“It’s quite a delicacy,” she said, “Mister Moundt ord—”
She stopped, aware that he was not listening, that he was looking, no he was lost in looking at her. And she liked it. It seemed open and honest and it felt good to her and she looked him over again, admiring the way he held himself, loose, like an athlete, and confident.
She looked back at his eyes and a moment later he looked up and knew he had been caught.
He’s blushing! I haven’t seen anyone blush since college. She turned it on, staring hard into his eyes. The lady at the checkout counter was almost through. Do something. He’ll be gone in a minute or two. “I think you should try it,” she said.
“Try what?”
“Shark’s fin soup.”
She’s making a pass, Sharky. “Well, I, uh, yeah … you know, one of …”
“I mean today.”
“Today.”
“Um hum, today. About six o’clock.”
“Six o’clock today?”
“I’m making it for a friend. I’ll be finished cooking it by about six o’clock.”
She bored in with the blue eyes and he just stared at her, half-smiling.
“10-A,” she said.
“10-A.”
“10-A, six o’clock.”
“Right. 10-A, six o’clock.”
What the fuck!
She smiled. “Splendid.”
_____________________
He sat on the edge of the cot and nibbled grapes and tried to read, but his eyes kept wandering to the tape recorder. Finally it clicked and he slipped the earphones over his ears and shoved the monitor button, heard her close the door, followed her footsteps into the kitchen, listened to the rattling of paper bags, the refrigerator door opening and closing, pots slamming about, heard her singing to herself, filling in forgotten lyrics by humming:
She went into the living room and he could hear her shuffling through record albums. She put one on and the softness of a guitar took the edge off the hollowness of the room. A moment later Joni Mitchell’s plaintive voice came on singing the plaintive lyrics to “Harry’s House.”
Sharky’s mind wandered back to a high school picnic and a girl in a bright yellow bikini that barely covered her swelling breasts and she had turned out to be, what was her name? Mary Lou? Mary Jane? Mary-something-or-other, who had suddenly grown up, and remembering her, he made up aimless lyrics to nothing song:
“Baby did I lust for you,
Da da da da da da da,
And everybody else did too,
Dadadada da da da …”
He heard the sound of water running in the bathtub and he forgot the yellow bikini bathing suit and Mary-something-or-other and thought about Domino taking off the tee-shirt with the melting ice cream, envisioned her slipping off the tight Italian jeans, pictured her in his mind, naked, and he closed his eyes.
_____________________
She poured bath oil in the tub, turned, and looked at herself in the full-length mirror and, singing along with Joni Mitchell, slowly stripped off the shirt, let it fall away from her shoulders, turned sideways, and studied her breasts, was pleased that they were still firm, curving up and away from her body, reached up under them and traced the curve with her fingertips, sliding her fingers out to the nipples, and squeezed them gently, watching them grow hard at her touch. She unbuttoned the jeans, pulled them over her hips, let them fall to the floor. Her panties had pulled down too, and she looked at her hair curling up over the top of them and ran her hand across the flat surface of her stomach, let her little finger slip down under the band, enjoyed the softness, and finally edged them down and stepped out of them, running her hands down the insides of her thighs, letting her thumbs ripple across the thick black down.
The beat of the music began to change to the blues and she hummed as Joni Mitchell sang:
“The more I’m with you, pretty baby,
The more I feel my love increase,
I’m building all my dreams around you
Our happiness will never cease.”
She tested the water with a toe, slipped down into its oily warmth, let it envelop her, and lay back with her eyes closed, caressing her legs, her thighs. Her thumb found her belly button, lingered at its edge while the rest of her fingers slid down between her legs and she slowly pinched thumb and fingers together, lightly, slowly, and she thought about the elevator man, about his trim, hard body, the rugged face, the shattered nose.
“We’ll find a house and garden somewhere
A long a country road a piece,
A little cottage on the outskirts
Where we can really find release,
’Cause nothing’s any good without you.
Baby, you’re my centerpiece.”
And while Domino prepared herself for Victor, thoughts of the elevator man kept intruding. Intruding. Intruding …
_____________________
She opened the door on the first ring and stood facing Sharky, her chin slightly raised, an arrogant, almost impish look on her face, her thick black hair, not quite dry yet, hanging damply about her ears. She wore no makeup. She didn’t need it and she knew she didn’t. She was wearing a scarlet floor-length kimono, silk, trimmed in brilliant yellow and split up both sides almost to the hip. There was nothing under it, nothing but her; he could tell by the way it stayed with her, molded to her breasts, her hips, her flat stomach. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. The sweet odor of marijuana drifted past Sharky.
She smiled and said, “Well, I just lost a bet with myself.”
“How come?”
“I bet you wouldn’t come.”
“I can always go back.”
She stepped back, swung the door wide and leaned against it, cocking her head to one side. “No,” she said, “no, I don’t think so.”
He went past her, into the familiar living room, looked around, and feigned surprise. “Very elegant,” he said, nodding his head.
