Incubi

Chapter 20

Was it a dream?

A slit of sunlight through the curtain gap bisected Veronica’s face in a nearly perfect state of congruity. She opened her eyes, looked to either side, and gasped.

The three of them lay entangled, nude, in Ginny’s bed. Amy Vandersteen hugged Veronica’s hips. Ginny slept higher, with an arm and leg draped. Very slowly, then, Veronica remembered…

Holy shit, she thought.

She tried to chronologize. She’d worked late into the night. She’d gone downstairs and eaten. She’d spied on Ginny and Amy in the pool with Marzen and Gilles. Then…

Holy shit, she thought again.

The two men had instigated the whole thing; they’d seduced them, then left them alone with their desires. It was the intensity of the desire that Veronica remembered most. She’d been dizzied by it, driven, and so had Ginny and Amy. They’d made love to each other all night. They’d done everything conceivable to each other, and some things not. They’d drawn each other’s passions out to scintillating threads, each a probe of desire and real flesh exploring every facet of every sensation. They’d opened up their passions and delved.

Veronica couldn’t have felt more confused. Was it honesty that had compelled her to participate, or subversion? But she didn’t feel subversive. She thought about what Khoronos had said. In a sense, all of life was an experiment of revelation, of experience.

Of passion, she added.

Should she feel dirty for having embarked on this adventure, or should she feel blessed?

The erstwhile images replayed in her mind, a vivid assemblage of diced sights, sounds, sensations. The overall memory lost all basis of order; the night had passed frenetically in a meld of moving bodies, moans and caresses, breasts in her face and legs wrapped around her head. Veronica had made a terrain of herself for the others to investigate, and they’d made the same of themselves for her. Their time together had been measured not in minutes, but in human scents and flavors, the heat and the weight of flesh, and one orgasm after the next.

Lust, she thought now, in bed with her two new lovers. But lust hadn’t been behind any of it. Lust was greed, using another person’s body for a singular gratification. Passion was the difference — mutuality. Veronica had found as much pleasure in giving as taking. That fact, and its irrevocability, made her feel purified.

Amy Vandersteen stirred. Veronica closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. The director quietly slid out of bed. The door clicked open, then clicked shut.

The notion was difficult to pinpoint, but it almost seemed as though Amy had been summoned awake.

Summoned by what?

Veronica slid out from Ginny’s embrace, careful not to wake her. She cracked the bedroom door and peeked out. Amy was tiptoeing naked down the dark stairs. Veronica slipped on Ginny’s robe, wondering. Then she edged out toward the landing.

First light had not yet worked its way inside; downstairs was filled with soft, grainy dark. The house was so silent Veronica could hear herself blink. Amy Vandersteen seemed to be kneeling, searching for something under the couch downstairs. Her pale nakedness made a ghost of her in the murk.

What is she doing? Veronica thought, peering down.

Seconds later, she knew.

It was a tragic sight. The orange glow of the lighter gave it all away. It tinted the room and cast a desperate halo about Amy’s coiffed head. Her face looked pinched shut as she sucked on the tiny pipe, answering the summons, the call of her curse.

Veronica could not remember the last time she felt this sad. Addict, croaked an unholy voice in her head. In the slender woman’s desperation, Veronica glimpsed all the woe of the world.

Amy sucked the pipe dry, then lay back. If she’d been oblivious, that would’ve made it more reckonable. But the look on the woman’s face told the whole truth. Hers was a countenance not of euphoria, but of slowly creeping horror. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rode the wave of her high. The glint in her wide-open eyes shone with pure ruin.

Veronica’s heart felt squeezed up into her throat.

She went back to the bedroom and looked out the window. What could she do to help Amy? Nothing, she answered. The image remained, an equally sad truth.

Sunlight struggled to reach above the treetops. It was as though this remote pocket of the earth were flinching against the sun, quailing to keep its veil of night. Did I dream? she wondered. Her memory flinched too, against splinters of images, colors, heat. Yes, she had dreamed…

The fire-lover had come yet again, her suitor of sleep. It had caressed her with its flames, kissed her, penetrated her. In her sleep she’d wrapped her legs about its blazing torso and…

The memory scalded her. Bliss. Sheer erotic bliss.

