“Hello, Mister,” Delia said musically, opening the stall gate out and to the left. She stood protectively against the gate as the horse moved halfway out into the stable.
The stallion stood still as Delia patted his neck and forequarters. He was black and full and muscled, with a blue-black mane and tail, and a diamond of white between his eyes, covering the area from his forehead down close to his muzzle. Constantine looked at the horse’s deep, intelligent eyes, and then at Delia’s, crinkled at the corners as she traced her fingers down his face as she might the face of a lover.
“A thoroughbred,” Constantine said, knowing nothing of horses, though this was something anyone could see.
“Yes,” Delia said. “The son of an Arabian stallion and an English mare.”
“Beautiful,” he said, looking at Delia.
Delia walked to the back of the stable, took a leather halter and rope off a nail, and returned. She held the horse by the mane with her right hand, brought the nose band up, pushed the loose end of the crown piece over the head, and buckled it. She patted the black stallion on his hindquarters and watched him walk slowly from the stable out into the paddock.
“What now?” Constantine said.
“Nothing too exciting. I clean his stall—shovel it out, and lime it—and then I ride. When I get back, I feed him.”
Constantine looked into the empty stall, the dirt damp with urine. A wooden manger sat half filled with hay, a bucket of water by its side. His eyes moved above and to the left of the stall, in a corner of the stable. A video camera hung there, pointed down, an indicator light burning red below the lens, a green button below the light. Constantine looked into the lens, chuckled, then looked at Delia.
“We being watched?” he said.
“Not necessarily. It’s always on. They’re not always monitoring it.” Delia put a strand of blond behind her ear. “I can call them, though. That’s what the button’s for, below the light.”
“It’s a lot of security for an animal. Grimes got a thing about the horse?”
“He’s got a thing about protecting his investment.”
“When you’ve got something that sweet, I guess … you don’t want to lose it.”
“That’s right.”
“It is sweet,” Constantine said. “Isn’t it? I’m thinking right now how sweet it must be—”
“Don’t,” Delia said sadly. “Don’t think about it.”
She made a move to go around him, but Constantine stepped in front of her, blocking her way. Her blue eyes bore into his with determination, but there was something else there, something like an opening; Constantine took it, holding her chin in his hand just as she tried to jerk it away. He put his mouth on hers. Her lips were warm and almost at once there was no resistance, and Constantine took his hand off her chin, feeling her mouth open as she relaxed against him. He put his hands on her shoulders and smelled the clean scent of her hair, and the smell aroused him as much as the smoothness of her tongue and the pressure and warmth of her groin against his.
They broke apart. Delia stepped back, ran the back of her hand across her mouth, slowly looked him up and down.
“Why did you do that?” she asked quietly.
“You wanted me to.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I suppose I did.”
“You can’t be happy.”
She studied his face. “You’re not going to make trouble, are you?”
“I might,” he said.
She came forward, closing her eyes this time before they kissed. He felt her around him, felt her tongue slide over his. She took his fingers and put them to her breast, her teeth pressing into his lips as he touched her. They walked to the far corner of the stable, where they undressed.
Delia dropped Constantine’s denim shirt into the damp dirt. He watched the muscles of her back wash over her rib cage as she carefully spread the shirt. She sat on it and reached for his hand. He came to her as barn swallows fluttered in the rafters.
AFTERWARD, they did not speak. Constantine held her, her tears hot on his neck. The feeling of her in his arms frightened him, the same fear that had gripped him when he had held the boy in the park, in Greece. He could just move on—there would be other children to hold, and there would be other women—but he was tired.
Delia looked up at him and smiled, wiping the tears off her face. She put her head back down and buried her face into his shoulder. After a while the fear that he was feeling went away.
Chapter
7
ACATALOG of power fashion packed the lunch-hour sidewalk at Connecticut Avenue and K, the downtown hub of the city’s lobbyists, and blue-chip law and brokerage firms. Armani suits and Louis Vuitton handbags paraded by, sharing the concrete with the homeless and the vendors and the bums, the scent of Opium colliding with the stench of urine.
