No. 22 Pleasure City

by Mark Fishman

  The morning of the third day, Frankie went down the elevator to the garage and checked the gas gauge to see if there was enough in the tank for another day driving around the city following Burnett. She drove the car up the ramp and took it out onto the street. The morning traffic was heavy with cars and buses taking people to work. Frankie went straight to Burnett’s apartment building.

  She waited for him to come out. He wasn’t awake yet, the blinds were drawn. She watched them discreetly with a pair of binoculars. Frankie made a few entries in a notebook that belonged to the agency, jotting down the exact time that she was parked a half-block from the subject’s address beneath the overreaching branches of an elm in the early morning sunlight.

  The sensation of waiting struck her face like a wet paper towel. It felt good. The sunlight warmed the inside of the car even though the windows were tinted. She put a piece of nicotine chewing gum in her mouth. Burnett came out of the building in a hurry, looked up and down the street, then went back into the building. He came out of the garage in his car and swung left past Frankie. She turned the engine over and followed him.

  Her shoes fell forward in the space in front of the passenger seat. She drove barefoot. Her toenails were painted blue, the same color as her eyes. Her teeth were unnaturally white. The polluted sky was without a cloud.

  She moved quickly through the awakened city, Burnett was driving ahead of her fast through traffic. Frankie kept a car between them. Burnett rarely changed lanes. Traffic flowed smoothly until he turned right at Normandy and they came up on a jam with a truck stopped in the middle of Normandy and a man unloading a couple of wooden crates, using a hand truck to cart them through the entrance of a glass and steel building. Frankie ran her tongue across her front teeth, stuck her head out the side window, looked back, and saw the cars lined up behind her.

  Two more crates were unloaded and placed on the hand truck and pushed into the building. A car sounded its horn. She saw the back of Burnett’s head, two cars up, through the windshield of the car in front of her. She looked down at her bare feet. The thick air that filled the street was amber-colored. Her eyes wandered past her toes to the clutch pedal, brake and accelerator over to the other side and her shoes. She liked the color of her shoes. She took the nicotine gum from her mouth and threw it out the window. A glint of sunlight caught her eyes. She winced.

  She heard a grating sound and turned her head. A trash can standing in an alcove inched forward, scraped against the cement under it. A bare, brown leg came out from behind the trash can and the foot at the end of the leg wore an orange sneaker and the sneaker swung from side to side on its heel. She stared at it.

  The trash can went on scraping the cement and it seemed to scrape at the inside of her head as it was pushed further out of the alcove to give more room to whoever was sitting behind it. An arm waved wildly around one of the handles, fingers gripped it, and the hand pushed the trash can far enough to the right for Frankie to see the eyes of a pimply-faced teenager wearing a Hawaiian shirt and peacock-blue shorts. Frankie winked at him, giving him a glimpse of her white teeth, but he didn’t see her. The trash can continued its scraping as the boy got to his feet, looking disoriented. He struck the side of trash can with a jerk of his knee and the lid fell off, making a clanging noise. He ran off and she watched him fade in the rearview mirror.

  The truck was finished unloading, started up and went on along Normandy, turned right at Midland Road. Burnett followed the car behind the truck but didn’t turn at Midland, just headed west on Normandy until he got to Glendale Avenue going north to the city limits.

  Frankie tailed him into various neighborhoods each with a different look and a different population, and there was nothing about them that gave her the slightest idea of what he was doing in them. She didn’t know what he was up to, but it wasn’t her job to find out anything more than the details of what he did for the length of time she was following him. She shook her head. It wasn’t going to be easy for anyone to make anything stick together from her report.

  She’d almost filled her notebook with the names of streets and districts Burnett passed through and where he stopped his car and got out, and in the margins she indicated the time of each significant pause in his onward course with a description of what he did, when he got out of the car. She photographed him. She watched him through the telephoto lens of the camera that belonged to the Kawamura Agency.

