Chapter 8: Lacey's Couch

Lacey's apartment was a one-bedroom in Highlandtown with a fire escape and a cat named Defibrillator.

Her couch had given up on springs years ago.

I lay on it with my shoes on, staring at the ceiling, with the gold ring clenched in my fist.

"I'm going to say it one more time," Lacey said from the kitchen. "I'd like to hit him with the bat."

"You said that."

"I'd like to do it politely. With a card."

"Lace."

"Seven years, Billie. He had a wife for seven years and she was teaching macaroni art to twelve-year-olds."

"It's papier-mache."

"It's a crime against macaroni."

She handed me a mug of tea and sat on the coffee table, her pink hair flattened on one side.

"Okay. Real talk. Are you okay?"

"No."

"Good. That's the correct answer."

I held up my fist and opened it.

The ring lay in my palm, narrow and gold.

"It's my size," I said.

"That's so creepy."

"It is creepy."

"Are you going to put it on?"

"No."

"Are you going to throw it in the harbor?"

I closed my hand again.

"I haven't decided," I said.

Lacey looked at me for a long moment.

"You kissed him in a car, didn't you," she said.

"You kissed the Horror in a car and then you slept with him, and he turns out to be your husband.

"And a small part of you is thinking, well, at least he's good in bed."

"I'm not talking about that."

"A very small part."

"Lacey."

"I'm just saying. If you ever need a place to hide the body, I know a lot of nurses."

I laughed, once, and then put my forearm over my eyes.

Across the street, a black car had been idling under the streetlamp since I arrived.

I knew it was Noreen's, and I knew who was in the back.

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