The Lover From an Icy Sea (61 page)

“
I’ll be happy to,” Robert said before walking off in the direction of his office.

*  *  *

Kit awakened several hours later—unrested, disoriented and despondent. He wondered about the shoot with Margarette: would it still be on, or was that little project—like everything else—now old news? He thought he’d wait an hour to see if she called.

He needn’t have wondered a second—much less waited an hour.

He eventually collected his things and went off to his studio. Upon entering, he greeted Rachel with a brief nod and then walked stone-faced back to his cubicle.

*  *  *

Rachel was young and hip, but not insensitive. She wondered whether her remark of the previous day had wounded him in any way. She liked Kit too much to tolerate the thought. It was almost lunchtime. Maybe she, for a change, would buy the pizza. She scrounged down in her purse to see what she had left between now and payday. It wasn’t much, but she’d gladly give up dinner in exchange for some peace of mind.

She left the studio; went to the corner pizzeria; bought two slices with pepperoni and one iced tea with a pair of straws; returned; dropped her purse at her station and went back to Kit’s cubical. He was sitting hunched over, his hands under his chin, staring out the window. She tried, as noiselessly as possible, to extract his slice from the bag. But Kit heard the rustle of paper and turned around.

“
What’s this, Rachel?”

“
Oh, nothing much. Just a little snack is all.” She looked at Kit and saw something in his eyes she’d never seen before.
My God
, she thought.
He’s not going to cry, is he?

“
Oh, Kit. Please, please tell me it’s not because of what I said yesterday!” Kit looked at her in confusion, then thought back to their brief dialogue of the day before. That she might think her flippant remark about his being an ‘old guy’ would be the cause of his despondency both amused and impressed him. How different two women can be, he thought. He realized he should lighten up a bit, that he wasn’t alone in the world, that he had a responsibility to not infect others with his sense of loss.

He stood up and did something he would otherwise never have considered doing—as either possible or appropriate: he embraced Rachel. For the first time in his life, he had a paternal interest in another human being—and it made him realize he might not be wrong for the role one day.

Rachel, for her part, came to a similar realization. She’d always liked Kit—but as an older colleague and sometimes, even, as a kind of mentor. She’d had other men’s arms around her from time to time, but those arms had had a different interest, a different objective. They’d embraced her differently, and what she’d felt in response to that kind of embrace was also quite different.

She allowed herself to wallow in the warmth and security of Kit’s embrace—and then the tears came, which she couldn’t have anticipated, didn’t know she had, but now didn’t want to stop. These were not cold, lonely tears, but the contrary—and they felt wonderful on her cheeks.

She didn’t want to let go of this man. He, and it, felt too good. Eventually, however, she did. When she looked up at Kit now with happy eyes, she was also desperately in need of a tissue. Kit put his hand inside his shirt, scrunched up the material, then put it to her nose. “Blow,” he said.

And blow she did.

Chapter 75

At the end of the workday, and feeling much better than when he’d arrived that morning, Kit decided he’d accomplished enough. There was only one thing he still needed to do before leaving, and that was to unpack and put away the items he’d brought from home in a plastic bag. Everything else could wait for another day.

He hauled up the bag and began to lay things out: papers, letters, receipts, knick-knacks—and the picture of Daneka. Perhaps, just for the sake of sentimentality, he’d buy another frame with his next paycheck and set the picture up on his desk—at least until there was someone else’s picture to put in place of hers. He wasn’t, after all, already too old to have a girlfriend. As he was giving the black and white print one more glance before putting it away, a model walked by his cubical, paused, then leaned in over his shoulder.

“
Hey, I’ve seen that woman before,” she said unprompted.

Kit turned to her. She was—like all of them—quite stunning, even if a little dicey-looking for a model. “You have? You’re sure?”

“
Sure I’m sure. I saw her just yesterday. I didn’t have a shoot and I wasn’t in the mood for Molière—so I went out to scrimmage.”

“
What? You saw her in the park? You saw her playing football?” Kit laughed. “Nah, not this one. There’s only one contact sport this one plays—and she doesn’t scrimmage.”

“
Uh, duh! I don’t play either. I was speaking metaphorically.” Kit looked at her more closely. He’d known some sharper tacks in his day, but never one who could pull a metaphor out of her hip pocket as if it were a spare licorice stick.

“
Where you from? Boise?”

“
Barnard, darling. The college, that is—not the town. I’m a campus flower. Have to be until next year—my senior year.”

“
And before that? Home, I mean—where your parents live.”

She stepped back, fluffed up her hair, then pushed her jeans down to a point just south of ‘decent,’ north of ‘anatomical.’

“
Staten Island, doll—born and bred.” Kit stared at her for a long moment. His first acquaintance with a model from Staten Island. That might explain the slightly saucy look. But Barnard? C’mon! Time for a litmus test.

“
How many squares would a square root wreck if a square root wrecked for a reason?”

She didn’t even blink. “Nope. ‘Don’t wanna chuck. You’re an old guy. I don’t do old guys—unless, well, they also happen to be loaded—and I don’t mean with fourfold roots. I mean with enough payola to give me sufficient reason to chuck. Now,” she said coyly, “we might not chuck, but we can always epistomologize.”

She’d demonstrated both her Staten Island and Barnard credentials in fifty-plus words. “Where did you say you saw her?”

“
I didn’t.”

“
Oh, so now you didn’t see her?”

