“I decided I might as well tell you this now,” Clete said, “to give you time to get used to it.”
“Used to what?”
“Dieter obviously can’t fly, so you’re probably going to have to.”
“No.”
“Yeah, Jimmy.”
“Fly what?”
“Maybe the Cub down south. Maybe one of the Lodestars. It depends on how this develops.”
“No.”
“Yes. I mean it. Get used to it. You don’t have a choice. Think it through and you’ll see I’m right.”
Frade turned and walked out of the room.
“Shit,” Jimmy said aloud.
He started again to undress. He had his shoes and necktie off and was unbuttoning his shirt when the door opened again.
“Now what?” he snarled, then raised his eyes and saw it was Marjie.
“Jesus Christ!” he said.
“No. Not even the Virgin Mary.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“I thought you could use a little tenderness.”
“Marjie, get out of here.”
“Relax. Clete didn’t see me come in.”
When he didn’t reply to that, she added, “Not that I really care.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“There’s something I think I should tell you.”
“Like what?”
“Like when we first got word that you’d been attacked, but nobody knew what happened to you. My reaction to that.”
“Which was?”
“‘Oh, my God, he’s dead and I never got to tell him I love him. That I’ve always loved him.’”
“Weren’t you listening when I told you about Elsa? And the other things I’ve done?”
“Okay. Let’s get that out of the way. If you ever do something like that again, or even think about doing something like that again, I’ll cut off your dingus and feed it to the hogs.”
“You never had hogs on your spread, Squirt, and we never had them on ours. So how do you know that hogs would eat it?”
“Maybe with mustard? Or sauerkraut?”