Gigolo Johnny Wells

by Lawrence Block

  She was thirty, which made her young by comparison with the other women who were Johnny’s usual clients. She was also quite attractive. Her appeal was less the Hollywood image of beauty than the Vogue image of chic sophistication. She was tall for a woman and she was very slender, with firm, pointed breasts and very slight hips. Her hair, originally a rather mousey brown, was dyed a pleasant rust shade. She wore it in a French roll and did not let it down when she made love, which she did quite well.

  Any number of men would have been more than willing to keep her company and join her in bed for no remuneration whatsoever. She was not the type of woman who needed a paid lover, and Johnny would not have been able to figure her out if he hadn’t boned up on some elementary Freudian psychology. Now, however, he knew pretty well what made her tick.

  She was a modern woman in the full sense of the word. She had graduated magna cum laude from Vassar and had taken graduate work at a school of interior design. After distinguishing herself at that school she found a well-paying job with a top firm of interior decorators. She stayed with the firm until her contacts were established in the field and then struck out on her own. Now she was a leader in her profession. Her income was sky-high and her work ideal.

  Moira had been married once, and briefly, to a man named Gerald Raines. He was a Wall Street investment counsellor and came from a wealthy and well-established Philadelphia Main Line family. She divorced him after less than a year, obtaining a Nevada decree on grounds of extreme mental cruelty. The divorce went uncontested. She asked no alimony and no settlement. She wanted only her freedom.

  That, Johnny knew, was the whole story of Moira Hastings. She was a career woman to the core. She wanted to call the shots and she did not want to be tied to anybody or anything. This made her the type of woman who preferred a paid companion to a voluntary one, if only because she paid for what she got. The money she spent established her relationship to her lover beyond any shadow of doubt. She was in the driver’s seat, now and forever. Her lover was not her equal and was not designed to be her equal. In this respect she was not dissimilar to a man who preferred a mistress or a whore to a wife.

  She was not bossy and she was not demanding. She made certain that her superiority was recognized but she never became obnoxious about it. She was generous — her orientation made her lover the more desirable as his cost to her increased. She never gave Johnny presents, as many women did. Only money.

  Johnny liked her.

  He called for her at twenty minutes of six. Her apartment was on 53rd Street near Park Avenue. She occupied the entire second floor of a reconditioned brownstone and, naturally, she had decorated it herself. The decor was a little modern for Johnny’s taste but he had to admit that she’d done a hell of a good job with the place.

  She was ready for him and she looked lovely. There was a fragile look about her, as if a man might crush her if he held her too tightly in his arms. Johnny closed the door and she came to him, her face up to be kissed. He held her gently and kissed her on the mouth.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I was reading and I didn’t notice the time.”

  “That’s all right.”

  They walked together into the living room. He went to the bar, took gin and vermouth and made them into a martini for her. He poured himself a very small drink of cognac and they sat together on the couch and sipped their drinks in silence.

  “Hell of a day,” she said finally. “That bitch of a Sutter woman has the taste of a barbarian. I showed her the color scheme for her damned house and she screamed. You should have seen what she wanted me to do to the place. Her idea of decoration is a cross between Byzantine and Mayan stupidity with a little jungle stupidity included. I think I managed to talk her out of it.”

  He said something appropriate.

  “You should see the house,” she told him. “She must have driven the architect out of his mind. Try to imagine a cross between Frank Lloyd Wright and a romanesque cathedral.”

  He did, and shuddered.

  “Uh-huh. That’s the idea. I got the story on how she wound up with the house, too. She hired Jacob Rattsler to do it. He’s as good a man as you can find and his price is high. He’s generally worth it. Then she explained just what she wanted and Jake’s stomach turned over a few times.”

  “I can understand why.”

  “You only think you can. You never saw the house. Hell, you never met the woman, Johnny. He told her he’d give her just what she wanted but he refused to take credit for the house. He wouldn’t sign his name to the sketches. She was dumb enough to go along with it and Jake decided to make it just as rotten as it ought to be for her to live in it. He may have had a little fun, because he came up with the most incredible monstrosity in all of upper Westchester. And she loves it. She thinks it has character.”

  “Why don’t you give her the same treatment?”

  “I’d love to. I’d really love it.” She sighed and took out a cigarette, put it to her lips. Johnny lit it for her. “But Jake can afford something like that. He’s got a reputation for eccentricity anyway and he’s established at the top. I’m not that outstanding yet. And interior decorators aren’t supposed to be oddballs. They’re supposed to be sincere professional craftsmen, not nuts.”

  She tossed off the rest of the martini and put the glass on the coffee table. “To hell with Martha Sutter,” she said. “Let’s get some food, Johnny. Where would you like to eat?”

  He pretended to think about it, then played the game the way it was supposed to be played. “Anywhere,” he said. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

  She always asked him where he wanted to eat. He always let her choose the spot. It was a little ceremony they went through, and he felt it was quite consistent with the rest of her personality. She wanted him to leave the decisions to her, and at the same time they had to pretend that he was doing this because he didn’t care one way or the other.

