they'll find that out, eventually.'
'You're probably not supposed to tell me that.'
'They want me to lie, they should pay me more.'
The steakhouse was slow, the lunch rush done, the staff vacuuming the carpeting. As ever, Table 17 stood empty.
'Allison around?' I asked my waitress.
'She left you a note in case you came.'
Which I opened. It said, Meet me in Havana Room.
I declined to order some food and instead got up and found the little door next to the foyer unlocked. The curved stairwell was dark.
'Hello?' I called. 'Allison?'
The long room was dim, the smell of cigars lingering. No natural light fell upon the paintings, the black-and- white tile floor. A rack of dirty glasses stood on the bar. Allison sat in the farthest booth.
'Hey Bill,' came her voice.
A stack of restaurant paperwork lay to one side of her, a shot glass and bottle of Maker's Mark to the other. Allison gave me an uneasy smile, embarrassed at her vulnerability. 'You working or drinking?' I said.
'Drinking.'
'And in private, too.'
'Didn't see you last night,' she ventured.
I thought about telling her about the previous evening, about Jay's appearance at the basketball game, about the lawsuit. 'I was detained.'
Allison smiled. 'Against your will?'
'Yes, as a matter of fact.'
But she didn't believe me. 'Well, I think I've been stupid,' she announced. 'Silly and stupid.'
'Jay?'
'Yes. I mean, I probably hoped too much, you know?' She pushed at her shot glass. 'He came over last night- I said I'd make a late dinner, like ten-thirty- have a nice evening. So I left here about nine. And he showed up, just what you'd expect.'
This meant, I realized, that Jay had left the basketball game straight for Allison's apartment, and maybe not because he'd seen me or H.J.'s men looking for him.
'He stayed in the living room while I made dinner and I saw he left his briefcase in the kitchen with me, and-' She shrugged. 'It had papers in it, you know, interesting stuff.'
'You couldn't help yourself.'
'I know it was wrong. But I sort of saw his date book in there, his schedule, and I opened it.' She lifted the shot glass and knocked back the last half inch of whiskey. 'I was just curious, hoping to kind of know him better, that's all. He never tells me anything.'
'Unlike the other guys.'
Allison nodded. 'They tell me too much.'
'Every human relationship has its power structure.'
'Well, Jay has too much power.'
'You like that?'
'It bugs me.'
'And excites you.'
'How did you know?'
'How could I not?'
Allison nodded. 'Well, it bugs me mostly. Now, I mean.'
'What does he want from you?'
This stopped her. She looked up. 'I have no idea.'
'Does Jay ask you questions? Does he want to know things about you?'
'Like what?'
'Well, Allison, if I were romantically involved with you-'
'Which would really not be in your best interests.'
'— I'd ask why is it that you work so hard when you don't have to, and why you actually live in the same place where your father lived, and why is it that you never mention your mother, or where you grew up, or if your father remarried, or why you are so loyal to Lipper even though you pretend to be annoyed by him, and let's seethose are just the ones off my head- and all right, why are you so chronically dissatisfied when actually it might be that it's yourself you are hardest on, and-'
'Stop.'
'— and then I'd ask isn't it true that you want to be known and yet are afraid as to what will happen if you are, afraid someone will reject you when they see the truth, so you fill your head with the exhausting swirl of people and work so that you never-'
'Stop! Please. Please, Bill!'
'Okay.'
'That was a little bit cruel.'
I couldn't disagree.
'But it shows something…' she mused, pouring another glass.
'It shows I interrupted your story.'
'What was I- oh, the date book! I wasn't suspicious or anything. But okay, it was sneaky and wrong. He was watching the news, didn't notice at all. I spent five minutes looking at the thing. Shameless.' Allison's eyes brightened wickedly. 'Practically memorized it.'
'Was it busy?'
'Well, it had all the usual stuff, like going to the dentist, take car to garage, that kind of thing, plus some other stuff…' Allison looked up, eyes brimming. 'He's got another woman!'
'Nah, I don't believe that.'
'He does! He's got dates with her, regular dates.' She pressed a fingernail against her eyelashes. 'Here I have to beg to see him and it's because- of course, hello! — he's got a regular girlfriend. He's got dates with her going back months! I flipped through every week, every single one this year!'
'What's her name?'
'I don't know! And that bothers me, too! It starts with O. He doesn't write her whole name down, just O to remind himself. Olivia or Olympia or Orgasmia or something, fuck. '
If Jay had a regular girlfriend, then his behavior at the basketball game, his interest in Sally Cowles, seemed even odder yet. A big, good-looking guy with a steady girlfriend plus a little action on the side with a woman like Allison didn't seem like the type of man who would then stalk a teenage girl. I couldn't put it together. 'He sees her pretty often?'
'All the time!' Her bitterness sharpened. 'Like I'm not going to figure that out, if I just happen to accidentally see his calendar. Come on, nobody is fooled.' But then Allison's voice softened, as if she wished she'd been fooled, would even have preferred it.
'Any chance he left the briefcase there hoping you'd have a look?'
'Maybe. He seemed more distracted than anything else. Whatever. It's that O that bothers me, Bill. O is a very sexy letter, if you think about it, right?' She looked at me for commiseration. 'It stands for orifice. It opens up and lets stuff in. It means she opens up and lets his stuff in.'
'Guys do things like this,' I said.
'I know they do, Bill! They just don't do it to me. So then I thought I'm going to ask him, I'm going to just be brave and go in there and turn off the TV and straight out ask him. I was making this nice paella. I wanted to throw it in his face!' She smiled now. 'I got the hot pad and actually lifted up the dish to see how heavy it was, but then I realized it'd stain the rug.'
'He didn't figure out you were mad?'
'No… I just took the dinner into the dining room. He wasn't even watching the television, just standing at the window, thinking about Ophelia or whatever her name is.'
