Hob Broun - Odditorium

It took them the better part of the afternoon to piece together their wardrobes, flashing in and out of the changing cubicle, posing for one another, rejecting one selection after another. Christo finally chose a headwaiter’s holiday suit, light brown with blue pinstripes and wedge lapels; a lemon-yellow shirt; two-tone wingtips and clocked socks; a hand-painted cravat by Al-Hy Haberdashery of Flatbush Avenue; and a rather decrepit snap-brim hat. Tildy, who was terribly hard to fit, was forced to settle for something rather more cutesie than she’d hoped — a flouncy print dress with Mardi Gras dancers on a mottled field of blue and black. With fishnet stockings, red satin wedgies and an orange chiffon scarf at the throat, she’d look like a real chippie. Blow jobs behind the PX. Hey, Joe, you got gum?

Six hours later they were traveling downtown in a Checker cab and drinking rye and ginger out of paper cups.

“Hubba hubba,” Christo said, fortifying his drink from the pint. “I just know we’re gonna sizzle tonight.”

Her feet propped on the jumpseat in front of her, Tildy gazed at the scene unrolling like a scroll past the window. She was amazed by the level of activity at this late hour, the sheer density of bodies on the avenue. In Houston, previously the largest settlement she’d visited, it had been nearly impossible to buy a box of tampons after ten P.M.

“I’m tired,” she said. “The last few days have been strange. I feel like I just got out of the hospital after a long series of tests.”

“But you’re fine, just fine. Look at those nice white muscles. Hubba hubba.”

Tildy cranked her window down and emptied her cup on the pavement.

The Canteen was situated in a zone of novelty wholesalers, juke box dealers and distributors of Latin records. The entrance was on a gloomy cross street with its own canopy of smells; spoiled meat, soot, wet newspapers. Tildy breathed through her mouth. In the doorway of a dead luncheonette a man with a bandaged head crooned softly while staring into a brown paper bag.

Tildy slid her arm through Christo’s. “Is my lipstick on straight?”

Their clothes passed muster at the door and their “temporary membership” cards were accepted by an Oriental bruiser in a Shore Patrol outfit after examination under an ultraviolet lamp. At the end of a long corridor lined with potted palms, Christo gave a fifty to a combat nurse toying sullenly with her cuticles, and was handed in exchange a book of ration coupons, the only currency recognized inside. They pushed through a pair of tufted leather swinging doors to another checkpoint (a woman in “Rosie the Riveter” masquerade presented Tildy with a heart-shaped box of chocolates, on the house), through a second set of doors, and into the jangle and heat of party time.

From the top of the carpeted stairs the room looked big enough to hold an aircraft carrier. Velvet hangings along the side walls were pulled back to reveal huge smoked mirrors that swallowed the room and spat it out on the opposite side. An all-white gutbucket combo — two brass, two reeds and rhythm — churned through “Bugle Call Rag” atop the terraced black glass stage, riffing away at vein-popping tempo while mucho authentic kittens and kats jitterbugged, lindy-hopped, trucked and pecked on the dance floor. Figures jostled and bounced in the blue backlighting of the large bar, built to resemble the front section of a medium-range bomber in profile, complete with cockpit and bubble canopy. Girls in Red Cross uniforms distributed coffee and doughnuts from stainless steel carts. Waiters in sailor suits glided among the tables (each with its own bowl of roses and shaded lamp throwing shadows across the damask cloth) on rubber-wheeled roller skates; the more ambitious would execute an occasional leap or pirouette, perhaps hoping that some starmaker in the crowd would notice them, perhaps merely happy in their work.

It was several minutes before they finally located Pierce sitting at a shadowy corner table beneath a sepia photograph of Joe Louis twisting Max Schmeling’s head around with a right cross. He was negotiating with two rice-powdered dollies who not long ago had made him the target for tonight and, without a word, helped themselves to seats at his table.

Dodie and Charmaine had known each other since junior high. They shared an apartment in the West Village. They worked for competing ad agencies but met each day on their lunch hour to promenade up Madison Avenue sharing a joint. Their one consuming ambition was to escape this urban anchorage for a brand-new hot blood dimension — a world, as Dodie often spoke of it, of Europe and yachts; and their sensitive antennae rated Pierce as someone with access.

“Don’t mind the ladies, they’re part of the floor show,” he said and made perfunctory introductions.

“What a beautiful name.” Charmaine slurred her words, having earlier ignored Dodie’s admonition that Tuinals did nothing for one’s charm. “Are you French?”

Tildy poked at one of the floating roses. “Not yet.”

“I was in France once,” Charmaine said quietly, unable to remember if this was a true anecdote or one she’d invented. “We flew over for a pâté festival.”

Up on stage the drummer broke into a solo. He was a scrawny kid with a pencil mustache, a propeller beanie atop patent-leather hair and a head full of boogie shuffle licks as plain as a dental chart. The audience whooped him on; it was like a pep rally. Even leaning across the table Pierce had to shout to be heard.

“Miss Florida is lovely, a bloody vision. I’m forced to say she looks too good for you.”

“Kiss mine.”

“Think about it, think about some of the women you were running with in the past. They had the shakes. And black circles around their eyes.”

“Well, dig it, the past has passed. Mister Christo will be running on the fast track from now on.”

The drummer was into his windup now. Coming out of a tomtom onslaught, he popped off the stool, keeping the pulse alive on bass and hi-hat, bobbing his head and twirling his sticks. Real gone. He hit a brief mambo rattle on the cowbell and slung the sticks to one side. Only half turned, barely looking up, Tildy speared them both in one hand with two perfectly timed rotations of her wrist.

She faced Dodie and Charmaine with an ingratiating smile, offered them on an open palm like breadsticks. “Souvenirs?”

“Zowie.” Dodie clapped both hands to her head. “That was fantastic what you did.”

“I was alone a lot as a kid,” Tildy said. “Learned to catch insects on the wing.”

Charmaine looked on adoringly but turned shyly away when Tildy met her eyes, to stare down her own cleavage, plucking at the rounded collar of her black silk pyjamas right out of a Terry & The Pirates panel.

The band returned for a couple of rideout choruses to heavy applause.

“Yeah, thank you. Copacetic.” The alto player brought his palms together as he bowed. “We gonna cool off right now, but we’ll be back later to sock you and knock you nonstop.”

“Hey, black shoes, you oughta hock those instruments.” This from a deep voice at the bar.

A lot of dead air among the Milbank party. Pierce stared hard at the dollies, but they held their ground through this obvious exit cue.

“I gather you ladies aren’t going to give up without at least one glass of champagne,” he said. “Right, then. Champagne for everyone. I feel loose tonight.”

He pressed one of the illuminated buttons on a small console under the table and within seconds the sommelier arrived. He was dressed like the best man at a London wedding and wore around his neck a large plastic skeleton key treated with phosphorescent paint.

“Julio, a magnum of the Henzlicht-LaFosse. From Admiral Nimitz’ private reserves, and très sec , if you please.”