Afterburn (44 page)

"You got tapes?" Tommy's voice echoed in the cavernous room.

I love my hand, my fingers, Rick thought with strange detachment. "Wait, wait," he said weakly. "Wait—"

"I've got the Rolling Stones, I've got Salt-N-Pepa,
the
Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson—you know, 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain'—all kinds of good music." Morris turned back to Rick. "You got a request?"

Rick made a fist with his left hand, just to remember. Oh, Paul, he thought, please do something.

"Make your pick," ordered Morris.

He spittled a piece of tooth onto his lower lip. The pain came back to his rib. "Give me the Bruce."

"Great choice." Morris nodded his approval. "Fine. Make it loud, Tommy. Good. Yes. I'll take the saw." He looked at Rick, his mouth a tight slit of concentration. "This goes quick, man, just listen to the music."

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Room 527, Pierre Hotel
Sixty-first Street and Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
September 21, 1999

SOMEBODY BUYS HIS SUITS FOR HIM,
she realized, seeing Charlie leaning darkly against the hotel bar reading a sheet of paper and sipping his drink. He didn't notice her come toward him, which worried her, since she'd spent what time and money she had to make him think she was someone she was not, buying new lipstick, perfume, and a pair of fake gold earrings. How ridiculous the trouble she'd gone to, considering that he'd probably gone to no trouble at all! Wriggling into her one little black dress again—what choice did she have? Well, you gotta do
who
you gotta do, they used to say at the prison. She'd worked the lunch shift at Jim-Jack's, finally leaving at four, then hurried home through the windy rain to shower and put herself together, wondering what men in their late fifties liked in a younger woman. Youth, for starters. But nothing flashy or cheap-looking. If a man like Charlie wasn't comfortable, he wasn't going to get involved. He would smile politely and move on. Now she slipped past the few other men at the bar and let her hand touch Charlie's sleeve.

"Hey, mister," she whispered close as he turned. "Remember me? I'm that girl who flirted with you last night." She kissed him quickly on the cheek, leaving a smudge. She felt nervous, a little insecure, but a drink would fix that. "Been here long?"

"No." He shook his head and folded the paper and slipped it into his breast pocket. They stood silently, and as before he seemed to be studying her. But his attention was not cold and hard; rather, it seemed to come from some other part of him. His blue eyes were sorrowful. She remembered what he'd said about his son.

She ordered a drink. "You seem glum. Or preoccupied. Or noncommittal."

"Nah," he said, "just business." He shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"Just glum old preoccupying business?"

"That's it," he said. "Everybody wears a nice suit and you try to kill the other guy first."

She touched the scar on his hand, rubbed it. "Why did you become a businessman?"

"I wanted to make money."

"Did you ever have any other inclinations?"

"You mean artistic or musical or something? Tap-dancing?"

"I don't know."

"At the time I had to think of something to do to support my family. I had to pull a rabbit out of a hat."

She sipped at her glass, not sure what to say.

"I was in my early thirties and I needed a new start."

It seemed impossible that he'd never been able to do whatever he wanted. "Something happened?" she asked.

"Something always happens, Melissa. I'm sure a few things have happened to you."

"Why do you say that?" She felt the drink warming her cheeks. "You don't think I'm just some nice young woman who likes talking to you?"

"I think you
are
nice and young, and what I don't get is why you're not married already or with some great guy starting out."

If you only knew, she thought. "If you only knew," she said.

"It can't be that bad."

"No," she agreed. "It's not. But I wandered into this place last night and heard you eviscerate whoever it was on the phone, and then you glared at
me
like
I
was the problem and I thought, Well, here's a live one." She gave him a soft jab in the arm. "Okay?"

"Okay." He smiled. "You're something."

"I better be something," she teased. "How else am I going to get your attention?"

"You did all right in that department."

"I noticed before that your back looks like it hurts."

"I'm okay."

He was a little defensive. "You just walked stiffly, that's all."

He didn't say anything.

"You hurt it?"

He pulled the same piece of paper from his breast pocket, scanned it distractedly, refolded it, and put it back. "Long time ago."

Again a silence fell between them. He looked down with a troubled expression. She wanted to kiss his brow. He can't say it, she thought; he wants to, but he doesn't know how. She leaned closer to him. "Charlie?" she whispered.

"Yes?"

She kept her hand on his arm, rubbed the material of his suit ever so softly. "Get a room."

"Here?"

She nodded. "C'mon. You can lie down. I'll give you a back rub and make charming conversation that you won't appreciate because you like the back rub so much."

He studied her, with sadness it seemed, a yearning that pained him. "Melissa," he exhaled, "I'm an old guy. I—"

She touched her finger to his lips. "Trust me," she whispered next to his cheek. "We'll just talk if that's what you want."

He sighed heavily, as if unable not to comply, and pulled out his billfold. He slipped a credit card onto the bar, then found a napkin, unclicked his fountain pen, and wrote, as she watched the letters appear, "I need a nice room for two, now. Arrange this, please—and tip yourself $500." He beckoned the bartender and slid the card and napkin toward him.

The bartender inspected the napkin, blinked his quiet assent, did not look at Christina, then disappeared to the phone.

THE ROOM WAS TOO COLD
, and he turned down the air conditioning. They left the lights off, and the last edge of the day fell in through the windows. He sat in a padded armchair and faced her, and she said to herself, Look at his eyes, that's where you'll find him. The other things are not him, maybe even a disguise somehow, as you have disguised yourself for him. She lit a cigarette. "I shouldn't do this."

"I don't mind."

She took one puff, then stubbed it out. She wondered if she could seduce him. She wondered why she wanted to know. "When you were my age what were you doing?" she said.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

He was silent. "I was flying airplanes."

She was surprised. "What kind of planes?"

"Fighter jets."

