The Erection Set (6 page)

 

I soaked up the eggs with the last piece of toast and looked at her across my coffee cup. She had thrown on a necklace and a wide leather belt and the effect was a little startling. “Do you always dress like that?”

Rose snapped the belt against her bare flesh and smiled. “It's only a little shorter than my minis. Anyway, do you always have to gorge yourself after you've had a woman?”

I nodded. “Always. It has an immediate regenerative effect.”

“Well save it. I'm beat.” Her eyes danced a little solo. “You're pretty good. I liked it. It was one of those rare occasions when I'd be willing to pay the tab myself.”

“You already did, Rose. That was a good conversation. Time and distance change things. You caught me up in a hurry.”

Rose nodded sagely, her eyes still on mine. She sipped at her coffee, thought a moment, then said, “You want more than that, though, don't you?”

“Smart.”

“I've been around some. Maybe not like you, but enough to read the signs.”

“What do you read?” I asked her.

She finished the coffee, set the cup in the saucer, then began turning the cup in lazy circles with her forefinger. “You meet me once, you set me up so I can hardly refuse you, now I'm waiting to swing at your pitch. There are a lot of pretty women in New York, Dog. Why me?”

“Because I lucked in the first time at bat. I know Lee ... he won't mess with a phony. You can be trusted.”

Rose made a moue and shrugged. “One of my few virtues. I'm glad you noticed. It makes me feel that I haven't wasted everything. Now what's on your mind?”

“I'm going to use you.”

“Yes, I know. Am I to be a goodie or a baddie?”

“Either way, you won't be hurt,” I said. “You'll come out of it a little richer than when you went in.”

Her teeth bit into her lower lip very gently, then she raised her eyes and looked at me. “And you, Dog, how will you come out of it?”

“Let's say satisfied. There are things that need doing that have been left undone too long.”

“But
somebody
will get hurt.”

“That they will, pretty girl,” I told her. “You can damn well bet on it. They deserve it and they'll get it.”

“Are you sure you know what you're doing?” Rose asked me.

I sat back, let my thoughts drift back across time a few seconds, then said, “Maybe I don't look the type, kid, but I did my homework pretty well.”

“Revenge, Dog?”

“Nope. Simply a necessity.”

“I don't think I believe you.”

“Maybe I don't want to believe it myself.” I paused and watched her a moment. “No, it isn't revenge. It just has to be done.”

The cup spun under her fingers for a full minute before she looked up again and nodded. “All right, Dog. There's something funny about you and I have to find out just what it is. I sleep with men for money and nearly everyone wants to know why I got into the business. Oh, I tell them something and rarely ever the same story twice. But I'm always curious why they bother being serviced by a call girl. They fall in love, they marry, then start knocking around with whores.”

“It's the animal instinct,” I said.

“They're crazy,” Rose told me. “If they like specialties, teach their women to perform. Hell, you'd be surprised how happy a woman is to go along with their games. They even have some of their own and when two people perfect the art of turning a bed into a happy workbench you couldn't pry either one of them away from the other with a crowbar. Damn, I know an old fat couple who haven't missed a two-a-day turn in forty years and they have eleven kids.”

“Who?”

“My folks. They used to embarrass hell out of me. If they knew what I was they'd feel genuine pity for me. To them marriage is one big happy ball. Me, I'm missing something.”

“How about Lee?”

“We're good friends, Dog. Screwing buddies, sort of. He's a big, friendly puppy type who hasn't grown up yet. I don't think he ever will.”

“And if he does?”

“What would he want me for? He could grab any woman then.”

“I doubt it. Not after he's been trained by you.”

“Thank you, my friend. It's nice to contemplate, but a little on the improbable side.”

“You hedged,” I said.

“What?”

“You didn't say
impossible
.”

“Female vanity, big Dog. I'm curious about him, too, but you the most. I wonder what you
really
want.”

“I've pondered that too.”

“And when you find out?”

“I'll take it.”

“No matter who's got it?”

“Roger, pussycat. No matter who's got it.”

“Okay, Dog. At least you got me. Now I have to stay in the game just to see how it turns out. Are you going to kiss me good night now?”

“In my own inimitable fashion,” I told her.

New York was getting its midweek bath under a slashing northeast rain that churned up ripples in the street and blew waves of spray across the sidewalks. Empty cabs cruised by, but the shoppers had stayed home and it was too early for the office crowd to be leaving the grotesque sepulchers that contained them.

Lee's voice was a muttered undertone of total futility. Weller-Fabray, Tailors, his pants legs and shoes soggy under the hem of his black raincoat. I paid off the driver and climbed out of the taxi, letting the rain tear at me, then walked past him and into the store.

Lee's voice was a muttered undertone of total futility. “A whole year before this class joint would even sell me a suit, now you blow it in one bounce.”

“Down, boy,” I said.

The British gentleman with the sweeping moustache and formal tails nodded politely to Lee, studied me a second and nodded with an almost imperceptible bow. Somehow he seemed to wear the cloak of royalty around his shoulders, his eyes observant and capable of instant analysis. For that scant moment we just looked at each other, then, in perfect French, he said, “Yes, m'sieu, how may we help you?”

There was no trace of accent in my French, either. I said, “I would like a complete wardrobe for every occasion. I haven't the time to stand for fittings and need two suits immediately. There are certain alterations of design that are somewhat unusual, but necessary, as you will see. My measurements are on file at Betterton and Strauss in London, and Mr. Betterton will be happy to give them to you at any hour, so please call him immediately and bill me for any charges. Choice of material and styling will be at your discretion. Please include shirts, ties, underwear, socks and whatever you consider pertinent.” I wrote out a check, handed it to him along with Lee's address and added, “Only the finest, if you don't mind, and this should cover the preliminary expenses. When may I expect delivery of the two suits?”

