George Pelecanos - Firing offence

I caught one last look at him before we booked. Beer streamed down the front of his face, falling onto his silk kimono. He still had a bottle in his hand, and he wasn’t moving, just staring at us and trying to look hard. But he was fighting a smile, the deep dimples of his smooth face betraying him, threatening to implode. The four of us left him just like that, and fell like sailors out Malone’s front door.

We dropped McGinnes and Carmelita a couple of blocks from Malone’s, on Seventeenth Street. I watched them walk away beneath the light of a streetlamp, his arm around her shoulder, hers around his waist, until they faded into early morning fog.

That is the last I remember of being in my car. Lee drove us to her place, where she undressed me and got me into her shower, then follow K, tt is thed me in.

She washed my back, then reached around and soaped beneath my balls. I took the bar from her and noticed with some relief that I was getting a strong hard-on. I began soaping her entire body, lingering on her hard breasts and the insides of her muscular little thighs. I slipped two, then three fingers inside her with ease. She bit my lip and sucked on my tongue with a deft roll of her own. We moved each other around the shower for several minutes, our bodies sliding together, until she put her hands on my shoulders, her back to the tiles, locked her legs around my waist, and pulled me in, arching her lower back to take it all.

When her breathing became more rapid, and her lips turned cold, I hooked a soapy finger into her asshole and she straightened against the wall, eyes toward the ceiling. She yelped, then shuddered, and buried her teeth into my shoulder, while I shot off with a spasm that traveled down my legs.

We held each other until the hot water began to expire. She put on her bathrobe and dried me with a large blue towel.

Sitting on the warm radiator, I watched her in the bathroom mirror as she carefully combed my wet hair. Then I was in a deep, dreamless sleep.

I wouldn’t have minded dying but that would have taken too much energy. I had dry-mouth and my stomach had less stability than an African government. My hands smelled like a woman and my hair hurt. The part about the smell didn’t bother me much.

Lee roused me, handed me a glass of Alka-Seltzer, dropped two aspirin in my hand, and said that breakfast and coffee awaited me in the kitchen. I sat up and washed down the pills with the seltzer.

She had folded my clothes for me, and I began to dress, pausing often to sigh and rub my forehead meaninglessly. She was not wearing my shirt, a morning-after ritual that I find neither cute nor practical, and I suddenly liked her even more for that.

I made it into the kitchen and sat with her at a small table. She looked fresh and was dressed for school in jeans and a gray sweatshirt. I took a sip of the black coffee.

“So,” I said, “did you take advantage of me last night?”

“Repeatedly.”

“And where am I?”

“Tenleytown,” she said, and after watching my expression as I looked around the nicely appointed apartment, added, “Yes, Mommy and Daddy take care of the bills.”

“You’re from where? New York? Jersey?”

“Long Island. And I’m Jewish. And I go to AU. Do I fit the profile?”

“Yes,” I said, gamely forking in a mouthful of runny eggs. “I usually don’t go out with Jewish girls.”

“Why’s that?”

“Generally,” I said, “they turn me down.”

She chuckled and gave me the once-over. “I doubt that. Though I wouldn’t try asking anybody out for a few days.”

“My eye, you mean? Is it that bad?”

“It’s not pretty. But it’s not terrible.” I got up to pour another cup of coffee, and she asked, “Anybody going to miss you from last night?”

“Only my cat.”

“Johnny told me about your one-eyed cat.”

“I guess he told you I’ve been married, too.”

“Yes, he mentioned it. But I would have known anyway. By the way you held me last night when we were sleeping.”

“Forget about the sleeping part,” I said. “Was I a gentle lover?”

“Yes,” she said. “Well, sort of. Like a gentle freight train.”

“Sleeping with my wife-I mean, literally sleeping with her-was probably the best part of being married.”

“You must miss it. Even the bad parts must seem pretty good now.”

“Time heals all wounds? Bullshit. I miss some things. But I don’t think I miss the bad parts.”

I stewed about that for a while, and she let me. After she finished her coffee, she put on her jean jacket and hung her knapsack over her shoulder. “Your keys are on the counter and your car is on the street behind this building. I called Louie and told him you’d be late. Do me a favor and wash the dishes, and lock up on your way out.”

“Sure, Lee.”

“I had fun,” she said, in a way that both explained and negated the entire evening. She kissed me on the side of my mouth and exited the apartment.

It was near noon by the time I finished my third cup of coffee, read the Post, and did Lee’s dishes. I phoned Gary Fisher in the office.

“Fisher,” he said, short of breath.

“Fisher, it’s Nick.”

“What’s up?”

“I need a favor. How about we meet for lunch today, at Good Times, say a half hour from now?”

“Lunch is fine. What’s the favor?”

“Before you leave, go into my desk, top drawer. Collect all the business cards from the media, I’ve got them all grouped in rubber bands. Bring them with you to lunch, okay?”

“Why can’t you come i St ringn?”

“I was out last night, things got a little crazy. I got my eye dotted in a bar.”

“Okay, Nick. Half hour.”

A line at the bank machine made me late. When I walked into the Good Times Lunch, Gary Fisher was already seated at the counter, drinking coffee and hot-boxing a Marlboro. A couple of beer alkies sat near him and stared straight ahead.

I sat on Fisher’s right. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He was wearing brown corduroys with a tan poly shirt and a brown knit tie squared off at the end. He checked his cigarette, determined there was some paper left over the filter, took a final drag, mashed it, exhaled, and patted the pack in his shirt pocket.

“What’s going on, Nick?”

“Nothing much,” I said, removing my sunglasses. He checked me over and shook his head.

Kim walked over with a green checkpad in his hand to take our order and gave me his usual blank nod. In the mirror above the register I noticed the poster of Billy Dee Williams, smiling over my shoulder. Public Enemy’s “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” was blaring from the tinny speaker of the store radio. Fisher ordered a burger and fries. I asked for the fish and a bowl of soup.

“Mr. Personality,” Fisher said as Kim walked away.

“He’s the Korean Charles Bronson. It’s a big responsibility.”

“Here,” he said, handing me a paper bag filled with business cards.

“Thanks.” I placed the bag on the counter to my right. “So, what’s happening in the world of electronics retailing?”

He shrugged. “The manufacturers are trying to soften the blow of price increases by policing ‘minimum advertised prices’ in the newspaper. In other words, they’re trying to fix retails by controlling the giveaway artists. It’s a good idea, but the FTC will stop that shit real fast once they get enough consumer complaints. If everybody’s in the paper with the same price, all the business will go to the house with the biggest advertising budget, the power retailers. Let’s face it, the days are numbered for the independents and the ‘mom and pops.’”

Fisher had been predicting gloom and doom since I’d met him. For him it was just an excuse to work longer hours and smoke more cigarettes.