He glided into the room like a boxer.
Said: “I didn’t know anybody was in here.”
Saw her all alone. Asked: “Would you help me?”
More like a farm boy than a scion of Park Avenue, he smiled and raised his hand that held an ebony ribbon. “I’ve never been good with ties.”
“Mr. Daniels! I thought you were at the opera with your guests!”
“Guess I’m running late.” Standing near the open doors, servants just a shout away, he frowned: “How about you?”
“Me?” Don’t stammer! “I guess I’m early, I’m always early.”
“That’s a refreshing quality of leadership for a woman—”
Sexist pig!
“—that doesn’t get its just due. Good for you.”
He moved deeper into the room’s flickering light.
The press called him handsome, and he might have been—though he looked rough. Short hair. Lines along his mouth: Call them … not dimples …
Heart scars leapt into Erin’s mind: lines of laughter, lines of sorrow.
None of the newspaper articles mentioned those.
Keep him looking at you! Focus him on you! Trick him!
Erin’s lying smile surprised her with its honest, self-conscious curl.
“Better go,” she said. “You don’t want to miss your opera.”
“Well,” he said, taking a step closer, “Tosca is impressive—”
Pretentious snob!
“—but I’d rather go see Billie Holiday.”
“In the Village!” blurted Erin. Don’t let his focus drift! He’ll notice! “Have you heard her ‘Strange Fruit’? Can you believe—”
“—that people think she’s singing about swings on trees or … ”
“Or sex.”
“But it’s not, is it,” he said. “That song. About sex.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not.”
His eyes narrowed: “I’ve never seen you down there.”
A quick lunge would let her grab the revolver from between the white towels stacked on the desk, but he’d shout and those doors were still open.
“I’ve never seen you anywhere,” said this man she officially loathed.
“Maybe you just weren’t looking. I’m easy to not notice.”
“No,” he said. “And no.”
She stood between the desk and the crackling fire. Her legs felt like rubber. She wobbled on those borrowed high heels. This isn’t me.
He turned and rolled shut the doors but before she thought to grab the gun, he’d turned back, taken one, two steps toward her. Stopped.
“You don’t know me,” he said. “I don’t know you. Yet here we are.”
“For your party. After the opera. I’m early. Came to meet someone.”
“Found me.” He grinned. “Isn’t luck the damnedest thing?”
Then he looked past her to the wall with its exposed safe.
She saw him spot the poker-dogs painting in the shoved-away chair.
Maybe I can talk my way out of this! Maybe I won’t need the Colt!
“You’re … a thief!” He scowled. “Are you working for Nick?”
Huh?
He stepped closer to the desk. “No, Nick’s a loner.”
Keep him talking! Erin stepped from behind the desk but stayed by it. Closer to him. To the stacked towels. To the gun. “Who’s Nick?”
This man who was about her age shrank with his answer.
“Nick Cole and I … Mr. Blue Blood and Mr. Blue Sky. The only person I let call me Bernie instead of Bernard. Bernard Daniels the third. He said he didn’t like me being trapped by all that weight.”
Keep him distracted! “So why does he want to rob you?”
“He thinks he’s owed. Or he wants to knock me down. Or both.”
“Because … ”
“Nick and Bernie go to Vera Cruz. Black-hair-to-her-waist Carmelita. May the best man win. We blunder into somebody else’s cantina brawl. Knives. Blood. Blame the gringos. Bought my way out of jail. Nick doesn’t have my bucks. I closed the deal with Carmelita.”
“You left him in jail?”
“Well … technically, yeah, but he was in the fight, too. He just couldn’t pay the tab. Not my fault.”
“Besides, there was Carmelita. She should have made you help him.”
“Every transaction has its goals. She got her ticket to Hollywood. Before I got around to more bribes, Nick lock-picked his way out. Poof!”
“Would he have left a friend behind?”
“He’s not the good man he wants to be.” A long strong finger aimed straight at her heart. “And you’re more than a thief.”
“I’m not a—”
“Too late,” he said. “You took the dogs off the wall. That’s enough for the law, even if it were honest. Robbery like this is a low blow.”
And she heard her father after the banks had taken the ranch telling his motherless little girl: “Just once I wish one of them sons a bitches would get what’s coming to ’em.”
“You deserve it,” she said.
“What did I ever do to you?”
“Personally, nothing.”
“But for you, this is more than business.”
She stood as tall as she could beside the desk.
Said: “Is business what you do with the refugees on the Lower East Side? You hunt them down. Give them a dime on the dollar for what they managed to save from the goose-steppers.”
“Diamonds,” he said.
“In a lockbox,” she told him. “In that safe.”
“Guess too many people heard those stories.” He shook his head. “So you’re going to steal diamonds I bought fair and square and give them back to the people who were grateful my deal let them eat?”
“There are charities I know.” That’s true.
“I hope you were planning to keep some for yourself.”
She didn’t answer.
Said: “Why do you do it? You don’t need the money.”
“Life is action. Money is just one currency. And when a dime is still big-time, when it’s personal: That’s the sweetest.”
