Grimes heard footsteps approach his door, heard a knock on the door, saw the brass knob begin to turn. He straightened in his chair, softened the tightness that had crept into his face.
CONSTANTINE knocked on Grimes’s door, entered.
Grimes sat behind his desk, wearing a canary yellow polo shirt under a blue blazer, his gray hair swept back. He motioned for Constantine to sit in the chair in front of the desk. Constantine walked across the room, had a seat in the chair, and crossed one leg over the other. He waited as Grimes relighted his cigar.
Grimes let some smoke pass from his mouth. “Would you like one, Constantine?”
“I don’t smoke them.”
Grimes looked lovingly at his cigar. “This one’s got a Dominican filler, with a Connecticut Valley wrapper. Assembled in Jamaica. I go for the pyramid tip, myself, though that’s a matter of preference over taste, the way it feels on your lips.” He drew on it, looked back at Constantine. “It’s a shame. You really should be interested in good things. As you get older, your more basic passions decrease. Naturally, your desire for material pleasure gets greater.”
“Possessions only complicate things,” Constantine said. “I can’t fit a sixty-thousand-dollar car into my backpack.”
“Or a woman,” Grimes said.
“No.”
“But you could fit a nice cigar into your pack, couldn’t you?”
“What’s your point?”
“Only this. Within the scope of his ambition—even his limited ambition—a man should always strive to have me best. And by extension, to do his best.” Grimes parted his thin lips into something resembling a smile. “I think you’ve got that quality in you, Constantine. I think you just don’t know it.”
“My ambition is to keep moving,” Constantine said.
“You might think so,” Grimes said. “But I saw something in you yesterday, when I first mentioned the job. You were interested in the money—any man would be—but it was more than that. You were hopped on the job itself.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s why I put you on the downtown hit. You’re into the challenge of it. I think you’re going to do fine.”
“Valdez and Gorman don’t think so.”
“They’re plumbers. I don’t worry about what they think. Neither should you.”
Constantine rubbed his thumb on the green leather arm of the chair. “So what’s in this for you? You obviously don’t need the money.”
“That’s right.” Grimes tapped ash into a crystal tray on the corner of his desk. “I don’t have to be doing this at all, Constantine. I think, in your own way, you could get along without it too. So I think you can understand it when I say that, from time to time, I need this sort of thing.”
“Need what, exactly?” Constantine said. “Not the rush. You’re not in the middle of it. You watch it go down, from behind that desk.”
“I’ve seen all the action I’ll ever want to see. And I killed plenty of men in the war, if you think that means something. No, this is something else.”
Something else, maybe, but nothing mysterious. Grimes was frightened of his mortality, his fading virility, his diminishing worth. The affliction of time. Constantine thought of Randolph, how he’d been summoned, like his draft number had come up, and Polk, who couldn’t walk away. The only thing Grimes had left was the grip he kept on his men, the ability to bring them back every year, through blackmail, for one more job. Constantine didn’t like Grimes, and he didn’t trust him. But now he knew him, and knowing him diminished his power. Grimes, all polish and hunt-country gloss—just another pathetic old man.
“Anything else?” Constantine said. “Polk’s waiting for me downstairs.”
Grimes dragged on his cigar, rolled the lit end around in the ashtray. He glanced at his watch, men back at Constantine. “One more thing. Come over here to the window, will you? I’d like you to see something.”
Grimes got out of his chair and stepped behind it. Constantine rose, walked behind the desk, and stood next to Grimes in the square of sunlight that fell into the room. They looked out the window.
At the tree line, a hundred yards from the house, Delia stepped out of the woods. She walked with her head down, a stick in her hand, her hips moving languidly, her blond hair loose, the breeze keeping it off her face. Constantine felt his stomach drop; from the window, he thought that he could smell the freshness of her hair.
“Every day,” Grimes said smoothly, “I watch her walk out of those woods, same time. It’s a small thing, really. But to watch her, to know she’s mine—”
“I understand,” Constantine said.
