Robert Parker - Family Honor

“I force her,” I said. “There are better lives than hooking.”

“Tony doesn’t know every whore in Boston,” Richie said.

“I know, but he knows every pimp.”

“He knows people who know every pimp,” Richie said.

“Same thing.”

Richie was resting his chin on his fist. He nodded slowly.

“Her pimp may object.”

“They do that,” I said.

“Unless of course Tony spoke to him.”

I nodded. We looked at each other. I knew there was the usual conversation hum and the gentle sounds of service in the restaurant, but he and I seemed to be surrounded by resonant soundlessness. I could feel my breathing.

“I can get you to Tony,” Richie said.

My date wasn’t going well. He was a lawyer, maybe two years younger than I was, making his way through a big firm. I had met him in night school, during the midevening break. I was still chasing my MFA in painting. He was taking an art appreciation course. His name was Don Bradley. He was lean and looked like a tennis player, and wore good clothes. He slicked his hair back a little tight, but nobody’s perfect. We agreed to meet for a drink in the late afternoon.

“What I can’t figure is the professor,” Don said when the drink order was in. “Sonovabitch won’t let you take notes or use a tape recorder or anything. How’s he expect you to learn anything?”

“Maybe he wants you to listen,” I said.

“I listen but I can’t remember half what he says.”

“And look,” I said. “Maybe he wants you to look at the art.”

“But if I can’t take notes how do I know what I’m looking at.”

“Original reaction?”

Don laughed and shook his head.

“Yeah, sure. So you’re a real painter, Sunny.”

“I paint.”

“Got a studio and all?”

“I have a loft in Fort Point, I live there and paint there.”

“Live alone?”

“I live with a bull terrier.”

“A pit bull?”

“No, a bull terrier. Bull terriers are nothing like pit bulls.”

“Yeah that’s what they all say,” Don said.

The drinks came. A Belvedere martini for him. A glass of Merlot for her. Don drank half of his.

“You’re with a big firm?”

“Yes. Cone, Oakes and Belding on State Street. Man, they are working me to death.”

“It must be hard.”

“Hard if you care about getting there.”

“Getting where?”

“To the top,” Don said. “I want a partnership.”

“How’s it look?” I said.

“Well,” he finished his martini and looked for the waiter. “I figure there’s twenty-four hours in every day and if I can’t find something useful to do with twenty of them, then I don’t deserve to get there.”

“Four hours’ sleep?” I said.

The waiter saw Don’s plight and brought him another martini. Don grinned at me over the rim of the glass. He drank and put the glass down.

“Oh baby, oh baby,” he said. “Four hours’ sleep on the nights I don’t have a date.”

His smile got wider.

“Energetic,” I said.

“You got that right,” Don said.

We were at the bar in Sonsie where most of the patrons looked like the anorexic models in high fashion magazines. Men and women. I never knew why emaciated and angry was fashionable.

“What is your legal specialty?” I said.

He grinned at me again. He had on the power-broker uniform: dark suit, striped shirt. Bright silk tie with little golf tees on it. I’d have bet most of my loft that if he took his coat off he’d be wearing suspenders.

“Winning cases,” he said.

“You’re a litigator.”

“Right on, babe. That’s pretty good. Most of the girls I go out with don’t know a litigator from a guy that draws up trust agreements.”

“Maybe you should start going out with women,” I said.

“Like you?”

“Sure,” I said. “Just like me.”

“Well, that’s what I’m doing, Sunny. That’s just what I’m doing.”

He spent most of the late afternoon and somewhat too far into the early evening drinking Belvedere martinis, telling me about his most famous cases. By 7:30 he was sloshed. I thought about leaving, but I wasn’t sure he could get himself home.

“You have a car?” I said.

He did.

“Why don’t we go home in mine?” I said.

“I kin drive,” he said.

“I’m sure you can, but so can I. Let me drive you home.”

“You feel better about that, Sunny?”

“Yes.”

“Okey baby dokey.”

I got him to the curb and gave the valet my ticket and when the car came I got him into the passenger side. Bending over, I was glad I had decided against my adorable little slip dress. With a little prodding he remembered where he lived and I drove him there, a cellar apartment on the corner of Mass Ave. and Commonwealth.

I pulled into a hydrant space at the curb. He sat without moving.

“Don’t pass out,” I said.

He giggled.

“Not me,” he said. “I’m frisky as a lamb.”

He ran “as-a-lamb” together. We sat. Nothing happened. You have to get out , Julie kept telling me. You have to date. You can’t sit home wishing you and Richie could make it work . I got out and went around and opened the car door for him.

“Hop out, Don,” I said.

“Besh offer I had,” he said and swung his legs around. I got a hand under his right arm and together we got him out of the car. Together we wobbled him across the sidewalk and down four steps to his front door. He fumbled the keys out and dropped them, and pressed his head against the door jamb and giggled some more. I found his keys and opened the door for him and together we wobbled into his apartment.

“Wan’ a nightcap?” he said.

“No, thank you.”

“You arn’ going?”

“Yep, I am.”

“Hey,” he said.

I turned and started out. Don wobbled after me and put his arms around me from behind.

“Come on,” he said.

“Let go, Don,” I said.

“Un unh,” he said. “Night’s young.”

He rubbed himself against me. I was amazed he could still become erect. I wondered if he could feel the gun in the small of my back. If he could it didn’t distract him.

“C’mon, Sunny, lighten up,” he said.

He started to maneuver me toward the couch. I took in a deep breath and let it out. I stomped one of my two-inch heels hard on his toes, and twisted as if I were grinding out a cigarette. He screamed and let go of me. I opened the door and looked back at him. He was hopping on one foot and saying “Bitch” and trying not to tip over, drunk as he was.

“Good night,” I said. “And thanks for a lovely evening.”

As I drove back to South Boston, I thought there might be worse things than sitting home wishing Richie and I could make it work.

I sat across from Tony Marcus in the back room of a restaurant that Tony owned called Buddy’s Fox. I was the only woman in the room. I was the only white person in the room. Tony had about him the kind of dissipated handsome look that Gig Young used to have in old movies, if Gig Young had been black. He also had the biggest bodyguard I had ever personally seen. It reminded me a little of the short men I’d known who owned huge attack dogs. Leaning on the side wall of Tony’s office, like the threat of rain, Junior might or might not have been bigger than Delaware. He was certainly bigger than Rhode Island.

“You got some good advance notices,” Tony Marcus said. “Richie Burke and my man Spike.”

“Spike?”

“Yeah. He called me this morning.”

“Spike gets around,” I said.

“He do,” Marcus said.

“You still married to Richie?”