Quickly Thalia flares up, on the defensive, “I’m not going to get sick, and I’m not going to—‘freak out.’ How dare you say such a thing about me! I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Yeah you do, do you?”
“Exact justice.”
The calm way Thalia says this, like it’s all a foregone conclusion, Corky shivers. But Thalia’s smiling.
Exact justice: Corky’s words to Wiegler, tossed back into his face.
Corky shrugs. “Good luck to you, then.”
“I don’t need luck. It’s courage I need.”
“Courage is luck, sweetheart.”
Thalia seems about to say more, then thinks better of it. Gnawing her damned thumbnail until it bleeds.
Corky checks his watch: 6:29 P.M. Immediately becoming 6:30 P.M.
Outside the sky’s still light, in the west, threaded with a burnt-looking gold like tarnish, but darkness is rising; gathering in. Jesus, this day: where has it gone? so many hours seemingly open before him, a day he’d meant to do so much, truly he means to see Uncle Sean, he’s got to see Uncle Sean, and what is he going to do about Christina? Just let her go?
So much time, and now gone. Down the toilet. Condensed into an ever-smaller space, gravity crushing in upon itself. Atoms in collapse.
Corky’s drained his can of beer and collapses it in his fist, tosses it onto the overflowing basket beneath the sink so it falls, rolls clatteringly, what the hell, Corky shuts the door. Saying, stretching so his biceps bulge, “O.K. sweetie, what say we freshen up, go out to dinner? I want to take a shower, too. It’s been a long day, Jesus!”—shaking his head as if fondly, but remembering the morgue, his puking, was that really him?—laughing mysteriously, “Wait’ll I tell you what happened to me today.”
Their old relationship: step-Daddy entertaining stepdaughter with tales of the big, adult world. Step-Daddy the hero of every tale. Sure.
Thalia hasn’t agreed to dinner exactly yet she moves obediently, like a child, a vague dazed child, toward the stairs. Corky ushers her along, his hand at the small of her back.
“Like old times, eh?” Corky says. “Just you and me.”
Which isn’t entirely accurate: Corky and Thalia were rarely alone for meals in restaurants. (And rarely alone at home together, except during those early years when Charlotte was involved with the Union City Players and had to be at rehearsals, and at performances of plays.) Not until Thalia was an adult of twenty-two and working at Family Services, a few times Corky took her to lunch at a Thai restaurant close by.
Now things seem to be in control, in Corky’s control, he’s feeling better. More himself. “Sure I like life, Thalia. Life is sweet—if you’re alive.”
Here’s the plan and it’s an innocent plan: they’re going to take showers.
In separate bathrooms. Of course!
Thalia in a bathroom in what Charlotte spoke of grandly as the guest suite which, Corky checks it out, his housekeeper maintains in perpetual readiness—thick monogrammed towels, gleaming ceramic and chrome, a gorgeous shower curtain whose outer layer is white lace—though no guest has used it since Charlotte’s departure nearly six years ago. And Corky in his own bathroom. Of course.
But Thalia detains him with childlike worry—“But, Corky, what can I wear, after I’ve showered? I can’t put these soiled old shameful old things back on, can I?”
Corky senses some mockery here, this mimicry of his own seeming fastidiousness—must’ve insulted her by suggesting she take a shower at all?—but plays it straight. He’s crazy about her, he’ll play it straight.
“Want to wear something of mine? A nice shirt?”
“Corky, yes! A nice shirt. Please.”
“It won’t fit very well, but—” Corky trots off obligingly to paw eagerly through his closets, discovers a long-sleeved fuchsia shirt in raw silk, and here’s a gorgeous oystershell raw silk Christian Dior with textured stripes worn only once. And two or three others Corky scoops out on their hangers too. The prospect of Thalia slipping one of his shirts on, her breasts bare beneath, excites him enormously.
He returns to the guest suite but Thalia’s already in the bathroom running the shower. The room is filling pleasantly with steam. She’s testing the water’s temperature with her hand, droplets like beads of sweat have splashed onto her face, her eyes are moist, swimming. She’s kicked off her shoes, long narrow delicious-pale feet just perceptibly grimy between the toes those toes he could lick! suck! and she’s removed her jacket so Corky stares seeing the rib-knitted little black sweater so tight her small hard braless breasts are outlined and the nipples as prominent as pits. Corky’s come to the bathroom doorway bearing the shirts in his arms and stops dead in his tracks seeing Thalia there, so intimate there the way she’s standing barefoot and partly undressed smiling and looking at him.
