I turned to her. “Only on the back of old Sly and the Family Stone albums. I think it was also used for locations in The Hunter.”
“Pardon?”
“Old Steve McQueen movie. He pursues a suspect in a car chase through the massive parking garage. His quarry loses control and drives off one of the higher floors into the Chicago River. Very cool.”
“Ah.”
Lovely as Sylvie was at that moment--that wonderful smile and the sun showing just a hint of natural red in her brown curls--I couldn’t resist another look at those gleaming towers. I shook my head in awe. “This place is the model for every urban mixed residential and office high-rise structure in the entire world!”
She looked up, admiring the view herself. “Not bad, huh?”
I snorted. “Not bad? And you, what—work here somewhere?”
She took my arm and guided me toward the spacious entry. “No, sweetie, this is where we live.”
It took me a moment. “’We’?”
“Sure! The three of us!”
I looked down at Mitzi.
“Don’t argue,” she said, “just keep walking!”
I stood looking into Sylvie’s big olive eyes. “Sylvie, I can’t let you do that.”
“Sure you can! Still want to find your girlfriend, don’t you? Well, this will be your headquarters! Temporary headquarters.”
“But I can’t--what about Mitzi?”
“Uh, she sleeps with you.”
I didn’t know what to say. For just an instant there I might have been falling in love with the wrong woman. “Sylvie…I …”
“What?”
“It just occurred to me…I don’t even know your last name.”
“Blaine. Sylvia Taylor Blaine. That all right?”
“Fine.”
“And Mandy and Mindy.’”
I blinked. “You have two other names?”
Sylvie laughed, pulling me along. “No, Ed, I have two other roommates!”
When she saw my expression she hugged my arm tighter. “Relax, Eddie, it’s a big condo!”
* * *
It was indeed.
And the Marina City elevators, known for their speed, took just over half a minute to travel from the spacious lower-level lobby to the 62nd floor.
The apartments and condos have almost no interior right angles. On each floor a circular hallway surrounds the elevator core, with the 16 pie-shaped wedges that make up the condos and apartments arranged around the hallway. The kitchens and bathroom of each unit are located near the point of each wedge facing inward. The living areas occupy the outer areas of the wedge, every one containing a 175-square-foot semi-circular balcony, separated from living areas by a floor-to-ceiling window wall. That means every single living room and bedroom in the towers has a balcony view. Con Edison supplies the power to each unit, which is all electric.
“Ten years ago they did some renovating,” Sylvie explained, leading us through the luxurious living room to the panoramic window. “A few of the condos were converted into three bedrooms, like this one.”
She pulled back the slider and we stepped out on the balcony.
At least Sylvie and I did; Mitzi required some encouragement. It was very high.
Sylvie puckered her mouth and made coaxing sounds. “Come on, girl! It won’t hurt you!”
Mitzi stole out, one hesitant paw at a time; I don’t think she’d ever been so high up in her life. “I’m in heaven,” she murmured dizzily. “Doggy heaven is a gleaming white tower in the clouds where all the good poodles go!”
“You’re already dead,” I reminded her.
Mitzi nodded awestruck at the stunning view. “Thank you, Edwards, for annihilating the moment.”
I stood against the rail and looked out at the incredible panorama of Chicago below me. Sylvie joined me, leaning into railing breeze.
“I used to live on the south side before the girls joined me. It had a great view of the Chicago River and the Loop beyond it. People on the west side get a view of where the river divides between its north and south branches, the Merchandise Mart, the Sears Tower and the whole, westward expanse of the city. We’re on the east side. That’s the eastern terminus of the Chicago River down there, Lake Michigan and the Navy Pier. That’s Grant Park over there.”
“Wow,” I breathed.
“I know, right? On spring and summer nights you can see Wrigley Field all lit up during evening baseball games,” she pointed, “over there about four miles to the north.”
“Incredible.”
“Glad you like it.”
