Mitchell Smith

by Daydreams

  And, if I may be permitted to boast, made a new man out of him. I will hasten to add, after blowing my own horn this way, that that was an unusual session. With most of my clients, it’s fairly routine….

  “Hi,” he says. “How’re you doin’? How’s it going’?

  My partner is the asshole of the world and is ruining the business.

  Ruining it! How much this time? …

  That’s a lot of money. Let’s do this. Let’s do that. Oh, that’s fabulous. Oh, that’s great. You’re fantastic….

  Not bad myself? Thanks; I try to stay in shape. My wife’s crazy about me. And I love her, too. She’s a wonderful, wonderful woman and we still have great sex. What do you hear about the market? You must have guys in the market up here. Running fairly stable, but be careful? Guy must know his stuff. Listen, before I go; this friend of mine is having a relationship with a girl at his office. It’s a very casual thing, but it could be getting serious, and you know, this guy, this friend of mine is a lot older. Keeps himself in shape; he’s really in great shape, but he is older. You got a lot of experience; what do you think? This could be a serious thing. What do you think? … You think my friend is about to make a fuckin’ fool of himself. I think you’re right. You know, you’re quite a woman. You ask me, you’re too good a woman to be in this business. Listen, you want to go and have a drink? Just go somewhere and have a drink and talk? No. You don’t.

  You find me dangerously attractive. You’re scared I’ll ruin you for other guys. Very funny. I’m falling’ in love here and you’re making’

  me laugh. Listen, take care of yourself; you’re a sweet girl. Now I’ll get the hell out of here and leave you in peace……

  A typical hour for a typical working mother.

  Oh, and a footnote on the Carl thing. Carl did get together with Gloria’s friend, they got married, everything fine, and a couple of years later he left her for a lady customer that bought a spruce-green Regal with power sun roof and adjustable lumbar support in both front seats. (I made the part about the car up.)

  Poor women … Poor men. And what does your mother find so fascinating about these clumsy, cocked creatures? Sweetheart, there’s a world in every one of them. Get them in bed, get them close to you, and you can tear the “man” right off them like an animal’s hide, the lawyer, doctor, businessman, the brother, father, husband, or son; you can tear all that away, fuck, lick, and suck it away, listen it away, talk it away, nag, cry, scream it away … and then deal with the tender truthful animal that comes crawling out, stark naked.

  It’s a game no woman ever gets tired of, Every good two-hout trick is like being introduced, going together, getting pregnant, having the child, raising it, kissing it goodbye, then getting a friendly divorce

  … but moving faster. In fact-and get ready to be grossed out entirely!-I’ve suspected for some time that mothers and fathers should screw their children fare well when the kids are old enough to leave home.

  Maybe the lack of that kind of loving goodbye to their children’s childhood is what keeps both parents and their sons and daughters permanently unsatisfied, unseparated, dealing with each other like disappointed lovers.

  What do you think? Yes? No? Scare you?

  Anyway, I don’t have a son to screw, and your father lives in Chicago.

  Of course, just for example, a really adventurous young woman might go out to Chicago in a few years, find that old dreamer, and seduce him as, say, a friendly young waitress … or a new girl hired into the office or a local college girl getting a business interview for the school paper. A girl like that might get to bed with Fred Pascoe, who I’d guess could still get it up for a new young piece, and learn more about her father in half an hour than most women ever know. Maybe enough to make up a little for not having a daddy as she was growing.

  “Mother! Will you please cut that shit OUT?”

  Well, darting, if you don’t want to do it, then don’t.

  People talk a lot about knowing other people, but usually they don’t want to know that much, after all.

  What they really mean is, they’d like to find out something that will comfort and please them. Of course, you don’t have to do any such thing; it just occurred to me it might be an exciting exploration, a way to come to terms with what’s been missing for you. Something to make you richer, more interesting to yourself. Otherwise, you know, you’re not talking about a father at all, are you? You’re dreaming about a daddy, and there’s a lot less to a daddy, and less to learn from him, and less to learn about yourself. It’s true that most women are content to have only daddies. Then they wonder why they don’t understand men.

