Afterburn

by Colin Harrison

  He'd left the truck in the new garage the whole time, keeping it locked, wedging matches in the cracks of the doors. The cops could open any kind of vehicle if they felt like it, especially an old truck, and Tony Verducci had a guy who did that, too. Regular job as a mechanic, but ran a twenty-four-hour beeper service, would open any car anytime so long as the money smiled. When Rick returned to the truck after the gym, he'd circle it, seeing if any of the matches had fallen out. He needed every advantage. Patterns, Paul had warned. He was trying to get inside a pattern that protected him. What was he waiting for? A good question. He was killing time, waiting for the bell to go off, waiting to know.

  Then, on the third day, a windy and warm afternoon that fluttered the shoe-sale fliers out of the overflowing Broadway trash cans, he noticed Christina step out of the Jim-Jack. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. Even across the traffic he could feel her attitude. Oh, baby, kill me now, he told himself, get it over with. You didn't score a smile too often from Christina, but when you did and she held your gaze, then all manner of indecencies were proposed, approved, and scheduled. Her eyes said, It's just a matter of time, boy. Until then, why don't you keep your hand out of your pants? She carried a paper shopping bag from one of the big bookstore chains. Head down, she crossed at the light on the other side of the street and stalked past him in her jeans and thick-heeled boots. He remembered the bite of hot dog in his mouth and swallowed. Did she always move her butt like that? He watched the other men notice her. But he could also tell she didn't want to be bothered. She'd been on her feet for hours, drunk too much coffee, smoked too many cigarettes, wanted to get at her books. He eased out to the street, began to follow her. Now is the time, he told himself, now.

  She walked briskly, cutting north on the Bowery two blocks, then east again on East Fourth Street. He followed from half a block away, his neck and armpits getting sweaty, darting in and out of the shadowed awnings of the bodegas and hardware shops and other marginal businesses along the avenues, then up and down and behind the stoops on the streets. A couple of junkies enjoying the sun inquired as to his propensity to invest in a shopping cart full of copper cable stolen from the subways. He waved them off. Nice neighborhood she lived in. Half the buildings looked ready to collapse. He glanced back anxiously and saw no one following. No cars easing down the street, no one trailing down the block behind him on either side. He continued after her. He considered running up to her, surprising her. Christina, it's me, Rick. He could almost do it. But she was thinking about good things. It was in her shoulders, her neck, the way she was making the hot wind catch her hair. Maybe Paul's wife is right, maybe she met somebody already, some guy giving her beef injections. Don't get mad about it, he told himself, be cool. Do the cool thing. She stopped and fished into her bag, went inside a blue apartment building. She's doing okay, he thought, she's got a place. He eased up the other side of the block, staying at an acute angle to the building so that if she had windows onto the street she couldn't see him.

  He'd check the mailboxes. He stepped up to the building and cupped his hand against the glass of the front door. Not much: a long tiled hallway, dim, littered with giveaway newspapers and takeout restaurant menus, the lip of a stairwell protruding past the plane of the hallway. On the intercom, the apartments were tagged 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A, 2B, 2C, and so on. He inspected the name tags. Christina's was not there. But five of the apartments had no identification on them; although it was possible that she was living under someone else's name, hers was probably one of these unknown ones: 3A, 4C, 5D, 6C, 6D. And, he noticed, these were generally higher apartments, perhaps toward the rear, if the front apartments were A and B. He stepped back across the street and examined the building. Six floors, four windows across each floor. From the differences in curtains and window plants, he guessed that the four windows were split between two apartments. Two apartments front, two back. The front apartments were the more desirable, which meant that it was less likely that Christina was in one of them. The pattern of the absence of name tags corroborated this. The less desirable apartments would have a higher turnover rate, and therefore be more likely to be either unoccupied or so recently occupied that no one had put a name on the intercom yet or, last, occupied by the type of people who did not want their presence announced on the front of the building. Perhaps.

  Or perhaps he was full of shit for trying to have X-ray vision.

