Ring Game (30 page)

René Missett lived above a small bakery on Casimir-Delavigne. He answered his door wearing nothing but a pair of cotton briefs.

“Ah,” he said. “The American Cunt.” He stepped back, inviting her to enter with a smile and a sweep of the arm. Debrowski stepped into the small one-room apartment. She had never visited René at home before and was surprised to find a neat and orderly space. His meager collection of books was neatly shelved as were his CDs and record albums. His furniture consisted of three plastic chairs, a small folding table, and a neatly made bed. The room smelled of yeast and baking bread. René stood very close to her. His breath smelled like cheese.

Debrowski said, “I thought we should talk.”

“I agree!” said René. He gestured toward the bed. “Would you like to sit down?”

Debrowski remained standing. René shrugged and dropped onto the edge of the bed. Debrowski let her eyes examine his body. Unclothed, it was much as she had expected. René Missett was an extremely attractive man. At twenty-six years old, a good age for a man to be, he showed no signs of fat. His muscles were taut, his skin free from blemishes. He would make a beautiful pop icon.

With a twinge of regret, and of relief, Debrowski realized that she had made her decision.

“I’m walking,” she said.

René wrinkled his brow, not sure he understood.

“I wanted to say it to you in person. I’m leaving the project.”

René’s eyes widened. “Ah!”

Debrowski started for the door.

René stepped in front of her. “Wait.”

Debrowski waited.

“A good-bye kiss,” said René.

Debrowski said, “Do not touch me.” She wanted him to touch her.

René’s eyes dropped to her hands, checking to make sure she wasn’t wielding another Perrier bottle. Seeing nothing resembling a weapon, he reached out with his long arms and placed his hands on her cheeks.

“Take your hands off me,” said Debrowski. Her voice, level and calm, detached itself from her body and filled the space between their faces. René’s hands pressed in on her face, forcing her mouth open. Debrowski stepped into his embrace, slipping one hand into the front of his briefs. Her hand slid past the base of his hardening penis, located a testicle. She squeezed, digging in with her nails, draining all of her strength into the fingers of her right hand.

René gasped and shoved her head back, hard. Debrowski felt a sharp burning sensation in her neck, but she hung on as René pounded her body with one fist while grabbing her wrist with the other. She held on for what seemed like minutes, though it could not have been more than a few seconds until René’s flailing fists found a spot on her arm that caused her hand to go slack, releasing him. Debrowski remained standing. René dropped to his knees, moaning, one hand cupping his groin. Debrowski took a step back, then walked around him and let herself out of the apartment.

Everything hurt. How many times had he hit her? Spikes of pain traveled up her neck into the base of her skull. Her chest, shoulder, and arm throbbed, and every finger in her hand pulsed painfully. Had she hurt him enough? Had she made her point? She stepped out of the building into the evening light. A man stood outside the bakery cleaning the sidewalk with a hose. Debrowski looked at her hand. Her palm was slick with blood. Bits of flesh were embedded beneath her fingernails, and coils of dark pubic hair had caught between her fingers. She suppressed a wave of revulsion, walked over to the man with the hose, and plunged her hands into the stream of water. The man held the hose steady, saying nothing, and let her finish washing.

“Merci,” said Debrowski.

The baker shrugged. “You’re welcome,” he said.

Remember, people are not cards.

—Crow’s rules

J
OE CROW SAT UP,
disoriented, groping for the ringing phone. He found it, pressed the talk button, put it to his ear. “Hello?” He was home, in his own bed. He cleared his throat. “Hello?” he said again, more clearly this time.

An extended moment of silence followed. Another sales call. He could see some guy in a cubicle searching his call list, trying to remember which number he’d dialed. Crow got tired of waiting and said, “No thank you.” He turned off the phone and set it on his bedstand. Where had he been? Asleep, someplace interesting. He closed his eyes, hoping to reenter the dream he’d been having.

The phone began to ring again. He let it go a few times, then answered.

“Is this Joe Crow?” A woman’s voice, deeper than Debrowski’s.

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

“Who is this?”

“This is Flowrean. Flo.”

