Dead Man (11 page)

The bar/restaurant was dark-lit, richly appointed, with deep carpets and leather-lined booths and heavy wooden chairs and
tables for the diners. Indirect pastel lighting enhanced the look of a never-never land where no opening bell ever rang—an
effect negated by the strip of green electronic futures quotations running endlessly around the room just below the ceiling.
Snatches of conversation flowed around him as he tried to pick Jeri Pearson out of the traders, runners, and company people
crammed three-deep at the bar.

“I hear you sucked some gas this morning,” said a sandy-haired man to a beautiful brunette in her early twenties.

“I didn’t give much back,” she objected. “Maybe a K.”

“I made twenty-three K today,” said sandy-hair. He still wore his sweat-soaked trading jacket.

She chuckled. “Good. You can pay for the drinks.”

Dain spotted Jeri at one of the tables set back from the bar. The tide of milling humanity swirled him that way; he slid in
opposite her. She had a lush body and a dissatisfied face. She caught the sleeve of a passing waitress.

“
Bloody bull for the gentleman!”
she yelled over the din.

The waitress nodded and moved on.

“Thanks for meeting me!”
Dain boomed.

She shouted something back that contained “…
mystery man
…” and “…
intrigued”
in it.

He nodded as if he had understood. She stood, leaned down so her face was close to his ear and she could speak normally.

“Now you’re here to hold the table, I’m going to the little girls’. I’ll be right back.”

It was interesting that Jeri had chosen this place when he had called her for a meeting. Very public, very noisy, both of
which would discourage not only intimacy, but questioning as well. Interesting, too, the trip to the ladies’: a chance to
report to Maxton by phone that Dain had arrived?

“Seven-twenty a bushel?” said a twangy voice above him. “The guy is nuts. Me, I’m dreaming of beans in the teens, like the
drought year of eighty.”

The voices moved off. “Dream on. The bottom’s going out of soybeans when the new Ag report comes out.”

Jeri slid in across from Dain just as the waitress set down his drink—a bloody mary with a shot of beef bouillon in it.

He lifted it to toast her, somebody jammed an elbow against his hand in passing, spilling the squat heavy glass across the
tablecloth, moved on without apologizing. Dain set about wiping up his spilled drink with the cloth napkin.

“Quite a place!”
he yelled politely.
“You come here often?”

Helping with her own napkin Jeri shouted back,
“Used to!”

Dain leaned toward her so he was speaking almost into her ear as she had done to him earlier.

“So what happened to you and Jimmy?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She tried to pull back from him, but he had one big hand clamped around her forearm.

“The fat born-again in his apartment building knows.”

“That
bitch!” She tried to wrest her arm back from his grip. Dain was unmoving. She jerked her head. “C’mon, let’s get the hell
out of this dump.”

“Your place or mine?” asked Dain without humor.

Despite the thunderstorm, Jeri’s one-bedroom, forty minutes from the Loop by bus, had been close and humid after being closed
up all day. The rain had stopped, so Dain had thrown open some windows and sat on the couch with his feet on the coffee table
while Jeri had made drinks.

Jeri came out of the bedroom, her steps languid; she had changed into a negligee that showed her dark nipples and pubic triangle
through the thin shimmery material. She was carrying a little glass vial in one hand, a single-edged razor blade in the other,
was performing meaningless little dance steps to some inner music. She plopped on her knees between the coffee table and the
couch, beside Dain’s extended legs.

“Gonna do me a little itsy-bitsy line,” she said. “You interested?” Her voice was clear, but her movements liquid.

Dain answered only with a slight negative movement of his head, watched moodily as she chopped and rowed the coke. She used
a plastic straw cut in half to snort the first line. She shook her head, then giggled and reached up to knock a fist gravely
on his temple.

“H’lo! Anybody home in there?”

Dain was silent, waiting her out. He couldn’t afford to feel anything for Jeri Pearson. He needed to use her and lose her.
She shook her head as if in wonder.

“Life of the party. When he first walked inna Maxton’s, I thought, Mr. Stud has come to town…”

She stopped and rubbed some of the coke on her gums. She giggled. She started to cry. Then her face smoothed out. She giggled
again. She leaned back against his outstretched legs.

“You aren’t interested in me, are you? Jus’ in what I can tell you.”

