The dormer window was smudged with wintry Parisian dusk; lamplight defined her figure, silhouetted her face. She was smiling, and she said, a flickering amusement tempering her tone: “Feeling better?”
A bit gruffly, I said: “If you could turn over now … !”
I massaged the nape of her neck, rippled my fingers along her spine, and her torso vibrated, like a purring cat. “You know,” she said, “I’ve thought of a name for your dog. Phoebe. I once had a pony named Phoebe. And a dog, too. But maybe we ought to ask Mutt. Mutt, how would you like to be called Phoebe?”
Mutt squatted to sprinkle the carpet.
“You see, she loves it! Mr. Jones,” she said, “could I ask a great favor? Would you let Phoebe spend the night with me? I hate sleeping alone. And I’ve missed my other Phoebe so much.”
“It’s all right with me, if it’s all right with … with Phoebe.”
“Thank you,” she said simply.
But it wasn’t all right. I felt if I left Mutt here with this sorceress, she would never belong to me again. Or, perhaps, I’d never again belong to myself. It was as if I’d slipped into furious white water, an icy boiling current carrying me, slamming me toward some picturesque but dastardly cascade. Meanwhile my hands worked to soothe her back, buttocks, legs; her breathing became rhythmic and even. When I was sure she was asleep, I bent and kissed her ankle.
She moved, but did not waken. I sat down on the edge of the bed, and Phoebe—yes, Phoebe—jumped up and curled beside me; soon she was asleep herself. I had been loved, but I had never known love before, and so I could not comprehend the impulses, the desires careening around my brain like a bobsled. What could I do, what could I give Kate McCloud that would force her to respect and return my love?
My eyes toured the room and settled on the fireplace mantel and the tables supporting the silver-framed picture of her child: such a serious little boy, though sometimes he was smiling, or lapping an ice-cream cone, or poking out his tongue and making comic faces. “Kidnap him”—wasn’t that what the Black Duchess had advised? Absurd, but I saw myself, sword unsheathed, castrating dragons and fighting through infernos to rescue this child and bring him safely to his mother’s arms. Pipedreams. Bullshit. And yet, instinct somehow told me the boy was the answer. Surreptitiously, I tiptoed out of the room and closed the door, disturbing neither Phoebe’s slumbers nor those of her new mistress.
TIME OUT. I NEED TO sharpen pencils and begin a new notebook.
THAT WAS A LONG TIME out; almost a week. But it is November now, suddenly, unreasonably cold; I went out in a hard driving rain and caught a dandy. I wouldn’t have gone out if my employer, Miss Victoria Self, the High Priestess of the Dial-A-Dick, Call-A-Cunt services, hadn’t sent an urgent message ordering me to her office.
It beats me why, when you think of the money that woman must be coining, she and her Mafioso confederates, they can’t fork out for slightly less sleazy headquarters than the two-room dump above a 42nd Street porno shop. Of course, the customers seldom see the premises; they only make contact by telephone. So I guess she figures why waste money pampering the help, us poor whores. Drowned, the rain water all but gushing out of my ears, I sloshed up the two flights of creaking stairs and once more confronted the frosted-glass door with chipped lettering: THE SELF SERVICE. WALK IN.
Four people occupied the stuffy little waiting room. Sal, a short hunky Italian wearing a wedding ring; he was one of Miss Self’s moonlighting cops. And Andy, who was on probation for a burglary charge; but, if you didn’t look too closely, he might pass for an average college-kid type; as usual, he was playing a harmonica. And then there was Butch, Miss Self’s blond, languid secretary, who, now that the last of his Fire Island suntan had deserted him, resembled Uriah Heep more than ever. Maggie was there, too—a plump sweet girl: the last time I’d seen her she had just got married, greatly to Butch’s indignation.
“And now guess what she’s done!” Butch hissed as I walked in. “She’s pregnant.”
Maggie pleaded: “Please, Butch. I don’t see why you’re making such a hullabaloo. I only found out yesterday. It won’t interfere.”
“That’s what you said when you sneaked off and married this bum. Maggie, you know I love you. But how could you have let such a thing happen?”
“Please, honey. I promise. It won’t happen again.”
