The bar/restaurant was dark-lit, richly appointed, with deep carpets and leather-lined booths and heavy wooden chairs and tables for the diners. Indirect pastel lighting enhanced the look of a never-never land where no opening bell ever rang — an effect negated by the strip of green electronic futures quotations running endlessly around the room just below the ceiling. Snatches of conversation flowed around him as he tried to pick Jeri Pearson out of the traders, runners, and company people crammed three-deep at the bar.
“I hear you sucked some gas this morning,” said a sandy-haired man to a beautiful brunette in her early twenties.
“I didn’t give much back,” she objected. “Maybe a K.”
“I made twenty-three K today,” said sandy-hair. He still wore his sweat-soaked trading jacket.
She chuckled. “Good. You can pay for the drinks.”
Dain spotted Jeri at one of the tables set back from the bar. The tide of milling humanity swirled him that way; he slid in opposite her. She had a lush body and a dissatisfied face. She caught the sleeve of a passing waitress.
“Bloody bull for the gentleman!” she yelled over the din.
The waitress nodded and moved on.
“Thanks for meeting me!” Dain boomed.
She shouted something back that contained “... mystery man...” and “... intrigued” in it.
He nodded as if he had understood. She stood, leaned down so her face was close to his ear and she could speak normally.
“Now you’re here to hold the table, I’m going to the little girls’. I’ll be right back.”
It was interesting that Jeri had chosen this place when he had called her for a meeting. Very public, very noisy, both of which would discourage not only intimacy, but questioning as well. Interesting, too, the trip to the ladies’: a chance to report to Maxton by phone that Dain had arrived?
“Seven-twenty a bushel?” said a twangy voice above him. “The guy is nuts. Me, I’m dreaming of beans in the teens, like the drought year of eighty.”
The voices moved off. “Dream on. The bottom’s going out of soybeans when the new Ag report comes out.”
Jeri slid in across from Dain just as the waitress set down his drink — a bloody mary with a shot of beef bouillon in it.
He lifted it to toast her, somebody jammed an elbow against his hand in passing, spilling the squat heavy glass across the tablecloth, moved on without apologizing. Dain set about wiping up his spilled drink with the cloth napkin.
“Quite a place!” he yelled politely. “You come here often?”
Helping with her own napkin Jeri shouted back, “Used to!”
Dain leaned toward her so he was speaking almost into her ear as she had done to him earlier.
“So what happened to you and Jimmy?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She tried to pull back from him, but he had one big hand clamped around her forearm.
“The fat born-again in his apartment building knows.”
“That bitch!” She tried to wrest her arm back from his grip. Dain was unmoving. She jerked her head. “C’mon, let’s get the hell out of this dump.”
“Your place or mine?” asked Dain without humor.
Despite the thunderstorm, Jeri’s one-bedroom, forty minutes from the Loop by bus, had been close and humid after being closed up all day. The rain had stopped, so Dain had thrown open some windows and sat on the couch with his feet on the coffee table while Jeri had made drinks.
Jeri came out of the bedroom, her steps languid; she had changed into a negligee that showed her dark nipples and pubic triangle through the thin shimmery material. She was carrying a little glass vial in one hand, a single-edged razor blade in the other, was performing meaningless little dance steps to some inner music. She plopped on her knees between the coffee table and the couch, beside Dain’s extended legs.
“Gonna do me a little itsy-bitsy line,” she said. “You interested?” Her voice was clear, but her movements liquid.
Dain answered only with a slight negative movement of his head, watched moodily as she chopped and rowed the coke. She used a plastic straw cut in half to snort the first line. She shook her head, then giggled and reached up to knock a fist gravely on his temple.
“H’lo! Anybody home in there?”
Dain was silent, waiting her out. He couldn’t afford to feel anything for Jeri Pearson. He needed to use her and lose her. She shook her head as if in wonder.
“Life of the party. When he first walked inna Maxton’s, I thought, Mr. Stud has come to town...”
She stopped and rubbed some of the coke on her gums. She giggled. She started to cry. Then her face smoothed out. She giggled again. She leaned back against his outstretched legs.
“You aren’t interested in me, are you? Jus’ in what I can tell you.”
“Tell me what happened to you and Jimmy. You and Jimmy were good together.”
“Jimmy?” A giggle. “Somebody t’do, that’s all.” She sat with her head down, staring at the coke on the coffee table. “Not a nice girl, that’s me. Nice girls don’t work for Maxton.”
“Why not?”
“Work for Maxton, gotta give him head under his desk when he’s on the phone.” She started to cry again. She leaned forward to snort the second line on the glass tabletop. “Was in love with him. Maxton. He dumped me. For an exotic dancer.”
“Exotic dancer?” asked Dain. “Peroxide—”
“Try whore instead.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, leaned back against his legs again. “No peroxide. Black-haired bitch, I could kill ‘er! Real long black shiny hair down to her ass. Real pretty, goddam her, jugs out to here...” She pantomimed in front of her own perfectly adequate breasts. “She an’ couple others p’formed at the Christmas party...”
“That’s when Maxton dropped you for her?”
“Chrissake, you aren’t listening!” She peered at him blearily. “That’s what he does. Focuses all that power... all that drive... all that energy on a girl ’til her panties get wet. At first he just needs you so fuckin’ bad you feel you’re the most special woman in the world. Then he drops you an’ makes you feel like shit on a stick... worse than shit on a stick, ‘cause he’s furious with you ‘cause he ever wanted you...”
“So he’d dumped you before the Christmas party.”
“Two months before. Christmas party was first time I saw her — one took my place.” She looked owlishly at him. “Firs’ time Jimmy saw that slut; too...”
Dain’s eyes had gotten sharp and bright, but his voice was very soft, almost insinuating.
“Tell me about her and Jimmy.”
Her eyes teared up. “Two weeks after the Christmas party he dumped me for her. Ever’body dumps poor ol Jen.”
“Do you remember the dancer’s name?”
“No.”
“Or where Maxton hired her from?”
“No.”
“Could you find out?”
“Why should I?”
When he didn’t answer, she struggled to her feet, swayed, caught her balance, and looked down at him with bleary eyes, her negligee open so her naked body was on display.
“Want some of that?” she challenged. Before he could answer, she said, “Did it inna men’s room once, backed up against the urinals...” She giggled again. “Guy banged me so hard the urinal flushed when he came.”
Dain was silent.