'What about him?'
'I thought you might want to drop the charges. It turns out he's hired a really good lawyer. And the lawyer's found a bunch of witnesses who've officially stated you came on to Sweet.'
'He hit me with his guitar.'
'That's true, but I thought you might not want it to go public about the sex thing.'
'What sex thing?'
The witnesses said you wanted to have sex with Sally.'
That's a lie. I was just busting his balls.'
'It's not going to sound like that at the trial.'
Trial?'
'Well, he's got this lawyer now. And all the witnesses...'
'Shit.'
I looked at my watch. 'If you move fast and make a phone call you can stop the process before it gets out of control. Probably your father-in-law would be upset to learn that you propositioned a transvestite.'
'Yeah,' Lula said. 'That's like a double cheat. You were gonna cheat with a guy in a dress. Father-in-laws hate that.'
'What's the name of this hotshot lawyer?' Sklar asked.
'Albert Kloughn.'
'And he's supposed to be good? I never heard of him.'
'He's a shark,' I said. 'He's new to the area.'
'So what's your interest in this?' Sklar asked me.
'Just being a friend, Marty. Since we went to school together and all.'
And I left the showroom.
Lula and I didn't say anything until we were out of the lot.
'Girl, you can lie!' Lula yelled when I turned the Buick onto
Broad. 'You are the shit. I almost gave myself a hemorrhoid trying not to laugh back there. I can't believe how good you can lie. I mean I've seen you lie before, but this was like Satan lying. It was inspired lying.'
Four
I drove two blocks up Broad and pulled into a Subway shop.
'This is a good place to eat lunch,' Lula said. They got them low-carb sandwiches. And they got them low-fat sandwiches.
You could lose a lot of weight eating here. The more you eat, the more you lose.'
'Actually, I chose Subway because it was next to Dunkin' Donuts.'
'Friggin' A,' Lula said.
We each got a sub. And then we each got six doughnuts. We sat in the car and ate the sub and the doughnuts in silence.