"I said no."
"And she—" He couldn't finish it.
"She hasn't had anything," Coralee said. "She went and stood in front of the Cal-Neva at nine o'clock and looked in the door, and her sponsor came and got her, and they've been sitting by the phone ever since drinking Sanka. She sounded like she'd been crying for nine hours. She didn't sound drunk. She sounded like I sounded, at a hundred and five days. Like somebody holding a full glass of something over a nice carpet and trying not to spill." Coralee looked at the dark shape of the lake beyond the windshield, beyond the tank. "They're coming. Marcelline's driving. Two hours, maybe two and a half."
He took his hands off the wheel. He looked at them. He put them in his lap, and one of them, the one with the two crooked fingers, came to rest on the little girl's hair.
"Big laugh," he said. "That's what I heard. Through the door. That big laugh. I thought it was some man."
"I know."
"It was her sponsor."
"I think so."
"And the bottle." He shut his eyes. "Green glass. Gold foil. I didn't—I didn't even look at it good. I seen the foil and the shape and I was gone. Down them stairs like the building was on fire." His voice went ragged. "God almighty, what was in that sack?"
"I don't know," Coralee said. "You can ask her. In two hours. You can sit at my counter and drink Benicio's coffee and ask her."