“Tell me what happened to you and Jimmy. You and Jimmy were good together.”

“Jimmy?” A giggle. “Somebody t’do, that’s all.” She sat with her head down, staring at the coke on the coffee table. “Not
a nice girl, that’s me. Nice girls don’t work for Maxton.”

“Why not?”

“Work for Maxton, gotta give him head under his desk when he’s on the phone.” She started to cry again. She leaned forward
to snort the second line on the glass tabletop. “Was in love with him. Maxton. He dumped me. For an exotic dancer.”

“Exotic dancer?” asked Dain. “Peroxide—”

“Try whore instead.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, leaned back against his legs again. “No peroxide. Black-haired
bitch, I could kill ‘er! Real long black shiny hair down to her ass. Real pretty, goddam her, jugs out to here…” She pantomimed
in front of her own perfectly adequate breasts. “She an’ couple others p’formed at the Christmas party…”

“That’s when Maxton dropped you for her?”

“Chrissake, you aren’t listening!” She peered at him blearily. “That’s what he does. Focuses all that power… all that drive…
all that energy on a girl ‘til her panties get wet. At first he just
needs
you so fuckin’ bad you feel you’re the most special woman in the world. Then he drops you an’ makes you feel like shit on
a stick…
worse
than shit on a stick, ‘cause he’s furious with you ‘cause he ever wanted you…”

“So he’d dumped you before the Christmas party.”

“Two months before. Christmas party was first time I
saw
her
—one took my place.” She looked owlishly at him. “Firs’ time
Jimmy
saw that slut; too…”

Dain’s eyes had gotten sharp and bright, but his voice was very soft, almost insinuating.

“Tell me about her and Jimmy.”

Her eyes teared up. “Two weeks after the Christmas party
he
dumped me for her. Ever’body dumps poor ol Jen.”

“Do you remember the dancer’s name?”

“No.”

“Or where Maxton hired her from?”

“No.”

“Could you find out?”

“Why should I?”

When he didn’t answer, she struggled to her feet, swayed, caught her balance, and looked down at him with bleary eyes, her
negligee open so her naked body was on display.

“Want some of that?” she challenged. Before he could answer, she said, “Did it inna men’s room once, backed up against the
urinals…” She giggled again. “Guy banged me so hard the urinal flushed when he came.”

Dain was silent.

“Don’ believe me?” she demanded truculently.

She pulled up her negligee and straddled him, put her arms around his neck, started to French-kiss him as her naked crotch
worked against him. Nothing happened to him. He wanted to get stiff. He wanted to feel something—excitement, lust, even anger.
Nothing. Goddammit, wasn’t five years long enough to mourn? Marie was never coming back to him.

Marie’s mouth was strained impossibly wide, her eyes were wild, her hair an underwater slow-motion swirl, the black hole between
her breasts blossoming red

Jeri suddenly stopped, drew back to look shyly into his eyes. “I’m going to be sick now,” she announced.

Dain got her off him and into the bathroom in time, held her head while she threw up.” As he wiped her mouth with a wet washcloth,
she passed out. In the bedroom he put her to bed, and after pulling up the sheet and a light blanket found himself kissing
her on the forehead as if she were a little girl.

Dain walked all the way back to his hotel, half-hoping some half-wit would try to mug him, but the Chicago streets on that
night were safe as a cathedral. He was empty as a pocket with a hole in it, was nothing, had nothing, except a lust for revenge
and a cat who wouldn’t purr.

“Great turnaround time,” said Dain to Jeri when he found her behind her desk at Maxton’s office at 8:30 the next morning.
Her eyes were clear, her hair was brushed and shiny. She wore a wide-shouldered pinstripe suit and slacks, the suit jacket
almost to her knees when she stood up. She looked terrific.

“Good genes. Dain, listen, I… I think I remember—”

“You passed out, I put you to bed. That’s all.”

In his private office Maxton was grunting into the phone. Rain-washed Chicago sparkled outside the windows. He covered the
receiver, said sarcastically, “How nice of you to drop in. It’s been over a week. My bitch wife is getting…” He uncovered
the receiver, said, “Yeah, I’m listening,” and covered it again.

“Who do you know drives a red Porsche?” asked Dain.

“Nobody.”

“Who did Zimmer know drives a red Porsche?”

“I told you before—Zimmer was a fucking law clerk. We didn’t have any social life in common.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Dain.