  He waited long enough that anyone climbing to the top floor would have reached it. No one came to any of the windows. He waited longer. The angle of the sun changed. He noticed that the apartments had various makes of air conditioner. Fucking air conditioners, the whole reason Christina went to prison in the first place. My fault, he told himself, it was my fault she got arrested. A trailer full of lousy air conditioners and she spends four years in prison.

  He returned his attention to the building. The difference in the makes of the air conditioners probably meant the landlord hadn't provided them. Bought by the tenants. This, in turn, suggested that each apartment had its own electric meter, since no landlord in his right mind would provide air conditioners for apartments that were not metered. A big air conditioner pulled more juice than a washing machine. Both front apartments on the third floor had air conditioners in the window, nice ones, which, again assuming that the A and B apartments were the front ones, meant that Christina did not live in 3A, the sole untagged apartment on the third floor. That left the four untagged apartments on the top three floors. He could ring the untagged ones and see if she answered. This he did: 4C offered no response; 5D was answered by a little girl saying, "Mom, Dad also wants cigarettes"; 6C provoked a bout of godawful coughing and then one word, "¿Sí?"; with 6D there was no answer at all.

  He retreated across the street, frustrated but also nervous that someone might be watching him. If anyone had successfully followed him, they would be very interested in Rick's behavior. Three more minutes, he told himself. He noticed that the window on 5A or 5B was all the way open and a towel rested on the ledge, something pink peeking over the side. Drying in the sun. Pink, maybe underwear. That could be Christina. She wouldn't be wasting her tip cash on dryers in a Laundromat if she could help it. But this was a front apartment, which did not conform to his speculations.

  He crossed the street again and checked the name tag on 5A. It read M. Williams. 5B was marked H. Ramirez. He backed up onto the street. Now the underwear window opened. A woman's left foot stretched out, waggled in the air. Drying the nail polish. Christina? The foot disappeared. If he knew her, then the other foot would soon—there it was! Yes! Waggling, toes pointed! Her lovely little foot, size eight; he'd spent at least three thousand bucks on shoes for her over the years. She was in there doing her nails. Was that apartment 5A or 5B? He pushed 5B. No answer. He pushed again. Nothing. He darted out of the vestibule and looked up. The feet were still there. He returned to the vestibule and rang 5A. He jumped out of the vestibule and looked up. The feet were gone from the window.

  "Yes?" came her irritated voice from the intercom.

  Rick looked at the mailbox. "Mr. Ramirez?"

  "That's 5B," Christina said.

  "Okay."

  "Try reading," she added.

  Try not to be your old bitchy self, Rick thought triumphantly, even though I love it. But now he was stuck in the vestibule. If she looked out the window, she'd see him. He eased out the front door. The feet were back, both paddling the air softly. Let's go, Rick, you got what you needed. He slipped down the street a block, two, the sweat seeping through his shirt, then slowed. His plan was working. He had money, he'd pulled himself together, he'd found her. Now he wanted to think about the approach. You had to consider what kind of life she had now. Building her existence back up. He was standing there, with his hand in his pocket, playing with his dick. Stop thinking about the sex, Rick. What would Paul do? Paulie would say, If you have to approach her, if you really must do it, then do it with a clear head. Don't be thinking about
sex or love or forgiveness. She'll see that right away. She'll know you're thinking about yourself and not her, and she'll tell you to get the hell out of her life. The thing is a long shot anyway, so why not play it right? He needed to make himself ready for her. If he was going to talk and to listen, then he couldn't be thinking about the other thing.

  AN HOUR LATER, standing in an apartment building on East Fifty-second Street, not so far from the UN, he peered into a security camera and announced his name.

  "You have an appointment?" crackled a woman's voice through the intercom.

  "Yes, I just called."

  "Just a moment."

  He'd found one of the advertisements and called from a pay phone. They told you to go to a certain corner, to another pay phone, and to call again for further instructions, which he had just done.

  "What's the name again?"

  "Rick."

  The buzzer sounded and he pushed through the door and climbed three flights of stairs. Another door, another buzzer, and he stepped into a reception lounge. The bouncer sitting on a sofa across the room glanced up, didn't like the size of Rick, and stood.

