Somehow in the course of all this I had managed to get rid of two glasses and one blouse. I took off Jodi’s bra. I have often been a vicarious sort, despite the rather active sex life of which I have boasted in foregoing chapters, and books and movies never fail to arouse me. A story, recounted to me by a beautiful woman, can have an even more erotic effect. Perhaps the profession is partially responsible — when you sell sex night and day, as you do on Mad Ave, you become every jot as suggestible as the rank fools who buy the products you sell.
Thus, as I stood there listening to Jodi’s little narrative, my profile became somewhat annular in one particular area. And Jodi’s bra went away, and her breasts were warm in my hands.
“There’s more,” she said.
“I know there is. It’s under your skirt.”
“More to the story,” she said. “Don’t you want to hear it, Harvey? It’s kind of interesting.”
“Well, make it fast.”
Jodi giggled. I was still holding her breasts and they seemed to be growing in my hands. Maybe flesh expands as it grows warmer, like metal. Another story.
“So this sloe-eyed dame finished making love to me.” Jodi said “And she got up, and hot-shot took her place. And he made love to me, and then he made love to her.”
“That’s sort of anticlimactic,” I said, “And no puns intended.”
“That’s not all.”
“I think you’re stalling, Jodi.”
She giggled again, lewdly again. “I’ll make it short,” she said.
“You already made it long.” I squeezed her breasts. “Long and drawn-out.”
“The story, I mean. I got dressed, finally, and he gave me a hundred dollars, and I started to leave. And I asked Miss Sloe Eyes if she was coming. I figured we could have a drink somewhere, or talk about this nutty trick, or something.”
“So did you?”
“No,” she said. “She stayed with him.”
“Maybe he wanted her for the night.”
“He wanted her all the time, Harvey,” she said. “The sloe-eyed one was his wife. His wife, for God’s sake!”
It might have been a nice story for us to talk about, and to cluck tongues over, or something of the sort. But if you have read this far, you have no doubt gathered there was a strong physical attraction betwixt and between dear Jodi and I, and that we were both rather physical types. And you may have established a pattern in our relationship. And, if this is so, you know very well that we did not sit around and talk about the Rich Bastard and his Dyke Wife.
You know very well what we did.
In the morning, which was clear and dry, we had breakfast downstairs in the hotel’s coffee shop. The food was good if not exotic, and the bill of fare seemed divided between American items and German food; Rio itself seemed divided between American tourists and escaped Nazis, and our waiter bore a striking resemblance to Martin Bormann. One never knows.
Jodi and I had schnitzel Holstein, veal with eggs on it, and I felt only mildly ridiculous ordering the dish in English in a Brazilian restaurant. The coffee was hot and thick and black. There’s an awful lot of it in Brazil, as says the song. But very few Brazilians — just Americans and Germans.
Everett Whittington (or Everett Christopher, as his passport swore up and down) had flapjacks with maple syrup and a hearty glass of milk. He ate as though food was a new discovery and Jodi beamed at him.
“This is so nice,” she said.
“The schnitzel?”
“No, silly. No, just all of us here. You and me and Ev.”
“Ev?”
The moppet beamed at Jodi. And at me. He was sort of a cute little one.
“I can pretend,” Jodi said. “Do you know what I’m pretending, Harvey?”
“What?”
“That we’re married,” she said simply. “We’re a pair of married tourists, off to Brazil on a spree, and Ev is our little boy, and we are all very much in love. Isn’t that a nice pretend?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Isn’t it, Harvey?”
“It really is,” I said, meaning it. “But couldn’t we call the little tyke something besides Ev? It gets to me.”
“What’s a tyke?” Everett asked.
We ignored the question. Jodi smiled at him and patted his hand, and I said, “Why not Rhett?”
“Rhett?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s better than Ev, for God’s good sake.”
Jodi tested the name on her tongue, deciding that she liked it. “But it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “We have to turn him over to Whittington, damn it. That old bastard.”
“What’s a bastard?” Everett asked.
While Jodi tried to tell him what a bastard wasn’t, I thought about Dixon Whittington, the old bastard. Whittington was an executive of some company or other, or had been, until he did the only truly sensible thing in his life and absconded to Brazil with seven hundred thousand dollars of company funds, partly in bearer bonds and the rest in cash. He stopped in Mexico to divorce his wife, then headed to Brazil and married a slut of some sort to make extradition impossible. His wife, scandalized, leaped out a window. Everett — Rhett, damn it — was now half an orphan, and the other half was in Brazil.
So Dixon Whittington wanted the kid — more because he was a possession than anything else. And, because people with seven hundred thousand dollars can get in contact with almost anyone, he had reached our animalistic friend Al, who swiped the kid and shipped him, via us, to his rightful owner.
The way Jodi had explained it, it wasn’t kidnapping. A father couldn’t kidnap his own son, not unless the courts had awarded custody to somebody else, and this they had not yet done. But because the U.S. government was rather anxious to bait Papa Whittington into returning to the States, Rhett was not allowed to make the trek to Brazil.
Thus the deception.
“It’s a shame,” Jodi said. “I know.”
“But I guess we have to give him back, Harvey.”
I looked at Rhett. Never again could I think of him as Everett, and hardly Ev.
“Son,” I said in fatherly tones, “what does your old man call you?”
“The little bastard,” he said. “That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Why won’t you tell me what it means?”
“It’s a term of endearment,” I told him. And to Jodi I said, “You’re right, of course. It’s a damn shame.”
“Couldn’t we wait awhile?”
“Not according to instructions.”
“Today,” Jodi said sadly.
“Today. This morning, in fact. Pronto. We bundle Rhett into a cab, drop him in the old bastard’s arms, and scram. I think we should start now.”
“Now?” she said glumly.
“Now.”
“Can’t we even — even have another cup of coffee?”
“Honey, we can drink every cup of coffee in this whole country,” I said. “We can ruin our kidneys stalling around. But sooner or later Mr. Whittington’s seven hundred grand is going to be calling for its mate — or his kid, or whatever; let’s quit trying to push fancy metaphor. We have to give up sometime.” I felt pretty hopeless, all of a sudden.
We were sadder than hell. We got up from the table, signed a check, left a tip. We walked to the elevator to get Rhett’s suitcase. The moppet walked between us, and each of us held one of his wee little hands.
“I like you,” said Rhett.
I swallowed but there was still that lump in my gullet. Ad men are horribly emotional. It’s the kind of work they do, naturally.
“I like you both,” said Rhett. “And I’m going to live with you forever.”
I looked at Jodi. She had that tear back, in her eye, and I didn’t even try to wipe it away.