  Burnett did pretty much the same thing each time he pulled over to the curb just like he had a ritual to follow, without thought or improvisation. No jerky movements, but smooth, synchronized gestures. He switched off the engine and got out of the car and stretched his legs. He spread a city map out on the roof of the car, pressing his thumbnail into the crease to flatten it. He stared at what was in front of him. He held several loose sheets of paper, going through them with wide-open eyes. The sheets were fanned like playing cards in his hand. He checked the map against what was written on the sheets of paper, standing on tiptoe, leaning forward, with his weight on the door frame.

  In the next moment he produced a red marking pen, raised it to shoulder height and made a stabbing gesture with it to mark the map. Looking satisfied, Burnett folded the map and put the map and papers on the front seat and got in after them, started the car and drove away.

  She had no clear sense of the passing time. It could have been a moment or two, it could have been hours. She checked the gas gauge. She was chewing her fifth piece of nicotine gum when Burnett turned the corner and went down the ramp to the garage under his building. She parked a half-block away, shut off the engine, threw the gum out the window.

  Frankie closed her eyes and pressed on her lids with her fingertips. She opened her eyes. It was the last instant of twilight before nightfall and the beauty of it gave her the idea taking in a lungful of air. The air was like sweet syrup going into her mouth and nostrils. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. She saw a light and Burnett’s silhouette behind the Venetian blinds in his study. She noted in the log the time that she witnessed the subject was at home.

  She looked up from it and saw a pedestrian running down the middle of the street after a dog, and they were shadows running in a direction away from her in the night, shadows that looked like they weren’t really there. An oncoming car didn’t see them. It bore down on them and was going to knock them down. A woman ran out of a phone booth and into the street waving her arms and shouting at them. Frankie flashed her headlights at the oncoming car and its headlights switched to high beams and the car swerved around the man and the dog.

  The bright headlights burned through her lids, and she kept her eyes shut until the car had gone past. She opened her eyes, checked her watch against the clock in the dashboard, opened the agency notebook and ran her finger down the lines indicating the alternating time schedule. Eto was on his way to replace her. She was going to knock off and go straight home the minute he got there.

  [ 20 ]

  Pohl sighed into the telephone, then said goodnight. Shimura listened to the click of the receiver, an emptiness, then hung up. Pohl had wanted to hear something but he didn’t have anything new to tell him because he hadn’t had much time to spend checking on the man that Pohl had seen in Angela’s apartment. Shimura glanced at the clock on the wall. It was eleven-twenty.

  He went to the kitchen to have something to eat. He couldn’t decide what he wanted, it was late, and there weren’t lot of things to choose from in the refrigerator. There was leftover pheasant, eggs, tortillas, yogurt, strawberries. A recipe came to his mind.

  Stir-fry pheasant breasts

  in extra virgin olive oil

  with two crushed cloves of garlic.

  Blend in tomato paste while frying.

  Toast tortillas lightly.

  While he was thinking about the pheasant tortillas something jumped up in his memory, got in the way of his appetite, made a sideways movement, hopping up and down, then faded out to make room again for the hunger in hi
s stomach. He stared at the contents of the refrigerator, then looked in one of the kitchen cabinets. He didn’t have all the ingredients for fresh salsa. He peeled the aluminum foil from the leftover pheasant, smelled the cooked flesh, smiled. He lit the stove. A nearly perfect quarter moon shone through the kitchen window.

  Shimura finished the pheasant tortillas, wiped his mouth with a napkin, then fixed a cup of instant coffee, black. He sat at the kitchen table, manipulating a toothpick in the spaces between his teeth. He looked down at the empty plate without moving more than the fingers using the toothpick to find and dislodge particles of pheasant and corn tortilla. What was left of the pheasant tortillas stared back at him.

