Harvey Stoner leaned on the table and winked at Louise. “What do you know?” he said. He seemed to be teasing her, but when Louise looked over at Jules he was waiting on her answer as if she had something important to say. They were both waiting on her answer. Jules poured her another belt and she shot it down. He poured a tall drink for himself and gulped it down fast. Then he had another. His drinking seemed desperate to her. She could see the lazy loll of his eyes. Her eyelids felt puffy, swollen in the barroom heat. She saw the smoke haze of the women’s cigarettes. They were crossing their legs now. They were smiling too much.

“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t know.”

She slipped out of her coat to wake herself. The door opened and two men came in, carrying guitars. They turned off the jukebox and headed for a small, lit area. Louise looked at the door and then she saw the back of a man’s head. He was a tall Indian man, lean and strong. His hair was thick and black and stiff. He was wearing only a thin white shirt, a pair of moccasins. His pants looked stiff and dirty. She felt the heat of the drinks in her chest. The room was moving a little faster than her head. She looked at this man but he stood at the bar and bent his head down over his drink. She knew he wasn’t Baptiste and yet she had a strange, shaking feeling in her shoulders that if she took her eyes off of him he would disappear. Harvey Stoner saw him too. “What do you hear from your husband?” he said. He had never asked her about Baptiste before. He drew hard on his cigarette and smiled at her but his eyes remained fixed. Jules Bart lifted his head, listening. “I don’t hear much,” she said. Jules shifted back in his chair and tipped back another drink. “And you’re not going to hear nothing,” he said. She saw the quick shift of Harvey’s eyes to Jules. She could see Harvey pressing his knee into Jules Bart’s thigh. Jules pulled away from him with a start. Harvey had been caught. Louise tried to read their gesture but Harvey Stoner stood up. “Time to go,” he said.