At one particularly busy avenue storefront, Washington’s working women—secretaries, attorneys, and hookers—buzzed in and out of glass doors. Those exiting the shop carried white plastic bags emblazoned with a luxuriant blue logo depicting one delicate foot resting on a pillow. Mean Feet, D.C.’s premier shoe boutique, had begun to heat up.
Inside, Randolph worked the floor.
“What size, girlfriend?” Randolph said, to the woman in the red skirt. She was standing by the display rack holding a spectator, a black number with a blue vamp, in her hand.
“That depends on what you’re doing tonight,” she said coyly.
“Tonight?” Randolph said, buying time, looking away like he was thinking it over, really looking at the rest of the customers on the floor, making sure none of the other boys took one of his women. Antoine, that skinny boy from Georgia, was edging over to one of his best regulars, a perfect seven and a half, a regular with a full-time paycheck and a government job. And Jorge, the Latin with the thin mustache and all the hair, was sniffing after something in a tight leather skirt, always lookin’ to get next to that Man in the Boat.
“Yes, tonight.”
Randolph looked down impatiently at the woman’s foot. “You an eight and a half, right?”
“That’s right.”
“How’s next Tuesday sound?”
“Tuesday’s good,” said the woman in the red skirt.
Randolph said, “I’ll be right back.”
On the way to the stockroom Randolph stopped at a large woman wearing a colorful dress and a headband to match. She was sitting on the end of the padded bench, and she was holding a sale shoe, some burlap-lookin’ bullshit, some old-ass espadrille-lookin’ shit, in her callused hand.
“You ready now?” Randolph said.
“Nine,” said the woman.
“Be right back.” Randolph paused before entering the stockroom. He turned and shouted across the sales floor, over the seventies funk—Rick James, “Bustin’ Out of L 7”—that was booming out the store speakers, toward his regular, who was now holding a shoe and talking to Antoine. “What size, baby?”
The woman said, “Antoine’s helping me today, Randolph.”
Randolph bugged his eyes and shook his head. “Uh-uh! What you want to talk to that itty-bitty”—Randolph paused, grabbed the top of his thigh, shook what he grabbed—“you want a man with some heft, don’t you, baby?”
The regular looked at Antoine, blinked apologetically, and turned back to Randolph. “Seven and a half,” she said.
Randolph jetted into the stockroom, kicking boxes out of the way. He felt Antoine follow him back.
“What you want to go and disrespect me like that for?” Antoine shouted, as he entered the clutter of stock and stretching tools and empty cartons.
Randolph turned, gave Antoine his godfather stare. “You know better than to talk to my ladies, Spiderman.”
“Don’t call me no Spiderman, man.”
Randolph softened his voice—he didn’t need to throw gasoline on this shit, not during the rush. “Go on, man. There’s plenty of money out there for everyone. Plenty of money and plenty of ho
ney. Right, Antoine?”
Antoine smiled his country smile, said, “That’s a bet. Sure is plenty of honey.” He turned his arachnid’s torso and loped back out the door, all arms and legs.
Randolph headed for the back of the stockroom, thinking that the boy Antoine could be good—if he concentrated more on picking up customers and less on his pride. Now the other one, Jorge, he’d wash out. All he thought about was the nappy, day and night. Randolph knew one thing: the day was for taking those shoes to the hole; the night was for the freaks.
Randolph climbed the wooden shelving to get red skirt’s nine—she’d said eight and a half, but she sure was a nine—and he pulled it from the top. He jumped to the floor, feeling the impact, even on the thin green carpet, thinking that at forty-two maybe it was time to slow down. But he had forgotten that by the time he was looking for his regular’s seven and a half. The name of the shoe was Panis, which he remembered ’cause it rhymed with Janis, the name of the redbone he’d been with the night before. The Panis—a slingback in black, he was sure that was the color she had held in her hand—was at the top of its stack, too, and he leapt up for that, got it on the second try.
