ended up putting it was, did I think that my personal relationship with Tad was strong enough that TN would remain a client of mine, come what may?'
' 'Come what may'?'
'His words.'
I took a moment. Brushy and Pagnucci would make a great team, a litigator and a securities guy, two up- and-coming Italians.
'Did he actually say it? That he was thinking of leaving the firm and taking you with him?'
'Mack, we're talking Pagnucci here. He barely gets a word out. He made it sound, you know, like some remote curiosity.'
'Like a dinner party game. Who Would You Be If You Weren't You?'
'Exactly. And I cut him off. I told him I was fond of my partners and proud of the work we do and that I didn't spend my time thinking about questions like that.'
'Good for you. Leotis couldn't have done better. Was he abashed?'
'He completely agreed. He fumpfered around. 'Of course, of course.' He tried to act as if it was nothing to him.'
'Carl obviously thinks I'm not finding Bert, the money's not coming back, TN's going bye-bye, and the firm is too. Right?'
'Maybe. He's probably just being cautious. Considering all the angles. You know Carl.'
'Maybe he
I couldn't figure much that made sense. Especially after Carl had blessed my voyage to Pico.
The waiter came and we ordered iced teas, then Brushy on second thought asked for white wine. We looked over the menus, a foot and half if they were an inch, oldfashioned, with vellum pages and a tasseled binding. I remained puzzled by Pagnucci's game, but Brushy cut me short when I returned to the subject.
'Mack, do you really think I wanted to have lunch so we could talk about Pagnucci?'
I told her if I had, I probably wouldn't have come.
'I want you to try to be serious about something,' she said. 'You hurt my feelings yesterday.'
Within, I recoiled. Some ancient retractile mechanism set in. Another lecture from another woman about how I'd disappointed her. We were going to have feminist reconstruction of my spicy remarks about her wandering loins.
'Hey, Brush, I thought we went past that. It's me, us, you and me. Pals forever.'
'That's the point.' She faced me in a casual way, so that we were more or less knee to knee. Her back was to the adjoining wall and she propped an arm on the top of the banquette and leaned her full face and her soft hairdo against a hand in an appealing fashion. She looked frank and friendly, like a teenager in her rec room. 'I thought the next time you danced the hokey-pokey, Malloy, it was going to be with me.'
That one took me a sec.
'You did?' This was apparently one of those male-female understandings that so often eluded me. 'Yes, I did.' She pouted. Cutely.
'I guess, Brush, I thought I'd missed my chance. I figured we'd just sort of finished that.'
‘I guess I figured we'd just sort of started.' Her little eyes were luminous and very much alive, full of the quest. Like a great institution, say a university or the President of the United States, Brushy was seldom formally rejected. According to the know-alls with whom I served on recruiting, nosy fishwives who somehow always heard this stuff,
Brushy over the years had mastered a perfect line: ‘I’m wondering if I should let you make love to me.' The nonplussed or the sincerely uninterested could back off, with little harm to either party. I was touched that she'd actually gamble, but I was confused in the presence of real emotion. While I went blank, she, as usual, took the lead.
'Unless,' she said, 'there's no spark.' I felt, with that, her fingers laid daintily on the meat of my thigh, and then as she held my eye, her palm touched down and her hand skated home. She gave my little business a squeeze which in the scheme of things might best be called affectionate. I had no doubt anymore why she'd wanted a place with tablecloths.
How to respond? The adrenaline, the shock inspired an elevated mood, a kind of lunacy which in retrospect I attribute to the dizziness of the rare feeling that something significant was at stake. She was, as I have always known, a hell of a gal. And I was vaguely amused by how close this was to what I'd imagined with Krzysinski. But Brushy had the talent of all seductive females, to recognize a guy's fantasies and play along with them, without feeling debased.
‘I would say there's a spark,' I told her, still caught up in that fixed look, her green eyes with their clever gleam. 'I would say you'd make a hell of a Boy Scout.'
'Yes, ma'am, cause you keep rubbing that stick, you're gonna get a lot more than a spark.' 'I'm hoping for that.'
We were eye to eye, nose to nose, but in the dignified air of The Matchbook there would be no embrace. Instead, I turned a bit on the bench, diddled my fingers a little on her knee, then, leaning close like I was about to impart a little joke, slid my hand up her hosiery toward the female zero point, thinly guarded by the layer of panty hose. I looked her square in the eye, gathered the fabric, and gave it a sharp yank so that Brushy actually flinched. But she kept watching me, highly amused, as I found the gap I'd rent and tenderly as I could nuzzled two fingertips against her labia.
'Is this what we call equal opportunity?' she asked.
'Maybe. But you see, Brush, I got further than you. It's still a man's world.'
'Oh,' said Brushy, and lay back a bit, grabbing the tablecloth and tenting it in a casual way over my hand, which was already beneath her napkin. She opened the menu and rested it between her waist and the edge of table, making it more or less a roof, a privacy panel. Then her hips came forward and her knees parted. She lit a cigarette. And took hold of her wine. She faced me, taking her pleasure with a wild gimlet eye, a woman who loved life when it reduced itself to this basis.
She said, 'I'm not sure I'd agree with that.'
B. Would You Call This a Success?
In the room at Dulcimer House things were going pretty well until I took off my shorts. Then Brushy screamed. She covered her mouth with both hands.
'What's that?' She was pointing at me and it wasn't because she was so impressed.
'What's what?'
'That rash.' She steered me to the mirror. There I was with half a boner and a livid band, shaped like a land mass, covering my hip. There was an island extension that broadened as it crossed my circumference and disappeared in the pubic overgrowth. I stared, feeling direly conspired against. Then it hit me.
'The fucking Russian Bath.' 'Ah hah,' she said.
She reared back when I moved toward her again. 'It's dermatitis,' I said, 'it's nothing. I didn't even know I had it.' 'That's what they all say.' 'Brushy.'
'You better see your doctor, Malloy.' 'Brushy, have a heart here.'
'It's the nineties, Mack.' She stalked naked through the room. She pushed through her clothes and I was afraid she was dressing, but it was only a cigarette she was after. She sat across from me on an overstuffed brocaded chair, smoking, naked as a jaybird with her heel on the fancy fabric, leaking female fluids on the nice furniture. The stick figures do well for clothes racks, but naked, a woman with Brushy's Rubensesque proportions was still a lovely sight. I remained rosy and pointed for action, but I could tell from her posture that I had reached my sexual high point at lunch.
I lay down on the bed and, feeling I had every right to, began to moan.
'Mack,' she said, 'don't be like that. You're making me feel bad.'
'Jeez, I hope so.'
'It'll just be a few days,' she said. She gave me a doctor's name and said he might even prescribe over the phone. She sounded authoritative, but I stowed all those questions she didn't like me to ask.
