Evan Hunter: Candyland

"Where do you live, Michael?"

"Los Angeles."

"Long way from home. How long will you be staying?"

"I'll be leaving tomorrow morning."

Across the room, the piano player is noodling a medley of what Grace calls "Old Fart Music," which is only the music Ben grew up with in the Mamaroneck house, the music he heard his father practicing at home every night, the music Ben heard him playing with his band and even his orchestra in various banquet halls and dance emporiums throughout Lower Westchester and the Bronx — but don't give up your day job, Henry. Which he finally did when he was sixty-three and suffered a heart attack that killed him, how you doin, man? Ben's daughter Margaret was sixteen at the time. She refused to go kiss him in his coffin. A year or so later, she met Charles the First and married him. Made me a grandfather, he thinks, isn't that odd? Until that time, my father was the grandfather. Now I'm the grandfather, and my father is dead. He used to play tunes for her on his mouthpiece. just the mouthpiece, no horn attached to it. Blew actual tunes for her, delighting her. Used to call the trumpet his "ax." Let me go get my ax, man. Wouldn't go in to kiss her own grandfather. No wonder she won't call California to see how Grace's mother is doing.

"I love this tune, don't you?" Karen says.

The tune happens to be "I'll Walk Alone" , a big hit for Harry James during World War II. If Karen is, in fact, the twenty-three, twenty-four year-old he guesses she is, she wasn't even born when Helen Forrest sang it. His father used to put a mute in the horn when he was playing this tune, the better to evoke a lovesick woman waiting for her man to come back from overseas. His father never stopped talking about the goddamn war. Guys who'd seen combat were supposed to be shy about it. Not his father. His father could remember all the fucking Nazis he'd ever killed, took pleasure in describing their demise right down to the surprised expressions on their faces when he shot them. Karen is swaying to the tune now, hugging herself, white breasts swelling in the low neckline of the black cocktail dress, all creamy white above and below, long shapely legs and firm young breasts, swaying in time to the Music floating from the piano, sleek red hair framing an oval face, eyes closed. He feels an urge to kiss her while her eyes are closed, surprise her with a soft gentle kiss tasting of green olives and gin, but he doesn't because he's still not sure she's a prostitute, or perhaps he's still hoping she isn't a prostitute.

Once, when he tried to kiss a prostitute, she turned her face away and said, "What the hell are you looking for, mister? Love?"

The word "love" was almost contemptuous on her lips.

She almost spit out the word "love."

He had dressed silently and left her, shamed somehow.

Tipped her twenty dollars, he couldn't imagine why.

Most hookers will kiss, what the hell.

Karen opens her eyes.

"Do you like this tune, Michael?" she asks dreamily.

"My father used to play it."

"Is he a musician?"

"Was. He's dead."

"I'm sorry."

"Almost five years now," he says.

"And do you play, Michael?"

"I'm an architect," he says.

"I love architecture," she says.

They are sitting knee to knee now. Her eyes are so very green in the blue light.

He supposes it is time for the essential question.

"Are you a working girl?" he whispers.

"Yeah," she says, and pulls a face. "But I hate the job, truly."

He looks at her. This is the first time in all his experience that he's heard a hooker complain about the job. Is she planning to march for higher pay and shorter hours? Is he expected to show sympathy? Express compassionate understanding? Tell her not to worry, he'll be gentle? Or is she pretending ignorance of the code until she can make certain he's not a cop? Is she about to tell him she's a graphic artist or a social worker or an account executive at Merrill Lynch?

"I'm a phlebotomist," she says.

"Uh-huh," he says, and smiles conspiratorially. "And what's a… lobotomist, did you say?"

"Phlebotomist."

"Someone who grows exotic plants, right?" The knowing smile still on his mouth.

"I draw blood," she says, and grimaces again.

"Ah. You're a nurse."

"No. I just draw blood. P-H-L, phlebotomy. It's from the Greek word for blood-letting."

“I see."

"Yes. But I'm not a nurse. I just go from floor to floor, taking blood. It's a part-time job. I start at five A.M. and I quit at nine. The hospital pays me thirty bucks an hour."

"I see. And which hospital would that be?"

"Memorial Sloan-Kettering?"

"Where's that?"

"On York Avenue? Near Sotheby's? Do you know it?"

"Uh-huh."

He is studying her more closely now. He has met hookers with enormously elaborate stories to tell until the essential question is asked. But he has already asked the essential question, and he is now getting an unexpected song and dance. If she's suspicious, she should be asking personal questions, fishing to learn if he's a cop before they strike a deal.

"I wear a white lab coat," she says, "and go from floor to floor with my little cart and syringes. Some contrast between that and your basic black, huh?"

She nods, grins, happy with herself, happy with the way she looks in black, flaunting it a bit, is she a hooker or isn't she? He really doesn't have time to chat up a twenty-three-year-old girl, this is not The Dating Game , this is a mature man alone in the city of New York, very far from home. Is she or ain't she? Does she or doesn't she?

"What do you do when you're not at the hospital?" he asks.

Lead into it that way. What do you do when you're wearing your basic black cocktail dress without panties perhaps, sitting at a hotel bar, flashing legs that won't quit, what do you do at night, what are you doing this very night, and how much do you charge?

"Make rounds," she says. "Take lessons."

"Rounds?"

"I'm an actress."

"Have I seen you in anything?"

“Everyone always asks that."

"I'll bet."

"Do you ever go to any OffOff productions? When you're here in New York? Off-off Broadway?"

"No, I'm sorry, I don't."

"Then you haven't seen me in anything."

"So as I understand this, you draw blood from five A.M. to nine A.M…"

"Yes.. "

“And then you make rounds and take lessons."

"Right.”

“What kind of lessons?"

“Acting. Singing.”

“What do you do?"

"I told you. I'm an architect."

"Cause I thought maybe you were a district attorney, all these questions."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be nosey."

"Or a casting director."

"I'm sorry, really."

"Not that I mind. In fact, it's kind of nice to have a man take such interest in what I do."

"I'm sure there are many men…"

“Oh sure, zillions."

"… who take interest in what you do."

"You want to know something?" she says, and leans closer to him, and puts her hand on his arm. "In this city, most interesting men you meet are either married or gay, that's the God's honest truth."

"I'm sure you don't have any trouble at all."

"Right, no trouble at all."

"A beautiful young girl like you…”

"Oh sure, seventeen, right."

"Well, how old are you?" he asks.

"Oh dear," she says.

"I know a person's not supposed to ask."

“I'm twenty-five."

“No.”

“Yeah."

The phlebotomist grimaced again.

"You don't look at all like twenty-five."

"Twenty-nine? Thirty? Don't tell me. Forty?"

"I honestly thought twenty-three."

"Well, thanks. Twenty-three. Boy. How old are you?"

"Forty-three," he says.

"My father's forty-three!" she says, and bursts out laughing. "Excuse me," she says, covering her mouth, "oh, Jesus, I'm sorry."