'Small talk, honey bun.'
Jonathan smiled. 'Almost. One more question. P'tit Noel. Is he your lover? I only ask out of a sense of self- preservation.'
'Are you kidding, man? I mean, he's nuts about me and all, that goes without saying. I imagine he'd eat half a mile of my shit just to see where it came from. But we don't fuck. I'm a little girl, and he is a big man. He'd puncture my lungs.'
The flood of earthy imagery made Jonathan laugh.
'Besides,' she continued, refilling her glass, 'I don't use men anymore. When I need it, I have a girl in. Women know where the bits are and what they want. They're more efficient.'
'Like the Everclear.'
'Right.'
He shook his head. 'You're amazing, Grace.'
She drank off half the glass. 'So? What did you want to see me about?'
'I want to see Maximilian Strange.'
'Why?'
'I believe he wants to see me.'
'Why?'
'I'll ask him when I see him.'
'What brought you here?'
Jonathan sighed. 'Please, lady. That will slow us down a lot.'
'All right. No peekaboo. Tell me why you want to see Max. We're partners. Or didn't you know that?'
Jonathan's eyebrows raised. 'Partners?
She finished her drink and poured another. 'No, Max doesn't have any equals. He's one of a kind. The most beautiful man; the most cruel man. He holds all the patents on excitement.'
'It sounds like you feel about Strange the way P'tit Noel feels about you.'
'That's not far wrong.'
Jonathan rose and looked around. 'Grace? There's something I want to do. And you can help me.'
'Yeah?'
'I've got this problem. How can I tell you this without offending you? Honey, I've got to piss.'
'Nut!' She laughed. 'It's back there. Through the bedroom.'
When he returned she had taken off her peignoir and was standing with her back to the fire, rubbing her bare buttocks and stretching to her tiptoes in the warmth.
'Do you know that you're nude, madam?'
'I like to walk around bare-assed. I feel free. And it turns men on, and I get a kick out of that. 'Cause they ain't going to get nothin'.' She said this last in a low-down Ras accent.
'Well, you keep flashing that fine body around, you'll get yourself raped one of these days.'
'By you?' she asked with taunting scorn.
'No, I've given up rape. The pillow talk is too limited.'
She frowned seriously. 'You know, if some stud decided to rape me, I don't think I'd fight it. I'd let him in. Then I'd tighten up the old sphincter and cut it right off.'
'What a lesson that would be for him.' But her taut, cabled muscles under smooth skin gave the image credibility, and he couldn't help a quick local wince.
His trip to the bathroom had been profitable. There was a window giving out onto a flat metal roof. He had left it open. If they came for him, he'd be able to give them a chase that would prevent anyone from thinking he was overeager to get into The Cloisters.
'Tell me, Grace. When you talked to Strange on the phone, did he give you any idea when he'd like to meet me?'
'What makes you think I called him?'
'You called me Dr. Hemlock. P'tit Noel didn't know my title.'
Her feline composure faded perceptibly. 'I guess I screwed up, right?'
'A little. But I won't mention it to Strange.'
She was relieved, and he realized that Maximilian Strange did not tolerate error—even from partners. 'When does he want to meet me?'
'They'll be here any minute now to pick you up.'
'Uh-huh. Well, I don't think I can make it tonight. Let's set something up for tomorrow.'
She smiled at the thought of anyone thinking about changing Max's plans. 'No. He said tonight. He'll be pissed if you're not here.'
'He may have to live with that.'
At that moment there was the sound of footfalls outside the door. Several men.
She smiled at him and lifted her arms in an exaggerated shrug. 'Too late, honey bun.'
'Maybe not. You just stand there warming your ass, and don't try to stop me. I'm a real terror against girls of your size.' He ran to the bathroom and scrambled out the window onto the metal roof. As he did, he could hear her opening the door and talking rapidly to the men. There were barked orders, and one of the men rushed through the flat toward the bathroom, as the others ran back down the stairs.
Jonathan flattened out against the brick wall beside the bathroom window. A big head came poking out, and he hit it with his fist just behind the ear. The face slapped down against the stone sill with the click of breaking teeth, and the head slid back inside with a moan and a sigh.
His eyes not yet accustomed to the dark, Jonathan crept along the top of the roof on all fours. He came blank up against a brick wall and felt his way along it to a corner. By then his eyes had dilated and he could see dimly. Below him was a narrow gap, a cut of black between two windowless brick buildings. It didn't seem to lead anywhere, so he decided to climb upward, toward the dirty, city-glow smear of fog. The gap was only about four feet wide. He slipped off his shoes and, falling back on his mountain experience, eased out over the void and jammed himself between the two brick walls, his back against one, his feet flat against the other. He executed a scrambling chimney climb, holding himself into the fissure by the pressure of his feet against the opposite wall and inching up at the expense of his suit jacket and a quantity of palm skin. The building before him went up beyond his vision, but the one at his back was only three stories tall. When he got to the lip of the flat roof, he shot himself over with a final thrust with his legs, and he lay panting on the wet seamed metal. He crawled across the roof and looked down. Below was a cobblestone alley strewn with garbage cans, and it appeared to give out onto a street. There was light from a distant streetlamp, and he could see to negotiate a heavy, cast-iron drainpipe that led from the roof to the floor of the alley. From afar, he could hear a call and an answering shout, but he couldn't make out the direction. The descent was fairly easy, but when he landed a piece of broken glass went through his sock into the sole of his foot.
Jesus Christ! The same fucking alley!
He pulled the triangle of glass out and gingerly made his way through the shattered bottles.
It occurred to him how ironic it would be if, in attempting to avoid appearing anxious to get into The Cloisters, he had evaded them altogether.
But no worry on that score. There was a shout. Footfalls. And there they were, two of them in the gap, blocking his exit, their forms punctuating the glowing nimbus of fog. They moved toward him slowly.
'All right, gentlemen. I give up. You win.'
But they didn't answer, and by their slow inexorable advance he took it that they wanted some revenge for their toughed-up mate above.
Just then a door opened behind him and he was caught in a shaft of light. It was P'tit Noel.
'Thank God,' Jonathan said. He heard the explosive sound of P'tit Noel's openhanded slap to the back of his head, but he didn't feel it. He seemed to float away horizontally, and later he remembered hoping he wouldn't land in the broken glass.
Hampstead
Before opening his eyes or moving, he waited until full consciousness had gradually replaced the spinning nightmare vertigo. He was aware of the rocking motion of the automobile and the harsh drag of the floor carpeting
