La Brava (1983) (10 page)

He wondered about her eyes, too, if she used them in a studied, theatrical way. Twice, while Maurice was speaking, he had felt her eyes and turned to see her watching him. He saw her eyes as she sipped her drink... as she closed her door.

I'm glad I came here.

And heard a girl's voice say, "Boy, you put in long hours, don't you?"

Franny Kaufman stood in the doorway. He smiled, glad to see her. He liked her, with the strange feeling they were old friends. "The Spring Song girl. You moved in?"

"Sorta. A friend of mine has a van helped me with the heavy stuff, the boxes. I still have some junk to get tomorrow."

"What room're you in?"

"Two-oh-four. It's not bad, I get morning light. I haven't seen any bugs yet." She wore jeans and a gas-station shirt that said Roy above the pocket, intricate silver rings on her fingers. She turned, looking around. "I didn't know you had all this."

"It's the old man's, really."

"I was just nosing around, seeing what's here." She came over to the counter. "Can I look?"

"Here, use the loupe," he moved aside, off the stool.

Franny took off her round glasses, bent over to study the contacts through the Agfa magnifier, inching it over the pictures, stopping, moving on. He looked at her strange hair that he liked, frizzed out on both sides--it seemed part of her energy--and looked at the slender nape of her neck, the stray hairs against white skin.

She said, "I've seen him around, but I haven't seen her. Which ones're you gonna print? No, wait. I bet I know the one you like the best. The one, the girl showing her tits. Am I right?"

"I think so," LaBrava said. "I'm gonna play with it, print it different ways, see what I get."

"It's sad, isn't it?" Franny said. "Except I get the feeling she's a ballbuster. I feel sorry for her, you know? But only up to a point. Was the pose your idea?"

"No, hers."

"What's her name?"

"Lana."

"Oh, that's perfect."

"Yeah, Lana gets the credit."

"But it didn't turn out the way she thought it would. You got something better. You do good work, Joe."

"Thank you."

"You do any nudes?"

"I have. A lady one time had me shoot her sitting on a TV set naked."

"Coming on to you?"

"No, she wanted her picture taken."

"Far out."

"It wasn't bad. She started with a fur coat on. Then she says, 'Hey, I got an idea.' Lets the coat fall open, she's got nothing on under it. They always say that, 'Hey, I got an idea,' like they just thought of it."

"I got an idea," Franny said. "Shoot me nude, okay? I want to do a self-portrait in pastels, send it to this guy in New York. I'm thinking life-size, reclined, very sensual. What do you charge for a sitting? Or a lying."

"You can buy lunch sometime."

"Really? But you have to promise not to send it to Playboy. This is for art, like Stieglitz shooting Georgia O'Keeffe in the nude. You ever see those?"

"They were married then."

She said, "They were?" surprised. She said, "You know what you're doing, don't you?"

"Sometimes."

"Are you tired? I mean right now."

"Not especially."

"Let's go outside, look at the ocean. That's the only reason to live here, you know it? The ocean and these weird hotels, both of them together in the same place. I love it."

They walked through the empty lobby.

"Yeah, I think reclined. Unless you've got some ideas."

"It's your painting."

"I'm gonna render myself about twelve pounds lighter and straighten my hair. See if I can turn the guy on."

They crossed the street past locked parked cars.

"I like your hair the way it is."

"Really? You're not just being nice?"

"No, I mean it."

And crossed the grass to the low wall made of cement and coral where she raised her face to the breeze coming out of darkness, off the ocean. "I feel good," Franny said. "I'm glad I came here."

"Somebody else told me that, just a little while ago." He sat down on the wall, facing the Della Robbia, looked up at the windows. Faint light showed in 304. "I'll tell you who it was. Jean Shaw."

Franny turned from the ocean, her face still raised. "Who's Jean Shaw?"

"You never heard of Jean Shaw?"

"Joe, would I lie to you?"

"She was a movie star. She was in pictures with Robert Mitchum."

"Well, obviously I've heard of Robert Mitchum. I love him."

"And some others. She was my favorite actress."

"Wow, and she's a friend of yours, uh?"

"I met her today."

"Is she the one, dark hair, middle-aged, she came out of the hotel this evening with you and Mr. Zola? We were in the van, we'd just pulled up."

"We went out to dinner." He thought about what he was going to say next and then said it, before he changed his mind. "How old you think she is?"

Franny said, "Well, let's see. She looks pretty good for her age. I'd say she's fifty-two."

"You think she looks that old?"

"You asked me how old I think she is, not how old I think she looks. She's had a tuck and probably some work done around the eyes. She looks about forty-five. Or younger. Her bone structure helps, nice cheekbones. And her complexion's great, you can tell she stays out of the sun, and I'll bet she buys protein fiber replenishers by the case. But her actual age, I'd have to say fifty-two."

"You think so?"

"Joe, you're talking to the Spring Song girl."

"Okay, how old am I?"

"You're thirty-eight."

He said, "You're right."

"But you don't look a day over thirty-seven."

Cundo Rey was driving his black Pontiac Trans Am that he had bought, paid for, black with black windows that Nobles said you couldn't see for shit out of at night, lights looked real weak, yellowish and you couldn't read signs at all. Cundo Rey let him bitch. He loved his Trans Am, he loved going slow in it like they were doing now even better than letting it out, because you could hear the engine rumble and pop, all that power cooking under the hood. Cundo was wearing blue silk with a white silk neckerchief, one of his cruising outfits. Nobles was still wearing his uniform, blue on blue, both the shirt epaulets hanging, the buttons torn off. Nobles said somebody had tried to give him a hard time. Cundo said, "It look like they did, too."

They were creeping along south on Ocean Drive, the strip of Lummus Park and the beach on their left, the old hotels close on their right, the other side of the bumper-to-bumper parked cars. "Netherland," Cundo Rey said, hunched over the steering wheel, looking up at signs. "Cavalier... There, the Cardozo. See? On that thing sticks out."

"The awning," Nobles said. "Okay, slow down."

"I'm going slow as this baby can go." He pushed in the clutch and gave it some gas to hear that rumble, get a few pops out the ass end.

A man and a girl with strange electric hair, crossing the street in the headlight beams, looked this way.

"There it is, on the corner. Della Robbia. I don't see a number but that's it," Nobles said, "where her friend took her." And then said, "Jesus Christ--" turning in his bucket seat, both hands moving over the door. "Where's the goddamn window thing?"

Cundo Rey glanced at him. "What's your trouble now?"

"Open the goddamn window."

"Man, I got the air on."

"Open the fucking window, will you! Turn around."