“Mmmh?” (See? They don’t even know themselves.)
“I don’t want you to think, well, just because.”
“Mmmh.”
“You don’t, do you?” Apprehension raised the ending, so a denial would suit best.
I gave up, carried the small death along, rolled over to find her propped on one elbow. The bedroom was semi-dark, curtains drawn. We were a million feet off the ground, but she’d had to ensure we were safe from the prying balloonists.
“Look, love.” I couldn’t stop looking at her breasts. She covered them by gathering her nightdress with her spare hand. I hadn’t remembered her donning a nightie, but orthodoxy rules. “If you think I’m that cynical, then —”
She shushed me. “I just want to hear you say you don’t think that way.”
“Do I need to, love?” I’m easily confused. Was she asking me to deny an affirmative based on a denial of a suspicion… or the opposite?
“Please.”
“Very well.” No chance of escaping with a light laugh. I cupped her lovely face. “Sophie Brandau, your anxieties are unfounded. I admire you. I fell for you instantly. I’m head over heels in love with you.” I gave her a quiet smile, my sincerity revealed.
She sighed in relief. The answer she’d needed was in there somewhere.
“Thank you.” She lay back, thinking. I waited. After confession, the penance. They go for both together. Sometimes I wonder if it’s women whose instincts determine religious liturgy. You could make out quite a case.
“Lovejoy. Were you… shocked by, well, by it all?”
What the hell now? “You want the truth?” I asked with reluctance. “Yes, quite frankly. It was something…” Words are such sods. I never know which ones women want.
“I knew it, darling. I could tell. But you must realize. America’s a harsh country. Below the surface we don’t make any allowances. It’s dog-eat-dog. The California Game’s that.”
Women are good at jumping to conclusions, even when other people haven’t the faintest idea what they’re talking about.
“Enormous is America’s way— And it isn’t necessarily corrupt. The sports percentages would still get slipped to some syndicate no matter who was playing the championship. Political nominations always have been fixed. Drug companies have done secret deals ever since they were quoted on Wall Street. Drugs arrive in tons, not ounces, so payola rolls on over all Federal enforcement agencies. It’s the American way to grab a piece of the action. A percentage of major-city real-estate development always gets hived off…”
Antiques, business, labour movements, union dues, local politics, imports. I listened, wondering. Game? Stakes?
“I just wish it had stayed at that level for Denzie’s sake. But ever since Moira’s crazy idea that he’d have a cast-iron presidential ticket, he’s been like a mad thing. It was Moira’s idea to add it to the stake.”
“Shhh, love,” I said. “Hold together for a moment. Forget all this. You’ve an ally at last.”
We lay embracing, langour and warmth stealing over us.
“Darling?” she said at last.
“Yes, love.”
“Are there… are there different ways of making love?
Sometimes, women don’t expect uncertainty. They’re positive we blokes know everything about sex. You lose credibility by showing hesitancy. It’s one of the few times reflexes come to help. Even my brain went along this time. We answered jointly in the affirmative.
ORLY delivered me at Bethune’s, by 74th Street near Columbus Avenue. I grumbled because I was starving, and Anita’s Chili Parlor exuded aromas that made me weak at the knees. Even if it was spelled wrong—America’s got rotten spelling—we could give it a try. Orly wouldn’t hear of it, hurried me in.
The place itself was another disappointment. The showroom was nearly bare, with a few Edwardian bits of furniture, a silver salver or two, a scatter of paintings that had yet to age into conviction, a couple of scientific instruments—a microscope, sextant, a couple of timepieces—of modern design. Fatty Jim Bethune came to greet us, cigar in pollution phase, waistcoat bristling pens.
“Lovejoy, huh? You’re going to revitalize the antiques stake, huh?”
“How do.” I put out a hand. He ignored it, shouted to a matronly assistant to take five, and wheezed into a captain’s chair—fake, lacquered brass studs, railings set into coarse six-ply. We sat on a poor 1940s couch fraying in a desperate attempt at authenticity.
Orly gave me a warning glance. Whatever it was, I was in the California Game now. Gina’d said so. Presumably just as much as this gentleman. We were all evidently sharing one stake.
“He doesn’t know much about the Game, Jim,” Orly said.
“Then what the hell? Sheet, this ain’t no nursery.”
“He’s a divvy, a scammer from the old country.”
“Jees.” Bethune wheezed, coughed, spat phlegm into a huge handkerchief. His hair flopped with every breath, side to side with metronomic regularity. I watched it, fascinated. “What you do, Lovejoy?”
