She opened the door on the first ring and stood facing Sharky, her chin slightly raised, an arrogant, almost impish look on her face, her thick black hair, not quite dry yet, hanging damply about her ears. She wore no makeup. She didn’t need it and she knew she didn’t. She was wearing a scarlet floor-length kimono, silk, trimmed in brilliant yellow and split up both sides almost to the hip. There was nothing under it, nothing but her; he could tell by the way it stayed with her, moulded to her breasts, her hips, her flat stomach. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. The sweet odour of marijuana drifted past Sharky.
She smiled and said, ‘Well, I just lost a bet with myself.’.
‘How come?’
‘I bet you wouldn’t come.’
‘I can always go back.’
She stepped back, swung the door wide and leaned against it, cocking her head to one side. ‘No,’ she said, no, I don’t think so.’
He went past her, into the familiar living room, looked around, and feigned surprise. ‘Very elegant,’ he said, nodding his head.
She closed the door and came very close to him, staring up at his face for several seconds, then said, ‘Thank you.’
She had set a place for him on the smoked-glass table. A linen placemat with delicate silverware, Wedgwood china and a tall, fragile wine glass. ‘If you’d like to wash up, you can go in there,’ she said, pointing to the bathroom. The door to the massage room was closed. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands. Patches of mist lingered in the corners of the mirror and the room was warm with the memory of her bath and smelled vaguely of bath oil.
When he returned, she was pouring white wine into two glasses. She motioned for him to sit down. Soup steamed in the bowl.
There was a record playing, a soft ballad sung almost off-key by a Frenchman.
‘That’s a very pretty song,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.’
‘It’s called “The Dreams In Your Soul”. It’s my favourite song. That’s Claude DuLac. He’s very popular in France but it’s hard to find his albums over here. Americans don’t appreciate romantic singers anymore, do you think?’
‘No, I agree with you.’
I’m glad you like it.
‘I’m . .
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing.’
You’re getting pushy. Don’t rush it.
He swirled a pat of butter into yellow patterns on the surface of the soup. She raised her wine glass towards him.
‘Bon appétit,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’
The glasses pinged as they touched. She leaned forward on her elbows, holding her wine glass between her finger tips, and stared at him again, the blue eyes digging deep.
‘I have to ask you something,’ she said, very quietly, almost confidentially.
Jesus, does she know? Does she suspect? ‘Fire away,’ he said.
‘How did you get that?’ she asked, pointing towards his nose.
‘What?’
She reached out and ran her middle finger very delicately down between his eyes, lingering for a moment where his nose flattened out between them. ‘That,’ she said.
‘Oh, that.’
‘Urn hum,’ she said, adding, ‘If it’s something unromantic, like you got it caught in an elevator door or something, lie to me.’
‘The first thing they teach you in elevator school is not to get your nose caught in the door.’
She laughed and the laugh became a smile and stayed on her lips.
‘Well, when I was in high school there was this bully named Johnny Trowbridge and he hit me with a brick.’
She paused and then laughed again. ‘Really?’
Really.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘He was about, uh, three feet taller than me, so I went to the Y and I took boxing lessons for six months and then I beat the living bejesus out of him.’
She was laughing hard now and she shook her head. ‘Did you really?’ she said, ‘did you really do that?’
‘I really did it. Acceptable?’
‘Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. If it’s a lie, don’t change it.’
It was a lie, although a bully named Johnny Trowbridge had hit him with a brick and be had taken boxing lessons and a year later he’d kicked the shit out of Johnny Trowbridge. But his nose bad been broken in an alley behind the bus station when he was a rookie cop. A drunk had scaled the lid of a garbage can straight into his face with uncanny accuracy.
She sighed. ‘I’m so glad we got that settled.’
‘What?’
‘The business about your nose.’
‘Does my nose bother you?’
She shook her head very slowly, staring at it. ‘No. It gives you character.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Eat your soup before it gets cold.’
Upstairs on the roof the tapes were whirring, recording their conversation. He could envision the rest of the machine listening to it in Friscoe’s Inferno. He knew what The Nosh would think. But how about Friscoe? Livingston? Papa? And The Bat! The Bat would have a coronary. He would sit in his office and his face would turn red, then blue, and he would clutch his heart and make a face like a fish out of water, and he would fall dead on the floor. I may have to erase this tape.
He raised the spoon to his lips, sipped the soup. It was unreal. Fantastic. Soup wasn’t the right word for it. It was nectar. He held it in his mouth a moment, savouring it, before he swallowed.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘It’s . . . incredible.’
‘Incredible good or incredible bad?’
‘Good? Hell, it’s . . . historic.’
‘Historic’! What a wonderful choice of words.
‘Of course I’m not an expert. Is your friend Chinese? ‘No, but he lived in the Orient for years.’
Is he the mark? Is the dinner tonight part of the set-up?
Sharky decided not to push it. ‘Do you pick up strays in the supermarket very often?’ he asked.
‘Only in Moundt’s. .1 would never pick up a stray in just any market.’
He laughed.
‘Actually I felt kind of sorry for you. You looked so forlorn, wandering around, trying to decide what to buy. I can usually spot a bachelor in the market. They can never decide between what they want and what they need. In the end it’s a disaster.’
She leaned forward and stroked the broken place on his nose again. He felt chills. It was like school days again. He was reacting like a kid. But he liked it. You can keep your finger there for the rest of the night, he thought. You have fingers like butterfly wings.
‘You know something,’ she said. ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘That’s right, you don’t.’
‘What is it?
‘Sharky.’
‘Sharky what? Or is it what Sharky?’
‘Just Sharky. How about you?’
He reached out and ran his finger down between her eyes, felt the tip of her nose.
‘D-D-Domino.’ My God did I stutter?
‘Domino?’
‘Um hum, just Domino. Like just Sharky.’
He smiled and nodded and took his hand away and she wanted him to leave it there. ‘That’s fair enough,’ he said.
It went on that way. Small talk and jokes. And occasionally they touched, no — brushed, as if by accident. They flirted with subjects, never getting too personal, keeping it light.
‘Did you ever play football?’ she asked. ‘You look like you played football.’
‘I thought about it in college, but I wasn’t good enough.’
‘Where did you go to college?’
‘Georgia.’
‘What did you study?
‘Geology.’
‘Geology?’ she said, surprised.
‘Sure, geology.’
‘Why geology?’
‘I like rocks,’ he said.
‘Okay, so why aren’t you a geologist?’
‘Well, it was like, uh, there wasn’t a lot happening in geology when I finished.’
‘You spent all that time and then just. . . forgot it?’
‘It made my father happy. He took out an insurance policy when I was born, and when I graduated from high school, he handed me the cheque. It was a dream of his, that the kid should go to college. So he deserved it.’