The Guest Book - 6

Everybody thought Dicky Two-Times got his name because of his way with the ladies, but Romeo knew better. As he sat there under the trees going over the night Dicky died, he remembered that there had been a dame involved, but she'd been no more responsible than the gun that killed him, she didn't pull the trigger. Romeo continued to ignore the blur of grey beside him, though he flinched at the lightening flash of white light from just over his left shoulder, like a flashbulb "pop" going off, as if the picture in his mind of Dicky holding up his hands in front his face, the word "no" forever frozen on his lips, had just been snapped by an unseen camera. The dame bothered Romeo though, because he couldn't remember where she came from, whether she'd arrived along with Sy or with the flock of whores from Violet's and Sy had just called dibs on her – but either way, he did remember she had been a real looker, and she'd made herself scarce as soon as things got ugly. It might have been Dicky's passes at the dame that got Sy started, but what pushed him over the edge was the weird way Dicky had to keep touching Sy's stuff, casually like he was trying to be unnoticeable, the side of his whiskey glass, one, pause, two, the back of Sy's chair, one, pause, two... with guilty, feathery fingers and a twisted mouth like he couldn't help himself, like he hated what he was doing. Romeo thought the incident had been unfortunate, but didn't see that he could have prevented it, because the only ones responsible for Dicky's death had been Dicky himself and the guy he made sore, Sy, who'd said, "Dicky, you touch my head one more time, and I'm gonna fucking kill you."