by Ted Lewis
“How are you finding the champagne?” she asks.
“Fine,” I tell her. “It’s good champagne.”
“You’d know, would you?”
I just look at her.
“Okay,” she says, “take your pants off.”
I look at her some more and she sighs.
“I know I said it right,” she says. “And I know you heard. So do it. Take off your pants.”
As she speaks the last sentence, she wobbles to one side slightly and has to release one hand from the gun to steady herself on the silk bedspread. The gun slips slightly and I blink involuntarily in case her movement’s all it needs to set off the hammer, but she straightens up and takes the gun in both hands again saying, “Come on, do it. This is the way this game’s played.”
I look at her for a moment or two then I unbuckle my belt, unzip and step out of my pants.
“Throw them on the bed.”
I throw them on the bed.
“Turn around,” she says.
I turn around. From behind me I hear the sound of her pulling my pants to her and then there’s the clink of my handcuffs as, if I’m guessing rightly, she’s releasing them from my belt. So it occurs to me, if she’s doing that, then she’s no longer holding the gun, therefore I turn around and find that I’m right; the gun’s lying on the bed next to her and that being the case, the first thing I do is to pick the gun off the bedspread and uncock it and put it back in my holster.
“Oh, Christ,” she says, as if she’s about to burst into tears. “Christ. Now you’ve spoiled everything. Now everything’s going to be ordinary.”
Now what is going on inside me can be divided into separate parts: one part is full of rage, anger at my being her fall guy for the last half hour, urging me to smack her around a little just to show her how I feel. The other part is the way I feel about her, the fact that here is this girl, this fantastic girl, kneeling on the bed in front of me, and the things I want to do to her are pulling me in a direction I want to follow.
“Oh, shit,” she wails. “That could really have been good, it really could.”
Then it breaks and the next thing I know I’ve stripped off my coat, fallen next to her on the bed and pushed her down beside me. Her clothes are so flimsy and easy that it takes no time at all for me to pull them off her and then when she’s naked, I make love to her with an almost clinical fury. When I finally enter her, after this furious preamble, she seems to have given herself entirely, insofar as she is totally wild as a result of my attentions, as wild as I wanted to make her, completely loose, her body describing with its motions the effect I’m having on her and my entry is sublime, a perfection. Even when I’m fully inside her, it’s as if she wants to turn herself inside out to make more room for me. We thrust at each other, our sweat soaking the silken bedspread, slipping and sliding toward our separate orgasms, and when they happen, I feel breathless at the release, the way the final shudder seems to last even longer than what’s led up to it. When I’m finally spent, it’s not like with other women; I don’t immediately feel the soft flaccid ache and want to withdraw straight away, separating myself from the flesh I’ve just used. I want to stay the way I am, remain inside her, bask in her inner heat, smell the salty sweat mixed with the perfume that now has a coarser smell. But I’m not allowed to do this because almost immediately after her final shudder, she wriggles herself off me and, grimacing, slides from under me off the bed. Picking her blouse and her undies off the bed, she walks across the room to a door and goes through it then I hear the sound of water filling a bathtub. Then she reappears still naked, still carrying the two wispy items of clothing, and she crosses the room again and disappears out of sight through the double doors.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed and begin to get dressed and while I’m doing that I hear the sound of a fresh bottle of champagne being popped out in the other room. When I’m dressed, I walk over to the bathroom and go in. Like the rest of the suite, the bathroom is enormous and like the area in the first room the bath is sunk into the floor with steps leading down into the water, the brilliant turquoise of the tiles shimmering through the water’s surface and illuminating the room with different shades of green.
The bath is almost full now so I bend down and turn off the gold-plated faucets and there is silence again. I go over to the wash basin and turn on the faucets and look at myself in the mirror above but I don’t stare into my eyes for more than a moment. I wash my hands and face,then I comb my hair and button up my coat and walk out of the bathroom across the bedroom and through the double doorway.
The girl is on the divan in the sunken area drinking her fresh champagne and looking straight ahead of her. She’s now wearing her blouse and her undies and she’s half sitting, half sprawling, her legs thrown straight out in front of her. Even though I’ve just made love to her, looking at her like that makes me feel like starting all over again. But that is a thought entertained only by myself.
I walk down the steps, turn a new glass right side up, pour in some champagne and take a drink. There is a long silence and finally she says, “Like I said earlier, after him, there aren’t any other guys.”
I finish the rest of the champagne and put the glass back on the transparent table.
“Well,” I say, “I guess that takes care of everything.”
“You’re damned right it does,” she says. “You should be able to remember where you came in.”
“I guess so,” I say, and walk up the steps across the room and out.
Outside I cross the hall and push for the elevator. When the doors open it’s the same operator with the same deadpan expression. I get in and he looks at me and says, “Going down?”
“The lobby,” I tell him.
“The lobby it is,” he says, pushes the button and the elevator begins to drop.
