American Sextet Page 4

  "All in white," she said. "I want everything to be white. Clean." He could understand that.

  "And money," she whispered. The stereotyped dream injected a slice of reality he didn't appreciate and he tried to ignore it.

  "You live with ... what was his name?"

  "You mean Jim? Yeah."

  "Why don't you marry him?" It was, he realized, a ridiculous question. Pay your money and take your pleasure. Stop trying to give this toy a life.

  "Marry Jim? He got a wife. Five kids."

  "Why do you stay with him?"

  "He's good to me. That's the most important thing."

  "You don't have a family?"

  "Over in Hiram. An aunt. My parents died. Three brothers in the Navy. I never see them." She sighed, thinking of the early misery.

  "That it?"

  She shrugged her body against his. That's a history? he thought. So dry and empty.

  "What do you do with your days?" He supported himself on one elbow, looking down at her face, a perfect oval, her hair mussed as if by design.

  "I used to work in a store. Then a beauty parlor." She thought about it some more. "Do up my hair. Watch TV. Jim and me. We both work nights." She looked up at him and smiled. "We do this a lot."

  "Just like this?" It was a deliberate injection of reality. He had begun to believe the illusion of her caring.

  "I'm going to buy him a birthday present with the money."

  His money! Used for another man. The idea destroyed the illusion completely.

  "Would you have done it without that?" he asked stupidly.

  She looked up at him, her eyes shining, like great saucers.

  "Might," she said, stroking his cheek. "But Jim takes care of me, and I make him happy."

  Her convoluted reason defied logic.

  "Well, I'm getting my money's worth," he said, kissing her deeply, sucking her soft smooth tongue. Reaching out, she caressed him and he hardened swiftly. She moved under him until he was inside her again, her eyes closed in concentrated pleasure. She lifted her knees, digging her insteps into his sides, grasping his buttocks, pushing him deeper. She emitted a low moan, like a kitten meowing. Soon his body erupted in excruciating joy. This, he knew, was ecstasy.

  "You happy?" she whispered later.

  Beyond imagination! But he said nothing, afraid he was only dreaming.

  When he awoke, he was surprised to discover that he had drowsed and was still connected to her. Her breathing was so shallow, he had put his ear against her mouth to hear it, reassured by the tiny cool wafts. In the darkness, the air-conditioner purred. Something, he knew, had awakened him and he listened for a break in the night sounds. Slivers of light had begun to poke through the drawn blinds.

  It was too late when he realized what it was. The door crashed open and grimy rough hands were pummeling him. Fighting off the attacker, he jumped and tripped. Then he felt an overbearing pressure, a sweaty malignant human form, pinning him to the floor, heavy blows sinking into his face and body.

  "Stop, Jim!"

  She hadn't screamed, nor panicked. The sweaty miner now had Jason's arm in a pretzel twist and was pulling it upward. The pain was agony. Turning, he saw a fist fly out and swat her back to the bed like an annoying fly. Undaunted, she came back again, pulling at the arm that was inflicting his punishment.

  Loosening his grip, the man slipped off of him to concentrate on the girl, punching her in the midsection and the face.

  "Are you crazy? You'll kill her," he shouted in disbelief. He got up unsteadily, somehow finding the strength to pull him off her. Apparently, his anger was spent. Lowering his fists, he watched the girl slowly move her arms, raised in self-protection. A blue nob was rising on her cheekbones and blood trickled down her nose.

  Grimy with coal dust and unshaven, the man turned and inspected Jason's nakedness. His face broke into a sardonic smile. Oozing sweat, he filled the room with his sour, unwashed odor.

  "Cunt." he hissed, looking at her, but his animal anger was drained.

  "He gave me a hundred, Jimbo," she said softly. Her voice was clear, without a whimper or a trace of judgment. "I was going to get you a present."

  "You didin ask," he said harshly, showing the true core of his discontent. "And you didin pick me up."

