Chapter 13: The Lot

Ike saw my face and turned around in the lawn chair.

He looked down at the lot.

Down in the lot, Brantley took his hands out of his pockets.

He walked toward the alley without hurrying.

"He's leaving," I said.

"No," Ike said. "He's going around."

We heard the fire escape before we saw him.

The drop ladder on the Marshall Street side squealed down to the sidewalk.

Then shoes on iron. Good leather shoes, climbing.

Out front of the bar, the smokers had come out for their eleven o'clock cigarettes.

I heard one of them say, "Is that a guy in a suit going up the bail bonds?"

Ike stood up out of the lawn chair.

"Stay behind me," he said.

"No," I said.

He looked at me.

Then he nodded and stepped to the side instead, so we were standing next to each other.

Brantley came up over the top of the iron ladder.

His overcoat had rust on one sleeve.

"So this is where you live now," he said.

"This is the roof," I said. "I live downstairs."

"With the bail bondsman."

"Above him. You asked that under oath already."

He smiled. The patient one.

"Lainie, I came to talk to my wife."

"You came to stand in that lot."

I pointed down without looking.

"Do you know where you were standing? About ten feet from where he put me against the van."

For a second his face did something I'd never drawn.

Then it smoothed out.

He turned to Ike instead.

"You must be very pleased with yourself," he said. "A woman like her. Upstairs. Grateful."

Ike didn't answer.

He just stood there with his arms loose at his sides.

"How long did you wait?" Brantley asked him. "Did you wait for the stitches to come out?"

From the sidewalk below, somebody whistled low.

Half the bar was out there now, faces tipped up.

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