Shella (10 page)

Later, I was on my back, Misty on top of me, breasts just brushing my face. Inside her, feeling her hard muscles inside the soft flesh. She was wet, dripping on me, pumping.

When she was done, she fell asleep like that.

Later again, she woke up. Rolled off me, lit a cigarette. Put her head against her shoulder, blew smoke at the ceiling.

“How did I look in that dress, honey?”

“Beautiful.”

“You
said
that. That’s not what I mean. Did you think I looked like a … what? A college girl?”

“No.”

“A whore, then?”

“No. Not that.”

“But … what, baby?”

I took a hit off her cigarette, thinking for the truth. “What do you call those things you dance in?”

“Costumes?”

“No. The G-string, like. The little strap that goes between your cheeks.”

“That
is
a G-string.”

“No. What do you call the thicker ones, like with a panel in front?”

“Oh!” She jumped off the bed, looked through the drawers in the fake-wood bureau against the wall. “This?” she asked, holding up a piece of black silk.

“I don’t know.…”

She climbed into it, showed me. From the front, it looked like a pair of panties, but there was nothing covering the side of her legs, nothing behind but the strip that divided her butt.

“Turn around,” I told her. “Bend over.”

When she did, it was like she was naked, but her sex was covered by the black cloth.

“What do you call that?”

“A thong, honey.”

“Can you get one the same color as the dress?”

“Sure! That’s a
good
idea. I shoulda thought of it. You’re so sweet. It’s … prettier that way, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to dance, baby? At the club?” It was the next morning, way before she had to go to work.

“I don’t know how,” I told her. I hadn’t thought about it.

“Didn’t you ever learn?”

“No.”

“Want me to teach you?”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” I told her. Thinking of Shella. How she tried to show me. “Just hold me, one hand on my shoulder … like that … yes … one hand on my waist, okay? Now just move with the music—I’ll follow you.” It didn’t work. I tried and tried—I never get tired—but it didn’t work. I kept bumping her, pushing her around, stepping on her feet. Shella finally quit. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I’ve watched you snatch flies out of the air without even hurting them. You move so beautiful when you’re … working. But… it’s like there’s no music in you.” I shook my head. Misty came over to me, smiling.

“Come on, let’s just try, okay?”

I went along with it. Some song playing on the radio. It was no good. Finally, Misty just put her head against my chest, stood there close to me, swaying a little until the song was over.

Friday afternoon, we took off. Misty had made a reservation at one of the motels near the airport. LaGuardia Airport, only a few miles from where we had to go later. The cab dropped us right in front, like we came in on a plane.

The room was the same as all of them. Misty took a shower for a long time. I watched TV. Then she made a call, to have the limo come for us at ten o’clock that night. She laid out everything on the bureau: makeup, nail polish, hair brushes. She said she was going to take a nap, to wake her at seven so she could get ready.

I thought it through while she was asleep. It didn’t have to be tonight. Maybe he wouldn’t even be there.

We stood out in front of the motel, waiting so the limo driver wouldn’t have to call up to the room. The parking lot was full of people making deals, standing around in little groups, talking through the windows of cars. They weren’t slick about it. I saw a car pull up, three guys walk over to it. Two other guys got out of the back, opened the trunk. One guy looked through the trunk, took out a flat suitcase, opened it up, looked inside. They traded the suitcase for an airline bag, and the car drove off.

Men walked by, looked at Misty. She held on to my arm, just a light touch. Two men came up the steps, all dressed up in peacock clothes. One of them smiled at Misty, said something in Spanish. The other looked at me real hard. I dropped my eyes. I could smell their perfume as they went past us, laughing.

The limo was on time. The driver had a business suit on, wearing a cap with a little peak. He opened the back door, held it for Misty. We climbed inside.

Once we got rolling, Misty told him we changed our minds, gave him the address of the club, not someplace in Manhattan, where she’d told them at first. He looked over his shoulder, said he was sorry, but it would have to be the same price. Misty told him it was okay.

The cops ask him any questions, all he’d ever remember was Misty busting out of that dress. Me, I look like anybody.

The limo pulled right in front of the club. The driver came around the curb side. I got out first, held out my hand to Misty. Just the way he did, when I was watching him from up on the train platform.

I gave the driver a twenty. Misty told him we’d call his dispatcher when we were ready to come home.

The two bodyguards out front never looked at us.

Inside the door, a man was sitting at a white table, a gray metal box in front of him. I gave him a hundred, he handed me back a fifty. A short, muscular guy was standing next to the table. He tilted his head, and we followed the directions. There was another room straight ahead. I stood still while a skinny guy ran his hands over me. He wasn’t playing around, checked my ankles, inside of my thighs, small of my back. He had a knife in a shoulder holster—I never saw one like that before.

A woman was there too—looked like a jailhouse matron, short hair, heavy forearms. She ran her hands over Misty, looked in her purse.

We kept walking, following some people in front of us. Staircase leading down. I went first, feeling Misty’s hand on my shoulder.

We found a table against one wall. The place was dark, soft blue lights running in thin tubes all around the ceiling. A waitress came over, wearing a short black dress with a white apron in front. Misty ordered a frozen Daiquiri, I ordered rum and Coke, two glasses.

The room was laid out in a crooked circle, tables all around the sides. In the center, there was a dance floor. The music was slow, stringy stuff… guitars and piano. I couldn’t see a band, the music came from everywhere. Finally, I spotted a few of the speakers—there must’ve been dozens of them.

A couple of tables away, a tall woman with a wild mane of black hair took out a mirror, tapped some coke onto it from a silver tube, chopped it into lines, snorted a line into
each nostril through a rolled-up bill. Then she passed the mirror to the man with her.

When people went on the dance floor, baby spotlights shot down from the ceiling. Off and on, little pools of white light, big puddles of black. Like prison searchlights, just roaming around, nobody at the controls.

I drank some of the Coke, poured the shot glass of rum into what was left. When the waitress came, we ordered the same again.

After a while, we got up to dance. Just stood on the edge of the dance floor, not moving. Misty rubbed against me. I put my head down so I could hear what she was saying, but she was just singing some song to herself.

He came in just before midnight. With the same woman. They took him to a table that stood off by itself. Nothing else was close to it.

I couldn’t be sure it was him, this Carlos that Monroe told me about, until he got up to dance. A tall, narrow man, black hair pulled straight back from his forehead, tied in the back with a ponytail. He was wearing a long white coat, like cowboys wear, only silk. When he stood up, it was almost down to his ankles. The woman with him was wearing pants made out of that stretch stuff, like they wear for exercising, so tight her rear was two separate halves. The pants were black around the calves but they got lighter and lighter as they went up. The part covering her butt was silver. He held the coat open and she stepped inside, dancing by herself while he stood there. His hands were covered with diamonds—he held them so they framed her
butt, silver wiggling inside the flash. Her hands were around his waist—I couldn’t see them under the long coat.