  "I fell asleep."

  "Sheet," he said, clearing his throat and spitting on the floor.

  Jason hadn't yet given her the money. And now his reactions were confused--the trip from paradise to hell had been too abrupt.

  "You let him beat you like that?" he asked quietly. The man turned to him and sneered.

  "He didn't mean any harm," she said, standing up now. In the quickening daylight, he could see the redness of her flesh where he'd pummelled her.

  "I tole you," the man said, pointing a finger at her nose.

  She lowered her head like a punished child. This is incredible, Jason thought, like the ritual of some foreign tribe.

  "I ain't takin' you back no more," he said, waving a finger, the nail topped with its black half moon symbol. Then, as quickly as he came he left, leaving them staring after him, frozen, naked figures. They heard him gun the motor of the pickup angrily. Tires squealed and the truck sped off.

  After he'd gone, the girl slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. He saw her clean up her puffed face, then step into the shower.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he tried to understand this new spectrum of emotions. Her docility blunted his compassion. Was it some kind of environmental aberration? The area itself had a burned out feel about it, a sense of futility and resignation. Not at all like Washington, with its frantic striving, its ambitious arrogance, its self-serving subterfuge. There was something about this place that was raw and basic.

  She came out of the shower wrapped in a towel, her hair moist and glistening, wearing her wounds with disinterest. She seemed devoid of pride or vanity and he viewed her like some new anthropological discovery.

  "Did he ever do that before?" Jason asked.

  "Never." She paused thoughtfully and shrugged. "Maybe he's telling me it's time to split."

  "Isn't that a strange way of saying it?"

  "I guess," she said.

  She curled up on the bed and fell into a deep sleep, her face immobile as if all memory of the past few minutes had been obliterated.

  Sometime later the telephone rang, jarring him out of his own deep sleep.

  "You up?" the voice said. It was Barrows, an assistant editor.

  "Up now," he groaned. The girl beside him didn't stir. He shook his head, remembering. His pained shoulder told him it definitely was not a dream.

  "Your piece," Barrows said. He wasn't one for small talk. "Too unbalanced. You say there's money up there now that oil companies are taking over." He waited in silence, refusing to fill the gap. "So why the absence of hope?"

  "Hope." He blinked and looked at the mouthpiece.

  "You said there's more dough coming in. Then why is it so bleak and hopeless?"

  "It's the work. The darkness. The pits." He realized he was incoherent.

  "King Coal is coming back. Where's the dancing in the streets?"

  "I called it like I saw it," he said defensively, the old anger returning. When you're out of favor, the vultures like to pick at the carcass. He took refuge in the thought. They were edging him out, he decided, culling the ranks of the disgruntled.

  "Don't get paranoid. I'm trying to be constructive. We're rewriting. I'm the salvage team."

  He felt the blood beat in his head. Barrows was an editor on the national desk, a company man. "You? Don't touch a goddamned word. You'll mangle it."

  "Watch it, Martin, your hotshot days are long gone."

  "Shove it up your ass."

  "Listen, wise guy." He could hear Barrows's heavy breathing and wished it would stop. "The word's out on you. If you got a complaint, take it up with Webster. Hell, I'll do it for you."

  "You do that." The mention of Webster inflamed him e
ven more. "And don't touch one word of that copy or my name comes off the by-line."

  "Big deal. Your name on a story doesn't mean shit anyhow," Barrows said, clicking off. Prima donna! The insult rang in his ears, knowing that Barrows would indeed tell Webster. It was all changing anyhow, he told himself. He lay back, watching the ceiling, seeing its flaws and flakes. The focus had changed. They were into other things now, trivia. Who boffed whom? That wasn't reporting. Remembering, he looked at the girl, curled like a fetus, oblivious to his rage.

  "They want that kind of trivia," he hissed, considering her sensuous form, "bet you could give them a snootful." He patted her bare arm, the idea slowly taking shape, growing inside him. She didn't stir.

