I licked the end of the pencil like Art Carney playing Ed Norton, made a whirling motion with my right arm, and began filling out the form in block letters.
"Most of our clients just punch us up on their modems and do the paperwork by filling out the form on their computer screen," she said.
"My modem's in the shop for an oil change."
If she thought I was funny, she kept it to herself. She just watched my seersuckered self as I filled in the blanks. I wrote my real name and address, chose "Stick Shift" as my handle, used my old jersey number as a secret password, and pretended to struggle with the rest. When I was done, I handed her the form. She scanned it and scowled.
"This ain't a dining club," she said.
"Or the army," I agreed.
"What's 'rare steak and cold beer' supposed to mean?"
"It asked my preferences," I said, putting some Iowa corn into my voice.
"Sheesh. Your preferences in bed, Gomer. Are you straight, gay, or bi?"
"Straight as an arrow, slim. Wanna see?"
"In your dreams. Hey, next blank you skipped. You go for French or Greek?"
"No habla nothin' but English."
"Oh brother! You got any fetishes? B and D, S and M, water sports?"
"I'm a pretty decent windsurfer," I admitted.
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Where you been, the friggin' North Pole?"
"Maui, Aruba, the Baja," I told her. "North Pole's too cold, even with a dry suit."
"Listen, Ricky Retardo, I ain't got all day. You don't fill in the blanks, the computer will spit out your application, so you gotta tell me what you like. Now, Greek, that means bum fucking, get it?"
"Even the poor got a right to get laid," I said. "It's in the Constitution."
She narrowed her dark eyes and gave me a sideways look. "You know what French is, right?"
I didn't say oui, madame. I just gave her my big, dumb-guy look. It isn't hard to do.
"Like in the poem," she said, "'The French, they are a funny race. They fight with their feet and fuck with their face.' Get it?"
I scrunched my face into its genius-at-thought mode. "I get part of it."
"Part of it?"
"I mean, fighting with their feet, I get…"
She turned toward the back where the man was now hunched over the keyboard of the computer. "Max! C'mere."
A little guy, all wires and gristle in black pants, black knit shirt, and white patent-leather loafers. A tattoo of a snake showed green on a veined, browned forearm. A worm of a mustache wriggled under his nose. He squinted at me through suspicious eyes. All he needed was a switchblade to pick his teeth, and he could have been a small-time grifter in Guys and Dolls.
"Yow, Bobbie," he answered.
"Whyn't you help Mister…"
"Lassiter," I announced proudly.
They traded places. Her high heels clackety-clacked as she legged it toward the back. Sleek, fine legs with a comely curve of the calf undulating with each step. As she slinked by Max he said, "Foot Long's just about got Naughty Nurse's panties off."
She sat down at the desk and peered into the monitor. "Nurse's been putting out for everybody and their cousin," she called back.
Max took his time examining my application. I wondered if anyone ever failed the entrance exam. "You can listen in?" I asked.
"Huh?"
I pointed toward the computer where Bobbie sat, her long, lean body bent toward the screen.
"Someone's gotta be the sys-op," he said. "Work the panel in case there's a glitch online. We can tap into any talky-talk, just like Southern Bell."
"You must hear-or read-it all."
"Yow. Till after while, it puts you to sleep. Like how many ways can they describe it?"
He returned to the form, moving his lips and tracing each line with a finger. "Say, you were just kidding here, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Bobbie don't have much of a sense of humor. Comes from having a hard life as a kid. You gotta make allowances with a filly like that." He grinned and showed me two rows of shopping-center dental work. "You're a straight shooter looking for old-fashioned cooze in the missionary position, yow?"
"Yow," I answered right back at him.
He gave me a temporary membership card and a book of rules. I gave him a twenty-dollar bill.
"Ever have any trouble with your clients?" I asked.
The word "trouble" made the mustache twitch. "Whaddaya mean?"
"Like any women complain about guys putting the make on 'em, they don't like what's being offered?"
His eyes had put up a shield. "No trouble. Woman gets hassled, she can bug out of the call. She invites a guy over or goes out with him, that's her business. We don't give no guarantees."
"You keep records of the calls?"
He sneaked a peek at the wall where his occupational license was taped over a crack. Probably figured me for a city inspector and wondered when I'd show him my palm.
I pointed back to his main computer. "All the calls stored in there?"
"Hell no! I wouldn't clog up our hard memory with that shit."
"How many members you have?"
"Three hundred fifty men. Almost two hundred women. Hey, we're a member of the BBB."
"So what's stored in there?"
"It's programmed to record how many times members call in and how long they talk. After fifty hours, you gotta renew."
"So it records who they talk to…"
"That'd be an invasion of privacy," he said with undue formality.
"But it could be done, if you wanted to know who a client spoke with, say, two nights ago?"
"The calls are coded numerically. It could be-"
"What the hell!" Bobbie Blinderman demanded, towering over Max the Jockey. "Just who the hell are you, buster?" In her bare feet now, she was three inches shorter, but no friendlier. She had silently prowled back to the counter from her position as gatekeeper of erotica and her ebony eyes glared at me.
I gave her a daffy grin. "Just a lonely guy-"
"Get your jollies somewhere else!" she ordered, pointing toward the door.
"With a grand-jury subpoena," I added, pulling a blue-backed paper out of my back pocket and sliding it across the counter. Max stared at it a moment, then picked it up as if afraid to leave prints. Bobbie looked straight at me with those long-lashed eyes, the sanguine complexion a tone redder. "Flatfoot faggot," she hissed. " Your preference?" I politely inquired.
CHAPTER 7
Alejandro Rodriguez sat in the upholstered chair, a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 in one hand, a Glock nine-millimeter in the other. He put down the. 38, fondled the Glock, and sniffed at its oily barrel with his squashed policeman's nose. Then he picked up the. 38 and did the same thing. He shifted the gun hand to hand and repeated the ritual with the Glock.
He wore black oxfords with rubber soles, khaki pants, a blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and a polyester blue blazer. A paunch from too much desk riding hung over his belt. Even a nearsighted three-time loser could spot him as a cop.
Rodriguez hefted both guns, then put down the. 38 again. He pushed a magazine into the plastic grip of the Glock and pulled back the spring-loaded slide, smiling at the reassuring click.
"?Caramba! Seventeen rounds instead of six. High-velocity steel jackets. Only eight pounds of pull. When the hell's Metro gonna get us these babies?"
Nick Fox sat at his polished mahogany desk, head down, eyes scanning a file. "Just what I need. One of your rookies pumping an innocent bystander with seventeen slugs instead of six."