George Pelecanos: Shoedog

“So long, Connie. See you in the morning.”

Polk put the Dodge in gear and drove off down the street. Constantine turned and walked through the glass doors, into the orange lobby of the motel.

Constantine bought cigarettes and checked into his small room two stories above and facing Georgia Avenue. A streetlight rose outside the frame of his window, though darkness had not yet fallen and the light had not yet been switched. Constantine had a shower and changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a clean denim shirt that had been pressed from the steam of the shower. He left the hotel and walked down the street.

At a Korean carryout named the Good Times Lunch Constantine ate a dinner of deep-fried cod and green beans, and washed it down with a can of beer. He had another beer sitting at the counter, listening to rap from the store’s small radio, watching the traffic lighten through the window, as dusk came and then the dark. Constantine left the carryout, bought a fifth of Popov vodka at a liquor store two doors down, and walked back to the motel.

He poured a drink of vodka over ice in his room, and had it sitting on the edge of his bed. The drink backed by the two beers pushed him toward sleep, but he poured himself another and after that he did not think of sleep.

Constantine pulled a phone directory from the closet and looked up Katherine. He figured she would have kept her maiden name. He found her name and number in the Maryland book, along with her husband’s. He pushed the numbers into the touchpad of the grid on the bedside phone. After three rings, she picked up.

“Hello?” It was her. More formal, no longer a child, but it was her.

“Katherine?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Constantine.”

She didn’t answer. For a few seconds Constantine listened to her breath, and the raucous sound of young children, and over that a man’s voice raised in exasperation.

“Yes, it’s me. It’s Katherine.” So the husband was in earshot and she didn’t want him to know who was on the line. Constantine smiled.

“I’d like to see you tonight, Katherine.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I’m only in town for the night.” Constantine waited. “Anyway, I think you’ve already decided. Am I right?”

A long silence. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Where?”

“The library,” Constantine said, chuckling. It was where she had told her parents she was going at night, years ago, when she met him on the hill at Lafayette playground.

“Come on,” she said, an edge to her voice.

Constantine swirled ice and vodka in the plastic motel cup as he gave her the address. “I’ll be in the lounge next to the lobby. Okay?”

“Give me an hour,” she said, hanging up the phone.

To freshen up, he thought, as he killed the rest of his drink.

The motel lounge was done in burnt orange a shade down from the orange of the lobby. The customers and the staff of the lounge were all neighborhood types and in their late thirties and early forties, and the music on the sound system reflected their collective past. The bartender had been playing the Commodores, BT Express, and Ohio Players on the house stereo for most of the night.

Constantine sat on the vinyl seat of a booth against the wall, against a smoked-glass window that gave to a view of the lobby. He sipped a rail vodka over ice and dragged on a Marlboro between sips. Katherine sat across from him, a Glenlivet and water in the long fingers of her impeccably manicured hands. It was their second round of drinks.

Katherine nodded at the pack of smokes parked on the table next to Constantine’s drink. “Give me one of those, will you? If I’m going to smell like it and breathe it I might as well enjoy it.”

Constantine looked her over. Her brown hair was shiny and straight and hung to her shoulders, her dark makeup tasteful, highlighting concisely her light brown eyes. As a teenager she had been on the heavy side, and when she had walked into the lobby that night, a cream silk shirt tucked into a black skirt, Constantine had noticed the loss in weight. A workout queen, he guessed. Tight, tan legs, and no stockings.

He shook a smoke out of the pack and pointed it toward Katherine. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

Constantine lighted her cigarette.

She blew smoke across the table and shook some hair behind one shoulder. “I sell medical supplies. That’s what I do. Anyway, I told Robert I had to go out tonight, to meet a client.”

“What you told your husband makes no difference to me,” he said.

Katherine said, “All right.” She looked around the bar and smiled, moving her head arrhythmically to the music. The man was playing Bohannon’s only Top 40 hit, the one where the background singers spell the name out into an echo machine and repeat it over a pre-go-go beat. “You remember this one?”

“I remember it,” Constantine said.

“You took me to Carter Barron one summer night, to see this guy. Bohannon and two other groups, under the stars.”

“You’re talking about Funkadelic, and the Delfonics. That was a show.” Afterwards they had taken a blanket, a candle, and a bottle of Spanish wine and walked into Rock Creek Park, the dew soaking through the blanket as they made love.

Katherine shifted in her seat. “In a few years, my oldest girl will be out on dates. It’s a shame-she’ll never do the stuff we did, never know those good times. The nights in D.C., the concerts at Fort Reno. I won’t let her, you know? It’s too dangerous now, with the guns. It’s crazy.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, you heard. You haven’t been around.”

“I’ve seen the world,” he said.

Katherine smiled. “You took a helluva slow boat.”

Constantine nodded and butted his cigarette in the ashtray. Katherine did the same and looked at him coyly as she blew the last of her smoke in his direction. He looked around the place, listening to the music, watching a sad-eyed man bobbing his head to it at the bar, and then he looked back at Katherine. Her eyes were still on him.

Constantine said, “Let’s go upstairs.”

Katherine pulled a twenty from her wallet and signaled the waitress.

Constantine broke the seal on the motel cup and tore away the paper. He pulled some cubes from the room bucket, dropped them into the two cups, and poured vodka over the ice. He walked across the room, turning off the lamp on the way. He handed Katherine her drink where she stood against the wall nearest the window. He tapped her plastic cup with his.

She nodded and drank deeply, closed her eyes. Constantine looked out the window and saw rain falling thickly through the glow of the streetlight.

Katherine opened her eyes and placed her drink on the formica-top dresser. She slipped her hand behind Constantine’s neck and pulled his face down to hers. Her lips were cool from the ice and her tongue bit of scotch against his.

Constantine put his hands up into her skirt and slipped them behind her panties. He pushed his groin into hers and freed one hand to unsnap the fastener on the side of her skirt. The skirt fell to the ground, Katherine kicking it away sharply with the toe of her pump. Constantine unbuttoned her blouse, his fingers brushing the warmth of her smooth belly as they traveled down. He released the hook on the front of her brassiere, peeling it back and off her shoulders. In the light he saw her chest redden, as it had always reddened when he undressed her, and he smiled. Katherine kissed him again, pushing her tongue aggressively into his.

He led her to the bed, where she lay back, her feet still on the floor. Constantine undressed quickly and lowered himself onto her, rubbing his phallus along the front of her panties. He squeezed one dark nipple into stone, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger as he kissed her open mouth. Then he turned her over, pulling her panties down below her knees and off her pumps.