Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) (14 page)

“What’s to tell? Been domesticated.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. I’m just amazed he was on the market for so long.” He looked a little sad.

She patted his arm. “You’ll find your Prince Charming soon, I’m sure.”

“What’s his lover like? I mean, he must be magnificent!”

“He’s out of the ordinary, that’s for sure.”

“It kind of helps, you know? When you’re lonely, it helps to know that it’s possible—that two people
can
find each other and love each other and live togeth—” He stopped and turned away, as though he might cry. Natalie remembered now that he could get a bit maudlin in his cups. “Sorry. I should stop drinking now.”

“So should I,” she said, pushing away her half-finished Bacardi. “How many rounds have we had?”

“I haven’t been counting. Between six and thirty.”

She made a face, then folded her arms on the bar and rested her head in the cradle they created. “Thanks for cheering me up, Kirk. You’re a doll deluxe.”

He blushed. “Oh, you know I’d do anything for you.”

“You would not! You old snake charmer.”

“Would so!”

“You wouldn’t kill a defenseless animal for me, would you?” She giggled. He was an ardent animal-rights activist.

His head lolled a bit drunkenly as he considered this. “A spider, maybe.”

“A spider’s not an animal, it’s a
bug,”
she said with a merry shriek and sitting bolt upright.

“Same difference,” he insisted in the face of her laughter. “A bug is a kind of animal.”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “A bug could also be a slur—a slurvay—” She cracked up.

“What are you saying?”

“A bug could be a survlay—” She cracked up again.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, starting to laugh himself.

She tossed her hair back and knitted her brow. “A bug,” she said carefully, “can be a sur-vlay-lance device.” The word had trundled out of her like a pull toy.

“A
what?”

“You know—what you put in someone’s house when you want to listen to them when you’re not there—when—” She cracked up again.

“A surveillance device!” he cried. “That’s what you mean! Right?”

She nodded, wiping tears from her eyes. And then, in an instant, she was suddenly sober. An idea had come to her, instantly neutralizing the wobbly power of the alcohol. “Yes, Kirk. That kind of bug.” She looked at him, her gaze suddenly intense. “Those must be hard to get.”

He shrugged and took a swig from her abandoned Bacardi.

“I mean, I don’t imagine you can just buy them at Radio Shack. I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to get my hands on one.”

He raised his eyebrows, as if all this were just prattle requiring no response, then turned and finished off her drink in one gulp.

“Kirk.”

He faced her.

“Listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Have you ever been bugged?”

“Buggered? You bet! Often as possible!” He barked a laugh.

“Seriously, Kirk.” Her calm seemed to be unnerving him; he shifted on his stool. Suddenly the rest of the bar seemed not to exist. “Have you?”

“No, of course not,” he said. “Who in the world would want—”

“Do you know anyone who has?” she asked, interrupting him.

He shook his head.

“I wonder how I’d—how one would go about getting a listening device, anyway?” She idly started ripping up a soggy bar napkin. “I’m speaking theoretically, of course. Intellectual curiosity.”

He shrugged. “Hell,
I
don’t know. Why don’t you ask Curtis Driscoll?”

Her jaw dropped. “Why the hell would I ask Curtis Driscoll?”

“He knows about that kind of thing.”

“Are we talking about the same Curtis Driscoll?”

“I only know one.”

“Black guy? Waiter at Ambria?”

Kirk nodded.

“I don’t understand. How does some flighty waiter get to know about spy stuff?”

He shrugged. “All I know is, I heard him talking about it one night. He’d been to some kind of espionage movie and he was saying that the stuff the characters were using was pretty bogus. Said that should find out what professionals really use. Said he could be a technical adviser in Hollywood.”

Natalie raised both her eyebrows. “I confess myself amazed.”

Kirk looked pointedly at his watch. “Listen, Natalie—”

She became aware that she’d fallen out of “character” and was now scaring him off. No matter; he’d served his purpose. “Oh, Kirk,” she said, sliding off her stool, “look at me monopolizing you! The men of Chicago will never forgive me. Now I must run away.” She blew him a kiss. “Promise you’ll stay here and be as naughty as you can!”

