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Same thing.”
    There were puppets on the TV, kids playing with hand puppets. Vaughn thought it was peculiar and wanted to say something but then thought better of it. “My wife had this guy's name on her neck. It hit me the wrong way,” he said.
    “That happens,” Eddie said. He sat up on the couch and pulled up his socks and began putting on his shoes. Vaughn figured he was getting ready to leave and go back to the garage apartment. He didn't want Eddie to go.
    “I didn't ask how it got there,” he said. “But I can imagine.”
    “How old a woman is your wife?” Eddie said.
    “Not too old,” Vaughn said. “And she looks younger. She's forty-something.” He knew exactly how old she was, when her birthday was, but for some reason he said this other thing. So then he said, “Forty-four. In the spring. Looks forty, maybe. She's well preserved. She exercises.”
    Eddie moved the little square with the second picture in it to different positions on the screen—to the bottom right, tothe top right, to the top left, to the bottom left, then back to the bottom right. Then he clicked up the cable schedule and started jumping through that four or five lines at a time.
The Son of Frankenstein
went by,
Intimate Portraits
went by,
Beverly Hills Cop
went by,
Classic Boxing
.
    “She doesn't look that old. She looks young, really. She looks good. I figure the guy who wrote on her neck is younger, a kid.”
    “Maybe he's a lighthearted older guy,” Eddie said. “Maybe he's an easy guy to get along with. Maybe he was just having some fun. Maybe they were just joking around. Maybe it wasn't anything.”
    “That's the ticket,” Vaughn said.
    “Maybe it was a woman?” Eddie said. “Maybe your wife is joining a club or something and her sponsor had to write her name on your wife's neck.” Eddie turned around and gave him a look, a raised eyebrow thing that was a parody of hopeful.
    “You look like Bubs,” Vaughn said. “The guy who was on
The Wire.”
    “I've got some of the attributes,” Eddie said. “I'm short a hand. Got a skin problem.”
    “Your hair isn't as cool as Bubs's hair,” Vaughn said.
    “Nothing is,” Eddie said.
    “You'd think you'd get over shit like this, wouldn't you?” Vaughn said. “We're divorced, we're finished, it's over. We go out with my girlfriend, for God's sake.”
    “That's nothing you ought to be doing. That's going to make you feel bad every time,” Eddie said. “Seeing her, I mean. That's what happened to me. I used to go out with my ex. We didn't go anyplace big—gas stations, hamburgerjoints, barbecue joints. She always made me feel bad. I felt sad as shit. Like stuff had changed. Both of us knew it, but there was nothing we could do. We'd sit there in the car and drink beer and listen to the radio and smoke cigarettes, watch kids zoom in and out of the convenience store.” He shook his head. “That was no fun. Reminded me I used to be the kid driving in, jumping out for a six-pack, speeding off somewhere. Now it was me and the ex in the car with nowhere to go. We were killing time. Sitting and drinking, listening to the radio, smoking cigarettes. Waiting for nothing. Waiting to give up. That was crap.”
    “This was before or after the divorce?” Vaughn said.
    “Both,” Eddie said. He grabbed his beer, tipped it up, emptied it. Then he looked at it, tossed it up by the neck, and caught it. “By the end I was just one more thing for her to worry about.” He groaned and stood up from the couch, pulling his shirt closed.
    “I'll tell you what,” Eddie said. “After a while it just isn't worth the trouble.” He wagged the beer bottle at Vaughn. “If I were doing fortune cookies, that's what I'd put in them. Every one.
After a while it just isn't worth the trouble
. That and
You will have razor-sharp mystical vision today.”
    “That'd be useful,” Vaughn said.
    “You read the paper?” Eddie said. “The Bracelet Case? They did another piece today. She taking