Not mollified, but somewhat, Butch rustled papers on his desk and turned to Sal.
“Sal, I hope you’re not forgetting you have a five o’clock appointment at the St. George hotel. Room 907. His name is Watson.”
“The St. George! Jeez,” grumbled Sal, whose nickname is Ten Penny because of his ability, when his dick is fully erect, to line ten pennies along its thick length, “that’s in Brooklyn. I got to haul-ass way the hell over to Brooklyn in this weather?”
“It’s a fifty-dollar date.”
“I hope it’s nothing fancy. I’m not up to anything fancy.”
“Nothing fancy. Just a simple Golden Shower. The gentleman’s thirsty.”
“Well,” said Sal, stepping over to a water cooler in the corner and grabbing himself a Dixie cup, “I guess I’d better tank up.”
“Andy! ”
“Yessir.”
“Put that miserable harmonica in your pocket and leave it there.”
“Yessir.”
“Is that all you delinquents do in jail? Get yourselves tattooed and learn to play the harmonica.”
“I ain’t got any tattoo—”
“Don’t talk back to me!”
“Yessir,” said Andy humbly.
Butch swerved his attention my way; in his expression there was an extra-added smugness hinting that he might be privy to some ominous information concerning me. He pressed a buzzer on his desk, and said: “I believe Miss Self is ready to see you now.”
Miss Self seemed oblivious to my entrance; she was stationed at a window, her back to me, pondering the downpour. Thin grey braids were looped around her narrow skull; as always, her stoutish figure bulged inside a blue serge suit. She was smoking a cigarillo. Her head swiveled. “Ah, so,” she said with the leftover remnants of a German accent, “you are very wet. That is not good. Have you no raincoat?”
“I was hoping Santa Claus would bring me one for Christmas.”
“That is not good,” she repeated, advancing toward her desk. “You have been making good money. For sure you can afford a raincoat. Here,” she said, producing from a drawer two glasses and a bottle of her preferred tranquilizer, tequila. While she poured, I wondered anew at the severity of the setting, starker than a penitent’s cell, utterly unadorned except for the desk, some straight-back chairs, a Coca-Cola calendar, and a wall of filing cabinets (how I would have liked to have got a look inside those!). The only frivolous object in view was the gold Cartier watch flashing on Miss Self’s wrist; it was so out of character. I puzzled as to how she had acquired it—was it perhaps a gift from one of her rich and grateful clients?
“Kicks,” she said, emptying her glass with a shudder.
“Kicks.”
“Alors,” she said, sucking her cigarillo, “you may recall our first interview. When you applied here as a potential employee of The Service. Recommended by Mr. Woodrow Hamilton—who, I regret to say, is no longer with us.”
“Oh?”
“For a serious infraction of Our Rules. Which is precisely what I want to discuss with you.” She narrowed her pale Teutonic eyes; I felt the queasiness of a captured soldier about to be interrogated by the Commandant of the Camp. “I acquainted you with those rules in complete detail; but to refresh your memory, I will remind you of the more important ones. Firstly, any attempt by a member of our staff to blackmail or embarrass a client will result in severe retribution.”
A vision of a strangled corpse floating in the Harlem River insinuated itself.
“Secondly, under no circumstances will an employee ever deal directly with a client; all contacts, and all discussion of fees, must be made through our auspices. Thirdly, and most especially, an employee must never associate socially with a client: that sort of thing is not good business and can result in very disagreeable situations.”
She doused her cigarillo in the tequila, and downed a generous slug straight from the bottle. “On September eleventh you had an appointment with a Mr. Appleton. You spent an hour with him in his room at the Yale Club. Did anything unusual happen?”
“Not really. It was just a one-way oral deal; he didn’t want any reciprocation.” I paused, but her unsatisfied demeanor indicated that she expected to hear more. “He was in his early sixties, but in good condition, hearty. A likable guy. Friendly. He talked a lot; he told me he was retired and lived on a farm with his second wife. He said he raised cattle—”
Miss Self impatiently interrupted: “And he gave you a hundred dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Did he give you anything else?”
I decided not to lie. “He gave me his calling card. He said that if I
