The Erection Set

you. Honey, you’re impossible, but to get you off the hook and let you enjoy your own personal hang-up a few months longer, you can tell S. C. Cable that the deal is on. If you even like me a little bit, tell him you gave me some of that precious stuff just to preserve my reputation.”

“Any options?”

“Sharon ... I’m too lazy to fight for it. Or over it.” He looked across the room to where Dogeron Kelly was standing, leaning against the doorjamb of the French windows, looking out into the misty night with Mona Merrima nuzzling his shoulder. “Watch out for him, Sharon,” he said.

“Why, Walt?”

Gentry took another sip of his drink and idly flipped open a gold cigarette case. “He reminds me of a title of a book. Not the book, just the title.”

“Oh?”

“Call of the Wild,” he told her.

She could feel the heat in her and he was a full room away. When she looked down, her fingers were twisting the ring around ... third finger ... left hand. It was made of brass and she had to wash the verdigris off every night. The stone was glass, green and chipped, something they laughed at but she excused as her good-luck charm when everyone knew she was neither sentimental nor superstitious. Her virgin stone one had named it, still green, not yet ripe, and when it changed color, ready for picking. She had culled out all the answers when they queried her and the answer were enough to stuff up the mouths of the smart ones. She had been around too long and too well. The diamond’s cutting edges were just a little too sharp to touch. Nobody ever mentioned the ring anymore.

Across the room Mona Merriman had taken him outside the French doors. The rain had stopped and a gentle fog turned the windows across the avenue into soft orange ovals. Sharon got up and walked up to Raul Fucia, holding her glass in front of her.

“I need a drink,” she said.

VII

“Mona Merriman,” I said, “you’re a scratchy woman. Why don’t you go get yourself a celebrity?”

“I’ve done them all, dear. You look like better copy.”

“Except that I’m a nonentity.”

“Not quite, Dogeron. I’ve already spoken to your friend Lee Shay. You see, he doesn’t dare hold things back from me. Your being an heir of Barrin Industries makes you an item.”

“Mona, an heir I am, but an inheritor I’m not. I told you I was the family bastard.”

“Even that is news,” she smiled sweetly. “After all, mine is a gossip column.”

I ran my fingers down the side of her face and pinched the skin under her chin. “Baby,” I said, “you wouldn’t want me to chew you up, would you?”

“That sounds like fun.”

“I didn’t mean that way.”

“There’s another way?” She was laughing at me now.

“Suppose I told everybody how old you are.”

Her laugh didn’t fade a bit. “Impossible!”

“Want to bet?” I asked her.

Then the smile started to ease off.

I said, “Give me one hour on the telephone and I’ll give you the place, date and time.”

She cocked her head and looked at me, not quite sure of herself. “I don’t believe it.”

“Look at my eyes, Mona,” I said.

“I see them.”

“Now you know. It’s a game I can play better than anybody you ever saw. Just nip me and I’ll bite your head off.”

“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”

“Everybody keeps telling me so,” I said.

“Would you really tell how old I am ... If you found out?”

“Just try nipping me, kid.”

“You’re interesting, Dog. How old am I?”

“Wild guess?”

“Sure.”

I let my fingers travel over her face again and felt the tiny lines. “Twenty-one,” I grinned.

“Do it again, but for real this time.”

“Sixty-two,” I said.

“You overaged me by a year, you bastard. If you tell anybody I’ll kill you.”

“If they ask you’re under thirty.”

“Shit. I love you, you crazy creep. Now I’m going and find out all about you, then you’ll be sorry.”

“Come on,” I said, “why work for it. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

Mona Merriman looked into her near-empty glass, swirled the contents around a few times, then met my eyes. “Have you ever killed anybody?”

I nodded.

“Want to speak about it?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Guess I got me a live one. You know what I’d like to do to you?”

“Naturally. I always have trouble with you young broads. Pick on somebody your own age.”

“Okay, killer. Now one little kiss and let’s go back inside.”

Her lips barely brushed mine, but I could feel the tiger behind them and all the real want that was there. The little pubic touch, the outthrust chest that tried so hard to initiate the nipples into a semiorgasm behind the engineering of elastic and fabric. Twenty years ago she could have been fun.

So I grabbed her arm, kissed her right, just once, and she went all tight at first, then to pieces, and I got that funny little-girl look and said, “No more, Mona. You and I have a generation gap.”

“I’d like to gap you.”

“But you won’t. Now behave.”

“Bastards I have to run into,” she smiled “I’m going to take you apart, Mr. Kelly.”

“It’s been tried before.”

“By experts?”

“By experts,” I said.

“You only think so, Mr. Kelly.” Her hand dropped from my shoulder, reached down and felt me, then went back to my shoulder again. “My, you are impervious.”

“Not really, doll. I just pick my own time and place.”

“Let’s go back. I want some friends of mine to meet you.”

Walt Gentry saw us step across the sill of the French doors into the alcoholic hubbub of the room, waved and excused himself from the couple he had been talking to and ambled over in that loose-limbed stride of his. He gripped my hand and shook it with a grin and a wink toward Mona. “Good to see you again, Dog. It’s been awhile.”

“Same here, Walt.”

“Mona got her hooks into you already?”

She gave his arm a pinch and faked a pout. “You could have prepared me for this beast, Walter. He’s a refreshing change from the usual group.”

“That’s because I’m a commoner,” I said.

“You back to stay?” Walt asked me.

“Could be.”