  They wound up at La Tete de Nuite, an expensive French restaurant in the east Sixties. Provencal murals decorated the walls and the waitresses wore abbreviated gamine costumes that stayed in good taste while revealing as much as possible of the girls, whose charms were definitely worth revealing.

  The menu was entirely in French, which didn’t bother Johnny at all. He read it easily and ordered a shrimp cocktail, onion soup, and duck with orange sauce.

  This was the result of another facet of his studying. Most evenings before he went to make the rounds of the pick-up bars he found a good restaurant which he’d never been to before. He had no more shame there over his ignorance than he had had at Brinsley’s with the clothing salesman. He asked the waiter the name of each entree, what it was, how it was pronounced. By now he could read menus in French, Spanish, German and Italian. He knew what each dish was and what it tasted like and how to order it — and he knew what wines went with what food.

  Moira ordered lobster thermidor and he selected a dry chablis to go with their meal.

  The meal was excellent. While they ate their chocolate eclairs and drank their steaming demi-tasse, Moira passed him a twenty under the table. He paid the waiter, left a good tip and pocketed the change. This, too, was standard operating procedure. He would just as happily have paid the tab himself, since he was able to afford it and knew he would get the money back from her. But she liked to pass him the money; it was another barely subtle reminder of their relationship. By giving him money she reinforced her position in the affair.

  They left the restaurant and taxied back to her apartment. He put his arm around her in the back seat of the cab and she relaxed against him. He guessed that she would want to make love when they were inside the apartment. White wine almost always had an aphrodisiacal effect upon women.

  He was right.

  “Kiss me,” she said. He took her in his arms. She was tall but not as tall as he was, and she stood on the tips of her toes, pressing her mouth to his. Her mouth opened quickly and his tongue shot into it. Her mouth was warm, sweet fr
om the wine and as he kissed her she ground her hips gently but sensually into his.

  Now we switch, he thought.

  That was more of the pattern. As soon as their relationship turned sexual their roles were reversed. He was supposed to be the aggressive male, she the submissive eternal female. It was an obvious reversal — he was not supposed to be the cave man, batting his mate over the head and dragging her off to his lair by her hair. Not quite.

  Instead he took her and led her to the couch, where he kissed her some more and began the preliminary fondling of her breasts. She lay relatively passive in his arms, enjoying his kisses and caresses, and he told her how beautiful she was, how fine she was. The words came automatically from his lips and he wondered whether she heard them or whether they served solely as a kind of verbal background music for their activity. A little of both, he decided. A little of both.

  Finally he raised her in his arms, stood up and carried her to the bedroom, stopping to kiss her passionately on the way. He was glad that she wasn’t heavy — as it was, it wasn’t much trouble at all to carry her to the bedroom. But some of the women he’d had would have given him a hernia.

  He set her down in the bedroom and closed the door. Then they went into the next part of their ritual. She raised her arms high over her head and stood as motionless as a statue. She closed her eyes.

  He stood before her. Briefly he ran his hands over her body. His hands lingered at her breasts and buttocks. She had large breasts, firm and pointed, but her buttocks were taut without an ounce of extra flesh.

  Then he dropped his hands. For a moment he, too, stood motionless. Then he began to undress her.

  He pulled the dress slowly over her head and folded it over the arm of a chair. He removed her half-slip, her bra, her garter belt and stockings, her panties. When he took off her shoes and stockings and panties she stood poised on first one foot and then the other, so that he could get the clothing off. When she was naked he stood and looked at her, then removed his own clothing as well.

  Then he moved close to her again and began to caress her nude body. His hands took hold of her breasts and squeezed gently. He touched her thighs. He kissed her throat.

  C’mon, he thought. Get going. It’s your cue.

  She knew her cue. Her eyes opened and she gave a little sigh as she fell into his arms. She pressed her mouth to his while her hands amused themselves. She began to breathe very hard and very fast all at once, and he bent over to scoop her up easily in his arms and deposit her gently on top of the bed. He held her with one hand while he pushed the covers away. Then he laid her down and stretched out beside her.

  There was one good thing, he thought. The ritual was pure baloney phoney from start to finish, but it had one definite point in its favor. For some odd reason the little game the two of them played made him responsive as a Texas steer. The simple act of undressing her while she stood like a statue got him excited. He didn’t need to work at it.

  He took her breast to his lips and kissed hard. He ran his hand down over her flat stomach. She was all smooth and clean and she smelled of a pleasantly subtle perfume. He fondled her to heighten the flow of excitement that was coursing through her.

  At first, he thought, he’d been a little in awe of Moira. More than a little. She was a new type of woman for him, something a little bit special, and he’d been fascinated by her.

  That was changed now.

  She was still exciting, but now he could see through her and that changed a lot of things. When you could see the uncertainty and foolishness in a woman you couldn’t set too great a prize on her. She had clay feet just like all the other statues. She was more fun than most, but she was still just a client, just a field to be plowed.

  Now it was time to plow.

  Hang on, he thought. This one will knock your hat off.

  And then it began. She was violently excited now and she wasn’t making any attempt to contain the fury of her passion. Her nails raked his back and her teeth were active on his shoulder

  And then things began to happen faster and faster, and she thrashed violently on the expensive bed, and even the expensive bed groaned in metallic protest at the fury of their violent love-making.

