What might be a real life context for that?
You just got paroled from a ten-year stretch at Levinworth. No one is at the gate to pick you up, so you catch a bus to get home. But strangers live in your old apartment. You ask them if they know where you wife has moved.
They think Francine is somewhere in Las Vegas now, no forwarding address. You're just about out of cash, but you know where you can get some fast. You break into a church — the one where your wife talked you into getting married, when all you'd wanted was a no-frills city-hall knot-tying — and rob the poor box. Then you hop an outbound dog for New Mexico, breaking parole the moment your bus rolls over the Nevada state line.
So now you're in Vegas. But where is she? You have a pretty good idea. You start combing every high-rolling blackjack table on The Strip. You know it'll take weeks — months, maybe — but time you've got plenty of.
And it takes more weeks and months than you thought possible. But they're profitable. Highly. A few petty scams and a few lucky poker hands, and you're riding high. You start hanging with the carriage trade and acquire a new girlfriend, Lana LaLu, a Schenectady emigree with style and dreams.
Weeks become years, and you've almost forgetten what you came to town for. One night, you go to meet up with Lana at the Bellagio. You make your way through a crowd of conventioneers to the bar, where you spot Lana talking to another woman. You get closer, and — why, oh, why are coincidences always bad? — it's Francine. Birds of a feather flocking together.
You start to beat a retreat, but Lana spots you, waves, and calls, "Tarheel! Over here!" Francine looks to see who Lana is flagging. Francine is startled for a moment but. to give credit where due, recomposes herself quickly.
You don't. Your composure has taken a powder. You stalk over to the two. Lana starts to introduce her new friend, but you say, "No need for introductions. I've been looking for Francine for six years."
"Francine?" says Lana. "This is Crystal."
"Maybe she's Crystal today. But she was Francine when she married me." A glance at her drink, and you add, "I never forget a whiskey sour."
Lana takes a quick sip of her negroni. "Married. You never said you was ever married."
"We were married then. And we're married now."
"Then
our engagement is
off," says Lana and throws the rest of her drink in your face.
Francine starts laughing, and by now the exchange has drawn the attention of the conventioneers. Francine is dabbing your chin with a cocktail napkin and you're picking an orange peel off your ruined silk lapel when one of the revellers walks over with two security guards and says, "Hello, Tarheel. Haven't seen you since your trial. Fancy meeting you at a police union convention."
And he nods to the guards. They slap on the cuffs.
A cop convention, you marvel. It is indeed a night of coincidences.
As they begin to escort you to the exit, you wheel around and say to Crystal nee Francine, "You never wrote to me."
She's chewing her cocktail cherry. She takes the stem out of her mouth, washes down the cherry with the last of her drink, pouts theatrically, and says, "Didn't I?"
