“Listen, why don’t you come back-”
Teddy held up the crisp hundred-dollar bill, folded twice, between the tips of two fingers, laid it on the chain right in front of her nose. “I got something I need delivered. That is, if you’re going.”
She seemed to wake up, staring at that C-note. “I don’t know for sure. I think tomorrow or the day after.”
“That’d be perfect. See, my mom’s birthday’s pretty soon. I got something special for her”-he patted the camera case hanging at his side-“but she won’t get it in time if I send it by mail. I was thinking-see, it’s only a few miles from Atlantic City down to Margate. You ever play Monopoly? She lives in Marvin Gardens.”
“What?” She frowned at him.
“Hop in a cab, you’re there.”
“For that money?” Iris said.
“It’s worth it to me. My mom’s gonna be seventy.”
It surprised him that a Puerto Rican girl would be so cautious. He usually got into apartments with the old survey routine. “Hi, I’m with International Surveys Incorporated”-show the phony card-“We’re conducting a study to learn what young ladies such as yourself think of current trends in…” the price of bullshit. You could tell them almost anything.
He palmed the C-note as she closed the door to release the chain and that was that. It was dim and quiet inside, the way he liked it. With just faint sounds out on the street. It smelled a little of incense, or perfume. She held her silky green robe closed, then relaxed, yawning, and let the robe slip open before pulling it together again, though not in any hurry. She was wearing little white panties under there, no bra. He sat down in a sticky plastic chair without waiting to be asked. Shit, he was in now. Reaching into the camera case he almost began to recite his International Surveys routine. (“If I might ask what your husband does… He’s at work, is he?”) Taking out the handicraft parrot wrapped in tissue paper he said, “I don’t have a box or anything to mail it in, either.” Fool around for a minute, make sure they were alone. One time a big hairy son of a bitch had come walking out of the bedroom in his undershirt…
She was yawning again, hair hanging in her face. He liked that sleepy look. She stretched, arching her back. The robe came open to give him a peek at a brown nipple, a big one. He liked that, too.
“How’s your boyfriend?”
“My boyfrien’, who’s that?”
“Guy you’re with at the beach every day.”
“He’s not even a frien’ of mine no more. Listen, when you going to pay me?”
“Guess I was wrong. I met him one time. His name Vincent Mora?”
“Yea, Vincent.”
“He live here with you?”
“Man, are you crazy?”
“I thought you two were pretty tight.”
“What happen to the money you had in your hand?”
“I got it.” Teddy showed her the C-note. “Right here.”
“Yeah, what do I have to take to your mother?”
“This.” He showed her the package. “It’s a parrot. Mom loves parrots. She’s got a real one sits on a perch outside the cage. You know what it says?”
Iris shook her head.
Teddy constricted his throat to imitate the parrot. “It says, ‘Hello, May! Hello, May! Want a drink?’ That’s how it sounds. The parrot’s name is Buddy. She’s got parrot dishes and cups, parrot ashtrays, parrots made out of china sitting on the mantel. Let’s see, she’s got a satin parrot pillow. She loves parrots… Yeah, I thought you and Vincent might be living together.”
Iris said, “No way, José.”
Teddy grinned. “That’s cute… Let me ask you, Vincent lives-I was told he lives over by the Hilton on that street runs next to it? In the Carmen Apartments? That’s what they said at his office when I called there.”
“Yes, the Carmen Apartments.”
“Is that the place there’s a liquor store in it? I didn’t see a sign or nothing, I wasn’t sure.”
“Yes, in the downstairs.” She kept looking at his hundred-dollar bill.
“Handy to the beach,” Teddy said. He glanced around the room. “You live here alone, ‘ey?”
“Till I move to the States. I can’t wait.”
“You bring guys here?”
She began to frown now and looked mad. Got up on the wrong side of the bed, his mom used to say.
“What do you ask me questions for? You want me to take that thing? Okay, give me the money.”
Teddy folded the hundred-dollar bill between his thumb and two fingers, then folded it again into a tight square. He said, “Catch,” and threw it at her.
Iris let go of her robe and caught it, showing good reflexes for a crabby girl. She had probably had money given to her in some interesting ways. He watched her slip the C-note into the band of her panties. She said, “I be back,” and walked out of the room.
Teddy waited a few moments and followed her, into a little hall, then left a few feet to the bedroom. He watched her from the doorway, her back to him, taking the money out of her panties and slipping it into the top drawer of her dresser. There were clothes on the floor. The bed was a mess, the sheet all tangled up. But it was a bed, and there she was next to it.
So easy.
Iris turned, raising her eyes to Teddy, not at all surprised to see him. “Will you excuse me so I can go to bed?”
Should he whip it out?
No, too easy.
The best part, always, was seeing that shit-scared gleam of terror in their eyes, the woman realizing this wasn’t any survey of current trends, what housewives liked or didn’t…
This one was different. Now that he hesitated and thought about it, this one was a survey. Find out exactly where the guy lived. Now he knew. Now, if he watched himself, didn’t get carried away, he could fool around with this girl. Play with the cop’s girl. See what it was like.
Teddy said, “Why don’t I get in there with you?”
“Please, I’m very tired.”
Teddy raised his sport shirt hanging out of his pants to show her the money belt that was like a blue nylon cummerbund around his middle. “You know what this is?”
Her expression seemed different now, her mouth open a little like she was thinking, about to make a guess. She said, “Is it a life preserver you wear for swimming?”
Teddy grinned. “You’re pretty cute, Iris. You know it?”
She said, “It’s not I-ris, like your eyes. It’s Eer-es.”
“Like your ears?” Teddy said. He thought she’d laugh, but she didn’t. She was staring at his money belt.
“What do you keep in that?”
Teddy said, “Let’s see,” and put his chin on his chest as he zipped open the flat pouch. “I got a comb. I got a little penknife I use to clean my fingernails. A pack of Certs, breath mints. Let’s see, I got rubbers. My mom must’ve put ’em in there.” He looked up and winked at her as he said it. She didn’t laugh or even smile. He continued the inventory and got a note of surprise in his voice as he said, “What’s this? Why, it looks like a bunch a money.”
Iris said, “I hope you don’t think you can give me money and go to bed with me.”
Teddy said, “No way, José,” grinning. Shit. “I’m gonna go to bed with you, sweetheart, then leave you a present, a gift. If you know what I mean.”
Iris said, “Because you adore me.”
“Not only that,” Teddy said, “it’ll be my first time in over seven years.”
Iris frowned at him. “Since you did it?”
“With a woman,” Teddy said. “I been away.”
Vincent took a shower that afternoon after the lunch with Lorendo Paz, thinking about what he had said outside the restaurant. “He died.” The guy who had shot him. “Lost his will to live.” Talking cop to cop, offhand, nothing to it. It was all right; maybe cops needed to do that. Play it down. Though he might have asked them about scaring guys to keep them alive, what they thought of it. In his mind, not paying attention, he slipped getting out of the shower, caught himself but banged his hip against the tile wall, hard. God damn it hurt. He had to sit on the bed to pull his pants on: khakis fresh from the laundry. With a blue shirt, he decided, dark blue tie and the linen sportcoat that cost ninety bucks on Ashford Avenue and almost matched the khakis but was lighter: his suit, his best outfit. Dressing up to go see Mr. Donovan.