Look At Me_ A Novel Part 14

"I'm auditioning," I reminded him.

I led the way to the bar, ordered a second double vodka and sipped it. In my arms I held a light, spinning ball of excitement. Where did this come from? I wondered, then realized that I'd shaken my despair, or rather, in becoming Irene Maitlock, I had cast off Charlotte Swenson, upon whom Despair had thrust its unlovely self that evening. I waved to her, poor thing, buckling under the weight of her onerous, toxic date. And here I was, light, free, a lizard skittering away after relinquis.h.i.+ng its tail to the s.a.d.i.s.t who was clutching it.

Halliday took in the room. The velvet booths were festooned with models draped across cus.h.i.+ons and perched on the edges of tables like long-haired cats. Men bustled and fluttered around them, fetching drinks, whispering into their ears, touching their slender shoulders and ribbony arms in a manner that was both wors.h.i.+pful and proprietary. Though it was winter, the models wore thin dresses and carried no purses, like children. When they leaned over, their string-of-pearl spines showed through their dresses.

"How do they all know to come here?" he asked. "These girls."

"The promoters bring them," I said. "The younger girls probably have no idea where they are. A promoter will take fifteen girls out to dinner, then bring them here."

"What's in it for him?"

"Oh, money," I said. "The club pays him to bring the girls. And he gets a certain lifestyle-playboys let him use their limos, they invite him to the Hamptons in summer-they want access to girls. And restaurants usually comp a table full of models; they're good for business. A promoter can have almost nothing and live like a king."

"So he's basically a pimp," Halliday said.

"No," I said, startled. "The opposite. A promoter's job is to protect the models, make them feel safe. Otherwise he'll lose them, and then he's got nothing."

I felt the detective's disagreement, his disapproval, but I didn't care; I held my spinning ball of happiness and looked at the room, Irene Maitlock, reporting on nightlife Irene Maitlock, reporting on nightlife, the models with their lanky adolescent bodies and lush b.r.e.a.s.t.s and faces like small enameled boxes, creatures who seemed the improbable hybrids of several exotic, even fantastical species. Of course people paid for their company.

"And Z?" the detective said. "Was he a promoter?"

"At a higher level," I said. "He wasn't hauling girls around; he was putting money into parties and clubs, with Mitch and Ha.s.sam."

"Speaking of the devil," Halliday said, for there was Ha.s.sam himself, edging toward us through the gluten of bodies, Ha.s.sam with his round face and wet dark eyes, shaking Halliday's hand. "This is a lovely surprise," he said, somehow maintaining a soft-spoken demeanor even as he shouted to be heard.

"Place looks beautiful," Halliday said. "You just opened?"

"Last week." Ha.s.sam was of indeterminate age, late thirties, probably; he claimed to be English and spoke with an English accent, but I'd heard a rumor that he was really from Afghanistan, that he'd fought the Communists and spent time in a Soviet prison. Since hearing that, I'd been scrutinizing his shadow self for traces of that violence, its pocks and ruts, but Ha.s.sam seemed peaceful to the point of sleep, or anesthesia. Only once, when some guy was hinting loudly over dinner that he'd been part of a terrorist cell in Argentina, did Ha.s.sam turn to me and say, "Listen to the c.r.a.p"-just that, nothing else, but as he said it something happened in his eyes, or behind them, some disturbance b.u.t.ted out against them, and I began to wonder if those peaceful eyes weren't really Ha.s.sam's after all. He was married to a Swedish model and had two small children, Philippa and Nigel, whose pictures he carried in his wallet.

Mitch, alerted by whatever telepathic vectors had interlocked his destiny with Ha.s.sam's (whom he resembled in no discernible way) for years, now veered over to add his greetings. Mitch was the talker of the two, younger, with a brush haircut, a torso hotly contested by muscle and flab, a southern accent and the pushy, gee-whiz air of a collegiate sports star, which he may or may not have been. "Heya, Doctor," he said in his threadbare voice, pumping Halliday's hand. "What brings you to these parts?"

"Snooping around," the detective said. "As ever."

"Well, snoop away," Mitch said. "We had Mike Tyson in here earlier on, and Ethan Hawke-Annabella Sciarra's right over there." He jerked his chin in the direction of a shadowy corner. "Keep an eye out for Eddie Murphy ... he's coming on the late side. Let's see, who else ..." Sweeping the room, his gaze tripped over me.

"This is Irene Maitlock," Halliday said, with high amus.e.m.e.nt. "She's from the New York Post New York Post."

