Straight Cut (24 page)

“Come see me,” she said. “I’m at Christine’s. Come soon.” The tremble turned into a squeeze for emphasis, and when she met my eyes I blinked. Her heels clicked across the floor and she was gone.

“I let myself in,” I said to Kevin. “Hope you don’t mind.” I sat down in the chair where Lauren had been.

“What?” Kevin said.

I looked at him. He was still a long way away, and I wondered what they might have been talking about, though I guessed I’d probably never know for sure. I lit a cigarette and held it, watching the plume of blue smoke waver between us. Lauren’s ashtray, I saw, was full. Kevin rubbed his eyes and yawned like a cat.

“So you’re finally back,” he said. I had his attention now. Finally there was somebody home behind his eyes, which I noticed were rimmed with black. Kevin looked tired, and for the first time ever I thought he looked old too. All over his head his hair was beginning to fleck with white, and though naturally that wouldn’t have caused it, I remembered that he would have been under some stress and strain himself these last few weeks, especially if he’d borrowed money. All that money.

“Your movie was a mess, man,” I said.

“I guess you fixed it, though. That’s what we’re paid for, right?”

“That’s what we’re paid for,” I said, then idly repeating it: “That’s what we’re paid for here.”

“It went okay?”

There was a note of anxiety in his voice that I didn’t catch at first because I was thinking about the film again, as is my way.

“I had to throw about half of it out,” I said. “You know how I feel about available light. It was practically coming out black in places.”

“Oh, the film,” Kevin said. “I talked to Dario. He’s very happy with the cut. “

“Bene, bene,”
I said.

Kevin laughed, dropping back for a moment into his old charm.

“He’s a flit, isn’t he?” Kevin reached across the table and without thinking I shook his hand. The touch came like an electric shock, followed by a convulsive surge of darkness. Again I was struck by the uncanny resemblance we sometimes had to one another … and the bond.
Darkness made flesh.
Would I look so to him? Briefly I hoped that it wasn’t going to happen, that it could all be deferred somehow. I dropped his hand.

“And that gonzo Bulgarian cameraman …” Kevin was still chuckling.

“Yeah,” I said. “Him too.”

“So,” Kevin said, becoming serious again. I felt the curtain drop back between us. “How did it go?”

“It went,” I said.

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear that,” Kevin said. “It’s been a little humid around this town lately. I couldn’t tell where you were or anything. I didn’t know what was happening.”

“No kidding?” I said. “Neither did I.”

Kevin caught my tone enough to look slightly uncomfortable. I have to give him credit for that much.

“I didn’t want to get overextended,” he said.

I let that one sit a minute.

“Or you either, of course,” Kevin said, squirming a bit, I thought.

“Or Lauren,” I said.

Kevin shifted around in his chair. “She’s been back for a while, hasn’t she?” he said. “I didn’t know. She just dropped in tonight. Didn’t call or anything, just rang the bell downstairs.”

Kevin was really wriggling now, I sensed. He’d never been much good at all at outright lying. It was strange because I couldn’t understand why he was taking the trouble.

“She’d only been here about a half hour,” he said.

“So forthcoming, Kevin,” I said. “You feeling okay tonight?”

Kevin smiled and again I got the flash.
Recognition.
A point. Whose?

“It’s been kind of dicey around here, like I told you,” Kevin said. “I didn’t quite know what to tell my partners. Still don’t as a matter of fact.”

“Gee,” I said. “And I don’t even know who they are or anything.”

“Oh well,” Kevin said. “What would really be the good of that? I mean, as long as you’re satisfied with your piece?”

Hard to believe. Even though I had expected it.

“Considering the magnitude and all,” I said, very slowly, “I think my end might go up a little.”

“Sure,” Kevin said quickly, though he looked definitely worried. Of course he’d have no idea I’d opened that briefcase. “We’ll work something out ...”

“Was this how you got so interested in drug rehab, Kevin?”

“Now, now. I’m
sure
you don’t really need to know about that end of it.”

“Just idle curiosity,” I said. “But you know, there hasn’t been a whole huge amount of freedom of information any-where on this deal. That can cause a person some problems, you know what I mean? It was a bit dicey at my end too.”