She closed the door and came very close to him, staring up at his face for several seconds, then said, “Thank you.”
She had set a place for him on the smoked-glass table. A linen placemat with delicate silverware, Wedgwood china and a tall, fragile wine glass. “If you’d like to wash up, you can go in there,” she said, pointing to the bathroom. The door to the massage room was closed. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands. Patches of mist lingered in the corners of the mirror and the room was warm with the memory of her bath and smelled vaguely of bath oil.
When he returned, she was pouring white wine into two glasses. She motioned for him to sit down. Soup steamed in the bowl.
There was a record playing, a soft ballad sung almost off-key by a Frenchman.
“That’s a very pretty song,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”
“It’s called ‘The Dreams In Your Soul.’ It’s my favorite song. That’s Claude DuLac. He’s very popular in France but it’s hard to find his albums over here. Americans don’t appreciate romantic singers anymore, do you think?”
“No, I agree with you.”
I’m glad you like it.
“I’m …”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
You’re getting pushy. Don’t rush it.
He swirled a pat of butter into yellow patterns on the surface of the soup. She raised her wine glass toward him.
“Bon appétit,” she said.
“Thanks.”
The glasses pinged as they touched. She leaned forward on her elbows, holding her wine glass between her fingertips, and stared at him again, the blue eyes digging deep.
“I have to ask you something,” she said, very quietly, almost confidentially.
Jesus, does she know? Does she suspect? “Fire away,” he said.
“How did you get that?” she asked, pointing toward his nose.
“What?”
She reached out and ran her middle finger very delicately down between his eyes, linge
ring for a moment where his nose flattened out between them. “That,” she said.
“Oh, that.”
“Um hum,” she said, adding, “If it’s something unromantic, like you got it caught in an elevator door or something, lie to me.”
“The first thing they teach you in elevator school is not to get your nose caught in the door.”
She laughed and the laugh became a smile and stayed on her lips.
“Well, when I was in high school there was this bully named Johnny Trowbridge and he hit me with a brick.”
She paused and then laughed again. “Really?”
“Really.”
“And what did you do?”
“He was about, uh, three feet taller than me, so I went to the Y and I took boxing lessons for six months and then I beat the living bejesus out of him.”
She was laughing hard now and she shook her head. “Did you really?” she said. “Did you really do that?”
“I really did it. Acceptable?”
“Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. If it’s a lie, don’t change it.”
It was a lie, although a bully named Johnny Trowbridge had hit him with a brick and he had taken boxing lessons and a year later he’d kicked the shit out of Johnny Trowbridge. But his nose had been broken in an alley behind the bus station when he was a rookie cop. A drunk had scaled the lid of a garbage can straight into his face with uncanny accuracy.
She sighed. “I’m so glad we got that settled.”
“What?”
“The business about your nose.”
“Does my nose bother you?”
She shook her head very slowly, staring at it. “No. It gives you character.”
“Thanks.”
“Eat your soup before it gets cold.”
Upstairs on the roof the tapes were whirring, recording their conversation. He could envision the rest of the machine listening to it in Friscoe’s Inferno. He knew what The Nosh would think. But how about Friscoe? Livingston? Papa? And The Bat! The Bat would have a coronary. He would sit in his office and his face would turn red, then blue, and he would clutch his heart and make a face like a fish out of water, and he would fall dead on the floor. I may have to erase this tape.
He raised the spoon to his lips, sipped the soup. It was unreal. Fantastic. Soup wasn’t the right word for it. It was nectar. He held it in his mouth a moment, savoring it, before he swallowed.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s … incredible.”
“Incredible good or incredible bad?”
“Good? Hell, it’s … historic.”
“Historic”! What a wonderful choice of words.
“Of course I’m not an expert. Is your friend Chinese?”
“No, but he lived in the Orient for years.”
Is he the mark? Is the dinner tonight part of the setup? Sharky decided not to push it. “Do you pick up strays in the supermarket very often?” he asked.
“Only in Moundt’s. I would never pick up a stray in just any market.”
He laughed.
“Actually I felt kind of sorry for you. You looked so forlorn, wandering around, trying to decide what to buy. I can usually spot a bachelor in the market. They can never decide between what they want and what they need. In the end it’s a disaster.”
She leaned forward and stroked the broken place on his nose again. He felt chills. It was like school days again. He was reacting like a kid. But he liked it. You can keep your finger there for the rest of the night, he thought. You have fingers like butterfly wings.
“You know something,” she said. “I don’t know your name.”
“That’s right, you don’t.”
“What is it?”
“Sharky.”
“Sharky what? Or is it what Sharky?”
“Just Sharky. How about you?”
He reached out and ran his finger down between her eyes, felt the tip of her nose.
“D-D-Domino.” My God did I stutter?
“Domino?”
“Um hum, just Domino. Like just Sharky.”
He smiled and nodded and took his hand away and she wanted him to leave it there. “That’s fair enough,” he said.