“What the fuck does that mean?” He said into the phone, “Then go into court and get a continuance, fuckhead.”

“Platinum blonde,” said Dain. “Mid-twenties at a guess, too much makeup, cool face, maybe beautiful, maybe just this side
of beautiful. She was waiting for him when they grabbed the bonds. She’s the one who planned the steal. Too bad you don’t
know her, I could have cut across, saved some time.”

Maxton barked into the phone, “Yeah, yeah, you stupid fuck, I’m listening,” then said to Dain, “A fucking broad? No way. Zimmer
planned it.”

Dain shrugged and was on his feet, his usual leather-covered book in hand. He looked down at Maxton, said, “Why does every
male in Chicago think he’s got to be Mike Ditka?”

In the outer office, Jeri Pearson, who had been listening on the intercom, bounded to her feet and kissed him on the mouth.

“Nobody’s ever told him off before! They’re all too scared of him.” She stepped back, suddenly shy. “Listen, I remember you
holding my head when I was sick last night and—”

“It never happened,” said Dain.

Jeri said, “The dancers were from the Cherry Bomb.”

The Cherry Bomb was in Rush Street’s strip-club district, two blocks west of and parallel to Michigan Avenue. A huge barn
that stank of stale beer and stale sweat and cheap perfume and disinfectant and testosterone. There was dim lighting for the
tables, indirect lighting for the bar, spot lighting for the stage with revolving red, yellow, blue and green gels for the
three women in G-strings and pasties who writhed, danced, and gyrated to canned music.

At the empty end of the bar furthest from the action, Dain waited with a $50 bill, folded lengthwise, nipped between his extended
fingers. It quickly brought the bartender to him.

Over the music, Dain yelled,
“Dancer. Real pretty. Great breasts. Black hair to her butt.”

The bartender eyed the fifty and made a fly-away gesture.

Mercifully, the music ended, the women left to scattered applause and rebel yells. A manic aging emcee bounded onto the stage.
He rolled eyes like stones and flicked his tongue after the departing strippers in their G-strings and pasties.

“Put a dollar bill on their heads,” he yelled into his cordless mike, “and you got all you can eat for under a buck!”

“Any friends?” asked Dain.

Another trio of strippers was taking the place of the first. The bartender jerked his head toward a long lithe black woman.
“The tall one. Cindy.”

Dain dropped his fifty on the bar, crossed to the stage as the emcee’s overamped voice yelled, “Anyway, welcome to the Cherry
Bum—I mean Bomb, the only place in town where the girls wear underpants to keep their ankles warm!”

The music suddenly blared, the black woman started to dry-fuck one of the fire poles set up onstage.

Dain yelled over the music,
“Cindy!
“

She turned her head and he held up two fanned $100 bills, then stuffed them down the back of her G-string.

Dain was leaning against the brick wall of the alley when Cindy emerged from the stage door at 4:07 in the morning. She wore
running shoes and tight jeans and a long-sleeve red T-shirt with DANCE THEATRE OF HARLEM stretched across her breasts.

She stopped dead at the sight of him, sighed, and nodded as if winning a bet with herself.

“Don’t ever anything come free in this world of ours,” she said. “Now, mister, I know you laid a double-century on me, and
I know you spect something for it, but—”

“Just a walk and a talk,” he said. “I don’t want to know where you live, I don’t want a free sample.”

She looked deep into his eyes for a moment, asked, “You weird?” then answered herself before he could, “Wouldn’t tell me if
you was, would you, Mr. Sad Man?”

They started walking together; she was tall enough so they made a striking couple. In the street at this hour there was only
silence, contrasting with the tumult of the Cherry Bomb. Their meandering unsynched footsteps were the only thing breaking
the immediate silence around them, though the slow breathing of the city formed a background curtain of sound.

Cindy gave a deep laugh. “You don’t want nothing, Mr. Sad Man, you must be that Good Samaritan the preacher talk about on
Sunday, layin’ a pair of C-notes on me like that.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want anything,” said Dain.

“Oh yeah, right, right. Walkin’ an’ talkin’. Y’want me t’talk dirty? ‘Bout what I’d like you to do to me, or what I’d like
to do to you? Or maybe cry a little an’ tell you all about what a nice girl like me be doin’ in a place like—”