He stayed patient now. "I'm not an American general-I'm an American corporal. A hundred and a quarter Mex is too steep for me."
"What a pity," the man behind the counter murmured. For a moment, Pete thought there'd be no haggle after all. But then the fellow's narrow shoulders shifted as he sighed. "Perhaps, from an American corporal, I might take a hundred and ten."
Pete ended up getting it for seventy-five dollars Mex. He'd hoped to beat the Eurasian down to half the price on the tag, but this wasn't bad. The man swaddled the jade tree in cotton batting and wrapped it in newspapers full of incomprehensible Chinese hentracks. "Much obliged," Pete said. It wouldn't look like anything special as he carried it down the street. In a town where thievery was as much a sport as a crime, that mattered.
"Not at all, sir. A pleasure matching wits with such a good bargainer," the Eurasian replied. Of course he'd still made a profit at the price Pete paid-he wasn't in business for the fun of it. How much had he made? Was that a polite You sucker!? His face gave away nothing. Pete was glad not to have to face him across a poker table.
Bauble in hand, he walked down Yates Road. He knew where he was going next, and 332 was on the other side of the street from 343. Crossing meant risking his life, but he made it. KEN KEE-EMBROIDERY AND UNDERWEAR, the sign over the door said, with a picture of a lofty pagoda next to the words and some Chinese above them. Pete drew himself up straight before going in, as if advancing on an enemy trench. If you wanted something fancy in the way of lingerie, he'd heard, this was the place that had it.
The shopgirl who greeted him with a bright smile could have made a mint dancing in any of Shanghai's fancy clubs. She was tiny and gorgeous. "Yes, sir?" she said, her voice ringing like silver bells.
"Just looking," Pete mumbled again. This was harder than going up against a trench full of Japs. They just scared you; they didn't embarrass you.
He'd never bought lingerie before. He'd never dreamt he might want to buy lingerie. But when you found yourself with a gorgeous girlfriend, didn't you want to make her even gorgeouser? (The English teachers who'd rapped his knuckles at every mistake and helped encourage him to drop out of high school and join the Marines would have flinched, but not a goddamn one of them was within 5,000 miles of Shanghai.)
He nervously eyed a gown. He'd also never dreamt even silk could be so transparent. You could see the more substantial blue thing behind it right through the fabric. He wanted to touch it, but didn't dare. It looked as if it would tear if you breathed on it. When he thought about seeing Vera through that fabric, he had to turn away from the salesgirl till his hard-on went down.
When he swung toward her again, he coughed a couple of times and asked, "Um-how much for, uh, this one?" He pointed.
"Let me see, sir." She walked over and looked at the tag. "A hundred dollars Mex, even."
"Ouch!" Pete exclaimed. "That's more than I can afford."
"It's very fine quality." She didn't add And your girlfriend had better be, if she's going to put it on, but he could hear it in her chiming voice. She cocked her head to one said, studying him. "Well, what can you afford?"
No matter what the tags said, there weren't many fixed prices in Shanghai. "I was thinking, oh, fifty," Pete answered. Coming back with half the asking price was a standard opening move-a conservative one, but the place intimidated him too much to let him go any lower.
She nodded and came down a little. Pete moved up. He felt less confident than he had haggling with the Eurasian who sold jade trees. Thinking about jade trees didn't make him horny. Thinking about this gown… He almost had to turn away from the shopgirl again.
He ended up paying eighty dollars Mex, more than the carved tree had cost. So much cash, for something that was hardly there! Well, that was the point, wasn't it?
When the girl wrapped up the gown, it seemed to take up no space at all. It didn't weigh anything, either. Maybe it wasn't silk after all. Maybe some clever Chinaman had figured out how to curdle air, just a little.
Pete got out of Ken Kee's as if the place had caught fire behind him. The salesgirl didn't laugh at his retreat, but he could feel her amused eyes on his back. How many guys had she seen sneaking out of there? It wasn't as if he were buying dirty pictures, dammit. He paused out on the sidewalk on Yates Road. Dirty pictures only promised. This nightgown would deliver. Boy, would it ever!
But he wasn't completely stupid. The next time he saw Vera, he gave her the jade tree first. "Got something for you, babe," he said, as casually as he could.
"Chto?" That meant What? When you caught her by surprise, she still sometimes came out with Russian without thinking. He'd got some real wrapping paper from a clerk at the consulate, so the tree looked nicer now than it had when he took it out of the shop. Vera's quick, clever fingers stripped off the paper and the cotton wool. "Ahh," she said. "It is very pretty, Pete." Chances were she could guess to the penny what he'd paid for it, too. By the warmth of the kiss she gave him, she approved. "We go out now?"
They went out. He was throwing away money like a drunken sailor-like a drunken Marine-but he didn't care. Not while he was with Vera he didn't, anyhow.
They ate. They drank. They danced. They drank. By the time they went back to her little chamber, he was a drunken Marine. Not too drunk, though. He hoped.
With an air of suddenly remembering, he pulled the smaller package from an inside pocket. "This is for you, too," he said. If she didn't like it… Would dying on the spot or wishing he were dead be worse?
She wasn't quite so deft unwrapping this one; she'd also been knocking them back. "Ahh," she said once more, this time on a different note. She unfolded the gown and held it up. It still might as well have not been there. She gave him a slow sidelong smile. "For myself, darling, I would not buy this. I would not wear this. For you… Do you want me to?"
"Jesus, do I!" he said hoarsely. "Do you gotta ask?"
Asking was part of the game. Vera understood that, even if Pete didn't. She also understood enough to walk behind him and say, "Not to turn around until I am telling you." A pause. Faint rustlings. "Okay now."
He turned. She looked even better than he'd imagined, and he hadn't thought such a thing possible. He took her in his arms. Somehow, the silk also made her feel more like a woman than she ever had before, and she'd always felt about as much like a woman as a woman could feel.
And he wasn't too drunk. Oh, no. That turned out to be better than ever, too. One more time, he hadn't dreamt it could.
SERGEANT CARRASQUEL GLOWERED in the direction of downtown Madrid, only a few kilometers away but as unreachable as the bottom of the sea or the mountains of the moon. "Stupid bastards," he snarled at no one in particular. "They brought us here to take the capital away from the Republic, but we're farther away than we were right after we came up from Gibraltar."
"It's those damned Internationals, Sergeant." Joaquin Delgadillo knew he had to soften up the underofficer before Carrasquel started throwing around extra duty or dangerous assignments. "If they hadn't got between us and the city, we might be in there by now."
"That's what she said," Carrasquel retorted. "Just shows the brass has its head up its ass, that's all."
"You didn't say things like that when Marshal Sanjurjo came up to look things over," Joaquin said slyly.
"I said plenty. What good would more have done?" Carrasquel replied. "He is a marshal. He talked nice to me, but to the likes of him a sergeant isn't even a squashed turd on the sole of his boot." He looked around. "I won't go on about taking things up the ass where Major Uribe can hear me, either. He'd think it was a good idea."