putting her warm-ups back on, 'Where'd you tell Jerry you were going?'
'To work out.'
'Weren't lying, were you?'
'If he ever starts, we're fucked.'
'No danger, the man likes the way he is.' Robert picked up the phone. 'Is this Dennis I'm about to speak to?'
'What's up?'
Robert said to Anne, 'It's Dennis.'
So Dennis would say, 'Somebody's there with you?'
'The maid. She's getting dressed.' 'Come on-'
'See, what you do, believe everything I say and you won't have to mind-fuck yourself thinking about it. Listen, I want to introduce you to somebody.'
'His name Mularoni?'
'Hey, how'd you pick up on that?'
'Billy Darwin. I do the reenactment thing or the gig's over.'
'He didn't need to put it like that-shit. You were gonna do it, weren't you? All we wanted, make sure you got some days off. Mr. Mularoni 's the kind of man can make it happen. You understand what I'm saying? I want you to meet him.'
'How about Anne?'
Robert put his hand over the phone and watched Anne sitting on the bed putting on a tennis shoe. He took his hand off the phone and said, 'Dennis, you got chops working now I hadn't noticed. That was cool, that `How about Anne?' Damn.'
'I'm diving at two.'
'You can if you want. But Mr. Billy Darwin agreed you could cut that one.'
'Why?”
'Have time to get the uniform and the gun and shit. We meeting in their suite at one o'clock, have some lunch.'
'What if I'd rather dive?'
'Dennis? Listen to me. You're hungry. You eat, wait an hour and then you can dive all you want.'
He hung up, Anne looking at him now, ready to leave.
'How'd he know about me?'
Robert was already thinking about it. He said, 'Gimme another minute or two.'
Mularoni was introduced to Dennis as Jerry, not Germano. In his fifties, shorter than Dennis with a head of thick dark hair and a beard, a poser with the cigar, the dark sunglasses. He seemed pleasant enough, but also the boss, saying, 'Dennis, come here,' put his arm around Dennis' shoulders and brought him to the balcony, the doors wide open.
'The ladder stands eighty feet high. That correct?'
'Exactly,' Dennis said. 'Eight ten-foot sections.'
'But how does anybody know for sure?'
'Some people actually count the rungs.'
'That's what I thought,' Jerry said, 'the skeptics. You know what you could do? Have a couple of the ladders, the ones you put on top, make the rungs six inches apart instead of a foot. From the ground you'd never be able to tell, but now you're ten feet lower up there.'
'Jerry thought of that last night,' Robert said, 'watching the show.'
'But whether you go off from seventy or eighty feet,' Dennis said, 'it doesn't make that much difference.'
'Either one,' Robert said, 'you can kill yourself, huh? You want champagne, beer, vodka tonic-what's your pleasure?'
Dennis said champagne. Robert popped a bottle of Mumm and poured two glasses. Jerry had red wine.
Anne came out of the bedroom in what looked like a beach cover mostly yellow, almost see through, smiling at Dennis and extending her hand. She said, 'I've watched you perform twice now, both times with my heart in my mouth. Hi, I'm Anne.'
Sounding like a TV commercial. Charlie was right, she could be a fashion model, the long, streaked hair, the way she moved, sure of herself. She took his hand and kissed the air next to his cheek, giving him a whiff of scent that was the best thing he'd ever smelled. In his life. Up close she could be thirty-five.
For lunch there was cold shrimp, a mixed salad, marinated calamari, fried chicken, Anne saying, 'Nothing fancy.' Robert saying, 'And a nod to regional chow, the river catfish and the mustard greens.'
Dennis said to Robert aside, each taking a shrimp on a toothpick, 'What's going on?'
'It's lunchtime,' Robert said. 'Don't you eat lunch?'
'Come on.'
'They're my friends and you're my friend.'
Anne got around to asking about high diving and Acapulco, standing close to him with her scent, bikini under the beach cover hanging open, saying it must be harrowing and Dennis telling her the rush was worth it. 'Every day,' she said, 'living on the edge.' Dennis shrugged. 'It's dive or get a job.'
She looked right into his eyes, making him wonder if it was there for him. He wasn't sure how to handle it. He asked if she and Jerry had any childrenstupid, trying to think of something to say-and it turned off the look she was giving him. She said, 'Jerry and I aren't into children.'
He wanted to ask what Jerry did for a livingJerry on the balcony now with a plate of calamari. But Robert came over with a vodka tonic for Anne, saying to Dennis, 'You might want to thank Jerry for getting you off to play war.'
Anne said, 'I'm going as a camp follower,' looking right at him again, 'but no hoopskirts.'
'A quadroon,' Robert said, 'so I won't be the only darky.'
Dennis watched Robert give her a look, part smile, part something else going on between them. 'What's Jerry gonna be?'
'A Yankee,' Robert said, 'who gets his ass whipped. Remember I told you, Forrest put the skeer in the Yankees, chased 'em all the way back to Memphis?'
Dennis had his next question ready and asked it. 'What kind of business is Jerry in?'
Anne said, 'Land development.'
Robert said, 'Big projects, all over the Midwest. And you know what kind? Manufactured home communities.' Robert waited, looking at Dennis like he was giving him time to decide on the next question, how to put it.
'Jerry knows Kirkbride?'
'Knows of him.'
'But if they're in the same business-'
'I'm out of this,' Anne said, and walked away.
Dennis watched her go in the bedroom, Robert saying to him, 'It's Jerry's brother runs the business. Jerry's made his, he's semiretired, consults is all.' Robert said, 'You gonna ask me a lot of questions now, aren't you? All right, what's the name of Kirkbride's company? Was on the sign in the village he's doing.'
'I don't remember.'
'American Dream, Incorporated. Kirkbride makes 'em in Corinth and sells 'em all over the country. Jerry's brother looked into American Dream as a source. You know, to buy from. One reason or another it didn't work out. They deal with the same kind of company up by Detroit makes homes you put together.'
'You didn't mention this to Kirkbride.'
'Why would I? Jerry's not dealing with him.'
'But they're in the same business.'
'Jerry's like Anne, he's down here to have some fun, not talk business-shit. I'm the one, I told you, looked up Kirkbride, see what he's like, what else he might be into.'
'Like playing war,' Dennis said, 'and now you and Jerry want to get in on it.'
'And Anne. She's nice, huh?'
'But you don't want Kirkbride to know any thing about you, or what Jerry does.'
Robert said, 'There's no reason for him to. Man, you know there's always more to what you see going on than