Murdock is already in the bar when I get in there again. The crowd has thinned out a little now, and Murdock is sitting alone in one of the booths, but I pretend not to notice him and go straight over to the bar and sit on a stool. The bartender is not the same one that was on this morning but even so when he approaches to take my order, he lets it show in his face that he knows I’m a cop and that means a stool being used up that isn’t bringing him in commission. When Murdock joins me on the next stool, the bartender’s expression is doubled in spades. But all the same, he can only take our order and when he’s done that, Murdock says to me, “You walked in as if you were still asleep. You okay?”
“Sure, I’m fine. How’s the suite?”
“It’s great,” Murdock says. “You should see it. I’m never going to go back home again.”
“That’s fine.”
The bartender returns with our drinks. Murdock asks again, “You sure you’re okay?”
“Look, I told you, I’m fine. What’s the matter with you?”
“No,” he says, “but you look as if you’ve just been screwing or something.”
“You’re nuts,” I tell him. “At this time of the evening?”
“That’s what it is,” Murdock says. “You’ve been screwing. Since when has the time of day bothered you?”
“Shut it, George.”
“Come on,” he says. “That’s it, you bastard. I should know the signs by now. You’ve been sticking it up somebody.”
I take a drink.
“Christ,” Murdock says, “you really make out, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I really make out.”
“I mean, I don’t want to drag up things too much, but Christ, it’s not exactly surprising that you and Barbara went your separate ways. I mean, I never knew such a guy even when you were married.”
I take another drink.
“That’s right,” I tell him. “I’m a great guy. Everybody knows it.”
“Even wh
en—”
“Look George,” I tell him, “the point’s been made, okay?”
It’s Murdock’s turn to take a drink.
“Sure,” he says, “anything you say.”
I light a cigarette.
“Look, forget it, George,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean anything. I’m tired, that’s all.”
“It’s all right,” Murdock says.
There is another silence and Murdock takes out his own cigarettes and lights one. When he’s done that, I say to him,“I had a call from Foley earlier.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He had some news for me. He told me Albert Styles is due in town if he’s not here already.”
Murdock thinks about that for a moment or two.
“Who in Christ could he be interested in? I mean, don’t tell me Florian’s been bucking the Organization.”
“Not a chance.”
“One of Florian’s boys then?”
“Florian would see to that himself. He doesn’t have to pay out the kind of money Styles works for.”
Murdock thinks some more.
“It could be Florian. For instance, he doesn’t have to be out of line; maybe some uncle has some nephew he wants to promote.”
“Then if Florian was whacked, the uncle and the nephew would be whacked by the Organization. You know that and so would they. Plus Styles is a very careful guy; he’d make sure he wasn’t into anything he could put himself on a spot for.”
“Yeah, I know,” Murdock says. “So why?”
“Well, Pete put it to me that maybe he was coming to town to hit my brother.”
Murdock laughs.
“Yeah,” I say.
Murdock shakes his head.
“That guy,” he says, then he signals the bartender and orders two more drinks and after the bartender’s delivered them, Murdock says, “still, if Styles is around, there has to be a reason. So what do we do, hand over the information to Draper?”
“I guess so. Only thing is, though, if Styles is here, say, at Florian’s invitation, for some reason we can’t figure, then Draper very possibly knows about the deal already, right?”
“If Florian wanted Styles free to operate, maybe. But then Styles doesn’t need that kind of insurance. He’s never needed it so far.”
“I guess so,” I say. “But, shit, if Draper does know that’s fine, but if he doesn’t, Christ, let somebody else tell him. He told us how we were to spend our time over the next week, so fuck him; let his other little helpers find out and pass on the good news.”
Murdock thinks about that for a while.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe we should do like Draper said. I mean, he told us didn’t he, anything at all, anything we came up with, go after. Now naturally there’s no way that Albert Styles is coming here to hit your brother. It just ain’t right but he’s coming, and Draper’s going to be jumping up and down on the ceiling if he finds out and we haven’t gone after him. And anyway, suppose Florian doesn’t know; then Draper doesn’t know. Hell, we’ve got to pass it on.”
“Maybe he’s just passing through. And maybe he’s not coming at all and Pete’s just trying to put a little by for his old age.”
“Pete didn’t say where Styles would be?”
I shake my head.
“Then we ought to ask Pete again,” Murdock says. “At least we ought to get somebody to talk to him.”
“Okay, okay,” I tell him. “We’ll go and talk to Pete. Whatever you say.”
“You know I’m right,” Murdock says. “If we didn’t follow this up and Draper doesn’t know about Styles and he finds out, then we’d be getting our uniforms out of the attic.”
“That wouldn’t worry me any,” I tell him. “Draper can have my badge any day he wants and he knows it. He knows I don’t give a shit and that’s what sticks in his throat: there’s nothing bad enough he can do to me; he knows I’d stuff my badge right down as far as his shoes.”