Goose bumps slid across her skin. She glanced about, hunting for a distraction, when her gaze plopped onto Ginny’s little desk.

Scribbled notes and correction tapes cluttered around the typewriter. A small stack of sheets had been turned upside down — Ginny’s work in progress. One sheet hung out of the typewriter’s platen in plain sight. Impulse, not premeditation, urged her to read:

a harrowing spangle of moisture and muse. His gaze swept her away to lush, uncharted planes, chasing her like a sleek bird—

“Get away from that!”

Oops. Shamed she turned slowly around, looking down.

“It’s creative respect, you know.” Ginny was sitting up in bed, glaring. Somehow anger prettied her face. “It’s an unwritten code. One artist never looks at another artist’s work without permission. You know that.”

“I know,” Veronica peeped. “Sorry.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“It was just sitting there. My eyes kind of fell on it. I only read a little.”

“How would you like it if I went into your room and looked at your stuff without you knowing? Huh?”

“I said I was sorry. Jesus.”

Ginny glanced away. Her hair lay tangled about her face in strings. “Where’s Amy?” she asked.

“Downstairs. She’s freebasing again.”

“That’s too bad.” Ginny’s sharp smirk saddened. “She’s an asshole, sure, but she’s got a lot of talent and a lot of good ideas. What a waste.”

It was a cold way to abridge a human life, but it was true. It was a waste. How many great artists had destroyed themselves with drugs?

“A waste of a lot of passion too.”

Veronica glanced up. “What?”

“She’s a wonderful lover.”

She looked back down again, too quickly. She knew Ginny would get around to it eventually.

“Well?” Ginny asked.

“Well what?”

“Observations, comments… Conclusions?”

“About last night, you mean?”

“No, Vern, about last Fourth of July. You know what I mean.”

Veronica refaced the window, anything to avoid Ginny’s prying gaze. What should she say? What could she say, in truth?

“Did you like it?”

“Yes,” Veronica said.

“Do you regret any of it?”

“No, but it still bothers me. The whole thing was premeditated. Those guys manipulated the hell out of us.”

“Bullshit, Vern.” Now Ginny sat on the bed’s edge, uninhibitedly naked. “That’s a cop-out. We can’t blame others for what we do.”

“It’s not a cop-out,” Veronica objected. But why did she feel so defensive? “You’ve got to admit—”

“Be real. No one forced you to do what you did last night. No one manipulated you. What happened, happened because we allowed it to. You’re repressing yourself, Vern, which is exactly what Khoronos is trying to teach you not to do.”

Veronica’s anger began to unreel. “I’m repressing myself? I spent most of the night with my face between your legs, and you call that repression?”

“It’s repression because you don’t have the courage to admit your own motives for doing it.”

“Oh, I see. I’m a lesbian but I’m just not admitting it.”

Ginny shook her head; she smiled dismally. “You really can be stupid when you try hard. Sex has nothing to do with any of this. Don’t you listen to anything Khoronos says?”

“What is he saying, Ginny? Since I’m so stupid, tell me.”

“He’s saying that we have to shed our repressions in order to maximize ourselves as artists. Not just sexual repressions, but every repression in regard to every aspect of our lives. To be everything we can be as artists, as creators, we must—”

“I know,” Veronica sniped. “We must delve into our passions.”

“Right. And it’s true. Because that’s all that creativity is founded in. Passion.”

Passion for everything, Veronica finished in thought. Her petty anger was gone, spirited away. She looked down at her shadow thrown across the floor. She thought of herself as two separate entities, one of flesh, the other of shadow, her id, perhaps. That was where her passions lay, in her shadows, and that’s what Khoronos meant yesterday when he’d spoken of her failures. She was keeping her passions in shadow. She must illuminate them to become real.

“Come back to bed,” Ginny said.

“I—” Veronica faltered. “I’m not tired.”

“Neither am I.”

Veronica let the robe slide off her shoulders. Then she was getting back into bed with her friend.

