Kay smiled. “I did, too.”
They sat there for a while, but not too long, because Florek really did worry that someone would come along. He thought that a parking lot in Rock Creek Park would be the first place a cop would look for couples necking after dark. So he and Kay drove around a little and listened to the radio, and then she dropped him off at 14th and U Streets before heading uptown to her parents’ house in Shepherd Park. Florek kissed her through the open driver’s window before she sped off. He pulled the tail of his shirt out so that it covered the damp gray spot on the front of his trousers, and he began to walk south.
Another good night! They had seen a show at the Uptown called Hills of Home, a Lassie picture that Florek would have yawned through if not for a very young actress named Janet Leigh, who did it for him and reminded him of Kay. He and Kay had made out in the balcony off and on through most of the feature, and afterwards, at her suggestion, they had skipped any kind of food or drink and driven into the park. Thinking of them in the car, Florek found that he was walking very fast, running almost, down the street. Tonight had been a night of firsts: He had felt his first bare tit, had shot off for the first time without his own hand on the trigger. His buddies back home, they would have laughed and said that a dry hump was no cherry-bust, but any kind of lovemaking with Kay was good enough for him.
Florek smiled, running down 14th, thinking of how happy he was that he had come to D.C. And then he slowed down to a walk and finally a dead stop as the image of his sister entered his mind. Lola... just where the hell was Lola now?
Lola Florek looked up at her reflection in the ornate mirror angled and suspended from the ceiling above. Her body was mostly covered by the man who was inside her, but she could see her face above his muscled back, her head inching backward with each violent thrust. The sheets were bunched tightly in one of the man’s hands, while his other hand gripped the bed rails for support. The bed had moved slowly in a clockwise direction since she had been watching it. She’d made a game of it, to see how far the bed would move before the man was done. There was pain, and she could feel it, but the pain was happening to someone else: the girl in the mirror. The girl with the black streaks running down her face.
Lola heard laughter and colored music from down below. She took her eyes from the mirror, felt the ripping inside her. For a moment, she could not breathe in or out. Then the pain passed, and she let some air out of her lips.
“I’m too dry,” she said.
“Sssh,” said the man.
Lola said, “Daddy.”
The man said, “You go on and call me anythin’ you want.”
“What’s your hurry, officer?”
“We’re done. And it’s cold out here.”
“If it’s cold out here for you, how you think I feel, my backside up against these bricks? Anyway, why you so jumpy tonight?”
“I gotta go.”
“Don’t you wanna love me a little bit more, sugar?”
“Wouldn’t do me any good to be seen with a whore. You know that.”
“A colored whore, you mean.”
“You know that makes no difference to me.”
“Course not. Matter of fact, colored woman’s the only kind of woman you like.”
“What say?”
“Nothin’, sugar. I was talkin’ on the wrong side of you, I guess. You know, that bum ear of yours gon’ get you in trouble some day.”
“Listen, Delilah...”
“I like to hear you say my name.”
“I was wondering. If a colored man had a little money in his pocket... if he wanted to pay for a white woman, I mean, where would he go?”
“You lookin’ for white women now? ’Cause you know you got everything you need right here. You been pickin’ me up at the same place every week, 5th and K, for the last—”
“I’m not looking for myself. I’m talking about one specific white woman that I’m trying to find.”
“You want to talk to a pimp?”
“Not exactly. Someone that sets dates up, maybe through a pimp — white women for colored men. Is there a name that comes to mind?”
“Let me think about it a little bit, sugar. I might just know someone you could talk to, yeah.”
“Thanks, Delilah.”
“My pleasure, officer. Now you better get yourself out of this cold. You don’t mind my sayin’ so, you lookin’ a little pale, even for you.”
Sometimes, Peter Karras didn’t know how Eleni talked him into these things. Who would have thought he’d be sitting at a table with his wife at the Casino Royal, watching a bunch of midgets doing some crazy juggling and acrobatic act on stage?
“Aw, come on, Pete, we’ll have a ball,” said Eleni that morning, just an hour before he had headed into Southeast to see Vera.
And that had been why, he supposed, he had agreed to go — his guilt over Vera, and what he was about to do. But first he had to put up a little bit of a fight. She expected that much of him at the very least.
“Ochi, Eleni. What do I wanna go watch a bunch of dwarves for, wearin’ costumes, singin’ songs—”
“Don’t be such a bump on a log, Pete. I’ll get your mom to babysit Dimitri. And they’re not just dwarves. It’s Hermine’s Little People, honey. They’re a national act!”
After a couple of cocktails, Karras had gotten into the spirit of things. And Eleni, in the new outfit he had bought her at Jelleff’s, she was looking pretty sharp. He caught the way her nose crinkled up every time one of the midgets made a pratfall, and knew for sure that she was having a good old time.
Karras liked the Casino Royal as much as any nightclub in D.C. The dance floor was small, but the place had a certain kind of class, with Chinese waiters serving Chinese chow and dollar drinks mixed with liquor one step up the shelf. The house band. Jive Jack Schafer’s outfit, they could jump, too, and no wonder — the bald-headed Schafer had come up playing first trumpet with Harry James. The midget act, they were all right, but Karras relaxed a little more when Schafer’s band came out to play.
The dance floor filled up fast. Schafer went right into a swing standard, and the jitterbuggers hit the floor. Karras saw Tommy Rados out there, felt a rush of affection, as Karras had not yet heard that Rados had made it out of the Philippines in one piece. That Rados character could really dance. Through the dancers, at a deuce at the edge of the floor, Karras caught a glimpse of Face and his wife, having a couple of drinks. Face’s wife, my God, she was almost as big and ugly as him. But he had his arm around her, and they were both grinning like teenagers, and their heads were bobbing and their oversized feet were making likewise-time beneath the table. Karras called his waiter over, pointed to Face’s table, sent Face and his wife a round. A few minutes later. Face looked over at Karras, smiled and raised his drink.
The midgets came back out and did their song-and-dance for another forty-five minutes, and then it was Schafer again and more dancing, and by that time Karras was half in the bag. A Greek Eleni knew from Saint Sophia came over and timidly asked Karras if it would be all right if he and Eleni had a dance. Karras knew that Eleni was dying to take a spin around the floor, told the Greek that it was fine.
“You don’t mind, Pete?”
“Knock yourself out, sweetheart. I’m gonna go over to the bar, I think, have a taste of something else.”
“Thanks, Pete. I’m only gonna take one dance.”
“Go on, baby, have some fun.”
Karras picked his deck of Luckies up off the table, rose from his chair, limped across the dining-room floor. He found an empty barstool and had a seat.
“Yessir,” said the bartender, who was working on a good sweat.