  III

  Fiona drew the draperies, then lit the double candles in their creamy Irish glass holders, a gift from her mother years ago. Being Irish, according to her, required the possession of Irish things and this glass was one of them. She had made a pâté from a recipe in a French cookbook and bought a loaf of French bread and a good Bordeaux for the steak au poivre. Asparagus with hollandaise sauce was boiling in a plastic bag. The table was set in her two place Irish china bought piece by piece, placed carefully on the tablecloth of Irish lace, still faintly camphory from its long slumber in a bottom drawer. Lord knows there was little enough romance in this life, she told herself, composing an image of Clint in her mind, a face pink and smile-crinkled under a cascade of prematurely gray, curly hair. She was beyond guilt now, eschewing sorrows and self-pity, taut with expectation. Nor did she care what subterfuge he used to free his Monday night. That wasn't her business. The memory of Dorothy Curtis had prodded her. Tonight was high noon.

  The mind computed its own rationalizations. She had never considered herself a mistress in a technical sense. Not as she was now, the lover of a married man, Clinton Chase. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, she had concluded finally, when it became evident that she was, all protestations notwithstanding, hooked.

  She met him as she had met all her men in the last few years, through an investigation. The reverse twist was that he had been investigating her investigation. He had worked then for the Detroit News, Washington bureau. To make matters more steamy, she detested having to do her work under the scrutiny of media people, unless she was passing information for a specific purpose. It inhibited her. Besides, all media dealings were covetously usurped by the eggplant. Because it was a Detroit paper, she decided to go along with it. Anyway, she had learned, it was one of his last assignments. He was about to accept an appointment as undersecretary of transportation, in charge of public information.

  The case involved a young man, son of a prominent Detroit lawyer, who had run over a prostitute with whom he had just had sexual relations in his car. He was drunk as well. It was purely accidental, but it made a juicy story for Detroit. To make matters worse, a legal curtain had descended, engineered by Daddy's money and, as she knew, her report constituted the only real unvarnished truth. The girl was a teenage prostitute who was also a drug addict.

  Clinton had dogged the eggplant for two days and he had ducked the man with equal persistence. Drugs and prostitution did not reflect proudly on the police force. Nor was there a mystery to be solved or glory to be had. When Clinton put pressure on the Chief, the Chief put pressure on the eggplant, who put pressure on Fiona.

  "You go," he ordered her.

  "Me?"

  "Yeah. Only watch your mouth."

  She met him at the Regency Hyatt, her first mistake. She would have been better off meeting him in the ugly anteroom that served as an interrogation spot for suspects. Windowless and stinking of stale smoke and fear, the room itself always gave her the upper hand. But the hotel cocktail lounge, dark and cool with its lush ambience, designed for salesmanship and seduction, caught her off guard, softening her up for what she would later refer to as the romantic kill.

  Not that he was consciously seducing her. He was professional to a fault.

  "His father is up for a federal judgeship."

  "It's the son, not the father."

  "I know," he said. "I have two myself."

  The remark further disarmed her. Or was it the chemistry of the man himself, that shock of curly gray hair? Almost from the beginning, she wanted to shove her fingers through it. He reminded her of Bruce. Was she destined always to be attracted to the same type of man?

  "The kid got drunk. He picked up a floozy then ran her over. Pure accident. What has that got to do with the father?" She was oddly defensive.

  "I spoke to the man. He blames himself."

  "Then he's a fool."

  "He blames himself anyway."

  "Only because it hurts his chances. Bad publicity. I know the disease."

  "Hey," he said. "I know the guy. He really loves the boy."

  "I thought newspapermen are supposed to be neutral."

  He shrugged and emptied his glass. "There's no law against compassion." Behind the words, she caught his vulnerability, drawing her interest. She saw, too, that he hadn't bargained for the intimacy.

  "I've never been a parent," she said, sipping her martini.

