Meanwhile, I'm wearing yesterday's underpants and I feel like I've been run over by a train.
"You're running late," she says, pushing past me; one nostril wrinkles aristocratically as she surveys the wreckage. She bends over a large carrier bag with the logo of that goddamned tailor on it: "Here, catch."
I find myself clutching a pair of boxer shorts. "Okay, I get the message. Give me a minute"
"Take ten," she says, "I'll go powder my nose." Then she disappears into the bathroom.
I groan and retrieve my tuxedo from the leg-well of the desk. There's a fresh shirt in the bag, and I manage to install myself in it without too much trouble. I leave the goddamn squeaky shoes for last. Then I have a mild anxiety attack when I realize I've forgotten the shoulder holster. Should I or shouldn't I? I'll probably end up shooting myself in the foot.
In the end I compromise — I've still got Ramona's phonegun, so I'll carry that in one pocket. "I'm ready," I call.
"I'll bet." She comes out of the bathroom, adjusting her evening bag, and smiles brilliantly. Her smile fades.
"Where's your gun"
I pat my jacket pocket.
"No, no, not that one." She reaches in and removes the phonegun, then gestures at the shoulder holster: "That one."
"Must I?" I try not to whine.
"Yes, you must." I shrug out of my jacket and Ramona helps me into the shoulder rig. Then she straightens my bow tie. "That's more like it. We'll have you attending diplomatic cocktail parties in no time!"
"That's what I'm afraid of," I grumble. "Okay, where now"
"Back to the casino. Eileen's throwing a little party in the petit salle, and I've got us tickets. Seafood canapes and crappy lounge music with a little gambling thrown in. Plus the usual sex and drugs rich people indulge in when they get bored with throwing their money away. She's using the party to reward some of her best sales agents and do a little quiet negotiating on the side. I gather she's got a new supplier to talk to. Ellis won't be there at first, but I figure if we can get you an invitation onto the ship ..."
"Okay," I agree. "Anything else"
"Yes." Ramona pauses in the doorway. Her eyes seem very large and dark. I can't look away from them because I know what's coming: "Bob, I don't, I don't want to — " She reaches for my hand, then shakes her head. "Ignore me. I'm a fool."
I keep hold of her hand. She tries to pull away. "I don't believe you," I say. My heart is beating very hard. "You do, don't you"
She looks me in the eye. "Yes," she admits. Her eyes are glistening, and in this light I can't tell whether it's cosmetics or tears. "But we mustn't."
I manage to nod. "You're right." The words feel very heavy to me, to both of us. I can feel her need, a physical hunger for an intimacy she hasn't allowed herself to indulge in years. It's not sex, it's something more. Oh what a lovely mess! She's been a solitary predator for so long that she doesn't know what to do with somebody she doesn't want to kill and eat. I feel ill with emotional indigestion: I don't think I've ever felt for Mo the kind of raw, priapic lust I feel for Ramona, but Ramona is a poisonous bloom — off-limits if I value my life.
She closes the gap between us, wraps her arms around me, and pulls me against her. She kisses me on the mouth so hard that it makes my hair stand on end. Then she lets go of me, steps back, and smoothes her dress down. "I'd better not do that ever again," she says thoughtfully. "For both our sakes: it's too risky." Then she takes a deep breath and offers me her arm. "Shall we go to the casino"
The night is young. It's just beginning to get dark, and some time while I was sleeping there was a brief deluge of rain. It's cut the baking daytime heat down a few notches, but steam is rising from the sidewalk in thin wisps and the humidity setting is somewhere between "Amazonian" and "crash dive with the torpedo tubes open." We stroll past a few street vendors and a bunch of good-time folks, under awnings with bright lights and loud noises. The brightly painted gazebos in front of the restaurants are all full, drowning out the creaking insect life with loud chatter.
We arrive at the casino entrance and I nod at the unfamiliar doorman. "Private party," I say.
"Ah. If monsieur et madame would come this way ...'" He backs into the foyer and directs us towards a nondescript staircase. "Your card, sir?" Ramona nudges me discreetly and I feel her slide something into my hand. I flip it round and pass it to the doorman. "Here." He scrutinizes it briefly, then nods and waves us upstairs. "What was that?" I ask Ramona as we climb. "Invitation to Eileen's little recreation." It's all polished brass and rich, dark mahogany here. Deeply tedious landscape paintings in antique frames dot the walls, and the lights are dim. Ramona frowns minutely as we reach the landing: "Under our own names, of course."
"Right. Do the names signify"
She shrugs. "Probably, on some database somewhere. They're not stupid, Bob."
I offer her my arm and we walk down the wide hallway towards the open double-doors. Beyond them I can hear the clink of glassware and voices raised in conversation, layered above a hotel jazz quartet mangling something famous. The crowd here feels very different to the gamblers in the public areas of the casino downstairs, and I instantly feel slightly out of place. There are dozens of women in their thirties and forties, turned out in an overly formal parody of office wear. They have a curious uniformity of expression, as if the skin of their faces has been replaced with blemish resistant polymer coating, and they're pecking at finger food and networking with the perky ferocity of a piranha school on Prozac; it's like the Stepford Business School opening day, and Ramona and I have wandered in by mistake from the International Capitalist Conspiracy meeting next door. I briefly wonder if anyone's going to ask us to announce the winners of the prize for most cutthroat business development plan of the year. But past the buffet I spot another set of open double-doors, at a guess the ICC meeting's going to be through there, along with the roulette wheels and the free bar.
**I'm going to go say 'hi' to our hostess,** Ramona tells me. **See you in a couple of minutes?** I can tell when I'm not needed. **Sure,** I say. **Want me to get you a drink?**
**I'll handle it from here.** She smiles at me then opens her mouth and gushes, "Isn't this wonderful, Bob? Be a dear and circulate while I go powder my nose. I'll just be a sec!"
Then she's off, carving a groove through the little black dresses and plastic smiles.
I shrug philosophically, spot the bar, and go over to it.
The bartender is busily pouring glass after glass of cheap, fizzy white plonk, and it takes me a while to catch his eye.
"Service over here"
"Sure. What do you want"
"I'll — " a thousand fragments of half-grasped TV movies take control of my larynx " — can you make it a dry martini?
Shaken, not stirred."
"Heh." He looks amused. "You're not the first guy who's asked me that." He grabs a cocktail shaker and reaches for the gin, and in just a matter of seconds he's handing me a conical glass full of clear, oily liquid with a pickled sheep's eyeball at the bottom. I sniff it cautiously. It smells of jet fuel.
"Thanks, I think." Holding it at arm's length I turn away from the bar and nearly dump it all over a woman in a severe black suit and heavy-framed spectacles. "Oops, I'm sorry."
"Don't mention it." She doesn't smile. "Mr. Howard? Of Capital Laundry Services?" She pronounces my name as if she's getting ready to serve a writ.
"Um, yes. You are ..."
"Liza Sloat, of Spleen, Sloat, and Partners." Her cheek twitches in something that might be a smile, or just neuralgia.
"We have the privilege of handling the Billingtons' personal accounts. I believe we nearly met yesterday."