  Then he saw the picture of Burnett as if it were in front of him, the one he’d given to Frankie, and he compared it with the poorly sketched counterpart Pohl had given him in the Casino Club, a portrait of the man he’d seen at Angela’s apartment. Something clicked in his head, it wasn’t a big noise but he heard it clearly. It didn’t hurt and it didn’t seem real but it made one whole thing out of two separate things and that one thing forced him out of his chair at the same time as he stabbed his gums with the toothpick.

  Until now it was a crackpot idea. It wasn’t even a complete idea now, but it was more than it had been a few minutes ago. He sat down and finished his cup of coffee. The realization swelled like a massive wave and it crashed against him and he rubbed his chin with his hand and grinned.

  [ 21 ]

  Violet got out of the taxi. She wasn’t far from Burnett’s apartment. She walked slowly along the sidewalk on East Olive Street, almost daydreaming, and went past the entrance of Burnett’s building to the corner, crossed the street and turned around and went back the way she’d come until she stopped at the public phone. She stood in front of it without opening the doors. The sky was dark and the street was busy with a steady flow of traffic in both directions. Now and then someone hurried along the sidewalk.

  Violet looked up, and her anger at Burnett made the sky look like an endless field of dark ice. There was nothing left in it of the sunset. Just stars that looked like sparkling chips of ice or pinpoints of light embedded in an ice block. The darkness in the expression on her face went up into the sky and bounced back down straight into her heart.

  She swung the phone booth doors open and let them shut behind her, leaning against the glass with her shoulder. She raised her head a little and saw the glow of lamplight behind the Venetian blinds. Burnett was there, and she was going to talk to him.

  She dropped some change into the phone, started to press the numbers, then she saw a man running down the middle of the street chasing a dog. A car was coming at them, and she saw that if it went on the way it was going the driver wouldn’t see the man or the dog in the faded light and there was going to be a terrible accident. She put the receiver back on the hook, the change tumbled down into the receptacle, ringing in her ears.

  She ran out of the phone booth and into the street and waved her arms and shouted at the man chasing the dog to warn him against the danger of the car. She was about to shut her eyes when something made her open them wide instead.

  A woman behind the wheel of a car parked a few feet away from the phone booth under the outstretched branches of an elm tree must have seen the potential disaster because all at once the headlights flashed on and went straight into the eyes of the driver bearing down on the man and dog, and the driver switched the headlights to high beams, and together the warning from one and illumination of the other made the driver swerve out of the way at the last instant, and the man and dog were safe and sound in the last breath of twilight. Violet’s arms fell to her sides.

  Breathing hard, she went back to the phone booth, lifted the receiver, scooped the coins out and dropped them back into the phone and pushed Burnett’s number. She waited for him to answer. The telephone rang a dozen times.

  She didn’t really want to talk to him, she wanted to let off steam. She wanted to tell him to fuck himself. “You might as well bury your money somewhere even a dog couldn’t find it because I’m going to take every last cent you’ve got and leave you with nothing which is what you deserve.” The phone went on ringing, no one answered. She didn’t say a word. Violet hung up and went home.

  [ 22 ]

  Shimura looked at the empty coffee cup, dropped the toothpick in it, then smiled at the remains of his meal of pheasant tortillas. He got up from the table and went to the phone on the wall next to the sink, picked up the receiver and dialed Rand Hadley’s number. Burnett’s face kept jumping into the blank spot that was the face of the man Pohl had seen at Angela’s apartment. If he didn’t get it off his chest it was going to drive him nuts.

  Hadley picked up the phone. “Who is it?” He was wide awake.

  “It’s late, I know, but I’ve just had a crazy idea,” Shimura said.

  “What have you got?”

  “I’ve got Violet Archer and Lew Burnett. And the unidentified man Pohl wants to know more about.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now I’m convinced there’s some connection between Burnett and Pohl’s man, and I can’t say why I know it, but my instinct is telling me there’s something there and that I’ve got to follow it up. I always follow my instinct — you taught me that a man’s natural intuitive power doesn’t lie.”

