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“Son of a bitch!”
“Yes,” I said.
She struck a second time.
The blood gushed. It flooded my chin and drenched my upraised hands. Maggie pulled back.
“Oh, God,” she cried, “what have I done!”
“Hit a son of a bitch and bastard,” Fritz answered.
“Right,” said Crumley.
“You keep out of this!” Maggie yelled. “Someone get a Band-Aid.”
I looked at the bright flow on my hands. “Band-Aids won’t work.”
“Shut up, you stupid womanizer!”
“Only one,” I bleated.
“Hold still!” she cried, and raised her fist again.
I held still and she collapsed.
“No, no, enoug
h, enough,” she wept. “Oh God, this is terrible.”
“Go ahead, I deserve it,” I said.
“Do you, do you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Maggie glared at the far surf. “Where is she? Out there?”
“Somewhere.”
“I hope she never comes in!”
“Me, too.”
“What in hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said as quietly as possible. “Maybe she belongs out there. Maybe she has friends, dumb friends, and maybe she should stay with them and never come in again.”
“If she does, I’ll kill her.”
“Then she’s better off staying way out.”
“Are you defending her, damn you?”
“No, just saying she should never have come in. She was always happier on days like this, after a storm, when the waves are right and the clouds are gone. I saw her a few times like that. She didn’t drink all day, just kept going out, and there was always the promise she wouldn’t come back.”
“What got into you? What got into her?”
“Nobody knows. It happens all the time. No alibis. It’s just things happen, and next thing you know it’s all gone to hell.”