“Ah, but I knew you’d come through, Tracy. You always do.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I always come through.”

“I guess you didn’t bring it tonight, though?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I need … three more days.”

“Why so long?”

“Remember, dear. What you don’t know won’t hurt you?”

“All right, then. You’ll bring it here?”

“No. You’ll have to pick it up.”

“Where?”

“The bridge.”

“Bridge? What bridge?”

“The one to my place. Around the middle of the walkway up there. At one
A.M.,
let’s say.”

“Jesus. It’s a little theatrical, don’t you think? Does it really have to be there?”

“If you want to get your package it does.”

“Okay, okay. You’re not mad at me or anything, are you? Did you really have such a tough time over there?”

“I’m not mad at you,” I said, surprised to find that this was true. I wasn’t angry, only cold. “It was interesting. I learned a lot.”

“Like what?”

“Voodoo.”

“Voodoo? Like sticking pins in dolls?”

Like reaping the whirlwind.

“All in due time,” I said. “There’s a time and a place for everything. “

Kevin yawned.

“You’re right about that,” he said. “I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ve been having trouble lately. But now you’re back ...”

We both stood up.

“What’s it all going toward?” I said. “By the way.”

“Oh, nothing particular. General expenses. Why?”

“There’s a rumor going around you’re starting a feature.”

“No. Completely false. It would be nice, of course. But I really don’t think I’m ready.”

Lauren would be thrilled to hear that, I thought.

“Oh yeah,” Kevin said, coming around the table to walk me toward the door. “Lauren.”

Like he’d read her name right off my mind.

“What about her?”

“I just wanted to ... to wish you good luck. Both of you. Together. I’d like to see things work out.”

“You would?”

“Well, maybe there’ve been some problems,” Kevin said, tapping his hand against my shoulder. “I won’t say I totally didn’t have anything to do with them if there were. But you know. Situations change.”

Suitably equivocal, that was. We’d reached the door.

“If you say so,” I said. I really didn’t know what to make of any of this. I pulled the door open and stepped into the hall.

“So,” Kevin said. “Best wishes always. That’s all I meant.”

“Was it?” I said. I could feel that I was gaping at him. “Well, thanks a lot.”

“Good night, then,” Kevin said. “See you in a couple of days.” And he smiled and shut the door in my face. I stood there for a moment, goggling at the keyhole, and then I went on down the stairs.

The lights on 19th Street hadn’t been repaired yet, but though I remembered the mugging attempt with perfect clarity, I didn’t hurry. I had Yonko to watch my back this time, after all, and there seemed to be something suitable about walking in the dark. Kevin had thrown me another loop with that parting line, though I didn’t think it really affected the basic paradigm. The machinery was in motion anyway and it would do what it would do.

It was out of my control. I had my own secret now, my own webwork of seduction. Necessity had brought me to it, or so I believed, and I believed also that the secret was wrapped up in love and not only in fear, though I couldn’t tell for sure, because the whole point was that it was secret from me too. The flower of love grows out of the deep fearful night, or that’s what S.K. says, anyway. I’d made the movements well enough that I honestly no longer knew exactly what I was doing, but there on the silent street I had a premonitory glimmer of just how fearful that night could turn out to be. Enough that I had to hope I wasn’t making a mistake. There was no way of knowing absolutely if the scales had fallen from my eyes or onto them. There was no light available to me now; I was on my own in the dark.

O
N MY WAY BACK
to the Earle I stopped by the late night liquor store on 14th Street and bought myself a pint of something to settle my stomach and quiet my nerves and help me get to sleep and everything. In my room I sat up for most of the rest of the night, drinking bourbon and tap water and watching a series of vampire movies on TV. I was getting TVed to death, and the bed was starting to look and feel like an ashtray. When the set finally collapsed into white noise, I just rolled over and went to sleep,

When I finally woke up the news was on, the six o’clock evening news, that is. I was becoming a real nightbird, but at least it did suit my situation. I had a shower and got dressed. Took a look at the bottle and decided I’d better let it alone. I went out. Grushko was on point downstairs. He trailed me to a bank of phone booths on Sixth Avenue. I didn’t think the Bulgarians really would have had the connections or ability to tap my line at the hotel, but they’d surprised me a time or two already and I didn’t want to take any chances.