And the shower running hot and furious. And the steam.
“Corky, thanks!”—Thalia’s flirty, wide-eyed standing barefoot almost as tall as Corky pushing her hair provocatively out of her face smiling at him as if there’s a meaning in this: Corky bringing her his shirts. He lays them on the bed as Thalia calls out, “We’re going to dinner, Corky, and after dinner—what?”
Corky isn’t sure he’s heard this correctly. Thalia’s looking at him frankly as she’d done in the TV room flicking through the skin magazine. That look that goes through Corky like a blade. Sharp to the groin.
Repeating, “After dinner what will we do?—come back here?”
“Wherever you want, Thalia.”
Such pressure in Corky’s chest, he can barely utter these words.
Backing out of the room, in retreat, leaving Thalia to strip and get under that fierce-running shower naked thinking Jesus my own stepdaughter isn’t going to cocktease me.
In haste then Corky showers. The needles of water stinging blinding his eyes. Dropping the fucking soap he’s so nerved up, excited. Squeezed too much shampoo onto his head and there’s a thick lather of soap on his chest, the monkey-red frizz of his torso, a thick swirl of it dropping to his groin where his cock’s bobbing dumb-eager, hopeful—yes but obviously Thalia’s not on an emotional keel and even if she were she is Corky’s adopted daughter, he’s responsible. Never would Corky touch Thalia, even in his wildest most lewd dreams, not Corky. Fuck, fuck me she’d said giving him that unmistakable look but Corky is her stepfather and he’s known her and she’s trusted him since she was a child of eight and Corky means to honor that fact. And he’s a man of honor, he’s a decent man.
Fuck, fuck me, did you want to fuck me, was I wrong? Yes, wrong.
As another time the slippery soap flies out of Corky’s fingers and skids across the tub.
Corky showers, lathers his body furiously, slapping at it as if to punish. Erection bobbing between his legs like a second head, it’s the fragrant steamy heat that’s to blame. Christ knows he’s tried to care for the girl, tried to be a true father to her. And how many times she’s shut the door in his face. Turning her head when he’d tried to kiss her, that first time when she was fourteen and Charlotte said she’s having her period, she’s self-conscious. That first time and never afterward the same. You don’t love me and I sure as hell don’t love you.
Corky’s thinking of last year when Thalia suddenly quit her job at WWUC-TV and seemed to have gone into hiding and Corky gave copies of her picture to a dozen UCPD friends asking them to keep an eye out, he’d been pretty upset. Even considered hiring a private detective except the only private detectives in Union City are ex-cops and Corky knows why they’re ex-.
And yesterday. Telephoning her twenty times, worried sick about her. Risking his neck, his very ass, breaking into her apartment in dread of finding her body there. And why?—because Corky loves her.
(He’s mortified to think that Thalia was hiding there, in that closet. He knows which one. The suitcases, the clothes crammed together on hangers. The shelf above. The black leotard hanging from a hook.)
But no
w Thalia’s safe, and in his care. He’s found her again. He’ll protect her. The Italian Villa’s where he’ll take her for dinner, fancy wop place all pink stucco and illuminated fountains and Gino the manager always rushes up to Corky to shake his hand like Corky’s the Mayor himself. Hello Mr. Corcoran! How are you this evening Mr. Corcoran! This way Mr. Corcoran, your table’s waiting! And always a rear corner table, plenty of privacy, and Corky’s back protected.
The main thing is to feed Thalia. You can tell by a glance she’s not in a normal state. Cheeks thin, eyes so hollow and burning-yellow, and her collarbones so prominent. Even before the shock of Marilee Plummer’s death, Thalia was obviously in a bad way. Corky will talk seriously to her. Corky will make a doctor’s appointment for her. And maybe she should see a psychotherapist. (Though Corky himself doesn’t believe in that shit and would as soon go to a palm reader as a psychoanything.) And that wild paranoid stuff about people coming after her, coming to get her—Christ, that was frightening.
Corky rinses the soap out of his hair, off his body. Staring in dismay down at himself, his erect cock, the shame of it. But it’s a hard-on out of sheer nerves, he thinks, not sexual desire. He isn’t that much of a shit.