He blushed to the gills, but grinned in pleasure at her.

On her way home, she stopped at Curtis Driscoll’s apartment and rang the bell; no answer. So she ran home, looked him up in the phone book, dialed his number, and left a message on his machine

“Curtis, honey, it’s Natalie Stathis. We’ve been living on the same block for more than a year now, can you forgive me for not being neighborly and inviting you up? Call me when you get home, maybe we can split a bottle of wine tonight. I’ll be waiting by the phone.”

She hung up, thinking,
That’s going to intrigue the crap out of him.

S
URE ENOUGH
, C
URTIS
phoned at a little after nine. “Natalie, it’s Curtis Driscoll,” he said. No more outlandish jive talk; it was his Honorable Member voice, as Natalie called it, with a touch of wariness coloring its tone.

“So kind of you to call back,” she said with oozing charm. “Care to run up the block for a glass of Chardonnay
avec moi?”

He hesitated. “You want something?”

“Curtis,
of course
I want something. I’m just trying to be civilized about it.”

He chuckled. “What do you want?”

“Not on the phone.”

A full eight seconds of silence. “Okay. You’re at six-twenty-two, right?”

Not more than a minute after she’d hung up with him, her doorbell rang. She buzzed the new arrival into the building, then realized it couldn’t possibly be Curtis—not so quickly. “Fuck, I should’ve asked who it was first!” she cursed aloud. “If it’s Peter—”

It was Peter. He bounded up to her landing, then faced her, looking ashen. “I need to talk,” he said.

“Right now?” she squealed. Curtis would be here at any moment.

“Well,
yeah,
Natalie. I mean, I wouldn’t come all this way to tell you I need to talk
next week.”
He sailed past her into her apartment.

She followed, frantically trying to think of a lie to get rid of him.
I’m on my way out
—but no, she was in her kimono and slippers;
I’m not feeling well
—but then he’d want to stay and nurse her;
I’m really busy right now
—but busy doing what?

Too late. He was seated on the couch, his head in his hands. “Thank God you’re finally home! I’ve been calling all day. I’ve got to talk this out with someone who understands, before I go nuts.”

She sat across from him, on the edge of a cushion, as though unwilling to make herself comfortable. “What now?” she asked in a fairly withering voice.

He was oblivious to it. “Last night, after you left, we got into another argument. In bed, if you please! Lloyd’s all pissed because I won. It was over health care. He kept saying the only incentive for progress in that industry was to keep it on the free market—y’know, keep the profit motive in it, and I said, ridiculous. He said the quality of care we’d get from a national health service would be lower because of the lack of any incentive, and that medical research would stall out, too. But he couldn’t point to any specific examples where that was the case and I could point to specific examples where it wasn’t, and for every detriment to a national health program he could think of, I could think of four in our system that were way worse.”

Natalie thought,
I do not believe I am hearing this.
She stole a glance at her wristwatch and began to panic.

“And I used the analogy of artists,” Peter continued. “You know, profit has never been the sole incentive for them; often it’s not even an incentive at all, and if that’s true, shouldn’t it also be true for surgeons and physicians and researchers? And then I said, people who are sick aren’t in the best position to choose from competing medical suppliers, y’know—to determine any qualitative differences—because who has time to be that informed? And anyway, the whole nature of the medical profession is that they serve people who are physically impaired, and if you believe like I do that there is no mind-body dichotomy, then it follows that physical impairment means some kind of mental impairment too, and to put mentally impaired people in a decision-making role when their own health is at stake is to practically make sure they’ll be victimized, or at least not choose well. Also, sick people don’t often have choices. What’s a guy with AIDS gonna say, ‘Sorry, I don’t want your AZT, it’s too expensive’? He’s got to have it, and that makes him a victim. He has to pay the price, and it’s a steeper price every year. The free market is for free people, and sick people aren’t free, they’re slaves to their bodies. Lloyd always says the role of government should be to serve the individual, and I say, isn’t that what a national health service would do? But he goes all nuclear anytime he hears the word ‘nationalized.’ So we ended up not fucking and I left before breakfast.”

