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jaw and gave him a concussion. When he came out of the hospital he got connected with a mob in South Philly and started to pick up numbers. One night he was in a poolroom and he saw a guy he didn't like making a call in the phone booth. He picked up a billiard ball and slung it clear across the room and it went into the phone booth. The guy came out of the phone booth with a fractured skull. Mattone did a year for that. He was on his way to gasoline station and grocery store jobs and I met him one night and told him he could do better. He told me to leave him alone. One night he was robbing a gasoline station and the attendant hit him in the kidney with a monkeywrench. He got away but he was in the hospital for the better part of a month. When he came out he looked me up. He's been with me ever since."
"How long ago was that?" Hart asked.
"Two years ago."
Frieda came into the kitchen.
Charley said, "Fix him a meal. I'm going into the living room." He looked at Hart. "Frieda could go to Iowa and be a champion hog caller. I'll have the revolver in my lap. Put it together."
"It's together," Hart said.
Charley left the kitchen.

3
Frieda was a big woman. She was one-sixty if she was an ounce, more solid than soft, packed into five feet five inches and molded majestically. He guessed she didn't wear a girdle and when she turned her back to him and leaned over slightly he was certain of it. She was wearing another dress now, a purple creation that was more than just tight. It looked as if it had grown up with her. He remembered before she had been wearing a plain house dress and he wondered if the purple dress was for his benefit. She bent over even further. Her calves were the same as the rest of her, solid round fat coming down rhythmically to slim ankles giving way to high-heeled shoes that she hadn't been wearing before.
She turned around and looked at him. She said, "You like eggs?"
"Scrambled."
"You like scrapple?"
"Like poison."
"I'll make you something nice. You like coffee?"
"I live on it."
She smiled. She wanted him to examine her and he examined her. The platinum blonde hair fluffed all over her head and rolled on her forehead and came down behind her ears to a big fluff at the back. Her eyes were brown, clear and healthy. Very little mascara. And underneath her smoothly shaped nose her large mouth was deep red with some purple in the red paint. The rouge on her pink round face was deeper pink with a trace of purple in it.
There wasn't a line on her face.
Hart frowned with interest and said, "You keep yourself in good condition."
"I manage." Her voice was full and solid.
"I'm trying to guess your age," Hart said.
"Thirty-four. I've been married four times."
"You married now?"
"I guess so. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know where he is. The last time I heard it was Cincinnati. That was a year ago. Really interesting boy, and generous, too, but he played too rough."
"What did you do to him?"
"I broke his collarbone with a silver hand-mirror he gave me for my birthday."
"Did that do it?"
"No. He wanted more. When he got out of the hospital he traced me to Florida. I had to spit in his face a few times and the last time it was in front of a lot of people. And that was what did it. He hauled off on me but I was with a professional wrestler that night. He really tried with that wrestler. He lasted almost five minutes, then he went flying over a few tables and they had to carry him out. I didn't see him after that until he looked me up in Cincinnati. He wanted money. That tickled me. I got sucha kick out of it that I actually gave him money."
Hart shaped a laugh and let her hear it. She laughed with him.
Then she waited on him. She was a good cook, and she knew the finer details, all on the modern side. She sat there watching him enjoying it.
He was slow with the second cup of coffee. He had his eyes on the blackness in the cup, knowing she had her eyes on him. He knew he had started a wedge but he didn't want to widen