by Neil Gordon
1.
In her apartment, Allison helped Nicky to the couch and, when he was sitting, pushed his head down between his knees with a hand on the back of his neck. For several minutes they rested, Allison squatting on the floor in front of him still in her coat, Nicky doubled over. When, finally, Nicky sat up, she let herself fall backward until she was sitting on the floor, and regarded him. His thick, perfectly even brown hair. His mouth pursed, the thick red lips that much more striking for how pale was his face.
“Better now?”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“How bad were you hurt?”
“Very bad.”
“You shouldn’t be here. You should be in bed.”
Nicky shrugged and reached into his jacket pocket for cigarettes. “That wasn’t an option.”
“No, that’s right.” She spoke thoughtfully. “The election’s next month. Time’s running out.”
At Nicky’s expression of surprise, she went on in a careless tone.
“Oh, I know the whole story. Stan Diamond’s the NAR ’s patron. He was a tenant of my father’s. You found my embezzlement of the Ocean View Estate rentals. Now you are going to threaten me—and my father—with my prosecution.”
She paused now, briefly.
“The thing is, you don’t care about my embezzlement—not legally or morally. That’s just a lever. You care about my father, and more specifically, you care about my father and Colonel Eastbrook. So you’re going to threaten me, but you’re going to offer me a deal. Messy work, Dymitryck.”
He watched, wordless, and she smiled.
“Good. Now, this is what happens next. I’ve got to go do something. While I’m away, you’re going to take a hot shower and then get into my bed.”
“And why?”
“Because, Nicky dear, you are very cold, and very weak, and you and I need each other too much for you to die on me.”
Downstairs, at the bar, she briefly signaled to Dee that he should go by cutting her throat with her finger. She didn’t pause to see his response, but leaned across the bar to speak to Bobby. Bobby gave her a bottle of Jim Beam and, holding it, she flew up the interior staircase.
Nicky was in bed now, smelling of soap, the color much returned to his cheeks. As efficient as a nurse, she put an extra blanket over him, then sat down on the side of the bed with the bottle of bourbon.
“Feeling better?”
He nodded, and she offered him the bottle. She felt, suddenly, physically aware in every pore of her body. When he had drunk from the bottle, she lifted it to her lips while he talked.
“How did you know I had searched your house?”
“Because I searched your briefcase. In the Ritz. While you were checking on the ferry.”
He very nearly smiled at that. “I underestimated you.”
“Join the crowd.”
He nodded. “Why do you and I need each other so much?”
“You need me to give you what you want about Greg Eastbrook.”
He thought now. Then, rather than asking her for details, he asked something that surprised her.
“How can you do that without including your father?”
She hesitated, watching him. Then, carefully, she answered: “That’s not your problem.”
“I see.” He nodded, and took the bottle from her hand. “And what do I have that you want?”
She shook her head. “First tell me something.”
He nodded.
“Why did you come east?”
“You know that. You just told me.”
“No. I told you how you’re planning to force me to give you Eastbrook. Your lawyer could have done that. You didn’t need to come.”
“No.” He looked away now for a time, and when he looked back, she was surprised by the expression on his face. She nodded.
“I see.”
“What? What do you see?”
“You don’t have the stomach for this, do you? I mean, putting my father in jail was one thing. He may not be guilty of this, but he’s guilty of so much else it hardly matters. But you don’t have the stomach to do it to me.”
“Would you?” He had followed her perfectly.
“Yes. But I don’t count. I’m different.”
“And what makes you different?”
She shrugged, and drank from the bottle. Then, as if changing her mind, she said: “I had too strong an experience of death, too early. That’s all. I’m not being dramatic: it’s a typical psychological profile. After my brother died I stopped being scared of anything. Anything. It’s like anesthesia. I feel fear, but it’s . . . depersonalized. I have the stomach for anything.”
He nodded. Then he said, as if, in the anomaly of their position, there was nothing that could not be discussed:
“Why did he kill himself?”
