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the window, too. “Francis? Well, I expect he needed to get some
fresh air. He’s not overly fond of being indoors.”
    Angie
watched the man some more and wondered what it was like not to mind getting
wet. When she turned away, she found the Father leaning on his elbows, watching
her.
    “You pay
cash, I’ll drop the price a little,” she said.
    His smile
showed tiny uneven teeth. Above them his eyes were warm. “I’m afraid I can only
offer something very nominal.”
    “Like, how
much?”
    “Can’t
really say, until I have a look at it.”
    “Sure. You
come by any evening. First-floor apartment, end of the block going that way,”
she said, tossing her head over her right shoulder.
    Three days
later Angie came home to find two bags of groceries by her door with a note: Sorry
to have missed you. I’ll come again. Father Mulvaney. She took the bags
inside and went through them. One had milk, eggs, butter, bread, frozen pizza,
soup cans, spaghetti, even some coffee. In the other were flour, sugar, salt, a
bunch of pretty fresh bananas, three oranges, and a can of peaches in heavy
syrup.
    “Who the
fuck wants that shit?” said Kevin. “Why doesn’t he just cough up for the
piano?”
    “He will.”
    “He
better.”
    That night
Kevin was going to rip off Ramon. He’d say to meet him at the bar where Angie
worked, and then she’d keep him there with a free drink or two. Angie’s boss
didn’t let her give away drinks. She’d have to put her own money in the till.
Kevin didn’t think about that. He only had a twenty on him.
    “I can
make change,” she said.
    “Forget
it, will you?”
    Ramon
didn’t come into the bar at all. Angie called her apartment once, twice. At two
a.m. when her shift ended she went home. Marta hadn’t been let out. Angie
cleaned the dog shit off the floor, walked her around the block, breathed in
icy air.
    Angie’s
stomach was tight with hunger. Marta danced when the bowl of dog food descended
from Angie’s hand.
    The phone
rang when she was fast asleep.
    “Babe,
listen, I messed up.” He sounded funny. He was crying, she realized.
    “What
happened, Kev? Where are you?”
    “Ramon was
there. He tried to get tough.” It would have taken a lot more than a slap in
the face to put Ramon down. Kevin would have had to finish it.
    “Kev,
what—”
    “I can’t
believe it. I don’t know what the hell happened.”
    “Where are
you?”
    “Never
mind.” He was quiet for a long time.
    “Kevin,”
she said.
    “I have to
go. Oh, and look in the piano. It’s yours.” The line went dead.
    She got to
her feet and padded along the floor. The living room was given over to
moonlight from the curtainless window.
    The piano
lid took some lifting. The envelope inside contained one thousand dollars and
the note, You don’t know anything.
    The night
was clear, and the violet sky thrown with stars. Take one down , her
father used to say. That’s what they’re there for. Just reach up and take
one.
     
    ***
     
    The morning light seeped
over the window ledge, then flowed like clean water into the room. Marta lay
warm beside her. Kevin could be anywhere by then, though if Angie guessed right
he was at his father’s in Indiana, the place he hated so much he described it
with a fist to his head—the blue twinkling pool, the big white barn in the
middle of fifteen rolling acres, the yellow forsythia hedge. His father would
take him in, because money took care of its own. And he’d never get caught,
because Ramon was just some drug dealer from Tijuana who’d had nightmares about
the truck he crossed the border in, the sealed-up heat of it, the days without
water.
    Angie
opened the kitchen door and let Marta into the little yard to pee. Marta
squatted, then ran her nose through the dead winter yard until Angie called her
back inside.
    After she
had dressed and sipped a reheated cup of yesterday’s coffee, Angie took Kevin’s
expensive wool sweaters, heavy flannel shirts, and three pairs of