She was gone.
He moved towards the checkout counter, peering over the tops of the aisles. As he reached the end of the aisle she stood up. She bad stooped down to get some crackers and now, suddenly, they were face to face, an aisle apart.
He left the basket, went back up the aisle, aimlessly searching the counters as though he had forgotten something. She was facing the other way when he came back and be pushed his cart hurriedly to the checkout counter.
An elderly lady got there at the same time. He smiled, reluctantly, and motioned her in front of him.
Goddamn, she must have fifty dollars’ worth of stuff in that cart.
He watched her put the items on the checkout counter. It took forever. Sharky waited. Then he casually turned sideways and looked back over his shoulder towards the store.
Domino was standing there, right behind him, three feet away.
Well, shill
She smiled at him, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. His nose is broken. How interesting. We seem to be following each other,’ she said pleasantly.
Do something, stupid, don’t just stare at her. He smiled back. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ he said.
‘You live in the neighbourhood?
‘No,’ he said, then realized it was a stupid answer and added quickly, ‘I like to shop here.’
‘Me too. It’s my absolute favourite.’ I’d like to reach up and just touch him, there between the eyes. ‘Are you going to be working in the building for long?’
‘Well, uh, I, uh, yes, a couple of days.’ Neat, Sharky. Why don’t you give her an itinerary? Show her your shield. Take out the old pistol and spin it on your finger, do a couple of John Waynes for her. Back out of the conversation. You’re blowing is. Putting ii all in your mouth. Foot, socks, shoe, the works.
And she thought, He’s interesting. Trim and hard, almost skinny. Faded green eyes, very warm. And that flat place across the bridge of his nose. He’d be pretty if it were not for that.
He was staring into her shopping cart.
‘Shark’s fin soup?’ he said with surprise.
‘Have you ever tried it?’ I’m glad he’s not pretty. Good God, what are you doing? Getting off on his broken nose!
‘I’ll be honest with you,’ he said, ‘1 never heard of shark’s fin soup.’
His eyes wandered. She was wearing a tee-shirt with ice cream written across the chest in dribbling letters, as if it were melting, and tight Italian jeans that hugged her ass and a fur jacket that looked like it would have cost him a year’s salary. There was no doubt about it — she was something special.
‘It’s quite a delicacy,’ she said, ‘Mister Moundt ord —,
She stopped, aware that he was not listening, that he was looking, no he was lost in looking at her. And she liked it. It seemed open and honest and it felt good to her and she looked him over again, admiring the way he held himself, loose, like an athlete, and confident.
She looked back at his eyes and a moment later he looked up and knew he had been caught.
He’s blushing! I haven’t seen anyone blush since college. She turned it on, staring hard into his eyes. The lady at the checkout counter was almost through. Do something. He’ll be gone in a minute or two. ‘I think you should try it,’ she said.
‘Try what?’
‘Shark’s fin soup.’
She’s making a pass, Sharky. ‘Well, I, uh, yeah. . . you know, one of...’
‘1 mean today.’
‘Today.’
‘Urn hum, today. About six o’clock.’
‘Six o’clock today?’
‘I’m making it for a friend. I’ll be finished cooking it by about six o’clock.’
She bored in with the blue eyes and be just stared at her, half-smiling.
‘10-A,’ she said.
‘10-A.’
‘10-A, six o’clock.’
‘Right. 10-A, six o’clock.’
What the fuck!
She smiled. ‘Splendid.’
He sat on the edge of the cot and nibbled grapes and tried to read, but his eyes kept wandering to the tape recorder. Finally it clicked and he slipped the earphones over his ears and shoved the monitor button, heard her close the door, followed her footsteps into the kitchen, listened to the rattling of paper bags, the refrigerator door opening and closing, pots slamming about, heard her singing to herself, filling in forgotten lyrics by humming.
She went into the living room and he could hear her shuffling through record albums. She put one on and the softness of a guitar took the edge off the hollowness of the room. A moment later Joni Mitchell’s plaintive voice came on singing the plaintive lyrics to ‘Harry’s House’.
Sharky’s mind wandered back to a high school picnic and a girl in a bright yellow bikini that barely covered her swelling breasts and she had turned out to be, what was her name? Mary Lou? Mary Jane? Mary-something-or-other, who had suddenly grown up, and remembering her, he made up aimless lyrics to a nothing song:
‘Baby did I lust for you,
Da da do da do da do,
And everybody else did too,
Dadadada da da da...’
He heard the sound of water running in the bathtub and he forgot the yellow bikini bathing suit and Mary-something- or-other and thought about Domino taking off the tee-shirt with the melting ice cream, envisioned her slipping off the tight Italian jeans, pictured her in his mind, naked, and he closed his eyes.
She poured bath oil in the tub, turned, and looked at herself in the full-length mirror and, singing along with Joni Mitchell, slowly stripped off the shirt, let it fall away from her shoulders, turned sideways, and studied her breasts, was pleased that they were still firm, curving up and away from her body, reached up under them and traced the curve with her fingertips, sliding her fingers out to the nipples, and squeezed them gently, watching them grow hard at her touch. She unbuttoned the jeans, pulled them over her hips, let them fall to the floor. Her panties had pulled down too, and she looked at her hair curling up over the top of them and ran her hand across the flat surface of her stomach, let her little finger slip down under the band, enjoyed the softness, and finally edged them down and stepped out of them, running her hands down the insides of her thighs, letting her thumbs ripple across the thick black down.
The beat of the music began to change to the blues and she hummed as Joni Mitchell sang:
‘The more I’m with you, pretty baby,
The more I feel my love increase,
I’m building all my dreams around you
Our happiness will never cease.’
She tested the water with a toe, slipped down into its oily warmth, let it envelop her, and lay back with her eyes closed, caressing her legs, her thighs. Her thumb found her belly button, lingered at its edge while the rest of her fingers slid down between her legs and she slowly pinched thumb and fingers together, lightly, slowly, and she thought about the elevator man, about his trim, hard body, the rugged face, the shattered nose.
‘We’ll find a house and garden somewhere
Along a country road a piece,
A little cottage on the outskirts
Where we can really find release,
‘Cause nothing’s any good without you.
Baby, you’re my centrepiece.’
And while Domino prepared herself for Victor, thoughts of the elevator man kept intruding. Intruding. Intruding...