Last time he’d had an undeniable hard-on for Thalia, in a rush it comes back to him now the way a faucet, turned on, gushes water, he hasn’t wanted to recall it, or the circumstances—well, he’d dropped by City Hall to take Thalia out to lunch at the Thai restaurant up the block which Thalia liked so much for its vegetarian dishes, tiny place and no liquor license and so hardly Corky Corcoran’s first choice for dining out but he was good-natured about it indulging his stepdaughter, what the hell, and stepping out of the elevator on the ninth floor outside Family Services he sighted Thalia a short distance away, in the corridor, talking with—who?—of all people Red Pitts, what’s Thalia doing with Red Pitts, the bastard looming large and bulky in his double-breasted maroon plaid sport coat, frowning, grinning, that twitchy grimace of Pitts with the steely eyes untouched, toothpick between his teeth and Thalia was standing back from him, looking up at him, her slender body tense, earnest low-voiced conversation it seemed to Corky whose veins were flooded in an instant with adrenaline hot as flame as in the presence of a male predator-rival and when Corky emerged into view of the two of them, Thalia and Red Pitts, Red Pitts and Thalia, in the same instant and with virtually the same expression, looked at him: alert, guarded, blank. And Red Pitts with his twitchy grin waved to Corky, and moved on, took himself out of there discreetly and surprisingly agile on his feet as Corky’s noticed in the past about him, and Thalia hurried to greet Corky happy to see him, the happiness seemed genuine, offering her cheek to be kissed, as Corky somewhat roughly did, he’s clumsy in such maneuvers, asking at once, “What was that about, you and Pitts?” and Thalia said, “Nothing,” and Corky said, “Yes but what, what were you talking about?” and Thalia laughed and said, “Why, you, Corky—who else?”
And afterward in the Thai Palace, dim-lit paper-tablecloth and -napkin joint, stinking of curry, Corky brought the subject up again, naturally Corky couldn’t leave it alone, saying of Red Pitts, “You know Red packs a gun, don’t you?” and Thalia said, surprised, “No, I didn’t know that,” and Corky said, keeping his voice even, “Red’s the Mayor’s bodyguard basically, he’s an aide but he’s there too to protect Oscar with his life—it’s a job I could have had, Oscar initially wanted me, but I’m not the type, shit I’m not gonna pack a gun like a bozo cop,” laying it on thick and mocking and still keeping his voice even, so no jealousy, no envy, and Thalia looked a little sick murmuring, “—I didn’t know that,” and Corky said, smiling, “There’s lots of things you don’t know, sweetheart,” and one of the things Thalia didn’t know was how Corky Corcoran knee-to-knee with her at the tiny table, her own stepfather, was feeling about her, what wild sensations were rushing through him though centered in his groin, his achy cock, at that very moment.
Thinking: if maybe things go right at the Italian Villa, a couple carafes of red wine should do it, and Thalia’s in the mood, playful and mellow and flirty and Corky can slip the stolen snapshot out of his wallet and give away how he’s the mystery intruder after all—maybe. It’s risky but might work. He’s done crazier things. Casual about it taking the snapshot out and showing it to Thalia who’ll be wide-eyed and astonished at first and then he’ll ask what the snapshot is, what’s going on here, why these people (at a party to which he wasn’t invited but Corky won’t go into that) and why Red Pitts with them but not Oscar, what’s the occasion and what’s the connection between these people, and who’s the guy Thalia’s talking with, her lover?—or just one of her lovers?
Corky won’t push it, depends upon the mood. Like poking a wildcat with a stick. He’s had experience.
In the shower in the fragrant steam Corky’s cock is snaky-hard, dangerous. Jesus, like he’s fifteen years old again.
So, steeling himself, with deft counterclockwise motions of his wrists he turns the hot water faucet off, and the cold one on, colder.
“Ow!”—icy water out of the shower nozzle, shocking as if he’s been kicked by a horse.
Corky’s poor cock wilts, shrinks, shrivels in an instant, how swiftly the blood drains out, his flesh all but crawls up inside him cold-blasted to extinction.
A fight between an “It” and an “I.”