He never even glanced at the check. Completely unperturbed he told me, “Tomorrow, sir. About noon?”

“Fine,” I said. There was that slight bow again and I walked Lee back outside into the rain.

We were halfway down the block before my friend could find the right words. I knew his smattering of French had let him in on the conversation, and the look he gave me was almost one of awe. “How the hell do you do it, Dog? Nobody gets a suit out of Weller-Fabray under four weeks. It takes a dozen fittings and ten character references to even get a shirt there!”

“It's all a game, pal, and I haven't got time to play games.”

“Baloney. You know they wouldn't make a suit for the mayor? They refused that polo-playing millionaire and Count Stazow because they thought they were boorish. Ha!”

“You got in, didn't you?”

“With a knockdown from two bankers who owed me a favor and an abject air of proper humility for great crafts-men. I'm not listed in their golden file case, but I get my picture in the papers on all the right occasions and don't demean their product. But you ... you walk in like a slob, all soaking wet, and they lay out the red carpet.”

“They know class, kid.”

“Shit.” He ducked his head against a blast of rain. “Now where're we going?”

“Downtown to Barney's. I'm going to pull a couple things off the racks for tonight. Might even get a raincoat if this weather gets any worse.”

“I wish I could figure you out, Dog.” Lee gave me a nervous, sidewise glance. “Frankly, I still think you're crazy. You're trouble on the hoof.”

“Don't let your imagination run away with you.”

“Then why lay a trail as broad as the Hudson River behind you?”

“Why not?”

“Because you have too much to hide,” he said. “Like that money.” Lee paused a moment, then pushed me into the alcove of an office building. “Your French is perfect, buddy. How many other languages do you speak?”

I shrugged and looked at him curiously. “A few.” “Turkish?”

I nodded.

“Any Arabic?”

I nodded again. “Why?”

“Some interesting items have been showing in the newspapers lately. You know anything about narcotics, Dog?”

My face was cold and hard when I looked at him and he pulled back instinctively. “Never touch the stuff,” I said.

Lee squeezed his mouth shut until his lips were a thin line, but he wouldn't let go of it. “There has to be a reason for somebody dropping out of sight like you did. For showing up the way you did too. I thought I knew you, and maybe I did back there during the war, but I sure as hell don't know you now at all. Talk about enigmas, you're the perfect example. What happened, Dog?”

“We all get a little older, kid.”

“Okay, let it go at that. You're still the guy who saved my ass too many times, so I'm sticking with it. You got me shook, but the ride is wild. Maybe I'm as sappy as you are. Only don't blame me if I get the shakes and suddenly cut out. I'm just not geared to this kind of living. Goose bumps come awfully easy and last a long time. You got me so I'm looking over my shoulder half the time. I'm beginning to think I'm back in the blue in a P-51D peering into the sun for bogeys.”

“Good thinking, then. Keep your head out of the cockpit and you won't get it shot off.”

“That was the first thing you ever told me,” Lee said. “I get the chills hearing it said again. At least the last time you were talking about the war.”

“Everything's a war,” I told him.

He looked into my eyes, shivered involuntarily, then turned his raincoat collar up around his neck. “Okay, buddy, so be it. I kind of have the feeling you really don't need me bird-dogging you around, so I'm going to peel off and get back to work. The date still on for tonight?”

“Sure. I want to meet all your beautiful people.”

“Look a little decent, will you? They're kind of important. You really going to get clothes off the rack at Barney's?”

“Doesn't everybody?”

He grinned at me, spotted a cab coming and ran out to the curb to flag it down, then held the door open for me so I wouldn't get any wetter. He stood there shaking his head in annoyance when I told the driver to take me to Barney's.

 

They built New York's first skyscraper downtown at Twenty-third Street and called it the Flatiron Building, an ornate, old-fashioned triangular antique that rose on the south side of Twenty-third at the juncture of Fifth Avenue and Broadway where it stared out majestically on a city about to explode into growth, and remained a couple of generations later, still staring, but with windowed eyes a little sad and clouded with the dirt the new age had thrown up. It was a wistful building, its orginal name and history almost forgotten now, but a building that had lived through many years and a multitude of experiences, yet still stood like a miniature fortress planted in the middle of an anthill.

On the seventeenth floor, in the pointed nose of the structure, Al DeVecchio had his office. The door had triple locks and the gold-leaf sign simply read L.D.V., Inc., beautifully ambiguous, not at all encouraging to solicitors, yet in certain areas well known and caustically respected.

Two secretaries and an old man wearing outdated sleeve garters and an archaic green eyeshade worked in compartments lined with modern business equipment, but Al's private quarters were in the front end of the triangle where he could look out over his city like the master of a ship conning his vessel from the bridge. His coffee maker was still in the perpetual state of percolation, his small freezer still full of imported salamis and cheeses, one wall still full of books on mathematical formulas it took an Einstein to understand, and the same pair of rocking chairs he had had in the operations shack in England during the war. The arms were polished from use and the hardwood sweeps a little thinner now from the years of oscillating, but their gentle roll was still as damnably mesmerizing as ever. A lot of generals had cooled off in those chairs and a lot of command decisions arrived at in their easy motions.

“Nostalgic, isn't it?” Al asked me.

“You were born too late, buddy.”

“I'll buy that,” he grinned. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Hunk of Genoa? Came in last week. Spicy as hell. You could stink up a place for hours with it.”

“Unh-uh. I can still remember the last one we split.”

“Tasted lousy when you burped into an oxygen mask, didn't it?”

“Fierce. I don't know how you guineas can eat all that stuff.”

“So you Irish live on corned beef and cabbage draped around a melted potato. Peasant food.”