  And of course, concerning the above, exactly the same is true of men and their mothers.

  How well do you want to know people? How well do you want to know yourself? Sex is one of the great can openers, if you’re sure you want to know what’s in the can, Most people don’t want to know, and are scared to death of the opener.

  And don’t think I don’t know how nutty some of my ideas sound. Sometimes I think I’m like someone who can see, where everybody else is blind. And sometimes I just think I’m a w’eirded-out hooker, and I must be the blind one. I suppose everybody feels like that about something, think they know something that nobody else has noticed.

  O-K. Men. How do you handle these fragile beasts, practically? How do you get them? How do You keep them? %en do you get rid of them? And F

  m aware I have much less long-term experience with a single sample than most women have. Well, a good friend of mine, a man, always says riding is the best way for giTIS

  to learn about dealing with men. It’s Practice controlling a big, strong, dumb, smelly, hairy-animal between your legs. So, concentrate on those riding lessons with His. Strickland; maybe they’ll be useful.

  Seriously? O. K.

  Here’s what I think, seriously, To get them. To get a man. And it’s amazing how many women still want one around, Womeri You wouldn’t think need anything or anybody still want one, even if he can’t hit the toilet when he pees that - All us b instinct, and it gets 0 go.

  eyes Look into their the i look le Never cling, not even look. Wal slowly, move slowly when you’re near a man or a boy you want. Don’t jump around, don’t be perky, don’t be a pal. Let them look at u, even if yo YOU’re dressed in a snowsuit. Let them look. Say to Yourself,

  “Here it is, here’s what you want to see. Here’s what you can see all naked, soft and smooth. Here’s what you can kiss.

  You can lick it. You can Put your fingers there. if you’re gentle …

  if you’re gentle, you can slide a finger in, and find out where I hide.

  Then, if you want, you can hurt me a little … and please me a lot,Ìn other words—get hot. A man who can’t smell wet panties is one you can do without.

  Handling them. The best way to handle them is to enjoy them - Love them all out. Open yourself up like a book. Open those legs till your hips ache, and show them everything you’ve got. Open up your mouth, open up your memories, open up everything. Let them settle down and live inside you. Hold them up like a plant stake, comfort, praise, cook, and clean—scratch those little specks of shit off the toilet bowl with your fingernail.

  And if they don’t do the same for you at first, if they’re slow learners, then teach them and give them more time…. But if they won’t ever do the same for you, if they won’t ever learn, then close your legs, close your mouth, store your memories, stop cooking, stop cleaning, get up from the bathroom floor, and kick that asshole out the door. , Clean shit forever. Eat shit, never.

  Love, Mother P.S. You’re the pleasure and triumph of my life, sweetheart.

  Ellie put the letter back in its envelope, and lay think. It seemed to her that Sally had loaded a lot of her own problems onto her daughter. A young girl like Sonia didn’t need to have that sex stuff thrown at her that way. -And, there was something else . . . Ellie took the letter out of its envelope again, leafed through it,
and found the page, Then she got up to get her purse, and looked up Susan Margolies’ number in her notebook-came back, sat on the edge of the bed, and called her.

  “Hello?”

  “Th I i I s is Ellie Klein. NYPD? I spoke with you last week.

  Silence.

  “My partner and I are coming over to see you tomorrow morning. I don’t know what time. -I think it would be a good idea if you were there all morning . . . didn’t make us come looking for you. Understand?”

  “What did you say Your name was?”

  “Klein. You know my name.”

  Silence.

  “You be there, O.K.? You be there waiting from seven o’clock on,” Ellie said, and hung up. Then she tried calling Tommy in Brooklyn, but the line was busy.

  Delgado got several calls on his limo phone, coming ing about it for a moment.

  into town fast-no siren on, but slap light revolving to ease him swiftly down boulevards washed medium yellow by tall stooping streetlights. The fourth call was Cherusco’s.

  “Well . . .

  The Chief sighed. “John,” he said, “-I shouldn’t have to tell you these things . . . John, when people with the power to embarrass and severely damage the Department commence a course of action that lowers their balls deeper and deeper into our pocket, it seems reasonable to encourage, rather than discourage. -Besides, we’re one up.”