Then for the second time that day this time tremulous with anticipation Corky shaves, rubs lotion into his cheeks, combs his damp springy hair and has to conclude, even with the God-damned bump on his forehead, he doesn’t look bad. Not bad at all. Closer to thirty than forty, in the right light. He dresses swiftly pulling on white cotton Jockey shorts and Calvin Klein trousers and shaking out of its cellophane wrapper a new Calvin Klein shirt, blue cotton twill with a monogrammed JAC on the pocket. Remembers when he’d bought this shirt (at the Gentleman’s Boutique in the Hyatt) it was Christina Kavanaugh he was envisioning, seeing himself in her eyes. But Christina Kavanaugh isn’t on Corky’s mind now.
Hasn’t thought of her, nor felt the faintest twinge of regret or loss or perplexity or hurt or outrage, since Thalia walked in the door.
Whistling “Melancholy Baby” grinning not paying much mind to the rhythm, it’s Dixieland he’s feeling so upbeat.
Trotting down the hall then to check up on Thalia, see how she’s doing, Corky’s barefoot buttoning his shirt—“Hey Thalia?”—the bathroom door is still shut, the shower still on, a waterfall of sound. Corky imagines Thalia beneath the shower: naked: streaming water slippery and gleaming, the swing of her small breasts, glistening-dark pubic hair, curve of the stomach, hips. Thalia lifting her face to the shower, her eyes closed like she’s being kissed, or loved. Warm water streaming over her like a caress. To think she’d been in that closet yesterday! And Doggy-Corky only inches away.
Corky swallows hard. What the hell are you thinking of, are you crazy? You shit.
Returning to his bedroom to finish dressing, fumbling in his excitement knotting a tie around his neck, once of those flat-metallic Armani ties he’d never wear downtown at the U.C.A.C. for instance, a signal you’re a stud, no mistake. And his Armani jacket, boxy double-breasted, gunmetal-gray ideal with the blue shirt, the dove-gray trousers, who’s Corky remind himself of—that actor what’s-his-name, late TV movies, Richard Widmark?—specialized in sexy psychopaths. The best kind.
Except: the bedroom’s a mess, he sees it through Thalia’s critical eyes, clears the newspapers off the bed, paperback A Brief History of Time he’s been reading, putting himself to sleep with for the past six months, plus cashew wrappers, used Kleenex and paper napkins and a Stroh’s beer can rolls clattering across the floor when he yanks the bedspread trying to straighten it cursing himself in his haste. It’s after seven P.M.
Jesus, he should call the Slatterys: explain he can’t make it after all. But no time right now.
In haste then returning to the guest suite to check for Thalia but, damn, the shower’s st
ill on.
Still on?
Corky cocks his head at the bathroom door, listens. Nothing to hear but the shower. He puts his hand on the doorknob.
Corky goes out, Corky returns. Socks and shoes on. Discreet dabbing of Joop! eau de toilette on his upper body. Ready to go? It’s 7:20 P.M. when he raps on the bathroom door, “Thalia?—hon? You still in there?” and there’s no answer, just the roar of the shower. Which seems to him a little louder unless he’s imagining it.
“Thalia?—is something wrong?” Corky finally opens the door to a blast of steam like a sauna. She’s killed herself, here but when he pulls the shower curtain tentatively open he sees—no one’s there.
No one. The tub’s empty. The steaming water, powerful as if out of a hose, is falling upon emptiness.
“Thalia? What the hell—”
The thick luxury towels on the racks, untouched.
Corky doesn’t want to think this is what he knows it is so he turns to see if, maybe it’s a game?—Thalia’s hiding behind the door?—but of course she isn’t.
There’s no one in the bathroom and he wonders how long she’s been gone, leaving the shower on to deceive him.
Suffocating steam in here. Mirrors so opaque Corky can’t even see the glimmer of a reflection, he’s an invisible man.
Then, in the bedroom, in cooler air where he can at least see, Corky stands contemplating his shirts, his shirts, beautiful shirts tossed down carelessly on the bed, one of them on the floor, where Thalia left them. She’d taken one of them after all but in the state of mind Corky Corcoran’s in, like he’s been hit over the head with a shovel and kicked in the balls, he’d have a helluva time figuring out which.
6
Corky Clinches a Deal
You think I’m not serious?—you think I’m bullshitting? Me? Corky Corcoran?”
What I Lived For Page 37