The Reckoning (2 page)

“This is cause for celebration, Ms. AVP.”

“Just what I was thinking. Had lunch yet?”

“No, I was hoping you could squeeze me in.”

“We’ll see.”

At one-thirty, Royce met her at Central Station. His wife liked the restaurant’s quaint Victorian atmosphere. Per Leslie’s request, he arranged for a table far in the back, so that none of her cohorts could spy her should she decide to order one tiny glass of white wine to celebrate.

“Maybe we should have gone to Louie’s Bookstore Cafe. A banker wouldn’t be caught dead there,” he quipped. “Too liberating.”

She smirked at him.

“Just an iced tea,” he said when the waiter arrived.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” she asked him, after ordering a Chardonnay.

“You know me and alcohol, Les. It would just put me to sleep.”

“That’s one thing I’ve never had to worry about with you,” she observed. “You’re just not a drinker.”

He shook his head.

She arched an eyebrow. “Makes me wonder what vices I do need to worry about.”

He toasted her with his water glass, smiled.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”

She ordered a Cobb salad, and he, the broiled rockfish. After some congratulatory toasting, the conversation, as it often did, ended up about the “Craig situation.”

He said, “I’ve been thinking, Les. Maybe counseling would help. I’d be willing to go if you like. If you think it would help, I mean.”

“That’s very understanding of you, Royce. That’s certainly an option. But short term, I want him to stop pitting you against Tom. This business of calling long distance to get help for his homework. Frankly, I’m real pissed off at Tom. All of a sudden he wants to be a part of Craig’s life. I just wish he had displayed half as much interest when I really needed him to. He’s never given a tinker’s damn about his son until now, and I don’t understand why.”

“I realize you have full custody of the boy, but maybe Craig should spend some time with his father,” said Royce, the consummate diplomat. “Maybe spring break, as well as this summer. I must seem pretty boring in comparison. Tom, as I understand, is doing pretty well in LA.”

Leslie’s face darkened. “I hope he gets burned out in all those fires out there.” She softened. “Sorry, that wasn’t a kind thing to say. But Tom’s always bragging about himself—and dissing you. You know, Coldwell Banker’s top dealmaker in Orange County, that kind of bull. I guess he just closed on an office complex in Newport Beach, made nearly one-hundred-and-fifty thou in commission alone—on one deal.”

Royce froze a grin. “I think that’s great.”

“Hey look,” she said, gently touching his wrist, “I hope you don’t think I’m impressed with Tom and all his money. Money isn’t everything. I know with your talents you could make much more, but I’m glad you’ve decided to make a difference in this community and work with people who really need help and deserve it. Besides, you spent some time in LA, Royce. You know what a stressful rat race that place is.”

He smiled self-deprecatingly and said, “I don’t think being a lowly loan officer with B of A at the Long Beach branch is exactly the same thing as being the top dealmaker of Orange County.”

“I’ll bet you were the best little ole’ loan officer that bank ever had, Mr. R.”

He laughed. “Thank you for your vote of confidence.”

“Well, at least I got you laughing. You’ve been grim about the mouth lately. Has being right on top of the big-four-oh got your panties in a bunch?”

Panties in a bunch
. He loved it when she talked that way.

“No,” he said.

“I hope this business with Craig hasn’t gotten you down.”

Royce cocked his head, eavesdropping on an onslaught of abusive language.

“
What the fuck is this shit?
”

Leslie whispered, “Did you hear that?”

“Couldn’t help it.” Goodness if he didn’t find such outbursts unsettling. “Must be drunk,” he ventured.

The McCullochs discreetly craned their necks to get a better look. Four tables away an irate guest was giving a waiter holy hell about his meal.

“Can you see him?” Leslie asked softly.

“No.”

More of the loud, offensive barrage:

“You call this fuckin’ piece of meat rare?”

Twenty-four ounces of pink, fleshy prime rib Frisbeed at them and plopped wetly at the base of their booth.

“Yuck,” Leslie said. “Can you imagine? Eating that much moo cow for lunch?”

Her husband saw that the manager, red-faced, had arrived on the scene to ameliorate.

“Look, Les, this could get unpleasant. Mind if we skip coffee?”

“No, I should be getting back to work anyway.”

Unfortunately, the only way out led them right past the altercation. Royce gently hurried his wife along when she stopped to observe. It was pause enough for him to get a quick glimpse of the situation.

A shiny-domed, foul-mouthed man wear sunglasses now berated the manager as well as the waiter:

“I said ‘bloody’ you fuckhead!”

Royce’s stomach turned. He recognized the jerk as the man who had accosted him in the men’s room last night.

