"Who the fuck is this!" Chubby shouted.

"I'm a mother!" Mrs. Cutler bawled back, slamming down the phone.

"Makes them do what!" Chubby screamed at the dial tone.

***

"If he's any kind of man at all, she'll be taken care of," Mrs. Cutler said as she applied first aid cream to Jack's face.

***

Chubby slammed down the phone. "Phyllis!" he bawled in rage. He kicked open the bedroom door. Phyllis wasn't home. "Phyllis!" He stormed through the house. He grabbed his jacket. "Fuckin' hoowah!" He slammed the door.

28

THE SKY was a nightmare of luminous grays. Chubby steamed across the street as the first drops hit the ground in ugly slaps. As he reached his car, the clouds ruptured into a furious jungle-thick sheet of rain. The car door slammed.

Banion's was deserted when Chubby tramped in trailing water like a dog climbing out of a lake. He collapsed onto a barstool, slammed his forearms on the counter and violently shook his head, spattering the area with rainwater.

"Banion, gimme a towel." Chubby furiously rubbed his hair dry. He shivered as the wetness of his shirt seeped under his skin. His teeth chattered. Banion sat behind the bar watching him. "Banion, you got a extra shirt?"

Banion wheeled down the bar, pulled out a heavily starched white busboy shirt from under the counter. He hadn't seen Chubby since he was in the hospital. Banion was nervous. Chubby seemed totally bent out of shape.

Chubby sat nude from the waist up, drying his back and his armpits. He took the shirt from Banion.

"It's freezin' in here!" Chubby's teeth sounded like castanets. "Don't you got no heat?" He pulled on the shirt. It was so small that it pinched the hair in his armpits, the front of the shirt not even making it around his ribs. He leaned over the bar for a tall glass and a bottle of Scotch.

"Hey... Chub. How you been feelin' since las' week?" Chubby ignored him, poured the glass three-quarters full, drank it down like Coke. "I gave Tommy some Haig to bring to you." Chubby poured five fingers, took a fistful of ice, dropped it in his drink and slugged it down. Banion automatically reached under the seat of his wheelchair and felt the police .38 held there. "I was gonna call you, but I kept gettin' hung up."

Chubby rubbed his mouth, frowning at something invisible to Banion's left. "Banion, what does seduced mean? Fucked, right?"

Banion brought his hand up from under the seat, empty.

"What?" He was sweating, fanned himself with a rolled-up crossword puzzle magazine.

"Seduced, seduced. He seduced her, means he fucked her, right?"

"Who did?"

Chubby sighed, rubbed his eyes, his arm flapped down on the bar, palm up. "Banion, take the fuckin' cotton outta your ears. Seduced means fuck, right?"

"Yeah." Banion pouted. "Sure."

"Yeah, yeah. I thought so." Chubby shook his head in affirmation. He slapped both palms down on the bar again and grimly stared at the row of spout-capped liquor bottles along the mirror. "FUCK!" He hurled his empty glass at the bottles. Banion ducked, loosened the .38 in one motion, but when he brought it up and pointed it with two shaking hands, the bar was deserted except for the wet mound of Chubby's discarded shirt.