Nearby was a vast tub of couscous, surrounded by platters of flat bread.
All the food was roped off behind thick velvet ropes. They were the kinds of ropes used in the foyers of movie theaters, to restrain eager crowds.
This crowd was eager, too. Most of the people in the receiving line had looked half dead, but the sight of a feast had brought them back to life. They were massed three deep behind the velvet ropes. Almost every eye in the house was shining, like Boss's, and a good many faces were shining, too. The sight of so much food must have released internal floods of gastric juices, causing sweat to pop out on many faces. The people were oblivious to one another. Lamb, caviar, and big pulpy shrimp were what they wanted.
I felt slightly revolted by the sight of so many avid, sweaty people—a totally unwarranted reaction, since I see avid sweaty people massed together at auctions every day. Also I felt an equally unwarranted jealousy of Spud Breyfogle.
"Is Spud famous?" I asked.
Boss chuckled. "Most famous editor in America," she said.
Then she lifted her head alertly. She seemed to be waiting for a signal. While she waited she adroitly edged into the crowd. All around us, alert men and women were edging into the crowd, skillfully displacing some of the people who were already there. Many of those who were already there seemed to be in a trance. They had made the mistake of edging in too soon and had sweated themselves out. They looked like exhausted runners, so wobbly as to be unaware that they were losing their positions to cool latecomers like Boss. Their unseeing eyes were still fixed on the food.
Meanwhile, Boss had taken my hand. She evidently had a use for me. As the crowd got thicker we were crushed together. Boss was sidling slowly toward the velvet ropes. Once in a while she gave my hand an encouraging squeeze. Crushed in the crowd, we were almost having an intimate moment.
As greed for objects welds crowds at an auction, greed for food welded this crowd. It was hard to imagine that such a well-dressed crowd could look so hungry. I’ve been to some wild barbecues down in Texas, where whole beeves were consumed, and yet I'd never seen a Texas crowd crammed up together, beaded with sweat. It didn't seem possible that a lot of people well off enough to own tuxedoes could be so hungry, and yet they seemed oblivious to everything but the food.
"Why are they so hungry?" I whispered to Boss, brushing back her dark hair so I could get to her ear.
Boss was uninterested in the question, but she seemed briefly interested in the fact that I had brushed back her hair. She looked at me curiously, as if she expected me to try and kiss her. It had not been my intention, but I saw no harm in trying. The crowd would never notice. It was oblivious to who was kissing whom. I bent to kiss her and it looked for a tenth of a second like it might work. But just at that moment, she smiled.
Chapter VII
It feels silly to kiss a smile. At best you just sort of bump teeth. With Boss even that might be sexy, but as things stood, or as we stood, it seemed even sillier than it might have in another context.
I quickly lost belief in the notion that she had meant to kiss me. I felt embarrassed, but Boss seemed not the least bit embarrassed. She had a lot of confidence in her powers, it seemed.
"These people aren't hungry," she said. "These people are just bored."
She kept hold of my wrist and concentrated on edging ever closer to the velvet ropes.
She was a good edger, too. The trick seemed to be to move sideways, using one's lead elbow like a plow. As I watched. Boss plowed right between two short glassy-eyed Indonesians, her bosom passing just over their heads. A couple of tall, gloomy-looking Scandinavians had been blocking our view all along, but Boss somehow sidled right between them.
In three minutes we were standing next to the velvet ropes, directly in front of the tureen of caviar. Boss's eyes were shining and she was not even particularly sweaty, although there was a bead or two on her upper lip.
"You better get ready," she said.
Despite my constant immersion in the passions of auctions, I could not get over the avidity of this crowd. Even those who were glassy-eyed from the heat and the crush were trembling with eagerness.
Ten seconds later the ropes were removed. It was as if the roof had opened, dropping about five hundred people directly onto a feast.
I had no sensation of moving at all, but in an instant Boss and I were at the caviar bowl. I stood directly behind her, functioning like a rear bumper. People bumped into me, rather than her. A thicket of hands reached past me, trying to reach the bowl and slop a little caviar on some toast. There were little brown Indonesian hands, on arms long enough to reach around both Boss and myself. There were fat hands, mottled hands, be-ringed hands, skinny hands, and hands with sweaty palms. Having them waving all around me, like a sea of reeds, was creepy. I didn't even feel like I was among people. I felt like I was surrounded by a lot of wet plants.