Outside the restaurant, he kissed his wife goodbye and Leslie headed up Pratt Street to First National. He crossed the street, walking back to his own office.

Royce bristled some when he walked past the offices of Alex Brown, investment bankers. The reader board on the building indicated the Dow had fallen 80 points, which matched his mood now.

Brenda had gone home for the day, switching the calls over to the answering service. He punched in the access code, hoping to hear from
her
.

Just one message: “Hey, Royce, this is Cliff. What’s the fuckin’ idea? Standing me up for lunch?”

2

Touch & Go

Early Wednesday evening Royce approached the Block with a sense of dread. Just as he was no heavy drinker, he was certainly no womanizer. For this reason, he’d purposefully avoided the Block and its seedy strip clubs, “titty bars” and porno stores since coming to Baltimore four years ago.

He did not consider himself a prude, though. Yes, he did have a healthy interest in the female body—he certainly wasn’t above appreciating a good
Playboy
centerfold—but he found hardcore pornography offensive. And this business of sitting at a table in a smoky dark room and watching young women prance around in all states of undress didn’t really appeal to him, either.

Quite frankly, he found strippers embarrassing, both for himself and the girls doing their best to tease and entice him.

Royce spotted the Club Pussycat’s black facade and circled the block to find a place to park, glad his Cavalier didn’t place on the top-ten list of makes most sought after by auto thieves.

He paid his five-dollar cover charge to a freckly-faced blonde with cornflower blue eyes and got the back of his right hand stamped. Above him was a poster that warned, “Touch & Go rule enforced.” Already the loud music from inside was unpleasantly pounding in his ears.

Then he was in it, deep.

A comely brunette cocktail waitress pounced and yelled into his ear, “Drink?”

He politely waved her off and maneuvered his way through the press of predatory males, most of them nursing from Budweiser bottles.

With the yearning eyes of a pound puppy, he scanned the crowd for Tony and found him. The attorney, easy to spot with the signature fedora he wore on festive occasions, waved to him from a table near the epicenter of what Royce perceived as riotous hedonism. He stepped down from the bar and zigzagged to the table without once diverting his line of sight to the girls dancing on the surrounding stages.

“Hey, bud, you’re walking like that dude from
Dragnet
!” Tony yelled at him over the hot throb of the disco music. “Lighten up, Royce.” The counselor already had a beer and a cigarette going.

“I’m a happily married man,” he complained. “I shouldn’t even be here.”

“I’m happily married and
I’m
here! It’s okay. Carmen doesn’t mind, ever since she gave me the treatment.”

“Treatment?”

“Yeah, a machorectomy. When we were first married. Before I had that procedure, I always thought I had to do more than just look. You know, part of my Latino heritage, the mythos of being a hot-blooded Chicano male.”

Royce laughed. He could see Carmen doing that, a woman of quiet beauty who seemed to perceive all without passing judgment. Royce often wondered what Carmen really thought of him, and was somewhat intimidated by her.

“Remember, Royce, there’s no harm in looking.”

Maybe he’s right, Royce thought. Tony had one of the best marriages around, and a couple of well-adjusted kids who spent their time on the honor roll instead of running in gangs or doing drugs.

“Okay,” he told his friend. “I’ll lighten up.”

“Good. Say, did you hear the one about the doctor who invented HMOs?”

Royce warily shook his head no.

“He died recently, went up to those pearly gates. Saint Peter said he could enter Heaven all right…but he could only stay for three days!”

“Ha ha!” Royce said limply.

Royce felt the live, warm intrusion of another presence. A waitress in a tight outfit that showed a lot of leg and snowy cleavage hovered at their table. Tony ordered him a Bud.

“Sorry, no Sam Adams on tap,” Tony said after the girl had left. “Besides, it would probably cost six bucks a draw here.”

“That’s okay. I’d probably just get into trouble.”

“Royce, I don’t think you’ve been in trouble for a long time,” he said good-naturedly. “Did you see the pair of chi-chis on that waitress? There’s a lot of plastic in this joint, and I don’t mean the credit cards.”

Royce’s beer arrived.

“Salud, bud,” the attorney said, grinning.

Their bottles clinked.

“Salud.”

“How does it feel, hitting the big four-oh?”

He shrugged. “Okay. Not much different. You hit it a couple years ago. How’d it feel to you?”

“Great!”

He admired that about Tony. The guy knew how to enjoy himself. The lawyer worked hard, handling one of the biggest (and least profitable) caseloads in Baltimore—tenant-landlord beefs, DUIs, small business incorporations. But he also knew how to cut loose and have fun.