  “For the time being,” Cherusco said. “And I’ve got some advice for you, Chief. -It might be a good idea to tell your boy Anderson we’ve had a cover tap on that corner phone near Flowers’ for three months. We got it for the Pisano thing, and it’s still in place.”

  “I’ll certainly pass that on, John,” the Chief of the Department said, pushed a button, and took his fifth call.

  Father Gruenwald, and arrangements.

  The Counter Intelligence people had left no comforts in the Village apartment when they’d gone, and Tucker had been lucky to find a half-melted bar of soap with two curly brown hairs sticking to it for his shower. The shower did him good, though-The soap didn’t offend; he was in that rare tender mood when he felt grateful for other people’s insignia. He took his shower, dried with a small dirty towel, and looked at his face in the mirror over the sink. The right side was very swollen, right eye almost closed, black skin mottled blacker. There was still a buzzing in that ear. He walked into the bedroom, lifted his suitcase onto the bed-his belly and side were sore, too, from the kicks-and took fresh chinos, socks, Fruit of the Looms, and a white shirt from his suitcase, and put them on. Put on his running shoes, too. -Felt better on his feet.

  At the closet-he’d stacked Budreau’s and Mason’s suitcases in there, out of the way-he took his Italian pistol in its shoulder harness down from a hook and strapped it on then went back to his suitcase for a tan windbreaker.

  He walked to the apartment door and out, doublelocked the door behind him, went down the hall and one flight of stairs, and out the building’s front door and stoop into Thompson Street. A line from Camino Real occurred to him. “-The streets are brilliant, tonight.”

  Thompson Street, shadowy, quiet on a cool autumn night, opened into Bleecker, blazing in yellow and red, decorated in series with cross-street arches of light bulbs reflecting in pavement still wet from rain and thick with traffic, foot and vehicular-ambulating oddities (rarer now than they had been), tired tourists doing their last round before going uptown to their hotels, and ethnic kids in from the boroughs for adventure, all drifting toward or away from Mulberry Street and the last night of San Gennaro, the festival late this year, delayed by the death and funeral of the parish priest.

  Tucker walked a block east on Bleecker, crossed the street, walked down a flight of steps into a drugstore, and bought a pair of large-lensed dark glasses for twelve dollars and seventy-three cents. He climbed up again to a shadier, green-tinted street, all lights dimmed, the night enhanced, even sounds seeming subdued.

  Tucker walked back down Bleecker to MacDougal, then up a block to a coffee house called the Olive Tree went in, and up some steps into a large room, busy: dimly-lit and Levantine, and saw the Colonel sitting in a booth against the opposite wall.

  A girl came to seat him, but Tucker said, “My buddy’s over there,”

  nodded to the Colonel, and sidled through the crowded tables to him. The Colonel had taken off his British Warm; it was folded on the seat beside him.

  Tucker slid into the booth and sat opposite.

  “That’s a bad face, Tuck,” the Colonel said. His breath was sweet with alcohol.

  “Feels just the way it looks.”

  “Well,” the Colonel said, “-the thing’s all over TV.”

  “I’ll bet,” Tucker said. A Chaplin film, a silent, was being projected on a large screen at the back of the room. Charlie was having trouble with a big man with thick black eyebrows.

  “I’ve heard of jinxed operations,” the Colonel said. -I suppose this one takes the cake.”

  a tray. rown hair

  “-Just in time to save miling u at her, and the girl p Colonel a drink, and Tucker

  “Your dinners will be coming in a minute,”

  lifted the tray, and left. she said, “Bourbon,” the Colonel said.

  “Doubles. -I think we need them.”

  Tucker took a long drink. “—Kicked Mason’s ass down On those tracks-After that moron proceeded to fry himself-and commenced to tear Budreau up. We are talking here, about one tough motherfucker. We should have 6t shot i him in the back of the head.”

  “No, no, no!” the Colonel murmured on a high note, trying to keep his voice down. “-You can’t pee in these people’s faces, Sergeant. I told you! There has to be at least the Possibility it was muggers, some thugs picking on the wrong man. You can kill a cop in a robbery or a brawl, but you can’t assassinate one without The New York Times sticking its nose in!”

