I draped my coat over an Eames chair while she closed the door and fastened the bolt. She came into my arms for an openmouthed kiss and rubbed her little body against me. “Mmmm,” she said. “That’s nice.”
“You’re looking good, Elaine.”
“Let me look at you. You don’t look so bad yourself, in a rugged, rough-hewn sort of a way. How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good.”
“Keeping busy?”
“Uh-huh.”
There was chamber music stacked on her stereo. The last record was just ending, and I sat on the couch and watched as she walked to the turntable and inverted the stack of records. I wondered whether the hip wiggle was for my benefit or if it came naturally to her. I had always wondered that.
I liked the room. White wall-to-wall shag carpet, stark modern furniture more comfortable than it looked, a lot of primary colors and chrome. A couple of abstract oils on the walls. I couldn’t have lived in a room like that, but I enjoyed spending occasional time in it.
“Drink?”
“Not just now.”
She sat on the couch next to me and talked about books she had read and movies she had seen. She was very good at small talk. I suppose she had to be.
We kissed a few times, and I touched her breasts and put a hand on her round bottom. She made a purring sound.
“Want to come to bed, Matt?”
“Sure.”
The bedroom was small, with a more subdued color scheme. She turned on a small stained-glass lamp and killed the overhead light. We got undressed and lay down on the queen-size bed.
She was warm and young and eager, with soft, perfumed skin and a tautly muscled body. Her hands and mouth were clever. But it was not working, and after a few minutes I moved away from her and patted her gently on the shoulder.
“Relax, honey.”
“No, it’s not going to work,” I said.
“Something I should be doing?”
I shook my head.
“Too much to drink?”
It wasn’t that. I was far too completely locked into my own head. “Maybe,” I said.
“It happens.”
“Or maybe it’s the wrong time of the month for me.”
She laughed. “Right, you got your period.”
“Must be.”
We put our clothes on. I got three tens from my wallet and put them on the dresser. As usual, she pretended not to notice.
“Want that drink now?”
“Uh-huh, I guess. Bourbon, if you have it.”
She didn’t. She had Scotch, and I settled for that. She poured herself a glass of milk, and we sat on the couch together and listened to the music without saying anything for a while. I felt as relaxed as if we had made love.
“Working these days, Matt?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, everybody has to work.”
“Uh-huh.”
She shook a cigarette out of her pack, and I lit it for her. “You got things on your mind,” she said. “That’s what’s the matter.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I know I’m right. Want to talk about anything?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.”
The telephone rang, and she answered it in the bedroom. When she came back I asked her if she had ever lived with a man.
“You mean like a pimp? Never have and never will.”
“I meant like a boyfriend.”
“Never. It’s a funny thing about boyfriends in this business. They always turn out to be pimps.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. I’ve known so many girls. ‘Oh, he’s not a pimp, he’s my boyfriend.’ But it always turns out that he’s between jobs, and that he makes a life’s work out of being between jobs, and she pays for everything. But he’s not a pimp, just a boyfriend. They’re very good at kidding themselves, those girls. I’m lousy at kidding myself. So I don’t even try.”
“Good for you.”
“I can’t afford boyfriends. Busy saving for my old age.”
“Real estate, right?”
“Uh-huh. Apartment houses in Queens. You can keep the stock market. I want something I can reach out and touch.”
“You’re a landlady. That’s funny.”
“Oh, I never see tenants or anything. There’s a company manages it for me.”
I wondered if it was Bowdoin Management but didn’t bother asking. She asked if I wanted to try the bedroom again. I said I didn’t.
“Not to rush you, but I’m expecting a friend in about forty minutes.”
“Sure.”
“Have another drink if you want.”
“No, it’s time I was on my way.” She walked me to the door and held my coat for me. I kissed her goodbye.
“Don’t be so long between visits next time.”
“Take care, Elaine.”
“Oh, I will.”
Chapter 10
Friday morning came clear and crisp. I picked up an Olin rental car on Broadway and took the East Side Drive out of town. The car was a Chevrolet Malibu, a skittish little thing that had to be pampered on curves. I suppose it was economical to run.
I caught the New England Expressway up through Pelham and Larchmont and into Mamaroneck. At an Exxon station the kid who topped up the tank didn’t know where Schuyler Boulevard was. He went inside and asked the boss, who came out and gave me directions. The boss also knew the Carioca, and I had the Malibu parked in the restaurant’s lot at twenty-five minutes of twelve. I went into the cocktail lounge and sat on a vinyl stool at the front end of a black Formica bar. I ordered a cup of black coffee with a shot of bourbon in it. The coffee was bitter, left over from the night before.
The cup was still half full when I looked over and saw her standing hesitantly in the archway between the dining room and the cocktail lounge. If I hadn’t known she was Wendy Hanniford’s age, I would have guessed high by three or four years. Dark, shoulder-length hair framed an oval face. She wore dark plaid slacks and a pearl-gray sweater beneath which her large breasts were aggressively prominent. She had a large brown leather handbag over her shoulder and a cigarette in her right hand. She did not look happy to see me.
I let her come to me, and after a moment’s hesitation she did. I turned slowly to her.
“Mr. Scudder?”
“Mrs. Thal? Should we take a table?”
“I suppose so.”
The dining room was uncrowded, and the head waitress showed us to a table in back and out of the way. It was an overdecorated room, a room that tried too hard, done in someone’s idea of a flamenco motif. The color scheme involved a lot of red and black and ice blue. I had left my bitter coffee at the bar and now ordered bourbon with water back. I asked Marcia Thal if she wanted a drink.
“No, thank you. Wait a minute. Yes, I think I will have something. Why shouldn’t I?”
“No reason that I know of.”
She looked past me at the waitress and ordered a whiskey sour on the rocks. Her eyes met mine, glanced away, came back again.
“I can’t say I’m happy to be here,” she said.
“Neither am I.”
“It was your idea. And you had me over a barrel, didn’t you? You must get a kick out of making people do what you want them to do.”
“I used to pull wings off flies.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” She tried to glare, and then she lost the handle of it and grinned in spite of herself. “Oh, shit,” she said.
“You’re not going to be dragged into anything, Mrs. Thal.”
“I hope not.”
“You won’t be. I’m interested in learning something about Wendy Hanniford’s life. I’m not interested in turning your life upside down.”
Our drinks arrived. She picked hers up and studied it as if she had never seen anything quite like it before. It seemed an ordinary enough whiskey sour. She took a sip, set it down, fished out the maraschino cherry and ate it. I swallowed a little bourbon and waited for her.