by Neely Tucker
“Okay, so,” he said to Alexis, “that’s done. Where were we?”
Alexis took a stance over his legs, her hips at his eye level, a wonderful sight. “You were getting me another chardonnay and groveling,” she said, “for your appalling lack of class.”
“Lack?”
“Taking that call? When we’re involved? You got a priority problem.”
“Hey, when there’s a call, there’s a call. If that had been a shoot, you would have taken it.”
“Not now I wouldn’t have.” She smiled down at him, a little drunk. “I’m on home leave.”
“I’m not.”
“So this is what they’ve got you doing now? Cops and robbers?”
“I don’t mind it.” He thought about it. “Most days I don’t mind it.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Back where?”
“Abroad, big boy. Domestic reporting? Metro? Going to the office? You?”
“I sort of got blown up.”
“I sort of didn’t know it blew off your dick.”
“It most certainly did not.”
“Then stop acting like it.”
“I think I got it pretty fucking—”
“Not any worse than a lot of hacks,” she said. “I was there the day they choppered you out, remember? I helped them chopper you out.”
“Actually, I don’t remember that. Something about loss of consciousness.”
“Yeah, well, look, it happens. Hrvoje, you remember, he was at the AP in Bosnia? Shot through the chest in the Congo, back on the job now, in where, I think he’s in South Africa. Saw him in Addis. Santiago got airlifted out of Sarajevo, just like you. He’s back. Ann got her face half–blown up in that café bomb in Amman. I was three blocks down. She had to fly to London, L.A., I forget which, for the plastic surgery. They’re still picking little bits of glass out of her face. David got taken hostage. He’s in—”
“Yeah yeah yeah, old home week, I hear you. But you’re not seeing this right. One, I mean, I don’t get to go back to another posting just because I want to. I’d have to convince them.”
“Why would they need convincing?”
“Word is I got a drinking and attitude problem.”
“This is new?”
“They seem to be taking it hard.”
“The international press corps is a floating drunk tank, don’t they know that? It’s your crowd. Brits drink more than we do every day of the damn week. A hard-core drunk in New York is a social drinker in London. And the Italians! Don’t even start me on my dad and his Italian buddies. The Germans, the French, probably the Spaniards, definitely the Dutch . . . remember that Polish television crew in Tuzla? Those guys were funny. Did you know that ‘vodka’ literally means ‘a little water’?”
“Not everyone grows up the daughter of a globetrotting diplomat,” he said. “The paper’s perspective is a little more Puritanical Americana.”
“Eddie just knocked back four glasses of cabernet at dinner. He—”
“We’re getting off topic. I’d been bugging John to call me all day. He had some good intel.”
“Yeah, well, this John person doesn’t put on fishnets and heels and fuck you real good.”
“He better not.”
She bit her lower lip, looking down at him, a finger under his chin, eyes dilated. She softened, her back slumping, leaning over into him. “Good. Thought you might have started playing for the other team, coming back home, finding some cute guy, planting flowers in the back, interior decorating—”
“You talking about my place?”
“It looks nicer than mine,” she whispered, playful.
“Look here.” He reached for his glass of wine, still on the table, making her sit up. “You can have mine, you want some more.”
Moving his left hand from her waist to the small of her back, he pulled her toward him and leaned back on the couch, balancing the wine in his right hand. She came forward lightly, balanced, her knees on the couch now, straddling him, blouse still open. She took the glass from his hand and moved forward. She fluffed the skirt up so it wouldn’t get caught in the bend of her legs, a movement that allowed him to slip his hands under the skirt and onto her ass, the skin so soft it made him blink. She could be so rough, one of the guys, knocking back shots in the hack hotel in whatever hellhole they were all in, and then make those little moves, so graceful, so feminine.
She reached down, with trickling fingers, to his belt buckle and zipper. She undid both, letting him free, stroking him, cupping him.
“Oh my,” she said, “you got a package for me, Mr. UPS man?”
