But inside, sitting here at the bar with the television set going, and the sound of voices everywhere around them, the world seemed safe and cozy and warm, and she found herself listening intently to everything he said. Not only the jokes. The jokes were a given. If you wanted to learn about him, you had to listen to his jokes. The jokes were some sort of defense system, she realized, his way of keeping himself at arm's distance from anyone. But scattered in among the incessant jokes, there were glimpses of a shy and somewhat vulnerable person longing to make contact—until another joke was triggered.
He had used up his first twenty dollars five minutes ago, and was now working on the second twenty, which he said should take them through to twelve-forty.
"After that, we'll see," he said. "Maybe we'll talk some more, or maybe we'll go outside, depends how we feel, right? We'll play this by ear, Linda, I'm really enjoying this, aren't you?"
"Yes," she said, and guessed she meant it.
But he's the killer, she reminded herself.
Or maybe not.
She hoped he wasn't.
"If you add up these twenties," he said, "a dollar a minute, you'll be getting a third of what my dad gets in L.A., he gets a hundred and fifty bucks for a fifty-minute hour, which ain't bad, huh? For listening to people tell you they have bedbugs crawling all over them? Don't brush them on me, right? Well, I guess you know that one, I guess I've already told that one."
He hadn't told that one. But suddenly, as he apologized for what he'd mistakenly thought was repetition, she felt oddly close to him. Like a married woman listening to the same jokes her husband had told time and again, and yet enjoying them each time as if he were telling them for the first time. She knew the "Don't-brush-them-on-me" joke. Yet she wished he would tell it, anyway.
And wondered if she was stalling for time.
Wondered if she was putting off that eventual moment when the knife came out of the pocket.
"My father was very strict," he said. "If you have any choice, don't get raised by a psychiatrist. How's your father? Is he tough on you?"
"I never really knew him," she said.
Her father. A cop. On the beat, they used to call him Pops Burke. Shot to death when she was still a little girl.
In the next instant, she almost told him that her
And realized again that her mind was playing tricks.
"I grew up in a world of don't do this, don't do that," Bobby said. "You'd think a shrink would've known better, well, I guess it was a case of the shoemaker's children. Talk about repression. It was my mother who finally helped me to break out. I make it sound like a prison, don't I? Well, it was. Do you know the one about the lady walking along the beach in Miami?"
She shook her head.
She realized she was already smiling.
"Well, she sees this guy lying on the sand, and she goes up to him and she says, 'Excuse me, I don't mean to intrude, but you're very white.' The guy looks up at her and says, 'So?' The lady says, 'I mean, most people they come down to Miami, they lie in the sun, they get a nice tan. But you're very white.' The guy says, 'So?' The lady says, 'So how come you're so white?' The guy says, 'This is prison pallor, I just got out of prison yesterday.' The lady shakes her head and says, 'How long were you in prison?' The guys says, 'Thirty years.' The lady says, 'My, my, what did you do, they put you in prison for thirty years?' The guy says, 'I killed my wife with a hatchet and chopped her up in little pieces.' The woman looks at him and says, 'Mmmm, so you're single?' "
Eileen burst out laughing.
And then realized that the joke was about murder.
And then wondered if a murderer would tell a joke about murder.
"Anyway, it was my mother who broke me out of prison," Bobby said, "and she had to die to do it."
"What do you mean?"