Jan Beck handed Jack a strip of multicolored paper — the source spectrum from a mass photospectrometer. Under it Jan had written:

3-[-3-(p-hydrophenyl)-4-chloroxyiphone]-3’-disodium-edetate.

“That’s the stuff,” Jan said. “The chemical designation.”

“And you found it in the bloodstreams of both girls?”

“Yep. Too bad it’s meaningless.”

It was 7 p.m. now; Jack and Faye stood in the TSD main lab, where they’d arranged to meet after Faye got out of the Library of Congress. Neither had mentioned Jack’s drunken foray of the night before.

“Meaningless?” Jack countered. “It’s our biggest lead. Once you identify it by name, we can nail down a geographic scheme. Whoever’s making it or selling it can lead us to the killer.”

“Killers,” Jan Beck reminded. “And that’s the problem. I don’t know if I can identify it by name.”

“You said it’s not in the CDS and pharmaceutical indexes, right?” Jack asked. “That knocks out about ten thousand possibilities.”

“So what? They’re U.S. indexes. It could be a foreign pharmaceutical. It could be homemade.”

These revelations did not enthuse Jack. He tried to sort his thoughts, smoking. “How much time, Jan?”

“Cold? Weeks.”

“I don’t have weeks.”

Jan Beck laughed. “Captain, unless you can give me something to go on, I’ll have to catalog every index one at a time.”

“Here’s something you might be able to use,” Faye Rowland interrupted. “I found a bunch of stuff today about drug use among the aorist sects.” She riffled through a sheaf of Xerox sheets. “They used lots of drugs during their rituals; one of them was an aphrodisiac called rootmash. They made it by distilling the pods of a plant called blackapple.” She scanned her underscores. “Taxodium lyrata is the botanical name. The book said it was a cantharadine, whatever that is.”

“Cantharadine,” Jan said to herself.

“Sounds like you’ve heard of it,” Jack said.

“It rings a bell. Give me that.” Jan took Faye’s papers and began to walk away toward her index library.

“Where are you going?”

“You gave me something to go on, so now I’m going to go on it.”

Jack got the message. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Faye. “Jan likes to be left alone when she works.”

Faye followed him up the stairs of the county HQ. He seemed remote, or distracted. Then he said, “Sorry about last night.”

“You won’t last long, drinking like that,” Faye replied.

“I’m gonna quit.“ Jack smiled at the excuse. “I know, that’s what they all say. But I’m really going to do it.”

Faye kept quiet.

As they were about to exit, an ancient sergeant at the main desk stopped them. “Hey, Captain, you got a call from City District.”

“Thanks.” Jack took the phone. “Cordesman.”

“Jack, it’s Randy.”

“How you coming on the interviews?”

“It’s like what you predicted. Rebecca Black had as many pickups as Shanna Barrington. And we struck out on the ex-husband. He was verifiably out of state during the murder.”

“Just keep plugging.”

“Sure, but that’s not why I called. Some guy keeps calling your office, says he knows you. Sounds like a real prick.”

Stewie, Jack guessed.

“I’ve got him on the line right now,” Randy said. “How about taking it and getting the guy off my back.”

“Switch me over,” Jack said. The line transferred, hummed, and clicked. “What do you want, Stewie?”

“Jackie boy! How’s it going?”

“Fine until you called. What do you want?”

“I need to rap with you, paisan.”

“Well, I don’t want to rap with you, Stewie. I’ve had a taxing day, and talking to you would only make it more taxing.”

Stewie guffawed. “You never did like me, did you?”

“No, Stewie, I never did. And I still don’t.”

“I need to talk to you about Veronica.”

The name seemed to give Jack an abrupt shove. “What about her?”

“I think she’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble? I’m listening.”

“Better if we meet, you know, man-to-man.”

But what could he mean? What kind of trouble could Veronica be in? “All right, Stewie. Man-to-man.”

“Or, hell, let’s be honest. Libertine-to-drunk.”

“How about assailant-to-assault-victim?”

“Aw, Jackie, that’s so sad. Are you threatening a law-abiding citizen over a police line? Is that wise?”

