Second Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  He did call again, and this time she accepted his invitation. It was for Saturday night, which she took as a good omen. New York men dated second or third choices during the week. Saturday night was for favorites: an occasion.

  Ernest Mittle insisted on meeting her in the lobby of her apartment house. From there, they took a cab to a French restaurant on East 60th Street where he had made a reservation. The dining room was warm, cheerfully decorated, crowded.

  Relaxing there, smoking a cigarette, sipping her white wine, listening to the chatter of other diners, Zoe Kohler felt for a moment that she was visible and belonged in the world.

  After dinner, they walked over to 60th Street and Third Avenue. But there was a long line before the theater showing the movie he wanted to see. He looked at her, dismayed.

  “I don’t want to wait,” he said. “Do you?”

  “Not really,” she said. And then, without considering it, she added: “Why don’t we go back to my apartment and watch TV, or just talk?”

  Something happened to his face: a quick twist. But then he was the eager spaniel again, anxious to please, his smile hopeful. He seemed constantly prepared to apologize.

  “That sounds just fine,” he said.

  “I’m afraid I have nothing to drink,” she said.

  “We’ll stop and pick up a couple of bottles of white wine,” he said. “All right?”

  “One will be plenty,” she assured him.

  They had exhausted remembrances of their youth in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They had no more recollections to exchange. Now, tentatively, almost fearfully, their conversation became more personal. They explored a new relationship, feinting, pulling back, trying each other, ready to escape. Both stiff with shyness and embarrassment.

  In her apartment, she served the white wine with ice cubes. He sat in an armchair, his short legs thrust out. He was wearing a vested tweed suit, a tattersall shirt with a knitted tie. He seemed laden and bowed with the weight of his clothing, made smaller and frail. He had tiny feet.

  She sat curled into a corner of the living room couch, her shoes off, legs pulled up under her gray flannel jumper. She felt remarkably at ease. No tension. He did not frighten her. If she had said, “Go,” he would have gone, she was certain.

  “Why haven’t you married?” she asked him suddenly, thinking he might be gay.

  “Who’d have me?” he said, showing his small white teeth. “Besides, Zoe, there isn’t the pressure to marry anymore. There are all kinds of different lifestyles. More and more single-person households every year.”

  “I suppose,” she said vaguely.

  “Are you into the women’s movement?”

  “Not really,” she said. “I don’t know much about it.”

  “I don’t either,” he said. “But what I’ve read seems logical and reasonable.”

  “Some of those women are so—so loud and crude,” she, burst out.

  “Oh my, yes,” he said hurriedly. “That’s true.”

  “They just—just push so,” she went on. “They call themselves feminists, but I don’t think they’re very feminine.”

  “You’re so right,” he said.

  “I think that, first and foremost, women should be ladies. Don’t you? I mean, refined and gentle. Low-voiced and modest in her appearance. That’s what I was always taught. Clean and well-groomed. Generous and sympathetic.”

  “I was brought up to respect women,” he said.

  “That’s what my mother told me—that men will always respect you if you act like a lady.”

  “Is your mother still alive?” he asked.

  “Oh yes.”

  “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

  “She is,” Zoe said fervently, “she really is. She’s over sixty now, but she’s very active in her bridge club and her garden club and her book club. She reads all the bestsellers. And she’s in charge of the rummage sales at the church. She certainly does keep busy.

  “What I mean is that she doesn’t just sit at home and do housecleaning and cook. She has a life of her own. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t take care of Father; she does. But goodness, he’s not her entire life. She’s a very independent woman.”

  “That’s marvelous,” Ernest said, “that she finds so much of interest to do.”

  “You should see her,” Zoe said. “She looks much younger than her age. She has her hair done every week, a blue rinse, and she dresses just so. She’s got wonderful taste in clothes. She’s immaculate. Not a hair out of place. She’s a little overweight now, but she stands just as straight as ever.”

  “Sounds like a real lady,” he said.