“I know,” Murdock says. “That’s one area where I envy you like where I have to work my time because of my situation, you’ve got nothing anchoring you; where I sway with the breeze, you, you could blow your nose on Draper’s tie and enjoy the memory of it.”
“Hey, bartender,” I call, “two more, will you. Yeah, you’re damned right; I’m in a good position. I don’t have to take any crap from Draper. That’s why I don’t give a fuck about seeing Pete Foley or running Styles out of town or—”
“Or finding who’s out to get your brother,” Murdock says.
“George,” I say to him, “I know I got a couple of drinks inside me, but I still get the general aim of remarks like that one, you understand?”
“Okay,” Murdock says. “I didn’t mean anything. It just seems even though you...”
“You know nothing about it, George, and you never will. I’m the only guy who’s an expert on that subject, okay?”
The bartender brings two more drinks and we sit there in silence for a while. Eventually George says, “Where’s Pete most likely to be tonight?”
I shrug.
“That bastard could be anywhere. What we could do is go to a few places and ask around if he isn’t there. What do you say to that, George? How does that plan grab you?”
“That’s fine with me,” Murdock says, draining his glass. “Why don’t we do that?”
I smile to myself and reach for my glass and that is how we spend the rest of the night, going around places, looking for Pete Foley. But on this particular night, it transpires that Pete is nowhere to be found, and it takes about a dozen places and four or five hours and various drinks to come to that conclusion. And by that time, I also conclude by default that it’s time for me to go home. On the way back, it comes over the car radio that a couple of kids have tried holding up a liquor store and got away with around four hundred dollars, having shot and killed the owner’s wife in the process, but we keep on heading for my apartment because that little event is no concern to Murdock and me.
At least, that’s where I thought we were heading, back to my apartment. But when I open my eyes to the morning light, I find I’m staring at a different ceiling from the one in my own place, a ceiling all bright and fresh painted. As my eyes are taking in this surprising aspect, I become aware that the sounds of the morning are wrong, too; they’re different from the ones I usually take for granted. I jerk myself upright and look around at my surroundings and I’m in a very nice, very spacious, very sunny double bedroom and the first thing I realize is that the paintwork is the same color as the paintwork in the Plaza Suite.
I look across at the other bed and it’s been slept in. While I’m taking that in, the headache that’s been waiting in the wings of my temples swoops into the center of my forehead and rocks me back, so I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand up, working on the assumption that if I move about I might shake the headache back where it came from. This, of course, is sheer optimism on my part because the headache hammers away even harder while I’m standing by the bed. I move away from the side of the bed and as I do that I notice my suit and shirt, neatly laid out on the back of a chair over by the window. So I go over to the chair and pick up my pants and put them on and go over to the bedroom door and open it and I’m presented with the sight of a spacious reception room. In the center of this, George Murdock is sitting on a divan in front of him a low table, and on the table is a breakfast tray with eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, everything, and George is totally absorbed in working his way through what’s on the tray, a napkin tucked neatly in his collar.
I stand in the doorway for a moment or two and if Murdock knows I’m there he doesn’t make any sign; he just carries on with his work, so eventually I say to him, “Nice looking breakfast, George. At least, from what you have on your chin, it looks nice.”
; Murdock doesn’t look up as he fills his mouth with some more eggs and bacon.
“Right,” he says. “You’d also have liked the room service that brought it if you’d been awake.”
“What makes you think I’m awake?” I ask him.
“By the way,” Murdock says, “I meant to tell you the booze is over there.”
“You could have let me find it myself,” I tell him. “You could have left me that.”
Murdock grins and I go over to where the drinks are and pour some vodka into a glass; then I go over to the table where Murdock’s eating, pick up a jug of fresh orange juice and fill up my glass. Murdock goes to work on his toast and I go over to the window and look out on the shining morn, thinking of the night before, the way I can’t get the images of the girl Lesley out of my mind’s eye, the memory of the defeat from my thoughts, and, most of all, how I’d like to go right on back up there and set the record straight. While I’m thinking that, Murdock pours himself some coffee then sits back and wipes his mouth with his napkin.
“Well,” he says, “like they always say, start the day right and it stays right.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and take another drink of my vodka.
“We going in to see Draper?” Murdock asks.
“Why should we?” I tell him. “When we’ve got something to tell him, we’ll go in and see him.”
“So what then?”
“Like yesterday, we carry on sniffing the way Draper wants us to do. What else can we do?”
“We can’t do anything else.”
“Right,” I tell him. “But first, I’m going to take advantage of this set-up I kindly dropped you into. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Right ahead of you.”
“You got a clean shirt I could have, George?”
“In the closet in the bedroom.”
“Fine.”
In the bathroom I fill the tub and get in and I can’t get out of my head the picture of the empty sunken bath up in Lesley’s suite, the green water undulating very slightly, waiting. And then my exit and the words she spoke before I left.