Роберт Паркер - Double Play

“To each his own, I found my own, and my own is you...”

Burke looked around the room. There were palm trees and African masks and murals of African tribesmen hunting lions and tigers. The upholstery of the banquettes along the wall was zebra striped.

“Two lips must insist, on two more to be kissed...”

A languid young man moved among the tables toward them. He was tall and almost willowy, wearing a dark double-breasted suit, a white shirt, and a white tie. His dark hair was long for a man’s, and wavy. Burke watched him come. He stopped beside Lauren and said, “Hello, darling.”

Lauren looked at Burke and then up at the man.

“Go away, Louis,” she said.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Louis said.

“Go away.”

“Oh, but I must meet him, darling. He looks so... so authentic.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Louis,” Lauren said. “This is Mr. Burke. This is Louis Boucicault. All right? Now go away.”

“So,” Louis said. “My successor. Have you gotten her into bed yet?”

Burke tilted his head back slightly and stared at Louis.

“This can be easy,” he said. “Or it can be bad. If I have to stand up, I’ll put you in the hospital.”

There was enough force in Burke’s look to make Louis flinch back a little. Louis knew he’d flinched and two red smudges showed on his cheeks.

“Well,” he said. “Well, well.”

Burke didn’t speak.

“Do you know who I am, Mr. Burke?”

“I know who you are,” Burke said. “I know who your father is. Now take a hike.”

Burke kept looking straight at Louis, his hands resting motionless on the tabletop. Louis hesitated, then he smiled down at Lauren.

“I certainly don’t wish to intrude,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll see you again, both of you again.”

Lauren didn’t look at Louis. She didn’t say anything. Louis bowed slightly toward her and looked at Burke and walked away. He moved very gracefully.

Without a word, Lauren emptied her martini glass, and held it up to the waitress. Then she looked at Burke.

“Wow,” she said.

Burke continued to look at Louis.

“No one has ever talked that way to Louis.”

Louis was at the hat check counter.

“I was hired to talk that way to Louis,” Burke said.

The hat check girl handed a gray felt hat to Louis, and a white silk scarf.

“Everyone is afraid of him,” Lauren said. “Because of his father.”

Louis draped the scarf around his neck, put the hat on, adjusted it so that the brim raked down over his eyes. Burke watched him as he left. The waitress arrived with Lauren’s fresh martini. She looked at Burke’s half-empty glass. Burke shook his head. The waitress swished away. Lauren was eating her olive.

“Almost everyone,” Burke said.

“Why aren’t you afraid of him?” she said.

“Hard to say.”

Lauren held her martini in both hands and looked at him over the top of the glass.

“I love martinis,” she said. “Do you?”

“No.”

“What do you love?”

“Hard to say.”

Lauren drank some of her martini.

“Well, aren’t you funny,” she said. Her voice slurred a little bit. “You don’t fear anything. You don’t love anything.”

“Funny,” Burke said.

“I guess I’m a teeny bit funny as well,” Lauren said. “I... There’s something really wrong with Louis. At first you don’t see it. He’s so charming and good-looking and he has money and clothes and knows his way around and everyone was a little afraid of him. But at first I really went for him.”

“People love funny things,” Burke said.

“Love? My God, you are funny. I didn’t say anything about love. I said I went for him. I had hot pants.”

“Maybe you had hot pants for what was wrong with him.”

Lauren sat back a little and put her glass on the table. She looked silently at Burke for a time. Then she picked up her glass and drank and put it down and looked at Burke some more.

“Almost certainly,” she said.

The leaves had turned in Central Park, and some of them had fallen. But it was still warm. Burke walked south beside Lauren. She was wearing a long tweed coat, a matching tweed skirt, and a mannish-looking little snap-brim hat that matched the coat and skirt.

“Do you have a cigarette?” she said.

“Camels.”

“I smoke Chesterfields,” she said.

Burke shrugged.

After a couple of steps Lauren said, “Oh very well, I’ll take a Camel.”

Burke took the pack from his shirt pocket and shook one loose. She took it and put it between her lips. He lit it for her. Without taking the cigarette from her mouth, Lauren inhaled deeply, and let the smoke trickle out.

“Why did you get divorced?” Lauren said.

“I was away. She took up with someone else.”

“Away in the war?”

“Yes.”

“Did you like being married?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wish you were again?”

“I don’t wish,” Burke said.

Lauren stopped. Burke stopped with her.

“For anything?” she said.

Burke shook his head.

“Good God,” she said.

Burke was silent, his eyes moving as he looked at whoever walked toward them.

“I wish for more,” Lauren said. “More money, more freedom, more cocktails, more music, more clothes, more canapés, more men. I’m wishing all the time.”

“We differ,” Burke said.

“Don’t you get bored? Wanting nothing? Feeling nothing? Isn’t it damned dreadfully boring.”

“Life’s boring,” Burke said.

They began to walk again toward midtown. Lauren nodded her head as she walked.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course. That’s why you’re not afraid of Louis.”

Burke didn’t say anything. He was watching two men in dark topcoats as they approached, and passed, and moved away uptown.

“You don’t care if you live or die,” Lauren said.

“Not much,” Burke said.

“Is there anything?” Lauren said.

“I’d kind of enjoy shooting my wife’s boyfriend between the eyes,” Burke said.

“Do you still love her?” Lauren said.

“No.”

“Then why...?”

“Better than nothing,” Burke said.

Seventh Avenue South, in front of the Village Vanguard, was almost empty when Burke came out of the club with Lauren. There were cars at the curb, and a few taxis cruising, but the late night street, in the warm steady rain, was as empty as any hamlet. Lauren had on a pale green raincoat with a caped top and a belted waist. And a flared skirt. Her matching rain hat had a short bill and was draped in the back like a Foreign Legion cap. Burke carried a black umbrella with a crooked walnut handle.

“Let’s walk uptown a ways,” Lauren said. “I love the rain.”

“Umbrella?” Burke said.

“No.”

Two blocks ahead, in front of a silent Nedick’s stand near Greenwich Avenue, a black prewar Cadillac pulled into a no parking area beside a hydrant and Louis got out of the front seat. Burke heard Lauren gasp softly. From the back seat two other men got out. Louis was wearing a trench coat and a Borsolino hat. The other two men wore blue overcoats and scally caps. They were big men. The overcoats were tight. All three men leaned silently on the Cadillac.

“Keep walking,” Burke said.

Lauren put her hand on Burke’s arm.

“Don’t hold my arm,” Burke said.

Burke’s voice was soft, but it was urgent, and Lauren pulled her hand quickly away. Burke shifted the umbrella to his left hand. His pace didn’t quicken. He could hear Lauren breathing. He could hear the click of her heels on the sidewalk. The streetlights were softened by the rain. The colorful lights in the store windows, filtered through the rainfall, had a jewel-like quality. There was no wind. The rain was coming straight down, steady but not hard. A cab rolled by heading uptown, its wipers arching back and forth. They reached the Cadillac and didn’t slow. Louis and his escorts didn’t speak. Burke looked at them as he walked by, between them and Lauren. Louis smirked at him. There was nothing in Burke’s face. They passed Louis. No one spoke. Lauren’s breathing was harsh as they walked. Her shoulder touched Burke’s. Another cab went past them. They didn’t look back. At Fourteenth Street they turned west. Looking back down Seventh Avenue as they crossed the street they could see the Cadillac still sitting there, silent and black in the rain, like some sort of predatory beetle. Louis and the other men were no longer visible. They turned uptown at Eighth Avenue. Both of them looked back. No one was behind them.