“Where and when, Stewie?”

“How about the Undercroft? In your constant inebriation, it’s probably the only place in town you can find without a map.”

“I would really love to kick your ass, Stewie, and if this is a bunch of bullshit, I will.”

“Come on, Jack. An alcoholic wreck like you? You couldn’t even kick your own ass. Now, are we going to bicker like a pair of bête noires, or are we going to rap?”

“I’ll be there in a half hour.”

Jack hung up. He looked stolid, vexed.

“You’ll be where in a half hour?” Faye asked him.

“I—” Shit, he thought. “The bar.”

“That’s great, Jack. A minute ago you told me you were going to quit drinking. Now you’re going to the bar. Great.”

“I’m not going there to drink, Faye.”

“Of course not. You’re going there to play racquetball. Why else do people go to bars?”

“It’s something personal. I gotta talk to someone, that’s all. You can come too, if you don’t believe me.”

“I have better things to do than sit in bars, Jack.” She turned, was walking away. “I have a bunch of material to go over for your murder case, remember? Have fun at the bar.”

He trotted after her into the parking lot. “Why are you always pissed off at me? I won’t get drunk, I promise.”

“Don’t promise me, Jack. What do I matter?”

“You…you matter a lot.”

“Don’t promise me. Promise yourself.” Faye slammed her car door shut, then drove off.

Jack watched her big Malibu turn out of the lot. Boy, I could use a drink, he thought, and got into his own car. That was the unique thing about the power of promises. They always dared to be broken.

“All right, Stewie. I’m here.”

It was not easy for Jack to pull up a stool next to Stewart K. Arlinger. It demanded a placation he didn’t feel capable of. Stewie wore a slate-blue Smiths T-shirt that read “You handsome devil.” He’d recently stylized his black, banged hair with a streak of silver, and most of his white jeans evaded visibility for the cuffed black boots which rose up past mid-thigh. A yellow clove cigarette burned in one hand. Before him stood a tall glass of gin.

“Good to see you, Jack,” he said through a snide smile.

Jack sat down. Craig spun a bottle of Seagram’s over his shoulder and caught it behind his back. “The usual, Jack?”

“No. Soda water. Put a piece of lime in it to make it look like I’m drinking something.”

“Soda water. Hmm,” Craig remarked. His brow arched, as did the brows of several patrons. I will not break my promise, Jack thought.

“Graduating to the hard stuff, huh?” Stewie commented.

“Believe me, Stewie. It’s very difficult for me to be in the same room with you and be sober at the same time.”

“Let’s just get to business before we get into a fight.”

“Fine,” Jack said. “I don’t have time to drive you to the emergency room. I’d miss Wheel of Fortune reruns.”

“You know, Jack, I like you, even in spite of your rampant aggression and alcoholic ill-will. But let me ask you something. Why exactly do you hate my guts?”

“Plenty of reasons,” Jack was quick to respond. “You’re selfish, greedy, pompous, you make a living off my ex-girlfriend’s work, and you wear boots that come up to your fuckin’ crotch.”

“All of the above are true, Jack, but let’s try real hard to be adults for a minute — a trying task, in your case. I’m really worried about Veronica.”

“You said she might be in trouble. How so?”

“I’m not sure. She’s never been one to shirk her professional responsibilities. Shows, galleries, interviews — all that kind of stuff’s very important to her, the business end of her art. That’s why she has me to manage her career.”

“Get to the point.”

“I haven’t heard from her all week.”

Jack set his drink down and thought about that. Stewie was right. Veronica would never remain out of touch with her manager for so long a time. There had to be a reason.

“That’s why I’m worried. She’s close to the big time, which is great because she deserves it. But it’s real easy for an artist to fuck up. All you have to do is snub a few important people, and that can mean the end of a career. She’s got a lot of things in the fire right now. Art Times wants to interview her. Two major publishers want to do books of her work. I got galleries all over the country who want to put her up. Yesterday the fucking Corcoran calls, they want to do a show too. I don’t know what to tell any of these people. Some of them are important people, Jack. All week long I’ve been telling them I’ll get back to them once Veronica has contacted me. I can’t jerk them off forever. When the fucking Corcoran Gallery calls, you don’t say, “I’ll get back to ya, bub.’”

