45
WHEN WE WENT IN to visit Buffy and Tom Lopata, Buffy
eyed Z silently as she showed us to the living room. She was
wearing tight black pants that narrowed to the ankle, black
open-toed sandals, and a black polo shirt hanging over the pants.
Her arms were pale and very thin. Tom joined us from upstairs, as
he had before. I wondered if they ever spent time
together.
"My associate," I
said to them, "Zebulon Sixkill."
Tom Lopata put out
his hand. He was wearing madras shorts, black penny loafers without
socks, and a white shirt with a buttondown collar. His shirttails,
too, were over his pants.
"Hi," he said. "How
ya doin. Great to meet you."
Z shook hands and
nodded.
Mrs. Lopata lit a
cigarette.
"What the hell kind
of name is Sixkill?" she said.
"Cree," Z
said.
"What?" she
said.
"Cree," Z said.
"Indian tribe."
"You're an
Indian?"
Z put up his hand,
palm out.
"I come in peace,"
he said.
"So why is your name
Sixkill?" Buffy said.
"Buffy," Tom said.
"For crissake."
She ignored him. She
was staring at Z.
"Goes good with
Zebulon," Z said.
"Well, you are a
strapping, handsome Indian," Buffy said.
"Yes," Z
said.
"Could you folks
tell me where you were the night Dawn died?" I said.
"My daughter?" Buffy
said. "Is there a new development?"
"No," I said. "Not
yet. I'm just trying to tie up some loose ends."
"Here, I suppose,"
Tom said. "Probably watching TV."
"That your memory,
Mrs. Lopata?"
"We weren't watching
together," she said. "He won't watch my programs."
"Hell, you won't
watch mine, either," he said.
"I don't want to
watch some dumb sports thing," she said.
"But you were both
here, in the house, together that night."
"Absolutely," Tom
said.
"No," Buffy
said.
I looked at
her.
"No?" I
said.
"I was here, but he
was out gallivanting in his new toy," Buffy said.
"Toy?" I
said.
"She likes to joke,"
Tom said. "I got a new car; I may have taken it out for a spin, see
how she handled."
"Red Cadillac
sedan," I said. "Leather seats?"
"Yeah," Tom
said.
"Nigger car," Buffy
said. She snubbed out her cigarette and lit a new one. "Neighbors
probably think he's a pimp."
Tom shook his head
sadly.
"Doorman," I said,
"at the Inn on the Wharf says Dawn was delivered to the hotel in a
new red Cadillac convertible."
Tom stared at
me.
"According to the
doorman, the driver was a suburban-looking guy, maybe fifty," I
said.
Tom didn't say
anything. Buffy turned and stared at her husband. Z and I waited.
Tom looked at Buffy.
"For God's sake,"
she said, "you are a pimp."
"Don't talk to me
like that," he said.
"You delivered your
daughter to that pig so he could fuck her to death," Buffy
said.
"For God's sake,"
Tom said. "It's not like I knew."
"Pimp," Buffy
said.
"She wanted a ride,"
Tom said. "I had the new car. Hell, she was going to have a date
with a movie star, for crissake. Who wouldn't take her
in?"
"Without telling her
mother," Buffy said. "Either of you, without telling the
mother."
"She made me
promise," Tom said. "She knows what you think of her."
"Her own mother,"
Buffy said.
She put her second
cigarette out carefully in the ashtray, picked up her cigarettes
and a lighter from the table by her chair, stood, and walked out of
the room.
"Shit," Tom said.
"She'll go in her room and pull down the shades and turn on the TV.
And she'll sit there and stare at it and chain-smoke for
days."
"She do that when
Dawn was bad?" I said.
"Any of us," he
said. "Except maybe Matthew. She did it less with
him."
I
nodded.
"You dropped her and
left?" I said.
"Yeah."
"Any arrangement to
pick her up?"
"No."
"You dropped her and
came home?" I said.
"Yes."
"Wife awake when you
got here?" I said.
"No."
"You sleep
together?"
He snorted a little
humorless snort.
"No," he said. "Any
way you mean it."
When we were driving
back to Boston, Z said, "I've seen Lopata before."
"When?" I
said.
"He was on the set,
across from Jumbo's trailer, talking to one of the
producers."
"He didn't seem to
recognize you," I said.
"No," Z said. "I was
in Jumbo's trailer, looking out the window."
"You know what they
were talking about?"
"No clue," Z
said.
"You were sober?" I
said.
"Nope."
"But you remember
this guy," I said.
"He was very . . ."
Z waved his arms around. "You know?"
"Animated?" I
said.
"Yeah,
animated."
"You remember which
producer?" I said.
"Sure," Z
said.
"We can ask him," I
said.
Z nodded. We were
quiet for a time.
"You know," he said.
"Neither one of them ever called the kid by name."
He'd grown more
talkative recently, but quiet still seemed to be Z's natural
condition. Conversation was always surprising.
"Seem too immersed
in being mad at each other," I said.
"Why the hell do
they stay married," Z said.
"You Indians just
don't understand white-man ways," I said.
"Hell," Z said. "I'm
still trying to figure out why you killed all our
buffalo."