He stopped to take a breath. Natalie was sitting with her hands on her knees, unsure of what to say. She knew better than to let herself hope that this absurd disagreement meant a permanent break between Peter and Lloyd; it was probably only the latest of many sparring matches they’d have, and she certainly couldn’t allow Peter to come running to her after every one of them. In the first place, it was demeaning. In the second place, she had work to do that he mustn’t know about.

She regarded him coldly. “So?”

His eyes bulged. “What do you mean, ‘so’?”

“So, what do you want me to do about it? You and Lloyd go scratching and hissing at each other like cats over some fine point of political theory that maybe three other people in the universe give a shit about, and I’m supposed to tell you it’s all his fault and you’re wonderful? Peter, you say this is the relationship you’ve always wanted. Don’t come running to me if it gets rough. I’m getting on with my life. I don’t need it.”

He sat back, abashed. “I can’t come to you as a friend, is that it? To tell you how I feel?”

“As a friend, Peter? A friend would say, ‘How are you, Natalie?’ A friend would say, ‘Natalie, is this a bad time to talk?’ A friend would notice the less-than-enthralled look on my face when he’s in the middle of a seemingly endless story about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. A friend would not come running up the stairs and immediately start a dreary monologue that’s all ‘me-me-me-and-oh-wait-for-it-
more-me,’ and that’s exactly what you’ve just done.”

His face was crimson now, and there was a vein in his neck, prominent and blue, that she knew from experience signaled anger. “Well, excuse me all to hell,” he said through clenched teeth.

She got up. “Next time, call first.”

“Maybe there won’t be a next time,” he said, leaping to his feet and storming toward the door.

She threw it open for him. “I’ll take my chances on that.”

As soon as he was through it, she slammed it after him.

She stood quietly for a moment, then shut her eyes and breathed deeply.
Well,
she thought,
that was some serious bridge burning. But at least I’ve gotten rid of him.

A
FEW MINUTES
later, Curtis Driscoll was on her couch, sipping his wine as though it might be laced with poison. His spine was absolutely rigid. “All right, “ he said, “what is it you want?”

She slipped onto the couch next to him and twirled the wine in her own glass. “You’re all business tonight, aren’t you, Curtis?” she said with a smile. “I wouldn’t have guessed you had it in you.”

He refused to banter with her. “You did say you wanted something. I recall you saying it.”

She sighed. “Okay. Have it your way. I want to get a listening device. A bug. I’ve heard you might be able to help me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

She felt her cheeks flush, but stayed calm. “Can you?”

“Natalie, what possible reason could you have for—”

“No questions asked,” she said. “I forgot that part.”

He sat back, daintily holding his wine. “It’s not cheap, girl. You gotta pay.”

“How much?”

“How much you got?”

“Nothing. How much?”

He laughed wildly. “Girlfriend, what’choo wanna go play games wif bugs fo’?” He was back to street talk. He obviously thought her hopelessly silly.

“I said no questions asked,” she hissed.

“You said it, I never agreed to it.” Back to the Honorable Member.

She made a great show of refilling her glass. “I want revenge on someone,” she said, using the word aloud for the first time. It sounded strange—almost casual. “Okay, Curtis? You find that satisfactory?” She put the bottle down, sat back again, and faced him.

“How’s a bug gonna help you get revenge?”

She shrugged. “Knowledge is power.”

He tugged at his ear; a nervous gesture, she guessed. “A man, huh?”

“Maybe.”

“Peter Leland?”

She blanched; he must have seen it. “No questions asked.”

“Look,” he said, setting down his glass, “you could get into trouble if you get caught, which you would, ‘cause you’re not smart enough not to.”

“You don’t know how smart I am.”

“Sure I do. I know you through and through, girlfriend. Peter’s got a new man, you’re busted up about it, and you wanna make it rough for them. Give it up. You wanna sit around with a set of headphones listening to them eat and fuck and sleep and watch TV—all the time hoping they say something you can use against them, presuming there even
is
something, which I doubt. Come on. Wouldn’t you be better off getting some fresh air or something? Reading a good book? Going to a concert? Getting a man of your own?”