“This neighborhood,” he said. “Some goings-on in this neighborhood.”

She blinked several times. Corey picked up a chair and brought it close to where she was sitting. He sat down, leaned back and said, “Where does he work?”

“Chatworth Leather.”

“What’s he do there?”

“He’s a shipper.”

“Nine-to-five?”

She nodded.

“What’s he make a week?”

“Why?”

“Look, it’s a question. Answer it. What’s he make?”

“Fifty—fifty-five. Some weeks it’s sixty.”

“For overtime?”

“He don’t get much overtime. Most weeks it’s fifty.”

“Fifty a week,” Corey murmured, looking around at the tiny kitchen, then past the kitchen at the combination parlor-bedroom with a sagging ceiling and cracks showing in the walls. He leaned back further in the chair and said, “What’s the rent here?”

“Twenty-nine fifty.”

“A year?”

“That ain’t clever,” she said. “It ain’t even funny.”

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not. You hadda get that in.”

“Let it ride.”

She stood up. “I’ll tell you why we live in this trap. On fifty-sixty a week we could live in a better place, except it ain’t just him and me. He’s got his mother in a convalescent home. He helps to support two sisters—”

“All right, all right.”

“—and never spends a dime on himself. Walks to work every day to save carfare. And—”

“All right,” he cut in. “Let it ride already—”

“No,” she said. “You wanna know about him, I’ll tell you. He’s a clean-living, hardworking man. He’s got a load to carry and he carries it. Last week he had a cold, and he shoulda been in bed, and he went to work anyway. Wouldn’t even let me buy cough medicine. Said it cost too much. It’s less than a dollar in the cut-rate store, and he said it cost too much. Then the very next day he gives me this,” and she indicated a bracelet she was wearing.

It was a cheap bracelet, about a dollar-fifty. Corey glanced at it and saw it was on the conservative side, just a plain metal band with a simple design.

“Went out that day and bought it for me,” she said. “For my birthday. You hear what I’m saying? He had that bad cold, coughing his head off. So instead of medicine for himself he remembers it’s my birthday and goes out and buys me this bracelet.”

“Like in them shows,” Corey murmured.

“What shows?”

“Them picture shows. You know, them tear-jerkers for the women.”

She turned away from him. “It’s no use telling you anything. You’re too far away from what’s real.”

“Or maybe too close.”