Peter Abrahams - A Perfect Crime

A red X. Meaning? Anne had no idea. But her next thought gave it some: Kira Chang. She closed the trunk, leaving the irises to die.

A pretty girl got on the bus in Bridgeport, just after dawn. The only empty seat was on the aisle beside Whitey, so she took that, might have taken it anyway, he thought, catching the way she checked out his leather jacket from the corner of her eye. It was a cool jacket, no doubt about that, the coolest article of clothing he’d ever owned. He’d also bought himself a pair of cowboy boots from his first week’s salary, made in Korea, but very cool as well, black with silver stitching and thick heels that must have made him at least six-four. And he still had two hundred dollars and change left over, plus what remained of his gate money. Yeah, babe, he thought, giving her another look, check me out.

A pretty girl, but kind of cheap-looking: spiky hair, lots of earrings, and-as she shrugged herself out of her coat-a little snake tattoo coiling up from her cleavage. Whitey got hard right away. There was a bathroom at the back of the bus. Was it possible to get her behind that door and fuck her brains out? Things like that happened. He remembered that exact scene from one of Rey’s videos, except it took place on a plane, not a bus. The girl on the plane had made the first move, dangling her long red fingernails in the guy’s lap.

This girl didn’t do that. Neither did she have long red fingernails; hers were unpainted and bitten to the quick. Whitey made himself interesting by staring out the window for a while, like a guy having deep thoughts, then sat back and glanced at her as if noticing her for the first time, and if she happened to glance back and see how built he was under the leather jacket or even better the bulge in his pants, they’d be on their way. But she didn’t.

“Where you headed?” he said at last.

“Providence.”

He nodded. “Rhode Island,” he said. Nothing else came to mind. A few miles went by. “Just passing through?” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Providence. Just passing through?”

“I go to Brown.”

Brown-what the hell was that? He thought back, all the way back to his high school days on the ice.

“The college?” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Brown. The college.”

“Yes.”

Now they were getting somewhere. He noticed that her neck wasn’t completely clean. Necks-where had he heard that if you squeezed a woman’s neck while she was coming she had a better orgasm? Why not just say to her: Hey, ever hear about this neck thing? And then they’d be in the bathroom at the back of the bus, trying it out. He licked his lips a couple of times, getting ready to say it.

The girl took out a book, some kind of art book. She opened it to a picture, one of those pictures any kid could do, just a bunch of rectangles, and stared at it. He squinted at the title, Entrance to Green. There wasn’t even any green in it, for Christ’s sake. She took out a pencil and wrote in the margin, Anuszkiewicz: geometric recession counterbalanced by tonal shift-cool? warm. His hard-on went away.

She studied the art book the rest of the way, gazing at one bullshit picture after another. Whitey stole sidelong peeks at the coiled snake rising and falling in its soft, springy lair as she breathed. Only as the bus was pulling into Providence station did Whitey get an idea. It’s the recovery of stolen objects. Paintings, for example. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? The girl gathered her things and started up the aisle. “I’m in the art business myself,” he called after her. She didn’t seem to hear. He thought of the steel-tipped pole he’d left behind, and that snake, rising and falling on her breast.

Whitey got off the bus in Boston. He’d been there once before to play in a tournament at the Garden, but all he remembered was eating oysters, the first and only time he’d ever tasted them, horrible slimy things that were supposed to make you horny but hadn’t; he’d puked in the locker room that evening, and they’d lost to one of the big Catholic schools, the way they always did. So he had to ask some loser on the street, “Hey. Where’s the Garden?”

“Ain’t no more Garden, pal. Where you been? It’s the Fleet.”

“Huh?”

“Fleet Center, now. But the same location. What you do, you-”

“The Public Garden,” said Whitey, realizing his mistake. The man looked at him funny but gave him the directions. The Garden, gone. For a few blocks that pissed Whitey off, more than pissed him off, reminding him of the big percentage they’d cut out of his life. But after a while he began to see the bright side. If Gardens could come and go, then anything was possible, and that included a big score.

Whitey followed the directions, soon found himself walking on a street lined with fancy shops, their windows full of Christmas displays. He saw a leather jacket, a lot like his, went closer: identical to his, right down to those little V — shaped upturns on the chest seams. He checked the name of the shop-Newbury Leather-then took off his own jacket to examine the label. It had been cut out. He stood there wondering about that until he felt the cold, noticed that snow was falling. He hadn’t seen snow since they’d sent him down south. Whitey gazed straight up into the sky. From that angle the snowflakes were black against the cloud cover. He’d grown up in snow and never seen that effect before. Change was possible. He was changing, getting smarter. Black snow was an interesting idea, for example, the kind of interesting idea someone in the art business might have, someone like him. Someone like me, you bitch, he thought to himself, meaning the girl on the bus. He crossed a street and entered the Public Garden.

Roger was waiting under the statue of George Washington, just as he’d said he’d be. Snow clung to the brim of George Washington’s bronze hat, and to Roger’s hat, too, a black fedora, or some other hat with a name. Roger even looked a little like Washington, except he was smiling. He held out his hand, gloved in black suede. Whitey shook it, squeezing harder than normal because his own hand was bare, so it was a bit of an insult, like Roger was a prince and he was a peon or something.

“Ever play any tennis, Whitey?”

“Tennis?”

“You’d have been good.”

Whitey wasn’t sure how to take that: tennis was for fags. “Well, here I am,” he said.

“I never doubted you.” Roger handed him an envelope. “A week’s salary, plus an advance I hope you’ll find suitable.”

Whitey took it. Was he supposed to open the envelope and count the money? Only an asshole would take money without counting it. But the envelope stopped him, although he didn’t know why. Whitey stuck it unopened in his pocket.

“Familiar with the city, Whitey?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why don’t you take the day to get situated? Saturdays are difficult for me, this one especially.”

“Okay,” said Whitey, who would have bet anything it was Friday.

“Come here tomorrow, same time. If it’s convenient. I may have something for you by then.”

Something? Convenient? Whitey was a little lost, but he said, “Sure, I can make it.”

Roger’s smile faded. “Tomorrow, then,” he said, and walked away.

Whitey watched him go. Roger followed the path around a frozen pond and headed across the park. He wore a long black coat that matched his hat and gloves, looked rich, untouchable; and was almost out of sight, obscured by distant trees and thickening snowfall, when Whitey’s mind finally processed what his eyes had seen at once: Roger had been wearing slippers, plaid ones lined with sheepskin. What did that mean? That Roger couldn’t be trusted? Whitey ripped open the envelope, found ten fifties. What had Roger called it? An advance? What did that mean? Five Cs for something he didn’t even understand: that bought a lot of trust. But slippers? Whitey tapped the bills against his palm: slippers. And then he thought of the cut-out label from the leather jacket and realized this had to be Roger’s neighborhood-he was close to home. And where would that be, exactly? Whitey went after him.