It went on that way. Small talk and jokes. And occasionally they touched, no—brushed, as if by accident. They flirted with subjects, never getting too personal, keeping it light.
“Did you ever play football?” she asked. “You look like you played football.”
“I thought about it in college, but I wasn’t good enough.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“Georgia.”
“What did you study?”
“Geology.”
“Geology?” she said, surprised.
“Sure, geology.”
“Why geology?”
“I like rocks,” he said.
“Okay, so why aren’t you a geologist?”
“Well, it was like, uh, there wasn’t a lot happening in geology when I finished.”
“You spent all that time and then just … forgot it?”
“It made my father happy. He took out an insurance policy when I was born, and when I graduated from high school, he handed me the check. It was a dream of his, that the kid should go to college. So he deserved it.”
You’re a nice man, Sharky, she thought. Naïve, maybe, but what’s wrong with that? “That’s a generous thought,” she said.
“Look, I like my old man. He was always good to me. It was something I could do back, make him happy. What the hell.”
“I liked my old man, too,” she said, without thinking, then wondered whether she should have brought it up.
“What was he like?”
She could make up a story. She was used to that. Something glamorous, something they wanted to hear. She didn’t.
“He was a mining engineer. Well, actually he was a roustabout, you know. He loved brawling and whoring and drinking with the boys. Mister Macho, that was old Charlie. The word was invented for him. Itchy Britches, mom called him. We went wherever the action was. I grew up in one temporary town after another. They were always either too muddy or too dusty. Mom still says the saddest thing about losing Dad was that he died so ingloriously. He really would have liked to go out in a blaze of glory like Humphrey Bogart in some old movie. Instead, he died in a miserable little town called Backaway in Utah. He came home one afternoon, got a beer and the paper, sat down in his favorite chair, and died.”
She seemed weighed down by the memory. Sadness crossed her face, very briefly, like shadows on a cloudy day, then it passed.
“Well,” Sharky said, “I’m sure he would have been proud of you. It looks like you’re doing pretty well.”
She closed the subject quickly.
“I’m independently wealthy,” she said, smiling. “A rich aunt.”
Sharky laughed and raised his glass.
“Okay, here’s to rich aunts.”
She sat with her chin in her hand and stared at him again, then shook her head. “I just, uh, I don’t believe it. I mean, a geologist working as an elevator man?”
“I’m not an elevator man. I’m an engineer. An elevator man is an old guy with spots on his uniform who never stops in the right place. You know, he’s always too high or too low.”
She was laughing. “Yes,” she said. “You always have to step up or step down.”
“Besides,” Sharky said, “I once knew a dentist who quit and became a mechanic.”
“A mechanic?”
“You know, in a garage. It’s what he got off on.”
“And you get off on elevators?”
“Well, you know, I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life. It keeps me off the street.”
She felt warm toward him. Secure, comfortable. And she wanted him, wanted his arms around her, stretched out on the floor listening to DuLac, free and easy, just letting it happen. It was something that had been missing from her life for a long time. She had given up on it. It’s a silly n
otion, she thought. A nowhere notion. But it was a nice feeling.
And Sharky felt the same way. I want you, he thought. Here. Now. But he let it pass. Even a one-time shot wouldn’t work. No future. In a week he might be putting her in the slams. And yet, he didn’t want to leave it.
“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll come back again before I leave, okay? Maybe I’ll be lucky, catch you on a day when you’re having a whale stew or barracuda steak.”
This time she didn’t smile.
“How about just plain steak?” she said. “I can handle that.”
“Any time,” he said.
“Then come back,” she said and touched his cheek.
And Sharky realized that for a few minutes he had forgotten why he was there because he wanted to come back.
10
Chiang drove the black Cadillac Seville up into the plaza and circled it slowly, observing the entrance to the apartment and the location of the security guard, then he turned back into Peachtree Street, went half a block to a side street, and parked. He sat immobile, staring straight ahead, awaiting his instructions.
DeLaroza looked at his watch. Seven forty-five. Three hours, he figured. Domino could perform a miracle in three hours.
DeLaroza’s mind was still in a turmoil. The day had been eventful, exhausting. But now his thoughts were on Domino. I want you to think about it all day long, she had said, it will be much sweeter that way. And he had. Images of her had flashed continually through his mind, images of other times, when he had introduced her to a world reserved for the gods and the very rich.
Burns was right. He was concupiscent, a man driven by lust as others are driven by fame.
Now it would end. But not before tonight.
They walked back to the apartment and DeLaroza stood in the shadows while Chiang entered, standing in front of the night guard, his bulk concealing the front door as he haltingly tried to explain that he was lost. The guard, confused by his broken English, concentrated on every word while DeLaroza slipped into the building and trotted to the stairwell. He did not want to risk being seen on the elevator. He walked up to the tenth floor, preparing himself for her pleasures as he climbed the steps, cleansing his mind.