“You look frightened,” she said. Then, her eyes widening, “You are frightened.”
He looked at her. He said very quietly, “Get going.”
For a long moment her eyes remained wide. Aside from that, she was quite calm. Finally, with a slight shrug, she started the engine. The MG backed off the pier and drove away.
6
It was several minutes later and he was on Vernon Street, headed toward home. But as he came closer to the Kerrigan house, he thought of Bella and the battle that would undoubtedly flare up when he got there. She was probably sitting in the parlor waiting for him, and chances were she had some heavy object in her hand, all set to heave it at him the instant he opened the door. Momentarily there was something downright appetizing in the prospect of a clash with Bella. He wanted to hear some noise, and make some himself, and maybe hand her a clout or two. He sure was in the mood for hitting something.
He came to an abrupt stop under a street lamp. No, he told himself, he didn’t feel like fighting with Bella. The only thing he felt like hitting right now was his own face. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his work pants and jabbed one between his tightened lips and struck a match. He leaned against the post of the street lamp, gazing out at the street and taking deep drags of smoke.
A voice called, “Hey, man.”
He turned and looked at the window of the wooden shack and saw the long, glimmering earrings, the lacquered black hair, the coffee-and-cream face of Rita Montanez. In the Vernon Street market, which rarely ran as high as three dollars, she alone had the nerve to charge five. She got away with it because she was constructed along the lines that caused men to swallow hard when she passed them on the street. Rita was a mixture of African and Portuguese and she featured the finer physical characteristics of her internationally-minded ancestors. Her onyx eyes were long-lashed and she had a finely shaped nose and medium-thick lips. She was in her early thirties and didn’t look a day over twenty.
Kerrigan smiled at Rita and walked toward the window. Although he was not a customer, he had a definite affection for her, going back to the days when they were kids playing in the streets.
“Got another smoke?” Rita asked.