He sounded like that fat guy in that movie about the Maltese falcon, right before Chubby sold out his sidekick.
But I said, “Just so we understand each other.”
“We do.”
I got up and went one way and the Broker got up and went another.
When Annette stepped from the phone booth, I asked, “Everything all right?”
She nodded. “He says he’s concerned for my safety, and insists that two of his people position themselves outside my apartment. He wanted two more in the apartment, but I convinced him there just wasn’t room.”
Plus, there seemed to be no access to that second-floor apartment other than the front, open stairway, so another pair of bodyguards would have been overkill.
“That’s all?” I asked. “You were on with him for quite a while.”
“I know. We did…we did argue about something.”
“What?”
“He wants to come to Iowa City himself, tonight. To see me. He’s worried about me. He says he wants to make it up to me. Make amends.”
“And you said no.”
“I said no.”
“And he’s coming anyway.”
“Yes.”
On the drive back to Iowa City, I encouraged her to find a radio station of her choice; she turned the dial to classical. That stuff gets on my nerves, but I didn’t say anything. She needed settling down worse than I did.
The trip back, which didn’t take much more than an hour on I-80, she spent grilling me, but in a nice enough way. She had spilled her lovely guts to me yesterday, and now she felt like turnabout was fair play.
So I gave her the story of my life. I won’t repeat this conversation because you’ve heard it all before, only you got the unexpurgated version. I let her know about Vietnam and my cheating bride, but left out minor details like crushing that asshole Williams under his car and turning to hired killing as a way to re-enter the civilian population and make a meaningful contribution.
The car waiting in the little apartment complex across from Sambo’s was a dark blue late ’60s Thunderbird with a vinyl top. They had taken a spot off to the left as you faced the building, and I pulled into one nearby.
I got out and looked at the two guys, a mustached, pockmarked little weasel at the wheel and a huskier pockmarked big weasel on the passenger side; both wore pastel leisure suits with turtleneck sweaters and had greasy black hair plus the usual mutton chops and their mustaches drooped like they were auditioning for an Italian western.
I leaned at the window of the huskier guy and he powered down the glass.
“My name is Jack. I’m taking Miss Girardelli up to her apartment, but then I’ll be going out for a while. I may be back later.”
He frowned. “Why you tellin’ me this?”
“Mr. Girardelli sent you fellas, right?”
“And this concerns you how?”
“This concerns me that you know which side I’m on, so I don’t wind up with an extra navel.”
Then I went around to Annette, where she’d got out of the Maverick, and walked her up the wrought-iron- railed cement stairs. I got the nine millimeter out of my waistband to go in and take a quick look. Her apartment was furnished in low-end contemporary stuff, probably came that way, with the only signs of Annette the many books stacked here and there, and some posters on the bedroom wall-Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out, Ernest Hemingway in a sailor hat, a couple others I didn’t recognize, one a woman who was definitely not Raquel Welch, who would have been my choice.
The place was clear, closets and all. Before going out the door, I gave her a little kiss that she turned into something bigger, but I left it at that and made my getaway.
My original plan had been to utilize the window provided by standing up Dorrie Byron for lunch to finally dot the professor’s I, but that no longer seemed wise. Better to go collect those photo prints, which I did in downtown Iowa City, and then keep the meeting at the Holiday Inn coffee shop, which I also did, after showering (alone) and changing my clothes.
Turned out I wasn’t hungry enough to eat, after the big breakfast, and ordered an iced tea while Dorrie, having no appetite either, asked for a cup of coffee.
Frankly, she looked older than before, and I didn’t think it was because I’d been hanging out with a younger woman. Her attractive face had a puffiness, particularly around the eyes, which were red-rimmed. She was in a white blouse with pearls and a black skirt and black pumps, all of which complemented her figure and her legs and everything just fine. These were still eminently jumpable bones.
But her face was a mask of tragedy.
I’d barely settled in the booth when I asked her, “Are you okay?”
“Not really.”
“You saw your husband, didn’t you?”
She nodded, and her chin crinkled.
“Didn’t go well?”
“At first, just fine. He let me cook for him. He let me…service him. I even stayed the night. That way he got breakfast out of me. We even showered together.”
That gave me a chill. A little too weird, that.
I said, “And?”
“And then he told me-it was over. He wants a divorce. He said he was glad I’d stopped by and that we’d been able to make ‘one last bittersweet memory.’ But we were over. I told him…well, you know what kind of things I told him.”
Her voice was hoarse enough to make it obvious that many of those things had been screamed.
She was stirring her coffee. She’d been doing that when I got there, I never saw her put any sugar in, but she kept stirring. And her eyes were staring past me.
My iced tea arrived, but I didn’t touch it.
She said, “He didn’t care. He didn’t care about losing half or more of his money. Or losing one or both of his homes. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about losing me, at all. He was going to be very rich from his next book and I wouldn’t get any of that, and he would be able to start over, and at the top, he said.” Now she looked at me. “You know, it might not hurt so bad if he’d told me straight out, when I first got there? He shouldn’t have had me cook for him. He shouldn’t have let me make love to him.”
“No. That was bastardly, all right.”
“Bastardly. Good word for that bastard.”
“I have the photos for you.”
“Please.”
I got out the yellow packet, having already pulled the Annette photos, leaving only those of the little blonde behind. And of the little blonde’s behind. Charlie the dead PI had got some great shots through those gauzy curtains; perfect for Penthouse.
She flipped through the prints, glassy-eyed, like a poker player on a losing streak who just knew no winning hand was coming.
She asked, “You know this girl’s name?”
“I can get it.”
“I’ll…probably need it. For the divorce proceedings, and…” She reached out and gripped my left hand with hers, its diamond ring catching the light. “Jack, you’ve been wonderful. Very professional, and I…I feel we had something, you and I.”
Well, I’d had a really good time. Beyond that, I couldn’t or shouldn’t say. I merely nodded and smiled and that vagueness was plenty for her.
Then I said, “You need to go home, Dorrie. This time, you really do need to go home.”
She nodded. “I have to check out.”
Then she slid out of the booth, pausing to say, “Can you get this? Put it on the expense account?”
