“Can we get a bus from here?”
“Not yet, not yet.”
Their pyjamas were soaked through but they were too far behind schedule to change clothes now. They’d have to go for it as they were, even though the white garments would practically glow in the dark. At the end of the narrow, carpeted corridor, through a high window in a heavy brown door, Christo could see light glinting off windshields. He put his arm around Sara’s waist and coaxed and carried her forward.
“Use your legs, dammit.”
He thought: This is a lot like babysitting.
She snapped to in the cold air of the parking garage, leaned over the hood of a station wagon hyperventilating.
“Wait a minute…. Wait a minute.”
“Don’t fade in the stretch, Sara. We might reach a point where I can’t afford you anymore.” He took the steel bar out of the pillowcase.
Sara nodded, took his hand. They ran up a cement ramp to the driveway, stopped, looked in unison to right and left like figures in a pedestrian safety film, then briskly but quietly walked across. Christo pulled her down in a bed of ivy; she was trembling. Up ahead, the gate man stared out at the street from his lighted cubicle and puffed on a pipe.
“Wait here and be ready to fly.”
With long, low strides, Christo covered the intervening ground in seconds. As the gate man turned toward the sound of his final step with a half smile on his brown, creased face, Christo cocked the bar and brought it down square on the back of his head. The gate man’s cap with the shiny badge in front flipped off and hit the ground before he did. A flash as Christo spun away, blood welling over gray crewcut stubble.
“Now, Sara. Now!” And he took off like a deer.
She breathed deep, gathered herself and went after him, her slippers coming off as she sprinted through half-melted snow, the pillowcase swinging wildly at her side.
Shivering, embracing, they climbed into the janitor clothes behind a hedge six blocks away.
“Okay, next phase,” Christo said as Sara jumped up and down and crooned at the stars. “Where does your brother live?”
“In Boston — oh, you beautiful man. I can’t believe I’m out … I’m really out. I could never have done it by myself.”
“Well, don’t tell the neighborhood about it.”
“I don’t even care if I get frostbite,” Sara said, wiggling her bare toes.
“Phase two now, darlin’. Concentrate. You know this town, find us a Western Union.”
They walked for endless blocks as a cheerless dawn broke overhead. Sara was manic and couldn’t stop talking, even when Christo walked ahead, fingers plugging his ears. He sat, teeth chattering, on a park bench while she wired Pierce collect, asking him to send as much money as he could as soon as he could. The clerk gaped at her in the baggy green work shirt, the impossible balloon pants she had to hold up by the belt loops.
“Spot of trouble?”
“My house burned down,” Sara said gravely. “Guess I left the bacon on too long.”
A large chunk of money was handed over to her within two hours and Sara alternately wept and apologized for being so sentimental. They spent the remainder of the morning shopping for clothes, lingered over a lunch of lobster salad and cappuccino, and touched down at Logan Airport at dusk. A freshman gofer of Pierce’s decked out in chauffeur’s livery was there to meet them and, in a long black limousine equipped with stereo and wet bar, to transport them to an all-stops-pulled welcome home party already in progress.
The following day Pierce invited Christo’s suggestions as to how he might best demonstrate his gratitude.
“I could use a job.”
The exam period preceding spring vacation was but a few days away. Christo was given a car, detailed instructions on how to find five area campuses, a promise of liberal commissions, and a shopping bag full of amphetamines.
“Sweet and soft as butter, that sister of yours.” Christo held the stem of his empty glass like a cigarette between middle and index fingers. “I can still see her in that sea-blue gown with the tassels at the waist and the whole room levitating when she’d walk through.”
“That party—” Pierce thumped his elbows on the table. “That party cost me over two grand.”
“Commerce has made you vulgar, you shithead.” Fractured little smile, head going ruefully from side to side. “I’ve got only one regret from that whole thing. One large regret.”
“Let’s have it then. By all means.”
“I never slept with her.”
“I don’t know about that, jazzbo.” Pierce squinted at him and the lamplight was harsh on his yellow, ruling-class hair. “From what she says in her letters, the only type of sex Sara enjoys is with herself.”
“You’ve got a real close family, Pierce. That’s nice.” He stood, stretched, moved toward the spiral stairs. “But I’m glad I never did.”
Pierce spread his arms on the table, seeming to embrace the whole of its dark surface. “You going to retrieve your friend?”
“Nah, let her float awhile. But I ought to get us a hotel.”
“Do that anytime.” Pierce waved dismissingly. “The kind of hotels you like are never full. It’s early, for Christ’s sake. Stick around and I’ll tell you about my book, we’ll maybe shoot some dice or something.”
“Look, man, I’ve been on the road a long—”
“But it’s early. More gimlets?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, more gimlets. You shithead.”
8
THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING in Room 31 of the Kenilworth Hotel (Transients Welcome). From a thick and muggy sleep Tildy ascended through those first turbid layers of consciousness as in a bubble of gas. She became instantly aware of phlegm dangling like a cord of taffy in her throat, raw from the forty some-odd cigarettes she’d smoked the night before. She forced open her eyes and, bit by bit, pegged her location. Christo. New York. Scumbag hotel. It was impossible to gauge the time of day because the windows were painted the same bile yellow as the walls. Good morning, Naked City, and thanks for everything.
She lifted the receiver and Christo’s voice rasped in her ear.
“Hiya, bunny. Ready to roll?”
Her lips moved silently against the holes in the plastic mouthpiece. She belched at him, whispered, “Where are you?”
“Seventy-ninth and Lexington. Been hiking around since eight o’clock. I tried to wake you for breakfast but you kicked me.”
“’M sorry.”
“Don’t worry. I kicked you back. You all right?”
“Feel like dough. A big tub of rancid bread dough.”
“Okay, okay. Get yourself in the shower and let it run awhile. Brush your teeth, run a little sandpaper over your face and get into some clothes. You’ll be meeting me in one hour outside the Planned Parenthood Thrift Shop at Seventy-fourth and Third. There’s doings on for tonight and we need to make some preparations.”
“Why?”
“Seventy-fourth and Third. Southeast corner.” And he hung up.
After retching in the shower, Tildy felt much better. She dosed her dehydrated system with two cans of orange pop from the lobby vending machine and tried to sharpen the focus of her eyes over the morning headlines: a Long Island building contractor had been accused of engaging in deviant sex with members of his scout troop; an off-duty transit cop had shot a Dutch tourist in a dispute over a parking space.