'Better go easy at the bar,' Hawk said.
I was wearing a light raincoat and a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap. I got out of my car into the rain and walked to the hotel with my collar turned up and my cap pulled down and my hands in my pockets. Inside, the lobby was a warren of barrels and plastic sheeting, which was having limited success in keeping the lobby dry. The rug squished with each step I took. Happily the Castle Bar was dry. I sat on a barstool and looked across the lobby at the entrance to a function room where a large sign said MATTERS OF THE HEART in red letters.
I ordered a beer, and ate some peanuts. I saw three women in summer dresses go into the function room. I ate some peanuts. A tall blond woman with an aggressive chest and tight white pants stalked into the function room. Two stunning Asian women, who might have been Vietnamese, entered in cropped pants and striped jersey tops. Cecile went in. Hawk came into the bar and sat on a stool beside me. I ate some peanuts. Hawk ordered a gin and tonic. We sat and watched the women drift in.
'I'm beginning to see why you might not have been invited,' I said.
'You seen a man yet?'
'No.'
A t eight o'clock on the button, Darrin O'Mara appeared momentarily in the doorway. I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed it gently as if I were tired. My forearm shielded my face. Darrin closed the double doors. Hawk sipped his drink. I nursed my beer. From the ballroom I could hear the faint sound of music playing.
'They dancing with each other?' Hawk said. I shrugged and ate some peanuts.
40
The steady summer rain was coming hard and pleasant into my windshield as I drove Hawk and Cecile home from Balmoral Castle. Cecile sat up front with me. Hawk was in the backseat.
'There were no men, except Darrin,' Cecile said, 'and some thin guy with long hair. Darrin made a little speech.'
'About?'
'Same crap,' Cecile said. 'True love cannot be compelled, but must be freely granted, and thus can only be available outside the obligations of marriage.'
'Then what?' I said. 'Enough with the love talk off with the clothes?'
'No. Each of us stood and introduced herself and walked the length of the room and back, and the man with long hair filmed us with a video camera.'
'Did Mr. Long Hair have on big glasses, like Buddy Holly?'
'He had on big glasses,' Cecile said. 'Who's Buddy Holly.'
'Friend of the Big Bopper,' I said. 'What happens to the video.'
'It will go to some men, who will choose one of the lucky girls, or maybe more than one,' Cecile said. 'This was a casting call.'
'So O'Mara will field the requests,' I said, 'and arrange for the women to go see the men who requested them?'
'Nobody exactly said that, but all of us assumed it.'
'See,' Hawk said. 'The course of true love can run smooth.'
'Just requires a little organization,' I said.
'Neither of you has thought of the real horror of this situation.'
'Which is?'
'What if no one requests me.'
'Blame racism,' Hawk said.
'Yes,' Cecile said. 'Thank God I've got that to fall back on.'
'What about the poor rejected white women?' I said. 'You black people get all the breaks.'
'Being white is tough,' Cecile said.
'How is this for you?' I said.
'So far it's kind of exciting.'
'There seem to be overtones of a slave auction,' I said.
'I know,' Cecile said. 'And I keep thinking it ought to freak me out. But it doesn't. I guess because it's not really about race. It's much more about gender. The women are items. That's the part that would bother me if something was going to.'
'Are you willing to stick with this a little longer?'
'How much longer?'
'Just until you hear from O'Mara,' I said. 'I'd like to hear what he proposes.'
'I can do that,' Cecile said. 'As long as I don't actually have to show up at some motel room someplace.'
'You won't. If there's a motel to be showed up at, me and Licorice Stick can do the showing up.'