This didn’t sound right, none of it did.

“I’ve got to get ahold of her, Jack. I’ve got to know what she’s got ready to go. If I can’t get back to these galleries with some kind of commitment soon, they’ll write her off. That would be really bad for her future. You got to help me out here, Jackie. My bread and butter’s on the line, and so is hers.”

“What can I do?” Jack queried.

“Tell me about this thing she went on with Ginny. She hates my guts too, by the way.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Jack said. “She said it was a creative retreat of some sort, said she wanted to ‘find’ herself. And she said some rich guy was putting her up.”

“Khoronos,” Stewie said.

“Yeah. Khoronos. If you ask me, the whole thing sounds pretty fucked up.”

“We finally agree on something. Do you know where Khoronos lives?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. I think she was afraid I’d hound her or something. She hit me with all this the night we broke up.”

Stewie stirred his gin with his finger. He’d grown his pinky nail long and painted it white. “I met him once,” he said.

Khoronos, Jack thought. Already the rats were coming home to feast, jealousies and the blackest thoughts, all to remind him of what he had lost. “What’s he like?” he asked.

“Pompous but refined,” Stewie answered. “Something awesome about the way he carries himself and the way he talked. The word ‘scintillating’ comes to mind.”

Awesome, Jack thought. Scintillating. Excuse me while I puke.

“And real good-looking,” Stewie was kind enough to continue. He ordered another Sapphire from Craig. “Sharp dresser, tall, well proportioned. Fantastic body.”

Jack frowned.

“Human beauty’s a wondrous thing, whether you’re a man or a woman. Too bad you can’t relate to that, Jackie.”

“Yeah, too bad,” Jack muttered. “Go on.”

“What I’m saying is this guy Khoronos is a real hot number. Veronica fell for him the instant she met him.”

Each word of Stewie’s revelation made Jack sink further. He remembered what Craig had said. No matter how much you love a girl, there was always someone around the next corner waiting to ruin it all. There was always a Khoronos. “What else do you know about him?”

“He bought one of Vern’s paintings. The guy was carrying twenty-five large in cash. Tell me that’s not weird. He sent a couple of guys around the next morning to pick up the picture.”

“Delivery men? Big deal.”

“These guys weren’t delivery men. They almost acted like servants. Heartbreakers, Jackie. Musclemen with class.”

Now Jack’s head spun with the most terrible images. “Creative retreat, my ass,” he mumbled under his breath.

“I know what you’re thinking. We both know there’s a side to Veronica that’s very susceptible to outside influences. In a lot of ways, she’s very vulnerable.”

“What are you saying?”

Stewie put a good dent in his Sapphire. “Come, Jackie. Guys like that, rich, sexy, art enthusiasts… Veronica will be putty in their hands, and you know it.”

“Ginny’ll keep an eye on her,” Jack lamely suggested.

Stewie threw his head back and laughed, a bit too loudly. “Ginny protecting Veronica is like a vampire in a fucking blood bank. Wake up, Jackie. She’s a feminist existentialist, for Christ’s sake. Read her books. They’re all about women breaking free of relationships, sexual independence, doing whatever they feel like to find actualization.”

Jack didn’t know what actualization meant, but it didn’t sound good.

Stewie ordered yet another gin. “I’ve always believed that love between two people is a holy thing. Two people together are stronger than when they’re on their own. There’re a lot of bad folks in the world, Jackie. Users, liars, con men, and every other kind of motherfucker who’ll take advantage of vulnerable people for their own kicks. But love protects us from people like that.”

“You’re the last person I’d expect to hear that from.”

“We all have our fronts, Jackie. You do, I do. You think my only interest in Veronica is financial.”

“As a matter of fact, Stewie, I do. Veronica’s your only important client. Without her, you’d be washed up.”

“That’s true. But she’s also my friend, and I care about her.”