“He didn’t. He was murdered.” Not watching now, she spoke tonelessly, without emotion.
“I read it was a suicide.”
“No. He was killed. Now, we’re not going to talk about that anymore, okay?”
Looking up at her, sitting, the curve of her thigh pressing through the blanket against his, he felt as if they had known each other forever. Her suit jacket was off now, her white shirt open at the collar, and his eye followed the curve of her skin from where a golden chain fell between her breasts up to where her heavy blond hair fell against the straight of her neck. He lay looking at her. Then without a thought he reached a hand up and placed it against the skin of her neck. Looking away, she leaned into his palm. And now, his voice seeming to come from his belly, he spoke.
“I thought any price was worth keeping Eastbrook out of office. That’s all. I thought it was an absolute.”
He felt her nod against his hand, but she did not answer, and he went on.
“Stan Diamond’s going to give his proof to the Mass. state attorney. They’re just waiting on my word to have you arrested.”
Again, he felt her nod of comprehension. She answered: “I know.”
A small pause, then Nicky said: “It doesn’t matter. I can stop them.”
“How?”
“Because I searched your house. All their evidence comes from an illegal search.”
“Yeah. That would screw them.” She spoke meditatively. “If you didn’t do that, then how long could you delay him?”
Silence. Nicky found he didn’t even wonder how she knew all about this. Or rather, he didn’t care.
“A few days. But you don’t understand. I don’t need to delay him. I can stop him dead.”
Again, he sensed her thinking in the dark. When she spoke, it was in a new tone.
“Believe me, I understand. How did they make everyone think you were dead?”
“FBI announced it.”
“That was smart.”
“Thanks. Jay’s idea.” He felt her neck pivot under his hand as she turned toward him now, and he pulled his hand away. But she caught it between hers and replaced it, flat against the warmth of her throat, and as she did, he felt his vision begin to spin.
“You ready?”
“What?” Even the one word seemed suddenly difficult to pronounce.
“To negotiate.”
He watched her, his eyes traveling from her neck down the planes of her shirt to her small and full breasts and then back up to her somber green eyes.
“No.”
This made her smile, more in her eyes than on her mouth. “We can’t put it off forever.”
“Okay. Just not tonight.”
“Okay.” Her eyes steady on him, still smiling, she rose now.
“Where are you going?”
“You’ll see.” She left the bedroom, turning out the light as she went.
Alone, she crossed the living room to the bathroom, her mind blank. She undressed entirely—except for the golden chain and Star of David on her neck—with quick, efficient movements; then showered, dried herself, and brushed her teeth. Finally, the apartment dark but for the faint, orangish
light from the street lamps, she opened the bedroom door and stepped in.
He was on his back, his bare shoulders above the quilt, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling under the covers. While she watched him his eyes opened. Leaning, she carefully pulled back the duvet, exposing his chest and stomach. The scars from his stabbing formed an awkward V, rising from above his groin. Deliberately, she ran her hand over them, feeling the faint bulge of the skin, the warmth of the wound. Then she carefully stepped over him on one knee, into the bed.
2.
Her skin was hot, not warm but hot, and scented with orange soap. Her eyes were steady, serious, and unafraid; her mouth, unsmiling. Her touch, returning his, was firm and unambiguous. But it was also, in a way accentuated rather than lessened by its lack of hesitation, profoundly tender.
There was no romance. Just the unmitigated reality of her nudity, of her exposure, of the heat of her skin. Unthinking, he let his body be drawn toward hers, surprised by how hard she was, surprised by how warm. Breathing hard, she shifted her body until it was under his, as efficient as a prostitute, carefully avoiding hurting his wound, but leaving him no choice but to follow, as if to emphasize that this was not about giving or receiving pleasure, that this was not about sex, and as he complied with the demands of her movements he lowered his lips to her neck, feeling the fast beat of an artery over taut tendon. Then came a suite of minutes in which Nicky neither saw her nor felt her, but rather experienced her, utterly thoughtless. And then, floating on the deep breaths of this woman beneath him, the world returned again.
