“Don’t do that,” Lenny said. He was touching the small of her back with his hand. He was helping her walk.
“What?”
“Looking at that fucking watch all the time. Take it off,” Lenny said.
“My watch?” She was looking at her wrist as if she had never seen it before.
“Give it here, come on.” Lenny put his hand out. He motioned with his fingers. She placed her watch in the palm of his hand.
“That’s a good girl,” Lenny was saying. “You don’t need it. You don’t have to know what time it is. You’re with me. Don’t you get it? You’re hungry, I feed you. You’re tired, I find a hotel. You’re in a structured environment now. You’re protected. I protect you. It doesn’t matter what time it is.” He put her watch in his pocket. “Forget it. I’ll buy you a new one. A better one. That was junk. I was embarrassed for you to wear junk like that. Want a Rolex?”
“You can’t afford a Rolex,” she said. She felt intelligent. She looked into his face.
“I got a drawerful,” Lenny told her. “I got all the colors. Red. Black. Gold.”
“Where?” She studied his face. They were walking on a side street in Hollywood. The air was a pale blue, bleeding into the horizon, taking the sky.
“In the bank,” Lenny said. “In the safety deposit with everything else. All the cash that isn’t buried.” Lenny smiled.
“What else?” She put her hands on her hips.
“Let’s go for a ride,” Lenny said.
They were standing at the curb. They were two blocks from the church. A motorcycle was parked there. Lenny took out a key.
“Get on,” he said.
“I don’t want to get on a motorcycle.” She was afraid.
“Yes, you do,” Lenny told her. “Sit down on it. Wrap your arms around me. Just lean into me. Nothing else. You’ll like it. You’ll be surprised. It’s a beautiful day. It looks like Hong Kong today. Want to go to the beach? Want lunch? I know a place in Malibu. You like seafood? Crab? Scampi? Watch the waves?” Lenny was doing something to the motorcycle. He looked at her face.
“No,” she said.
“How about Italian? I got a place near the Marina. Owner owes for ten kilos. We’ll get a good table. You like linguini?” Lenny sat down on the motorcycle.
She shook her head, no.
“Okay. You’re not hungry. You’re skinny. You should eat. Come on. We’ll go around the block. Get on. Once around the block and I’ll bring you back to the church.” Lenny reached out his hand through the warm white air.
She looked at his hand and how the air seemed blue near his fingers. It’s simply a blue glaze, she was thinking. In Malibu, in Hilo, in the China Sea, forms of blue, confusion and remorse, a dancing dress, a daughter with a mouth precisely your own and it’s done, all of it.
Somewhere it was carnival night in the blue wash of a village on the China Sea. On the river, boats passed with low-slung antique masts sliding silently to the blue of the ocean, to the inverted delta where the horizon concluded itself in a rapture of orchid and pewter. That’s what she was thinking when she took his hand.
She did not see him for a week. She changed her meeting schedule. She went to women’s meetings in the Pacific Palisades and the Valley. She went to meetings she had never been to before. She trembled when she thought about him.
She stopped her car at a red light. It occurred to her that it was an early-afternoon autumn in her thirty-eighth year. Then she found herself driving to the community center. The meeting was over. There was no one left on the street. Just one man, sitting alone on the front steps, smoking. Lenny looked up at her and smiled.
“I was expecting you,” Lenny said. “I told you. You can’t get away from me.”
She could feel his eyes on her face, the way when she lived with a painter, she had learned to feel lamplight on her skin. When she had learned to perceive light as an entity. She began to cry.
“Don’t cry,” Lenny said, his voice soft. “I can’t stand you crying. Let’s make up. I’ll buy you dinner.”
“I can’t.” She didn’t look at him.
“Yeah. You can. I’ll take you someplace good. Spago? You like those little pizzas with the duck and shit? Lobster? You want the Palm? Then Rangoon Racket Club? Yeah. Don’t look surprised. I know the places. I made deals in all those places. What did you think?” He was lighting a cigarette and she could feel his eyes on her skin.
She didn’t say anything. They were walking across a parking lot. The autumn made everything ache. Later, it would be worse. At dusk, with the subtle irritation of lamps.
“Yeah. I know what you think. You think Lenny looks like he just crawled out from a rock. This is a disguise. Blue jeans, sneakers. I fit right in. I got a gang of angry Colombians on my ass. Forget it.” Lenny stared at her. “You got a boyfriend?”
“What’s it to you?”
“What’s it to me? That’s sharp. I want to date you. I probably want to marry you. You got a boyfriend, I got to hurt him.” Lenny smiled.
“I can’t believe you said that.” She put her hands on her hips.
“You got a boyfriend? I’m going to cut off his arm and beat him with it. Here. Look at this.” He was bending over and removing something from his sock. He held it in the palm of his hand.
“Know what this is?” Lenny asked.
She shook her head, no.
“It’s a knife, sweetheart,” Lenny said.
She could see that now, even before he opened it. A pushbutton knife. Lenny was reaching behind to his back. He was pulling out something from behind his belt, under his shirt. It was another knife.
“Want to see the guns?”
She felt dizzy. They were standing near her car. It was early in December. The Santa Anas had been blowing. She felt that it had been exceptionally warm for months.
“Don’t get in the car,” Lenny said. “I can’t take it when you leave. Stay near me. Just let me breathe the same air as you. I love you.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said.
“But you know me. You been dreaming me. I’m your ticket to the other side, remember?” Lenny had put his knives away. “Want to hear some more Nam stories? How we ran smack into Honolulu? You’ll like this. You like the dope stories. You want to get loaded?”
She shook her head, no.
“You kidding me? You don’t want to get high?” Lenny smiled.
“I like being sober,” she said.
“Sure,” Lenny said. “Let me know when that changes. One phone call. I got the best dope in the world.”
They were standing in front of her car. The street beyond the parking lot seemed estranged, the air was tarnished. She hadn’t thought about drugs in months. Lenny was handing her something, thin circles of metal. She looked down at her hand. Two dimes seemed to glare in her palm.
“For when you change your mind,” Lenny said. He was still smiling.
They were sitting on the grass of a public park after a meeting. Lenny was wearing Bermuda shorts and a green T-shirt that said CANCÚN. They were sitting in a corner of the park with a stucco wall behind them.
“It’s our anniversary,” Lenny told her. “We been in love four weeks.”
“I’ve lost track of time,” she said. She didn’t have a watch anymore. The air felt humid, green, stalled. It was December in West Hollywood. She was thinking that the palms were livid with green death. They could be the palms of Vietnam.
“I want to fuck you,” Lenny said. “Let’s go to your house.”
She shook her head, no. She turned away from him. She began to stand up.