This was very bizarre. Stewie was showing a side of himself Jack didn’t think existed. Could it be possible that Stewie was something more than a self-centered art pimp? Beneath the new-wave clothes and hairdo, and the decadent pretenses, was there really a decent human being?

“You still care about her too, Jackie.”

Jack stared at him. Yeah, I do, he thought. And I can’t do shit about it, can I?

“All I mean is that Veronica could be in a bad situation, and goddamn Ginny isn’t going to be any help at all. Veronica’s not a decisive person, and as far as this retreat thing goes, Ginny’ll be right there to help her make all the wrong decisions.”

“Which makes Veronica even more vulnerable.”

“You got it. This Khoronos guy, he’s slick, he’s a smooth operator. He knew all the right things to say to impress Vern, and all the right ways to say them. It took him all of five fucking minutes to make her completely oblivious to common sense, and it was almost like he had the whole retreat thing planned in advance. The fact is he’s a perfect stranger. Khoronos and his two pretty boys? They could be nuts, for all we know.”

Jack began to foment. Stewie was right. Who knew who these guys were, and what their game was?

“I saw them off, Vern and Ginny. Vern promised to keep in touch on what was going on with the gallery bids. I haven’t heard one word from her.” Stewie drained another gin. “You’ve got to take care of this, Jack.”

“I don’t know where she is,” Jack countered. “I don’t know anything about any of it.”

“Don’t you give a shit at all, man?”

“Of course I do, you asshole.”

“Then do something about it, shithead.”

“What?”

“Come on, Jackie. You’re a cop. You can get a line on this Khoronos clown. Just do whatever it is you cops do when you want to know something.”

“I could run his last name if he’s got a criminal record, but that would take a while. I could try MVA too. If I had his date of birth or his S.S. number, it’d be a lot faster, but we don’t have any that shit. You say he bought a painting with cash? Were they big bills, small bills?”

“Big bills, man. C-notes.”

“You still have the money?”

“Fuck no, I deposited it the same day.”

“Shit,” Jack muttered. Banks kept serial number records of large withdrawals. “He give it to you in anything. An envelope?”

“No, he gave it to me in a fucking toolbox. Of course there was an envelope. But there was nothing on it.”

“You still have the envelope?”

“I threw it out.”

Jack frowned. “All right. You said these two guys picked up the painting Khoronos bought. What kind of vehicle?”

“A step van. White.”

“Make, model, year?”

“I don’t know, man. Do I look like a car dealer?”

“You see the tag number?”

“No, I had no reason to look.”

“Did you notice the state, even the color of the plates?”

“No,” Stewie said.

Jack tapped the bar. What else was there? “These two guys? You must’ve given them a receipt for the painting.”

“Yeah, a standard exchange receipt. I have our copy. The smaller guy signed it, but I can’t make out shit for the signature.”

“I’ll need to see it anyway,” Jack said. “I’ll also need the day you made the deposit, and what bank you use. The bank’ll log a cash deposit that big and the serial numbers of the bills if they’re consecutive. If they’re not consecutive, they’ll record sample numbers.”

“What good would that do?”

“I might be able to link your deposit to Khoronos’ withdrawal. If I can locate his bank, I can locate him. The only problem is bank records are protected information. Unless I have probable cause to convince a magistrate that Khoronos has committed a crime, which I don’t, then they won’t show me the transaction records.”

“Talk to me, Jackie. You guys have ways around that shit.”

“I might be able to go under the table, but I doubt it. I’ll give it a shot. After that, there’s nothing.”

Stewie got up, a little stumbly. “There are other things you can do, Jackie, and you know what I’m talking about. Excuse me.”

Yeah, there are a few other things, Jack agreed. He was already thinking about them.

While Stewie utilized the men’s room, Jack began to feel edgy. Just seeing people drink goaded him, just seeing the bottles lined up on the wall. Craig was shaking up some shooters for a pair of local cuties. A goateed guy and an area writer were drinking a toast: “To darker days and evil women,” the goateed guy proposed. Everybody was drinking, having a good time. Just one, Jack considered, but he knew it was a lie. For men like Jack there was no such thing as one drink. He’d made a promise tonight, and he resolved to keep it. He might break it tomorrow. But… Not tonight, he thought.