I turned to the pert profile. The evening sun was turning the sky orange, the lake into hammered copper. The balcony breeze lifted a light brown curl at Sylvie’s temple and she swept it back behind her ear in that unconscious way women have. I don’t think I realized until that moment just how truly lovely she was.
“How does she do it?” she said, still enjoying the view.
“Pardon me?”
“That’s what you were thinking. ‘How does she afford a place like this even with two roommates, right?”
I gazed back at the lake. “Not exactly. But as long as we’re on the subject, I want you to know I’ll pay my fair share as long as I stay.”
Sylvie leaned further out on the rail, up on her toes, wind caressing her, Mitzi making a little craven sound behind us. “And how do you propose to do that, Eddie old boy? We already spent most of the money in your wallet. You don’t dare use your credit card because then they’d know where to look for you.”
I regarded her, only half surprised. “Who?”
She shrugged delicate shoulders. “Whoever’s chasing you.”
“Why do you always run into the smart ones?” Mitzi asked in my head.
“Is someone chasing me?” I asked.
Sylvie’s smile was obliging. “I’ve been on the run enough myself, Ed, to know a fellow fugitive. What about Clancy? Are they after her, too?”
“No, they’ve found her,” from Mitzi.
I gazed out at the lake, turning rapidly to gold now. “It’s…complicated.”
Sylvie nodded. “It usually is.”
“But I mean it about the rent. I’ll…find a job, pay my part.”
“After you steal your girlfriend away from Ivan? Then you’ll be running together.”
I felt myself bridle despite knowing Sylvie only meant well. “I don’t know what else to do, Sylvie.”
“I do.”
I turned to her. “What?”
“You could marry me and get me the hell out of Chicago.”
I stared at her, waiting for the punch line that never came. “Sylvie. You don’t even know me.”
She nodded quickly. “Yeah! That’s the part I like the best.”
She finally turned to me, sober, big olive eyes searching mine. Then the pretty face broke apart in a laugh and she punched my arm. “Just kidding, Eddie! Me married? Been there and done that. Believe me, I wouldn’t get married again if you were the last man on earth.”
I watched her reflectively.
She frowned. “Sorry, no offense. What’s the matter?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. ‘The last man on earth,’ you said.”
“And?”
“Title of an old Vincent Price movie. I’m an old horror movie buff. Well, just an old movie buff period, I guess.”
“Must have missed that one. What’s about it?”
I turned back to the lake. “It’s from the Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend. A different kind of post-apocalyptic thriller. Guy lives all by himself behind the locked doors of his suburban house. Only comes out in the daytime.”
“How come?”
“’Cause at night, everybody he knows including his wife, comes to see him. As vampires.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. They remade the flick like a hundred times but never came close to the spirit of the novel.”
“Is that how you feel, Ed? Like everybody in the world bu
t you has turned into a vampire?”
“We’re knee-deep in irony here,” from Mitzi.
“Only on my bad days.”
She chuckled, rubbed at the cooling evening breeze across her shoulders.
“What would you do, Sylvie, if the whole world had turned into vampires and you were the only human left?”
She considered a moment. “Fight the bastards! Right to the end! Nobody gets my blood!”
I grinned. “Fight them how?”
She propped her chin on her fist thoughtfully, got that peering look in her eyes. “Well, I’d…”
Suddenly she jerked upright, turned anxiously to me--stepped backward an unconscious foot or two, big eyes even bigger. “Oh, shit…”
I started. “What’s the matter?”
Sylvie stepped back again, took the balcony rail in hand as if for support. “It’s them, isn’t it? It’s them you owe money to! That’s who’s chasing you!”
“Who?”
Sylvie was nodding slowly at me now, as if some great understanding had suddenly dawned with my presence before her.
“…it’s so like him…” she said in hushed tones, “…it’s so like the bastard!”
“Like who?”
Anger and fear flashed in the big eyes. “…so like how he operates! You took his money from him somehow…only unlike anyone else, Ivan Kolcheck doesn’t bother coming after you, he steals your girl…and makes you come after him! And then he’s got you, right where he wants you! And they take care of you for him!”
