Yellow Dog Contract by Ross Thomas

looking for, a bottle of Scotch. She poured some into a glass, drank it down, and made a face. She seldom drank. She poured more Scotch into the glass, added water this time, and sat back down at the kitchen table across from me.
    â€œYou know how long it lasted,” she said. “A year. Then when he broke it off I came running to my big brother for what—solace? Comfort? A pat on the head? Well, I suppose I got as much from you as you’ve got to give. But Ruth made it worth the trip. She let me talk.”
    â€œI let you talk.”
    â€œYou let me talk for fifteen minutes and then started fidgeting.”
    â€œI made a mistake,” I said. “I didn’t know how serious it was. Mix wasn’t the first married man you’d busted up with.”
    â€œI keep forgetting that I’m the whore of the eastern seaboard.”
    â€œI said I made a mistake. A bad one.”
    â€œI reckon that’s as close to an apology as you’re capable of,” she said. Sometimes my sister used reckon, sometimes guess. The reckon came from the South and the guess came from the North. Her voice was much like our mother’s which had had a French tinkle to it although, unlike our mother, Audrey had no accent except upper-income, undefinable American.
    She drank a swallow of her Scotch and water and made another face. “How do people drink this stuff?”
    â€œPractice,” I said. “It helps if you don’t start before breakfast.”
    â€œThey came to see me.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe cops.”
    â€œHow were the cops?” I said.
    â€œPolite. Firm. Thorough. And puzzled, I reckon. Or maybe that’s just how they try to appear. I haven’t had too much experience with the police.”
    â€œWhat about Mix?”
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œI mean how did he seem the last time you saw him?”
    Audrey lit another of her long brown cigarettes. This time it seemed to taste better to her. “Noble,” she said. “He was being noble. Sad, noble and nervous.”
    â€œYou mean about going back to the kids and the little woman?”
    She nodded slowly. “It’s strange how some men get after they turn forty or maybe fifty, especially if they marry early. They find something younger and perhaps prettier and they think it’s going to be their last chance so they grab it. But then they get guilty or scared or both and go back to where it was safe. Dull, perhaps, but safe.”
    â€œYou said he was nervous. Was there anything else that was worrying him?”
    â€œIf there was, he didn’t talk about it. We talked about Us and Art and Literature and Life. I tried to capitalize all those things, but I’m not sure I made it.”
    â€œYou did all right.”
    â€œAnd sometimes he’d talk about Her. That’s capitalized, too.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWell, one time he said that shortly after he’d turned forty he woke up, rolled over, and realized that for fifteen years he’d been married to a stranger.”
    â€œThat’s not very noble.”
    â€œBut think of the sacrifice he made by going back to her.”
    â€œShe’s not all that bad.”
    â€œMother would have said coarse.”
    â€œMother was a snob.”
    Audrey shrugged. “So am I.”
    â€œYou can afford to be.”
    â€œIt’s funny, but he was never interested in that. The money, I mean. I can tell. Jesus, how I can tell.”
    â€œWell, rich young widows are rather popular.”
    â€œHe mentioned you a couple of times,” she said. “In passing.”
    â€œOh? He spoke well of me, I trust.”
    â€œNot very.”
    â€œWhat’d he say?”
    â€œHe said that you were a man with principles but no purpose and that he felt sorry for you.”
    â€œYou defended me, of course.”
    â€œI said I wasn’t too sure about the principles.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HE BLACK PLYMOUTH