“
I didn’t say that, either. I said I saw her. I didn’t say where.”

“
Okay. So I have to pay you to get the info?”

“
No. Just be nice. Make believe I’m from Boise. Can you handle it?”

“
I can and I will. Promise. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

The model looked again at Daneka’s picture. “No doubt. That—as I recall—is the way she likes it.” Kit suddenly wasn’t so sure he really wanted to learn what this woman might be able to tell him. However, his curiosity had to be satisfied—cost him what it might.

“
Would you please tell me where you think you saw her?”

“’
Sure you can deal with it? You look young to me.” Kit’s age—they both knew—had hers easily beaten by a decade.

“
You just called me an old guy.”

“
You’re an old guy to me. But you may be a tad young for Nate’s.”

“
Nate’s? What’s Nate’s?”

“
A club. A private club. Very private.”

“
What kind of club.”

“
Not a country club, darling. Ohhh, no.”

“
Do you have a name? Mine’s Kit. So please don’t call me ‘darling.’”

“
Just call me Nove. That’s what I’m called at Nate’s. You got a problem with ‘darling?’”

“
Nove? What kind of name is ‘Nove?’ Yes, I do.”

“
To the rest of the world, my name is Evon. But at Nate’s, everything is backwards. What’s your problem with ‘darling?’”

“
What’s up with ‘backwards?’ Don’t worry about my problem. It’s my problem.”

“
I have no idea. I asked once. They told me Nate had a thing for palindromes. I didn’t figure it was my business to set them straight on definitions. I don’t go to Nate’s to educate. I go there to get educated.”

“
And what kind of education is that?”

“
You’ll have to find out for yourself. It’s not like they put out a syllabus or anything. They expect their customers to pay before they play.”

“
And the price to play?”

She rotated slowly and pushed her rear provocatively out at him. Her jeans were still riding at half-mast and covered only what fell below the dimples. The contours of her buttocks were set off like a nice pair of parentheses by a bit of something that only resembled a thong. “For me?” She left the answer to be inferred from a little slap she gave herself on one of the contours.

“
Where’s it located?”

“
In the Village.”

“
The Village is a big place.”

“
Be nice. Remember?”

“
Sorry. Where, more precisely, in the Village?”

“
The meat district. On Thirteenth Street. Don’t look for neon or a billboard. Just look for a doorman. Big, ugly guy. I think he also bounces. There’s a brass plate next to the door. It sorta says ‘Nate’s’—‘cept the “s” and the apostrophe are at the head-end rather than at the ass-end. Either they’re totally illiterate, or it’s Nate’s idea of a palindrome.”

Kit smiled. “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”

“
No prob. And the next time you need a lady on a leopard skin, let me know. I generally get fifteen hundred an hour, but I’m worth it. The camera doesn’t give a fuck about either Staten Island or Barnard. And I know how to work the spots off a leopard.”

“
I’m sure you do, Evon. I’m sure you do.”

Chapter 76

Kit decided to go on foot. The location of this club—if it was the same one he now had in mind—was only five or six blocks away. There’d probably be an entrance fee of some kind and it wouldn’t be trifling: the more exotic, he knew, the higher the price. He’d no doubt exceed his overdraft privileges and have to pay a penalty, but he needed an answer.

He headed down Fifth Avenue and stopped at the first available ATM, from which he withdrew three hundred in crisp twenties, then stashed them in his pants. When he got to Thirteenth Street five minutes later, he turned right into longer blocks and numbered avenues. In a matter of fifteen minutes, two stark things met his gaze at a distance not diminished by twilight: the first was Daneka’s car; the second—and a block further west—the club, or at least a token of it: the club’s doorman. Kit looked to his right and thought he recognized Margarette’s apartment building, though there was little to distinguish one set of bricks from another in this part of the Village. He continued walking. As he approached Daneka’s car, he noticed Ron in the front seat with head bowed—either snoozing or reading, Kit thought. In any case, if Ron had seen and recognized Kit at a distance, he was now choosing not to acknowledge him.

The doorman came into sharper focus as Kit left the vehicle behind. He realized it was parked—
perhaps strategically?
he wondered—halfway between the club and what he believed to be Margarette’s building.

He looked more closely at the doorman, who sported a scowl, two-day-old growth, and a long coat, the color of bishop’s purple. How appropriate, Kit thought. He also noted the coat was badly in need of a clean, especially from the waist down. He was a bull of a man—a bull who apparently spent too much time in the mud—or whatever it was that besmeared and bespattered his overcoat.

Kit glanced past the man to the front door and saw the brass plate Evon had spoken of—polished to a high gloss, with letters in black bas-relief. He saw the name “Nate,” but it was keeping some awkward company, the meaning of which Kit couldn’t even begin to decipher. It was either gibberish or Gaellic—Kit didn’t know which. But if Gaellic, he thought, maybe Nate was related in some way to Michael Kelly. Hell, maybe even this doorman was related to Michael Kelly—and of the same Irish stock gone raffishly to seed.

He decided to try to bluff his way in and reached for a shiny brass door handle.

“
And just where the fuck do you think you’re going, clown?”

“
In,” Kit answered.

“
Not here you’re not. This club’s private. No kids allowed—unless they’ve got the right credentials.”

“
And what might those be?” Kit’s question elicited a smirk from the doorman that made ‘evil’ sound like a nice word.

“
Tits and ass for starters. A good pair of lips for finishers.”

“
And if I can’t offer either?”