"I don't care," Eugene said. "It don't make a bit of difference to me."
Jim Rein said, "Me neither."
12
VERNICE SAID TO ROBERT on the phone, "Well, you sure rise and shine early. He's still sleeping, the last I heard." Robert asked if she'd have Dennis call him when he got up and Vernice said, "Sure thing."
Maybe he was awake by now. She went into Dennis' room to check and looked down at the sweet boy lying on his side, arm under the pillow, the sheet almost to his bare shoulders. She went back to the door and listened, the house quiet except for the faint sound of Charlie in the next room sawing wood. Vernice closed the door and slipped out of her robe going to the bed. She got in behind Dennis and squirmed over to press her body against his bare back. She hoped he'd have to go to the bathroom and would brush his teeth while he was in there, but if he didn't it was okay. She raised her head enough to nibble at his ear and whisper, "Hi, stranger."
He stirred and she kissed his neck. Now his hand came around to her hip, like he was checking to see who this was in bed with him.
"It's just me," Vernice whispered, almost saying "little me," hunching her shoulders, Vernice down another four pounds in the past two days. She was pretty sure he was awake now but didn't want to rush him, appear too anxious. She said, "Dennis?"
He made a sound like "Hmmmm?"
"You think a person can look good but be too thin?"
It took a moment for him to say, "I guess," sounding more awake now.
"Did you know Jane Fonda had a twenty-fiveyear battle with bulimia?"
"What's bulimia?"
"You eat and then throw up on account of low self-esteem. But she got over it. Estranged husband Ted Turner got Jane to believe in herself." "I thought it was finding God did it." "That was in an old issue."
He came around enough to look up at her and Vernice gave him a peck on the cheek. She said, "How was the show yesterday?"
"Billy Darwin doesn't want Charlie calling dives anymore. He said, `Get somebody to introduce you, tell the crowd about the splash zone and let it go at that. No more Charlie telling stories from the old dugout.' He said do a few dives in the afternoon if you feel like it and save-he said, `save the daredevil stuff for the show at night.' "
"You want, I'll introduce you," Vernice said. "I know I can do that."
"But then you know what he said, Billy Darwin? There's a guy standing here-the ones Charlie picked up at the airport, the Mularonies, remember?"
"Anne," Vernice said. "Charlie thought she was too thin."
"The guy tells Billy Darwin he wants to be sure I get a few days off from diving so I can take part in the reenactment. Me. I don't even know the guy. Billy Darwin says, `Well, he knows you.' He tells me the guy laid a check for fifty grand on the casino cashier. The man's comped all the way and that includes me. If Mularoni wants me in the reenactment, I'm in the reenactment. I said to him, `It doesn't make sense, I never even heard of the guy.' Billy Darwin says, `It's up to you. Get in uniform or pack up your show.' Then he says, `It's not much of a draw anyway.'"
"And you don't even know this person?"
They heard a toilet flush.
"Nuts," Vernice said, "Charlie's up." She rolled out of the bed, picked up her pongee robe from the floor and put it on. Going to the door she said, "Oh, that colored fella, Robert? He wants you to call him."
The phone rang in Robert's suite-all the phones. He put his hand on the one next to the bed and said to Anne, putting her warm-ups back on, "Where'd you tell Jerry you were going?"
"To work out."
"Weren't lying, were you?"
"If he ever starts, we're fucked."
"No danger, the man likes the way he is." Robert picked up the phone. "Is this Dennis I'm about to speak to?"
"What's up?"
Robert said to Anne, "It's Dennis."
So Dennis would say, "Somebody's there with you?"
"The maid. She's getting dressed." "Come on-"
"See, what you do, believe everything I say and you won't have to mind-fuck yourself thinking about it. Listen, I want to introduce you to somebody."
"His name Mularoni?"
"Hey, how'd you pick up on that?"
"Billy Darwin. I do the reenactment thing or the gig's over."
"He didn't need to put it like that-shit. You were gonna do it, weren't you? All we wanted, make sure you got some days off. Mr. Mularoni 's the kind of man can make it happen. You understand what I'm saying? I want you to meet him."
"How about Anne?"
Robert put his hand over the phone and watched Anne sitting on the bed putting on a tennis shoe. He took his hand off the phone and said, "Dennis, you got chops working now I hadn't noticed. That was cool, that `How about Anne?' Damn."
"I'm diving at two."
"You can if you want. But Mr. Billy Darwin agreed you could cut that one."
"Why?”
"Have time to get the uniform and the gun and shit. We meeting in their suite at one o'clock, have some lunch."
"What if I'd rather dive?"
"Dennis? Listen to me. You're hungry. You eat, wait an hour and then you can dive all you want."
He hung up, Anne looking at him now, ready to leave.
"How'd he know about me?"
Robert was already thinking about it. He said, "Gimme another minute or two."
Mularoni was introduced to Dennis as Jerry, not Germano. In his fifties, shorter than Dennis with a head of thick dark hair and a beard, a poser with the cigar, the dark sunglasses. He seemed pleasant enough, but also the boss, saying, "Dennis, come here," put his arm around Dennis' shoulders and brought him to the balcony, the doors wide open.
"The ladder stands eighty feet high. That correct?"
"Exactly," Dennis said. "Eight ten-foot sections."
"But how does anybody know for sure?"
"Some people actually count the rungs."
"That's what I thought," Jerry said, "the skeptics. You know what you could do? Have a couple of the ladders, the ones you put on top, make the rungs six inches apart instead of a foot. From the ground you'd never be able to tell, but now you're ten feet lower up there."
"Jerry thought of that last night," Robert said, "watching the show."
"But whether you go off from seventy or eighty feet," Dennis said, "it doesn't make that much difference."
"Either one," Robert said, "you can kill yourself, huh? You want champagne, beer, vodka tonic-what's your pleasure?"
Dennis said champagne. Robert popped a bottle of Mumm and poured two glasses. Jerry had red wine.
Anne came out of the bedroom in what looked like a beach cover mostly yellow, almost see through, smiling at Dennis and extending her hand. She said, "I've watched you perform twice now, both times with my heart in my mouth. Hi, I'm Anne."
Sounding like a TV commercial. Charlie was right, she could be a fashion model, the long, streaked hair, the way she moved, sure of herself. She took his hand and kissed the air next to his cheek, giving him a whiff of scent that was the best thing he'd ever smelled. In his life. Up close she could be thirty-five.
For lunch there was cold shrimp, a mixed salad, marinated calamari, fried chicken, Anne saying, "Nothing fancy." Robert saying, "And a nod to regional chow, the river catfish and the mustard greens."
Dennis said to Robert aside, each taking a shrimp on a toothpick, "What's going on?"
"It's lunchtime," Robert said. "Don't you eat lunch?"
"Come on."
"They're my friends and you're my friend."
Anne got around to asking about high diving and Acapulco, standing close to him with her scent, bikini under the beach cover hanging open, saying it must be harrowing and Dennis telling her the rush was worth it. "Every day," she said, "living on the edge." Dennis shrugged. "It's dive or get a job."
She looked right into his eyes, making him wonder if it was there for him. He wasn't sure how to handle it. He asked if she and Jerry had any childrenstupid, trying to think of something to say-and it turned off the look she was giving him. She said, "Jerry and I aren't into children."