Crow sat up. “Flowrean?”

“I work out at Bigg’s?”

“I know.”

“I saw you at that meeting. Are you okay? I haven’t seen you at the gym. I wondered if you were okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t gone out all week. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Crow said, “How do you know I haven’t gone out all week?”

“I mean, I haven’t seen you at Bigg’s,” Flowrean said quickly. “I just thought, you helped me, I just—I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Like I said, I’m fine. What was that all about, anyway?”

“At that meeting?”

“Yes.”

“You know the lady that got younger?”

Crow nodded. His whiskers scraped the mouthpiece of the phone. “Uh-huh.”

“It wasn’t real.”

“I know that.”

“A man grabbed me. I had to get away.”

“What were you doing there in the first place?”

Flowrean took a moment to reply. “Nothing,” she said.

“You were doing nothing?”

“I’ll tell you. Would you like to go to dinner with me?”

Crow imagined himself sitting in a restaurant, very elegant, watching the flies buzzing about Flowrean’s rotting goldfish. He said, “I’m flattered, but—”

“Lunch,” Flowrean interrupted. “Have
lunch
with me.”

“Lunch?”

“We have to
talk
,” said Flowrean.

Crow found Flowrean Peeche already seated at one of Figlio’s sidewalk tables, sipping an ice tea. He had suggested the outdoor restaurant hoping for a breeze, but his precaution turned out to be unnecessary. Flo’s dead-fish necklace was nowhere in evidence. She looked clean and strong and beautiful in a sleeveless chocolate-colored silk top, jeans, and multicolored high-heeled sandals. The midday sun brought out red and blue reflections in her thick black hair. Her eyes were hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses with small octagonal lenses.

Crow sat down across from her.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“I just got here myself.”

The waiter appeared with menus. Flowrean ordered a salad. Crow scanned the menu, found nothing that interested him, and ordered a Coke and a club sandwich.

“The Figlio Club?” the waiter asked.

“But of course,” sighed Crow. He asked Flowrean how her workouts had been going.

“I’m working on my arms,” she said, squeezing her fists and looking down at her left biceps. “Every other day now.” She looked at her other biceps.

“Your arms are sensational,” said Crow. On most women, arms that size would look freakish, but on Flowrean they looked good. “You ever compete?”

Flowrean shook her head and relaxed. “I do it just for me.”

“That’s best.”

“It’s good to be strong.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I think you’re very strong.”

Crow laughed and shook his head. “Not like some of those guys. Not like Beaut Miller.”

“Beaut is weak.”

“I mean physically. Last time I saw him he looked like his skin was going to burst. He’s got to be on the ’roids.”

“Steroids are for the weak. Beaut is every way weak.” Flowrean leaned forward, hooked a forefinger over the bridge of her sunglasses and pulled them down toward the tip of her nose. “You are strong. That’s why I like you.”

Crow held her eyes for a moment, then looked away. He had made a mistake, coming here. “Tell me,” he said, “how did you happen to be at that anti-aging thing?”

“I followed you,” said Flowrean Peeche.

“You did?”

“Yes. I’ve been stalking you.”

N. W. Flt 222 Arr 6:05 p Friday.

Crow drew a box around the note, then made a decorative border for the box. The phone message from Debrowski had made him lightheaded with pleasure and fear—an erotic stirring combined with breathlessness. How long? Three months? Would it be the same? Would
she
be the same? His thoughts drifted, settled on the last time he’d seen her, standing on the sidewalk as his cab pulled away. He remembered the sick feeling in his belly. Had she wanted him to stay? No, she was the one who had told him to leave. He had simply suggested the possibility. Wasn’t that how it had happened? Maybe he should have stayed another week, learned a few words of French to please her.

He noticed that he was drawing little croissants. What was this scrap of paper? He turned it over. His invitation to Carmen and Hyatt’s wedding. Saturday. Would Debrowski want to go to a wedding? Would that be too strange? A wedding with jet lag?

Crow stood abruptly and went into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.

The man sitting in your seat is the one to watch out for.

