She pulled back from me, walked toward the back room, shaking her butt like she was on the runway. Pansy shook her head in amazement. 'You want out?' I asked her, opening the back door. The beast turned away in disgust - I guess she'd been on the roof a few times since I'd been gone.
I had most of the furniture back in place in a few minutes. I was rehooking the rug on the wall when Belle came out. Nude, beads of water covering yards of pink flesh. She had a towel around her head, holding it in place with her hands.
'I'm all clean.'
'Come here,' I said, reaching into my jacket pocket.
She came over to the desk, giving her hair one final rub with the towel, then tossing it over to the couch.
'Just stay there for a minute,' I said, signaling Pansy to come with me. I dumped everything in the refrigerator into her giant bowl. I added some chocolate-chip cookies and a pint of vanilla ice cream. 'Speak!' I told her. It would keep her occupied for a good five minutes.
I went back inside. Belle was standing by the desk, the soul of patience. I stood close to her, holding her face in my hands, looking into her dark eyes.
'Turn around,' I said.
She turned her back to me, bent over so her elbows were on the desk, butt in the air.
I stepped in against her, grabbed her shoulders, pulled her back so she was standing up again. 'Just do what I tell you,' I said.
'I thought . . .'
'Sssh. Close your eyes.'
'Okay, I . . .'
'And be quiet.'
She stood with her back to me, hands at her sides. So quiet I could hear her breathing.
I took the necklace out of the leather pouch, unhooked the clasp, and slipped it around her neck. I hooked it closed. 'Turn around,' I told her.
Her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was trembling. The lapis was blue fire against her, falling down just to the top of her breasts. I kissed her on the lips. 'Take a look,' I whispered to her.
Belle kept her eyes closed, working the necklace with her fingers, feeling the heat. Her eyes came open; she lifted it in her hands, bent her head.
'It's the most pure-beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life,' she said solemnly. Tears on her face.
'What're you crying about - you don't like it?'
'Don't be such a hard guy,' she said, ignoring the tears; 'you
I kissed her. 'Okay. Be a baby if you want to.'
'It's your baby I want to be,' she said, pushing me to the couch.
She dropped into my lap, sprawling across me, covering me, knowing she wouldn't fit and not giving a damn. I snaked a hand around her hip and pulled out the jasmine box. Handed it to her.
'What's this?'
'Open it.'
'Oh, it's perfume!'
'Paste, not spray. Here,' I said, touching my finger to it, rubbing it between her breasts.
She pulled my head down to her. 'How do I smell?' she asked.
'Like juicy flowers,' I told her.
She rolled off my lap, pulling at my belt. 'I've got some juice for you, baby. Come on, come on!'
82
It was after nine when I looked at my watch. Belle was lying half on top of me on the couch. Pansy was spread out on the floor, looking glum. I rolled off, sliding away from Belle.
I took Pansy to the back door, jumped into the shower, dressed fast. Junior's at eleven, Marques had said.
I leaned over to kiss Belle on my way out. 'You going to be okay here?'
'I do love you,' is all she said.
The Plymouth hummed, a fast horse on a short rein. Maybe it missed the way Belle drove. Junior's was over the border. Uptown. A players' joint, it wouldn't even start to roll until past midnight. The bar was in shadow, Billie Holiday on the jukebox. 'God Bless the Child.'
I wasn't going to pull a house-to-house search through the booths. The bartender came over. Slash of white skin across his dark face like a scar.
'Can I help you, Officer?'
'I'm not the Man. I'm lodking for Marques. Marques Dupree.'
'Nobody by that name here, friend.'
'Yeah, there is. He's expecting me. Ask him.'
'What name should I call?'
'How many good-looking white men you see in this bar?' I asked him.
He looked me full in the face. 'None,' he said, moving away.
I lit a cigarette. Felt a tap on my shoulder. Slim blonde woman in a bottle-green sheath. 'Burke?'
'Yeah.'
'Marques is over this way,' she said, moving off.
I followed her to a horseshoe-shaped red leather booth. Marques was sitting at the center, another blonde to his left. The one I had followed moved to his right. I sat facing him.
'My man!' Marques said, not offering his hand. 'How's the hijacking business?'
I nodded to him, not answering.
'You come by yourself?' he asked, not looking around, sure of himself on home ground.
'Same way I came into this world,' I assured him.
'You packing?'
I let out a breath, disgusted with his bullshit games. 'Yeah, I got a machine gun in my pocket.'
'Mind if Christina takes a look?'
'Whatever it takes to get on with this.'
The blonde who had come over to the bar moved next to me, running her hands over my body. She reached into my crotch, squeezed. 'Nobody home, huh?'
I didn't answer her, my eyes on Marques.
She slid back next to him. 'He's got three packs of smokes, two lighters, bunch of keys, some folding cash . . . He's empty.'
I watched Marques's teeth flash. 'Can't take chances with you gunslingers.'
'Ready to talk now?'
'Fire away.'
I looked deliberately at the blonde on his left. Turned my head, looked the same way at the one on his right.
'My ladies are cool - you can talk in front of them.' I shrugged, putting a pack of cigarettes and a butane lighter on the table in front of me. I lit another smoke, snapping off a wooden match. He didn't pay attention. That's why he was a pimp and I was what I was.
'You know a man named Mortay?'
'The fighter?'
'Yeah.'
'I don't know him. Man, I don't
'What's that mean?'
'I saw him do his thing, man. It was unreal. He fought this other dude.
