John Abbott - Scimitar

“How anyone as bright and as beautiful as you are,” she said, “can manage to get herself abandoned as often as...”

“I wasn’t abandoned , Mom,” Elita said. “There was just some mixup at Penn Station.”

“Who is this boy, anyway?” Carolyn asked.

The two were in the Park Avenue apartment Carolyn had received as part of the divorce settlement from her former husband, Ralph Talbot Randall, known to her forevermore as The Late Colonel. The $1,939 alimony check she received each and every month was made out to her maiden name, which she’d begun using again even before the divorce was final. This sum was exactly forty percent of The Late Colonel’s salary. She had also received in settlement the house in Westhampton Beach, a brand-new (at the time) green Jaguar convertible, and child support and college tuition for Elita. Which served the bastard right for starting up with his gorgeous sergeant, a twenty-seven-year-old (at the time) redhead with spectacular tits but no brains at all.

“He’s not a boy, Mom, he’s a man,” Elita said.

“I’m sure,” Carolyn said, and rolled her eyes.

Her eyes were as blue as her daughter’s — well, perhaps Elita’s were bluer in that The Late Colonel’s eyes were blue as well, and their offspring had been twice blessed genetically. Carolyn’s hair had been as light as her daughter’s when she was her age, but over the years she and an assortment of beauticians had patiently guided it to its present shade, the tawny color of a lion’s mane. At thirty-nine, Carolyn was leggier than her daughter, fuller of breast, infinitely more attractive in a womanly way, and certainly not a person anyone would ever abandon .

“His name is Sonny,” Elita said.

“I thought he wasn’t a boy,” Carolyn said.

“He’s twenty-nine years old.”

“And he still calls himself Sonny ?”

“His real name is Krishnan.”

“Is what ?”

“Krishnan Hemkar.”

“I see,” Carolyn said, and went to the dresser for another stack of slips. Carrying them to the open suitcase on the bed, she wondered whether twenty-nine was too old for Elita, remembered that there was a fourteen-year age difference between her and her former philandering husband, decided ten wasn’t too terribly bad, after all, and then realized she was already marrying off the child to someone named...

“ What’d you say it was?”

“What was?”

“His name.”

“Krishnan Hemkar.”

“You sound like you’re clearing your throat.”

“That’s his name, Mom. He’s half-Indian, half-British. And when you meet him, I hope...”

“Oh, am I going to meet him?”

“ If you meet him, I hope you won’t make fun of his name.”

“I have a friend named Isadore Lipschitz, and I’ve never made fun of his name, so why should I make fun of Christie Hemmar’s name?” Carolyn said, and shrugged and went back to the dresser. “How many sweaters should I take?” she asked aloud.

“Krishnan Hemkar,” Elita said.

“Whoever. I’m sure he’s delightful, stranding you in Penn Station.”

“I wasn’t stranded, Mom. I managed to get my bags outside all by myself, and get a taxi all by myself...”

“Mama’s big girl,” Carolyn said, carrying sweaters to the bed. “Are you coming out with me tomorrow?”

“I thought I’d stay in the city for a few days.”

Carolyn turned from the suitcase, a white, pearl-buttoned cardigan in her hands. She looked at her daughter. “Why?” she asked.

“I just got home,” Elita said. “I want to spend a few days in New York before running out to the beach.”

“The city’s going to be an oven all week long.”

“So what? I like hot weather.”

“Since when?”

“Sometimes it gets very hot in L.A.”

Carolyn kept looking at her.

“It does,” Elita said.

“There’ll be a message on the machine, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Giving the Westhampton number. If anyone calls.”

“That’s not why...”

“If this Sonny person calls.”

“I just want to spend some time in New York, that’s all. And he’s not this Sonny person .”

There was a long, strained silence. Carolyn kept looking at her daughter.

“Elita?” she said at last.

“Carolyn?” Eyebrows raised, faint mocking tone.

“I hate when you do that,” Carolyn said.

“Do what?”

“Mimic me.”

“Sorry.”

“And call me by my first name.”

“Gee, sorry.”

“You know I hate that. I’m not Carolyn, I’m your goddamn mother.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You’re staying here because you’re hoping he’ll call, aren’t you?”

“I told you why I’m staying here.”

“Because you hope Sonny Lipschitz ...”

“Goddamn it, Mom!”

“... will call. You’re going to mope around here in the apartment for the next...”

“I am not !”

“... three, four days...”

“I told you I...”

“... waiting for some goddamn Indian you met on a train...”

“He’s half Br...”

“... to call you! Instead of...”

“I’ll come out sometime next week, okay?”

“... instead of for once in your life exhibiting the tiniest bit of pride and self- respect !”

“Mom.” A pause. As lethal as her sudden glare. “I don’t want to go to Westhampton tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, fuck it.”

“Nice talk,” Elita said.

Carolyn turned away from her and hurled the pearl-buttoned sweater into the suitcase.

The two detectives who’d caught the squeal were pounding up the steps ahead of Santorini. One of them was called Hawk for Hawkins because his first name was Percival and anyone who called him Percival or even Percy would have risked a mouthful of knuckles. He did not look like a hawk at all. He looked, in fact, more like a bear. Two hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed a dime. Wearing a blue polyester suit he’d bought at some discount joint. White shirt and red tie. Beer barrel belly hanging over his belt. Sweating bullets as he climbed the steps.

His partner was black. The strong silent type. Wearing his hair in what they called a hi-top fade, looked like some kind of upside down flower pot sitting on top of his head. Plaid sports jacket, looked like wool, the guy’d never heard of tropical weight fabrics. Tall and slender, maybe a bit over six feet, a hundred sixty-five pounds stepping out of the shower onto a scale. Big knuckled hands of a street fighter. Eyes as black as midnight. Skin the color of a coconut shell. Santorini figured him for the sharper of the two. And the more lethal. Down here, this was the One-Nine. If he ever worked anything down here again, he had to remember to ask for Lyall Gibson, which was the black guy’s name.

Hawkins was doing all the talking. Puffing up the stairs, throwing the words over his shoulder. Santorini was doing a little puffing himself; the victim was in an apartment on the fifth floor of the walkup. There were the usual cooking smells you found in any building in this city, even some of the expensive condominiums. Made you want to puke sometimes, the smells in the hallways. They kept climbing. Hawk kept talking.

“... saw the inter-departmental alert you guys put out, figured this one would really interest you. You’da got it anyway, sooner or later...”

“Not necessarily,” Santorini said.

He was not eager to take on another case. The stiff rightfully belonged to Gibson and Hawkins, they were the fucking cops who’d caught the squeal. So why were they busting Homicide’s balls?