“’They’ who, Sylvie?”
She regarded me incredulously. “The syndicate, of course! The Chicago mob! You didn’t know? Kolcheck has them in the palm of his hand! It’s how he runs this city! Haven’t you figured that out yet!”
“He has now,” Mitzi groaned behind us.
SEVEN
The early part of the evening was totally ‘precious.’
Sylvie’s roommates Mandy and Mindy came in around seven, laughing and chattering about something at work, stepping through the door side by side (stepping in step through the door) like it was rehearsed, like they always walked that way together, in perfect lock step. Same gait. Same height. Same coloring. Same everything.
I could see now that Sylvie had been setting me up for this one—why she hadn’t gone into much detail about her roommates.
Twins.
They looked up at me the same second I turned and looked over at them. They were absolutely gorgeous. More than that—even a bit more than Sylvie herself—absolutely elegant.
They broke into simultaneous smiles at the stupid look on my face.
“Oh my!” Mindy said. Or was it Mandy?
“Please tell me he’s the new handy man,” said Mandy, or was it Mindy, “and he’s come to check out our plumbing!”
I could feel Sylvie grinning gigantically beside me. “Girls, this is Ed. Ed, Mindy and Mandy, my roomies!”
“Oh, he is precious!” from—well, one of them.
“Just how long have you been hiding this one!” from the other.
“He isn’t mine, girls, I’m afraid Mr. Magee is taken.”
I held out my hand to whichever one had stepped ahead of the other. “Hi. Nice to meet you!”
Mindy/Mandy held out her own hand, knocked mine out of the way and gave me a big hug. “Any friend of Sylvie’s, sweetie!” She was almost as tall as me and I’m just over six one.
Her sister pushed her out of the way. “Hi, I’m Mindy, the smart one!” pulled me into her arms and hugged tight. “Oh, Sylvie, he is just too precious!”
She pulled back but didn’t let go. “Did you say, ‘Magee’?”
“Yes.”
“I think there’s a Magee somewhere on my mother’s side. That makes us kissing cousins!” And she planted one firmly on my mouth.
Sylvie got between and refereed. “That’ll do, girls, as I said, Mr. Magee is attached.”
“Not at the moment,” from Mindy, hugging my right arm.
“While the cat’s away,” from Mandy, hugging my left. “Right, precious?”
“You’ll have to forgive the twins,” Sylvie smiled heading for the bar, “it is Chicago, and a good man is hard to find.”
“Or vice-versa,” from Mindy. “And don’t be hoggish, Sylvie—remember the apartment rules—share and share alike.”
“He is not mine to share!” from Sylvie.
Mandy snuggled closer. “Well, then,” she murmured in my ear, “I guess you’ll just have to settle for Mindy and me. Precious.”
Sylvie shook her head patiently, clinked glasses together from the kitchen. “What are you drinking, Ed?”
Before I could answer, Mandy screamed.
Or Mindy. Doesn’t matter, the other one screamed immediately afterwards.
Then both of them were rushing across the room to Mitzi on the couch.
“Oh! Isn’t he precious!”
“He’s a she,” I corrected, standing there alone now, cool breeze blowing under each arm.
The twins were all over the poodle, who went right over on her back and arched up her chest to be rubbed, the little tramp. After that it was all oos! and ahhs! from the twins for the next ten minutes with a nauseating overuse of the word ‘precious.’
“Oh, God, Ed!” from the dog. “please don’t let me wake up! It’s like Audrey Hepburn went and cloned herself—twice!”
She was right about that--rolling around all slobber tongued on the couch as the two girls kicked off their heels and rolled around with her—but she was right. Audrey Hepburn was the first thing that came into my mind when I first saw them at the door.
“I think I’ve got the sleeping arrangements solved!” from a drunken-eyed Mitzi.
