Tim Green - Exact Revenge

She sniffs. Tears are spilling down her cheeks.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” I say, holding her close.

“I want this.”

She takes my hand and leads me away from the window and the moonlight and under the canopy of the high bronze bed. We kiss and on her tongue I can taste the salt from her tears. Her fingers work quickly to unbutton my shirt and plunge inside, sweeping softly up under my arms, stripping my upper body. Bumps rise on my skin in the small breeze from the open doors, but wherever her hands are I’m warm.

I pluck the straps free from her shoulders and roll the silk slowly down her torso, brushing the curves with my nose and lips, breasts, stomach, hip. The slip falls to her feet in a wavy pile. I kneel, dabbing my tongue so that a small tremor runs through her frame. She clenches my hair close to the scalp and shudders.

When I rise her hands find my belt. Undone, my pants and shorts fall to the floor-partners to her slip-and our naked bodies mesh together, feeding off each other’s warmth in the night air. Helena grasps my shoulders and climbs my torso, shimmying up with her long muscular legs. Velvet around my lower back. When I lower her onto the bed, we’re already one.

She lets out a small groan and it casts my mind loose to swim in an electric sea.

HELENA AND I DON’T TALK about last night, but the sun seems to shine brighter, the chicory coffee seems to taste less bitter, and the voices of the busy city around us seem to ring. After making love again, we have a late breakfast on the terrace, then spend some time doing tourist things. The streetcar out to Tulane. Antique shopping on Royal. A visit to Faulkner’s old apartment. Café Du Monde. All with Helena under a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses to avoid attention.

At three we’re back in the room, making love and taking a short nap before she has to leave to get ready for the show. After she’s gone, I sit on the terrace with my feet up on the iron railing and a cup of café au lait on my lap. I’m not really thinking. I’m just feeling the warm air and the close comfort of belonging to someone after all the emptiness. I close my eyes.

How could I describe this to Lester? I think maybe a Renoir. The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette.

I draw a deep breath and let it go.

Bert clears his throat behind me and I turn my head slow enough so that I can feel the warmth of the sunshine moving across my face.

“They want to know when we go,” he says.

I look at my watch and say, “I lost track. I’ll get a shower and change and we’ll go in, say, forty minutes.”

I see his face and say, “What now?”

Bert shrugs and folds his arms across the barrel of his chest.

“There was this farmer south of the reservation-down by Malone-who raised a bunch of pheasants,” he says. “The whites would come up from Utica and Albany and go on hunts. They’d put the birds out and spin them around so when they came back later with the dogs they’d still be there.”

I narrow my eyes at him and crimp my lips.

He shrugs and says, “I just never thought it was that much fun. That’s all.”

“You still have to shoot straight,” I say, taking my feet from the railing, the afternoon now gone.

The lobby swarms with beaming chatty people. A real holiday. Allen and Martin are no exception. They slide into the limo after me, grinning stupidly and scrambling to pull bottles of Abita beer from the ice chest. Bert rides backward facing me. The boys sit sideways on the long seat across from the bar. Their talk is fast and pitched. Who will win and by how much. How much they bet. Overs. Unders. Point spreads. Even Bert takes a fifty out of his wallet and answers Debray’s bet on who will be the first team to score.

The only person in the whole city who sees tonight the same as me is Helena. A business opportunity. Her CD is already platinum with two number one music videos. The halftime show will throw gas on the flames. And if I shoot straight, I’ll infiltrate the lives of my enemies in a very personal way.

The limo moves slowly along the teeming streets behind a motorcycle cop, and people crane their necks to see inside. Allen offers me a beer and I take it. He’s talking to me.

“-much did you bet?”

“I’m not big on it,” I say, taking the beer and clinking the mouth of the bottle against his. “When I win, I don’t really enjoy it and when I lose it makes me sick.”

“Well,” he says, “I’m not all that big on it, but it pays the bills in my house.”

“How’s that?”

“My dad is in the casino business.”

“Really?” I say, letting the word hang.

“Yeah,” Allen says, then turns to Debray. “I don’t know how you think Atlanta won’t score first with Michael Vick.”

They launch into a debate where words are fired back and forth between big mouthfuls of beer.

Bert is doing a bad job of holding back his smile.

“Missed,” he says quietly, cracking open fresh bottles of beer.

When the glowing spaceship form of the Superdome comes into view, even with our escort, the limo is forced to a crawl.

At the first lull in their talk I lean forward and say, “Hey, before I forget, let me get you guys’ numbers for when I get to New York.”

They both say sure. Debray hands me a card and I jot down Allen’s numbers on the back.

“We’ll have to get together,” I say. “I don’t really know anyone.”

“Kidding, right?” Allen says.

I force a smile and say, “No. I haven’t spent much time there. I bought the team more as an investment.”

Allen turns to Debray and says, “Can you imagine him doing funnels with Benny Cohen?”

“I know at least one certain blonde who would be all over him,” Debray says, the freckles around his wrinkled nose dancing up and down as he snickers.

“The last people you’re going to want to meet is our crew,” Allen says.

The two of them laugh and Bert joins in, looking at me from the corners of his eyes. He makes a gun with his fingers and fires it into the air.

“When the Jets sale hits the papers,” Debray says, “people are going to be taking numbers and getting in line to meet you.”

“We’ll be lucky if you remember us,” Allen says.

“Of course I will,” I say, taking out my Palm Pilot. “You know what? Let’s set up a lunch.”

“Well, I’m in school,” Allen says.

“When do you get back?”

“Middle of May.”

I look down and scroll through the calendar.

“How about June tenth?” I say. “It’s a Thursday.”

Allen shrugs and says, “Sure.”

“Le Cirque all right? One o’clock?”

“Okay,” Allen says. “We’ll be there if you will.”

“I will,” I say. “It’s in the book. And don’t underestimate the people you know. It’s always better to meet people through someone you know.”

“We just don’t know that many people,” Allen says.

“You already mentioned one important person I’d like to meet,” I say.

“Who?”

“Your father.”

“That’s easy,” Allen says. “When big mouth here tells everyone what happened last night, my mom and dad are going to want to meet you anyway.”

“Good.”

I look over at Bert. His finger gun is out again, but the boys are looking at me, and neither one of them can see it. He points it at the back of Allen’s head, closes one eye, and lets his thumb drop.

I HAVE A LOT TO DO in four months’ time, but money is like industrial grease, and things, even big things, slide into place. On the tenth of June I check my watch as I step up to the wrought iron gates and into the courtyard outside Le Cirque. It is five minutes to one and I slow my pace and stop to admire the brass poles and the zebras and the bold circus colors so that when I walk through the door on the second floor, the big hand is on twelve.