The girl was Nefertiti, the girl was Cleopatra as she must have really looked, the girl was colored, her skin as brown as nicotine, her eyes glowing and glinting and black, her hair cropped tight to her skull, huge golden earrings dangling, mouth full and parted in a beautiful wicked smile over great white sparkling teeth, the better to eat you with my dear, he had written sonnets about girls like this.
There was behind her the insinuating beat of a funky jazz tune, Thelonious Monk or Hampton Hawes, there was behind her the smoky greyness of a room indifferent to skin, the insistent clink and clash of whiskied ice and laughter, the off-key humming of a sinewy blonde in a purple dress, the fingersnapping click of a lean dark Negro in a dark blue suit, there was behind her the aroma of bodies, the aroma of perfume. And — also behind her, also seeming to rise from far behind her where lions roared to the velvet night and Kilimanjaro rose in misty splendor — rising from far behind her like mist itself, and undetected by her as she stood in smiling welcome in the doorway, one long brown slender arm resting on the door jamb, was a scent as comforting as a continent, he had written sonnets about girls like this.
“Well, come on in, honey, do,” she said, and turned her back and went into the room.
He followed her in, immediately closing and locking the door behind him, shutting out the menace of Freddie and Lou, shutting out the menace of the sharpshooting K and the smokestacking Kruger, the memory of Merilee, the promise of whatever secret the jacket would reveal. He enclosed himself in a warm protective cocoon and watched the girl’s lovely sinuous behind in the tight Pucci dress as she walked across the room ahead of him. She turned a small pirouette, lifted one hand in introduction, wrist bent, and announced, “The cat downstairs. He can’t sleep.”
“Give the man a drink,” someone said, and Mullaney thought Here we go again.
“Is that a bullet hole in your shirt?” the girl asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “How can you tell?”
“When you’ve seen one bullet hole,” she said, “you’ve seen them all. Sit down and tell me how you got it.”
He sat in an easy chair near the window where the borough of Queens winked its nighttime sky against the greater Friday glow of Manhattan, and the girl sat on the arm of the chair with her thigh in its Pucci silk tight against his arm, and the scent rising again from her, strong and intoxicating; he did not need the drink someone pressed into his hand.
“I was cleaning my revolver...” he started.
“Oh, you were cleaning your revolver,” the girl said.
“Yes, and it went off.”
“You must be more careful,” the girl said. “Are the fuzz after you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered honestly.
“I thought they might be. The reason I thought they might be is because the person who lives downstairs is an old lady of seventy years of age who can hardly walk because of her arthritis, and not a man in a pretty yellow shirt with a bullet hole in it.”
“If you knew I wasn’t the lady downstairs, why’d you let me in?”
“I’m partial to blue eyes.”
“My eyes are brown.”
“That’s why I let you in.”
“But you said...”
“I’m drunk, who knows what I’m saying?”
“What’s your name?”
“Rose.”
“Really? My mother’s name was...”
“No.”
“It’s not Rose?”
“No. It’s Abigail.”
“All right, why’d you let me in, Abigail?”
“Don’t call me Abigail. My name is Melanie.”
“Is it really?”
“Absolutely. Melanie is from the Greek, it means black.”
“But is it your name?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
“You also said it was Rose and Abigail.”
“That’s right, it’s Melanie Rose Abigail. Do you like that name?”
“I like it.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
“I like Melanie best.”
“Why’d you let me in the apartment, Melanie?”
“I didn’t want the fuzz to get you, that’s right, call me Melanie, say Melanie. I don’t like the fuzz to get anybody, not even murderers. Are you a murderer?”
“No, Melanie.”
“Then why are the fuzz after you?”
“Because they think I look suspicious.”
“You do look suspicious.”
“That’s because I’m a gambler, and also because I have a bullet hole in my shirt.”
“No. It’s because you have the look of a man who is searching for something, and Mother always taught me to regard such a man with suspicion and doubt.”
“Is that how you regard me?”
“Yes. Who put the hole in your shirt?”
“A man named K.”
“Who is a lousy shot.”
“I don’t think he was trying to hit me.”
“Then why did he shoot at you?”
“To scare me.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“What are you searching for?”
“Half a million dollars.”
“Will you settle for a clean shirt that doesn’t have a bullet hole in it?”
“Do you have one?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“If you have one, I’ll settle for it. For the time being.”
“Oh my, what will the man want next?” Melanie said, and rolled her eyes. She extended her hand to him. “Come,” she said.
“Where?”
“To where I may have a shirt or two laying around.”
“Which is where?”
“Questions, questions. Don’t you trust me?”
“The police arc in the building. Should I trust you?”
“Honey, who are you going to trust? When the fuzz come busting in here, which they will most certainly do if they’re already in the building, do you want them to find a suspicious-looking man with a bullet hole in his pretty yellow shirt, or do you want them to find a contented-looking man in a white shirt and a silk rep tie and perhaps a jacket that is still hanging in the closet of my bedroom that used to belong to a bass guitar player I kicked out last month, though not of your color? Would you like them to find a fellow whose pants look like they shrunk up three sizes too small for him, or would you like them to find a well-dressed Ivy League type in nice pleatless slacks made for my bass guitar player friend at Chipp’s, now which is it you prefer, and how can you afford not to trust me?”
“I trust you,” Mullaney said.
“That’s fine,” Melanie answered, “because I have never trusted a white man in my entire life.”
“Then why are you helping me?”
“It’s the blue eyes that get me,” Melanie said. “Also, I like gamblers.”
“They’re brown.”
“Yes, but I’m drunk.”
“Which is probably the only reason you’re helping me.”
“No. I don’t like you to look so suspicious. I want you to look contented, man, contented.”
“How will we manage that?” Mullaney asked.
“I have never kissed a man who did not look extremely contented afterwards.”
“Oh, do you plan to kiss me?” Mullaney asked.
“I plan to swallow you alive,” Melanie said.
He felt very well-dressed in his pleatless trousers and vented jacket, wearing the white shirt and gold and black silk-rep tie Melanie had provided, very collegiate, although he had never dressed like this when he was attending City College from 1949 to 1951, and again from 1954 to 1956, after he had served his two-year stint in the Army. He missed the old maroon sweater he used to wear religiously to classes in those days, and he also missed what the sweater represented, an attitude he had tried to recapture when he began taking the gamble a year ago, an attitude exemplified by the sweater, which was theadbare at the elbows and beginning to unravel at the cuffs, exemplified too by the fact that he owned only one key and even that didn’t open anything he really possessed, it was to the lock of his mother Rose’s apartment. He missed the maroon sweater and the reckless who-gives-a-damn attitude he had worn all through college, the knowledge that he would not be called upon for any responsibilities deeper than having his assignments in on time, or wearing a rubber when he screwed some hapless girl from Hunter. These Ivy League garments were very chic and very well-tailored, but they did not come anywhere near being as debonair as his maroon sweater.