Mindy ran her red nails over the poodle’s pink tummy. “You are the absolute epitome of—“
“—‘precious,’ I know,” Mitzi lolled. “A little lower please…”
I turned as Sylvie handed me an Old Fashion glass of bourbon neat. “Here, little before- dinner drink, if you can take your eyes off the Bobbsie Twins. Too bad they don’t like your dog.”
“She’ll get over it. So! Your two roommates are models?”
“Afraid so.”
I shook my head at the gamboling threesome. “And you?”
“Occasionally. Don’t really have the build for fashion.”
I looked her up and down. “You’re joking.”
She smiled a little wistfully. “Cheesecake I can get. Elvira look-alike I can get. High fashion modeling—where the real money is--not so often. On the runway the only racks they want to see are the ones holding the clothes.” She shoved her chest up. “Too much of a good thing, know what I mean?”
“No. I don’t.”
She clinked her glass to mine. “Sweet. I’d kiss you but”—she nodded at her roommates “--the higher class broads beat me to it. Besides,” (probably thinking of Clancy) “you’ve got enough girls in your life.”
She called to the twins. “Just a thought, girls! Any objections if Ed bunks with us for a while?”
The twins squealed.
Mitzi was left on her back, all four legs hanging, as the girls abandoned her for me. I was ‘precious’ again.
They each hugged an arm, giggling, one on either side.
“Thanks for thinking it over,” Sylvie muttered in her glass.
* * *
Sylvie—clearly the mother hen of the brood—made chicken cachetore for dinner.
It was delicious, as was the Caesar’s salad. She didn’t have to be beautiful and a great cook.
It would be nice if, sitting at that table with three knock-out women, I could tell you I was having a hard time thinking about Clancy. Truthfully, she was never off my mind, or further than a few inches from it. I could imagine (easily) how it would feel to hold those two lovely twins. Or to take Sylvie in my arms and kiss her tenderly…take her into her bedroom later that night. But I knew exactly whose face I’d be seeing beneath me if we—
&nbs
p; “Okay, okay! I get the message! Do you mind!”
Mitzi was glowering at me from the couch.
“Hey, nobody asked you to read my mind, you know!”
“Then learn to shut it down!” she snapped back.
“Uh-oh, somebody’s jealous…”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Sport, somebody is hungry! And that graceful Hepburn neck on Mandy isn’t helping!”
“Don’t even think about—“
“I am thinking about it! The question is, what’re you going to do about it--the poor malnourished little poodle begged her master as he stuffed more chicken and mashed potatoes in his face!”
“I have been thinking about it, Mitz!”
“Yeah, right. In between constant thoughts of Clancy! When you’re not conceiving lewd scenarios about the twins--Sylvie of the Marshmallow Mammary sandwiched somewhere in the middle! Casanova Magee, a new port for every day of the week! Why don’t you call Hef, Ed? Have some rodents sent over—or bunnies or whatever they’re called!”
“I thought you liked Sylvie!”
“I hate her! I hate everyone when I’m starving! And I’m starving! I need sustenance! I need to feed!”
“Ed? Is something wrong--?”
I looked up, found Sylvie studying me curiously.
“What? No!”
“You were frowning.”
“Me? No. Slight headache. I have a small allergy to Mitzi sometimes.”
“I’m sorry, that’s unfortunate.”
“It can be a pain. Food’s delicious, by the way, Sylvie!”
Sylvie smiled. “What about Mitzi? Won’t she be hungry too?”
“Oh God, what an angel!” Mitzi salivated. “I adore this woman! Did I mention that, Ed? The bath water part?”
“I’m trying to eat here.”
Sylvie turned her head toward the kitchen. “Will Mitzi eat chicken? There’s plenty left! And a nice neck bone if—“
“No!”
That was me. I didn’t mean to yell.
Everybody was staring at me.
“Sorry. Little tired. Long day. If it’s okay, I’ll excuse myself and take Mitzi for her nightly constitutional.”
“Ohhh!” Mandy pleaded, “let me take her! Please?”
“Yes, Ed! Let Mandy take me! She can bring her lovely neck along!”
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