“Well,” whispered Marsha, “I think he’s in the wrong end of town.”
Andrea watched the man as he moved slowly about the room, evidently in search of someone in particular. He moved near them and leaned against the bar, hoisting a heavy boot onto the brass rail and scraping the gritty sole there until Andrea winced. He set the helmet on the bar and beat an impatient tattoo with his long, thick fingers. He unzipped his jacket with a determined tug, sternly pushed his sleeve to check the time, and continued to beat his fingers against the mahogany. Andrea looked at the matting of coarse black hair that curled across the back of his hands and over the high, tight yoke of his T-shirt.
Andrea turned to Marsha. “I think he’s just where he belongs.”
“You like him?” hissed Marsha, alarmed by the approval in Andrea’s voice.
“Don’t you? He’s different from the other men we see in this place.”
“Yes,” said Marsha, “he’s not as nice.”
“How do you know?”
“His clothes. What he’s wearing.”
“That jacket cost two hundred if it cost a penny. Those boots are at least a hundred and twenty-five. His clothes cost more than yours and mine put together, and that’s counting all the cash we’ve got in our pockets.”
“That may be,” admitted Marsha uneasily, “but I still don’t like him. I don’t trust men who drive motorcycles and wear leather, and besides, I think there’s something wrong with him.”
“What?” demanded Andrea, glancing at the man again.
Marsha lowered her voice even more. “Look how he’s tapping his fingers—he’s out of beat with the music. How can you be off the beat when it’s disco playing? There’s something definitely wrong.”
“That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at.”
“Andrea, the difference between this man and the other men in here is night and day. And this man is definitely night.”
“I know,” said Andrea quietly, looking at him in the mirror.
“Well I think you ought to forget any ideas you’ve got about that one.”
“Don’t lecture me, Marsha.”
“What’s he doing in here anyway, dressed like that?”
“When are you going to realize that not everybody belongs to a Harvard final club—and not everybody wants to either. If I didn’t know you better I’d think you were the one afraid of men.”
Marsha’s eyes narrowed, “I’m not afraid, I’m just cautious, which is something I’m beginning to think you don’t know anything about. Andrea,” said Marsha carefully, after taking a small sip of her drink, “you’ve been off lately.”
“Off?” Andrea knew what Marsha meant, although she had no intention of admitting it. She had not confided to Marsha the degrading discovery that she was not her parents’ natural child, much less that she had no idea who her real parents might be: their names, condition, nationality, or reasons for abandoning her. Though she had pleaded with Cosmo and Vittoria, they had steadfastly refused to tell the circumstances of their taking her in, and Andrea’s anger was only increased by their recalcitrance.
She now felt alienated from them, and from her entire life in Weston.
“You’ve been taking these mood swings,” said Marsha. “Subtle, but I can see them.”
“What you’ve been seeing is your Remedial Psychology notes.”
Marsha lapsed into scowling silence.
The bartender, who had gone upstairs for ice, returned. He greeted the man in the leather jacket with a brief nod and came down to their end of the bar. As he did so, the man in leather withdrew his hand slowly from his jacket and held it out for the bartender to shake. Andrea saw that there was a small manila envelope, bulky and sealed with cellophane tape, cupped in his hand. The bartender, in his, held several folded bills of large denomination. Andrea carefully turned her head away, but kept her eyes locked on the great hairy hand of the man in the leather jacket; the exchange was quickly completed. This done, the bartender pulled a bottle of expensive imported beer from the cooler, snapped off the cap, and slid it across the bar to the man. He took it without thanks or the offer of payment; the bartender moved away without expression. Andrea was flushed with excitement, certain that she had just witnessed a transaction involving drugs, and she would have been willing to bet that it wasn’t just grass in the sealed manila envelope.
Andrea glanced at Marsha to see if she had noticed, but Marsha’s attention was focused on the dance floor. Andrea continued to watch the reflection of the man in the leather jacket, and now and then she turned to look straight at him. He seemed less tense now, and his foot scraped against the brass rail in time with the heavy disco beat. With one hand kept in the pocket in which he had thrust the bartender’s money, the man contentedly sipped his beer; he looked round the room without apparent interest, and did not seem to take any notice of Andrea, or her attention.
Marsha spun slowly round on her bar stool. She had to tap Andrea’s shoulder to draw her notice away from the man in leather.
“Do you want to go upstairs for a while?” she asked.
“Not right now. You go ahead.”
Marsha looked at her friend for a long moment. “What are you up to?” she asked in a serious voice.
Andrea set her drink down. “I’m not up to anything, Marsha—it’s just that I decided to make my presence known to that man over there—to see what happens.”
“I honestly don’t think—”
“I know what you honestly don’t think, but there’s nothing to worry about.” A smile played across Andrea’s mouth. “I’ve got all Joanna’s rules for taking care of yourself written down on the inside of my cuffs.”
Marsha laughed. “All right, all right.” Then she was no longer smiling: “Andrea, it’s just that most of the men we meet in places like this are real professional types and—”
“You mean they’re ‘safe’?”