Recovering her breath, she spoke in a whisper.
“You know the funny thing.”
“What, Alley?” He whispered too.
“That when I met you at the Ritz, you know what made me talk to you?”
“What?”
“That you were prepared to hurt me. That you were prepared to do anything for what you thought was justice.”
“Um-hmm.” He put a hand to her hair. “Now you’re disappointed.”
“No. And you?”
“Me? I’m not disappointed, if that’s what you mean.” “No. I mean, what did you . . . recognize in me? At the Ritz.”
“Oh. God.” His hand on her forehead, as if taking her temperature, he looked away. Then: “You see, I’m like you in so many ways. My dad’s rich, I’ve had every advantage possible. But I’ve always had this . . . taste for the gutter? I don’t mean sex or suchlike, I mean . . . the moral gutter. Do you know?”
“Yes. You like the ones with dirty hands.”
“No. I mean yes. I admire the high ground, you know? I just don’t like it. And I don’t admire the kind of people I deal with. But I like them.”
“Uh-huh. And when you met me, you thought . . .”
He interrupted. “When I met you, I thought that I had met a peer.”
A wide smile from her, a happy smile, of understanding, of sympathy. “The funny thing is, I don’t agree with you. I think justice is absolute. I think whatever you have to do to stop Eastbrook is justified, no matter what it does to me.”
He paused, finding his mind unaccountably clear. Then, at her smile, he smiled too, suddenly. He said:
“Want to do me a favor?”
“Um-hmm. Anything.”
“Don’t make me talk politics with you anymore.”
“Okay, baby. Later.”
“No, not later. Never. My whole fucking life is politics. I can’t make love with you without it being political.”
She laughed now, her mouth open, and turned to the ceiling. “Well, politics are personal.”
That made him laugh, too, his chest and stomach moving against hers. This small, warm body. This drunken spirit. She felt desire, with a force that shocked her. Ignoring his injury, she pulled his body full against her and said: “Nicky. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, okay?”
And as if his assent had been a confession of love rather than a commitment to suspend trust, she buried her face in his neck.
3.
In the bar, Dee had waited exactly ten minutes, watching each one pass on the clock. While he waited, he drank four shots of vodka, one after the other after the other. Then he put his briefcase on his stool and crossed to the phone. It was taken: another short guy, this one balding with a beard, and for an instant Dee considered lifting him bodily and throwing him into the crowd. Disgusted, he pushed his way back to his seat, shouldering his neighbor away from his stool and, opening his briefcase, took out his cellular. He had been avoiding using it to call Alley in case the service kept some kind of record, but now he didn’t care. In any event, her machine answered, and he hung up, turned in his seat to the window, deeply disappointed.
The bar was packed now. Above the noise of the conversation, he heard music playing from the jukebox, a song too distant to recognize but too insistent to ignore, and without properly being able to understand it, Dee nonetheless absorbed the emotion of the manic falsetto that carried the melody. Even without the words the song’s plaintive emotion was clear, and suddenly it seemed to Dee that that song and this night were the sound track of his destiny. There were tears of frustration in his eyes now, making swim the view of the street through the window. Even there was an object lesson in exclusion: a homosexual couple, walking by, cast a look at him in his suit and tie, his lawyer’s briefcase balanced on the window seat; they commented something to each other, and looked away.
Who was this fucking little geek? Why wasn’t he dead? And why the hell had he made everyone believe he was? Dee wanted to put his fist through the window of the bar; better, to pick up his stool and smash the window with it. He turned now, to the man standing next to him, the one who had been pushing against Dee for the past half hour.
“Stop touching me.”
The man looked surprised. “Pardon me?”
“Stop touching me. With your arm. Or I’ll break it.”
A shocked expression, a shift away from him, and the man turned his back while remorse flooded Dee’s stomach. But there was no point in apologizing, and he turned back to the bar.
