Sycophant laughter drifted to Barron’s ears from the boys in the monkey block. “What?” he huffed, still in the Fields bag. “I hear them mocking my words of wisdom? For shame, for shame. No doubt ’twas louts such as those who forced Socrates to quaff the hemlock.”
“I see, as per your usual Wednesday night bag, you’re feeling randy,” Gelardi said.
“Randy?” Barron replied, unable-unwilling to shuck the Fields schtick. “Who is the wench, and is she worth feeling?” Dropping Fields, Barron said, “And so saying, he exits stage left and is off into the night.” He nodded to Gelardi, bowed to the boys in the monkey block, and was—off into the night.
“You really are Jack Barron,” she said, cool honey-blonde Upper-East-Side-27ish executive secretary with hippy Lower-East-Side-past hard-edged style. “I recognized your utter arrogance immediately, Mr Barron.”
“Call me Jack,” he said, flashing her a great traveling-salesman false smile. “All my enemies do.” He saw her grimace, badpunwise, on cue, saw uplift hemibra holding boobs not quite all that good, espied little hairs peeping out from shiny black kini (this one wears underwear) telltale phony-blonde black hairs, felt hard hungry legs, and knew instantly that living-color Jack Barron had it made.
He leaned on one elbow on the bartop, offered her his pack of Acapulco Golds, clocked the tiny little-girl conspiratorial grin as she took one and quickly lighted it with her own lighter—meaning she was pothead from years past way back prohibition days, when shit had spice of danger from manila-envelope furtive earnest small-time neighborhood dealer. Why, he wondered, do all old-time heads prefer Acapulco (my sponsor) Golds?
“I’ll bet you have all kinds of enemies… Jack,” (two points), she said, inhaling the offering, breathing out sweet smoke sweet breath off the bartop teasing his nostrils. “Powerful enemies, important enemies… like Benedict Howards.”
“Ah,” he said, “gotcha! You caught the show tonight. (Sharp chick, but not that sharp.) Don’t tell me, you’re an old and loyal fan of mine.”
Tiny flicker of annoyance told him (would never admit it) that she was, as she said, taking another drag, “I’m no fan of yours. I just dig…”
“The smell of blood?” he suggested. She favored him with a wee bit feral smile as the grass began to hit, began to loosen thighs, loosen centers of hunger reality hunger makes it hunger grab a piece of the action hunger ersatz power hunger fuck me into mystic circle of power where it’s all at hunger make me real with your living-color prick hunger.
“Yeah, we all dig the smell of blood,” Barron said, glancing around the carefully musk-dusky room, clean Upper East Side shuck barroom, filled with tightly casual aging young we made it we’re only one step from the top next thing to being real crowd, chicks no longer girls and never to be women. “I like a chick with the balls to admit it. (Dig verbal possession of male organs, don’t you, baby?) As you may’ve noticed, I’m a wee bit savage myself.” He cocked his head, caught chandelier lights off slick bartop in the hollows of his eyes, opened his mouth showing glimpse of lazy tongue behind teeth—conscious Bug Jack Barron image-trick.
Caught by his eyes, her eyes glistening flashed moment of girl-caught-looking embarrassment, big brown eyes pools of open hole hunger, she shrugged a can’t-fool-this-cat shrug, her shoulders slumped, elbows fell on to the bartop, hands came up to cup her face, eyes still locked on his, she smiled pink-tongue wet-lips smile.
“I think you’re probably a rotten swine,” she said softly. “You like to play with people’s heads, and you’re playing with mine, and I’d go take a walk if you weren’t so damned good at it.”
Knowing now he had her definitely made, Jack Barron said, “That’s the way I keep food on my table. Want me to split? Or would you rather I told you I loved your mind? Or would you rather let me play with your… head? It’s not all that bad, if you lean back and enjoy it.”
“I don’t like you at all, Jack Barron,” she said. But as she said it, he felt her fingernails through his pants on his thigh.
“But you’re pretty sure you’re gonna like what I’m gonna do to you, eh?”
“I’m queer for the smell of blood, just like you said,” she answered (feral, lost little-girl smile sending a pang through him, déjà vu pang déjà vu smile déjà vu honey-haired girl, hip-brittle carapace over sweet sigh loser softness), “even if it is my own. A man like you can smell that on a girl, can’t he? Okay, monster, lead me to the slaughter.”
Easy as that, thought Jack Barron. Better be if you want a piece of the action, baby—dozen others in here hungry as you, dozen other bars, dozen other honey-haired… (Cool it!).
“Let’s split for you-know-where,” he said, taking her dry, cool hand. “I’ll give you something to tell your grandchildren about.”
Picking instant pussy up off the rack was a sometime thing with Jack Barron, specifically a Wednesday night after the show ritual and Claude, the ordinarily wise-ass doorman, didn’t even crack a small behind-the-chick’s-back smile as he ushered the honey-blonde through the door, across the lobby, and into the penthouse elevator and that bugged Jack Barron.
Fucker Claude’s used to this, not even an in-joke between us anymore, Barron thought as the elevator swept them silently upward. Makes me feel like some goddamned fetishist. How long’s this Wednesday night thing been going on, how many Wednesday night Saras…? (Cool it—too late to cool it, man, who you shucking?)
As the elevator stopped, Barron looked at the nameless girl clutching his hand, saw honey-blonde-dyed hair big brown eyes slightly-prosthetic made-for-balling body, saw the latest in interminable line of honey-blonde, big-eyed not-Saras, felt pattern enmeshing him like fate, like creature plugged into Kismet-relay circuitry, felt stronger-than-lust weaker-than-love thing for the nameless girl, hungry for living-color image-prick of world-famous Jack Barron. Fair deal, he thought, value given for value received, like Howards’ Freezer Contract: ball me with your image, baby, and I’ll ball you with mine.
The elevator door opened and Barron led the girl out into his private entrance foyer with its bearskin carpeting, kinesthop mural (great humming retina-reversing, image-after-image calculated instability, yellow-on-blue spirals) facing the elevator, and shepherded her silently forward into the narrow dark hall wombtunnel between the closed doors to the office and kitchen and into the inevitable living room stupefaction.
On the twenty-third floor of a New York apartment house in the East Sixties, Jack Barron lived in Southern California. The hall opened onto a narrow breakfast-bar deck that overlooked a vast red-carpeted sunken living room, with the entire far wall great glass sliding doors that opened out on to a palmettoed, rubberplant-festooned patio. Backdrop was the East River lights haze, ever-dusk of Brooklyn. The ceiling of the penthouse living room was an enormous, clear plexiglass, faceted geodesic-dome-skylight. Living room furnishings: an entire wall of built-in electronic bric-a-brac—TV screens, videotape-recorder, tape-recorder, AM-FM-stereo rig, color organ complex, blipper, vidphones, yards of interlocking control consoles—couches in orange, rust, blue upholstery, black-leather hassocks, redwood benches with half a dozen assorted matching tables, camel saddles, six mounds of varicolored pillows, oriental style, all arranged around a ten-foot square sunken open-flame tiled firepit (sidedraft automatic gas type) casting tall, flickering, orange-red shadows from the already-kindled-by-switch-in-foyer ersatz bonfire.