The next day we picked up some of her stuff at this motel. There was a little dark guy in there with a wart on the side of his nose. He looked dangerous.

“You going with him?” he asked Mary Lou.

“Yes.”

“All right. Luck.” He lit a cigarette.

“Thanks, Hector.”

Hector? What the hell kind of name was that?

“Care for a beer?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said.

Hector was sitting on the edge of the bed. He went into the kitchen and got three beers. It was good beer, imported from Germany. He opened Mary Lou’s bottle, poured some of the bottle into a glass for her. Then he asked me:

“Glass?”

“No, thanks.”

I got up and switched bottles with him.

We sat drinking the beer in silence.

Then he said, “You’re man enough to take her away from me?”

“Hell, I don’t know. It’s her choice. If she wants to stay with you, she’ll stay. Why don’t you ask her?”

“Mary Lou, will you stay with me?” “No,” she said, “I’m going with him.”

She pointed at me. I felt important. I had lost so many women to so many other guys that it felt good for the thing to be work– ing the other way around. I lit a cigar. Then I looked around for an ashtray. I saw one on the dresser.

I happened to look into the mirror to see how hungover I was and I saw him coming at me like a dart toward a dartboard. I still had the beerbottle in my hand. I swung and he walked right into it. I got him in the mouth. His whole mouth was broken teeth and blood. Hector dropped to his knees, crying, holding his mouth with both hands. I saw the stiletto. I kicked the stiletto away from him with my foot, picked it up, looked at it. 9 inches.

I hit the button and the blade dropped back in. I put the thing in my pocket.

Then as Hector was crying I walked up and booted him in the ass. He sprawled flat on the floor, still crying. I walked over, took a pull at his beer.

Then I walked over and slapped Mary Lou. She screamed.

“Cunt! You set this up, didn’t you? You’d let this monkey kill me for the lousy 4 or 5 hundred bucks in my wallet!”

“No, no!” she said. She was crying. They both were crying.

I slapped her again.

“Is that how you make it, cunt? Killing men for a couple hun– dred?”

“No, no, I LOVE you, Hank, I LOVE you!”

I grabbed that blue dress by the neck and ripped one side of itdown to her waist. She didn’t wear a brassiere. The bitch didn’t need one.

I walked out of there, got outside and drove toward the track. For two or three weeks
as looking over my shoulder. I was jumpy. Nothing happened. I never saw Mary Lou at the racetrack again. Or Hector.