On the way back out, Randolph took the biggest burlap shoe he could find for the woman in the colorful dress. She had said nine, but those big-ass, spread-out, Haitian-ass feet had to be elevens. Eleven at least—if they had stocked a twelve in the back, he would’ve brought that, too.
Out of the stockroom, Randolph surveyed the floor. The crowd had begun to thin out, the only new face a man who had entered and was now sitting on the bench. The man wore blue jeans and Timberland boots, and his black hair hung long and clean. A three-day black beard, trimmed and grown high, covered his jaw. His brow was thick and his eyes were blue and deep. Randolph’s first thought: Jesus, just like in the pictures. But what the fuck is he doin’ in my shop?
Randolph dropped the burlap shoes in front of the Haitian without a word, and moved to the woman in the red skirt. He opened the lid of the box, unwrapped the tissue with ceremonious care, and dropped to one knee. He took the right shoe and put it on her foot, and he placed the shoe on the top of his thigh as he tied it. He patted her on the ankle and ran his finger along it after the pat, saying, “Okay, darling,” as he stood and walked toward his regular seven and a half.
“How you been, baby?” Randolph said as he arrived at his regular, a fine light-skinned woman with a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She smiled and moved her eyes shyly away from his. Had he ever taken her out? He couldn’t remember, just then. Randolph pulled the right slingback from the box, put her foot on his knee, and guided the shoe onto her foot.
The Haitian woman walked her shoes up to the register, where the manager, a balding, heavy-set young man, sat ringing up sales. Randolph yelled to the manager, “That’s a twenty-nine”—Randolph’s sales number—“on that one, Mr. Rick.”
Randolph excused himself, content that the Panis was going to fit just fine, and walked around to the freak in the red skirt. “Those spectators gonna do it today, girlfriend?”
She scrunched up her face. “These shoes are too hard, Randolph.”
Randolph countered: “Don’t you like hard things?”
She laughed. “Not my shoes!”
He took the shoe off her foot, patted her ankle once again. “I’ll stretch these out with some magic shit”—it was plain old alcohol, and he kept it in the back—“okay? And, oh yeah, don’t forget about Tuesday night, hear?”
The woman in the red skirt smiled. “I won’t forget. I’ll lay those spectators away today, get them out on Tuesday.”
Randolph grinned. The front door opened, and a man and three women walked in. The man wore a matching shirt and slacks combination and the women wore hot pants and halter tops and tight-assed skirts.
Randolph crossed the sales floor, stepping around Jorge, who was sitting on the bench next to his girlfriend-of-the-week, and walked up to the pimp, a guy by the name of Felix. Randolph shook Felix’s hand, using a handshake that he used only on Felix, a handshake that he had otherwise stopped using with friends since 1975.
“All right, man,” Felix said.
Randolph said, “All right.”
“You gonna hook my ladies up today, hear what I’m sayin’? Some evening shoes, man.”
“I got just the thing, man.” Randolph could feel Antoine’s envious stare burn into his back. He postured theatrically, spread his palm out in the direction of the ladies. “Sizes?”
Felix pointed down the line, starting with two pretty fine ones and ending with some West Virginia–lookin’ girl. “Nine, seven and a half, and ten.”
Ten said, “I be a nine, Felix.” I be, shit. Randolph had to check his grin. West Virginia talked blacker than the black freaks.
Felix nodded as Randolph, looked at her feet. Randolph said, “Have a seat, all o’ y’all. I’ll be right back.”
He started for the stockroom, noticing the man with the long black hair staring at him, from his seat. What did he want? If he was into pumps, then Randolph didn’t mind, he made plenty over the years, selling high heels to men. But this one didn’t look like a punk, didn’t even look like the type to be buyin’ shoes for his woman. No, this one wanted something with him.