  "Hey," Rick said, "it's cool."

  "May I ask your name?" asked a woman behind a window.

  "Rick."

  "We need a complete name and a major credit card."

  He handed her the American Express card that Paul had given him.

  "Okay."

  "How does that appear on the bill?" he asked.

  "It goes down as a travel agency."

  "Good." Paul didn't need to know.

  She nodded at the bouncer. He came over and patted Rick down. "He's okay."

  "We have a lot of very nice girls."

  He doubted that this was true, for if they were nice girls, then what were they doing here? He was buzzed through a second door into a larger room decorated in leather and chrome. Seven girls, each wearing a bathing suit and high heels, sat around in oversized chairs, reading the paper or watching the television. The room smelled like Chinese takeout.

  "I need two," Rick told the woman, noticing the hallway that led to a series of rooms, each of which had a red door.

  "Two? We can do that. Who do you—"

  "You pick," Rick sighed. "I just need two."

  She started to tell him that he had to pay her the house charge and each girl negotiated her own fee.

  "Fine, fine." The whole tab came to nine hundred bucks. "Put it all on the card."

  She looked him up and down. "I think I better give you LaMoyna. You don't mind a black girl?"

  "It's fine."

  "Some men don't want the black girls, they get intimidated."

  "It's fine."

  "The other girl's going to be Kirby," she said as if picking for him a kindergarten partner.

  "Kirby?"

  "It's one of those California girls' names."

  THE BLACK GIRL had enormous breasts that had long ago proven the existence of gravity and a skin problem he didn't understand. The small blond girl's hair reached her waist. Tiny shoulders, tiny ass. Lips like boiled shrimp. He felt attracted to neither.

  "What do you want, sweetie?" asked the black girl, leading him by the hand to the room, her blue robe open, its belt trailing along the floor. Her feet had heavy calluses, the skin dry and cracked.

  "I want to switch off, back and forth," he answered.

  The bed was large and clean, with sheets but no blanket.

  "You want us to do the switching or you to do the switching?"

  "I don't care."

  "What's the other gal supposed to do when she not doing you?"

  "I don't care." He wondered if maybe he should just leave. "Have fun," he answered. "Have fun with me, have fun with each other."

  "Sort of just mix it up, like?"

  "Yeah, fine." They asked him if he would put some drinks on his tab and he said fine and they made a call.

  "You paid for two hours?" asked the black girl.

  "Yeah."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged apologetically. "Seemed right."

  "We gone wear you out sooner than that, guy."

  A knock at the door. Another girl came in with a tray of drinks and a bottle.

  "We ordered kind of a lot," giggled Kirby. "Okay?"

  "That's fine."

  The girl with the tray waited. He got up and handed her a ten.

  "You don't talk much, do you?" Kirby teased.

  "I can talk."

  "Come here, I have to check you out."

  He walked over to the black girl, and she turned on a lamp next to the bed and pulled him close to the light. She slipped a thumb under the elastic of his underwear and pulled it down.

  "You're all folded up." She moved the light closer. "Like one of those accordions." She pulled at him until he began to fill a bit. He breathed in through his nose. "There, now we can see." She pointed to a raised circular scar, ran her thumb over it. "What's this?"

  "Cigarette burn."

  "Mmmn, what happened, baby?"

  "A girl burned me there with her cigarette."

  "She was mad at you?"

  "Very mad."

  She continued to work him, her fingers tight. She knew what she was doing and he closed his eyes. "Didn't want you sticking this in somebody else?"

  "Right."

  "Kirby, this going to be a problem?"

  The blond girl came over, looked. "Yes." She smiled at Rick. "But I kind of like this guy."

  "You play football?" LaMoyna asked. "You remind me of that guy, some guy who came in here, said he played for the New York Jets."

  "I played in high school, that's all."

  While the women finished their drinks, he went to the window and watched the traffic three stories below. The sky looked heavy, rain coming. On the sidewalk an old man consulted his watch, walked a few steps, glanced at his watch again. At the corner a woman in a yellow dress stood holding the hand of a small boy, waiting for the light to change.