  “Oh, she is. A real lady.”

  Then Ernest Mittle began to talk about his mother, who seemed to be a woman much like Zoe had described. After a while she heard his voice as a kind of drone. She was conscious of what he was saying. She kept her eyes fixed on his face with polite interest. But her thoughts were free and floating, the past intruding.

  She had lived in New York for about a year. Then, shriveled with loneliness, had ventured out to a highly publicized bar on Second Avenue that advertised: “For discriminating, sophisticated singles who want to get it on and get it off!” It was called The Meet Market.

  She had given a great deal of thought to how she would dress and how she would comport herself. She would be attractive, but not in a brazen, obvious way. She would be alert, sparkling, and would listen closely to what men said, and speak little. Friendly but not forward. She would not express an opinion unless asked.

  She had worn a black turtleneck sweater cinched with a wide, crushed leather belt. Her long wool skirt fitted snugly but not immodestly. Her pantyhose were sheer, and she wore pumps with heels that added an inch to her 5’ 6” height.

  She tried a light dusting of powder, a faint blush of rouge and lipstick. Observing the effect, she added more. Her first experiment with false eyelashes was not a success; she got them on crooked, giving her a depraved, Oriental look. Finally, she-stripped them away and darkened her own wispy lashes.

  The Meet Market had been a shock. It was smaller than she had envisaged, and so crowded that patrons were standing outside on the sidewalk. They were drinking beers and shouting at each other to be heard above the din of the jukebox just inside the door.

  She edged herself nervously inside and was dismayed to see that most of the women there, the singles and those with escorts, were younger than she. Most were in their late teens and early twenties, and were dressed in a variety of outlandish costumes, brightly colored, that made her look like a frump.

  It took her fifteen minutes to work her way to the bar, and another five minutes to order a glass of beer from one of the busy, insolent bartenders. She was bumped continually, shouldered, jostled back and forth. No one spoke to her.

  She stood there with a fixed smile, not looking about. Life surged around her: shouts of laughter, screamed conversation, blare of jukebox, obscene jesting. The women as lewd as the men. Still she stood, smiling determinedly, and ordered another glass of beer.

  “Sorry, doll,” a man said, knocking her shoulder as he reached across to take drinks from the bartender.

  She turned to look. A husky young man, dark, with a helmet of greasy ringlets, a profile from a Roman coin. He wore an embroidered shirt unbuttoned to the waist. About his muscled neck were three gold chains. Ornate medallions swung against the thick mat of hair on his chest.

  He had a musky scent of something so cloying that she almost gagged. His teeth were chipped, and he needed a shave. There were wet stains on the shirt beneath his armpits.

  He doesn’t care, she had thought suddenly. He just doesn’t care.

  She admired him for not caring.

  She stayed at the bar, drinking the watery beer, and watched the strange world swirl about her. She felt that she had strayed into a circus. Everyone was a performer except her.

  She had seen that most of the women were not only younger than she, but prettier. Wit
h ripe, bursting bodies they flaunted without modesty.

  Zoe saw blouses zipped down to reveal cleavage. Tanktops so tight that hard nipples poked out. Sheer shirts that revealed naked torsos. Jeans so snug that buttocks were clearly delineated, some bearing suggestive patches: SMART ASS. BOTTOMS UP. SEX POT.

  She had arrived at The Meet Market shortly after 11:30 P.M. The noise and crush were at their worst an hour later. Then, slowly, the place began to empty out. Contacts were made; couples disappeared. Still Zoe Kohler stood at the bar, drinking her flat beer, her face aching with her smile.

  “Wassamatta, doll?” the dark young man said, at her elbow again. “Get stood up?”

  He roared with laughter, putting his head back, his mouth wide. She saw his bad teeth, a coated tongue, a red tunnel.

  He took another drink from the bartender, gulped down half of it without stopping. A rivulet of beer ran down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. He looked around at the emptying room.

