Free Vulgar Boatman by William G. Tapply Page B

smudged look around his eyes, as if he needed sleep… “I met her after dinner. We didn’t have any particular plans. We usually just drove around, talked, maybe got ice cream or something. But that night, the first thing she told me was that she had plans for later, she could only see me for an hour or so. She was uptight about it. Like she was trying to pick a fight, get a rise out of me. Which, of course, she did. She knew all the buttons and switches on me. Like nobody ever did. I asked her what she had to do that was so important, and she said I didn’t own her. Anyway, we went and got ice cream, and then I let her off downtown. That was it. That was the last time I saw her.”
    “That’s all?”
    He shrugged. “Sure.”
    “Did you make love with her?”
    “Why would you say that?”
    “Did you?”
    “No.”
    “Did you use cocaine with her?”
    “Of course not. I’m off that stuff.”
    “What did you do after you let her off?”
    He poked at his slice of pizza with his forefinger. “I was upset. I didn’t feel like going home. It was early. My mother would still be up, and I didn’t want to deal with her. I come home late, she worries about what I’ve been doing. I come home early, it means something’s wrong, that I’m depressed. So I drove around for a while. I was depressed, I’ll admit that. Arguing with Alice. I was worried I was losing her.” He smiled crookedly. “Pretty funny, huh? Anyway, after a while I said the hell with it. I drove to Cambridge. Walked around the Square for a while. I met a girl. We went back to her apartment. I ended up staying there for the night.”
    “Who was the girl?”
    “Bonnie something.”
    “You don’t know her last name?”
    He cocked his head at me. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know anything about her. She lives in a grungy apartment down near Central Square. She’s old. Twenty-five or something like that.”
    I sipped my beer. “Why didn’t you go to work the next day? Yesterday?”
    He shrugged. “I would’ve been late. I didn’t care. Bob wouldn’t mind, I knew that. I was still depressed about Alice. Fighting with her, I mean.”
    “You didn’t know what happened to her?”
    He shook his head. “Not then. Not till later.”
    “So what did you do all day?”
    “Nothing. Hung around.”
    “And last night?”
    “I stayed in a hotel room. Had room service. They brought me a beer.”
    “What hotel?”
    He looked at me and shrugged. I decided not to press the point. “What about today?”
    “Nothing.” Buddy got up and went over to the glass doors. He stared out a moment, then bowed his head and leaned his forehead against the glass. Then he turned to face me. “Look, I know this doesn’t sound very good. But it’s the truth. I was depressed about Alice. She was the only thing in my life that was any good. And I was getting the brush-off from her. I saw it clearly. She was seeing some other guy.”
    “Do you know that?”
    “I could just tell.”
    “Who was the other guy?”
    He shrugged. “No idea whatsoever. That’s what we argued about. I accused her of seeing someone else. She denied it. I begged her to tell me. She said there was nobody. She tried to be jolly about it. Like I had nothing to worry about. I knew she was lying. I told her that. That’s when she got pissed.”
    The pizza tasted like cardboard, but the sour taste in my mouth came from Buddy. I lit a cigarette. It didn’t taste any better. “Listen to me,” I said carefully. “For the time being, I’m your attorney. And you are in serious trouble. You’ve got to tell me the truth. Your story doesn’t hang together. You’re trying to make me believe that an argument with your girl friend caused you to hole up in a hotel for a couple days. You were with some woman named Bonnie who you can’t identify, so she won’t be able to verify what might be an alibi for you. You said you and Alice didn’t make love, and you said you didn’t do any drugs,