“Yes. They have their reputations to protect, so they’re not going to do anything completely outrageous. But this one over here certainly isn’t professional, and I don’t think he’s safe at all. Maybe I’m just overreacting, but if he makes a move or anything happens, make sure the lights are kept on. Oh, and by the way, what about that party on Goodwin Place? We’re supposed to go over there with Joanna at midnight.”
Andrea shrugged. “Listen, I don’t imagine anything is going to happen. This man isn’t really my type. But he’s a challenge, that’s all. He’s the most interesting man in this place, because he’s so out of place, so I’m just trying to see how good my technique is.”
Marsha raised one eyebrow. “Well, aren’t we the hard woman?”
“Go upstairs, Marsha. Find something hot for yourself.”
Andrea stared at her reflection in the mirror. She waited until Marsha had disappeared up the stairs before turning back to the man.
He was looking at her; he winked slowly, and held her gaze as he tilted back his head in order to swallow the last of his beer. Andrea smiled nervously.
The man shoved his helmet down the bar; it knocked over Andrea’s empty glass. He stood and stretched, arching his back. The chiseled muscles of his chest strained the black cotton T-shirt.
“Your friend there . . .” he nodded towards the stairs. “She thinks I’m Albert DeSalvo.”
“Who?” said Andrea, confused.
“The Boston Strangler,” replied the man. His voice was deep and full. “But don’t worry, Albert DeSalvo’s in prison now.” He paused, and tugged at a gold chain around his neck; the pendant was a small gold Coke bottle. “He makes necklaces in the prison shop.”
Andrea bit her lip in embarrassment: “You heard what she said?”
“I heard her,” he said, and laughed. �
�I always do it with the lights on anyway.”
Andrea smiled and took a sip of her drink.
“My name’s Jack.”
He got her a fresh drink, and another beer for himself, again not paying. Andrea told him that she had recently begun her sophomore year at Wenham, and that she was supposed to be going to a party in another twenty minutes. He had taken Marsha’s place, leaning against the bar on one elbow. One foot was on the floor and the heel of the other boot was caught on the bottom rung of the chair, his legs opened toward her. One of the buttons of his fly was undone.
“Dance?” he said, but it was no question.
Jack moved easily, and as the slow disco built he edged closer to her, dropping his hand onto her waist. He pressed his hips against hers, brushing his crotch against her thighs. Andrea did not pull back, but closed her hands over Jack’s, and they moved together in perfect rhythm to the driving beat. His dark eyes grazed over her face every few seconds, down her neck to her breasts and back up, with no apology. Jack’s arrogance fascinated her. He flaunted himself and his sexuality—but Andrea did not care.
Sweat gleamed on Jack’s forehead and cheeks. The full, heady scent of the leather and perspiration engulfed Andrea, and she breathed it in deeply.
Jack leaned closer to her and brushed his mouth against her ear. “I don’t have another helmet,” he said. “You afraid to ride without one?”
21
Jack turned the Harley into the driveway of a large two-story, green-shingled house, maneuvering the machine carefully into the narrow space between a battered jeep and the cellar storm doors. He revved the engine once, tensing his body with the sound, and then killed it. He slammed the kickstand with his heel, and in the same motion swung his other leg over and stood aside. Andrea dismounted clumsily; perspiration beaded her forehead and the nape of her neck.
She looked round her at the dark neighborhood. Street lights were obscured by the branches of tall, full-leaved trees. Nearby houses, all with unlighted windows, lay in deep shadow, and although there was no air about them of dilapidation or abandonment, none appeared inhabited. There was a muffled drumbeat from several blocks over, more tom-tom than rock.
“Where are we?” she asked. The ride from the bar had taken no more than fifteen minutes, but Andrea had not recognized their route. This neighborhood was wholly unfamiliar; she supposed that, since they had not crossed the river, they were somewhere south of Boston; possibly they were in one of those places she knew only by its name: West Roxbury, Roslindale, or Dorchester, for instance.
“Jamaica Plain.”
“Is that actually within the city limits of Boston?” she asked curiously; then blushed in the dark, remembering that this was not the man to be plied with trivial questions.
Jack did not bother to answer. He walked round to the front of the house, and Andrea, when she realized that she was not going to have an invitation to follow, moved to catch up with him.
The first step to the wide front porch was missing, and two cinder blocks, rough with old mortar, took its place. The warped, unpainted planks of the porch undulated toward either end and creaked softly beneath Andrea’s careful tread. Behind the screen door, which bore a gash through it like a sword stroke, burned a pink wall light in a hallway of yellow paper with reflective silver stripes.
She wondered briefly if he would hold the door and allow her to precede him inside, but she contented herself with hurrying through after him when he flung it open.
He tossed his leather jacket onto the hook of a large Victorian hall stand that had recently been spray-painted a light gray. He laid his black, mirror-visored helmet carefully on one of the marble-topped arms.
In the hallway, a wide staircase led to a landing so dark that Andrea could not make out the pattern of the stained glass windows there; double doors opened on either side, and at the end there was a narrow door with a transom. Through the doors on the left, which were partially opened onto a large dining room with corner hutches and a grime-encrusted crystal chandelier, Andrea could see that a motorcycle had been dismantled: the larger pieces were laid neatly in rows on the floor, and all the smaller workings were carefully placed atop the enormous mahogany table that had been pushed up against the marble hearth.