“Special delivery,” he said, his breath coming short. “You can sign for this?”
“Kiss my neck,” she said, “and give me the package.”
Her throat humming against his lips, her back arching.
“Lower,” she whispered into his ear. “Lower. Like I like it. You know.”
• • •
Jimmy T’s didn’t have much of a crowd the next morning. It was overcast and dreary, one of those raw spring days when it was cold down to the bone and your nose itched, all that pollen. He opened the glass door of the place for Alex, letting her step inside before him, not even sure what time it was.
He had woken up just after eight thirty, gotten out of bed, and Alex said she was going to roll back over but then he said he had this rich-kid homicide to chase, and she groaned, “I am not even going to take a shower.”
While she was getting ready, he made a call to R.J. at home, giving him the kid’s name (R.J. and his longtime partner, Elwood, a painter of some distinction, recognized the family immediately), and then roughed out plans for a short daily to get the name on the record. Then he would go hard for a long takeout on the Bend, maybe for Sunday.
Alex had come downstairs then, her face puffy, hair bedraggled, wearing some clothes of his she’d pulled from the closet—sweats, rolled up at the cuffs, a T-shirt from the Chart Room in New Orleans, where he’d tended bar a million years ago. He gave her an Italian leather jacket (from Rome, when he’d been on assignment and it had gotten cold) out of the hallway closet and then they were ambling the three blocks down to Jimmy T’s, the neighborhood dive tucked into a narrow old row house on East Capitol.
Alex slid around a vacant four-top right at the entrance, navigated the narrow aisle, and plunked down in a booth along the back right side. She looked around, taking in the cracked vinyl seats, the green Formica table still wet with the rings of glasses and coffee cups of the previous occupants, the tin ceiling stained colors not found in nature.
“It’s so upscale,” she said finally.
“I only bring the classy broads here.”
Wanda came by and wiped down the table. “Wanda,” he said.
“Morning, sugar. Waffle and coffee?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What about you, sweetheart?”
“Is there a menu?” Alex asked, running her hands through her hair, pulling it back into a ponytail.
“Why don’t you just tell me what you want?”
“Ah, an omelet? Onions and mushrooms, a little cheese? And toast.”
Wanda, leaning over the table, finishing with the cleaning rag, “Drinking anything?”
“Orange juice. And water. Please.”
Wanda nodded and left, sidestepping a chair behind her.
“And the staff is so charming,” Alexis said, looking after her.
“Wanda’s all right,” Sully said. “Been here since Nixon. Or Kennedy. Doesn’t give that good-morning, good-to-see-you bullshit.”
“And you tip for this sort of service.”
“My aunt works in a place like this.”
“She does? Aunt who?”
“Mable. Still down in Nola. Not far from Tipiti
na’s.”
“And she’s a classy broad?”
“Until you piss her off.”
“Does that happen often?”
“By me? No. I got farmed out to her after my parents got put in the ground. My sister, she went to my dad’s people, out in Tucson. There was not a lot of shit to give Aunt Mable, not if you had any sense. I was thirteen and change when I moved in and by the time I turned fourteen it was clear who was the chief and who was the Indian. Wonderful woman, once you get past the chain-smoking alcoholic thing, and I mean that. Love her to death. Plus, she had this fighting cock in the backyard, Rojo? You did not want to get Rojo pissed at you, either. Right here, the forearm? Rojo did that.”
“You cannot keep a wild rooster in your yard.”
“Who said Rojo was wild? And this was in New Orleans. You don’t go messing with somebody’s chickens. Marie Laveau’ll turn up on your doorstep.”
“You’re making this up.”
“You don’t have to make shit up in New Orleans.”
“You don’t have an accent until you’re drunk or start talking about back home, did you know that? Why do you say the name of the place like it’s one word?”
“Because it is, cher.”
He leaned over to brush a stray hair from her face, dangling over her right eye, smiling at her then, the sleepy eyes, the face without makeup, no earrings.
