Death Is a Lonely Business (Crumley Mysteries 1)

“I had this terrible feeling last night. I couldn’t sleep.”

“What time. Peg, what time?”

“Four o’clock, why?”

“Jesus.”

“Why?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t sleep either. How’s Mexico City?”

“Full of death.”

“God, I thought it was all here.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Lord, it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Say something.”

I said something.

“Say it again!”

“Why are you shouting, Peg?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I do. When are you going to ask me to marry you, damn it!”

“Peg,” I said, in dismay.

“Well, when?”

“On thirty dollars a week, forty when I’m lucky, some weeks nothing, some months not a damn thing?”

“I’ll take a vow of poverty.”

“Sure.”

“I will. I’ll be home in ten days and take both vows.”

“Ten days, ten years.”

“Why do women always have to ask men for their hands?”

“Because we’re cowards and more afraid than you.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“Some conversation this.” I thought of the door last night and the thing hanging on the door and the thing on the end of my bed. “You’d better hurry.”

“Do you remember my face?” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“You do remember it, don’t you, because, God, just an hour ago this terrible, horrible thing happened, I couldn’t remember yours, or the color of your eyes, and I realized what a dumb fool I was not to bring your picture along, and it was all gone. That scares me, to think I could forget. You’ll never forget me, will you?”

I didn’t tell her I had forgotten the color of her eyes just the day before and how that had shaken me for an hour and that it was a kind of death but me not being able to figure who had died first. Peg or me.