  "I owe it to the guy not to make it seem lurid. We all give our kids too much. He had a car, too much pocket money."

  "Are you talking about him ... or yourself?"

  "Generally. As a father."

  He'd made her uncomfortable. Maybe she was getting too hard, too indifferent. As if to compensate, she spelled out the facts again.

  "Now who's to blame?" she said when she had finished. By that time, too, her martini had disappeared. "The girl had thrown away her life, walking a treadmill to hell. All the boy was looking for was a thrill." Her anger was disturbing--something about the man had touched her, shaken her.

  "Will it really hurt his chances?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "But that's unfair."

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  He had put away his notebook and ordered them another round. There was a long silence as she felt his gaze, like a warm tide, lap over her. The feeling, although long dormant, was a familiar one. Her business was finished. She knew she could get up and leave, refuse the second martini, run like a bunny. She stayed, although she made an attempt to blunt the onslaught.

  "Aren't you going to ask?" she said in an attempt to ungrapple their greedy mutual stares.

  "Ask what?"

  "Why a cop."

  "Is that what I was going to ask?"

  "They all do."

  Her guard was down by then. She felt foolish and afraid, open and vulnerable. Does it happen like this sometimes? She hadn't the will to unlock her eyes from his. Her heart was pumping furiously. Watching him, she sensed the mystery of attraction.

  Her mind told her to be clinical. Was he a widower, divorced? At her age, she could confront that kind of second choice. I won't ask, she decided. By then it was too late.

  A few days later, he invited her for dinner. They went to a restaurant in Prince George's County, far off the beaten track. He's married, she realized, noting the restaurant's darkness and his nervous glances as they entered. But she was too far gone, even then.

  His knees were pressed against hers and they held hands under the table.

  "This is utterly absurd," she told him.

  "You're telling me."

  They had lots of wine and talked a great deal about their childhoods. Everything they told each other seemed important. She discussed her parents.

  "I am my father's child," she told him, explaining how for three generations the FitzGeralds were in the "farces." "Wrong sex. Wrong town. But right occupation."

  "And your old man? Is he proud of you?"

  "He'd never admit that. But he doesn't have to. I can tell how his eyes light up when he sees me."

  "So do mine."

  He was from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a country boy. He had started on a weekly paper.

  "Will you be happy in your new job?" she asked.

  "Happ
y?" he mused. "What's that?"

  He drove her back to her apartment in his car and they grappled with their first kiss in the front seat.

  "You're not coming up," she said firmly. His kisses had sobered her.

  What followed was a kind of trench warfare. As soon as she had gained one trench, she crawled out of it to another.

  "I will not have an affair with a married man," she told him, although she couldn't resist meeting him for drinks or an occasional dinner.

  "And I don't want to subject you to that."

  "So there. It's settled."

  "But I love you."

  "Don't say that. Save it for your wife."

  "I don't love her."

  "Then why do you stay with her?"

  "Because I'm responsible."

  "Well, so am I. I'm responsible to myself."

  "How do these things get started?" he had asked.

  "You started this one."

  "I was only doing my job."

  "What do you think I was doing?"

  The questioning stimulated their excitement. He called her at odd hours and they went over it again, protesting their involvement, until finally she had let him come up for a final parlay.

  "For a cop, this is very undignified," she said, when within seconds of entering her apartment, he was undressing her in the foyer. When he felt her gun he stopped momentarily, and without a word, she undid it herself.

  Later, nestled against his naked body, she told him: "This doesn't mean we're involved." It was a refrain that was to last the first few weeks.

  Under the circumstances, the logic was convoluted. At first, she chalked it up to a powerful sexual attraction between them. The uncontrollable force that transcended logic and caution. They were certain it would burn out quickly. It didn't.

  "I wish I were a courageous man," he told her. By then, he had outlined his life. He was a Midwesterner in outlook and spirit. The simple verities were programmed into him. "Home. Hearth. Church. Family. That's me."