I turned my attention to Rash and crooked a finger. He got right up and strode the six paces to my table.
“Was that your husband?” he asked while pulling out the chair that Jude had vacated.
“And how are you this evening, Rash?” I replied.
“Uh, okay, fine. How are you?”
I smiled and the waiter brought my salad.
“I like this dress,” he said.
I was wearing a white sundress that didn’t crowd my tits or ass. It accented my figure simply because it fit and I liked the way it made me look — somewhat older and a few pounds over the limit.
“Thank you.”
Rash wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. His discomfort tickled me. He was shy but not because of the size of my nipples or the sighs I lied with on the screen. He wanted to make conversation, to carve out a place where he and I could communicate — one way or another. His wants were commonplace and predictable, like the plot of children’s cartoons on PBS. The story was safe, nonviolent, and fully dressed.
“The man I was sitting with is a friend of the family,” I said. “My husband died a few days ago and Jude was offering his condolences.”
“Oh.”
“It was terrible,” I said, agreeing with Rash’s unspoken sympathy. “A terrible accident. I’ve been a little thrown off and Jude, who was a good friend of Theon’s, was offering his help.”
“Theon was your husband’s name?”
I nodded.
“I’m really sorry. I can leave you alone if you want.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to be alone. I mean I can be if necessary but you’re nice. You know how to have a conversation.”
“You wouldn’t know it by the way my foot’s in my mouth right now.”
“That’s my fault. I’m a little tricky when it comes to talking to men. I like to keep ’em a little off balance. Otherwise most guys want to walk all over you.”
I stared directly into the café au lait — colored young man’s eyes. It was all he could do not to avert his gaze.
“I hardly know what to say when somebody experiences a loss like yours,” he said with barely a stutter. “Nobody close to me has ever died.”
“You’re lucky. It hurts when they’re gone. And it doesn’t matter if it’s slow or fast, whether it’s a long drawn-out disease or an unexpected accident. When they’re gone the world turns upside down and you’re left holding on, trying not to fall off.”
Rash gave me a little half smile, as if he were experiencing pain. I reached over and laid my hand on his.
“You wanna come over to my house for a while?” I asked him. “We could just sit and talk. I’d really like that.”
We took separate cars.
Rash followed my taillights east and then over the mountain into Pasadena. When we got to my house on South Elm I parked on the street and he pulled up behind.
I waited by the passenger’s side for him.
“Nice car,” he said. “Nice house.”
“Are you a gigolo?” I asked.
“Why would you ask something like that?”
“You’re talking about the worth of my possessions,” I said, feeling as if I were, once again, following a bad script. “So are you?”
“Not hardly.”
“What do you do for a living?”
He was thrown off, I thought, not so much by the question but the fact of my asking it on the street — before we went into the house.
“Um... I’m an architect.”
“You design skyscrapers and stuff like that?”
“Not so much. Mostly houses, usually interiors. You know, rooms and maybe a patio or two. When people are designing or redesigning their homes I sit with them and work out the possibilities. After that I draw up plans and maybe help them find contractors.”
“How’s that doing?”
“On and off. I pay my rent most months. I owe money here and there, but I got this job for the interiors of this new office building going up on Wilshire. That’ll see me through to the end of next year.”
There were stars in the sky behind the modest architect. For a moment I was distracted by them.
“You wanna go in?” Rash asked.
“That’s why we’re here, right?”
“Maybe you changed your mind now that you know I’m a poor architect.”
“Your job is the last thing I’m worried about, honey; believe me.”
Rash smiled and I took him by the arm.
We were halfway up the stone pathway when someone said, “Excuse me, Ms. Dare.”
A white man in an upscale white trench coat was approaching from across the street. He was of normal height and build but something about the way he walked gave a sense of confidence, even finality. He was familiar-looking — but I’d met so many people that he was to me more a type than an actual person with a name to be remembered.
“Yes?” I said.
He strode right up to us and for an instant I believed that we, Rash and I, were both dead.
“It is you, isn’t it?” the white man asked. “I mean, the last time I saw you your hair was longer and a different color.”
“Do I know you?”
“Obviously not. But it is you, isn’t it?”
“It’s me, Mr...?”
“Manetti. Coco Manetti. I called you.”
The evening was suddenly something different than I imagined. Now, before I could practice normal conversation with a regular guy, I’d have to survive the machinations of a self-made gangster.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Manetti. I’ve been getting hundreds of calls, literally. I’ve been upset.”
“I can see that,” he said, glancing at Rash.
“This is my friend Tom Vance,” I lied. “He’s helping me plan the funeral.”
“I knew your husband,” Coco said.
“He’s mentioned you. Something about having to work off a debt.”
Manetti’s cold eyes watched Rash’s face for a moment and then he turned back to me.
“Can I come in for a few minutes before you start... planning?” he asked.
I led both men into the white-on-white-in-white living room. Rash looked confused but he didn’t say anything to contradict the lie I’d created for him. Coco went to the long sofa and sat down in the exact center.
I considered offering my guests drinks but decided against it, because I didn’t want to leave them alone together.
In the electric light Coco had eyes that were dark brown. His skin was the color — and had the pallor — of death. Under the trench coat he had on gray wool trousers and a lime golf shirt. His shoes were real snakeskin and he wore no socks.
“I’ll make this quick,” Coco said as he leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “You know Richard Ness?”
“Sure, I know Dick.”
Coco smiled.
“Dick,” he said, “yes. Dick sold me Theon’s marker. It is now to me that you owe his debt.”
In spite of his ominous meaning I was impressed with his sentence structure.
“Oh. I see.”
“For some reason Dick was worried that he wouldn’t get satisfaction in the deal with you and so I paid him eighty cents on the dollar, knowing that I’d have better luck.”
“You can’t squeeze blood from a stone, Mr. Manetti.”
“You’d be surprised the blood I’ve seen.”
“Theon never told me about this debt,” I explained. “I haven’t signed a thing. And he left me with nothing. The bank owns this house and his car, all our accounts are empty, and the credit cards are as kissing close to being maxed out as you can get.”
“None of that’s a problem,” Coco said, sitting back and waving his hand carelessly. “The last time Theon was in hock to me he just worked off the debt — like you said.”
I could feel the hardness come into my face.
“You could come work for a friend of mine,” Manetti continued. “Two or three months of hard work and we’d be clear. Six months and you’ll be able to climb out of debt.”