“Think anyone can tell I stayed over last night?” she said, smoothing out the ponytail.
“Whyn’t you ask Wanda?”
“I don’t think Wanda gives a rat’s ass.”
“And you ask me why I tip.”
“I’m guessing you eat here more than at home.”
“Breakfast, anyway. When I eat breakfast. So what’s this project you’re shooting? All I know is that it’s about the Israeli pullout.”
“Depends on the access.” She shrugged, pushing back in the seat to let Wanda slide the plates in front of them and put down the coffee, juice, and water. She didn’t say anything and was gone.
Alexis sliced her omelet with a fork, then took a bite. “Richard’s going to write. It’s going to be a three-day series, starting on a Sunday. I’ve been on the Lebanese side so far, the soft-tissue stuff, lives in transition, like that. Sabra and Shatila. Then you go out into the Bekaa and wonder how many people are looking at you through binoculars.”
“The lovely Bekaa Valley, home to more spooks than anyplace on the planet,” Sully said pleasantly, sitting back. “I’s talking to this farmer out there this one time, way the hell out in this field? It’s all open country, you know, the mountains in the distance. The side of the road we were on was just being planted. You can see, or be seen, for a mile in any direction. Hadn’t been there five minutes and three cars pull up and stop at hundred-yard intervals. Guys get out of all three.”
“Ah shit.”
“I’m thinking I got to outrun these fuckers to the village or I’ll get Terry Anderson’s old room for the next six years. And then the guys start pulling out baskets. Baskets. They were picking fruit, this orchard the other side of the road.”
“Sweet baby Jesus.”
“Blood pressure dropped about eighty points in three seconds.”
“You miss it, don’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“See, that’s what I mean. We got to get you back out in the real world, doing real stuff. They got you doing what? A piece on some rich kid who got popped in the Bend? Tooting nose candy? So what?”
“The piece I’m doing, it’s more on Frenchman’s Bend. The rich kid’s murder looks like the way in. The Bend, it turns out, is the murder capital of the murder capital. It’s the deadliest spot, per square foot, in the deadliest city, per 100,000, in America.”
“Well,” she said, chewing her toast. “Wait a minute. Doesn’t sound all that bad, you put it that way. You want me to shoot it?”
He was drowning his waffle in syrup and looked up. “You said last night the great Alexis de Rossi was on R and R.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I could shoot a splashy something for you, for the Sunday takeout. I’m not running out there to do a daily on this rich little snot, I’ll tell you that, but I wouldn’t mind seeing what you’re up to. Keep an eye on you while I’m here.”
“How long is that again?”
“A week. Ten days. You know home leave. Doctor, dentist, bosses, shop-ops.”
The thing he liked about Alex—well, other than she’d never ask him about Nadia, instinctively knowing not to intrude on the truly private, and that she looked fabulous with her clothes off—was that he didn’t have to tell her the Bend was dicey, that it was violent, and ask her did she really want to do this. Alex, she’d done the civil war in Nicaragua, shit in El Salvador he didn’t even want to know about, guerrillas in the jungle, and that was before he’d met her in South Africa. The Bend wouldn’t come close to making her Top 10 Hellhole list.
“If they’re eyeballing you to make sure you’re good to go back abroad,” she said, finishing off the omelet—god, the woman could eat—“then knock this story out of the park, pass Go and collect your two hundred. Maybe I get some art to help get them juiced. Nobody on Metro is doing shit, artwise, at least that I can see. And stop popping off at people in the office. Your name came up at dinner. Eddie said you were ‘brilliant but erratic,’ and I nearly spewed my pinot. You get crossways of Eddie? You are so fucked.”
“Great tip.”
“See? That. That’s going to get you in trouble. Or more of it. Now. Today. Do some fucking work. Where you headed?”
“Track down the dead kid’s mom, his friends, touch base with some folks in the hood, maybe the cop who caught the case.”
“Good. You need to start wowing them again.”
“Second person in two days to tell me that.”