“Of course you do.” Grimes kept his gaze on Delia. “You were taken with her yourself, earlier today. Everyone is. The others, when I’m around, they act like she’s invisible. Then, behind my back, they laugh, talk about her, talk about what they’d do to her. They’re cowards.” Grimes’s face, deeply wrinkled, turned grim in the light “I admired your courage today, when you stood out of your seat to touch her hand. I admired it, and at the same time I hated it. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“Good.” Grimes turned to face Constantine. “Because if you ever act on it, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and I’ll bury you, out in those woods. Understand?”
“My friend’s waiting for me downstairs,” Constantine said.
Grimes said, “Then go.”
Constantine turned and walked for the door. Before he reached it, he heard the voice of Grimes. “You should be more clean, Constantine. There’s dirt all over the back of your shirt.”
Constantine thought of Delia lying on the shirt, quivering wet, naked in the mud of the stable. He felt a touch of the Beat as his hand turned the knob of the door.
Chapter
11
POLK, Randolph, and Weiner waited in the driveway for Constantine to come from the house. Jackson had walked out behind them, gotten in his car. He pulled the car alongside the men and rolled down the window.
“Pick a good one tomorrow, hear?” he said to Randolph, and Randolph knew he meant the car. Jackson winked at Randolph, but Randolph did not acknowledge the wink. Randolph considered Jackson a loser, worse than a bum. There were those who could work, and those who couldn’t; those who could and who chose the hustle were worse than those on the bum.
As Jackson drove toward the gate, Delia walked from the woods, past the men. The men tracked her walk, admired it, Polk more deeply than the rest. She did not look at them as she passed them and entered the house.
Five minutes later Constantine opened the front door and stepped out. He crossed the driveway to where the men had grouped themselves around Randolph’s T-Bird.
“What’s going on?” Constantine said.
Randolph said, “Waitin’ on you.”
“Well,” Constantine said, “here I am. What now?”
“We usually go out after the meeting, have a few,” Polk said. “Like a tradition. You up for that, Connie?”
“I guess I am,” Constantine said. “I need to check back into my motel, take a shower, change my clothes.”
Randolph said, “We’ll pick up Polk’s heap, swing back out.”
“You guys can meet me in the motel lounge,” Constantine said.
Weiner said, “Where would that be?”
“On the west side of Georgia, just over the District line. Place doesn’t have a name, just says ‘Motel.’”
“I know the place,” Weiner said, then looked at his wristwatch. “I’ll see you gentlemen around eight.”
Randolph said, “Right”
Weiner marched to his car, a midsized, cookie-cutter GM product—from where he stood, Constantine could not make out if it was a Buick or an Olds—and drove off. Randolph, Polk, and Constantine climbed into the T-Bird, Polk squirreling himself into the backseat. Randolph turned the ignition key and headed down the driveway to the open gate.
“What’d Grimes want with you?” Polk said.
“Pat on the back,” Constantine said.
Polk said, “Thought it might have something to do with the woman.”
Constantine said, “It didn’t.”
“She is fine, though,” Randolph said.
“Yes,” Constantine said.
“Too fine,” Randolph said, “for a poor motherfucker like you.”
“I guess you’re right,” Constantine said.
Polk tapped Constantine on the shoulder. “Hey, Connie, how about passing me back a smoke?”
Constantine took the pack from his shirt pocket and tossed it over his shoulder to Polk in the backseat. Polk took a cigarette, wedged it between his lips, passed the pack back up to Constantine.
“I thought for sure,” Polk said, “that Grimes was going to talk to you about the woman.”
“Come to think of it,” Constantine said, “he did mention something.”
CONSTANTINE asked for and checked into his old room after Randolph dropped him at the motel. He napped in the room, falling asleep immediately, the venetian blinds sealing out most of the light. He awoke a short time later in the dark.
After his shower Constantine had the last of his vodka while he cleaned up his beard and dressed in fresh clothing. Before he left, he checked himself once in the mirror, then switched off the light.
