Answered Prayers (8 page)

The secretary languidly turned upon me a disapproving pair of wintergreen eyes. A blond, and how!—his skin had the golden oleo gleam that comes from long Cherry Grove weekends. Yet, overall, he seemed decidedly moldy—a sort of suntanned Uriah Heep. “Yes?” he inquired in a voice that crawled coolly through the air like an exhalation of mentholated smoke.

I told him I wanted to see Miss Self. He asked my purpose, and I said I had been recommended by Woodrow Hamilton. He said: “You will have to fill out our form. Are you applying as a client? Or as a prospective employee?”

“Employee.”

“Mmmmm,” mused Black Beauty, “that’s too bad. I wouldn’t have minded scrambling your eggs, daddy.” And the secretary, prissily pissed-off, said: “Okay, Lester. Shove your sore ass off sister’s desk and hustle it down to the Americana. You’ve got a five-thirty. Room 507.”

When I had completed the questionnaire, which asked nothing beyond the customary Age? Address? Occupation? Marital Status?, Dracula’s daughter evaporated with it into an inner office—and while he was gone, this girl ambled in, an overweight but damned attractive girl, a young
boule de suif
with a pink creamy round face and a fat pair of boobs squirming inside the bodice of a summery pink dress.

She cuddled down next to me and tucked a cigarette between her lips. “How about it?” I explained if it was a match she wanted, I couldn’t help her as I’d stopped smoking, and she said: “So have I. This is just a prop. I meant how about it, where’s Butch? Butch!” she cried, rising to engulf the returning secretary.

“Maggie! ”

“Butch!”

“Maggie!” Then, coming to his senses: “You bitch. Five days! Where have you been?”

“Didja miss Maggie?”

“Fuck
me
. What do
I
count? But that old guy from Seattle. Oy vey, the hell he raised when you stood him up Thursday night.”

“I’m sorry, Butch. Gee.”

“But where
have
you been, Maggie? I went to your hotel twice. I called a hundred times. You might have checked in.”

“I know. But see … I got married.”

“Married? Maggie!”

“Please, Butch. It’s nothing serious. It won’t
interfere
.”

“I can’t imagine what Miss Self will say.” And at last he remembered me. “Oh, yes,” this secretary said, as if flicking lint off a sleeve, “Miss Self will see you now, Mr. Jones. Miss Self,” he announced, opening a door for me, “this is Mr. Jones.”

She looked like Marianne Moore; a stouter, Teutonized Miss Moore. Grey hausfrau braids pinioned her narrow skull; she wore no makeup, and her suit, one might say uniform, was of prison-matron blue serge—a lady altogether as lacking in luxury as were her premises.
Except …
on her wrist I noticed a gold oval-shaped watch with Roman numerals. Kate McCloud had one just like it; it had been given her by John F. Kennedy, and it came from Cartier in London, where it had cost twelve hundred dollars.

“Sit down, please.” Her voice was rather teacup-timid, but her cobalt eyes had the 20/20 steeliness of a gangland hit man. She glanced at the watch that was so out of keeping with her inelegant texture. “Will you join me? It’s well after five.” And she extracted from a desk drawer two shot glasses and a bottle of tequila, something I’d never tasted and didn’t expect to like. “You’ll like it,” she said. “It’s got balls. My third husband was
Mexican. Now tell me,” she said, tapping my application form, “have you ever done this work before? Professionally?”

Interesting question; I thought about it. “I wouldn’t say
professionally
. But I’ve done it for … profit.”

“That’s professional enough. Kicks!” she said and hooked down a neat jigger of tequila. She grimaced. Shuddered. “
Buenos Dios
, that’s hairy.
Hairy
. Go on,” she said. “Knock it back. You’ll like it.”

It tasted to me like perfumed benzine.

“Now,” she said, “I’m going to roll you some clean dice, Jones. Middle-aged men account for ninety percent of our clientele, and half our trade is offbeat stuff one way and another. So if you want to register here strictly as a straight stud, forget it. Are you with me?”

“All the way.”

She winked and poured herself another shot. “Tell me, Jones. Is there anything you won’t do?”

“I won’t catch. I’ll pitch. But I won’t catch.”

“Ah, so?” She
was
German; it was only the souvenir of an accent, like a scent of cologne lingering on an antique handkerchief. “Is this a moral prejudice?”

“Not really. Hemorrhoids.”

“How about S. and M.? F.F.?”

“The whole bit?”

“Yes, dear. Whips. Chains. Cigarettes. F.F. That sort of thing.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Ah, so? And is
this
a moral prejudice?”

