Icarus. (19 page)

"Good nickname."

Kid smiled sadly. "Came from something I read somewhere. In a magazine. It said Topeka's a town, Cleveland's a city, but Rome's a destination."

"Nice."

"She was a destination, too. Something to wish for. Something to aspire to."

"What happened to her?"

Kid coughed into his fist, then took a deep breath. The words he spoke were obviously painful for him. "She ended it."

Jack managed to twist himself so his right elbow touched the outside of his left knee. "Almost unimaginable."

"Yeah, well. She did."

"For another man?"

"I never asked," Kid said. "Didn't matter to me why. It only mattered that it was over."

"Come on. You weren't curious? You didn't even want a chance to convince her?"

"I knew what was going on. It was her decision to make and once she made it…" Kid shrugged. "She was out of my league, really. It was down in Maryland and the thing is, she had a real life without me. The other members of the Team, they kind of need me. For all different reasons – to help them do something, to help them escape something, give them some security – but the Destination… it was different. She thought she needed me but then she realized she didn't and I knew it and that's why I didn't have to ask."

"Rome's not the only destination, you know."

"Well," Kid said, "I don't think I have much chance of going to Paris or London or Vienna. That's the thing about a Slash. We usually know where we want to go, we just don't have any way of getting there."

As Jack finished his set and fell back onto the slant board, breathing hard, Kid said, "They all live on the edge. What do you think that says about me?"

"I'm sorry," Jack said. "I wasn't paying attention. I'm too busy cramping and practically vomiting. Who are we talking about now?"

"The Team. What do you think it means that they're all kind of" – he watched Jack lurch forward, beginning his next set – "twisted?"

"It means you have shitty taste in women" was the response.

"No. They're all great. Really. They're all interesting and weird and amazing-looking. But they all have these flaws. They're all…" He thought for a moment, trying to come up with the right word. It didn't take him long. "Dangerous" is what he came up with. "They're all dangerous."

"Dangerous, how?" When Kid didn't answer immediately, Jack asked, "What kind of flaws?"

"It's hard for me to describe. Well, Samsonite's easy; she's just way too crazy. She's a druggie. Drinks too much. Pretty paranoid, pretty generally wacko. I met her at a club, an after-hours place. She was working there, still does, and I started talking to her and she says, 'Can I ask you a question?' I go, 'Sure,' and she says, 'I got a bet with a friend. A hundred bucks. I said that Mount Rushmore was a natural rock formation and she says it's a sculpture.' So I broke it to her that it wasn't purely an act of nature that Abe and the boys are up on the cliff there in perfect detail and she can't believe it. First she gets furious, thinks I'm lying. Then she decides I'm in on it with her friend, and that I'm splitting the money. Finally, I convince her I don't even know who her friend is, I don't even know who she is, and I'm telling her the truth. So what does she do? She asks if she can borrow a hundred bucks so she can pay off the bet."

"Kid, I don't want to put down your very fine circle of friends, but what's the attraction for you to someone who thinks Mount Rushmore is a natural rock formation?"

"You have to see her, Jack."

"So it's just physical?"

"Just?" Kid shook his head slowly. "No. That doesn't begin to describe it. I mean, yeah, sure, it's very physical, with Samsonite it's kind of scarily physical, but these women – all of them – they're almost perfect, I mean, really perfect physical specimens. And they're working all the time to get themselves even closer to perfect."

"As long as it's not superficial."

"Give me some slack here. It's not totally superficial. It's not only their looks. They're sensual. They're hungry. They want things – I don't know how else to describe it – and their want is just overpowering. At least to me it is." Kid laughed, an attempt to brush away his sudden seriousness. "It's another difference between our worlds, Jack. You live in a kind of rational one, where thinking and responsibility and work are what count. Me, I'm surrounded by all these people who'll do anything to make themselves beautiful or get rich or-"

"Or just get whatever it is they want." When Kid nodded, Jack said, "I think I met one of those. Down in Charlottesville."

"Yeah," Kid answered. "I guess maybe you did."

