“Who?”
“My goddamn brother. I guess he found out.” Robbie was around the same height as Joe but narrow in the shoulders and thinner. In pretty much every way he just seemed smaller. His hair was graying and covered his head like a thatched roof. His face had a sour, dull hostility to it, the corners of his mouth in a permanent frown. Dressed in an old T-shirt and blue jeans, he squinted in the sunlight and sucked on a cigarette.
“Oh, that’s Robbie?” Halle asked. It was strange to Joe, Halle’s emotional investment in his life. In the short time that they’d been together, she had learned more about him than had his ex-wife. The ex-wife, Judy, had met Robbie once or twice over the years, but she knew almost nothing about him and, at bottom, not much more about Joe himself. Judy knew only the broad strokes about Lois’s abandonment and the boys’ lives after, but Joe didn’t blame her for that. He had become an emotional vault by the time they’d gotten together and had been unwilling to even consider another way of being. Their marriage had largely been a sham because of it. Halle, though, had pried that vault open in the space of a few months.
“Yeah, that’s Robbie,” he said. “I don’t suppose you want to meet him.”
“It’s not a good idea,” she said quietly. There was pain in her voice but also resolve. He nodded. The truth was, he had no interest in introducing her to Robbie. He just didn’t want to leave her company. For one thing, the undeniable familiarity of the dead woman had been gnawing at him below the surface, almost to the point that he wanted to talk it out with Halle. It was best not to, though. There was too much weirdness swirling around as it was, and for all he knew, it was an illusion. Or maybe he had somehow recognized Lois, whatever the hell had become of her, in some unknown way that no one could explain.
Aside from that, his heart had been lighter all afternoon, while he and Halle were sitting in traffic, cursing at other drivers on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and then huddling in the sterile greeting area of the OCME. A stop for lunch at a pizza joint in Bay Ridge had them laughing at old times, their first days of working together at the firm, before something more than friendship had entered either of their minds.
He missed her. It was a silly affair, something between playing house and a months-long fuckfest. He figured she had issues—unresolved hurts and inadequacies that had driven her to open her heart and her bed to him. Whatever had sparked it, he missed her. And he had blown it.
“The drinking,” he said. “It has to stop. I wish I could tell you right now that—”
“Don’t,” she said. “You should stop, yes, but not because of me. Our time is up, Joe. Do it for yourself, though, okay?”
Our time is up. It sank through him like lead. Had his brother not been standing outside the car, smoking in the heat like some beach bum, he might have broken down in front of her. She was right, though; their time was up. It hurt, but his inner voice reminded him that Halle Rossi had been a lost cause anyway. He had turned her head for a while, but pretty, vivacious young women eventually leave broken old men, whether for another head case or just a better deal. Joe would have been no different. Booze just sped up the inevitable.
“Thanks again, sweetheart,” was all he could manage. Damn near chilly from her overworked AC, he stepped out of the car and into the sunbaked heat of the avenue. He made eye contact with Robbie. Instead of acknowledging him, Robbie’s eyes slid past him to Halle, still strapped in the driver’s seat.
“Who told you about Lois?” Joe asked as she pulled away.
“Some kid detective in Staten Island. I didn’t think they had detectives in Staten Island.”
“Plenty.”
“I don’t think he does anything but tell people that a found body is related to them. Sounds like a great job.” Robbie’s voice was higher than Joe’s and sharper, with more of the old Staten Island accent.
“Come in if you want,” Joe said. He was already sweating, despite the chilled air of Halle’s car.
“Why did she dump you?” Robbie asked, nodding in the direction she had gone.
“Why did she . . . what?”
“It’s obvious. No kiss goodbye. That little talk you had. And now your face, ready to slide off your skull. She hit a nerve, didn’t she?”
“I’m going in,” Joe said. “Follow if you want. If not, goodbye.”
“She looks too young anyway. This house is impressive, though. That might have kept her around.”