"You know the system."
"I do indeed."
In the meantime, there was the weekend. Friday night George took me on the longest drive through Brooklyn to some terrific Italian restaurant in Coney Island and it was two in the morning before we got back to his place. When I came out of the shower he was in bed asleep, the son of a bitch, but I crawled in alongside of him, kissed the back of his neck, and the back of his back, and he muttered sounds in his sleep. I slept too, till sometime toward morning when I felt the scepter stiffen. We made languorous middle-of-the-night love till daylight, then slept till noon. Still in our nightdress, we ate a marvelous breakfast of grits and bacon and eggs and English muffins and orange juice and back to bed.
"Not bad for an old man," I said, flaked out from postcoital exhaustion, absolute, terminal, and slept again. I woke, refreshed, glanced at the clock. Impossible! It was after three in the afternoon! Where had the day gone?
"Get up," I said to George.
"After you," he answered.
"Simultaneously," I compromised, and we pulled each other up, and then, like kids, made a game of dressing each other.
"This is a very erotic exercise," said George.
"Oh no," I said. "If you're not worn out, I'm worn out, let's go for a walk," and we did, until the daylight faded. Having missed lunch, we stopped for dinner early at a small Italian place. We finished half the chianti before the spaghetti arrived. We laughed at each other mixing the meat sauce, forks twirling the pasta in dinner spoons, shoveling it into waiting mouths. Halfway through, George made a thing of taking a single strand in his lips and sucking it in.
"People are looking," I whispered.
"Voyeurs," said George, "may they enjoy it."
"Crazy," I said.
"Crazy," he echoed.
Suddenly George said, "Let's go!" He motioned for the waiter, who came scurrying over.
"No good?" he questioned, as if to say how can spaghetti not be good.
"Marvelous," said George. "Check, please."
George overtipped, and we both skipped out of the place, and once in the street, hand in hand, ran back to the house and to bed. I didn't think I could have another orgasm, but I did, I did.
Sunday morning we were awake at dawn. It felt as if the rest of the world had disappeared. I pulled down the covers and addressed George's organ. "This," I said, "is a day of rest." All I did was tap it on the head to make my point, but I could see it stirring. "Lie still," I told it, patting it down. It wouldn't listen, thickening. "It's Sunday," I said, touching the rim of the corona, circling it as one does the rim of a martini glass. And there it was, instant yeast, the veined mast twanging up to its full height.
"A day of rest," I said to the unmoving George, as I got up to lower myself unto him, then raised myself, then lowered again, riding him first in fun and then in fury as the shudders came and I collapsed on top of him.
I was still lying half over him when we later woke.
"They shoot horses, don't they?" said George, and I had to laugh, even though I hadn't seen the movie.
I told him about the Tuesday radio show and invited him to hold my hand. "Not literally," I said, "they'll probably make you sit somewhere behind the glass, but you can watch me show off with Butterball."
"Have you ever been on the radio?" he asked.
"Nope."
"Aren't you nervous?"
"Only about us."
"What about us?"
"Continuing."
His kiss caught me by surprise.
"Sated?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I had an idea."
"No more."
"No, a different idea. How would you like to get out of being the star witness at Koslak's trial?"
"I said I would do it."
"What if you didn't need to?"
"I'm not going to let that bastard off."
"Suppose I was able to guarantee a jail sentence for him without a trial?"
"You planning a dictatorship?"
"I want to try something."
"Who's stopping you?"
To me, after all those days and nights of lovemaking, he seemed unstoppable.
Forty
Thomassy
To avoid getting into an Alphonse-Gaston routine, I went to see Brady in his office.
"An honor," said Brady.
"Sure," I said.
I asked him if Koslak meant anything special to him.
"A fee."
"Period?"
"Period."
"What do you think Koslak will get?"
Brady laughed. "An easier piece of ass the next time. What can I do for you, Thomassy?"
"I'm not prosecuting the case. Lefkowitz is."
"Too bad in a way. Some people around the courthouse might pay to see a Brady-Thomassy play-off." Brady's face suddenly lost all expression. "I've seen that punk kid work. I'll get Koslak an acquittal or probation easy."
"Not if you have any ballsy women on that jury."
"Look, Thomassy, you know I'm not going to have any women on that jury. I got a little something worked up that won't even use up my peremptories. You come around. You'll enjoy it."
"I'd like to let you in on a little of my strategy."
"Lefkowitz's."
"Mine. Lefkowitz is going to be my Charlie McCarthy on this case."
"Good trick if you can do it. One step out of line and I'll have you removed from the courtroom for interference. By the judge, of course."
"I'm tutoring Lefkowitz."
"Sure."
He was wanting to hear but not to show it.
"I've got an expert witness."
"Look, Thomassy, I'm bored with all that psychiatrist shit. I'll tear him to pieces."
"I didn't have a psychiatrist in mind. I think the jury needs to understand the difference between seduction and rape, between normal sex and abnormal sex."
"And?"
"My expert is Anna Banana. The subpoena will read Anna Smith. You know this expert?"
Brady had the no-expression curtain on his face, but he couldn't immobilize the small, dancing tic near his upper lip. He picked up a paper clip and opened it into a single not very straight piece of wire. Finally, he said, "What's that to me?"
"I'm planning to have her files subpoenaed, too. There'll be a connection."
"You're bluffing. You'll never get her on the stand."
"Lefkowitz has a law school classmate in the Manhattan D.A.'s office. This friend has quite a file on Anna Banana, but Lefkowitz's friend has generously arranged for the lady to continue her eccentric livelihood. It seemed an important consideration to her, which is why we expect her to testify gladly. For a fee. I'm quite convinced her expertise in what is normal is based on more professional experience than most psychiatrists have. She's got quite a bit to say about men who, say, rape instead of paying for their special requirements."
"You finished, Thomassy?"
"There's a second and more expensive witness. However, my client is willing to foot the bill from Amsterdam."
I was certain Brady was thinking where he could get my arms and legs broken for a price.
"Oh," I said, "and of course Lefkowitz will be calling Dr. Koch."
"That son of a bitch!"
"Why'd you say that?"
"I heard he was a son of a bitch."
"Could it be you heard he managed to repel an intruder?"
Brady flinched when I touched my eye. He knew I knew.
"Thomassy, I don't know why you're rolling in all the heavy artillery. Some twat gets laid by someone she didn't pick and you're acting like there was a million-dollar construction contract at stake."
"I'd appreciate your characterizing my client differently."
"I forgot you had a piece of her."
"Anna Banana, Amsterdam, Koch. Could be an interesting array of experts."
"What's your suggestion, Thomassy?"
"Cop a plea for Koslak. No trial. You got your retainer. I might talk Lefkowitz into first degree assault."