I brought her a cup of Sanka. I brought myself one, too.
She looked up at me with hooded eyes, still hugging her pillow. “People are supposed to smoke afterwards, don’t you know that? Not drink instant coffee.”
“I say if you can’t smoke during, why bother?”
She laughed. Her laugh was throaty, baritone, like her voice. “You know,” she said, leaning on an elbow, “I used to smoke. I gave it up. Had an uncle who died from it.”
“Cigarettes killed my mother.”
“No kidding? That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. She got hit by a Chesterfields truck.”
“Go to hell,” she said, showing her gums as she smiled. “Gimme that goddamn coffee.”
She sat up in bed, took the coffee, draping a sheet over her lap, for decorum’s sake, I guess. I wondered how decorum would feel about those two big naked boobs.
“Seriously, though, folks,” I said, sitting by her on the bed, “I like it that you don’t smoke. It’s nice to taste a girl’s mouth that tastes like a girl’s mouth. Kissing some women is like sucking a tailpipe.”
“It’s the same with men. Fucks your teeth up, too.”
“It’s too bad everybody can’t be clean-cut like us.”
“Fuckin’ shame. Hey, you haven’t said how your job interview went, this afternoon.”
That was the story I told her. I even told her I was going to the Amanas, to see about a job selling the refrigerators and shit they make there. It was now about six, and I’d been back half an hour.
“I won’t know for a while,” I said.
“Don’t you even have a gut reaction to the interview or the job?”
“Sure I got a gut reaction. I think it sounds like a crazy job, and the guy I talked to was also crazy, but I’ll probably take it anyway.”
“Is that desperation talking, or just apathy?”
“Protestant work ethic, I think. How’d you spend your day off?”
“Like I thought I would: shopping. Didn’t you see the packages and sacks and stuff on the kitchen table?”
Like I was supposed to?
“Well, since you’re probably broke, why don’t I take you out to dinner? I understand Riccelli’s has terrific pasta.”
“They do,” she said, “only…”
“Only?”
“We already have plans.”
“We?”
“You and me. You remember us, don’t you, Jack?”
“Vaguely. But I seem to have forgotten our plans.”
“That’s because I haven’t told them to you yet. Anyway, you’re finally going to get to meet Ruthy.”
We hadn’t had time to see Ruthy after the Sunday performance at the Candle Lite, because Lu had to get to the Barn to work. It was about time I met her bosom buddy… and Tree’s. I still hadn’t broken the news to Tree, yet, about his current bed partner being a pal of the woman who was the surveilling half of a hit team that probably included a certain guy who was lousy at cards and good at smashing lamps in people’s faces.
“Where are we going to meet her?” I asked.
“Another Italian restaurant that’s supposed to be good. Downtown. It’s called DiPreta’s. Heard of it?”
“Yeah. Family restaurant, isn’t it?”
She didn’t catch my joke, or pretended not to. Instead she just nodded and said, “We’ll be meeting her there around midnight.”
“Midnight? Midnight as in six hours from now?”
“That’s right. We can have some popcorn at the show, if you’re so hungry.”
“What show is that?”
“The one you’re taking me to, as soon as we get dressed.”
“What show are we going to?”
“I thought I’d let you pick it.”
“I don’t know if I can handle all this responsibility.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“That would be an even bigger responsibility.”
“The paper’s on the kitchen counter. See what movies are playing and what the times are.”
I did.
I suggested a Clint Eastwood double feature, which she rejected as too violent. I pointed out that we had a lot of time to kill, and we settled on a Woody Allen double feature.
I watched her get dressed.
“Do you own any kind of underwear except trans- parent?” I asked her.
“Nobody else has complained.”
“It’s just that I got a sample case someplace of real lacy things that you could have, if you wanted them. You know. If you ever were feeling feminine or something.”
“Is this feminine enough for you?” she asked, grinning, giving me the finger.
“I’ll just take you up on that,” I said, and a while later we were having some more instant coffee, and I said, “Why midnight?”
“It’s the first chance Ruthy’ll have to get away. It’s strike weekend.”
“Strike weekend?”
“Sunday was the last day for Born Yesterday. A new play opens Wednesday, The Fourposter, I think.”
“That’s some explanation.”
“Don’t you know what strike means?”
“Sure. Strike a match, strike it rich, the Teamsters…”
“It means, like, strike the sets. They tear down all the old sets and put up new ones, one play making room for the next.”
“Why’s an actress like your friend Ruthy involved in that?”
“It’s a repertory company. Everybody works both back stage and on. You can be lead in one play and prop man in the next. On strike weekend they work their butts off.”
“Interesting. Well. I guess we better try to get dressed again.”
“Right. Hey, I almost forgot.”
“What?”
“We just might be able to line up that job at the Barn for you, tonight.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ruthy’s boyfriend’s going to be there, too. This’ll come as a shock to you, but her boyfriend happens to be Frank Tree himself.”
“You got to be kidding,” I said.
25
I parked around the corner from DiPreta’s Italian Restaurant, which was on a one-way that I couldn’t turn onto coming from the direction of Lu’s apartment, and as we were getting out of the car, the blue Chevelle I’d noticed following us on the way over slid by innocently and pulled into a place half a block up. The guy was either new at this or a moron. Both, maybe.
“You go on ahead,” I said to her.
“Why?”
“Tell you later. Please go ahead.”
She made a shrugging face and got out of the car and walked. When she’d disappeared around the corner, I leaned over and got the nine-millimeter out of the glove compartment, checked it over to see if it had been fucked with, stuck it in my belt. I was wearing a sportshirt and slacks but the night was cool enough to require a light jacket and the jacket covered the gun.
This took a couple of minutes and in that time the sidewalk on my side of the street stayed clear. It stayed clear on the other side, too. Midnight Monday in Des Moines isn’t exactly rush hour.
The little moron in the Chevelle was sitting tight, waiting for me to do something.
I did something.
I got out of the GT and walked, slowly, and before I turned the corner I heard a car door open and shut somewhere not far behind me.
Christ, what a loser.
DiPreta’s was down at the far end of the block, half of which it encompassed, an alley separating the restaurant from the other half block of commercial buildings. I turned down the alley, making no secret of it, but then picked up speed and about a third-way down stepped into a recessed doorway that had just enough room for me and three garbage cans. I took the lid off one of the cans and when the guy walked by hit him in the face with it.
He staggered back a step, seemed to momentarily regain his composure, then did a belly flop on the brick alley floor. He hit like a wet sack of sand.
I turned him over.
He looked familiar. Naggingly so.
He was average size, average build, wearing a dark ribbed sweater over a light pressed shirt, brushed denim slacks, almost collegiate-looking. He had short blond hair, ordinary features, his large ears being the only distinguishing feature he had. That and the broken nose the garbage can lid had given him.
I’d seen him before, no question, but where?