Coming out of the elevator, Constantine could hear the Ohio Players’ “Sweet Sticky Thing” playing from the lounge. He entered, scoped the bar. In a far corner, he saw Polk and Randolph sitting with a woman at a roundtop. Constantine crossed the room, passed juicers huddled over their drinks at the bar, and stopped at the table.
“Connie!” Polk said, standing at once, shaking Constantine’s hand. Polk had put on a textured dress shirt, a Puerto Rican-looking number, over his white T-shirt. His windbreaker was spread over the back of the chair.
“Polk. Randolph.” Constantine smiled politely, extended his hand to the middle-aged woman in the chair. “My name’s Constantine.”
“Charlotte,” the woman said, closing and then opening her eyes slowly in drama-class fashion. She had deep purple eye shadow and penciled-in brows, sharply pointed at the tips. A shock of white-blond hair had been bleached into the front of her black bouffant. Straightaway, Constantine thought of Lily Munster.
“Good to meet you.”
“And you, honey.” Charlotte gave him a nicotinetinted smile. “Polk told me you were a looker. He was right.”
“Thanks.”
“Sit down, lover,” Randolph said, “and have a drink.”
Constantine sat, pushed the netted orange candle away from him, to the center of the table. A bandy-legged waitress came by, jutted her chin upward at Constantine. The motion revealed a scar beneath her chin.
“Vodka rocks,” Constantine said.
“What flavor?” the waitress said, impatiently jiggling change in her black apron.
“Just vodka.”
The waitress gave the rest of the table an eye-sweep. “Anybody else?”
“Two more of these, sweetheart,” Polk said, twiddling his fingers between his and Charlotte’s glasses.
“You?” the waitress said to Randolph.
“I’m good,” Randolph said, cupping his hand over his glass of soda water. The waitress gave Randolph an unclean look, wiped quickly at the area in front of Constantine. She brushed ashes off the table, half of them going into her hand, the other half drifting into Constantine’s lap. The waitress turned to walk away, and Randolph watched her feet.
Randolph said, “Eight and a half.”
“What’s that?” said Constantine.
“The lady wears an eight and a half. An A width, though. Tougher than a motherfucker to fit.” Randolph eyed Constantine’s denim shirt. “Speakin’ of threads, man, that outfit there—what the fuck is that your uniform?”
Constantine flashed on his high school military academy and service days, chuckled to himself. “I guess so,” he said. “Too many choices, too many complications. You know what I’m saying?”
“I know you’re a little off,” Randolph said. A softness came into his eyes. “But you’re down, I guess.”
Constantine glanced at Polk and Charlotte, huddled across the table, laughing. Eddie Kendricks’s “Keep on Trucking” had begun to blare through the bar speakers. Randolph sipped at his soda.
“You don’t drink,” Constantine said.
“I drink,” Randolph said. “But I keep it in check. Drinkin’s ruined most every man I know. When I get into the store every morning, I got to be on my game, one hundred percent. Can’t let those other boys get the jump on me, man.”
“But you do something,” Constantine said, looking into the pinkish white of Randolph’s eyes.
RANDOLPH grinned. “I do like my herb, now and again”
“You holdin’?”
“Sure am. Shit I got’ll make your dick hard. You wanna get high?”
“That would be good,” Constantine said.
The two of them excused themselves and headed for the bathroom in the back of the lounge. Constantine went in first, motoring quickly to one of two urinals. Randolph had a look around the blue-tiled bathroom, then leaned back against the wall, next to a casement window. He pulled a manila coin envelope and some papers from his maroon sport jacket.
Constantine urinated while Randolph shook a line of pot into two papers he had glued together. He twisted a tight one, passed it through his lips, then ran a flame beneath the number to dry it, give it a seal. Constantine washed his hands in the sink as Randolph flicked his lighter and burned one end of the joint.
Randolph hit the weed, closed his eyes, held it in. He cranked open the window, looked through the crack, saw a barely lit alley, and blew the smoke out into the night. Randolph passed the joint to Constantine. Constantine blew the ash off the end, took a hit. He paused, felt the smooth warmth in his lungs, exhaled.
