LITMIR.BIZ

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living anywhere else. I can afford the rent. The house is on the water. There’s nothing like it anywhere in my price range. I don’t want to leave. Ever. “Selling?” I repeated faintly.

      “You don’t have to move till it’s in escrow,” he said magnanimously.

      Well, la-di-da. My mind immediately searched for a way to buy the property myself, but it wasn’t possible. It was too much money. The property’s value had to be in the stratosphere by virtue of the lakefront land beneath the cottage. The one-bedroom building itself wasn’t much, but it was my home. I was horrified.

      “You’re going to have to take your stuff out of the garage,” I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I’d never been able to use the garage because of all of Ogilvy’s junk that was padlocked inside. I guess I hoped this might deter him, but apart from an unhappy grunt of acknowledgment, he didn’t react.

      I left the cottage with that bad feeling that comes from unresolved issues, the kind that stays in your head, never quite put aside, remembered with a jarring lurch and a pit in your gut. I couldn’t think about moving. I couldn’t. I was pissed off at Ogilvy for even suggesting I should.

      In a funk, I drove to my friend Cynthia’s art gallery, the Black Swan, located in Portland’s chichi Pearl District, and hung around until she closed at nine, and then even later, sharing a glass of red wine with her in her office. She looked sharp in a short forest-green skirt, a matching double-breasted jacket and a pair of silver heels. I asked her to go with me to the Crock.

      “Can’t,” she declined. “Got to get to bed early. Much to do tomorrow. And I’m short-staffed, as ever, since Ernst left, which isn’t a bad thing because the last thing I needed was to look at his ugly face every day.”

      Ernst was an ex-lover and ex-employee.

      I walked her to her car, then climbed back in mine, heading east toward the Willamette River which feeds into the Columbia River, the dividing line between Oregon and Washington. The Willamette bisects Portland whose city center lies on the west side. The Crock, short for Crocodile, is located on the east side, not far from Twin Peaks, the two bluish glass towers that are perched atop the Convention Center. I crossed the Morrison Bridge and began a kind of haphazard journey down narrow streets in search of the bar. I’d never been to the Crock and I wasn’t all that familiar with this area. It’s a part of Portland that was once, and is largely still, industrial, this close to the river, but there are cubbyholes of trendy restaurants and nightclubs tucked here and there. In a few years it will probably be blocks of urban hot spots. I’d been to several of the clubs around town to see up-and-coming bands at a number of these joints: they were, to a one, dark, bare, crammed with young people and loud noises.

      It had been a number of months since Megan Adair left Binkster in my care. She’d made noise that she might actually give the dog a home since Aunt Eugenie, Binky’s original owner and a friend of my mother’s, had departed this world, leaving her beloved pet in my mother’s care. The fact was, Aunt Eugenie was not my aunt. She was, however, Megan Adair’s. In our one meeting, when Megan dropped off the dog, I’d learned that Megan worked at the Crock and that she was in between places to live. I’d hoped she would come back for the pug soon, but now I felt completely different. If anybody were to try to take Binkster from me, they were in for a fight. It was like a bad love affair, really; the dog belonged to me and only me, and by God, I’d go to any means to keep her.

      So it was with a slight chip on my shoulder that I entered the bar. If I saw Megan I was going to make it clear straight up that the dog would not be leaving my care. Which was just another reason why I couldn’t be ousted from my cottage. My heart karumphed hard, hurting. I had to have a place that would take me and my dog. Had to.

      “Five dollars,” the bouncer manning the door said on a bored yawn. He was broad, shiny bald and wore all black.

      “Five dollars? Really.”

      “Five dollars.” He gazed at me hard, his left hand knotted into a fist that he lightly pounded atop a narrow podium.

      “The cover’s for…music?”

      He just stared at me. Normally this kind of thing totally intimidates me, but I hate parting with money, especially when I can’t see any discernible value to a potential purchase.

      “I’m meeting Sean Hatchmere here? He’s a musician?”

      He mouthed, “Five dollars.” The way he did it sent a shiver down my spine. I forked over a Lincoln and he stood aside. I could feel my heart beating inside my rib cage like it was trying to escape. Sheesh. Sometimes it feels like the whole world’s in a really bad mood.

      I was too early for the bands, even though they were already charging a cover, so I headed around a corner—I swear the wall was simply a sheaf of black cardboard—and turned into a room with a circular bar in the center. It was all corrugated metal and chain link and spotlights that sent silver cones of illumination down upon a motley assortment of patrons.

      I saw Megan immediately, her short, spiky blond hair taking on a bluish tint. She wore a tight T-shirt in some gray tone, if the lighting could be trusted, and a pair of darker cargo pants. She was rattling up drinks in a silver shaker, straining a dark red liquid into two martini glasses that looked to be made of molten silver. Everything had that urban, hard, cold feel to it, which I guess was the point. I could think of a million different names more suitable than The Crocodile, but no one asked for my opinion.

      A barmaid in black pants and a gray top studded with rivets swooped down on me as I pulled out a metal stool and settled myself at the bar. I ordered a Mercury, and hoped I wouldn’t be poisoned.

      I watched as Megan assembled my drink. Something cool and grape-colored disappeared into the shaker with some sugar solution and premium vodka. I sweated the cost. Sometimes they’ll charge you damn near ten dollars for a martini. I’d been so intent on slipping inside without Megan seeing me that I hadn’t registered the price. Or maybe I just didn’t want another fight like with the bouncer. I am kind of a chicken.

      I worried that I’d obsess over the cost. Then I worried that I would worry about obsessing over the cost.

      Life’s hellish when you’re cheap.

      The silver martini glass was pushed toward the barmaid, who in turn carefully put it on her tray, and carefully brought it to me. “Three dollars,” she said, much to my grateful surprise. To my look, she said quickly, “You paid the cover, right?”

      “Oh yeah.”

      “Then you’re okay till midnight. Price goes up then.”

      “Really.”

      “We get a lot of good musicians here. A lot of ’em. Nothing gets going till late, though.”

      I sipped away. The drink tasted more pomegranate than grape and it was good. I slurped it down so fast I pretended to keep drinking long after the last drop was absorbed. Thank God for opaque glasses. But then I remembered I could probably put this on an expense account, so I ordered another, and this time Megan herself brought it to me as my barmaid was busy elsewhere.

      We locked eyes. I could tell she registered that she knew me from somewhere, but she was having a hard time placing it. I said, “Hello, Megan. I’m Jane Kelly. You brought me the pug this summer. Your aunt Eugenie’s?”

      “Oh, Binky!” Her eyes widened. “Is everything all right with the dog? Can’t you keep her any longer?”

      “Oh no, she’s fine. I’m…well, I’ve grown attached to her. Honestly, I’d have a hard time giving her back now.”

      “Oh, good. I’m just struggling with my apartment, y’know? Good roommates are like hen’s teeth.” She smiled. “One of Aunt Eugenie’s favorite sayings.”

      “Good old Aunt Eugenie.”

      “I’ve got a guy living with me now who tried to tell me he doesn’t spank the monkey. This after he ate a bag of Cheetos.

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