While people were trying to reach around us. Boss and her peers were eating caviar. One of her peers was Sir Cripps Crisp, who must have been as good at edging as Boss was. He appeared out of nowhere and began methodically popping little caviar-heaped wedges of toast into his mouth.
Boss did the same, from time to time passing me a wedge. Once in a while she looked around at me and grinned, a fish egg or two momentarily stuck to her lips.
"Beastly," Sir Cripps said, while heaping himself another wedge. He was obviously a practiced man. In a second he could erect a neat pyramid offish eggs on his wedge of toast. While his mouth worked on one pyramid his hand would be erecting the next.
His complaint was not lost on Boss.
"What's the matter with you, Jimmy?" she asked.
I was startled to hear Sir Cripps spoken to so familiarly, but he himself was not in the least offended. He actually raised his eyebrows when Boss spoke to him. They went up so slowly that it seemed they were probably powered by a little motor in his head, as if they were stage curtains. His eyes were an attractive and rather twinkly blue. It may have been the sight of Boss with fish eggs on her lips that caused them to twinkle.
"Beastly there's no vodka," he said. "Very irregular."
Boss opened a mother-of-pearl cocktail purse and took out a tiny silver flask. She opened it, took a swig, and handed the flask to Sir Cripps, who took a swig and handed it to me. They both looked at me impatiently, so I took a swig, too.
"You know Jimmy, don't you?" Boss asked, in much the way she had asked if I knew Spud Breyfogle.
I nodded, and Sir Cripps continued to erect pyramids of caviar.
"Jimmy writes the best cables in town," Boss said, giving him a little pat. "He used to bring ‘em over and read 'em to me. Then we'd get drunk and he'd write a few in Latin. I think one of the ones in Latin nearly started a war, didn't it, Jimmy?"
Sir Cripps shrugged. "Only in Maseratu," he said. "Not difficult to start a war in Maseratu. Very excitable people."
Between the two of them they put away an amazing amount of caviar.
Being tall I was able to scan the crowd. Cindy was at the shrimp table, between Boog and Spud Breyfogle. Boog was gobbling shrimp, and Spud was dispensing a good deal of tightly wound charm for Cindy's benefit.
Meanwhile, Sir Cripps, whom I had considered to all intents and purposes a dead man, had come alive and was twinkling at Boss in a manner that suggested he might even still be capable of romance. He looked quite animated, perhaps because Boss was allowing him a snort of vodka after every wedge of caviar and toast.
Then I happened to notice the hapless Eviste Labouchere, a few steps away at the couscous bowl. Hapless is a word that might have been coined especially for him. In a room containing five hundred gluttons he still managed to stand out, thanks to the rate at which he was stuffing down the couscous. He ate like he was starving. Of course, he might have been starving. For all I knew he hadn't eaten since the Penrose dinner. Certainly he looked awful. He had clearly been living in his tux for several days, and at some point had come into contact with a dog, or at
least with a place where a dog had spent time. His dinner jacket was covered with dog hairs. He had a wild, almost demented look in his eye as he scooped couscous out of the giant bowl.
Lilah Landry, his one-time date, was standing between the couscous and the caviar, watching Eviste go at it. She looked faintly sickened. Perhaps the sight of him gobbling couscous had brought home to her the fact that he wasn't really a star.
I think I must have looked at her at the precise moment when their romance ended. Eviste didn't notice it ending, but I did. Boss and Sir Cripps were having a tete-a-tete, and had forgotten me, so I had nothing to do but look. Also I was faintly worried about what sort of lubricity Spud might be whispering in Cindy's ear.
While I was pondering the general inconclusiveness of life, Lilah arrived at my side, tall, beautiful, and dizzy.
"How you?" she said, startling me.
"I'm fine," I said, trying to appear composed and at ease.
"How's Eviste?" I asked, in an attempt to make conversation.
