'Total bullshit.'
'Or I represent a professional challenge, you don't feel my therapy is complete. Your love is strictly professional, all in the line of duty.'
'You've got it all wrong, Chas. I love you because I love you. Can't you accept that?'
'It's too simple.'
'Love is simple. It's a plain, elemental human emotion.
Yes, as you said, the results may be pain and misery. But the feeling itself is clean and uncluttered. Nothing complicated about it. it just exists. And if you deny it, you risk more pain and misery than love can ever cause.'
'Now you're preaching,' he said.
'Yes, I'm preaching.'
'Fighting for my soul, are you?'
'If you want to call it that. I don't want to see you wasting your life, Chas, that's for sure. But more important, I don't want to waste mine. if that sounds selfish, so be it.
You're not going to ask me to stay for dinner, are you?'
'No.'
'Just as well,' I said. 'it would be anticlimactic. Is there anything I can fetch you before I leave?'
'Yeah,' he said. 'I do believe that right now I need something a little stronger than white wine. Mix me a whiskey and soda, will you?'
'Which whiskey?'
'Whatever.'
I made him a brandy and soda with a lot of ice and brought it to him.
'Thank you, Dr. Noble,' he said.
'You're quite welcome, Mr. Todd,' I said.
'Bend down,' he said, motioning.
I leaned over his wheelchair. He crooked an arm about my neck, pulled me close, kissed me on the lips. A long, lingering kiss. Then he released me.
'I liked it,' he said. 'is that the norm?'
'It's a good start,' I said.
WILLIAM K. BREVOORT isten, I've been around the block twice, and the Lway Big Bobby Gurk was acting was making me antsy.
First of all, he phoned me at least four times wanting to know if I had a sample of the ZAP pill yet. I told him I was working on it, but I didn't like those checkup calls. When guys you've got a deal with get that eager you begin to think (1) it's bigger than you figured, and,or (2) they're conniving a way to cut you out.
Then suddenly Bobby wanted me to meet this twitch. Now when guys do that, it usually means they want to dump the broad and hope you'll take over, or she's such a gem and you're such close pals that he wants you to share the goodies. I didn't figure Gurk had either of those reasons.
But I went along with him because I was curious about what was on his mind, and also I didn't want to get him sore at me because I needed him if I was going to score big with bets on the fights and football games using the ZAP pill.
Bobby's woman turned out to be a big, friendly judy who was no slouch in the brains department. After we got to know each other, I asked her how come she had teamed up with a pig like Gurk, who sucked up his spaghetti like a vacuum cleaner and probably had the first buck he ever stole framed on the wall of his office. Also, he didn't smell so great. So how come she picked him?
'Beggars can't be choosers,' Laura said. That was her name, Laura Gunther. 'I've always had lousy luck with men.'
Then I told her about The Luck and how I always had it. She said that was wonderful, and she wanted to keep seeing me in hopes some of it would rub off on her.
I got married years ago, but I don't know where she is now.
Since then I've had a few women, but to tell you the truth, it wasn't all that important to me. But Laura and I hit it off right from the start, and I began seeing her two or three nights a week.
I'd take her to ritzy restaurants and nightclubs where she could show off her rags and play the lady.
'You're the last of the big-time spenders, Willie,' she told me. 'I like that.'
'Easy come, easy go,' I said.
'Where does it come from?' she asked. 'You got a business? '
'The information business,' I said. 'I buy from people who know and sell to people who want to know.'
'Hey,' she said, 'that beats flipping hamburgers for sure.' After a while we found out we had both been in the, skin trade, which gave us something in common. And finally I told her about my hobby of cross-dressing. It didn't spook her.
'Look,' she said, you like to do drag and I like to smoke cigars. So what's the big deal? Live and let live is my motto.'
The beauty part was that I could wear most of her dresses and lingerie because we were about the same size. I bought a lot of stuff from the boutique where she worked, and sometimes we'd go to a fancy shop and pick out gowns we both liked. She'd try them on before I bought them.
It saved me a lot of bucks for alterations, and I liked wearing things she had worn. We kept all the new clothes at her place.
Also, she showed me some tricks with eye shadow I hadn't known about.
As far as sex goes, we never did connect, if you know what I mean. But we'd smoke a joint together or maybe do a line of coke and just play around. It was fun and no one got hurt. I helped her out a few times when she had the shorts, but she never really leaned on me for money.
The one thing I didn't like was that she was always asking questions about my business, who did I buy from and who did I sell to. You'd think a been around twist would know better than to pry.
After all, a man's business is private and she should have respected that.
I never told her word one, but she kept pestering me. So one night I took her out to a French place, and over the brandy and espresso I put it to her straight.
'Laura,' I said, 'I like you, and we've had a lot of laughs together.
But if you keep digging into my private business I'm going to dump you.
I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I've worked hard to build up my career, and I'm not telling you or anyone else how I manage it.
Okay?'
She took out one of those long, thin cigars she smoked, and I held a light for her. I noticed her hands were shaking.
'Willie,' she said, 'you've always treated me square, and I don't want you to dump me. It's true I've been trying to nose into your business, and now I'm going to tell you why.'
And she told me that Big Bobby Gurk had put her on the pad to find out who my contact was at Mcwhortle Laboratory. She didn't know what the deal was between me and Gurk, all she knew was that he wanted to cut me out.
'Uh-huh,' I said. 'I figured it might be something like that. I admire your coming clean with me. I owe you a big one.'
'Jesus, Willie,' she said, 'you won't tell Gurk, will you?
He's got some muscle in his organization, and they'll feed me to the sharks if he finds out I snitched.'
'Of course I won't tell him, Laura. What kind of a rat do you think I am? You just keep stalling him until I figure out how to handle this. it's got to be something cute because Gurk can be a mean bastard when he's crossed.'
I gave it some heavy thought for the next few days, but I couldn't finagle a way to dump Gurk. If I expected to score by betting on fighters and football teams that had been doped with ZAP, I needed Bobby because he knew bookies all over, the country and could cobble up a giant swindle.
Then I got a call from Jessica Fiddler, and I went over to her pad in the early evening. She told me she had balled Mcwhortle that afternoon.
