Mark Fishman - No. 22 Pleasure City

Her eyes swept the bar, Pohl followed them until his gaze landed alongside hers on the tall man with greasy hair. He was stretching his right leg, he grasped it by the ankle and pulled it up behind him so the heel touched his lower back. He stood there like a stork.

“You know him?” Pohl asked.

“No. Just looks familiar.” Violet finished her drink while he wasn’t looking at her. “But he’s not my type.”

He turned toward her. “Burnett’s your type?”

“It’s more complicated.”

“Everything’s always more complicated,” Pohl said with a frown. “I can tell you stories.”

“You don’t have to, I’ve got my own.”

“Let’s have another drink.”

“Right.”

Pohl called the waiter over and ordered two more of the same. Violet looked at him now for the first time. She gave him a genuine smile. Pohl pulled gently nervously at his earlobe. She laughed. He blushed. They didn’t say anything. The waiter brought the drinks and took away the empty glasses.

They took their first sips in silence. Music came from speakers placed in four corners where the stained walls met the black ceiling. Some customers spoke in whispers, the tall man told the bartender another joke, the front doors swung open and a couple of women came in talking loud.

Pohl shut the noise out of his head, Angela jumped into his thoughts, and he finished his drink with a pained expression on his face.

“What is it?” Violet said.

He offered her a cigarette, put one between his lips, lit both of them. He wanted to talk about Angela and he didn’t mind telling the story to anybody who’d listen but a voice with experience told him to keep his mouth shut because Violet wasn’t just anybody and he didn’t know what was between her and Burnett so it wasn’t smart to show his hand just because he was feeling sorry for himself.

He searched for something to say, and when he found it he said: “I don’t like beating up anyone.”

“Okay, but you helped me out of a spot. I might’ve let him do it.”

“Do what?” Pohl took a swallow of his drink.

“Burn me with a cigarette.” She crushed the butt of hers into the ashtray. “He did it once, he’d do it again if I let him.”

“What kind of guy would do a thing like that?”

“I told you, I’ve got a few stories of my own.”

“You like it rough, is that it?”

“I wouldn’t say yes, and I wouldn’t say no. You’re too nice a guy to understand. And that’s all for the good. But I was with Burnett for another reason, don’t ask me what that reason was, and instead, I got burned. No pun intended.”

“You mean you’re not involved with him anymore?”

“I’m trying to warn him off another woman. Nobody deserves a guy like that.”

Pohl thought of asking her if it was Angela that she was trying to protect but he kept the question to himself. Shimura had promised him that she and Burnett weren’t seeing each other anymore, but that didn’t keep him from wondering what had gone on when Angela was seeing Burnett, worrying about her now and wanting to find her. He wasn’t interested in trying to figure out Violet one way or the other.

Violet finished her drink, smiled at Pohl, patted his hand and said: “I’ve got to be going.”

“Okay, Violet. I’m glad I met you.”

“Thanks a lot for everything, Burt.”

Pohl let her out of the booth, stood watching her as she walked away swinging her hips just enough to draw attention to them.

He liked her all right but he knew enough about her by listening to what she’d said to know that it was because she didn’t want anything from him that she was pleasant and honest and flirting with him. In another situation, if he’d had something she wanted, he knew she’d be a first-rate pain in the ass.

Aoyama saw Eto in a doorway across the street from the small garden on Lavergne Terrace. He was lit by the long reach of light that came from a streetlamp. Aoyama didn’t see a lit cigarette because Eto wasn’t smoking, he was chewing gum because he wanted to quit cigarettes, which they both knew wasn’t going to last long. Aoyama stopped and lit one for himself. On the soft night breeze that floated toward him, he smelled the flowers and the recently turned topsoil and the fresh full leaves of the lone tree in the center of the garden.

It was a fine night. He wished all nights could be like this but he knew better than to believe in wishes that experience told him didn’t come true very often. It was just a dose of plain realism. He sighed, kept on walking toward Eto who’d stepped out of a grimy doorway to greet him.

“What’s the latest word on our Fitch?” Aoyama said quietly, as they walked along in the direction of Nightingale Lane.

“The routine,” Eto said. “He does the same thing more or less every night. You could set the clock by him.”

“Every night?”

“Yeah, and there’s a guy that comes around while he’s there, wearing cook’s clothes, right out of a restaurant kitchen. Nothing but a stack of containers with food in them. I got the scent from where I kept myself out of sight.”

“Some kidnappers. Then, we know they’re up to something else.” Aoyama shook his head. “When you’ve got money you spend it, I guess. They must be getting plenty out of it.”

It wasn’t something Eto had to answer so he just made a sound from somewhere in the back of his throat. They slowed down when they got to Nightingale Lane. There were six old-fashioned streetlights that went the length of the lane and an old tree planted between each lamppost whose leaves shone in the light. Eto took Aoyama by the sleeve and they ducked into the shadow of a doorway.

“There it is, number four, and you can see most of the lights are out,” Eto said in a whisper. “I guess both Fitch and the cook are gone.”

“You didn’t see them go?”

“I don’t have to see them. I told you, it’s clockwork.”

Aoyama searched his raincoat for a pocket-sized, monocular telescope. He kept it with him at all times. When he drew his hand out of his pocket, the molded plastic nose fell onto the doorstep. He picked it up, put it back, then shut an eye to use the telescope. “There’s a light,” he said.

“There’s always a light. It isn’t exactly luxury, but it isn’t the sort of kidnapping we’re used to,” Eto explained solemnly. “I haven’t seen anything like it until now.”

“We’ll find out what’s going on soon enough.”

“You talked to Shimura?”

“Yes. It’s set for the day after tomorrow, in the afternoon.”

“Two days,” Eto complained.

Pohl turned at Fourteenth Street, went straight to his apartment building, unlocked the entrance door and went in. He climbed the stairs and felt the drinks he’d had with Violet Archer. He was still a little high and he’d been pleasantly surprised at meeting her. There was relief in the fact that the woman with Burnett hadn’t turned out to be Angela and the opportunity to smash Burnett in the face had eased his frustration and brought him more clarity of mind than he’d expected from something so basic.

He unlocked the door of his apartment, shut it behind him and locked it. As he made his way through the apartment, he wondered if Shimura would be upset with him for doing some surveillance of his own and he prayed that Burnett wouldn’t bring assault charges against him. Pohl went into the kitchen, searched a cabinet beneath the sink for a metal pot to boil water in, sent water from the tap into the pot and put it on the stove.

He went to the bathroom to rinse his face with cold water and shake off some of the fuzziness the cocktails had given him. He wasn’t used to drinking as much as he’d been drinking since the night he’d discovered Angela and Burnett together. He dried his face and put the towel on the rack and then it hit him. It was a wave of fatigue that came with the days and nights he’d spent worrying and that wave would’ve consigned him to the bathroom floor with no chance of getting up if it weren’t for the glimmer of satisfaction he got out of the roundhouse that knocked some teeth loose in Burnett’s head. It was enough to give him the short-term boost he needed to keep him on his feet looking in the mirror at his tired face instead of being saddled with the feeling he was sliding down a slope. He changed out of his street clothes into his pajamas.