Lilah just continued to smile her famous smile. The minute some women get through with a man their brains simply erase them, as tape recorders erase tape. Coffee had never bothered to erase me, but she had erased any number of Roberts and Richards.
I had the feeling that at the very moment the equivalent of an empty tape was whirling through Lilah's brain—a tape that had once contained memories of Eviste Labouchere.
To make up for my unnoticeable opening note, I offered her some caviar. This was possible because Boss and Sir Cripps had quietly vanished, leaving me undisputed access to the bowl.
Instead of taking the wedge of toast and caviar I offered her and feeding it to herself, Lilah leaned over and nipped off half the wedge, in the process exposing much of the creamy bosom that had so recently harbored a pug.
Then she straightened up and chewed lazily for a moment.
"Well, I vow and declare," she said. "Look who's here."
Before I could look she caught my wrist, leaned over, and ate the rest of the wedge.
Chapter VIII
As a bosom-tilter, Lilah Landry was world class. By tilting adroitly she managed to make her bosom seem more interesting than anyone who could possibly have arrived in our vicinity, and even while I was enjoying the exhibition, I had the definite sense that someone was emitting heat waves of displeasure.
When I finally looked around I saw that the arrivee was the small redhead in the khaki safari suit.
"It wouldn't be a Washington party without you eating out of some man's hand, would it, Lilah?" she said.
The redhead had a face that put me in mind of a drill, and a voice that suggested sandpaper.
Lilah didn't seem in the least disturbed by the remark. She just gave me a blithe look and moved off toward the seafood table. Before I knew it I was alone with the redhead.
"Hello, Jack," she said, shaking hands. "Don't you think we ought to talk?"
I would have been more inclined to think so if I had had some inkling of what she did. All I knew was that she put me in mind of drills. She had an intense, button-eyed manner, and she didn't let go of my hand.
"Do you want some caviar?" I asked.
The question stumped her momentarily. For a second or two her face lost its drill-like aspects and just looked like the face of a small hungry woman.
"George would kill me if I ate some," she said a little wistfully. "He doesn't approve of this regime. I don't think he'd tolerate it if I ate their caviar.
"It's difficult living with a moralist," she added. "George is not flexible. His moral vision is twenty-twenty. If I eat one bite of this caviar he'll throw a fit."
Instead of talking, we began to walk through the thinning crowd. While we were walking I saw a reporter's notebook sticking out of her handbag, which explained what she did, at least. She was a reporter, not a Cabinet member.
Most of the people in the thinning crowd looked sleepy. They had stuffed, now they wanted to sleep. In fact, some of the older diplomats had started sleeping already; they were being guided toward the exits by their well-trained wives.
Suddenly the spectral figure of Eviste Labouchere wobbled up. He spotted Khaki and rushed to embrace her as a colleague.
"Ah Khakee, Khakee!!" he exclaimed.
"Get lost, you little turd," Khaki said, in unsentimental tones.
Eviste looked a little hurt by Khaki's remark, which was more or less the rhetorical equivalent of a splash of acid.
"But Khakee," he said woefully. "I am going your way. I will give you a ride on Anouk."
"Like shit you will," Khaki said.
"George will probably strangle you when he hears about this," she added, in her sandiest tones. Once again she was burning with displeasure—her heat had a Saharan quality.
If Khaki was the pitiless desert, Eviste was the lost Legionnaire, the one who is never going to make it back to the fort. He stood looking woeful for a moment and then turned and stumbled away.
"Who's Anouk?" I asked, thinking Eviste might have a giant girl friend hidden away somewhere. After all, he had just offered Khaki a ride on her.
"That's what he calls his motor scooter," Khaki said, looking disgusted. "He named it after Anouk Aimee."
Chapter IX
"He names all his motor scooters after movie stars he's in love with,'* Khaki confided. "When I first met him he had one named Tuesday, after Tuesday Weld. Can you imagine a motor scooter named Tuesday?"
The thought depressed her so much that she walked along in a funk for a few minutes, occasionally emitting flashes of heat from her little black eyes. I walked along with her, past the emptying tables. She reminded me of one of those little mean rat terriers that are so common in the south. As long as you're looking at them they let you alone, but the minute you turn your back they bite you in the leg.