“Don’t you worry more about your bowel movements?” Royce said, reaching for some levity.

“Not with the way my wife makes green chili. Hey, catch that lady over there. Whoa! I want one of those for Christmas!”

Royce relaxed his neck muscles enough to gaze to the left in the direction of Tony’s worshipful glare. On the stage a dusky-featured girl (maybe Greek or Hispanic) had stripped down to a black g-string, garter belt and hose. He took a shallow pull on his beer. The dancer was stunning. Now on her back, she teasingly scissored her nyloned legs.

“Jeez,” Tony said, enraptured.

“Yeah,” Royce agreed. He licked his lips, drank down some more beer. His temples pulsed; his brainpan felt pressure. He found staring at the dancer too long painful.

He asked Tony, “So, are you and Carmen hosting a big family get together this Thanksgiving?”

“No,” Tony finally said. “Going to my brother’s house. The women will cook and kibitz. The men will eat, drink beer, watch football and play poker. Poker is a Thanksgiving tradition in my family.”

“Oh,” Royce said flatly, and followed his friend’s fixed stare back to the stage.

Now, the dancer’s long fingernails sensually stroked up her legs, across her pubic region, past her flat stomach and on to her breast mounds, which were the color of eggshell and outlined by tan lines. Impishly, she tweaked her brown nipples, gently pulled them so her breasts made big, soft cones. Her beauty was flawless—
seamless
.

The boys in the crowd went nuts, making wolf calls as they pulled dollar bills from their stashes and rolled them in hot anticipation.

“We could sit at the stage,” Tony offered.

Royce didn’t respond. He loosened his tie.

“Royce?”

“No. That’s okay.”

The disco beat intensified as the sultry dancer rolled on all fours amidst whistles and hoots from her audience. Her long, lustrous, black mane whipsawed down almost to her luscious buttocks. She splayed her sharp fingernails on the cheeks of her butt and spread them; a tight g-string barely hid her sex from view. A curl of pubic hair manifested itself.

A shameful thought out of nowhere came to Royce’s mind:
Didn’t most strippers shave their cunts?
Jesus, he’d actually done it. Used the C-word. He’d thought it and not spoken it, but that was enough of a crime that Leslie would condemn him to “the look” for life if she found out. Royce’s eyeballs orbited in his sockets and he focused on the dancer’s swaying, heavy-hanging breasts, not huge, maybe, but nicely shaped, pretty. He drank more beer, pressed his knees together beneath the table, felt a growing tightness between his legs. His jaw hinged down slightly and he exhaled fetid beer breath; he hiccupped. The dancer now raised her torso up and locked her fingers behind her head. Jiggle jiggle.

My goodness, Royce thought. He felt flush.

Tony giggled. “I think you like this split tail, eh?”

The music wound down, and the dancer was besieged by slavering fans scratching to stuff dollar bills into her g-string.

“Planet Earth to Royce.”

Embarrassed, Royce swirled the beer rings on the table with the bottom of his bottle. His face felt sunburn warm.

“Hey, if I didn’t know better, I’d say Les has been holdin’ out on you.”

“Oh, she gives me plenty,” he attested. “Plenty.”

“I know.” He reached over, squeezed his friend’s arm, gave him a knowing, man-of-the-world leer. “You’re one lucky guy.”

Royce nodded, smiling. “Ain’t it the truth.” It was also true that his bladder was uncomfortably full. “Excuse me.” He stood, tottering slightly. He discreetly ran his right palm over the bump at his fly.

“Around behind the bar,” Tony said, pointing.

“Be back.”

“Another round?”

“Okay.” He followed the strip of twinkle lights and hot pink neon to the bar, where a slender blonde with cupcakey boobs and a rose tattooed on her butt was doing deep knee bends dangerously close to the patrons’ tall-necked beer bottles.

In the restroom, he peed at a filthy urinal. At the sink, he was startled by his own image in the mirror. The eyes, predatory. The cheekbones more pronounced than he remembered—swarthy, with a five o’clock shadow. It was like he was wearing a mask.

When he returned to the table, the lights had dimmed. Two ruby spotlights crossed and intersected at the top of the stairs leading down to the main stage.

“Say,” Royce asked his friend, “did you refer a guy named Wells, Cliff Wells to me?”

The lawyer shook his head, gestured at the main stage. “You gotta catch her. Main attraction.”

A shrill, female MC screeched:

“And now for your enjoyment, gentlemen. On Stage One, it’s our own lady in red: Melissa. Melissa with the mostest!”

