Icarus. (39 page)

"A few weeks ago, I was at a party," she said when she was two thirds of the way through her sandwich. "A real party. Kids. College friends. None of them has any idea what I do."

"None of them?"

"Nope," she said. "It's not the kind of thing you can just drop into a conversation. Anyway, it was very weird. I was having a perfectly good time. It was a little dull, you know, like they thought smoking dope and drinking was as cool as it gets, but it was fine. And a couple of the guys were really hitting on me. Talking to me, trying to get me to go out with them; one of them invited me to see Beck at the Meadowlands. And that night I got a little scared because the whole time they were talking to me I kept thinking, this isn't right, they should be paying me to talk to them. I get twenty bucks every five or ten minutes, minimum, just to talk. That's weird, huh, that I thought that?"

"Not so weird," he said. "But you're right. Scary."

"I'll tell you something else weird. Last year my mother had a stroke."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, it wasn't so terrible. I mean, it was a stroke but she was okay. She needed some rehab, though, really could have used a private nurse or something to help her, but she couldn't afford it. Well, I could afford it. Easy. Only I couldn't give her the money 'cause she doesn't know what I do, either. She thinks I'm a waitress, and how the hell would a college-girl waitress have an extra ten thousand dollars for a private nurse?"

"So what'd you do?"

"Nothing. I kept quiet. Let her fend for herself. And before you say, 'Oh, that's so sad,' and 'Why do you do it?' it really isn't so sad. My mom's a lunatic and a serious bitch, and I do it because I'm twenty years old and I can afford to rent this apartment and I've got over seventy-five thousand dollars in mutual funds and in five years I think I'll have ten times that." She finished the sandwich now, chomping down on the last sticky corner. "You can read the rest in my autobiography. Which I'm going to write one of these days. What do you want to know about Kid?"

She had brought him back around to the reason he was here and suddenly he wasn't all that sure what he wanted to know. It was distracting, listening to her chatter away. He was tired. And now one of her bare legs was curled up under the other and he could barely turn away from looking at it.

"Just tell me about him," he said, trying to focus. "I thought I knew him like he was my own son. Now I'm not so sure."

"He could be a real son of a bitch sometimes. Did you know that?"

"I never really experienced it. But I suppose I could see it in him."

"Not at heart, though. At heart he wasn't a son of a bitch at all." She took a sip of wine and rubbed her tongue around her mouth. She still had bits of peanut butter stuck up in there somewhere. "I cared about him. Really and truly. In my own way. I knew he was seeing other women, too – he never lied, which I liked. But that was Kid. He was a taker. He took me, I have to say. I loaned the bastard five thousand dollars right before he died. Never paid me back a nickel."

"Did he tell you what the money was for?" Jack asked, surprised.

"He said it was for tuition. That they wouldn't let him graduate unless he paid up. But I didn't believe him. It just sounded like he really needed the money."

"Did he say how he was going to pay you back?"

"Sure." She grinned. "He said he was gonna get the money from you." She poured herself a bit more wine, still working her tongue around her gums. "You know what Kid liked best?" she asked now.

Jack shook his head. Her voice had changed just a little. It was subtle but seductive and he felt the small hairs on the back of his neck start to tingle.

"He liked me to dance for him. Here in this apartment. A private dance."

Jack knew he looked awkward. He wasn't comfortable suddenly and it showed. But Leslee grinned again, as if she was enjoying his discomfort.

"You're rich," she said. "You're really rich."

He didn't say anything. She was grinning like crazy now. She stood up and went to her CD player. Put on a CD, R.E.M., Automatic For The People, not too loud. Michael Stipe's melancholy voice seemed to echo through the apartment.

"You want me to dance for you?" she asked. He realized she was very close to him. She had managed to slide over on the couch so she was less than a foot away. "You want to have a little private dance, just you and me?"

Jack shook his head. "No. I don't think so."

"Are you shy?"

"No."

"Are you married?"

Jack closed his eyes. Left them shut for what felt like a long time. "I feel married," he said.