  “Don’t say another word. I’m sold already. What we’re always asking ourselves — if what we feel in our guts is true — is an up-in-theair question we’re waiting to catch. Some people buy it, others don’t. You’ve got to get something solid to go on. You’ll need more than a hunch to bring it into focus, you’ll need proof. You’ve got to put Burnett together with Angela.”

  “Thanks, Rand. I just had to say it out loud.”

  “Now look, Shimura — ”

  “I am looking,” he said. “I’m looking forward to helping Pohl get a shot at being with Angela. He’s waited a long time, Rand, and now it’s coming.”

  “You sure that’s what he really wants?”

  “That’s what he wants, right or wrong.”

  “Okay, then that’s what you’ve got to do. Goodnight.”

  Shimura hung up, sighed, switched off the kitchen light, went to the bedroom, got undressed and climbed into bed with a newspaper.

  [ 23 ]

  Pohl stared at the orchid plant standing as a centerpiece on a dull table strewn with books. Plants were a responsibility, they required the sort of attention he’d rather give an animal or human being, but it was a gift from Angela and it was her way of reaching across a void and making contact with him after what he’d seen going on in her apartment, so he accepted it gladly, and he thought that maybe it was training for something else, a child, because that was what he’d always wanted with her, but he didn’t know where she was or what was going on, so he couldn’t let himself think about it.

  He was sorry that Shimura didn’t have anything new to tell him about the man he’d seen in Angela’s living room. He didn’t have the courage to talk to her himself, he couldn’t go that far with something that made him feel so vulnerable, and if he’d had the courage it wouldn’t do him any good because she didn’t answer the phone when he called.

  He was in love with her. He dialed her again. He’d always love her whether she loved him or not. It was after eleven. He listened to the telephone ringing, waited for her to answer without believing she’d pick it up, there was no answer, and he felt his stomach twist into a knot. It went on ringing, he put the receiver down. He paced up and down the living room. He looked at the orchid plant. He wanted to throw it out the window or feed it gasoline or trim it with an axe. He told himself he should’ve counted the number of times the phone rang, maybe it was an odd number and if it’d turned out to be an odd number it would’ve been lucky for him. He felt like he had run out of luck.

  To change his luck, he wanted to cure himself, get this worrying and sickening thing finished with before it went any further, because if it went further he’d
have much difficulty curing it and maybe he wouldn’t be able to cure it at all and end up losing everything, including his mind. No matter which way it went, a cure would put a different turn on his luck. He decided to get beat up, to get hurt for how he was letting Angela ruin his life, making him think about her all the time, and maybe that would shake him up enough to let go of what he didn’t have a grasp on anyway. He wasn’t brave enough to do it by himself. He’d have to go outside and find someone to pick a fight with. That would be the right cure, just what the doctor ordered, and he didn’t need an office visit or a prescription, just step outside, sucker, and pick a fight.

  It was a good idea because it was a feeling idea and not a thinking idea. He didn’t take a jacket, he went out just the way he was dressed. He started walking down Fourteenth Street.

  He wasn’t going to look for a fight in a bar. A fight with a drunk didn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t be seriously hurt, and getting himself knocked unconscious wasn’t the point. Just a bit of roughing up to loosen the fixed ideas in his head. And anyway a choice like that didn’t attract him as much as the thought of something spontaneous right here on the street. He turned onto Jackson at midnight.

  Pohl was thinking clearly about this and nothing else, which was proof that the cure had already started working. It was Friday, and he didn’t have to work until Monday. He could take a beating tonight and have the weekend to recover from it. He stared straight ahead and kept walking. His mouth watered because he could almost taste the cure, and he wanted it.

  He leaned into the first man that brushed past him close enough to make it look like it was not on purpose, just to try it out. He wasn’t afraid of what was going to happen to him, but he was afraid of what was happening to him because of Angela.