His body had changed since he had seen her last. Would she like it? He flexed his biceps, then pictured Flowrean Peeche standing beside him, comparing arms. Hers were bigger. Maybe in the morning he’d get over to the gym, get back into his routine.

Flowrean had taken rejection well. He had been as gentle as possible, explaining to her that he was involved in a long-term relationship with another woman. He had told her a few things about Debrowski.

Flowrean listened, eating her salad, her gold eyes moving quickly, scanning him, pausing for an instant on each of his parts. Crow felt them hot on his forehead, his cheek, his neck, his lips. He spoke rapidly, repeating himself, watching the romaine lettuce disappear into her wide mouth, waiting for a sign that she understood, or for her to interrupt him, but Flowrean simply ate and watched him talking.

When he finally ran out of things to say, she dabbed her dark lips with her napkin. “You are very attractive.”

“Well … thank you. You aren’t going to keep following me, are you?”

Flowrean shrugged. “This Debrowski, you really like her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Flowrean pursed her lips and leaned forward. “She makes you more attractive. She is like a fence around you.”

Crow thought he understood, but he was surprised to hear it coming from this young bodybuilder. He bit into his “Figlio Club.” It was pretty good.

“Or maybe she is like a silk tie,” Flowrean continued. “You could take her off for a while.”

Crow shook his head and swallowed. “No, I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

Flowrean said, “Okay then.” Her shoulders relaxed. She sat back and smiled. “I’m happy for you. I won’t follow you no more.”

Crow believed her. He didn’t know why he believed her, but he did. She seemed relieved that he was not available, as if now she could devote herself to other, more important pursuits. He was slightly miffed. As much as Flowrean’s unwanted attention had disturbed him, he hated to think that her feelings toward him could so easily dissolve.

He said, “You’re a very attractive woman. Under different circumstances, things would be different.”

Flowrean wrinkled her brow. “That sounds like something Beaut would say. If things were different, of course they’d be different.”

Embarrassed, Crow searched his mind for a way out. “Tell me something,” he said. “In the women’s locker room, on the wall that faces Bigg’s office. What’s there?”

Flowrean thought for a moment. “Lockers?”

“You sure?”

She thought some more. “No. That’s where the mirror is.”

Crow nodded. “I thought maybe.”

“Why?”

“It’s just an idea I had. I was wondering why every time you use the locker room Bigg locks himself in his office, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Flowrean said. “
Oh
!” To Crow’s surprise, she laughed delightedly. “Really? Bigg’s been
watching
me?”

“That’s what I think.”

“That’s funny.”

“It is?”

“I’ve been spying on you, and Bigg’s been spying on me. Are you spying on anybody, Joe Crow?”

Crow shook his head. “Not anymore.”

It had been awkward, both of them trying to pay the bill, but Crow had walked away feeling as though he’d done right. He had been honest, kind, and had not allowed himself to think of Flowrean Peeche as a potential lover. He could meet Debrowski at the airport without feeling guilty. He imagined himself putting his arms around her, letting her feel his newly hardened body. It would be great to see her again. Really great.

He did not completely understand why the thought of it made him feel a little sick inside. Maybe he was afraid that she had changed, too.

Buck Manelli’s favorite time of day was about 3:15 in the afternoon. His favorite place was the second booth from the back at the Courthouse Bar and Grill, and his favorite level of intoxication arrived midway through his fourth martini. That was when he felt closest to God, adrift in a heavenly fog, floating from one truth to another as a pilgrim visits shrines in the Holy Land, or something like that. He should write some of these things down, use them in a wedding sometime. Or use them in his book
The Marriage Maker
. He’d thought up the title a few years back. All he needed was to marry a few celebrities, or marry some couple who would get famous somehow, so his name would get picked up by the media. If it ever happened, he would write that book.

Buck waved to Hal, the bartender. He pointed at his depleted martini glass and laughed. “Ha ha ha ha ha!” Hal nodded and set about constructing Buck’s number-four martini, his daily ticket to Nirvana.

Half an hour later Buck found himself on the downslope, trying to level off with a few beers, when Hy the Guy slipped into the seat across from him holding a tall drink with a straw in it and a cherry on top.