She examined him, trying to connect the statement to the man she saw. "How fast could you go?"

"I did Mach two lots of times. About sixteen hundred miles an hour."

All she could see was one half of his face. The light caught the wet curve of his eyeball. "Did you fly in the Vietnam War?"

He nodded.

"You dropped bombs?"

"Yes."

"Missiles and napalm and all that stuff?"

"All that stuff, yes."

"You saw Saigon during the war?"

"Absolutely."

"You ever cheat on your wife over there?"

"No."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Why?"

"It didn't interest me enough."

"What interested you?"

"Flying."

"Do you still fly?"

"Only business class."

"Not a little Cessna or something?"

"There'd be no point."

He wasn't giving her much to go on. I'm asking too many personal questions, she told herself. "You have a good marriage, I guess?"

"Good enough."

"What's that mean?"

"It means it's fine."

"Did she ever cheat?"

"She might have, yes."

"Did you mind?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I can't explain it. Not after . . . When I was much younger, I might have cared." He looked out the window. "I was away for some long periods, and there was a lot of uncertainty. It would have been understandable. Generally I'm not a patient or forgiving person, but this was sort of okay."

There was something he wasn't telling her or something she had not understood. "You ever ask?"

He shook his head, as if at the insubstantiality of her question.

"Why?"

"I didn't need to."

"How long were you gone?"

"Couple of times six, seven months."

"But this was a long time ago," said Christina, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Very long ago. Ancient history."

"So you were in the Navy—"

"Air Force, please."

"Air Force, I mean, then you became a businessman?"

"That's about right."

"I'm young enough to be your daughter, which, I realize, I should probably not mention."

He shifted in the seat uncomfortably. "You are younger than my daughter, Melissa."

"You never told me about your back."

"I had some operations."

"How'd you hurt it?"

He closed his eyes and took a breath. When he opened his eyes, he was looking away. "This is not something I discuss much."

She thought, For all I know he has a terminal disease or something. "Charlie," she said in frustration, "is there some kind of problem? You don't want to talk?"

"I'm sorry, Melissa." He stood up and paced. "It's about me, not you. You're terrific. I can tell that, I really can. My mood is not your fault, at all." He loosened his tie. "I want to be here with you, but I'm worried about wanting to be here with you. I've always played by the rules. But I seem to be in some—" He stopped. "It's not just you, it's other things."

She moved over to him, could not help but take his hand and stroke the scar. Neither of them said anything. She found herself thinking he must have been a beautiful boy, and then studying him now, a businessman in a lovely suit, distinguished-looking, in fact, despite his limp. She could not explain it to herself, except that it felt right. She pulled at his coat. He was not helping her, but he was not resisting, either. She laid his jacket over the arm of the chair.

"Okay?" she whispered. He said nothing. She undid his tie. Silk. She laid that on the jacket and then unbuttoned his shirt. She heard him breathing through his nose, his lips pressed tight, his eyes troubled. She unbuttoned the shirt and understood that she really did have to help with one shoulder. He had on a T-shirt and she urged him to lift his arms, and when he did, she sensed the salty musk of him, the man-smell, which she liked. He turned to her in the near-dark and she moved her hands over him. A large C-shaped scar and smaller incisions arced across his left shoulder. His spine carried three scars, one nearly a foot long, at the base.

"Is that all?" she whispered.

He closed his eyes.

She knelt down and untied his shoes, pulling them off and setting them to one side, heel to heel. Then she stood and undid his belt matter-of-factly and unbuttoned his pants and let them fall. He stepped out of them slowly. She ran her hands along his leg and suddenly stopped, not believing what she was feeling. The smooth muscle of the thigh was cratered with an entry wound on one side and an exit wound on the other. A lot of it was just
gone
. She moved her hands down his calves to his socks. She slipped them off. His left foot was missing two small toes. She stood and faced him, laying her hands softly on his chest. She felt him breathe. His skin was warm. I want him, she thought, I do. She slipped her hands toward his underwear and pushed them down until they fell. His penis felt limp, normal. She put her hand underneath it. He had one testicle. Just one. She held it in her hand like an egg and looked at him. His eyes were closed, and he was shaking ever so slightly. She could feel scar tissue beneath the skin of his scrotum. She turned him. One of the surgical scars from his back continued down to his left buttock. Another scar traveled across both buttocks, cutting a groove in them.

"You crashed?" she whispered.

"Shot down."

"Were you captured?"

He nodded.

"How long were you a prisoner?"

He shook his head.

"Where'd they put you?"

He looked at her.

She touched her finger to his mouth. "Just tell me."

He closed his eyes.

"
Please
tell me."

His eyes stayed closed. No answer came from him.

She pressed her lips against his chest. He was ruined. He was so beautiful. She felt the warmth of his skin. I love this man, she told herself, it's crazy but I do. She pressed him down to the bed.

"I'm not sure I—"

"What?" she asked gently.

"I'm not a young man," he apologized. "It's partly the back, you see."

She helped him with her mouth and she did not mind, especially because he did not expect her to do this. He twisted in the bed and became full in her.

She slipped out of her clothes.

"Do we have any birth control?" he asked anxiously.

"It's okay. It's fine." She'd worry about that later. The odds were low. She was plenty wet, she realized as she straddled him. She used to have orgasms so easily during sex, but she wouldn't expect too much, she would just be close to him.

"Not your full weight," he whispered. "Please."

She squatted on her haunches instead of resting on her knees and sitting back. "Yes," she answered, moving up and down the length of him. The rhythm was good. She felt him up far inside of her, and this made her warm and start to shake. His big hands held her hipbones gently, and she took them and moved them up to her breasts, pressing his fingers against her nipples.

"I want to roll over," she said after a few minutes.

"I'm not sure how well I can," he said.

"Let's try."