“THIS is your friend? No way, lady, this guy’s drunk. No way in hell I’m takin’ him nowhere. Now, c’mon, get out of the cab.”
“Butch, get in the cab!”
“We wanna go t’ Manson Squa’ Garn,” said Karp brightly.
“I’m leavin’,” said the cabbie. “Go play games with somebody else.”
At this, Marlene leaped from the cab, grabbed Karp by the belt and collar and, before the startled driver could make a move, jackknifed Karp face down across the backseat. She then got in herself, sat on Karp’s backside, pulled his legs in so that his shoes pointed to the sky, and slammed the door.
“Look buddy,” she said to the cabbie, “I don’t want any trouble, but it’s been a long day for me too. Take us home and it’s twenty bucks over the meter. But, I’ll tell you this. I work for the DA, Homicide Bureau. Screw with me and I’ll have two blue-and-whites following you around for the rest of your life.”
“Hey, wait a second, I got my rights, huh? I got rights!”
Karp said, into the seat cushion, “You have the ri’ to remain silen’. You have the ri’ t’ have a lawyer presen’ durn quesering. If you cannot afrd a lawyer you are a cheap l’il punk.”
“Ah, crap, lady, what if he pukes in my cab-it’s the end of the goddam shift!”
“If he pukes,” said Marlene in a voice that rose into an alto shriek, “I will personally wipe up every single motherfucking drop-with my UNDERPANTS! NOW DRIVE!”
“Where to, lady?”
Marlene had to pull Karp’s wallet out of his hip pocket and read his address to the cabbie.
When they reached Karp’s place, Marlene opened the door with Karp’s keys. He stood in the middle of his bedroom for about ten seconds, then stumbled to the bathroom, got on his knees, and threw up everything he had eaten since October 1956, or so it seemed. He rinsed out his mouth, walked to the side of the bed, and fell straight across it, bouncing twice. He was snoring before the second bounce.
Marlene watched him for a moment. She thought, if I could just rest my eyes for a minute, I could get myself together and figure out how I am going to get back to my apartment. She looked around. No chairs, no couch, no rug. She walked over to the bed and eased herself down across its head.
Just five minutes, she thought.
When she opened her eyes again, sunlight was streaming through the closed Venetian blinds in thin, downward-slanting shafts. She looked at her watch: 11:30. She got out of the bed and stood up. After a while her brain caught up with her skull and the room stopped spinning. Karp hadn’t moved a millimeter all night, was still face down, mouth open, gently snoring.
Marlene felt as if her skin were covered with glue. She ran her fingers through her hair, and started when she felt something damp. It was a bit of cole slaw. If I don’t get a shower this minute, she thought, I am going to commit suicide.
She walked into the bathroom and stripped. She let the hot stream of the shower beat the garbage out of her head and off her body. Looking around for soap or shampoo she found only a double cake of Ivory. Ivory? Oh, Karp, you sybaritic devil, you! OK, she thought, so I’ll smell like a dish.
Karp was awakened by the familiar sound of his shower running. The previous evening was nearly a complete blank. He remembered the phone call to his wife (Oh God, that!), the campaign headquarters, going with Guma, cooking shish kebabs-and that was it. Period. He couldn’t remember ever having gotten that smashed on a six-pack of beer. Maybe he was losing his marbles. He couldn’t even remember turning on the shower.
The bathroom air was nearly opaque with steam. Naked now, Karp pulled back the shower curtain on the faucet side and took the heavy spray straight in the face, as was his habit. Then he reached behind him to grope for the soap in its shelf midway up the wall. But instead of the soap, what he grabbed was Marlene Ciampi’s small and pointy breast.
“Hey,” said Marlene, “you could at least say ‘good morning.’ “
He pulled away and spun around. Marlene was standing with hands on her hips, a characteristic pose of hers when fully dressed, and trying to arrange her face into an expression suitable for the occasion. Karp struggled to do the same.
Karp said, “Marlene. Oh.”
Marlene said, “Butch. Oh.”
Simultaneously, their faces fell apart and they began to laugh uncontrollably, a huge, gasping, wracking laughter. Their legs couldn’t hold them. They slid down the soapy walls to the floor of the tub, with the bullets of water streaming down on them.
“God! Karp, stop it, I’m peeing in my pants,” said Marlene, and this struck them as additionally hilarious, and they laughed some more.
After a while their laughing died away, and they looked each other in the eye. Both were a little frightened, which, of course, they saw in each other’s eyes. Because they knew, these two very smart, very verbal people, that the Animal Train was about to leave the station, taking them both to some unknown place which they both hoped was True Love, a hope neither of them would admit for some time, having been taught that it was no longer a regularly scheduled stop.
So without thinking-for once-Karp jumped on the delicious girl in his bathtub, and Marlene opened her arms and her soapy thighs to him, also without a thought in her head and they both, as Marlene would have said, fucked like minks until they were wrinkled, soggy, exhausted, and drunk with happiness.
Chapter 13
“I swore, I SWORE, I would never get involved with anybody where I worked. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I had a thing going with my contracts professor in law school. Nice guy, married, three kids. I sweated bullets in that course. I mean, we agreed that we were going to keep it separate, sex and grades. So like three people ever aced contracts since 1706, or something, and I got one. Needless to say, every piss-ant law-school wimp was smirking all over himself when they posted the grade. ‘Of course, she got one, snicker-snicker.’
“I had migraines for a month. What could I do, hang the marked blue books and papers from my lip? I make law review-the same thing, snicker-snicker. Anyway, I said, ‘never again’ and here I am, involved.”
They were dry and lying side by side on Karp’s bed, with a sheet over them. The window was open and a summer breeze rhythmically stirred the half-closed Venetians. Bars of sunlight moved across the bed, up the wall and back again. They had both called in sick.
“What makes you think we’re involved, snicker-snicker?”
“Oh, we’re involved, all right. Do you think I’d let you ravish my milk-white body for a cheap one-night stand? I’m a proud Sicilian maiden. Betray me and my brother will cut your balls off. Then I’ll dress in black and wear them forever in a little embroidered bag, around my neck.”
“I thought you said your brother was a dentist.”
“Orthodontist. Doesn’t matter though. He’s connected, heavy. The mob is queer for straight teeth, it’s common knowledge. Guys who know how to fix an overbite can write their own ticket with the dons.”
“You’re a nut, Ciampi, you know that?”
“Maybe, but I’m serious about keeping this whatever-it-is from getting around the office.”
“What? You mean I can’t boast of my conquest in the locker room?”
“No, really, Butch.” She was silent for a moment, then propped herself up on one elbow and looked into his face.
“I heard about your wife.”
“You heard about my wife! Shit, Champ, I just heard about my wife. Who the hell told you? Oh, Christ, Guma!” He pulled a pillow over his face and groaned.
“Well, what did you expect? Tell Guma, tell Jimmy Breslin, except Guma maybe gets the word around a little faster. We could talk about it, if you want.”
Karp peeked over the top of the pillow. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I feel like a jerk. I thought I was in love, I thought I knew who with, and all of a sudden, it turns out that person doesn’t exist. It’s amazing, this year. It starts out, I have a job, a career that makes sense. I believe in it. I have a marriage, maybe going through some rough spots, but I believed in that, too. Now, Jesus, the DA’s office is heading for the garbage can, my wife is gay. I thought I got through the sixties, all that bullshit. I thought I knew the answers. You know, like an exam. Study hard, work out, clean mind, clean body. Fuck the answers-I don’t even know the questions anymore.”