think you liked them?” she asked, tapping a forefinger against my tie and smiling.
She’d gotten a bit of glow on.
“Knocked ’em down like ninepins,” I said.
“He’s coming by later,” she reported.
“So I heard. Who’s coming by later?”
“The fella you’re looking for.”
“Right. What’s his name?”
“Nobody wanted to say much if I didn’t already know.”
“That’s okay.”
“I guess this sleuth stuff’s harder than I thought.”
“Well, they didn’t want to tell me, either. Neale wouldn’t say?”
“I’m the last person Grammy’d tell. The very last. He loves me, he truly does, but tonight he hates me. Because I caught him in a place like this and wasn’t surprised.”
“I can see where that might sting.”
“So I don’t have much information for you. Are you very disappointed in me, Mr. Corson? Now, what’re you smiling about?”
“You pulled my file,” I said.
“I did. How come that surprises you?”
“I’m surprised you thought to do it.”
“Why? I’ve been thinking about you, Mr. Corson.”
“Nice things, I hope?”
She shook her head. Our faces were very near now.
“Bad ideas,” she murmured. “I get the worst ideas. The... worst.”
I kissed her. She was gripping my lapels, hanging on.
After a while we stopped kissing.
“Lisa Rae,” I said. A little tendril of hair had come loose, and I tucked it back where it belonged.
She took my nose between her thumb and forefinger and tried to straighten it out, and then she poked a little here and there at my face, and all the time her lips were moving around like they were remembering kissing me. She poked at my cheek.
“Missed a spot,” she whispered.
“No I didn’t.”
“I guess you didn’t. I guess you’re one of these fellas who it doesn’t matter how much they shave, they still look like they need to.”
“Yep.”
“I guess you’re one of these fellas who doesn’t look so smooth but gets girls anyhow.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve got lots of girls, huh?”
“No. I’ve been on my own awhile.”
“I’m trying to decide, Mr. Corson, whether I’m stupid enough to have a little flutter with you. If you were a gentleman, you’d help me decide.”
I kissed her again. She had her hands against my chest, her fingers stiff and a little clawed, and her elbows between my belly and hers, holding us just a bit apart, and was doing all her kissing with her mouth. I closed my eyes and didn’t think about anything. I was happy. I could feel her back under my hands, tensing and relaxing again like a cat’s will when you stroke it. This time she was the one who stopped. We examined each other.
“No... ” she said.
“No?”
“No.”
“Not stupid enough?”
“Plenty stupid enough. Plen-ty. But you lied to me, Mr. Corson.”
“What about?”
“You told me there wasn’t anybody else.”
“I don’t have anyone else.”
“Oh no. There’s someone, all right. Maybe you don’t, um, have her yet. But I can see her in there, Mr. Corson. I can taste her.”
“I don’t have anyone else.”
“And I’ll tell you something about that girl, Mr. Corson. Whoever she is. She’s just like me, Mr. Corson. All her ideas are bad. I believe I’ll have Graham run me home now.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said.
“It’s past his bedtime anyway. Good night, Mr. Corson.”
She turned and walked off. I shut my mouth and watched her go. She went down the gallery, and I could see her through the glass, and then she turned again and I couldn’t.
“He’s a fairy, you know,” said Maddy behind me.
I turned. Maddy was in the corner, propping up the wall with her broad soft back and finishing her sandwich.
“He’s a big fairy. Grammy is,” she said. “How’s it feel, having a fairy beat your time?”
“You’ll get fat,” I told her savagely. “You are getting fat. And the sooner the better. I don’t like you.”
She picked a crumb off her front and ate it. “I’m sorry Miss Godalmighty gave you the air. You deserve her. You deserve each other. Why don’t you go home, Suit Man? I don’t see why you’re here in the first place. You don’t fit in. You’re not having any fun. You’re just making everybody uncomfortable who’s here to enjoy theirself. What do you want here, anyway?”
“Dope,” I snapped.
“Well, that’s easy enough,” she said, swallowing the last bit and licking her thumb. “Come on.”
She boosted herself off the wall with a shove of her rump and set off down the hallway without looking around. I followed her. We crossed the dining room and she led me along the other wing of the house into a woman’s bedroom, very untidy. Out the window was a dry fountain with a figure of a faun playing a double flute. “Come into my parlor, like they say,” she said over her shoulder. “Close the door.”
As she spoke, she was undoing the sash of her robe. She pivoted gracefully as it fell open and stood facing me, waiting for a trumpet flourish. Underneath, she wore peach satin drawers and a smudgy yellow garter. She looked like two dozen roses in a pink pot. I closed the door. She ran two fingers along the elastic of her drawers, slipped them inside just over her left hip, drew out a packet folded from patterned gold paper, and held it up. “You fuss around more’n you need to, Suit Man. Some things’re easy.”
“Not that easy,” I said. “It’s been a while since I bought any talcum powder. I’d like it to be a longer while.”
She nodded, took a short flat knife from under her garter, and flipped open the packet at one end with the tip of it, deft as a baccarat dealer turning a card. She slipped the knife inside and drew out a little mound of the powder, and held it in front of my face. Her hand didn’t shake. I’ve known a few sleigh-riders and maybe that’s why I was never interested enough in the stuff to try any. Anyway, I never had. I lowered my nose toward the knife, pressed my right nostril shut with my forefinger the way I’d seen it done, and snorted the cocaine up the left, praying I wouldn’t sneeze.
It bit into my head with cold teeth. For a moment I held still, feeling something like pain behind my eyes. Then the gold clouds in Maddy’s kimono seemed to swell, or maybe they just got very important-looking. Everything in the room looked very clear and important. I was most important of all. I was King Barracuda. Maddy was very beautiful and mysterious. The back of my tongue was bitter as lye. “Good?” she said.
I nodded, and she closed up the packet and put it in my hand. It was warm. I hefted it and tried to look judicious. “Quarter-plate?” I said.
When I spoke, my lungs felt cold.
“That’s right,” she said. She licked the knife clean and tucked it away. “Full measure. Twenty bucks.”
“How much more you got?” I said.
Her expression didn’t change. I opened my wallet and held it out to her. She glanced inside, then pulled two