  “I missed the boat,” he said to Zoe. “Always looking for something better. Know what I mean? Then I end up with Mother Five-fingers.”

  He laughed again, in her face. His breath smelled sour: beer, and something else. He clapped her on the shoulder.

  “Where you from, doll?” he said.

  “Manhattan,” she said.

  “Well, that’s something,” he said. “Last night I connected with a real doll, and she’s from Queens and wants to go to her place. My luck—right? No way am I going to Queens. North of Thirty-fourth and south of Ninety-sixth: that’s my motto. I live practically around the corner.”

  “So?” she said archly.

  “So let’s go,” he said. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  She had never decided if he meant her or himself.

  He lived in a dreadful one-room apartment in a tenement on 85th Street, off Second Avenue. The moment they were inside, he said, “Gotta piss,” and dashed for the bathroom.

  He left the door open. She heard the sound of his stream splashing into the bowl. She put her palms over her ears and wondered dully why she did not run.

  He came out, stripping off his shirt, and then stepping out of his jeans. He was wearing a stained bikini no larger than a jockstrap. She could not take her eyes from the bulge.

  “I got half a joint,” he said, then saw where she was looking. He laughed. “Not here,” he said, pointing. “I mean good grass. Wanna share?”

  “No, thank you,” she said primly. “But you go right ahead.”

  He found the butt in a dresser drawer, lighted up, inhaled deeply. His eyelids lowered.

  “Manna from Heaven,” he said slowly. “You know what manna is, doll?”

  “A food,” she said. “From the Bible.”

  “Right on,” he said lazily. “But they didn’t call it womanna, did they? Manna. You give good head, doll?”

  “I don’t know,” she said truthfully, not understanding.

  “Sure you do,” he said. “All you old, hungry dames do. And if you don’t know how, I’ll teach you. But that comes later. Let’s get with it. Off with the uniform, doll.”

  It was more of a cot than a bed, the thin mattress lumpy, sheet torn and blotched. He would not let her turn off the light. So she saw him, saw herself, could only block out what was happening by closing her eyes. But that was not enough.

  He smelled of sweat and the awful, musky scent he was wearing. And he was so hairy, so hairy. He wore a singlet of black wire wool that covered chest, shoulders, arms, back, legs. His groin was a tangle. But his buttocks were satiny.

  “Oh,” she had cried out. “Oh, oh, oh.”

  “Good, huh?” he said, grunting with his effort. “You like this … and this … and this? Oh God!”

  Moaning, just as Maddie Kurnitz had advised. And Remedial Moaning. Zoe Kohler did as she had been told. Going through the motions. Threshing about. Digging nails into his meaty shoulders. Pulling his hair.

  “So good!” she kept crying. “So good!” Wondering if she had remembered to turn off the gas range before she left her apartment.

  Then, as he kept pumping, and she heaved up to meet him, she recalled her ex-husband Kenneth and his fury at her mechanical response.

  “You’re just not there!” he had complained.

  Finally, finally, the hairy thing lying atop her and punishing her with its weight, finished with a sob, and almost immediately rolled away.

  He lighted the toke again, a roach now that he impaled on a thin wire.

  “That was something,” he said. “Wasn’t that something?”

  “The best I’ve ever had,” she recited.

  “You made it?”

  “Of course,” she lied. “Twice.”

  “What else?” he said, smiling complacently. “Haven’t had any complaints yet.”

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, sitting up.

  “Oh no,” he said, pushing her back down. “Not yet. We’ve got some unfinished business.”

  Something in his tone frightened her. Not menace; he was not threatening her. It was the brute confidence.

  Kenneth had suggested it once, but she had refused. Now she could not refuse. He clamped her head between his strong hands and guided her mouth.

  “Now you’re getting it,” he instructed her. “Up. Down. That’s it. Around. Right there. The tongue. It’s all in knowing how, doll. Take it easy with the teeth.”

  Later, on her way home in a cab, she had realized that she didn’t even know his name and he didn’t know hers. That was some comfort.

