since last he had been in Chelsea. In those days, a few of the young people who chatted in pubs or made single cups of cappuccino last two hours eventually went home to paint or write. But not these youngsters. They neither produced nor supported. Chelsea had always been self-consciously artsy, but now it had become younger, less attractive, more American. Head shops crowded up against the Safeway, and jeans were to be had in a thousand varieties. Discotheques. Whiskey a go-gos. Boutiques with scented candles and merchandise of green stamp quality. Shops vied for obscure names. Tall girls with hunched shoulders clopped along the pavement, and peacock boys swaggered in flared suits of plum velvet, cuffs flapping with dysfunctional bells. Rancorous music bled from doorways. People in satchel-assed jeans stared sullenly at him, an obvious representative of 'the establishment,' that despised class that oppressed them and paid their doles.
He had hoped the young would spare Chelsea the humiliation they had inflicted on San Francisco, Greenwich Village, the Left Bank. And he was angry that they had not.
But after all, he mused, one had to be fair-minded. These youngsters had their virtues. They were doubtless more content than his generation, hooked as it was on the compulsion to achieve. And these young people were more at peace with life; more alert to ecological dangers; more disgusted by war; more socially conscious.
Useless snots.
He turned off into a side street, past a couple of antique shops, and continued along a row of private houses behind black iron fences. Each had a steep stone stairway leading down to a basement. And one of these descending caves was illuminated by a dim red light. This was the Cellar d'Or.
He sat watching the action from his nook at the back of one of the artificial plaster grottoes that constituted the Cellar d'Or's decor. The light was dim and the carpets jet black, and the uninitiated had to be careful of their footing. The fake stone grottoes were inset with chunks of fool's gold, and all the other surfaces, the tables, the bar, were clear plastic in which bits of sequins and gold metal were entrapped. The glow lighting came from within these plastic surfaces, illuminating faces from beneath. And the air between objects was black.
He sipped at his second, very wet Laphroaig served, as were all the drinks in the club, in a small gold metal chalice. The most insistent feature of the club's bizarre interior was a large photographic transparency that revolved in the center of the room. It was lit from within, and every eye was drawn frequently to the woman who smiled from the full-length photograph. She stood beside what appeared to be a very high marble fireplace, her steady, mildly mischievous gaze directed at the camera and, therefore, at each man in the room, no matter where he sat. She was nude, and her body was extraordinary. A mulatto with cafe au lait skin, her breasts were conical and impertinent, her waist slight, her hips wide, and perfectly molded legs drew the eye to small, well-formed feet, the toes of which were slightly splayed, like those of a yawning cat. The black triangle of her ecu appeared cotton soft, but it was something about the muscles and those splayed toes that held Jonathan's attention. Stomach, arm, leg, and hip, there was a look of lean, hard muscle under the powdery brown skin—steel cable under silk.
That would be Amazing Grace.
The Cellar d'Or was essentially a whorehouse. And a rather good one. All the help—the chippies, the barmen, the waiters—were West Indian, and the music, its volume so low it seemed to fade when one's attention strayed from it, was also West Indian. Despite the general air of ease and rest, the place was moving a fair amount of traffic. Men would arrive, and during their first drink they would be joined by one of the girls who sat in twos and threes at the most distant tables. Another drink or two and some light chat, and the couple would disappear. The girl would return, usually alone, within a half hour. And all this action was presided over by a smiling giant of a majordomo who stood by the door or at the end of the bar and watched over the patrons and the whores with a broad benevolent smile, his jet black head shaved and glistening with reflections of gold. Nothing in his manner, save the feline control of his walk, gave him the look of the professional bouncer, but Jonathan could imagine the cooling effect he would have on the occasional troublemaker, descending on him like a smiling machine of fate and disposing of him with a single rapid gesture that most insouciant lookers-on would mistake for a friendly pat on the shoulder. The giant wore a close-fitting white turtlenecked jersey that displayed a pattern of muscles so marked that, even at rest, he appeared to be wearing a Roman breastplate under his shirt. In age, he could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty.
One of the girls detached herself from a co-worker and approached Jonathan's table. She was the second to do so, and she looked very nice indeed as she crossed the floor: full-busted, long-legged, and an ass that moved hydraulically.
'You would care to buy me a drink?' she asked, her accent and phrasing revealing that she was a recent immigrant.
Jonathan smiled good-naturedly. 'I'd be delighted to buy you a drink. But I'd rather you drank it back at your own table.'
'You don't like me?'
'Of course I like you. I've liked you ever since we first met. It's just that...' He took her hand and assumed his most tragic expression. 'It's just... you see, I had this nasty accident while I was driving golf balls in my shower and...' He turned his head aside and looked down.
'You are joking me,' she said, not completely sure.
'In fact, I am. But I do have some serious advice for you. Did you see that fellow who came in here after I did? The one with the blue raincoat?'
She looked over toward the far corner, then wrinkled her nose.
'Oh, I know,' Jonathan said, 'he's not as pretty as I am. But he's loaded with money, and he came here because he's shy with women. When you first approach him, he'll pretend he doesn't want anything to do with you. But that's just a front. Just a game he plays. You keep at him, and by morning you'll have enough money to buy your man a suit.'
She gave him a sidelong glance of doubt.
'Why would I lie to you?' Jonathan said, offering his palms.
'You sure?'
He closed his eyes and nodded his head, tucking down the corners of his mouth.
She left him and, after a compulsory pause at the bar so as not to seem to be flitting from one fish to another, she patted her hair down and made her way to the far corner. Jonathan smiled to himself in congratulation, sipped at his Laphroaig, and let his eyes wander over the photograph of Amazing Grace. Lovely girl. But time was passing, and he would have to make some kind of move soon if he was going to meet her.
Oh-oh. Maybe not. Here he comes.
Like everything else about the giant, his smile was large. 'May I buy you a drink, sir?' Quiet though it was, his voice had a basso rumble you could feel through the table.
'That's very good of you,' Jonathan said.
The giant made a gesture to the waiter, then sat down, not across from Jonathan as though to engage him in conversation, but beside him, so they were looking out on the scene together, like old friends. 'This is the first time you have visited us, is it not, sir?'
'Yes. Nice place you've got here.'
'It is pleasant. I am called P'tit Noel.' The giant offered a hand so large that Jonathan felt like a child shaking it.
'Jonathan Hemlock. But you're not West Indian.'
P'tit Noel laughed, a warm chocolate sound. 'What am I then?'
'Haitian, from your accent. Although your education has spoiled some of that.'
'Very good, sir! You are observant. Actually, my mother was Haitian; my father Jamaican. She was a whore, and he a thief. Later, he went into politics and she into the hotel business.'
'You might say they swapped professions.'
He laughed again. 'You might at that, sir. Although I was schooled in this country, I suppose something of the patois will always be with me. Now, you know everything about me. Tell me everything about yourself.'
Jonathan had to smile at the disregard for subtlety. 'Ah, here come the drinks.'
The waiter had not needed an order. He knew what Jonathan was drinking, and evidently P'tit Noel always drank the same thing, a chalice of neat rum.
Jonathan raised his glass to the large transparency of Amazing Grace. 'To the lady.'
'Oh, yes. I am always glad to drink to her.' He drew off the rum in two swallows and set the goblet down on