Rock music of the softer variety played at a low volume behind the closed doors on the right. Andrea thought there was probably a roommate, and she told herself she wouldn’t even be surprised if it turned out to be a woman. She had heard of strange arrangements in these outlying neighborhoods of the city; of cooperative houses or semicommunes where people sometimes slept together, and sometimes did not, and brought people home, and were casual about sex and strict about vegetarianism. She tried to prepare herself: there would be a man there, or a woman, and they would be introduced, and she and Jack would sit down and talk for a few minutes, and then Jack would say, “Why don’t I show you the rest of the house,” and the other person would know that they were really going up to have sex, and Andrea would know that the other person knew, and she would smile and not be embarrassed.
But when Jack pulled open the doors, Andrea was dismayed to find not one housemate, but four.
A swarthy man with wavy black hair stretched sleeping across the sofa beneath the shaded front window. One dark hand rested on his bare chest and the other was shoved under the waistband of his green army fatigues. The large buttoned pockets on his thighs were lumpy with God-knew-what. A woman whose bright orange-red hair was tangled about her thin shoulders lay beside him, her back to the rest of the room and her face burrowed into the space between the cushions and the back of the couch.
Between the fireplace and the interior wall, on shelving of unpainted planks and dusty bricks, was a fascinatingly large, complex, and expensive stereo system. In the fourth corner were two overstuffed armchairs, upholstered in velour with a green-and-blue bargello pattern that was almost as offensive as the hallway wallpaper.
A tall, slender man with thinning brown hair and a sparse beard sat cradled sidewise in the left-hand chair, his long legs hooked over one arm as he leaned back against the other and leafed disinterestedly through an antique issue of Time. In the second chair, like a matching bookend, slouched a woman in an identical position. Her silver-white hair was cut so close that at first Andrea, seeing her in the same blue work shirt and jeans as her companion, took her to be a man. Her face was obscured by a paperback book held so close to her face that Andrea wondered how she could possibly focus the print. The lettering on the cover was too stylized for Andrea to make out at such a distance and in such dim light. She had an almost irrepressible urge to turn on the lamp that stood between the two chairs so that the bookends might not ruin their vision.
“Well well,” said the man in the chair, ripping out a page of the magazine, crumpling it, and throwing it in their direction, “Jack Smack returns.”
“Hi,” said the woman behind the paperback.
“Jack Smack could eat no fat,” said the bearded man, and this time threw the whole magazine. “His wife—” He looked more closely at Andrea. “Hey, did she come on the bike—or in a stroller?”
“Say hello to Sid,” said Jack. “That’s Morgie, improving her mind.”
Morgie pushed the book right up against her face to hold the page, and then flashed Jack a stiff middle finger. Her nails were long, pointed, and painted a glossy white.
“That’s Dominic and Rita on the couch. They’re communing with their astral bodies.”
“Hi,” grinned Sid, with obviously feigned camaraderie. “Can I call you Flora?”
“My name’s Andrea.”
The paperback was lowered, and Andrea saw a pair of extraordinarily pale gray eyes, slightly crossed. Morgie’s white face was narrow and sharp, and her thin mouth was painted a vibrant red. She looked like a valentine. “I read this book once,” she said, “and there was t
his girl named Andrea in it. She got raped and then put in jail for killing this man who turned out to be her uncle. So it was incest too. It was a good book, did you read it?” Morgie’s voice was so thin and rasping that Andrea had to fight the impulse to cringe.
“Want a beer?” asked Jack.
Andrea nodded; Sid and Morgie raised their hands to be included. Jack touched Andrea on the shoulder with a tenderness for which she was grateful in such alien straits.
He was gone before she began to wonder if she shouldn’t follow him into the kitchen. She looked around her helplessly. How was she to act toward them? What was she to say? Andrea realized suddenly how genteel her life had been, without her ever thinking it so. She stood vaguely in the center of the faded cotton Oriental rug. No one asked her to take a seat, but Andrea thought perhaps they did not wish to call attention to the fact that there were no other chairs in the room.
At last, feeling herself conspicuous standing in the middle of the room, she seated herself cross-legged before the stereo system and made out as if she were concentrating on the music.
It was the grass they smoked in the alley behind the Brimmer House, Andrea decided, that made her feel so strange. If she had had more, all this wouldn’t have bothered her; if she hadn’t smoked at all, she would have been able to deal with everything.
The music was on tape, and one incomprehensible song followed another; Andrea, who sat facing that corner of wall where the stereo apparatus was situated, grew almost afraid of turning around, and only now and then glanced at the unstirring sleepers on the sofa. She knew she was still stoned when she realized with what fascination she watched the rhythmical rise and fall of the dark man’s hairless chest. Only when he finally moved in his sleep, thrusting his hand all the way down inside his pants, did she look away, in embarrassment. Though it seemed an eternity since he had left for the kitchen, Jack had not yet returned. The tape was nearing its end, and when there was no more music, Andrea knew that she would not be able to continue as she was, staring at the half dozen expensive components.
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