Jack finished his third set of crunches and lay still on the board, not even having the energy to speak for a long while. When Kid asked, "You want to try a fourth set? Really go for the burn?" Jack waved him away and Kid must have seen the look in his eye because for once he didn't press him. He stepped back and let Jack do his best to recuperate.

Within seconds, Jack forced himself to sit up. Rubbing out the cramp that now gripped his stomach, he turned to Kid and said, "These people… your Slashes… your Team… doing anything to get what they want… is that what makes them dangerous?"

Kid thought for a moment. "No," he said. "What makes the Team so dangerous is what they do when they don't get what they want."

Where was she?

Oh shit oh shit oh shit, oh God, where the hell was she…

Oh. Yeah.

She was home.

Jesus Christ, she was in her very own apartment. How the hell could she not recognize that? Oh, well. Wasn't the first time. Probably wouldn't be the last.

For one horrible moment she'd thought she was home in Russia, not home in America. That happened to her sometimes. Usually in the middle of the night. When there were shadows. Shadows reminded her of Moscow. She'd left when she was fourteen but somehow she knew that shadows would always remind her of Moscow. She didn't think she'd ever escape those shadows. The lack of food. Eight people in an apartment that made this one look like fucking Buckingham Palace. The cold and the grayness and the old men who wanted blow jobs in exchange for fucking cigarette lighters…

She reached over to her right, groping for the top of the orange crate that served as her bed table, hoping to find a cigarette. Her arm brushed across something hard and she heard a quiet moan and the thing next to her moved and -

Jesus Christ. She wasn't alone.

Who the hell was he?

Oh, yeah. She knew him.

Yeah. She liked him. He was nice. A nice guy.

Kid.

He was doing something for her. A favor.

What the hell was he going to do?

He was good-looking, that was for sure. Had a major body. Oh, God, they'd had amazing sex, now she remembered. And now he shifted slightly next to her, onto his side, and she saw the deep scratches on his back. How had those gotten there?

Oh, yeah. She'd done that. And remembering, she started to laugh, but the laugh turned into a cough and she really started hacking, so she swung her bare legs out of the bed and half ran, half staggered into the kitchen to grab a cigarette because she suddenly remembered she'd left a pack by the sink.

On her way in, she stumbled over one of her boots, which had been discarded and tossed aside sometime the night before. Her eyes flickered briefly, searching for the other one, but she couldn't find it. Had to be in there somewhere, she decided. Didn't it? Maybe it didn't. Oh, well. Who cared.

Leaning against the countertop, she inhaled deeply. Felt a lot better. Then she realized that her foot hurt and she looked down. Jesus Christ, she was bleeding. She'd stepped on a piece of glass. How the hell did glass get all over the kitchen floor?

Oh, yeah. She'd broken a bottle. Vodka. Two more Russian things she couldn't escape: vodka and her goddamn accent.

Was that last night? Jesus fucking Christ…

What was that? What was that noise?

Oh, yeah. She wasn't alone. She'd forgotten. The nice guy. Kid…

She wondered if she had any more drugs in the apartment or if she'd have to go out and find some. Another better thing about America. In America you could go to a club and find some rich guy who had drugs and all you had to do was fuck him. In Moscow you had to beg for drugs. And then you had to fuck the guy anyway.

Jesus. Her foot was bleeding pretty badly.

She could see her reflection in the window. The kitchen window that looked over a dismal alleyway. A dismal alley on a dismal block in a dismal city. The alley looked like shit. But she looked mighty fine. Mighty fine.

She stared at the shadowy reflection in the dirt-streaked window. At her naked body, so thin and perfect, absolutely flawless, and she licked her lips. She watched the reflection as she put one hand on the countertop to balance herself, lifted her right leg, looked at the bottom of her bare foot. She picked the small piece of glass out of her heel, vaguely felt a stinging sensation.

She stood there on one leg in the kitchen, naked, a small stream of blood trickling onto the floor from the bottom of her foot, staring, transfixed, at her image in the window, flickering and shining in the gray morning light.