“Oh yeah!” bellowed a black man with the bulk of a linebacker. Hoots. Wolf calls. Whistles. Music jackhammered against Royce’s eardrums: “
These boots are made for walkin’…
”

She appeared at the head of the stairs, her erotically charged profile bathed in the rouge light. In body sync with the music, Melissa strutted down the stairs, the dancer’s red bikini-clad hips bucking, her long legs kicking in a pair of red, thigh-high boots. The crowd went nuts.

MC: “Show your appreciation, gentlemen. Those tips are appreciated!”

The statuesque platinum blonde step-kicked down the stairs to the stage. Mirrored globes spun laser-beaming squares of white-hot light onto her gleaming, nubile body. Melissa moved with the practiced precision of a girl who knew exactly what she had (which was ample), and used it to her ultimate strategic advantage.

“Ouuweee!” Tony squealed. “This bitch is right out of the Fredericks’s of Hell catalog.”

“A sex machine,” were the words raising havoc in Royce’s mind. His eyes devoured her as she pranced and preened in her fire engine red lingerie: sheer baby doll top (now cast off), bikini panties (peeling), g-string (minuscule), fringed bikini bra (chockfull of cleavage), and those shiny boots with spiked heels that made his phallus pulse every time she stomped down on the linoleum. The dancer’s effect on him was visceral, resolve-sapping.

Her face? Did she even have one? Features too sharp to be called pretty. And that hair, teased and frizzed in a wild mop, dark roots at the base of it all. No, Melissa’s face and hair were throwaways.

His wanton stare went back to her bra. Yes, please take it off. Could they really be that big? He sucked down some beer.

MC: “Don’t be shy, Melissa. Show us those boobies!”

Melissa’s red gloss fingernails teased at the front clasp of her bikini bra. Her hard-edged face feigned frustration as she struggled at the clasp, her tongue sticking out wet, shocking pink.

“Take it off!” a porcine-faced customer demanded.

“Oh yeah!”

“Bitchin!”

“I wanna help!”

“Come on, boots!”

MC: “We know it’s hard, Melissa. But do try!”

The bra whipped off, unleashing huge breasts that swayed briefly before regaining their wondrous shape. Even from ten yards, Royce could tell they were firm and no doubt inflated and sculpted to jumbo perfection by the plastic surgeon’s art.

“What incredible tits…at least forty-four double D.”

Tony smiled at the birthday boy, shocked by Royce’s sudden vulgarity. Royce shot back a sheepish grin.

“Tony said, “I’m glad you’re loosening up, getting the big bug out of your ass.”

Royce raised his bottle to make a toast.

“Here’s to having fun.”

“To fun,” Tony agreed, tipping his bottle against Royce’s.

Royce pulled his billfold from his back pocket, spread its leather lips to assess his financial status: three twenties, two tens and a fiver.

Tony seemed to read Royce’s mind. He said, “Maybe you should break one of those for some ones.”

But Royce bounded from the table, pushing his way into the crowd ogling Melissa. The dancer had spread-eagled her plush body at the foot of the stairs, the needlepoints of her heels hooked around rail stanchions. Now, with a simpering smile on her face, her luscious legs spread wide, she pumped her voluptuous hips as if in the throes of coitus.

“Sweet Jesus!” wheezed a cowboy standing beside Royce.

Pink smoke spewed from the ceiling, intensifying the sleazy garishness of the scene. Melissa quickened the pace of her body strokes, her buttocks rubbing against and splaying apart on the stairs.

But it wasn’t the blonde’s hips, thighs and ass that Royce was concentrating on. It was her lustrous boobs.

MC: “Don’t forget, gentlemen, those tips are appreciated!”

Those tits. Not a ripple in them.

Yes, so lovely. He squinted, just to be sure. Yes, they were there, the tiny, telltale incisions. Whoever engineered the augmentation should have gotten a Nobel Prize. Although Melissa’s body was jerking violently, her breasts only heaved slightly; the blush colored nipples erect with arousal. Those healthy nipples were a hopeful sign. Some girls, after implants, lost all feeling in their bazooms, as if their tits had gone to sleep. More often the glands ended up incredibly sensitive, making the gyrations Melissa was now doing too painful to attempt.

And sometimes the plasticized tits became rocks.

Tony elbowed his way next to Royce.

“Hey, bud. It’s almost seven. Leslie will be antsy.”

“Just a minute,” Royce said urgently.

Melissa’s dance had concluded. Men pressed at the stage, eagerly offering their rolled dollar bills, jostling for the blonde’s attention. Royce failed at forcing his way in and had to settle for a place on down the stage.