  Faster.

  The world began to dip and sway, and the dominant woman submitted to violent male activity, and he was on top now, he was the boss, he was the king, and it was happening, happening.

  They crested and the whole world went crazy.

  They were sitting up in bed, smoking cigarettes and reading. He was reading a copy of Partisan Review. She was leafing through House Beautiful and making sarcastic comments.

  Suddenly she put down the magazine.

  “I can’t take it,” she said. “The pace. I’m going to tell that Sutter bitch to cool her heels for a while. I’m going to get out of this damned town for a week. No, make that two weeks.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “On a vacation,” she said. “I don’t know where. Vegas, maybe. I was there once for a weekend. I got my divorce in Reno but I drove to Vegas once. It’s a good town. You throw your money away and relax and enjoy it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Two weeks,” she said. “And maybe I’ll run it to three if I feel like it. Ever been there?”

  He shook his head.

  “Want to come along?”

  Chapter Six

  HE PLAYED IT COOL but not too cool. He knew that if he acted as enthusiastic as he felt he’d be weakening his position. She valued articles in accordance with her difficulty in obtaining them. So he played hard to get — but not too hard.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a distance.”

  “Travel is broadening. You must be getting sick of this town, Johnny.”

  “It’s a good town. I don’t know.”

  “Think about it.”

  He thought, or pretended to. “How would we work it? I don’t care for artificial husband-and-wife routines.”

  “Adjoining rooms. A good hotel asks no questions. Especially in Nevada.”

  He nodded. “That seems sensible,” he said. “But why would you want me along?”

  “For company. You know me, Johnny. I get lonely easily. And I enjoy your company.”

  He didn’t put up much of an argument but let himself be talked into it easily from that point on. The arrangements were simple enough. She would pay all expenses — air transportation there and back, the hotel bill, all meals. She’d give him spending money and gambling money.

  It sounded fine.

  The next morning he paid two more weeks rent on his room at the Ruskin, told the manager he’d be out of town for an indeterminate period of time, and packed his two suitcases. He didn’t want to check out of the Ruskin, not for two weeks rent. He liked the room and wanted it to be waiting for him when he returned. Besides, he couldn’t take all his clothes with him. He had to have a place to leave them.

  He met Moira and they taxied to LaGuardia, caught a flight to Vegas non-stop. They registered in adjoining singles at the Calypso House, the newest and most expensive hotel and gambling palace on the Strip. They went to their rooms, changed, and met in the hallway. Johnny figured they’d grab a bite to eat, then see a show or something. But he hadn’t figured out Moira’s second greatest vice, second only to sex.

  It was gambling.

  They went to the casino right off the bat and she bee-lined for the roulette wheel, pausing only to convert a thousand dollars into fifty-dollar chips. He followed her and stood by her side. She bet the chips one at a time, betting an individual number on each spin of the wheel. He watched her lose two hundred fifty dollars in five straight spins of the wheel. It was her money, but he couldn’t figure out why she wanted to throw it away on sucker bets. The house had the percentage no matter what kind of gambling you were doing. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any house. But the house edge in roulette was a little better than average, which was frightening. Not as bad as the horse races, m
aybe, but bad enough.

  “Why don’t you switch to craps,” he suggested. “The odds are better.”

  She turned on him. She handed him four chips. “You switch to craps,” she said.

  “I didn’t mean — ”

  “I’d rather play alone,” she snapped. “Meet me later.”

  He didn’t argue with her. He took the chips and held them in the palm of his hand. Fifty bucks a chip, he thought. He could put all four on one roll of the dice if he wanted. He could bet them one at a time. Or he could cash them in, tell her he’d lost his money. It wouldn’t matter whether she believed him or not, because she wouldn’t give a damn.

  He compromised. He walked to the nearest cashier’s cage and passed over the four chips. “Cash two of these,” he said. “And break the rest into dollars.”

  The cashier did a long double take and Johnny decided that it must have been an unusual request. It made sense to him. He’d drag half the money for himself, then use the others to pass the time. Gambling wasn’t his kick, but it would make the time pass a little faster.

  The cashier followed instructions. Johnny put two fifties in his wallet and found his way to a crap table. He played the way very few people play dice. He bet only against the shooter and made his bets only after the shooter had rolled his point. When it was his turn with the dice he passed. His bet was always two dollars, never more and never less.

  When you shoot craps in this manner the odds are slightly in your favor. If you do it long enough, and consistently enough, you will get rich. If you do anything long enough and consistently enough with the odds always constant and unyielding in your favor, you will grow rich.

  This is mathematics.

  He played for two hours. He passed the dice many times in the course of the two hours, a practice which seemed to amuse some of the players. They couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to roll.

  He was even with them. He couldn’t understand why they’d buck the odds.

  At the end of the two hours he cashed in one hundred and forty dollars worth of chips. It was a small profit but it pleased him. He had been lucky. The odds weren’t that strongly in his favor. At one point, when a shooter made five straight passes, He was beginning to lose faith in higher mathematics. But he was pleased.