What the hell was that?

Oh, yeah. Christ, how could she keep forgetting? That guy was there, in her bed.

That guy who was going to do something for her. What the hell was he going to do?

Wait… hold on a second! She remembered! All right! Fuckin' A! She remembered! It was something great. He was going to do something major for her.

What the hell was it again?

Oh, yeah.

He was going to save her fucking life.

– "-"-"THE MORTICIAN It was on the first night of her honeymoon that she realized she did not like her husband.

No, it was more than that.

By midnight, within ten hours of their exchanging marriage vows, she knew that she hated him.

She didn't panic when she realized her mistake; she was not the panicking type. But it surprised her that she'd been so wrong, so off in her perception. After all, she was not a kid when they met, certainly not naive, but she had never been pursued by a man like Joe. He'd been so single-minded, so overwhelming. She was twenty-six years old when he spotted her working in Tiffany's. He was fourteen years older and not exactly handsome, but thickly sensual and solemnly charming. He'd come in to buy a piece of jewelry for another woman, she assumed his wife, but with no prompting he said he wasn't married, that he'd never been married. She thought he was lying – she could see instantly how he looked at her, the way his eyes betrayed his cool demeanor and revealed his desire for her-but it turned out he was telling the truth. Forty years old and never married. Okay. Fine. The jewelry was for a girlfriend. "She looks like you," he said, "only not as good. Not as…" He hesitated, he couldn't find the right word, and then he came up with it: "Elegant." Then he told her to pick out something that she liked, something that would look right on her; he could tell from that if he wanted to buy it. When she asked him the price range, he smiled. It wasn't an arrogant smile or a pretentious one. She liked his smile. It dazzled her and made her a little weak because it was the smile of someone who was used to getting absolutely everything he wanted. He didn't have to say anything after that smile. She knew it meant that the price didn't matter. That the price never mattered.

She picked out a diamond necklace. It was something she'd neither craved nor particularly admired, but it was something she appreciated as beautiful. It was cold and very expensive and perfectly crafted. She put it around her neck, her arms snaking over the top of her back to effortlessly close the clasp. She let her arms linger in the air for just a moment, feeling her own thick hair envelop and hide her fingers, and she saw his eyes flicker, taking her in from head to toe. Her legs, which were spectacular and long and quite visible through the waist-high slit in her full-length skirt. Her breasts, which were full and firm. Her porcelain skin, looking as if it was untouched by the sun, gleaming even whiter against her dark, dark hair, which hung straight down to her shoulders. All it took was those few seconds, that pose, she could feel it. Then her arms unfurled from behind her neck, came back down to her sides, and his eyes settled on the necklace. The diamonds no longer looked cold and distant. They were hot and steamy against her pale skin.

He nodded. Again, no words were necessary. He handed her his credit card and when she lifted her hands again, went to remove the necklace, he reached out and stopped her. Put one hand on her elbow and said, "No. It's for you now."

Three months later, she quit her job.

Six months after that, they were married.

She'd known what he did for a living before the wedding. And it didn't bother her. The fact that he was always in the news was a little troubling – she was a fairly private person and she knew that things would be different now – but it was also exciting. And that's really what she was about, she knew that. Not money. Not sex. Not love. Excitement. The day after their engagement, her photo was on the front page of the Post, and three old friends whom she hadn't seen in several months called her to say Do you know what you're doing? She did know. And she didn't care. She didn't think he was any different from any other successful businessman. She had no problem with the morality of what he did or that she was about to become a part of it. She had no problem with anything until the wedding.

They spent almost all their time together in the several months before the big event. They talked incessantly – he was bright and witty and surprisingly learned. He made her feel ignorant and during that period she began to read again. History, mostly, which he encouraged, but novels, too. And biographies of businessmen and politicians and leaders of social movements. He liked to entertain and she proved herself a good hostess. She could be warm and inviting as well as invisible, and she had an instinctive awareness when each talent was needed. Sex between them was fine. Not the best she'd ever had but passionate and quite physical and sometimes romantic because they really were in love.