I was hoping we'd run into Boss and Sir Cripps, or perhaps Cindy and Boog, but instead we ran into Andy Landry and Freddy Fu. They were standing by what was left of a lamb, pulling crisp little pieces of skin off what was left of its hock and nibbling it. Freddy Fu had on a tuxedo and looked very merry. Being the best spy in Washington seemed to agree with him, and being with him seemed to agree with Andy Landry. She looked very healthful and had recently got her hair frizzed. Since she was very thin and had a cloud of frizzed hair she gave the impression of being slightly off the ground.
"Ah, Khaki," Freddy said, when he saw us. He left off eating lamb skin and came over and kissed the air about an inch from her cheek. He did it with merry self-assurance, as if that were precisely the way to greet a person such as Khaki Descartes.
"Charming of you to bring her over," he said to me, in Oxbridgian tones.
Khaki at once transferred her full attention to Freddy. I was immediately ditched. She and Freddy moved just out of earshot, leaving me with Andy Landry, who seemed a nice tall girl.
Andy fed me a piece of lamb skin, which surprised me. Food was the last thing I had come to expect from Washington women.
"Do you run?” she asked, after looking me over in a shy way that was rather appealing.
"Nope," I said. "I drive."
"Why?" she asked, looking a little shocked. "Driving isn't exercise."
"It may not be exercise but it gets you from place to place," I countered.
"Yeah, but it isn't exercise," she insisted. "What's your exercise?"
"Buying things," I said.
Andy looked a little hurt. I think she thought I was mocking her.
"No," I said. "It's true. Buying things is more strenuous than you think. A lot of exercise is involved. Also you have to carry the things you buy."
"It's not real exercise though," she said. "You should at least go to a gym once a week. I mean, you could do your body that favor."
Fortunately at that point she happened to notice that Khaki was scribbling frantically in her reporter's notebook.
"Khaki's a brain-picker," Andy said.
Suddenly Boog appeared at my elbow. The
n he passed my elbow and gave Andy a big kiss. His didn't land on the air, either.
"Let's you an' me go to Bermuda for a day," he suggested. "We could ride motor scooters an' then fuck."
At this point Khaki and Freddy came back. Boog had been extremely cheerful, but at the sight of Khaki his cheer subsided.
"What about the Croat and the Senator's wife?" Khaki said, getting right to the point. "I know you know, Boog. I know you know."
Boog widened his eyes and tried to look like an innocent millionaire from Winkler County.
"Whut Croat?" he said. "Hail, I don't even know whut a Croat is."
"The Croat who's buying the helicopters," Khaki said, through clenched teeth.
Boog cast his eyes heavenward, as if he expected to see a helicopter beneath the Embassy roof.
“I don't even care about the helicopters," Khaki said. "I know you set up the deal but I don't care. George is the one who doesn't think the Croats ought to get helicopters. I just want to know about the Senator's wife."
I felt a subtle touch at my elbow. It was Freddy Fu.
"Whut Senator's wife?" Boog said.
"The one that's fuckin' the Croat," Khaki hissed. "Was she in on the deal? I want to know!"
At this point Freddy sidled back about ten feet, and his look suggested that I accompany him. Since I don't know how to sidle I just turned around and walked.
"I wouldn't ordinarily set her on him," Freddy said, "but of course the Booger-man can take care of himself."
"You mean there's no Croat?" I asked.
Freddy just smiled. "There are always Croats," he said. "And there are always Serbs. How would you like to buy a warehouse full of baskets?"
Chapter X
"Did you say a warehouse full of baskets?" I asked.
"That's right," Freddy said. "Approximately 190,000 baskets, representing virtually all cultures and all periods."
I love baskets, almost indiscriminately. I like the cheap bright basketry of Mexico, and the somber expensive basketry of the Apaches. I've also seen some wonderful Peruvian baskets, but in all my scouting I may have now owned 150 baskets, surely no more. Now I was being offered 190,000. "The Booger-man mentioned that you know baskets," he said. "He thought you might be able to take them off our hands."
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