For the next hour, Dee called again every ten minutes, growing steadily drunker until finally she answered, quietly, “Hello?”
“Alley. Can you talk?”
“Yeah. He’s gone to bed.”
“What the fuck is up with this midget? They fake his death?”
“Yeah.” Surprise in her voice. “Sort of. He almost died. When he didn’t, they let it be known that he had, to avoid another attempt while they investigated.”
“Yeah. I should have seen that coming. Oh, Alley. I could have dropped the fucking case.”
“Dee, take it easy.”
Real complaint in his voice. “Couldn’t you unload him?”
“Dee, come on. This guy is dangerous. Besides, he’s so sick, he nearly passed out in the bar.”
“What you been doing?”
“Taking care of him. He shouldn’t be out of bed. I was afraid you’d call, so I turned the ringer off.”
A pause. Then Dee, as quietly as he could through the noise of the bar: “Shit, Alley, I need you.”
“I know.” Her voice so soft, his heart actually seemed to swell. “I do too.”
“Tomorrow night. He’ll be gone, I hope to hell.”
“I don’t know. I hope so. Dee. I can learn a lot from him. You can go for a directed conviction.”
“He make a pass at you?”
She laughed again. “You’re kidding, right? A pass, that’d be an infringement on my rights as a woman.”
Slightly mollified, Dee: “Some kind of sixties burnout, huh?”
“Worse. A seventies burnout.”
Despite himself, Dee almost smiled. Then: “I miss you.”
“And I you. Don’t worry about Dymitryck, I can handle him. Go home now, baby. Call me before you go to bed.”
“I’ll wake you.”
“I don’t care.”
Silence.
“I love you
, Alley.”
“Me too, Dee.”
She answered, he noted gratefully, immediately.
Dee hung up, pocketed the phone, and turned back to the bar, finding the bartender, Alley’s friend Bobby, standing before him with crossed arms. He leaned forward and asked: “What’s up?”
“What’s up is you can’t hold your liquor. It’s time for you to go, pal. I don’t care who you’re friends with. I’m tired of you pushing my customers around.”
Oh, good: immediately, Dee felt this was a good thing. Nothing in the whole world could be better than a fight right now, and this man was big enough to make it fair. He looked to his right, and saw that a small space had cleared around him, the man he had threatened edging away. That made him feel powerful. He’d start, he thought, by breaking that little shit’s nose.
And then, through the acceleration of his heart, he thought, he couldn’t afford to be shitcanned from this bar; he couldn’t afford to be in a brawl. With infinite regret, he took in a vast breath, released it, and moving away, reached his wallet from his back pocket and put some money on the bar.
“Sorry, man.”
The bartender nodded, a respectful nod. “Good. We’ll see you again, man.”
And Dee, feeling as defeated as he’d ever felt in his life, went out into the wet street.
4.
Spent, Nicky had tried to shift his body off of hers. “No, stay,” she had whispered, and in a moment his entire body had lost tone, weighing on her like a living blanket as he succumbed to exhaustion and dropped into sleep. For a long time, she lay under his breathing, absently running her hands down the long muscles of his back and over his buttocks, feeling that profound, almost impossible peace again. Then she slept herself, very briefly, waking after less than an hour into a clean consciousness of what she had to do next, as if having, in her sleep, written a to-do list.
When the phone rang with Dee’s call from home, she rolled Nicky gently onto his side, rose, and talked to Dee. Then she showered again. Wrapped in a towel, she sat now at her desk and flipped on her computer. Its clock showed two A.M. With practiced movements, she logged on to her computer account, then downloaded the transcript of her father’s first day in court and opened it on the screen. From the locking drawer, she took out her diary. For a time, she read the court transcript, wholly absorbed. Then she turned to her diary, and although she looked up again occasionally for reference, for the next two hours she wrote steadily, in pencil, in a neat, quick script.
