He pulled her through the room to the bar on the other side. Hello Lee, people said to him uneasily. He didn’t answer. Soon the room recovered its composure. Llewellyn was standing at the bar with his second drink, holding tight to Catherine, when Eileen flowed by in an airy blue dress. Eileen looked at Catherine’s light-brown dress and her bare feet. Hello, she said to Catherine. Catherine watched her mouth move. Hello Lee, Eileen said, turning to Llewellyn. She asked how he was. He said he was fine. She asked how Maddy was. This is Catherine, Llewellyn answered. I hear you’ve been working, Eileen said. Yeah, working, said Llewellyn. There was a pause between them and Eileen said, Lee, let’s talk later, all right?
Llewellyn had his third drink. He and Catherine stood at the bar with him holding onto her. When she tried to pull away, he held her tighter. He made no attempt to hide this behavior from anyone else; she kept looking around her. His face and eyes were still crazy, as they’d been for a while. People greeted him cautiously as they passed. They congratulated him on the Nightshade sequel; he didn’t hear them. He only wanted them to look at her face. They all looked at her face.
He heard someone speaking to him and glanced over at Larry Crow. The photographer looked past Llewellyn to Catherine. “How you doing Lee,” he said. “I hear you’re working hard.” Llewellyn ignored him. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Phone rings and rings or your wife answers. Your wife sounds like she’s not feeling well.” He looked at Catherine again and laughed like a machine gun.
“What do you want,” said Llewellyn.
Crow took a folded paper from his inside coat pocket, “I have good news, Lee.” He handed Llewellyn the form. It was a model’s release from a magazine. Llewellyn handed the form back. “They’re nuts about that last shot. Remember? In the kitchen, your lovely lady here in the bed sheet.”
“Forget it.”
“Sign the release,” Crow said merrily, swirling the ice in his drink, “and we all do well by it. I do well, your friend here does well. You especially do well. I mean, being the girl’s… executor, so to speak. Handling her finances, that sort of thing.”
“I’m not pimping her,” said Llewellyn.
Crow went from merriment to annoyance very quickly. “They’re giving it a hell of a spread, Lee. An art approach, basically.” He looked at Catherine and then back to Llewellyn. “You see the way everyone looked at her when you walked in here? Two dozen aspiring nubiles in this place and it all stops for an Indian girl with no shoes and a dress from Thriftimart.” He lowered his voice. “The Harris people will sign her tomorrow, no questions.”
“My name isn’t Lee.”
“What?”
“Come on,” Llewellyn said to Catherine, but not to her, past her. He began to pull her away.
“Listen you crazy bastard,” Crow said with anger, then gave a short laugh; he was trying not to get excited. “Lee or whatever your name is,” he laughed again. “I want this credit. I want this layout. I want to take a hundred pictures of this girl, a thousand. It can be very much worth your while. This isn’t another Hollywood airhead, you and I both know that,” he said, pointing at Catherine. “This is a look here.” He pointed at her eyes, her mouth.
“Come on,” Llewellyn said to Catherine.
“Where’s Chiquita’s green card, Lee,” Crow said angrily. He looked around and lowered his voice again. “What do you think you’re doing.” He put his face right next to Llewellyn’s, practically snarling. “I don’t want to ice your groovy thang here, Lee. But this girl’s an ixnay immigration-wise, and I got a feeling otherwise too. You employing her in that house or what? And I don’t mind telling you I’m leaning toward ‘or what.’ Her running around in bed sheets and all.”
Llewellyn, in a series of very tidy movements, turned to Crow, opened Crow’s coat, and pulled the document out of Crow’s coat pocket. He set his drink down, took a pen from Crow’s other pocket, signed the model’s release on the top of the bar. He put the pen back in its pocket, opened Crow’s coat and put back the release; and then gazed into Crow’s face, sighing deeply. There was a dimple above the corner of Crow’s mouth, on his left side, Llewellyn’s right. Never taking his eyes from that spot above the corner of Crow’s mouth, Llewellyn stepped back and brought his fist rocketing into its target. There was a crack and Crow literally flew across the room into the volcanic candle, as though the candle had been wheeled onto the set for just such a scene.
Llewellyn also did one other thing during this series of very tidy movements. He let go of Catherine.
Momentarily the living room came to a standstill. Streaked in light and shadow, the antique music box wound to a low groan in the background, and a woman at the edge of the room lost her balance slightly and froze in a stumble. The expressions on all the faces were suspended, the air turned to a haze in the explosion. The candle rose balletically. Crystal and glass and wax flowed upward and then cascaded
