'Fine.'
'Don't ask what it cost, please.' Tyra whirled and posed and fluffed the white marabou trimming that hung to the floor. 'I'll tell you if you promise you won't be mad. Two hundred and seventy-five. But it's a Luci-Ann.'
Three held in stabbing of woman on Belle Isle. 'Do you love it? ... Marsh-ull! ... Ohhh, I'm sorry, baby. I scairt her, din I? Does her like mommy's Luci-Ann?'
The schnauzer probably didn't give a shit one way or the other, but recognized a tone that could mean a doggie treat, sat up in the chair, pointed her little ears and yipped once.
A woman stabbed on Belle Isle and the suburbs asked to rescue the cities, in the recap. But no word about a woman in the suburbs missing, assaulted ... or anything.
Marshall drew on the cigar until he could feel it in his jaw. The cigar was out. Frank and Bo were both out of town. Mickey ... well, all he really knew, she wasn't home. Say she went to Beaumont. They fixed her up. Then, on the way home she stopped by a friend's. Or a friend took her to the hospital; that was it. Who was a close friend of Mickey's? He couldn't think of anyone immediately. Maybe Kay Lyons. He'd seen them sitting together talking. Charlie Lyons had said he'd be in Grand Rapids this week--
Tyra was out changing again.
Marshall raised his head. 'Honey ... call the Lyons for me, will you? Find out if Charlie's in town or when he's coming back. Will you do that, sweetheart?'
Chapter 13
MELANIE WORE A LONG STRIPED ARAB DRESS, A HEAD-band and one of Frank's $30 ties for a belt. She seldom wore underwear or shoes. She was right there ready--practically at all times--lying on the sofa reading about people with style in W, a list of those who had it.
'Diana Vreeland.'
'Never heard of her.'
'Betty Bacall.'
'You mean Lauren Bacall?' Frank said.
'Same one,' Melanie said. 'Yves St. Laurent.' 'He's the guy that makes clothes, women's clothes.'
'Georgia O'Keefe.'
'Sounds like a stripper.'
'Wrong. Giancarlo Giannini.'
'Opera singer.'
'Wrong. Jeanne Moreau.'
'He's a ... writer.'
'She's an actress. Jerome Robbins.'
'Who knows?'
'I'm giving you just the easy ones. Okay, Pat Buckley.'
'He's the one, he was gonna punch that fag, what's his name, on TV.'
'Pat's his wife ... I think. Loulou de la Falaise.' 'For Christ sake,' Frank said.
They were in Frank Dawson's apartment, back from the casino. Melanie had won four-hundredand-something playing roulette. Frank had dropped $3,200 at craps, not even shooting, betting against the shooter. He'd forgotten to call home and decided the hell with it, it was too late now, bedtime. Frank had his white loafers off, his shirt unbuttoned, relaxing, having one final Scotch. Melanie let her Coke sit on the coffee table. She lay curled up in a corner of the sectional sofa, holding W against her raised knees and taking his picture. He could see the underside of her long young thighs all the way to her exposed can. Or he could turn his head and look through the open sliding doors to the balcony and see imported palm trees in moonlight. They had brought them over from Florida to line the fairways, coconut palms that were slowly being overgrown with local scrub pine. The groundskeepers would take a couple of hacks at the growth with machetes and stand around smoking cigarettes. It was getting harder to hire good people. The government in Nassau was crazy. He had to get out of here pretty soon. Move the account to Switzerland before the government took over everything and turned Fairway Manor into a post office or something.
'Jack Nicholson you know. Alain Resnais.' 'Never heard of him.'
'Here's one. Nicky Lauda.'
'I don't know.'
'He's a race-car driver. Jean Renoir.'
'I don't want to play anymore.'
There were things he didn't like about Melanie. She ought to comb her hair. She ought to clean up her language when they were out--sitting in the King's Inn cocktail lounge and seeing everybody turn around and look when she said, 'Those fuckers, what do they know?' Things like that. She ought to bring her own toothbrush when she came here and quit using all his tranquilizers.
'One more. Yasmin Khan.'
Still, Frank believed Melanie was one in a million. Maybe she was. At any given time there could be ten thousand or more healthy young Melanies lying on the beaches of the world, sitting at chic sidewalk tables with their backpacks stowed away, and each would be one in a million; though Frank would never realize there were so many. Melanie was from Santa Barbara, a California girl. She had been all over the Mediterranean, from Marbella to the Middle East. She had lived with a Hollywood director Frank had never heard of while the director was shooting a western in Spain. She had bunked with Italian film people at a Cannes Festival, moved onto Rome and Cinecitta with a second-assistant cameraman--bad for the image, moving down in the ranks--escaped to Piraeus and did the Greek islands on the motor-sailer of a dark little man who imported John Deere tractors, skipped down to Eilat-- Israel's Miami Beach on the Gulf of Aqaba--with another film crew, no one in particular. Then, from Eilat to Copenhagen to London to Barbados to Freeport, Grand Bahama, where she'd finally had enough of her British photo-journalist friend, his quaaludes and rum, his cold sweats and crazy-talk in the middle of the night, and connected with Frank at Tano Beach over a bowl of conch chowder and a pint of dark, ten months ago. Mr. Frank A. Dawson from Detroit, with a bank account and development interests in the Bahamas. Melanie could read Frank's mind, anticipate his moods and keep him turned on without shifting into third gear. After some of the others, Frank was like a rest stop.
'George Balanchine.'
'I'm gonna take that goddamn paper, whatever it is, and burn it.'
'Meany. What do you want to do, fuck?'
'Well, since we're going to bed--' He couldn't get over the way she talked, but tried to react casually.
'You want to do the Florentine thing again?' 'What one was that?'
'You know, where we sit facing each other, my legs are over yours--'
'Yeah, that's a good one,' Frank said. She was so offhand about it. Then in bed she'd talk real dirty, telling him what to do to her. Mickey never said a word. She'd lie there, get a little movement going, but not much. He'd roll over and she'd go in the bathroom for awhile, come back and ask him what he wanted for breakfast in the morning.
He said to Melanie, 'I've filed.'
She lowered the newspaper with her knees. 'You have? Why didn't you tell me?'
'I talked to my lawyer Friday. He said it'll go out, she'll be served with the papers probably by Tuesday. Tomorrow.'
'That's why you came early.'
'Give her some time alone to think about it.' 'What's she gonna do?'
'What do you mean, what's she gonna do? It's no-fault. She doesn't have anything to say about it.'
'I mean how's she gonna take it?' Melanie said.
'I don't know. I don't really care.' Frank got up. He went into the kitchen and came back with a fresh drink.
Melanie was waiting. 'Will she be surprised?' 'I guess so.'
