Around ten o’clock she realized that he would not call, that he would wait her out again. She wondered how long that would take.

* * *

On Sunday she went to Mass and sat in the back. It was a large church, and up in front she saw what seemed to be the back of Paul’s head. The next Sunday, she avoided that church, attending Mass in Glendale, where she waited out a long homily in Spanish. The following Saturday night, she was driving back from Elise’s house in Canoga Park. When she got off the freeway, she passed an old lounge, a regional middle-class watering hole with a stone facade and a pink neon sign shouldered against the road. In front, three police cruisers were parked randomly, blocking traffic, their flashers on. In the parking lot, men chased one another, and a policeman raised his baton, threatening a young man who was staggering backward, his jacket knotted in the policeman’s fist. The officer seemed more annoyed than angry as he hammered at the air above the young man’s head, and then Colette saw that he had his hand on Paul. She pulled out of the street, then walked around two sets of men struggling on the ground to where a policeman had Paul pinned against a light standard.

Colette smiled at the officer. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

He put another hand on Paul’s jacket and seemed to forget what he was doing when he saw her. “You know this man, ma’am?”

She looked at Paul, who was weaving like a reed, a little drunk and fight-tired, his denim shirt out, a hole torn in the knee of his trousers. “Yeah, you might say he’s a relative. What’s he done?”

“As near as I can tell, he asked the same woman to dance twice, and her husband didn’t like it. Three guys got on him and then a couple boilermakers joined in.”

“Colette,” Paul said, a little rill of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up.” She turned to the policeman, who had taken his hands off of Paul and was straightening his uniform. “Are you going to bring him in?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s not fit to drive anywhere. But it’s the others who’ll be charged for fighting and all the breakage.”

“Can you release him to me?” She smiled wider now, and Paul turned his head away, closed his eyes in a wish.

The policeman looked over to her little sedan and shrugged. One of the other fighters got up on one elbow and cursed all the officers. “All right,” he said. “Take him home and leave him there.”

As they drove off, Paul gave her a one-eyed look. “Why’d you stop?”

She wouldn’t return his glance. “If you get hauled in, your name might wind up in the police reports. Your boss might hold it against you.”

“That the only reason?” He wiped his mouth on his jacket.

She waved him off. “What was it about?”