“Nice taste,” Constantine said.
Randolph formed an “okay” sign with his thumb and forefinger. “Sens.”
“What if someone comes in?”
“The bartender ran with this lady I used to know,” Randolph said. “Homeboy’s cool.”
Constantine passed the joint back to Randolph just as the bathroom door swung open.
“Gentlemen!” Weiner said, marching in. His floral print shirt had been buttoned to the neck, the tails tucked into his brown Sansabelt slacks. A beret, the same shade of brown as the slacks, sat cocked on his head.
Randolph reproduced the joint that he had cupped when the door had opened. He put it to his mouth, hit it once more, and passed it to Weiner. Weiner smelled the sweet wisp coming off the burning end, smiled, hit it, and talked as the smoke passed through his lips.
“Nice tea,” Weiner said.
“Sens,” said Randolph.
“What about Polk?” Constantine said. “He comin’ in too?”
“Not his bag,” Weiner said. “He knows what’s going on, though. Said you guys were in here doing one of two things—fucking each other or smoking grass.” Weiner grinned as he handed the number to Constantine. “It made Charlotte blush. And it takes something to make her blush.”
Constantine drew on the joint, then turned it around in his hand. He felt himself smile stupidly. “Hey, Randolph. Come on over here, man, let’s get serious.”
Constantine blew the ash off, put the lit end in his mouth, felt it singe his tongue. Randolph stepped up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and took the shotgun from Constantine.
“If you don’t mind,” Weiner said, “I’ll have some of that.” Constantine turned, blowing a great jet of smoke into Weiner’s face.
The bathroom was filled now with the heavy smoke of marijuana. Constantine took another pull, handed the joint to Randolph.
The door opened. A middle aged man wearing a loosely knotted tie stepped inside. He stopped walking, had a look at the three men, and went to the head to urinate. When he was done, he zipped up his fly and faced Randolph.
“How ‘bout a hit off that stick?” he said.
“Why not?” Randolph said. “Everyone else in this motherfucker’s had some.”
The man hit it, kept hitting it until Randolph plucked the joint from his mouth. The four men stood in the bathroom and laughed.
Constantine lighted a cigarette, savored the good taste of the tobacco in his lungs. He patted Randolph on the shoulder and said, “Let’s get out of here, man.”
The four of them were still laughing as they walked out into the lounge.
The stranger waved them off and returned to his seat at the bar. The Isley Brothers’ “What It Comes Down To” played now in the lounge. Constantine heard himself singing it as they walked to the table. The ground felt soft beneath his feet; the room and the people in it glowed faintly in the barroom light.
Constantine sat, noticing that Polk had ordered him another drink. He killed the rest of the watered-down vodka and quickly had a sip of the new, toasting Polk with the glass. Polk, his arm around Charlotte, winked back. Constantine dragged on his cigarette, blew a smoke ring in the direction of Randolph.
Randolph said, “Heard you singin’ that song.”
Constantine smiled. “The Isleys, man. ‘Three Plus Three.’ Ernie wailed on that one.”
“ ‘Who’s That Lady,’ ‘Summer Breeze’—shit, Constantine, he wailed on that whole motherfucker. Boy played some guitar.”
“I wore the grooves out on the disc. I had the original—”
“On T-Neck,” Randolph said, giving Constantine skin.
“Nineteen seventy-three,” Constantine said. “I had just got my license, bought this Dodge—a sixty-six Coronet Five Hundred. Yellow, with black buckets, a swivel tach.” He closed his eyes, had a taste of his drink. “I had this girlfriend then, girl by the name of Katherine. I used to drive her in that car through Rock Creek Park, on Saturday afternoons. The Mighty Burner was the deejay on WOL, remember?”
“You know I do,” Randolph said. “I had just moved up here, from North Carolina.”
“When I’d ride with Katherine in that car, I practically used to pray the Burner would play that song.”
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