usefulness.
“How much longer do you think you can do it this way?” Kalatis asked. It was a cruel question, but for Kalatis cruelty was an amusement, his own feelings long ago having been seared beyond such subtleties.
“What do you mean?” she said, opening her purse and looking around inside for something.
“Using your body. Maybe you ought to consider another angle. Something more… suitable…”
“Suitable,” she said, looking into her purse. She took out a tube of lipstick and applied it without looking in a mirror. “Suitable…” She nodded, lightly pressing her lips together, staring out the windshield.
Kalatis guessed her insouciance was only feigned. He imagined she was furious. He thought that if the light in the car were brighter he would be able to see on the pale flesh across her cleavage the appearance of the blushed marbling that flared there when she grew impassioned. In the old days, in Trieste, he would watch for that delicate reddening whenever they went to bed together. She was always in such control he couldn’t tell what she was feeling-her sexual engagement, like everything else she did, was done with a cool deliberation that did not give way to abandon until the very last moment At first it was a puzzling thing for him because he never knew how he was doing, and sometimes the end caught him by surprise. Until he discovered the secret of her blushing bosom. She could control everything except that very specific behavior of her anatomy.
“What did he do to you?” she asked, closing her purse.
“This man?”
She nodded.
Panos put his hands on the steering wheel and stretched his legs and sighed. “He is very wealthy. He has two airplanes. One of these airplanes was seen where it should not have been. He knows it was there. He knows it should not have been there.” Panos turned and looked at her. “I believe he has been unfaithful to me… in his way.” He grinned.
The telephone between them rang before she could respond to that, and Panos answered it.
“Yes.” He listened a moment “Thank you.” He put down the telephone. “He is with two other men, but he has just asked for his bill.”
She opened the door of the Mercedes and got out The private club was in an old, ivy-covered brick building and sat in the center of a thickly wooded grounds. The narrow lane that led to it was one-way, entering from one side of the grounds to a small parking lot and exiting on the other side. Kalatis was parked very near the entrance to the small lot, and she had to walk nearly fifty yards, passing through the dim wash of a streetlamp before she rounded the end of a hedge to the parked cars.
As he watched her walk, Kalatis had to admit she was far from losing her touch, or her shape, or, certainly, her sexual appeal. Though he would never let her know that. Whatever her fears of aging might have been, they were premature, but he liked seeing her afraid nonetheless.
There were only six or seven cars in the small lot that could not have held more than twice that number when it was full. The club was very exclusive indeed. She had met the man on two occasions only recently, while she was in the company of someone else, but it was enough for her to have made an impression on him, enough to give him a reason to think about her after she was gone. This would not have worked with ninety-five percent of the men Kalatis knew, but in his middle age Toland had become rash about sex. Irresponsible.
She waited in the darkness of a tree’s canopy at the edge of the parking lot, and when the front door to the club opened she started walking. Kalatis watched with interest.
Having opened her purse again, she was looking in it as though searching for something, as she approached him in the dimly lighted car park. He saw her first, of course, and just as she looked up and closed her purse, he said something to her and she stopped. She turned, and oh, yes, recognized him.
Kalatis watched their body language and followed the gist of their conversation. Toland straightened up a little, tightened his stomach a bit What in the world are you doing here?
She explained she was supposed to meet X here, but the arrangements had been made quite early in the evening. and then she had got delayed and could not reach him by telephone, and a cab had just dropped her by on the off chance that he might still be here.
No, he wasn’t here, Toland said. She tilted her head with good-natured disappointment. He asked a question, and she shook her head and explained something. He asked another question and gestured to his car only a few feet away. She tilted her head again, thinking a moment as she looked toward his car, and then nodded in appreciation.
She took him to the parking lot of a condominium not far from the club where her car was already parked anonymously among the others. She told him where to park, the precise spot. By now she was teasing him shamelessly, and he would have driven off the bank of the bayou into the water if she had allowed his hand another inch inside her panties. Instead of going up to her place, she suggested, why didn’t they…
Kalatis had choreographed the event, but it would not have worked so well if his principal dancer had not been so talented. When Kalatis pulled into the parking lot behind them with his lights off, Toland was oblivious to everything but the increasingly revealing glimpses of the unfamiliar flesh in the seat next to him.
Parking among other cars a good distance away, Kalatis rolled down his windows, took out his binoculars, and balanced them on the steering wheel. He focused them on Toland’s car, the interior of which was illuminated by the streetlamp behind it, presenting the two figures inside in sharp silhouettes. He gave them a few moments, until she had removed her blouse. He would have let her go further, but he was afraid she wouldn’t remove her bra, that she would end it before he wanted. He still would have to pay her, but he wouldn’t get the satisfaction he wanted. So, he adhered to the plan and picked up his telephone and dialed.
It rang four times before Kalatis saw her push Toland away. He could only imagine what was being said.
“Yeah…” Toland’s voice was tense, irritable.
“Robert, this is Panos Kalatis.”
Pause.
“Kalatis?” Pause. “What are you doing calling my car phone at this hour?”
“Somehow I knew you would be there to answer it.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s payback time, my friend.”
“What?”
“I know what you’ve been doing, Toland.” Kalatis kept his voice reasonable, relaxed. “You are not nearly good enough at this to try to steal from me. You’re such a stupid pig, Robert.”
Pause.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding here…” Toland began. His voice had changed.
“I believe you’re right,” Kalatis said, “so let me explain it to you.” He watched Toland’s profile closely through the binoculars. “The woman sitting next to you… she’s going to kill you for me. And I’m going to listen to it on this telephone and watch it through my binoculars. Robert, you are really so stupid…”
Kalatis didn’t actually hear the two gunshots, not as gunshots, just as phuut! phuut! at the same time as part of the window behind Toland’s head flew out into the parking lot sounding like crushed ice as it scattered across the pavement. The remaining parts of the window were glazed in rusty smears.
Kalatis counted to twelve before the passenger door opened, and she got out and closed it behind her. She walked through the few cars with business-like deliberation until she stopped at one, unlocked it, and got in. He counted to eight before the headlights came on, and she drove away.
Just for the hell of it Kalatis dialed Toland’s number again. He felt better, much better. He listened to the busy signal with satisfaction.
Chapter 8
Graver turned off the porch light, threw the dead bolt on the door, and walked back into the living room. He went over to his desk and sat down, picked up the notepad and looked at his doodles. Jesus, what a situation. What a goddamned night.
He tossed the notepad aside. He was restless still, far too wired by the events of the evening. He picked up the dish towel from the magazine stand and absently began folding it lengthwise, matching the corners, letting his
