just lift up the phone, like ordering Chinese food. You’re sweating, Victor.”

“It’s hot in here.”

“No, it isn’t. You look like a sweating ghost. Were you drinking those sweet drinks of yours?”

“And those vodka things of yours.”

“Together? Oh, you’re going to be sick all right.”

“Not yet,” I said, though I knew it wouldn’t be long. “And that last night together was when he pulled out the cocaine?”

“Victor, you little detective.”

“Am I right?”

“Yes, Victor, you are right. You have that link ordinary men have with other ordinary men. You can see through their tactics. That’s when he brought me my little gift.”

“And he tricked you into getting high.”

“God, no. He held it out and I nearly raped him to get my hands on it. A sweet vial with one perfect chunk.”

“What about your twelve-step program?”

“Twelve steps to mediocrity. It was too boring without it, too sad. I didn’t realize what was missing until he held out that vial at arm’s length. Then I remembered.”

“But it worked for Bissonette. You stayed with him.”

“You don’t understand. Neither did he. I wasn’t with him anymore, I was with the drug. He was just the prick who brought it.”

“How did Jimmy find out?”

“It wasn’t long before what Zack was bringing over wasn’t enough. So I started back to buying from Norvel.”

“And Jimmy found out.”

“Yes. Henry is still somehow connected with Norvel, I don’t understand in what way, but that’s how Henry found out and he told Jimmy.”

“And Jimmy went crazy.”

“He has a thing about drugs,” she said calmly. But it was more than just drugs, I knew. It was history repeating itself. If it was happening to anyone else Jimmy Moore might have handled it, but not to his surrogate daughter Veronica. He had saved her life, had cleaned her up, and now to see it happen all over again, like it had happened to Nadine, to be threatened with once again losing his daughter was too much to bear, even if it wasn’t his daughter, even if it was only the piece of trim who had taken the place of his daughter. What anger he felt was coming from a deep, primal place within him and there was no soothing it with words, no arresting it with reason, no assuaging it with anything other than blood.

“And then he killed Bissonette,” I said.

“I didn’t know what he was going to do. He came over in a rage and I told him.”

“Who drove him here?”

“I don’t know. He came in alone and I told him. But I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“You knew.”

“I knew he was going to do something.”

“You knew. Shit.” I struggled to rise to a sitting position and felt my stomach fall like it was falling down a shaft. “What about the series of cash deposits made into your account?” I asked, trying to fight the nausea.

“Jimmy told me what to do. I only did what Jimmy told me.”

“Where did the money end up?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t know.”

My falling stomach hit bottom with a spasm. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “I have to go.” I stumbled to my feet and reached out to steady myself and missed the couch armrest and slammed my head into the side table and fell to my knees. It was already up, in my mouth, held there by clenched teeth and my right hand when I struggled again to my feet and ran, bent over, like a hunchback, to the stairs and up two half-flights to her bathroom.

It came out in a noisy, involuntary series of retches that left my sides cramping and my throat burning and saliva hanging from my mouth in long strands. With each retch it felt like it was coming from deeper inside me, until it hurt as much as if pieces of my lungs and guts were coming up along with the alcohol. The toilet was violet from the drinks, violent in color and smell, and my head hung just above the putridity as I waited for the next round. I was still wearing my raincoat, my suit was damp with a feverish sweat. In a brief moment of peace I turned my head and saw her there, leaning against the doorjamb just as I had imagined, except for her face, which was not smug but sad and concerned. I involuntarily lunged back for the bowl as the retches began again. The next time I turned around she was gone.

When it was finished I stood up and felt instantly relieved, light, spry. I was no longer sweating, the room was no longer spinning, but there was enough alcohol in me to still feel the recklessness of a mild buzz. I cleaned my face with cold water and soap and then opened her medicine cabinet. It was full of cosmetics arranged haphazardly, little red plastic medicine containers, Band-Aids, too many Band-Aids. I pulled out a thick plastic comb and ran it through my hair, I used her toothbrush to scrub my teeth, I rinsed my mouth with her Scope. When I came downstairs she was putting on an overcoat.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Away. It’s ruined for me here.”

“Because of what I did in court today?”

“No, but that was the signal to leave.”

“Why don’t you stay, get some help?”

“I don’t need help,” she said.

“You’re a drug addict, Veronica. You need help. You need to check in someplace.”

“I’m going home.”

“Iowa?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“You need more than a veterinarian.”

“Good-bye, Victor.”

“He’s going to let Chester take the rap for what he did.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s too bad. Chet was always sweet to me. We slept together once, did I tell you? The night he said he had a crush on me I let him.”

I tried not to think about it, to imagine it. “You could save him,” I pressed on. “You could testify, tell them what happened.”

“No, I can’t, Victor. You know I can’t do anything against Jimmy.”

“He didn’t save you, Veronica. Look at yourself.”

“But what he did he did for me, don’t you see? Of all of you, of Zack and you and Norvel and Chet, of all of you only Jimmy loved me. I won’t betray that.”

“I love you.”

“You love it,” she said sharply.

“More than that.”

“Really, Victor? Consider it carefully. From the first I’ve lied to you. We’ve never spent a full night together, never shared breakfast, the first coffee of the morning, the first cigarette. You know nothing about me, Victor, so what about me could you possibly love other than our sex?”

“It’s not so easily calculable, it’s not like a ledger.”

“Oh, yes it is,” she said. “Just like you told me the first night we met.”

“You can’t know what I feel.”

“I don’t think you know either.”

There was a pause and I started thinking about what she was saying and then I stopped, because I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to look into it.

“You’re the only one who can stop Chester from losing his freedom,” I said. “Stop him from losing his life for something he didn’t do. You have the duty to save him.”

“No, Victor. You’re his lawyer. You save him.” She looked up at me with moist eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Please.”

I couldn’t tell if she was asking me to save Chester or asking me to save her, but it didn’t really matter. I leaned over and brushed one of her tears away with my lips and then kissed her and her lips opened and my lips opened and I felt her tongue once again and the electricity and the wanting and the unquenchable thirst. I reached a hand to her hair and grabbed and kissed her again and she kissed me back and I wished desperately that it could have been different. She sighed into my mouth. I rubbed my hand in her hair and kissed her again.