“Some other time,” I said, “but not today.” I refilled the glasses from the new bottle and she sat beside me on the couch. Every so often when I was near her it would hit me, and it hit me now... I looked at her and felt my insides go to buttermilk. Great God, I thought, she's beautiful.
She sat there looking at me, very seriously now; then suddenly she surprised me by smiling. “What is it?” I said.
“It just occurred to me that I know absolutely nothing about you. I don't even know what you are called—is it William, or Will, or Bill....”
“It's Roy,” I said without thinking, forgetting for a moment that Dorris Venci had changed my name for me. Then I remembered and said, “It's what my mother used to call me.
“Roy,” she smiled. “Roy, and your name is William O'Connor. Well, I suppose that's consistent enough, for you.”
“The explanation would bore you,” I said.
“But what about you?” she said, almost absently, as though she wasn't really interested at all but considered it polite to ask. “You must have a history of some kind, a background, a past. Or would that bore me, too?”
“Probably,” I said. “I started with an empty belly and a high intelligence quotient, and now I don't have the empty belly.”
She smiled, faintly. “Isn't that over simplifying it just a bit?”
“This is a pretty simple world when you get right down to it. When I was a kid I learned to grab fast when we were lucky enough to have food on the table. It took me several years to realize that everyone was grabbing for something, always, and the only trick in getting what you wanted was in grabbing just a little faster than the others.”
“And that is the rule you live by?”
“That is my rule.”
I guess she knew it was going to happen, from the way I was staring at her. After all, you don't give a girl a coat like the one I had given her just because you liked the way she set her hair. I made a grab for her but she already had her guard up and had pushed herself down to the other end of the couch. She tried to get up but I grabbed again and this time I got her.
I was amazed at the strength in those smooth, firm arms of hers. She didn't make a sound; there was no hint of panic in her eyes, but I had a hell of a time pulling her down with me just the same. But I did it, finally. I got her shoulders pinned against the back of the couch, I threw my weight against her and got both her arms in my hands and she was completely helpless. She knew she was helpless and stopped the fight.
She looked at me with perfect calm. “... Now what?” she said.
“See something you want, grab it. I told you that was my rule.”
“... I see. All right, you've grabbed, now where do you go from here? Really, I'm curious about this rule of yours, I want to know if you can really make it work.”
Don't you worry about that, I thought. I'll make it work, all right. Then I forced her head back and mashed my mouth to hers.
It was like kissing a statue, a cold, marble statue. That was one thing I hadn't been prepared for. I'd been prepared for a fight, for a lot of insane gab, for tears, even, but certainly not anything like this. I felt the iciness of that kiss deep in my guts. It made my skin crawl.
I let her go. I couldn't have released her faster if I had suddenly discovered that I had been kissing a corpse. That is what it had been like, kissing a corpse.
Then she laughed, softly. “You see, Roy, it's just as I thought. Your rule doesn't always work, does it? Some things you can grab, but woman—they're different. You don't grab women, you draw them to you gently, very gently. And it takes time, too. That's a rule you should adopt; never rush a lady.”
For one time in my life I didn't have an answer. I could still taste the iciness of her lips.
She didn't seem to be angry. She seemed more amused than anything. And then she leaned toward me and pressed her mouth on mine, very lightly, and the coldness was gone. She was warm again, and beautiful, and I wanted her like hell. But this time I didn't grab.
“That's better,” she said huskily. “That's much better.”
I said, “For me this is a new technique. It's going to take some getting used to.”
And she smiled.
“You know something?” I said.
“What?”
“You are positively the goddamnedest woman I ever saw, bar none. You change colors faster than a chameleon. Put you in fire and you don't burn.”
“I'll take that as a compliment.”
I let her enjoy thinking that she was an enigma. But she was no enigma to me I could open her up and watch the wheels go round. I knew what made her tick; I knew to what frequency she was tuned. All I had to do was look at her in that coat and I knew who was the real boss. It was quite possible that deep in her soul she hated my guts—a possibility that bothered me not at all. I could afford a new Lincoln and a Balmain coat, both the same day—that was the important thing. That was the hook I had in her.
Maybe she was right, maybe grabbing wasn't the best way to get what you wanted every time. Make her come to me, that was the best, the most satisfying answer. And I knew exactly how to go about it. Thanks to my very good friend, Mr. John Venci.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HIS NAME WAS Stephen S. Calvart. That was about all I knew about him, except that he was a textbook publisher and had made a considerable fortune by bribing a number of small-time school officials. S. S. Calvart, just a name, the fourth name from the last in John Venci's list of people he didn't like, to be exact, and I had selected it more or less at random out of all the other names.
The Calvart Publishing Company was located on the east side, the seamy side of the city, and the building was a sprawling, crumbling red brick affair that was even more rundown than the neighboring brick heaps that leaned against it.
I parked the Lincoln in the alley behind the building, learned from the elevator operator that the publisher's office was on the fourth and top floor; so that is where I went.
Calvart, it turned out, was an easy man to get to, not at all like King. I smiled at the receptionist, told her that my name was O'Connor, and that I represented the fourth school district and that I wanted to talk to Mr. Calvart about a new edition of history texts for the elementary grades.
That was the magic word: “new edition.” In a matter of a few minutes I had progressed all the way to the head man himself. Yes sir, I thought, this is a place that knows how to treat a customer. Walk in and mention a deal and you get the red carpet treatment, no questions asked.
Calvart was on the phone when I came into his office. He waved with a cigar and motioned to a chair. I made myself comfortable and tried to size him up. He was a big man, two hundred pounds at least, and looked more like an ex-hod carrier trying to get used to wearing three hundred dollar suits than a publisher of school textbooks. He didn't look like a man who got where he was by paying scrupulous attention to the rules of the game.
“Now look, Davis,” he was saying into the phone, “you've been using that damn elementary social studies three years now. How do you expect kids to keep up with things in this fast movin' world if you handicap them three years right at the beginnin'? What the hell, those texts are outdated and you know it. Now look, I don't want to tell you-how to run your business, but I think we'd be smart....” He listened for a minute, then said, “Yeah, all right, but you work on the school boards down there, and the PTA bunch. Sure, Dave, I'll take care of you, don't I always?”
He hung up and turned to me with no change of expression or tone of voice. “O'Connor you say. From the fourth district. I thought Paul Schriver was runnin' things down there.”