“Another soda water, Jack?” Craig asked. He flipped a lit cigarette and caught it in his mouth. The two cuties applauded.

“I, uh—” Jack groaned. Fiddich, rocks, he wanted to say. “I made a promise that I wouldn’t drink tonight.”

Craig ejected a shaker of ice behind his back into the sink. “My view on promises is thus: A man can only be as good as his promise. When we break our promises, we break ourselves.”

“Another soda water, Craig,” Jack validated. The wisdom of barkeeps, again, amazed. When we break our promises, we break ourselves. He should have it tattooed on his wrist, a constant reminder. “With lime and lemon this time,” he added.

“Where were we?” Stewie retook his stool and ordered another Sapphire. His eyes looked bloodshot.

“Hey, Stewie,” Jack began. “How come you’re getting tanked?”

“You’re lecturing me? That’s balls, Jackie. You’re the A.A. candidate, not me.”

“I’m not lecturing you, I just—”

“I told you, I’m worried about her, I’m concerned.”

“I used to be in love with her, remember? I’m concerned about her too. More than you.”

“Bullshit, Jackie.” Stewie swigged, wincing. “You’ve never been concerned about anyone in your life.”

Jack gaped at the insult.

“And if anything bad happens to her,” Stewie ranted on, “it’ll be your fault.”

Jack gaped at that one too. “Since you’re drunk, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“No, Jackie, since I’m drunk, I’ll tell you what I really think. You wanna hear it?”

“Sure, I listen to crap every day. Yours is no different from anyone else’s.”

“Here’s what I think, Jackie boy. I think you were the best thing to ever happen to Veronica.”

Jack’s mouth fell open. Of all the things he might expect Stewie to say, this was the least imaginable.

“Before she got involved with you, she didn’t have anything but her work. She was confused, disillusioned, and unhappy. But you gave her direction—”

Jack was confused too, thoroughly. “Stewie, how come all of a sudden you’re saying good things about me?”

“—and then you failed,” Stewie, ran on. “You gave her the promise of something good, and then you let her down.”

Jack roused. “How the fuck did I let her down! She dumped me, remember? She ended the relationship, not me!”

Stewie shrugged. “You dangled happiness in front of her face, but you never let her have it. All you did was moan and groan about your own problems without ever considering hers. It broke her heart, Jackie. You never even tried to care about the things that were important to her.”

“Oh, yeah? What? What things?”

“The things that make her tick. Her desire to create, her visions and her insights. Her art, Jackie. Her art.”

Jack’s mouth felt frozen, an immobile hole.

“She loved you so much, more than you could probably ever know. You led her on, but you never came through. You were too selfish.”

Could all this be true? Could Jack have been so blind that he didn’t see any of this?

“You left her with no alternative, Jackie.”

Jack felt dried up in the aftermath of Stewie’s dissertation. His first impulse was to deny it all, to dismiss it, but that would only be evasion. Why would Stewie make up so detailed a condemnation?

“I didn’t know,” Jack said. “I didn’t realize…”

“Yeah, right.” Stewie slapped some cash down on the bar, and also the date of the deposit and the name of Veronica’s bank. “Are your excuses always so sophisticated? With Veronica, you could have had everything. Look what you get instead.”

Jack didn’t know what he meant.

“I gotta go now, Jackie. Enjoy the view.” Stewie shoved his wallet back in his pants and walked out of the bar.

Enjoy the view, Jack repeated in his mind. He looked up. In the mirrored bar wall, behind rows and rows of bottles, he saw his own face staring back at him.

“Hey, Craig. Dump the soda water and pour me a Fiddich.”

“What about your promise?” Craig asked, stacking some pint glasses with Oxford Class emblems on them.

“Fuck the promise. Get me a drink.”

“With all due respect, Jack, I don’t think that’s such a hot idea. Why not just play it cool tonight?”

“I don’t need a counseling session, Craig, I need a drink. Just pour me a fucking drink, or I’ll find a bar that will.”