A prostitute wanders across the front of the café, her legs slightly in front of her. She glances at the man with the calculator. Bobby watches, then flags down the bartender. He orders second drinks for himself and Marianne, then addresses the bartender.
“Say, is that young lady — is she in the life?”
“You’ll have to ask her.” The bartender grins and leaves for the drinks, ignoring thirty imploring hands.
“Marianne, excuse me a sec.”
Marianne watches Bobby lope toward the prostitute. When he comes back, she wants to know what he said to her.
“Just got her name.”
“And?”
“Some idea of prices. I had to tell her, you know, that I was interested. Her name is Donna. Anyway, she said a hundred. You’re way prettier than she is.”
“Thank you,” says Marianne.
“Now what I’m thinking is, that guy over there with the calculator.”
Slowly and imperturbably, Marianne gazes at the man. She looks back at Bobby a moment and gets up.
“I’ll see you at home.”
Marianne starts off bravely in her silver shoes. From either end of the cafe, Bobby and the prostitute Donna watch Marianne sit down with the man, who smiles and puts the calculator in his pocket. Marianne sips his drink.
Suddenly, down Broadway, with Stetson hats and cameras, comes a mob of Japanese tourists. Bobby, whose heart is already pounding, panics as they flood the area between him and Marianne. He jumps up in complete fear and begins pushing through them. When he gets to the other side, Marianne and the man with the calculator are gone. He goes back to his table.
“Hey.”
Dazed, Bobby looks up. It’s Donna.
“What?”
“You get a price out of me, then send your trick to the guy. I don’t think that’s nice, ’n’ that. Can I sit down?”
“Yuh.”
“How many ladies you got?”
“Just one.”
“What’re you so depressed about?”
“Drinking these things in the sun.”
“I mean, your hands are shaking.”
“I’ve got Parkinson’s disease.”
“You want to stop by my place? You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”
“Yeah, all right.”
They go up Broadway, past the Hotel Du Midi, the Basque restaurant, past the Chinese novelty shops, more or less in silence as Bobby continues to bear his stricken look; then up an alley to a stairway, a catwalk, and a door.
They enter a small neat flat with gridded outside light coming in from above, some books, and, sitting in a Mexican goatskin sling chair, a very bad-looking man named Chino, whose name, a nickname, comes from a correctional facility in southern California. His real name is Donald Arthur Jones. He waves with professional indolence but still manages to look dangerous. He says, “Hey, Donna. Look, am I in the way? Just say so. Who’s our friend?”
“I don’t know, baby. But you assured me Enrico’s was your spot. And this guy and his whore run off a customer on me about five minutes ago, which embarrasses me on your behalf.”
“Gimme your name.”
“Bobby Decatur.”
“Donna, get Bobby the pictures.”
Donna takes a stack of Polaroids off the bookshelf and sets them on the table.
“C’mere, Bobby,” says Chino. “C’mere and sit next to me.” Bobby does; it looks like a piano duet. Bobby looks through a stack of pictures of a man who has been maimed with a knife. Chino begins to speak in a comically deep voice.
“This man took a girl to Enrico’s. This girl was in the life. They turned a few dollars. This is what he got.”
“Is he dead?”
“In some ways. Now this was done with a Buck folding knife, which is very nice for an off-the-shelf knife. It’s stainless steel, and though it’s difficult to sharpen, it will hold an edge indefinitely. Lately, I have my knives custom-made for me in Lawndale, California, by a man who is a craftsman, perhaps even an artist. What is the catch? A two-year waiting list. He’s the only man in the world who can make me wait. So for a while I made do with the off-the-shelf folding knife like some nimrod, Bobby. Donna, show Bobby the Lawndale masterpiece.”
Donna fetches an ivory-handled dagger.
“Bobby, with one motion I could throw your insides halfway up Russian Hill. So why don’t you and Mrs. Scumbag find some fast-food place that would form a more suitable background for your talent and her looks.”
“I saved the best part,” says Donna. “The john she picked up was a cop.” This, thinks Bobby, has become extremely sordid.
All the way to jail, Bobby says, “Oh, God, God, God. Oh, God.” But gradually he draws himself together and does the right thing under the circumstances by posting a bond. Once they’ve gotten into a cab, Bobby attempts to alleviate the chill between himself and Marianne.
“I want to go to the Imperial Palace,” he says. “Or any restaurant with integrity and a serious kitchen. I don’t want some fluorescent-lit noodle pavilion. I want a fine old Chinese restaurant like the Imperial Palace.”
“You God damned son of a bitch.”
“Yes. That’s what I thought you were thinking.”
But they go anyway and fit themselves into the darkness of the restaurant among the silk paintings, cloisonné, and velvet panels. There are long-stemmed roses on the table. Bobby raises his drink and bravely pronounces the following:
“At least you didn’t have to go through with it.”
“Are you joking? The cop had me before the arrest. I thought I was making us money. I thought it was what we wanted.”
The waiter arrives.
“Oh, please no, Marianne. My God, I — let me order for both of us. Waiter! We shall each have Eight Precious soup. I want squab Macao, and my wife will have Five Willows rock cod with loquats, kumquats, and sweet pickles.”
The waiter departs. Bobby says, “I’m just stricken. I’m heartbroken.”
“I thought this was your fantasy, asshole! And I’m not your wife.”
“Oh, right, hang that one on me.”
“Since we met, I broke up with my fiancé, I left a good job, I was raped in an Arab jet, jailed, and taken to a Chinese restaurant.”
Silence. What a dreadful summation, thinks Bobby.
“Is that all you have to say for our romance?”
“Bobby, that is what has happened!”
In the dark hole of their bedroom, Bobby and Marianne watch television.
Bobby says, “When I’m desperate, I love Johnny Carson.”
Marianne says, “When I’m desperate, I love Walter Cronkite. Besides, Johnny Carson is supposed to have a monster coke habit.”
“Let’s plant a garden tomorrow.”
By midmorning, Bobby has spaded a loamy spot in the backyard. Marianne cultivates on her hands and knees. Bobby is a handsome zombie.
“If we could just make one thing grow,” Bobby says. “Well, it would make a difference.”
“What kind of seeds did you buy?”
Bobby fishes the packets from his shirt pocket. “Radishes, peonies, watermelon, and what’s this? Some kind of banana or something.”
“Well, you can count on the radishes. Give me those.”
“You can’t have a garden with just radishes.”
“What’s the matter with you, Bobby? That’s nothing to get upset about. Let me see these. That’s summer squash, Bobby, that’s not a banana. Can’t you see that?”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t you want to have a garden?”
Bobby and Marianne are lucky enough to join the happy browsers at Ghirardelli Square, a place well known for the character of its great chocolate candies, which make one’s fillings ring like a carillon. Bobby’s usual propensity not to be normal seems far away today, and he holds Marianne’s hand in blind euphoria, driving not a few walkers from the crowded sidewalk. It has come time for him to explain it all to Marianne.