  Just do this and clear your head, Rick told himself.

  EIGHTY MINUTES LATER, the black girl announced, "My time now."

  "Not yet," cried the blond girl.

  "No, no, it's my time now."

  He heard these things but as if from a great distance. The black girl was whacking him on the ass playfully, so he got off the blonde, who immediately curled into a ball and rolled onto her side. The black girl spread her legs and presented him with a full beard, two dark lips, and something that could almost be the pink tip of a tongue. I've only studied four things in my life, he thought to himself as he shoved in, I have studied how to steal big things, how to get fish into a boat, how to lift weights, and how to fuck. Only the fishing is good for society. With each topic you studied it and then it got frustrating and then you unexpectedly learned more. With fucking, if you could keep from ejaculating for the first half hour, you passed into a zone where you could get the real work done. This was where he was now. He was driving the black girl hard, as hard as he wished, but with no rising pleasure for himself. Just driving, minute after minute. Her head was thrown back, eyes shut, and when he pushed, her brow furrowed. She made little analytical grunts. The bigger the thrust, the more animated and inflected the grunt. "Huh. Hu-uhuh." It might have been pain but it wasn't. She hooked her legs up over his shoulders and ran her hands over his thighs like someone dreamily feeling the finish on a new car. The cadence was steady and she had a moment to recover before he went back in, and every three or four strokes her cunt rippled out the air being pushed in. It was an embarrassing, flatulent noise, but they were well beyond that now; questions of embarrassment and identity and power and race and who is the President of the United States and what day of the week is it had all been obliterated by the idiot donkey machine of lust, to which he was helplessly shackled, waiting for it to release him, not yet ready for it to release him, and so he drew a breath that cleared his wind—he was running six or seven miles on the treadmill these days—and kept on, not knowing why
exactly, and the black girl rolled her head left and right on the pillow, talking to herself in a demented, hallucinatory whisper, her lip caught up in an angry sneer, her tongue tasting the sweat dripping off his chest, and sometimes her right hand would ride up and down the thick pillar of his arm, squeezing or shaking it, and other times she made a fist and punched his chest in weak protest, frowning with her eyes closed, as if to press wordless unanswerable questions upon him. Why are you doing this to me? Why do I want you to? How do I know you and how do you know me? And then she would give up the interrogatory and lapse back into herself, her hand falling back against the pillow. He glanced over at the blond girl, who had slowly lifted herself to her hands and knees, perhaps to crawl off the bed and go pee, and that—that sight of her, unthinking of him, lost in her own vulnerable moment—was what he wanted. He wanted her disinterest in him. He wanted to destroy it. His mouth filled with spit. He pushed away from the black girl, who covered her breasts and moaned in relief, and then he grabbed the blond girl from behind with two hands, one on each hipbone, and dragged her back across the bed toward him. "I can't again," she cried, arms above her head, "I'm sorry." He didn't care—no, not at all, too bad, nothing to do about it—and she couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and five pounds, and he lifted her and stuck her on himself, and for a moment she was a screaming rag doll, thrashing and weeping and fighting him. Then he pushed her legs farther apart with his knees and lay down fully on and well up into her. She spread flat on the bed, hands outstretched on either side. He slid his arms under her to support himself, which let her breathe better, and when she felt his thumb near her mouth, she seized it with her teeth and sucked on it spitefully, whimpering and biting him as he rode up into her, mashing himself at the end of each thrust. Maybe I can hold this, he thought, but she began to wiggle her tight little ass against his weight, forcing her own renegade rhythm against his, tightening herself, defying him his control of himself, and then she wrenched one of her arms free and thrust it under her belly and past where he was going into her, stretching her fingers so that her fingernails raked his balls from underneath, and that and her defiant butt-wiggling made the nerves in his face go funny, and he went at her, went maximum, clutching her hips as the yard-long rope was pulled from him, gobbing and spasmed, and then, breath shrinking, his mind was blanketed by softness.