LITMIR.BIZ

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I forget I’ll find ants everywhere in the a.m.”

      “Ants! Of coursh,” Ava slurred. “Pesky things.”

      I grabbed a half bag of trash from the container and wrapped it for show, heading downstairs. She’d locked her car and I got the slim-jim from mine, a two-foot strip of thin steel slipped between door and window to pop the lock. Ava’s door opened in seconds. The glovebox had the usual automotive records, plus several packs of gum, breath mints, and other scented candies. I patted beneath the passenger seat. Nothing. My hand crawled beneath the driver’s seat and found a long brown bag that sloshed as I retrieved it. Inside was a liter of bottom-rung vodka, a third empty. A sales receipt fell out. Beneath the imprint of the package store was the name and price of the vodka, plus date and time of the purchase.

      7:01 p.m. Tonight.

      Jesus. Ava had sucked down eight or so ounces of liquor before she’d arrived. No wonder she’d looked incandescent at the door; she was lit up with first-flush alco-energy, blazing. But it’s a fire ravenous for fuel and her featherweight drinks lacked the voltage, so she’d hustled to her car for an eighty-fourproof jump-start.

      Bear was an alky who pulled chugs from a bottle under the seat when I picked up smokes and burgers. Ten months with him taught me if Ava could drink that much and still present a sober facade, she’d had practice handling it. She was experienced enough that leaving the report in the car let her socially birdie-sip her drink, having an excuse to head to the well if the itch started. Alcoholics are master planners at sneaking drinks.

      The slurring had started. With a fresh surge of ethanol in her system she’d start showing its effects, but perhaps be too affected to realize it. Letting her drive back to Mobile was unthinkable. I felt like an amateur juggler handed two lit blowtorches and a Roman candle: how to proceed without getting burned?

      “How’s your trash prollem?” Ava said loudly as I stepped back outside. Her glass was fuller than when I’d left, and I realized she’d slipped inside and poured one. It didn’t seem the best way to begin a relationship, she sneaking my booze while I broke into her car.

      I said, “It’s solved. No ants in my pants tonight.”

      “What about your pantch?” Her esses had moved from slippery to slushy.

      “Nothing. Just a comment on entomology.”

      “Etta-molgy? Where words come from, right?”

      She squinted slightly, a reaction to blurring vision. After several seconds spent studying her watch Ava jumped up as if bee stung.

      “Pas’ my bedtime. Gotta run.” She started to walk but wavered. “Whoopsie,” she said, covering. “Leg fell asleep.” She bent and pretended to massage sparkles away.

      “And a very nice leg at that,” I said.

      She grinned crookedly. “Thanks. Got another’n just like it over here.”

      She wobbled again. If she got in her car I’d have to call the Dauphin Island cops and have her stopped. I couldn’t sober her up quickly, but I could push her the other direction.

      “Just one more small one?” I suggested. “A light light for the road?”

      “Nope. All done.” But her eyes weighed the notion and her feet weren’t moving.

      “Please, just one more with me,” I said. “Sit, darling.”

      “Darling?” she echoed as I went to the kitchen. A minute later I handed her three shots of vodka with tonic to take it to the rim. I’d added a hefty squeeze of lime, hoping its citrus bite masked the potency. Ava was past sipping for show and drained a third of the glass in a single swig. She cocked her head my way and her eyes took a two-count to focus.

      “Carshon, did you call me darling before?”

      “Yes, I did, Ava.”

      “Why?” she said, turning the word into two syllables.

      “It seemed appropriate.”

      Ava rose with a waver and walked toward me. She leaned my way and I thought her equilibrium was failing until her lips found mine. She tasted like lime perfume and her lips were cold. But her tongue was warm and we held tight as her hands stroked my back and kneaded my buttocks. Between the lime and vodka I smelled the heat of her need. We half walked, half staggered to the dimly lit bedroom. I sat her on the bed and she nibbled between my neck and ear. Despite the circumstances I heard the amoral beast of my body howling.

      “Wait here, darling,” I said. “I want to take a quick shower. But first let me get your drink.”

      “Oh, God, pleash hurry,” she said, and I wondered if she was referring to the shower or the booze. I brought her another thermonuclear blast of vodka.

      I sat on the toilet seat and ran a cold shower for several minutes before climbing in myself. Fifteen minutes later she was sprawled and snoring. When I tugged the cover up to her neck, my knuckles touched the warmth of her lips, and I let them rest there. I had so far seen two Ava Davanelles, the first a joyless, brooding ghost, alert to slights and quick to anger, the second a sun-bright dazzle of the delicious, all smile and wit and sweet, laid-back laughter. Were both no more than fables from a bottle? If so, where between the extremes resided the true Ava Davanelle?

      Was it the woman I saw in the hall outside Willet Lindy’s office, her fists knotted tight and her face a white horror of conflict and struggle?

      I should have felt anger and betrayal, not by the woman whose breath warmed my hand, but by myself. My self-serving need to understand and battle discord had drawn me to a place where I lacked knowledge or solution. I could not understand the situation, but since it had crossed into my life, I could not in good conscience turn and retreat.

      Or could I? None of this was of my making.

      I oversaw Ava’s sleep for twenty minutes, then went to the deck and watched the stars assemble until their noise overwhelmed me and I went to bed.

       Chapter 12

      I once found Bear on his knees in front of the toilet, hand jammed in his mouth and tickling the back of his throat to jump-start the retching that pushed the binge-toxins from his stomach. At 6:30 I awoke to the same sounds behind my bathroom door.

      I knocked tentatively. “Ava? Are you all right?”

      “Give me a few minutes,” she said. “I’m—I’m ill.” A muffled moan. More gagging. I put bread in the toaster in case she needed something in her stomach. Five minutes passed before the door opened, last night’s ethanol glow replaced by the starchy pallor I’d seen at the morgue. Her eyes were wet and red. Beads of sweat covered her forehead. I’d opened the windows and the sound of the Gulf poured in.

      “I, um, I’m so embarrassed,” she said. “I must have the flu or something. I guess the drinks must have gone to my head.” She pushed strands of hair behind her ears with shaking fingers.

      “You were pretty gone.”

      “Flu,” she said. “It’s been going around at work.”

      “Sure.”

      “Uh, did we—that is…”

      “We were the epitome of propriety. You got tired, I steered you to the bedroom. I took the couch.” I hoped my collar hid the bite marks she’d sucked into my neck as I’d wrangled her to the bed.

      Relief dropped her shoulders a full inch. “I’m sorry to put you out, I—I don’t remember much. Didn’t I just have two drinks?”

      Groping through the blackout.

      “Maybe three,” I said. “Are you sure it’s the flu?”

      “I—what do you mean?”

      “I

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