  “More wine?” she asked Ernest Mittle. “Your glass is empty.”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling. “Thank you. We might as well finish the bottle. I’m really enjoying this.”

  She rose, staggered just briefly, giddy from the memory, not the wine. She brought more ice cubes from the kitchen.

  They sat at their ease. Remarkably alike. Mirror images. With their watery coloring, pinched frames, then-soft, wistful vulnerability, they could have been brother and sister.

  “This is better than standing on line to see a movie,” he said. “It was probably no good anyway.”

  “Or going to some crowded party,” she said. “Everyone getting drunk as fast as they can—like at Maddie’s.”

  “I suppose you go out a lot?”

  “I really do prefer a quiet evening at home,” she said. “Like this.”

  “Oh yes,” he agreed eagerly. “One gets tired of running around. I know I do.”

  They stared at each other, blank-eyed liars. He broke first.

  “Actually,” he said in a very low voice, “I don’t go out all that much. Very rarely, in fact.”

  “To tell you the truth,” she said, not looking at him, “I don’t either. I’m alone most of the time.”

  He looked up, intent. He hunched forward.

  “That’s why I enjoy seeing you, Zoe,” he said. “I can talk to you. When I do go to a party or bar, everyone seems to shout. People don’t talk to each other anymore. I mean about important things.”

  “That’s very true,” she said. “Everyone seems to shout. And no one has good manners either. No common courtesy.”

  “Yes!” he said excitedly. “Right! Exactly the way I feel. If you try to be gentle, everyone thinks you’re dumb. It’s all push, rush, shove, walk over anyone who gets in your way. I, for one, think it’s disgusting.”

  She looked at him with admiration.

  “Yes,” she said, “I feel the same way. I may be old-fashioned, but—”

  “No, no!” he protested.

  “But I’d rather sit home by myself,” she went on, “with a good book or something tasteful on educational TV—I’d rather do that than get caught up in the rat race.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said warmly. “Except …”

  “Except what?” she asked.

  “Well, look, you and I work in the most frantic city in the world. And I wonder—I’ve been thinking a lot about this
lately—that in spite of the way I feel, if it isn’t getting to me. I mean, the noise, the anger, the frustration, the dirt, the violence. Zoe, they’ve got to be having some effect.”

  “I suppose,” she said slowly.

  “What I mean,” he said desperately, “is that sometimes I feel I can’t cope, that I’m a victim of things I can’t control. It’s all changing so fast. Nothing is the same. But what’s the answer? To drop out and go live in the wilderness? Who can afford that? Or to try to change things? I don’t believe an individual can do anything. It’s just—just forces.”

  He drew a deep breath, drained off his wine. He laughed shakily.

  “I’m probably boring you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not boring me, Ernest.”

  “Ernie.”

  “You’re not boring me, Ernie. What you said is very interesting. You really think we can be influenced by our environment? Even if we recognize how awful it is and try to—to rebel against it?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Definitely. Did you take any psychology courses?”

  “Two years.”

  “Well, then you know you can put rats in a stress situation—loud noise, overcrowding, bad food, flashing lights, and so forth—and drive them right up the wall. All right, admittedly human beings have more intelligence than rats. We have the ability to know when we are in a stress situation, and can make a conscious effort to endure it, or escape it. But I still say that what is going on about us today, in the modern world, is probably affecting us in ways we’re not even aware of.”

  “Physically, you mean? Affecting us physically?”

  “That, of course. Polluted air, radiation, bad water, junk food. But what’s worse is what’s happening to us, the kind of people we are. We’re changing, Zoe. I know we are.”

  “How are we changing?”

  “Getting harder, less gentle. Our attention span is shortening. We can’t concentrate. Sex has lost its significance. Love is a joke. Violence is a way of life. No respect for the law. Crime does pay. Religion is just another cult. And so forth and so on. Oh God, I must sound like a prophet of doom!”