"Most men feel married," Leslee told him. "I make them feel unmarried."

She was right next to him now. One leg curled over his and she was on his lap, facing him, her mouth maybe an inch from his. She was barely moving but he could feel her grinding herself into his crotch. And he could see her nipples jutting toward him from under her shirt.

"I think I'd better go," he managed to say.

She didn't make any move to get off him. Just kept smiling and for the first time he noticed that the smile could also make her look unattractive. It wasn't just charming. There was something off-putting about it. Something even kind of crazy.

"I could make you stay," she whispered. "I really and truly could. If I wanted. Do you believe me?"

He didn't answer. Because he didn't know the answer. He didn't know what to believe at this exact moment.

"I know what you're thinking," she went on. "First you thought no, she can't make me do anything. Now you're thinking maybe. Maybe she can because she's so sexy I can hardly breathe. But there are no 'maybes' about it. Ain't no 'maybe,' baby." As she whispered to him, she reached over, not far, to her small beaded purse. She reached inside, pulled something out, and Jack heard a sudden click. Then he saw the long, thin blade that she held in her hand. He didn't move.

"If I wanted, I could cut your throat and when the police got here, I could just tell them you tried to rape me." As she spoke, he could feel her warm breath on his face, on his lips and his cheek. "I'd get away with it. Really. Really and truly."

He saw her take a deep breath, watched her chest heave. She reached down, put one hand on his thigh, the hand with the switchblade, and he could feel himself hold his own breath now, but then she pushed herself off him. Quickly, with a gymnast's agility, her legs were no longer wrapped around him, she was no longer touching him at all. When she was standing, she folded the blade up, put it back in her purse.

"Maybe you should go," she told him.

He nodded. Keeping his eyes on her, he backed up slowly until he reached her front door. His hand groped for the knob, found it and turned it. Then he was out in the carpeted hallway.

He didn't let himself think of anything until he was down on the street. And then life seemed to come streaming back into him.

And that made two, is what he thought.

Two women who could easily have pushed Kid off the balcony and ended his life.

Without ever thinking about it again.

– "-"-"WHY IN THE WORLD did she do that, she wondered?

Why do I get this overpowering urge to hurt men?

Oh, you know why, she thought. Of course you know why. But it's no excuse. Everyone's had something bad happen to them. Everyone's been abused.

She liked him. He was nice.

Really and truly nice.

But she'd gone and done it again.

And now she'd never get her five thousand dollars back.

"I think it's time to call it off, Jackie."

"Call what off?"

"The whole thing," Dom said. "It's gettin' too weird. Mobsters' wives, guys dressed up as cowboys dancin' around on stage, naked women with knives. I think it's time to stop."

"Can I tell you something, Dom? I mean, something you're not going to want to hear."

The older man looked at his younger friend, the friend he thought of as a son, and said, "There's nothin' you could ever tell me, Jackie, that I don't wanna hear."

"I had one affair when I was married to Caroline. One. That's it. It was a long time ago, eight, ten years ago. When we were opening up the Jack's in London. I was spending a lot of time over there, a decent amount of time by myself. And… I was out one night with a bunch of restaurant people. We were trying a new hot place. Somebody, one of the chefs, brought a friend along. Emma. And Emma was extremely attractive, funny, young – very young – she was great, so we had a fling. Very intense. Incredibly passion-ate.

"One night?"

"Five. Five amazing nights. Three in a row, then not, then neither one of us could stand it anymore so we saw each other the next night and the next. Then I never saw her again."

"Why not?"

"Dom, you can't imagine how exciting she was. There was something about her, she just sucked you right in. But I decided I couldn't get sucked in any further than I was. The thing is, I loved my wife. Not only that, we were happy. And still passionate. We weren't having any problems at all and I thought she was as perfect as a woman could be."

"But you still went ahead with this other woman."

"That's right."

"Did she know?"