“I don’t believe in cruelty. Even when it gives someone else pleasure.”

“Then you have never been cruel?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Stand up,” she said. “Take off your jacket. Turn around.
Again. More slowly. Too bad you aren’t a bit taller. But you’ve got a good figure. A nice flat stomach. How well hung are you?”

“I’ve never had any complaints.”

“Perhaps our audience is more demanding. You see, that’s the one question they always ask: how big is his joint?”

“Want to see it?” I said, toying with my super-special Robert Hall fly.

“There is no reason to be crude, Mr. Jones. You will learn that although I am someone who speaks directly, I am not a
crude
person. Now sit down,” she said, refilling both our tequila glasses. “So far I have been the inquisitor. What would you like to know?”

What I wanted to know was her life story; few people have made me so immediately curious. Was she perhaps a Hitler refugee, a veteran of Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, who had emigrated to Mexico before the war? And it crossed my mind that possibly she was not the power behind this operation but, like most American brothel keepers and sex-café padrones, a front for Mafioso entrepreneurs.

“Cat got your tongue? Well, I’m sure you will want to understand our financial agreement. The standard fee for an hour’s booking is fifty dollars, which we will split between us, though you may keep any tips the client gives you. Of course, the fee varies; there will be occasions when you will make a great deal more. And there are bonuses available for every acceptable client or employee you recruit. Now,” she said, aiming her eyes at me like a pair of gun barrels, “there are a number of rules by which you must abide. There will be no drugging or excessive drinking. Under no circumstances will you ever deal directly with a client—all bookings must be made through the service. And at no time may an employee associate socially with a client. Any attempt at negotiating a private deal with a client means instant
dismissal. Any attempt at blackmailing or in any way embarrassing a client will result in very severe retribution—by which I don’t mean mere dismissal from the service.”

So: those dark Sicilian spiders are indeed the weavers of this web.

“Have I made myself understood?”

“Utterly.”

The secretary intruded. “Mr. Wallace calling. Very urgent. I think he’s smashed.”

“We are not interested in your opinions, Butch. Just put the gentleman on the line.” Presently she lifted a receiver, one of several on her desk. “Miss Self here. How are you, sir? I thought you were in Rome. Well, I read it in the
Times
. That you were in Rome and had had an audience with the pope. Oh, I’m sure you’re right:
quel
camp! Yes, I hear you perfectly. I see. I see.” She scribbled on a note pad, and I could read what she wrote because one of my gifts is to read upside down:
Wallace Suite 713 Hotel Plaza
. “I’m sorry, but Gumbo isn’t with us anymore. These black boys, they’re so unreliable. However, we’ll have someone there shortly. Not at all. Thank you.”

Then she looked at me for quite a long time. “Mr. Wallace is a highly valued client.” Once more a prolonged stare. “Wallace isn’t his name, of course. We use pseudonyms for all our clients. Employees as well. Your name is Jones. We’ll call you Smith.”

She tore off the sheet of note pad, rolled it into a pellet, and tossed it at me. “I think you can handle this. It’s not really a … physical situation. It’s more a … nursing problem.”

I RANG MR. WALLACE ON
one of those sleazy gold house-phones in the Plaza lobby. A dog answered—there was the sound of a crashing receiver, followed by a hounds-of-hell
barking. “Heh heh, that’s just mah dawg,” a corn-pone voice explained. “Every time the phone rings, he grabs it. You the fellow from the service? Well, skedaddle on up here.”

When the client opened the door, his dog bolted into the corridor and hurled himself at me like a New York Giants fullback. It was a black and brindle English bulldog—two feet high, maybe three feet wide; he had to weigh a hundred pounds, and the force of his attack hurricaned me against the wall. I hollered pretty good; the owner laughed: “Don’t be scared. Old Bill, he’s just affectionate.” I’ll say. The horny bastard was riding my leg like a doped stallion. “Bill, you cut that out,” Bill’s master commanded in a voice jingling with gin-slurred giggles. “I mean it, Bill. Quit that.” At last he attached a leash to the sex fiend’s collar and hauled him off me, saying: “Poor Bill. I’ve just been in no condition to walk him. Not for two days. That’s one reason I called the service. The first thing I want you to do is to take Bill over to the park.”

Bill behaved until we reached the park.