But Randolph put it out of his mind. When Felix walked in, twice a year, he dropped five hundred, sometimes a grand. So this was a special day, maybe a three-thousand-dollar day—a triple dot. At ten percent, three hundred dollars for a day’s work. Not bad for where he came from. Not bad at all.
In the stockroom, he tried to remember the sizes as he picked out the shoes. Nine, seven and a half, and … the West Virginia–lookin’ ho, with those country-ass feet—she had said nine. But she meant ten.
LATER, when the rush had ended, just as Felix and his girls had left the store, Randolph looked across the littered sales floor to the bench in the corner, where the man with the long black hair still sat. The Isley Brothers’ “Groove with You” came sweetly from the store speakers—Antoine had taken the funk down a few notches for the post-rush chill—while Jorge stood in the stockroom, putting dead soldiers back up on the shelf. It had been a good day, and Randolph had made some money. Now he’d see what that man had on his mind.
He crossed the sales floor, stepped up to the man. The man had risen out of his seat, a near friendly smile on his thoughtful face. He was taller than medium, like Randolph, though not as solid, more on the loose-limbed side.
Randolph stroked his black mustache, looking hard into the man’s blue eyes. “All right, man. What you want?”
The man took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Randolph. Randolph took it, read it, tossed it on the bench.
“Right now?” Randolph said.
“Yes,” the man said.
Randolph shrugged sadly and headed for the front door, the man walking beside him. Before he reached the glass, Randolph shouted over his shoulder, to the manager. “I’m takin’ the rest of the day off, Mr. Rick.”
Mr. Rick, running a tape on his calculator, did not look up. “See you in the A.M.,” he said.
Antoine shouted from the entrance to the stockroom in the back of the store, pointing down at the erratic pile of shoe boxes at his feet. “Where you goin’, Shoedog? You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you put up these thirty-fours!”
“You put ’em up, Spiderman. I got something I got to do.”
Antoine shook his head slowly as Randolph and the man walked out the door.
Out on the sidewalk, Randolph turned to the man. “You got wheels?”
“Right over there,” the man said, pointing.
Randolph looked it over, said, “Uh-uh.” He nodded to a late-model T-Bird parked on the street. “We’ll take my short.”
They walked to the T-Bird, Randolph tipping a bill to an old man who sat by the car, putting quarters in the meter on the half hour. Randolph gave the old man some parting instructions, along with a handful of change. The old ma
n thanked him and walked slowly up the street.
Randolph went to the driver’s side, put his key to the lock. He peered over the roof at the man with the long black hair, who was standing by the passenger door, waiting to be let in.
Randolph studied the man. “You’re new,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“You got a name?”
The man pushed his thick hair behind his ear, reached into the pocket of his denim shirt, and withdrew a cigarette. He paused before putting the filter between his lips, and squinted his blue eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve got a name.”
Randolph said, “What is it?”
And the man said, “Constantine.”
Chapter
8
WEINER looked down and studied the contents of the glass case. The ring he wanted sat near the back, wedged in the slotted felt of the display. He pointed in the general direction of the ring, waited for the liver-spotted hand of the clerk to light on the correct one.
“That’s it,” he said. “May I see it?”
“Of course,” the woman said, spreading cracked lips to reveal a perfect row of artificially white teeth. She retrieved the ring and laid it on a square of blue felt that she had spread on the glass.
Weiner picked it up—a simple number, a tiny diamond set in 14-karat gold—and examined it as he fingered the track winnings that were rolled in the pocket of his trousers. Nita had said, innocently enough, that she had never owned a diamond anything. She had said it the day before last, when Weiner had finally asked her out for coffee. She had said it as she looked down into the black of the coffee.
Weiner put the ring back down on the felt, deciding now that Nita would have her diamond.
“I’ll take it,” Weiner said.
“It’s lovely.”
“Wrap it for me, will you?”
“Of course.”
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