Jack had to smile. Even now, even in death, Caroline was "she" to Dom. "I don't know," he said. "Yes, I think she did. I'm sure she did. Part of it was that she seemed to know everything about me. You ever see that Taxi where Latka sleeps with a woman to save his life, so he doesn't freeze to death, and he walks in the door and what's-her-name, Carol Kane, looks at him and just screams, 'You did it with another woman!' Caroline was like that. And part of it… When I came back from London, things were different. She'd lost a baby and…" Jack shook his head, trying to bring the memory back into focus. "But if she knew, she never said anything. Ultimately I think she knew why I did it and why I stopped it, and it was okay with her."

"So let's hear it. If everything was so perfect, why?"

"Because I couldn't stop it. Not without hating myself. And maybe even hating Caroline a little. And if I couldn't stop it, it had to be right."

"And then you could stop it."

"That's right."

"And you can't stop this thing now, this thing you're doin', is that your whole point?"

"You're not so dumb, are you?"

"There's somethin' else you're not tellin' me, though. Somethin' else is going through that stubborn little brain o' yours."

"The other day I thought of Emma. I don't think she's even flashed through my brain in five years, maybe longer, not the way she did this time, anyway." Jack looked out through the large sliding doors of the meatpacking plant. Saw that the sun was starting to fade in the sky and realized he should get home. "The thing is, I haven't made love to anyone since Caroline died. Have hardly thought about it, to be perfectly honest."

"And now you're thinkin' about it."

"I need something to make me feel alive right now, Dom. Otherwise I'd be wasting the fact that I'm the one who survived. The more I move into Kid's world, the more alive I feel."

"One thing, Jackie. Then I'll let you go. I used to think I had kind of a rough deal in life. Never felt sorry for myself, not my style, but I wouldn't say I had it easy. But in a way I did. In a way I had it a lot easier than you. I found my ghosts. I found 'em and I fuckin' got rid of 'em. Not the way everybody else would've, maybe, but I got rid of 'em. You got your own ghosts now, son, but I don't know how the hell you're gonna find yours. And if you do, I don't think they're the kind you can get rid of so easily."

– "-"-"THE NEXT MORNING at 8 o'clock, Micah the doorman buzzed Jack to say that Bryan was in the lobby, could he come up? Jack said he most definitely could.

As Bryan stepped out of the elevator, his eyes bulged a little bit. "Wow," he said. "Not too shabby, Mr. Keller."

Jack had already given up on trying to get Bryan to call him Jack, so he just smiled and said, "Thanks." He ushered Bryan to the terrace, where the equipment was set up. "Wow" was all the trainer could manage again.

The workout was fine. Jack was stiff and sore – not unexpected since he hadn't really pushed himself since Kid's death. Bryan was firm but gentle and he knew what he was doing. It only took Jack a few minutes to relax and trust him. At the end of the session, Jack realized that Bryan had been right. He wasn't Kid, didn't have that special quality, that intangible inspirational skill that Kid had, but Bryan was good. Very good. Jack was more than satisfied and told him so.

As soon as he paid Bryan the compliment, Bryan got a slightly pained expression on his face. He did not do well with compliments and changed the subject immediately.

"How'd it go at the Saddle?" he asked. "You find Kim?"

"I found him," Jack said. "And I also found the Entertainer."

Bryan looked stunned. "Come on," he said. "How'd you do that?"

So Jack told him, even the part about going to her apartment and having her draw the knife, and Bryan shook his head admiringly. "You're like a regular Columbo," he said. "So what now?"

"I don't know, exactly," Jack admitted. "Try to find the next one, I guess. Or see if I can find out anything more about Leslee. The Entertainer."

"You think she might have killed Kid?"

"I don't know. I think she's certainly capable of it."

"Wow. I wonder if I know who she is," Bryan said. "I used to go to a couple of those clubs with Kid. And I think I know which one you mean. Goddamn, I just never figured out, when you said 'the Entertainer,' that it would be one of those girls." He looked at his watch and frowned. "I gotta go. Workin' at Hanson's today. But like I said before, Mr. Keller, I'd really like to help. So if you need me, just call." And as he waited for the elevator he looked at Jack again and again, shook his head, saying, "I think I'm gonna have to call you Columbo from now on."