she's straightened herself out.'
How do you mean, straight?'
The kind of straight that doesn't have a spoon on the table and a tie around its arm. But not so as you'd notice. Summer looks like the all-American girl, with big rosy cheeks and everything. And I mean everything. Summer has it all. Six feet tall, with red hair, emerald green eyes, porcelain skin, and more impressive curves than the Taj Mahal. Oh yeah, and she always wears long black gloves and smokes with a long cigarette holder. If all this sounds like Ernie Kovacs on Take a Good Look, it's because you'll have to be a little careful with the Q and A down on Eighth. But I guess it's okay to ask around for Summer. Most guys do, weather we've been having.'
For a few blocks on 8th Avenue, Nimmo half expected to see Isabel Bigley, who played the Salvation Army sergeant in Guys and Dolls. It was a neighbourhood that cried out for redemption, but not so as anyone would have heard above all the noise. Most of the guys who were around - a lot were sailors ashore for a few nights and a lot of beers - had dolls in mind, although luck had nothing to do with the kind of ladies they expected to find on 8th. And if any of these girls did trust in God it was only because that was what was printed on a dollar bill. The guide books that dared to mention the girls on 8th at all referred to them as belly dancers.
It was not a bad euphemism for what went on. In more automobile-oriented cities such as Dallas or LA, girls with hearts of gold drove cars and were known, less romantically it is argued, as mechanised girls'. But like almost everyone else in New York City, the 8th Avenue broads walked, or, to be more accurate, sashayed along the street in an ostentatiously sinuous and lithe manner, as in some bogus biblical epic involving seven veils and a severed head. Thus the terpsichorean reference. Many of the establishments they and their clientele patronised - the Ali Baba, Arabian Nights, Egyptian Gardens, Grecian Palace, Istanbul, Port Said - did present some tenuous Middle Eastern connection, but on the whole there were many more belly dancers than there were shish kebabs and baklava.
With no spectacular redheads on show at the Britania, Nimmo asked around and was directed to an ice- cream parlour called Dial-a-Doll on 9th and 29th, where the schtick was a network of telephones connecting all the tables and, therefore, all the guys with all the dolls. Nimmo could tell his luck was changing. A young nymph answering Summer McAllum's description was sitting in the back, wearing a black harem-panelled silk-print dress with cognac-coloured roses, and the trademark long gloves Nimmo figured she probably wore to hide the needle marks on her arms. For all her obvious attractions, Summer looked tired, as if autumn was just around the corner.
Nimmo sat down at an empty table, ordered a coffee and a sundae, and then called Summer on the telephone. A few seconds later she was seated opposite him, smiling a well-polished smile and wielding her cigarette holder with the sophistication of one who might have finished her schooling in Switzerland instead of Hoboken. It was, she breathlessly explained, ten dollars for an hour, or twenty-five dollars for all night, which Nimmo paid, thinking that she was more likely to relax if she assumed she had earned her keep for the evening, and more likely to talk if she was relaxed. Besides, now that he had seen her, he badly wanted to have sex with her.
They jumped in a cab and she told the driver to take them to the village, on the corner of Bleecker and Cornelia. The cab dropped them close to a twenty-four-hour bakery - Zampieri Brothers. The store was closed, but Summer knocked at the side door and, uttering a few words in Italian, received a bag of fresh-baked rolls for ten cents. Breakfast,' she explained, leading him up the steps of a federal brownstone.
Seems like a friendly neighbourhood,' Nimmo small-talked nervously.
It's the Sargasso Sea as far as I'm concerned,' she remarked, opening the front door and leading him through a dim and creaking corridor that belonged in an old tea-clipper. Things may look alive round here, but they're not. It's a biological desert. And me, I'm just another derelict ship, bobbing around, entangled within the mass of floating weeds.'
That's a happy thought,' Said Nimmo, following Summer's oxbow curves along the corridor.
Round here,' she said, with a wry smile, Happy's just the name of some canyon in Oregon.'
It was just a little studio apartment that occupied the parlour floor, with a Murphy bed, an ice-cube of a bathroom, and a kitchenette that was the size and colour of an avocado pear. But it was clean and comfortable, with two eight-foot-high windows that overlooked a garden in the back, a TV, and lots of books. When she took off her gloves, he saw the Band-aids on her arms and, seeing his eyes linger there, she volunteered the information that the cat had scratched her.
You've gotta cat?'
Not so as you'd notice,' she said, peering out of the window, and then pulling the drapes. He comes and he goes, which is pretty much the way it is for all the guys around here.' There was, thought Nimmo, a bitter edge to almost everything she said, but still she kept on smiling as she said it.
Sorry,' said Nimmo.
Don't be,' she said, pulling down the Murphy. It's the laws of physics. Like gravity or the speed of light. Things are the way they are. There's no other way of looking at the world.' She paused. You want something? A drink? Dexamyl, maybe?' Nimmo shook his head. Keep you going? Make sure you get your money's worth?'
He kept shaking his head. I'll risk it.'
Summer shrugged off her dress and hung it carefully on a hanger, in a closet full of clothes. In a second or two she was naked, and standing close enough for him to smooth her cool bottom like the quarters of a very fine horse.
You're beautiful,' he said. There's sure no other way of looking at that.'
What?' she said, taking his hand and cupping her sex with it. You mean this? Why thank you.'
And Summer. That's a beautiful name, too. How'd you come by it?'
The same way as most people. I had parents. But being Summer is sometimes a little tiresome in the winter, you know. Like that Laurel and Hardy film. When they're playing a bass and harmonium combo in the snow? And the tune is The Good Old Summertime.'
Nimmo grinned. Below Zero,' he said, that's a good one. You like Laurel and Hardy?'
Two men sharing a bed? Sure. It's quite the thing round here.'
He pressed his face close to her belly. I couldn't love anyone who didn't like those guys.'
In the circumstances, I'd say that was fortunate, wouldn't you?'
When it was over, not very long after it had started, and she was lying beside him, she said, Did you enjoy that?'
Very much. Thank you.'
Just tell me when you want to go again.'
You must be thinking of some younger guy,' he said. I'm more like a play than a movie. It's just the one performance a night, I'm afraid.'
Not even a matinee?'
Not even a rehearsal.'
Told you, you should have had that Dexamyl.'
But there's one thing you could do,' he said carefully. It would make you another twenty-five.'
Summer jerked her head up from Nimmo's vested chest. Look mister, with me it's straight sex. No whips, no chains, no enemas.'
Relax, it's nothing like that.'
Like what, then?'
Like some information.'
You a cop?'
Hell, no. Private investigator. I'm trying to find a guy.'
If that's all there is to it, then I must be Nora Charles.'
You'd sure make a lousy Asta.'
Twenty-five, huh? Who's the guy?'
Martin Van Buren.'
Marty? I haven't seen him in a while. Is he in trouble?'
No, his parents died in a car crash, and left him some money.'
Jeez, some guys have all the luck.' Summer sat up and lit a cigarette. I'll bet you're on some kind of percentage. Like a recovery fee. So what do you wanna know?'
