and angularity being common elements.
“No fruits,” I called to her retreating form.
“I know, I know,” she yelled back. “My memory’s not that bad.”
The temperature outside was a crisp mid-sixties, but in Rosaline’s apartment it was ten degrees warmer. I peeled down to my shirt and rolled up my sleeves.
“Mind if we hang out on the patio?” I hollered at the kitchen.
“That’s the plan,” she hollered back. “I’ll meet you there.”
The patio was more like a slate-covered landing, with a pair of outdoor chairs and a coffee table in between. But it was completely enclosed, private and secure from the prying eyes of neighbors on either side. The common area beyond was heavy with bright green growth, freshly planted spring flowers and perennials, the obvious passion of one or more condo denizens.
I settled into one of Rosaline’s wicker lounge chairs and lit a cigarette. She appeared with my vodka and a rye on the rocks for herself. She dropped an ashtray down on the coffee table the moment a cylinder of ash at the end of my cigarette was about to slough off.
“Daddy’s drink,” she said, as we clinked glasses.
“One a day’ll get you to ninety-five.”
“Two a day. And he was ninety-seven.”
Her dark brown hair looked recently done up, with loose, heavy curls tumbling down over her shoulders. Her liquid blue eyes were, as always, distantly entertained, as if partly engaged by her own internal monologue. Her legs, now generously on view, were still the alabaster white I’d remembered from prior get-togethers involving vodka and rye on the rocks.
“I talked to an old friend of yours the other day,” she said. “You’ll never guess, so I won’t make you try.”
“Lou Panella?”
“Jason Fligh.”
“Really,” I said, as taken by surprise as she hoped I’d be. “What was the occasion?”
“I called him.”
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“He said when you left, the board stopped being fun.”
“Fun for whom?”
“He asked me how you were doing and wondered if he should get in touch with you. I said sure.”
She studied me as if to test my reaction. I shrugged.
“Jason’s okay with me. It’s you I’m wondering about.”
“You interest me,” she said.
“I don’t make a very happy lab rat.”
“Oh, I’m certain of that. You’re private to the point of misanthropic.”
“People aren’t that bad. If you don’t have to talk to them,” I said.
“You’re only enduring this because I have something you need.”
“No, I’m enduring this because I like you. It’s more fun to get things I need from people I like.”
“Not very misanthropic of you.”
“Another theory shattered,” I said.
“You don’t have much regard for psychologists, do you?”
“If I dispute that you’ll say I’m dissembling. If I agree, you’ll say I’m projecting hostility. There’s no good way to answer that question. Reminds me of conversations I used to have with my ex-wife.”
“Not the best association.”
“Markham Fairchild told me there’s nothing more complicated than the human brain. I don’t think that means you shouldn’t try to find explanations for human behavior, but people need a better perspective on the magnitude of the task.”
“Psychologist people,” she said.
“Psychologists, philosophers, district attorneys.”
“Edith Madison thinks your defense will be based on diminished mental capacity.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“Why not?” I said. “That seems to be everybody’s favorite theory. I don’t give a shit. As long as Frank Entwhistle thinks I’m smart enough to install trim and build bookcases, I can be Sam the Idiot.”
“Not if you’re in prison.”
“Some have wood shops.”
“You told me once you learned evasion from a boxer named Rene Ruiz.”
“Yeah, the day I failed to evade and he broke my nose. That kind of thing only has to happen once to make a big impression. I think you shrinks call it intermittent positive reinforcement.”
She laughed this time.
“I have no intention of shrinking you, Sam. I know when I’m competing over my weight class.”
“Not with me all diminished.”
She took a long sip of her drink, her eyes holding to mine over the lip of her glass.
“So, about Robbie Milhouser,” she said.
“Oh, Robbie. I’d forgotten about him.”
“I had to send to deep storage to get his file. That’ll be on the record, so I’ve already jeopardized my career as a school psychologist.”
“I didn’t want you to do that.”
“I know. No reason for anyone to know unless you need to reveal the information for your defense. Then we have a problem.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“Anyway, it’s a thick file. He had a busy time in high school.”
“It’s not easy to be an accomplished fuckup.”
“Fuckup doesn’t jive with the record,” she said. “He graduated with a three-point-eight average, with commentary from people who thought he was brilliant. Some of whom I know and aren’t the type to dispense unwarranted praise.”
“Joey Entwhistle had similar intimations.”
“The physicist.”
“Didn’t dissuade him from thinking Milhouser was a dangerous thug,” I told her.
“Brains and brutality are anything but mutually exclusive. As proven by Robbie’s impressive string of suspensions.”
My only friend in high school, Billy Weeds, had an official profile like Robbie Milhouser’s. He spent nearly as much time in detention or suspended from school as he did going to class. It made being his friend an interesting challenge, though it didn’t stop me from going along with every nutty caper he proposed. I was just better at not getting caught.
“Amanda told me he flunked out of college,” I said.
“You’ll have to sweet talk the school psychologist at Hofstra if you want that inside information.”
“What if the psychologist is a grimy old man?” I asked her.
“Depends on how badly you want the information. Can I pour you another drink?”
“I’m persuadable.”
I had to endure her running her fingertips down my forearm as she left the patio on her way into the condominium. Whatever aroma she was featuring lingered with the sensation on my arm, which activated some circuitry connected to other parts of my physiology.
I lit another cigarette and tried to concentrate on the condo association’s profligate daffodil garden.
She came back with my drink and a new outfit, a sprayedon top so poorly fitting it stopped an inch or two above her navel and a full-out sloppy-looking pleated skirt. She’d replaced the shoulder-duster earrings with shorter danglers covered in a profusion of silver and semi-precious stones.
She also had a white pad of paper, from which she withdrew a sheet tucked inside.
“I was afraid to hold the file for more than a few days. But I took notes.”
“That much information?”
