The Black Cat was on 14th Street, spartan like the old 9:30 but without the new 9:30’s frat-boy crowd. The club had an all-ages policy and good sight lines, helped by a couple of rows of stadium seats against the wall, so that every kid in the place, even the short ones, could check out the band.
There was a genial guy who always stood outside the club politely asking for donations, and Stefanos gave him a buck. The opening band, an excellent local outfit called Last Train Home, was in midset, covering Manifesto’s “Sugar,” as Stefanos and Alicia entered the club. Stefanos went to the bar, bought a couple bottles of Bud, and brought them over to Alicia, who had situated herself in the center of the crowd. The Brace brothers were in harmony onstage against a tight rhythm section as Stefanos tapped Alicia’s bottle. Stefanos was glad he had stopped drinking earlier; taking a sip, it was like hitting his first of the night and it tasted damn good.
The Silos, the night’s headliners, came out a half hour later. Walter Salas-Humara took center stage and ripped through a set from Heater, his group’s latest album, as Stefanos downed two more beers. He was sweating beneath his leather by the time Alicia got close to his ear and suggested they go.
They made love next to an open window in Alicia’s Mount Pleasant apartment. She was narrow shouldered, with small, red-nippled breasts and full, round hips. Stefanos loved her hips. He tasted the salt of her sweat and kissed the insides of her thighs as he slowly made his way to her sex. Burying his mouth in her, he took her there like that.
Afterward, Stefanos looked at the curtains hanging still on either side of the open window.
“Aren’t those curtains supposed to be billowing?” he said. “There’s no wind, silly.”
“’Cause I saw that in a movie once. One of those erotic thrillers on cable.”
“Come up here and kiss me.”
“Maybe I ought to brush my teeth first. As a courtesy, I mean.”
“Come here.”
Bernie Walters signaled the waitress for another beer.
“Me, too, Helga,” said Thomas Wilson as she arrived.
Walters pointed at Stephanie Maroulis. She put her hand over her glass and shook her head.
“So what’s up with your friend?” said Wilson.
“Nick?” said Dimitri Karras.
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean, what’s up with him?”
“When we were all walking over here, before we split up, that Nick character was really checkin’ out my car on the street there.”
“You drive a Dodge, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Nick’s a Dodge freak, man. He’s got an old Mopar from the sixties that he babies.”
“Gearhead, huh?”
“I liked having him there,” said Walters, shaking a cigarette from his deck. “With another smoker in the room, I didn’t feel like a leper and all that.”
“Well,” said Wilson, “it was a different night for us, I’ll say that much.”
They were all avoiding looking at Stephanie. She had broken down in the meeting, talking about her husband, Steve. It wasn’t like her to do that. Her role was the Cheerful One, and it had taken them by surprise. She still had the tracks from the tears that had fallen down her face.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then the waitress returned and served Walters and Wilson their beers.
“Thanks, Helga,” said Wilson.
“It’s Helen,” said the waitress tiredly, pointing to her name tag. “Why they go to all the trouble makin’ you dress up like Oktoberfest gals,” said Wilson, “then go and let you use your American names?”
“I don’t know. I’ll bring it up at the next board meeting.” The waitress rolled her eyes and walked away.
“Just tryin’ to make the girl smile, is all,” explained Wilson.
“They’re probably not allowed to laugh on duty,” said Karras, “seein’ as how they’re supposed to be Germans and all that.”
Wilson laughed, reached across the round-top and gave Karras finger-skin.
Stephanie cleared her throat. “It was different tonight, Thomas, you were right. And better, I think.”
Walters pushed his Orioles cap back on his head. “That Bill Jonas is a good guy.”
“There was something about him,” said Stephanie. “It just felt easy, talking around him. Look, I’m sorry if I lost it back there -”
“That’s all right,” said Karras, reaching for her hand, taking it and stroking it, not caring that the others were there.
Wilson looked away. Walters pretended to study his burning cigarette.
“We better get going,” said Karras.
Stephanie opened her wallet and left money on the table.
“We on this weekend, Dimitri?” said Walters. “Gonna be a little cold down there on the property, but the weather should be clear.”
“Sure, Bernie. Saturday’s good for me.”
“We got to take two cars, buddy. It’s my vacation, and I’m staying down for the week.”
“Okay. I’ll follow you down.”
Stephanie and Karras said good bye and left the bar.
Wilson cleared his throat. “Guess I was right about those two, eh, Bern?”
“Oh, I always knew the two of them were together,” said Walters with a wink. “I was just letting you go on.”
“Whatever makes them happy,” said Wilson softly.
“The Lord’s brought them together, Thomas. I been watching the way they look at each other. They don’t know it yet, but to me it’s plain.”
“What is?”
“You ask me, it looks like those two are falling in love.”
Nick Stefanos pulled the blankets up over his shoulder. “We gonna leave that window open all night?”
“I like to hear the city sounds,” said Alicia Weisman.
“Well, it’s warm enough under these blankets. And there’s you.”
His arm was beneath her. She shifted so that her chest was pressed against his.
“I had a good time with you tonight,” said Stefanos.
“And me with you.”
“I wasn’t my usual sloppy self, right?”
“I wouldn’t ever call you on that. You told me who you were when we hooked up. I’m not looking to be your mother. I just want to hang out with you, Nick. I like being your friend, and I like making love to you. Let’s enjoy it and not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
“Well, it was Dimitri Karras who said that you and me’d have a better time if I showed up sober. He dragged me out of the bar and to that meeting.”
“Who was there?”
“The cop who was crippled at the crime scene. Family members of the victims and one of the victim’s friends. I’ve been through that before. I had to deal with this woman whose son was murdered down by the Anacostia River a few years back. It’s one of the reasons I cut back on picking up those kinds of jobs.”
“I can’t imagine how awful it must be for those people.”
“The woman who was married to the bartender, she kind of broke down tonight. I felt like walking out when she was telling her story. But I stayed. It would have been disrespectful to leave, you know?”
Alicia stroked Stefanos’s hair. “You’re not going to go back there, are you? I mean, there’s nothing you can do for them, Nick.”
“That’s right,” he said. “There’s nothing anyone can do for them now.”
Thomas Wilson drove his Dodge across town and parked it on Georgia. He entered a supper club down near Kenyon. Neighborhood folks, a couple of guys in suits who looked like they had been there since coming off their nine-to-fives, a few workingmen with just enough for a draft high, and a skinny, pipehead-lookin’ sucker sat at the bar. Wilson had a seat on the end, all by himself.
He ordered a Courvoisier up with a side of Coke, and had a look around the bar.
There were some round-the-way girls in the place, but they appeared to be taken. The ones who weren’t didn’t have that look he liked. Shit, who was he kidding? Those women hadn’t so much as turned their heads in his direction when he’d walked into the joint.
He could smell a sweet hint of reefer coming from the bathrooms down along the supper club’s back hall. Rick James was doing “Mary Jane” on the house system. He found this funny, but there was no one there to share the joke.