I got lucky. Lauren was home and willing to stay there until I could come by, which I told her was going to depend on circumstances. These circumstances involved the evasive action I would need to devise to shake off Grushko, though naturally I didn’t tell her that.

I hung up and went farther west, heading for Seventh Avenue, with Grushko keeping a precise half block behind me. Whenever I glanced back at him I saw the Pink Pussycat shopping bag swinging at the full length of his arm, like the pendulum of a clock. I was just never going to get used to that part, but Lord willing it would all be over in a couple more days.

Grushko almost missed the light crossing Seventh. Almost, not quite. He got back in position as I went down Barrow Street. After a little way I turned onto Bedford and then went into Cholmondeley’s.

It was cocktail time in the West Village and I got the last free stool at the bar. Grushko had to take a table and he didn’t look very happy about it. Probably they were having cash flow problems, I thought, but I wasn’t going to feel guilty over it; I’d never asked them to follow me everywhere I went. I ordered a piña colada because I don’t like piña coladas. I wanted to stay perfectly straight for Lauren, who generally preferred me that way. The drink came and I looked at it until Grushko was served his beer. Then I got up and strolled in the direction of the bathrooms around the corner in the rear. Cholmondeley’s is one of the few New York bars I know of that has a back door, and after crossing a small courtyard I was back on Barrow Street. I jogged to the corner, made a right, jogged to the next one and made a left. A couple of people turned their heads as I went by but none of them was Grushko. I slowed to a walk. No pursuit. Back on Seventh Avenue, I caught the subway for deepest darkest Tribeca.

Christine’s place, a loft in a commercial building on Duane Street, had formerly been Lauren’s own place, back in the days of yore around the time she had her stroke. I hadn’t been there much since those times, and when she buzzed me in I was struck by how long and steep that staircase to her third floor landing really was. I went up slowly, and when I reached her floor I turned and looked back down. It was quite some rough-and-tumble distance down the metal stairs to the steel street door.
Yeah,
I thought to myself,
it probably would have worked.

“What are you staring at?” Lauren said lightly. She’d opened the door behind me and I hadn’t noticed.

“Oh, nothing, dear, nothing at all.”

“Well, come in, then,” she said, and turned away from the door. I followed her, looking down at her heels moving along the floor; her feet were wet and were leaving damp prints behind them on the wood. She’d just come out of the shower, I gathered. She wore a full red robe and her hair was also damp.

In a corner at the front of the main space there were a couple of armchairs, a low coffee table and a couch, on which last I sat down. Lauren remained standing, one hand cocked on her hip.

“I’m having tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”

“Sure,” I said. “Gladly.”

“There’s whiskey too if you’d rather,” she said with a half smile.

“Tea,” I said. “I never take anything stronger than weak tea and dog biscuits.” But I didn’t get any laugh for that one, only a quizzical look.

“Just a minute,” Lauren said, and she walked around the white wallboard box that served as a bedroom and disappeared into the kitchen alcove on the other side of it. I looked around; the loft was remarkably bare. The carpets and the plants were gone and I could see pale patches on the walls where pictures had evidently been removed. I leaned back, resting my head on the plush roll of the back of the sofa. The windows in the place were high, too high to see out of from a sitting position, though they let in a lot of light in the daytime, I recalled. Now the windows were fading from blue to black and what light there was came from track fixtures on the ceiling.

After a minute I heard the kettle begin to whistle and soon after that Lauren came back, awkwardly clutching two mugs of tea, a pack of cigarettes, and a silver-backed hair brush. I got up to help her but she shrugged me away and carefully lowered the whole cluster to the table. Then she sat down on one of the armchairs, drawing her knees up. I tasted my tea. Hot.

“I must look like a wet rat,” Lauren said.

“You look lovely,” I said, meaning it. “You always do.” Lauren seemed to blush a little, to my considerable surprise.