Think! I’ve got to think! What—
“How were you going to do it?” He eased closer. “I don’t see you sneaking across rooftops, then burgling a window. I figure you tricked your way in here. Dressed like that, once the party started, you could escape. In and out is easy, but there’s a safe with a combination.”
“You love your birthday. It’s your limo license plate: 02-21-06.”
“Smart and brave.” He stalked toward her.
The gun, the heavy gun hid in the stack of white towels that along with her purse and the honeymoon bed for acid tubes was all that waited on the slab of a desk. The gun, a Colt Peacemaker, was her only inheritance from a father who’d died whispering: “Somebody should get shot.”
In that study, Erin knew: I can grab the gun and … And.
“But then what?” said the man she came to rob. “The diamonds in the safe are in a lockbox.”
Her eyes flicked to the two glass tubes on the white towel.
“What’s that?”
“Acid.”
“You were going to pour acid on the box lock?”
“Or the hinges.” She shrugged. “Sometimes there’s more than one way to do something.”
He sighed. “Sometimes I wish there was no way to do what I want.”
Asked: “Which is worse, regretting what we can’t resist, or regretting what we wish we’d dared?”
“What are we talking about?” she said.
“How we got here.” As he draped the black tie around his neck, she wondered if his cheeks gave a soft scratch of straight-razor-shaved stubble. He walked like he was following the curve of a noose until his back was to the huge mirror and hers was to the desk. Said: “What comes next?”
The clock gonged the quarter hour.
“Why does the opera end at midnight?” Why am I whispering?
“Because everybody wants tomorrow to be a party.”
“Is that what you want?” she said.
Realized how he looked at her then had changed how he looked.
Suddenly he’d gone from Lon Chaney to werewolf and I—
—she thought—
I can be his silver bullet.
The werewolf never wins.
Maybe this can all be a movie. So maybe whatever I do, want …
“You make me want to say something corny,” he told her.
“Like what?”
“Your dress is made out of stars, but the light inside you is dazzling.”
They stood staring at each other.
“Wow,” she finally said. “But you’re not a sentimental guy.”
“Corny is one thing Bernard Davis the third is not.”
“So what would Bernard Davis the third say at a moment like this?”
The fireplace crackled.
He said: “Come here.”
“Make me!”
“What—no, I mean: I was saying what Bernie’d normally say.”
“Oh! Me, too.” Her tongue wet her lips. “This is no normal moment.”
“I knew we’d agree on something.”
“Is that what you’re looking for? Agreement?”
“You came here to get the diamonds, right?”
“And to get away free.”
“No such thing,” he said. “You pay for what you do and you pay for what you want. The best you can hope for is that those two things join up. But that’s rare magic. So rip the best deal you can out of what you got.”
“Spoken like a true rogue.”
“I feel like I want to be in a truthful mood.”
“Really.” Her heart pounded against its cage of ribs.
Her voice said: “What else do you want?”
Erin took a step toward him. Heat from the fire baked her bare back. Shallow breaths made her gown rise and fall, rise and fall. Scents of musk perfume. Roses. Burning wood. Lemon polish that had turned the slab of a desk into a brown-mirror dance floor for reflected flickering flames.
She heard herself say: “We’re both after the best deal, right? For me, that means getting what I came for. For you, that means treasure.”
“What treasure?”
“A memory worth more than law or silver or diamonds.”
A fate better than murder.
They stood so close they could see only each other’s faces.
Whisper from her: “What would a truthful rogue do here? Do now?”
His hands. Floating up from his sides like he was going to clap. Or strangle. She couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. Her parentheses of hair brushed aside as molten steel bands circled her neck oh! so softly became warm fingers cupping her face …
… as he leaned close …
… as her eyes closed …
She felt the kiss.
Not at all like that first kiss stolen with her silent blessing by a boy who blew away in the Great Winds that came with the Depression.
Not at all like the wet slobbers from the drunk college frat rat who bumbled his first attempt at doing it with Scholarship Girl and then a half hour later almost passed out before he could contribute the pain of Erin making sure she didn’t die a virgin.
And not at all like the angry peckings that accompanied always with the lights off bedroom events with Mister Mistake who turned out to have zero intention of leaving the wife he neglected to disclose to Erin.
No, not like any such kiss. Like …
Lips burning moist melting to fly MORE kiss.
Couldn’t help it, she realized: This is a man I could kill.
Their eyes blinked open. She saw the smear of her ruby on his lips.
He whispered: “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
She said: “Show me.”
Stood before him with her hands at her sides.
Waiting.
Trembling.
He lifted the gown’s black straps off her white shoulders. Let go. The sequined garment fell. Fireplace heat glowed her bare breasts. The straps slid down her loose arms, the gown brushed past the black garter belt circling her hips, fell to a crumpled nothing around her shoes. No panties.
She filled his eyes and he whispered: “Jesus!”
Heard her whisper back: “No. Me.”
She grabbed the black ribbon circling his neck, pulled him to her parted lips as his hands circled her hips, pulled her closer, his grip sliding up her sides along her stomach to cover and cup oh!