  “We Should have assassinated this mother; that’s for shit sure,” Tucker said, and had more of his drink. ‘-You

  “Jinxed’ doesn’t really describe it, does it, colonel? -A fucking disaster , would be somewhat more accurate.”

  The Colonel looked away, out across the room to the bar. “I already ordered……

  ‘-First we had that nut with the groceries; now, tonight, we had this animal. Let me tell you, that cop chewed Mason up and spit him out real quick. -And Mason had already stuck him in the back twice. Seven inches of steel, double-edged.”

  Bizarre,” the Colonel said, still gazing over at the bar. The Colonel was looking old; his face seemed to Tucker to have been cut out of light green paper by someone very skillful. An artist.

  “Sir, this operation has been bizarre for some time.

  … Tucker took off his dark glasses for a moment to wipe his right eye with a napkin; it was tearing. With his glasses off, the Colonel’s face turned to white aper.

  “-We are also losing the body count on this one. P

  “Tell me about it,” the Colonel sid, green again, and smiled as a thin gray-eyed girl with long light-b came to the my life,” the smiled back the other.

  know how many times in my life, since I was grown, 9” He held up two fingers.

  have been knocked on my ass “Tonight was the second.“And if that man had been able me, I’d be right down there on those tracks to V_et hold of I stuck him wiib them. -Mason had stuck him twice, and twice.”

  “What about Budreau)” fighting for his life, is what “Budreau did O.K.

  He was he was doing

  . And he didn’t make it

  “Those boys,” the Colonel said, mournful. “These?”

  “Well,” he said ,_ boys . and ook a drink. I called ry pleased, feet a useful lesson Washington. They are ve has been administered, Not so happy about the casual about that; said they were excessive. Gave me ties. Upset.”

  some goddamn … nonsense…. with their dinners on The girl came back to their booth her tray, and served them out ,, the Colonel said to Tucker, ,I ordered shish kebab, d her
e.”

  —supposed to be very 900 ewing on the It was good, but Tucker had trouble ch right side of his mouth. He tried chewing on the left side, and that was better.

  After a few bites, Tucker said, “What next … ?” -[bey didn’t say we could leave,” the Colonel said, finished his drink, and looked around the room for their waitress. “-But I don’t think there’ll be anything next.

  Washington thinks we’ve made our point … they doubt there’ll be any more police activity on the Gaither thing, or in our direction either.”

  Their waitress started to walk past the booth, heading back toward the kitchen, but the Colonel held up his empty glass.

  ,,miss … I’ll have a rfifll on this, I think.”

  When she’d gone, the Colonel, flushed, livelier,,, said, “I think the boys in blue understand us, now….

  I ” Tucker said, took a bite Another such victory …

  of shish kebab, and chewed it carefully.

  Colonel said, looking toward “Pyrrhus … yes,” the the bar.

  Ellie made herself a small icecream soda with ginger ale and Hiagen-Dazs, vanilla, finished it in the kitchen ignoring Mayo’s begging-then went to the hall phone and tried Nardone again. Still busy. She thought of calling Clara, and decided to do it, rather than wait for Clara to call her. It was getting late.

  She had to go and get her purse for the number, then called the Palmer House and asked for Clara’s room.

  Clara picked up on the second ring.

  “Yes?” Very businesslike.

  “Very businesslike, Clar.”

  “Oh, you bitch … I’m glad you called.”

  “What’s happening? Is Henry coming through for you?”

  “Darting, I don’t think Henry can come through for me. These Midwest guys scare him to death , Very, very stile earnest. Very, very ex-FBI.

  I think they I carry cuffs on the back of their belts, just in case.”

  “You really think they won’t appoint you9”

  “Oh, not to worry, I’ll get something. Tomorrow’s probably going to be the last day of the conference, coming down to the wire, -I’m playing it very ladylike, very quietly competent, very eager to team from men with such experience. They ask me out for dinner; I go to dinner, I shake my butt a little, I laugh at their jokes a lot, and when asked to dance, I gracefully take the hard-on on my hip. -I think I’ll get something.”