Cundo went in the bedroom where Dawn had laid out a white shirt for him, on the bed with a pair of black silk pants, part of a suit he hadn't worn in eight years and slipped on a pair of sandals. He sat at the vanity and Dawn appeared behind him to stroke his hair with a brush and refasten the rubber band holding his ponytail. She stepped back saying, "There," to his reflection. "You're perfect."
"There's no pocket in this fucking shirt." "You don't need one." "For my cigarettes."
"It would ruin the look. I paid two hundred dollars for the shirt, out of my allowance."
"You think for that much they give you a pocket."
He lighted a cigarette with his Bic lighter, a black one, stared at himself in the mirror, leaned forward a little and blew a perfect smoke ring at himself.
"We'd go out," Dawn said, "you'd wear the black Palm Beach suit, a black shirt, that thin yellow tie and you'd carry a yellow
Bic."
"The lighter was yellow, yes," Cundo said, "but the tie was a shade of ochre. I never saw an ochre Bic. I wouldn't mind having a few."
He stared at himself with dreamy eyes. Dawn called them his bedroom eyes. She said, "You know how people look at you?" "What people?"
"Ones who know about you. You're famous, the last of the Cocaine Cowboys. Now you're back. They see you and wonder what you're up to."
"Nothing," Cundo said.
"They would never believe that. They see how you live, in the same house. They see you buy me a car."
"You leading up to something I don't want to hear, so don't say it. Tell me what you cooking."
"It's a surprise."
"Let's see, what are you? Dawn Navarro-you Spanish by way of Puerto Rico sometime back but don't look it. You gonna fix Cuban rice and beans?"
"You'll never guess," Dawn said.
"Why won't I?"
"I don't want you to."
"Why don't I smell nothing cooking?"
"I haven't put it on yet. I'll start when everyone has a drink. We sit at the table, we'll have wine with dinner, Tico the lavender gangbanger serving. He looks like a male escort this evening, a little rouge on his cheeks. But you're the guest of honor, the main man. I still think we should have the roof party. No hurry, sometime when you're in the mood."
"Since I like so much to go up on roofs."
"What I want to believe more than anything," Dawn said, "you really have retired from a life of crime, so to speak. You're not simply resting between rounds."
"So to speak," Cundo said.
"We'll go out once in a while, of course. But this time you won't be competing with all the Tony Montanas in their white suits, their collars spread open. You'd come along vamping in your all-black outfit and ochre tie. I'll never again say it's yellow, and I'll tell anyone who asks you'd like to be left alone, to your own devices."
Cundo was still seated at the vanity. Dawn leaned close to kiss him as Cundo said, "Foley thinks I should go to Costa Rica with him."
Dawn kissed his cheek, lingering for a moment before she straightened and looked at him in the mirror.
"Really?"
"One time he mention it to me."
They had drinks in the sitting room, vodka martinis because, Cundo said, the ones made with gin caused you to be drunk too soon. Little Jimmy asked Cundo if he was angry with him for something he did. Cundo said, "If you tole it in confession I also forgive you," and blessed Jimmy saying, "Absolvo te," Cundo making the sign of the cross in the air.
Tico watched Dawn. She excused herself and was gone for almost half an hour. When she returned and said, "Let's go sit at the table," Tico saw she had made up her eyes in the fashion of a royal woman of Egypt.
He poured wine, though only Cundo and Little Jimmy were seated at the table, took the empty bottle and pushed through the door to the kitchen. Dawn stood at the range, where two saucepans were on simmer. She said, "You'd better open another bottle, and put the baguette on the table, if you will, please." Sounding so nice this evening, even with her eyes made up like that. "And the butter. It's in the fridge."
Tico pushed through the door to the dining room and placed the bread and the plate of butter in the middle of the table-Cundo and Little Jimmy talking about point spreads-and draped a napkin over his shoulder and unscrewed the cap from the fifteen-dollar bottle of wine Cundo, the cheap fuck, had bought.
In the kitchen again he saw the lids off the saucepans and the platter standing on its short legs by the pans, its silver cover in place.
"Not a word," Dawn said.
Tico was anxious now. He picked up the platter by its little silver wings sticking out, reached the door and turned his head to see Dawn coming with another silver platter. Tico knew what he was serving, but had no idea what Dawn was bringing to the table.
She came behind Tico who used his hip to hold the door for her. Tico placed his dish at Cundo's end of the table and watched Dawn set hers down in front of her place at the other end. Tico thought it could be more of what he was serving. Dawn sat down in her chair with arms. She looked at Tico waiting by the table, gave him the nod and turned her eyes on Cundo as Tico the gang-banger lifted the lid and stepped back with it to watch Cundo:
Cundo staring at the platter of macaroni and cheese, some of the macaroni sticking out of the creamy melted cheese that had too much color to be something good to eat. It looked more like imitation macaroni and cheese, if there was such a thing.
Dawn waited for Cundo to look at her.
He wasn't smiling.
She said, "You don't think it's funny?"
Tico started laughing. Little Jimmy grinned. Cundo stared at Dawn until gradually the table was silent.
"I know I told you," Dawn said to Cundo, "the ruling planet for Scorpios happens to be Pluto, the reason your personality is dark and you tend, much of the time, to be so intense. Mine's Jupiter. It's why I'm not only optimistic, I'm lucky and, as you will agree, have quite a cheerful nature. I like doing favors for people. Our colors are sort of close. Yours burgundy and mine purple, dating back to my pharaoh days when I was Hapshepsut and ran both ends of the Nile. Your symbol, the scorpion, is secretive and of course deadly. But the part of the body ruled by Scorpio are the genitals, an area I thought might work just right for us, since I'm a fun lover and you're more like an animal in bed."
She watched Cundo light a cigarette.
Tico stepped over to move an ashtray closer to him.
"Let's see," Dawn said, "Scorpio rules insects while Sagittarians rule horses. Not much of a link there, but I thought we could work it out. You're strong-willed, I'm easygoing. You like my style but don't care to hear about me enjoying myself if you're not around. So when you come right down to it, Cundo, we're not at all emotionally suited to one another. You want me fawning over you all the time when I'm not cooking. You kept asking if I'm being a saint. Remember? 'Are you being a saint for me?' I'm playful about sex. You're so intense you have to dominate. You'd keep me in a cage if you could. I mean, come on. During the eight years I waited for you I hardly fooled around at all. Eight years, Cundo, is a long time."
Cundo said, "You fucked Jack Foley, didn't you?"
"You already hit me for that, hard. What else do you want to do? Foley's a Libra, so his ruling planet is Venus. He can't help it if he likes to be sociable, it's the way he is. I knew if I stepped out on a Scorpion I could get my butt stung. The problem is, you think the only way to handle me is to lock me up, let me out at bedtime. But I won't stand for that."
"You won't, uh?" Cundo said.
He looked at Little Jimmy.