Роберт Паркер - Sixkill

“You been doing this since high school?” I said.

“Naw, went to Brown,” he said.

“Graduate?” I said.

“BA in psych,” he said. “Maybe I’ll go to grad school in a while, I don’t know. At the moment, I’m sort of looking around, and while I’m looking around, I kind of like this work.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I would, too. Tell me about Dawn Lopata.”

“That guy really kill her?” he said.

“Something did, don’t know if it was him,” I said.

“Too bad,” he said. “She was an okay kid.”

“You liked her?”

“Sure,” Perry said.

“One of the other guys I talked with said she was needy,” I said.

“Yeah,” Perry said. “Yeah, I guess she probably was.”

“How so?” I said.

“You know, she was always afraid she didn’t measure up. Like she always seemed worried that you were just there to bang her.”

“She was sexually available?”

“Aren’t they all.”

“I’ve always hoped so,” I said. “Passive or aggressive?”

“Hey,” he said. “Were you a psych major, too?”

“I’m best friends with one,” I said. “Was she one of those women who sort of submit, or did she seek?”

“Funny thing is,” he said, “she was both. She seemed eager, and she was very interested in whatever sexual contrivance you could, ah, come up with.”

“Positions?” I said. “Sex aids?”

“Yeah, whatever you might know that she hadn’t tried.”

“And the passive part?” I said.

“Once you were, like, in the saddle, or whatever, she just lay there.”

“No response?”

“Limp as a glove,” he said.

“She ever play choking games?”

“Like cut off her breathing so she gets an extra thrill?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I got no interest in that stuff,” he said. “Wouldn’t do it if I was asked.”

“She ask?” I said.

“Nope. You think that’s how she got killed?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “Why I’m asking.”

“I read that he strangled her,” Perry said.

“Me too,” I said.

“But you don’t know.”

“Why I’m asking,” I said. “Any of the other guys that dated her play choking games, that you know about?”

“No,” Perry said. “But it’s not the kind of thing most guys talk about.”

“The sex that she was interested in, was that primarily aimed at intensifying your experience or hers?”

He was silent for a time.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You know? I mean, you’re doing something that really turns the girl on, it usually turns you on, too, doesn’t it. I assume that would be vice versa with her. I can’t believe I’m talking about shit like this with a stranger.”

“Lucky. You were a psych major,” I said.

“Doesn’t seem to be doing me much good at the moment,” he said.

“Any theories about why she was the way she was?” I said.

He grinned.

“Failure to resolve the conflict between passivity and aggression,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “That clears it up.”

“A BA in psych don’t make me a shrink.”

“I know,” I said. “But it might help you pay attention.”

He nodded.

“All I can give you,” he said, “is how she was really worried that you cared about her for herself, not for the sex.”

“Did you?”

“I liked her okay,” Perry said.

“With or without sex?”

“Sure,” he said.

He looked down, and while he was looking down, he adjusted the hammer in his hammer holster.

“Honestly?” he said.

“I’d prefer it,” I said.

“She wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“I was nineteen,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, hell,” he said. “Course not. She wasn’t coming across, I wouldn’ta dated her.”

I nodded.

“So her fears were well founded,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“And most of the people she dated felt that way?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head.

“She was kind of a joke,” he said.

I nodded. We were quiet. Perry absently jiggled the hammer in its holster.

“I feel kind of bad for her,” he said.

“Me too,” I said.

“And I feel kind of bad about myself and how I was with her.”

“Probably should,” I said. “On the other hand, nineteen and male is nineteen and male.”

“I know that, too,” Perry said.

It was rainy again this April. I worked out at the Harbor Health Club, and when I got through I went into Henry Cimoli’s office and drank some coffee with him, and watched the gray rain make circular patterns on the gray ocean through Henry’s big picture window.

“Got some donuts,” Henry said. “Cinnamon. Want one?”

“How many you got,” I said.

Henry opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a box and looked in.

“Ten,” he said.

“You’re not having any?” I said.

“I was hoping we could share,” Henry said.

I took a donut.

“Like the view?” Henry said.

“Better than the blank wall that used to be there,” I said. “With the torn boxing poster of you.”

Henry grinned and leaned back and put his feet up on his desk. His sneakers were silver and black. He was wearing white sweats and a white sleeveless jacket with the collar turned up, and a gold chain around his neck.

“Bought this place ’cause it was a dump and it was cheap, and the clientele I was serving were guys like you and Hawk, and you wasn’t afraid to come down to the waterfront to work out,” Henry said. “People think I am really smart to have jumped in ahead of the next big real estate trend.”

“You had no idea,” I said.

“None,” he said. “And about five years after I bought the place, the waterfront went sky-high fucking yuppie.”

“As did you,” I said.

“You like my outfit?” he said.

“You look like a very short Elvis impersonator,” I said.

“Hey, it’s a costume. I put one like it on every day. We don’t have spit buckets in the corners anymore. Health-club business is aimed at women. They think it’s adorable to belong to a swishy club on the waterfront run by an actual live former boxer.”

He grinned and flexed his arms.

“With visible biceps,” he said.

“Cute,” I said.

“Why I like Z working out here. He looks like every housewife’s dream: dark, big, muscular, sort of dangerous. Hot damn,” Henry said. “An orgasm waiting to happen. Some of them would jump him in the boxing room if they wasn’t afraid I’d yank their membership.”

“Which you wouldn’t,” I said.

“Course I wouldn’t.”

“Z says you been working with him,” I said.

“Since he moved in here,” Henry said.

“How’s that going?” I said.

“Fine. I got a couple rooms here I keep, case I need to stay late, or whatever.”

“You’re too old for whatever,” I said.

“Depends how often whatever comes my way,” Henry said. “Lately I’ve been trying to cut back to one a day.”

“Successfully, I’ll bet.”

“Sure,” Henry said. “Anyway, Z’s got a lot of potential. And it looks cool to the ladies for me to be boxing with the Big O.”

“I like his potential, too,” I said.

“He’s quick,” Henry said. “He’s very strong. And he’s a real good athlete, you know? He picks everything up quick. Got a woman here, teaches martial arts, she’s been showing him a few moves. He doesn’t mind learning from a woman. He gets it at once, and... he’s amazing.”

“And he’s tough,” I said.

“Absolutely. He’ll work himself until he gets sick.”