“They seem to be pegging you as more erratic than brilliant.”
“Keep fucking with me, go ahead.”
“Get this thing rolling, I’ll swing down by the Bend tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? What is it you’re so busy with today?”
“The Madison,” she said, stifling a yawn. “I’ll be very busy at the Madison’s spa. I need a massage and a good nap. Some Cajun kept me up half of last night. What’s with you and the bondage thing, anyhow?”
FIVE
BACK HOME WITH Alexis bundled off in a taxi, he went into the kitchen and made himself a morning mint julep. The pewter cup frozen, the tang of the herb, the frozen ice rattling—gotdamn. Bourbon. It was evidence there might be a benevolent God after all.
He sat down and looked at the phone. The night and morning with Alexis had cheered him, given him energy and a sense of calm, but there was no getting around looking at the worst part of the job: calling the mother of the recently and unnaturally dead.
Another long pull on the julep and the dread of punching the digits eased the tiniest of fractions, some tic in the back of his head faded, pressure being released from a valve. He blinked. He let out a long, slow breath, reminding himself to clean up any hints of his accent. Then he quit dicking around and punched in the number for the home of Delores Ellison and from that moment on, he knew it wasn’t going to end until he could tell her what had happened to her son. You didn’t wade into the realm of the dead unless you had a purpose.
The phone rang several times, and when it picked up he was about to start his spiel into voice mail when a woman’s voice said hello.
“Hello?” he said.
“Yes, hello?” The voice sounded tired, exasperated.
“Hello, ah, I thought I hit the recording. My name’s Sully Carter, I’m a reporter for the paper? And I was trying to reach Delores Ellison, in reference to her son, William Ellison.”
Air.
Then, “Yes. This is his mother. This is Delores.”
He blinked twice, rapidly, kicking into gear. He had thirty seconds, perhaps a minute to gain her trust or lose her. “Ms. Ellison, I hate to bother you, but it’s my job today to write a story about William and who he was and, what—what—all you lost with him.”
More air.
Then the woman’s voice said, “Billy. We called him Billy. His dad, we called William.”
“Yes, ma’am, Billy. I—”
“Everybody who knew him two minutes called him Billy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“His father’s been dead fifteen years now.”
“I heard about that, and I was sorry to have done so.”
“I just—I just—thank you for your interest in my son. He was the last piece of me on this earth. He was the last of the family, of the entire Ellison line.”
Medicated. She was laced on the stuff. The slowed speech, the precise diction, the world seeming to move at underwater speed, the world above water too painful to navigate, the crushing burden of sunlight.
“Yes, ma’am. You do have someone with you right now, don’t you?”
“Yes—what? Yes. A lot of people are here.”
“That’s great. That’s the best way to handle it. Ms. Ellison, I do not want to intrude in any way, but I have a very short period of time in which to write a story about who Billy was, and what he had going for him in life, and I hate—well, I just don’t talk to people over the phone in this type of situation. I’d like to come by for a few minutes and sit down next to you for a minute and let you talk about Billy. Just as little or as much as you’d like.”
He pinched one eye shut, hating how he sounded. Even working from a place of sincerity, cold-calling the relatives of the dead could only sound like a ghoulish pitch.
Still, you choked that down and you started with Momma. No matter where you went on the planet, if somebody under thirty got dead, the first thing any half-ass hack did was turn around to the next guy standing there and say, “Where’s his momma?”
Dads were not terrible by default. You could work with Dad, if you could find him. But the problem was, when dads lost their children? They tended to be angry or stoic or ready to whip your ass just for showing up. Worst, the absolute worst of all, they’d break down crying, great gut-wrenching sobs that left them leaning on a woman’s shoulder or bent over with hands on knees or—Sully’d had this happen—a grown man falling over on you, keening and sobbing, and you could feel the soul leaving the body, a great black blob that would then crawl over your skin and the flesh would shrivel and there was nothing to do but absorb it, let it go through you.