En route, I considered Mr. Wallace: a chunky, paunchy booze-puffed runt with a play mustache glued above laconic lips. Time had interred his looks, for he used to be reasonably presentable; nevertheless, I had recognized him immediately, even though I’d seen him only once before, and that some ten years earlier. But I remembered that former glimpse of him distinctly, for at that time he was the most acclaimed American playwright, and in my opinion the best; also, the curious
mise-en-scène
contributed to my memory: it was after midnight in Paris in the bar of the Boeuf-sur-le-Toit, where he was sitting at a pink-clothed table with three men, two of them expensive tarts, Corsican pirates in British flannel, and the third none other than Sumner Welles—fans of
Confidential
will remember the patrician Mr. Welles, former Undersecretary of State, great
and good friend of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. It made rather a tableau, one especially
vivant
, when His Excellency, pickled as brandied peaches, began nibbling those Corsican ears.

Autumn strollers eased along the park’s evening paths. A Nipponese couple paused to spend affection on Bill; in a way they went out of their minds, tugging his twisted tail, hugging him—I could understand it because Bill, with his indented face and Quasimodo legs, his intricately contorted physique, was an object as appealing to an Oriental sense of the aesthetic as bonsai trees and dwarf deer and goldfish bred to weigh five pounds. However, I myself am not Oriental, and when Bill, after luring me onto the grass and under a tree, suddenly again sexually attacked me, I was not appreciative.

Being no match for so determined a rapist, it was expedient just to lie back on the grass and let him have his way—even encourage him: “That’s it, baby. Give it to me good. Get your rocks off.” We had an audience—human faces bobbed in the distance beyond my frolicking lover’s bulging passion-doped eyes. Some woman harshly said: “You filthy degenerate! Stop abusing that animal! Why doesn’t anybody call a policeman?” Another woman said: “Albert, I want to go back to Utica. Tonight.” With slobbering gasps, Bill crossed his chest.

My drenched Robert Hall trousers were not Bill’s only offense against me ere the eve was o’er. When I returned him to the Plaza and entered the foyer of the suite, I stepped into a big pile of wet shit, Bill’s shit, and skidded and fell flat on my face—into a
second
pile of shit. All I said to Mr. Wallace was: “Do you mind if I take a shower?” He said: “I always insist on that.”

However, as Miss Self had suggested, Mr. Wallace, like Denny Fouts, was more conversationalist than sensualist.
“You’re a good kid,” he advised me. “Oh, I know you’re no kid. I’m not that drunk. I can see you got mileage on you. But never mind, you’re a good kid; it’s in your eyes. Wounded eyes. Injured and insulted. Read Dostoevski? Well, I guess that’s not your racket. But you’re one of his people. Insulted and injured. Me too; that’s why I feel safe with you.” He rolled his eyes around the lamplit bedroom like an espionage agent; the room looked as if a Kansas twister had just gone through—messy laundry everywhere, dog shit all over the place, and drying puddles of dog piss marking the rugs. Bill was asleep at the foot of the bed, his snores exuding postcoital melancholy. At least he allowed his master and his master’s guest to share the bed a bit, the guest naked but the master fully dressed, down to black shoes and a vest with pencils in the pocket and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. In one hand Mr. Wallace gripped a toothpaste glass brimming with undiluted Scotch and in the other a cigar that kept accumulating trembling lengths of ash. Occasionally he reached to stroke me, and once the hot ash singed my navel; I thought it was on purpose, but decided perhaps not.

“As safe as a hunted man can feel. A man with murderers on his trail. I’m liable to die very suddenly. And if I do, it won’t be a natural death. They’ll try to make it look like heart failure. Or an accident. But promise me you won’t believe that. Promise me you’ll write a letter to the
Times
and tell them it was murder.”

With drunks and madmen, always be logical. “But if you think you’re in danger, why don’t you call the cops?”

He said: “I’m no squealer”; then he added: “I’m a dying man, anyway. Dying of cancer.”

“What kind of cancer is it?”

“Blood. Throat. Lungs. Tongue. Stomach. Brain. Asshole.” Alcoholics really despise the taste of alcohol; he shivered as he bolted half the Scotch in his glass. “It all started seven years ago
when the critics turned on me. Every writer has his tricks, and sooner or later the critics catch them. That’s all right; they love you as long as they’ve got you identified. My mistake was I got sick of my old tricks and learned some new ones. Critics won’t put up with that; they hate versatility—they don’t like to see a writer grow or change in any way. So that’s when the cancer came. When the critics started saying the old tricks were ‘the stuff of pure poetic power’ and the new tricks were ‘shabby pretensions.’ Six failures in a row, four on Broadway and two off. They’re killing me out of envy and ignorance. And without shame or remorse. What do they care that cancer’s eating my brain!” Then, quite complacently, he said: “You don’t believe me, do you?”