Like dancers they moved, for her backwards, stepping out of/on the black dress as he fought free of the tuxedo jacket. She threw away his black tie but he stayed kissing her mouth her cheeks and she ripped open his white shirt, him shrugging it gone black undershirt and he stops, leans back—
—they’re staggering in front of the roaring fireplace—
—and he pulls off the black undershirt muscled lean drops it. She arches her back, guides his face to her heart his hands fill squeezing as he kisses her there then there his lips suck in oh! electricity jolts up her spine to tingle her tongue.
They bump into the desk, her left leg his right then somehow she’s sitting on that hard wood as he’s stepping away, kicking off his shoes.
Stands back to the fire, facing her.
He drops his pants.
Watches quick breaths slide in and out of her smeared ruby lips.
Off come his boxer shorts.
Even in the flickering shadows, she saw all of him.
He stepped toward the V made as she felt her knees move apart.
Stopped.
A shy grin as he told her: “I want to take off my socks.”
Laughing, both of them, as he hopped on one leg, then the other. Stepping to her barefoot, her nylons crackled sliding along the outside of his thighs. He pushed himself as near to the desk as all the laws of physics allowed, his hands plowing her hair as his eyes devoured her.
She whispered: “What about my stockings?”
“Leave them on.”
Kissing her as she leans back onto the wooden desk, as he climbs on there, too, as his weight presses to her, covers her as her hands stretched up behind her along the desk wood—
Knocked her purse—
—and the white honeymoon towel of acid tubes—
—off the desk.
Erin heard glass crack. Acid hiss. Volcano chemical clouds billowing up from the floor vanished in heat from the fireplace, vanished in smells of burning wood, of roses, of musky perfume salty sweetness and them.
Her right hand brushed the stack of white towels.
Brushed the hiding place of her gun.
She gripped his shoulder blades and he kissed her cheek, her neck, oh there and there, yes filling his mouth with her yes kissing her heaving breastbone down kissing her belly button and What is he doing?
Standing on the floor at the end of the desk grabbing her waist pulling her along the sweat-slick wood, her high heels off the edge of the desk, her knees curl up and back and he’s with her but he’s down there kissing and oh! NEVER READ ABOUT THIS IN ANY BOOK oh oh OH!
Erin grabbed his skull, pulled him onto the desk as she heard herself say: “Kiss me, kiss me!” and he does, pressing her against that hard wood his right hand sliding down her side …
She rolls sideways. Don’t knock over the stack of towels. The gun. He’s on his back, straddle him and after all the yesterdays of awkward or ignorant or counterfeit or mechanical moves, she knows how for this triumph and she’s atop him fill me her stockinged legs knelt bent along his chest, his hands caressing her breasts her hips, try to kiss can’t stop gasping, she rises curves tall over him hears their clap clap clap of flesh sees—
—in the huge wall mirror—
—them on the desk—
—them, me, yes, me, yes LOOK: his face gasping like he’s in pain.
Reflections in the dark wood of the desk alongside the white towels, them and firepla
ce flames flickering and … and …
Nnnh!
Feel him buck beneath her fighting crying out shudder taut … He sinks onto the desk. She drapes over him, her right cheek pressing his, his breath panting in her ear, her hands pressed on the hard wood as strong arms circle around her back, hold her tight and she is right there, here, now.
The universe took a breath.
Let it go.
GONG! sounds the clock.
Trapping her to him, he says: “I lied.”
GONG!
What?
GONG!
“I can’t let you get away,” he says.
GONG!
Slowly. GONG!
So he won’t feel her doing it. GONG!
So he won’t know until it’s too late. GONG!
Her left hand glides above the dark-wood mirror of the desk. GONG!
Her fingertips brush soft fabric. GONG!
Find the gully between white towels. GONG!
Slide into cloth warmth. GONG!
Touch cold steel.
At the midnight GONG! Erin heard him say: “But now you should open the safe, then let me pick that lock so we can steal Bernie’s diamonds and get ourselves gone.”
Greed
AMY HEMPEL
MRS. GREED HAD been married for forty years, her husband the cuckold of all time. A homely man with a notable fortune, he escorted her on errands in the neighborhood. It was a point of honor with Mrs. Greed to say she would never leave him. No matter if her affection for him was surpassed by her devotion to others. Including, for example, my husband. If she was home at night in her husband’s bed, did he care what she did with her days?
I was the one who cared.
Protected by men, money, and a lack of shame, Mrs. Greed had long been able to avoid what she had coming. She had the kind of glee that meant men did not think she slept around, they thought she had joie de vivre. They thought her a libertine, not a whore.
She had the means to indulge impetuous behavior and sleep through the mornings after nights she kept secret from her friends. She traveled the world, and turned into the person she could be in other places with people she would never see again.
She was many years older than my husband, running on the fumes of her beauty. Hers had been a conventional beauty, and I was embarrassed by my husband’s homage to it. Running through their rendezvous: a stream of regret that they had not met sooner.
The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime by Today's Top Authors Page 9
