Safe House

for him—he almost never goes out of the house. He doesn’t much . . . It takes a lot to get him . . .”

“What?”

“Look, I’m not . . . comfortable with this.”

“Just say what it is, Crystal Beth. Whatever it is, it’s not yours, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, drawing a breath like she was about to get a shot from the doctor. “He’s not easily . . . aroused. The tapes . . . help him. And some of Vyra’s . . . outfits too. As he gets older, it gets harder and harder. Whoops!” She giggled. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

“Anyway, Vyra would get different tapes. She knows what he likes. Once she was talking to some other women. At some club she belongs to. And they all agreed, nothing turns a man on more than seeing two girls . . . make love. So she got a few of those tapes and brought them home. But when he saw the first one, he went ballistic. Told her it was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. He pulled the tape right out of the cassette. He told her, if she ever brought filth like that into the house again, he’d divorce her. Vyra said he looked like a maniac. It scared her.”

“How did Pryce find out about you and Vyra?”

“I don’t know,” she said, voice cracking around the edges. “I don’t know how he knows anything.”

“He has photos? Wiretaps? What?”

“I don’t think he has anything. Not like what you’re talking about. But it wouldn’t matter. Vyra is a lousy liar.”

I knew how true that was, but I kept the thought to myself.

“Vyra’s really confused now,” Crystal Beth whispered to me later in bed.

“What do you mean?”

“Remember when you were . . . watching us?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what our bet was about? The one between me and Vyra?”

“No . . .”

“She said if you watched us you’d get turned on and . . .”

“And . . . ?”

“Want to join in.”

“Oh.”

“She’s . . . been with you, she says. A lot. But she doesn’t know you.”

“And you do?”

“Yes,” she said, turning to throw one thick thigh over the top of mine. “She doesn’t understand how important self-control is to you.”

“Meaning?”

“Vyra thought you would get turned on. And then you’d do something about it.”

“But you thought—?”

“I thought you’d get turned on. But I knew you’d just sit there unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we asked you to . . . join us. Did you want to?”

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“How could that be? Either you did or—”

“It’s not that simple. Part of me, I guess, wanted to. But it also seemed like it wouldn’t be . . . private, I guess.”

“Privacy is important,” she said solemnly. “I understand.”

“You think so?” I asked her. “Me, I’ve been in places where there wasn’t any privacy. None at all. Where you can’t even be alone with your thoughts. I just wanted to . . . respect whatever you were doing. Even if I didn’t understand it.”

“You don’t understand two women making love?”

“I didn’t understand why you were . . . why you didn’t want me to leave.”

“Maybe I hoped Vyra would win the bet,” she said in my ear.

“What was the bet anyway?” I asked her, stepping away from where she was going.

“Next time you come here, you won’t recognize my place,” she said. “Vyra has to clean it all. Top to bottom. Every square inch.”

“What if you had lost?”

“I would have had to shine her shoes.”

“That doesn’t sound—”

“All her shoes,” Crystal Beth said.

“Nah, you didn’t want to lose,” I told her, wrapping my arm around her neck to pull her down to me, pictures of her and Vyra together flashing on and off my screen.

By first light, I was on the roof with Pansy. She had greeted the assortment of cold cuts I’d picked up at the all-night deli with mixed enthusiasm, turning her nose up at the dark-edged liverwurst. I didn’t think twice about trying it myself, settling for some rye toast and a few fresh celery sticks with ice water.

I dialed up Mama on the cellular. Nothing happening.

After we came down from the roof, I looked around the dump I lived in, thinking maybe I should have been in on the bet with Vyra. Then I spent a couple of hours cleaning, filled two thirty-gallon plastic trash bags before I was done. Pansy followed me around for a while, then gave it up when she saw it wasn’t going to be any fun.

When I was done, we took a break. Pansy got a quart of honey-vanilla ice cream. I got a cigarette. She finished first, licking the bowl so hard she even took the smell off.

I put on the TV set for her, changing channels until she settled down. I wished I had cable. The only old stuff you can get on regular TV is crap like “The Three Stooges.” I always hated that show when I was a kid. Fucking buffoons. They weren’t partners, those guys. Not like Abbott and Costello. Or good criminals, like Bilko.

Around noon I went back over to Crystal Beth’s. Called her first so she could let me in downstairs. She’d never offered me a key of my own. Sending me a message? Or maybe she’d figured out that the Mole had already taken care of it.

I spent most of the afternoon with Herk, rehearsing. Called Mama around five.

“Man come. With envelope. Two envelopes.”

“White man? Tall? Broad shoulders, clean face, long hair?”

“Not long hair,” Mama said. Meaning the rest of my description was on the money. I’d figured the messenger to be Mick, Pepper’s man. But his hair was long.

“Can you open it, Mama?” I asked her. Like she already hadn’t.

“Sure.” After about ten seconds: “Paper.” Meaning: not money.

“A lot of paper?”

“One, two, three . . . seven pages,” Mama said, taking her time. The only thing she speed-counted was cash. “And picture.”

“Anything else? In the other one?”

“More paper. Writing. Say ‘Call me.’ ”

“That’s all? No signature?”

“Say ‘Call me.’ ”

“Okay, Mama. Thanks. I’ll pick it up later.”

“You working, right?” Meaning: doing something against the law. For money.

“I’m working,” I assured her.