he was saying wasnât creeping under my skin and taking root in my veins. I didnât like the sound of âconsequencesâ, the way his eyes glazed over when he said it, like a murderer reminiscing about his last really satisfying kill. I wondered whether I could smash the tea cup right there on the table if I needed to, pick up a sliver of ceramic and drive it into his throat just as he lunged for me, or whether I should just throw the whole cup at his head, praying to God I hit a temple or some other magic spot that would make him black out. A hundred different scenarios raced through my mind from movies and TV shows: Dan Aykroyd getting a TV smashed over his head in Grosse Pointe Blank , the scene from Single White Female where a guy gets dispensed of with a high heel to the forehead. I stood.
âI gotta go. My brotherâs gonna be outside. I told him to pick me up. Heâll be looking for me.â
Hank laughed. âYou ainât got no brother pickinâ you up. What the hell is wrong with you? You think Iâm gonna attack you?â
âI donât know. When you sit there talking like Hannibal Lecter about âconsequencesâ you can really start to freak a girl out.â
âWhat the hell do ya think Iâm gonna do? My prickâs been useless for years. Iâm lucky to get any piss out of it let alone make it stand to attention long enough to get my rocks off. So sit down will ya? Youâre makinâ me nervous. I donât get many people around here you know.â
I stayed standing. âListen, I know we did kind of a shitty thing. It was not a cool thing to do. But if you think youâre going to hold me hostage because I feel bad about it, and make me do some kind of forced community service by coming here to visit you to make up for it, youâre mistaken.â
âI ainât holdinâ no one hostage. You came here of your own volition. And itâs because I have somethinâ for you. I wasnât lyinâ about that. Just wait.â
âYou know what? Itâs cool. I donât want anything.â
âNo. Wait.â
I watched him slink into the kitchen and take something off the bench. When he came back I saw it was an old brown paper bag, crinkled and stained. He handed it to me.
âWhatâs this?â I asked.
âOpen it.â
âItâs not some dudeâs severed ear is it?â
Hank cocked an eyebrow then scratched his ass. âYouâre a weird kid, anyone ever tell you that?â
âOnly every day.â
I opened the bag an inch, went to look inside, then closed it again. I handed it back to Hank.
âYou open it,â I said. âI donât feel like getting my finger ripped off by some bizarre booby trap.â
âOh for Christâs sake,â he said, snatching the bag away. âGive it here.â
He turned the bag upside down and tipped the contents out. In the middle of his liver-spotted hand sat a piece of blue ceramic tile. It was a perfect square, the edges sharp and exact except for one corner that was chipped, the whiteness exposed beneath. I carefully picked it out of his hand.
âWhat is it?â I asked, turning it over in my fingers.
âA pool tile.â
âSo why do I want this?â
âItâs from Jayne Mansfieldâs swimming pool.â
My heart skipped. I held the tile up to the light.
âAre you serious?â I almost squealed. Hank smiled. It was too good to be true. Jayne Mansfield was a Playboy bunny and actress, a cheaper, gaudier version of Marilyn Monroe. She died when the car she was travelling in hit the back of a truck in poor light, decapitating her and killing the two men beside her while her children sat in the backseat. Her heart-shaped pool was a Hollywood icon, torn down by some unfeeling developer who didnât much care for history. A couple of looters had managed to retrieve a few tiles from the