“If ten can make you remember.”
He looked over the photo and th'0em' back at me. “What’d your friend look like?”
“My age and size. Blond hair.”
“Drinkers, right?”
“You tell me.” I put the ten on the bar and kept my hand on it. He studied the photograph.
“Okay. They were in that night. The reason I remember is ’cause Tuesday’s rum night. You know, we do a special on it, get a premium back from the local distributor. Anyway, it doesn’t draw much of a crowd, but this particular lady”-he touched his finger to the photo-“she put away almost a liter of Bacardi Dark herself that night. Man, she could really pound it.”
I took my hand off the bill. Number Two pulled it off the bar, folded it, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his oxford shirt. “How much for the Coke?” I said.
“On the house,” he said, and winked as I put on my overcoat. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you after those two? They done anything wrong?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing wrong. Just a man and his wife, gettin’ a load on for the holidays. Thanks for the information.”
“No problem. Have a real cool yule.”
“Right.”
On the way home I stopped at Town Hall in College Park for one beer that turned into four and two hours’ worth of pool with a biker named Robert. The sky was dark when I walked out. I drove down Rhode Island Avenue and cut across Northeast to my apartment in Shepherd Park.
My cat was lapping water from her dish when I entered my apartment. I spooned some salmon into her food dish and tapped the can with the spoon. She abandoned the water for the salmon. In my bedroom I hit the power button on my stereo-Weasel was still on, moving from the Kinks’ “Father Christmas” to the Pogues/Kirsty MacColl duet, “Fairytale of New York”-and I let it play. Out in the hall I opened the closet door and searched until I found a two-foot-high plastic Christmas tree with retractable arms, buried in the clutter. I dusted off the tree and set it up on the small table in my living room.
After that I made coffee and poured some whiskey in it and took it out to my couch. I drank it to the fade-in of the Pretenders’ “2000 Miles.” When I woke up, my cat was sleeping in my lap. I talked to her for a long while as I scratched behind her ears. Then I picked her up and carried her into my bedroom, where I put her in the cardboard box. The clock on my nightstand said 2:14 A.M.
I undressed and removed my wristwatch and laid it on my dresser. Next to the watch were the earrings and the ring from Tommy Crane’s cottage. I picked up the ring and looked closely at the silver antique setting. Then I absently rubbed the tiny ruby that was set like a spot of blood in the middle of the ring.
I switched off the light and got into bed. I thought of April and Billy, and of Tommy Crane. The next time I looked at the clock it read 4:05. I sat up in bed, reached for my cigarettes, and garo blighted one off a match. A half hour later I sat up again and put fire to another one in the dark.
SEVENTEEN
Jackie Kahn’s accordion-gated elevator rose through the center of the marble staircase and stopped with pneumatic ease. My footsteps echoed on the marble floor that led to her door. I knocked once on the door. It opened and Jackie leaned in the frame.
She was wearing a mustard-colored bathrobe. Something black and lacy showed from beneath the collar of the bathrobe. She smiled. “Nicky.”
“Hey, Jackie.”
“You’re mighty punctual tonight.”
“That’s me. Johnny-on-the-Spot. Here.” I handed her a bottle of Chilean cabernet. She inspected the label.
“Looks fine,” she said with a nod.
“Gran Torres, 1982.”
“Come on in.”
I stepped into the condo and removed my overcoat in the marble foyer. Jackie hung it in a hall closet, and then I followed her into the living room. A Yule log burned in the fireplace set in the lavender west wall, and in the dining room a beveled glass table was set for two. On the center of the table one lavender candle was lit. Jackie kept walking and I followed as I talked to her back and watched the shimmer of her thin calves.
“Where we going?”
“To the bedroom, pal. We’ve got a date, remember?”
“Sure, I do. But this is all happening so fast.” Jackie stopped walking, turned, and rolled her eyes.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Let’s do it, okay?”
“Do it?”
“Yeah.”
“How about a drink first?”
“Nope.”
“Hinders the sample, right?” Jackie didn’t answer.
We moved into her bedroom. It was a futon-and-halogen-lamp affair with a fireplace on the wall adjacent to the bed. She had built a small fire, and the halogen lamp was dimmed to its lowest degree. Two Bose 301s were mounted in a teak wall unit behind the bed. Chaka Khan was doing “Everlasting Love” through the speakers. I nodded to the speakers.
“Chaka a relative of yours?”
“She spells it differently,” Jackie Kahn said. “Quit stalling, Nick. Let’s make a baby.”
Jackie undid her robe and sat facing out on a sky blue towel ttallihat she had spread on the edge of the futon. She spread her knees and leaned back, resting her palms on the futon. The black lace teddy she was wearing ended at her midriff. Below that was her flat abdomen and below that faint tan lines where her panties would have been. The muscles of her inner thighs rippled and then met in one beautifully manicured vee of cleanly shaved pudendum. I felt slightly dizzy as the blood in my head quickly headed south.
“You plan on doing this through osmosis?” Jackie said.
I shook my head, closed my mouth, gulped, and removed my shirt. I tripped climbing out of my slacks, then did the one-legged hop as I pulled off my socks. Chaka Khan screamed as I took off my underwear and dropped it in the pile with the rest of my clothes.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Jackie smirked. “You only look half-ready.”
“It would help if you’d say something romantic.”
“How about grabbing that Vaseline off the nightstand?”
“That’s a start,” I said.
I retrieved the blue-and-gold jar from the nightstand, removed the top, and dipped two fingers into the petroleum jelly. I walked toward Jackie with a cupped hand and a smile of crocodilian sensitivity.
Jackie said, “Hold it right there, soldier. I’ll do that.”
I nodded bashfully and handed her the jar. Jackie scooped out some Vaseline and massaged it into her vulva with two index fingers. When one of the fingers disappeared knuckle-deep into her vagina, the dizziness returned, and I glanced down to see my dick jumping about like some rude marionette.
“I think I’m about ready now,” I said.
“Well, you look it. Come on.”
I moved forward, and we did the dance. Except at the moment of entry, when she grudgingly let a parted-lip wince cross her face, Jackie remained quite expressionless throughout. Twice during our “lovemaking” I greedily reached inside her negligee to feel her breasts, and both times she mechanically slapped my hand away. That slowed things down a bit, as did my lame attempts at humor (“Jackieee,” I shouted at one point, “oh, Jackie, oh, Jackie, uh-Ooooh!”), but when I finally closed my eyes and began to enjoy the great pureness of sensation, the