I'd known Mitch and Ha.s.sam for years and years; I'd been one of the girls they freighted from restaurant to club to Hampton compound back in their early days, and I'd slept with both of them, Mitch once, Ha.s.sam twice (long before the rumor about Afghanistan, or surely I would have learned the answer that way, s.e.x being the realm in which the shadow self was most often driven from its lair). Now I shook their hands and looked into their eyes, Ha.s.sam's calm and bottomless, Mitch's blank and reflective as rearview mirrors, and pretended I was meeting them both for the very first time. The sensation was unexpectedly thrilling.

At the mention of the New York Post New York Post, Mitch's face underwent a succession of transformations: from indifference in the presence of a nonimportant nonmodel (namely, me) to greedy excitement in the presence of a member of the press (me) to a studied neutrality intended to mask his opportunism and create the impression that his ensuing solicitations (and I felt them coming like the p.r.i.c.kling onset of a sneeze) were neither more nor less than he would have offered the nonimportant person he'd believed I was in the first place. "Can I buy you a drink? Can I show you around?" he asked me. "Is there anyone you'd like to meet? If we'd known you were coming, we could've like done something."

"I'm just fine," I said, trying not to laugh.

He secreted a business card into my palm with the furtive expertise of a seasoned briber of maitre d's. "That's our office," he said. "When you want to come back, give me a call and we'll set you up, get you a table. Anything you want."

I was fascinated by the way he spoke to me: genderless, respectful, as if I were a man. So this was power, I thought. This was what it felt like.

"Any news of our former partner?" Ha.s.sam was asking Halliday.

"Some rumblings," Halliday said. "Nothing clear."

"I still kind of expect it to be a joke," Mitch said. "Like Z's gonna walk in here one night and be like, Hey, what about my blue? 'Cause he wanted to paint the whole place this intense, almost like purplish kind of blue ..."

"Cerulean blue," Ha.s.sam said.

"Yeah, right, and he wanted to call it 'Eye,' you know, like eye of the storm kind of thing-which is not a bad idea, we still might do it someplace if he comes back-"

"He's gone," Ha.s.sam said, so quietly it was remarkable that we heard him at all, and we paused, waiting for him to elaborate, but by then the tide of pet.i.tioners and a.s.skissers and models in search of free drinks tickets that had been pooling around us since first we'd formed our conversational knot, lapping at our edges with mounting pressure, finally breached the dam of our union, dousing Mitch and Ha.s.sam in air kisses and cabalistic handshakes and hyperbolic compliments on the new club and requests-requests above all, I've got a friend who's stuck at the door. I'm looking for a little I've got a friend who's stuck at the door. I'm looking for a little (sniff sniff)-and although many of these pet.i.tioners were people I knew, though I might well have been among them before the accident, now I was invisible. They seemed almost to pa.s.s through myself and Halliday on their way to the promoters, and so I was able to train my new and unabashed curiosity directly upon them, the curiosity of a (sniff sniff)-and although many of these pet.i.tioners were people I knew, though I might well have been among them before the accident, now I was invisible. They seemed almost to pa.s.s through myself and Halliday on their way to the promoters, and so I was able to train my new and unabashed curiosity directly upon them, the curiosity of a New York Post New York Post reporter. Only when Daphne came along, her face etched with three wet scabs on each cheek from the afternoon's bloodletting, did I turn away. "Look who worked for Spiro!" I heard Mitch bellow at her. He tried to touch one of her wounds, but she slapped his hand away. reporter. Only when Daphne came along, her face etched with three wet scabs on each cheek from the afternoon's bloodletting, did I turn away. "Look who worked for Spiro!" I heard Mitch bellow at her. He tried to touch one of her wounds, but she slapped his hand away.

"Let's walk around," I said, coaxing Halliday back to the bar, where I ignored his disapproving glance and ordered yet another double vodka.

We circled the room, Halliday staring at the booths. "In all those months, you never talked to him?" he asked, and it took me a moment to realize he meant Z. Though by now I should have known; he always meant Z.

"He was quiet," I said. "A lot of the time he seemed like he wasn't even listening, but I think he was. I think he heard everything."

"Why do you say that?"

"He was alert," I said. "He drank juice and tea-nothing else. If someone said his name he'd turn in a second."

"You watched him pretty carefully."

"I watch everyone," I said. "It's how I learn."

"I guess it's all you've got left," he said wryly, "if you don't believe what anyone says."

"Anthony," I said, and waited for him to look at me. "He was just some guy. He disappeared. What difference does it make?"

"People don't disappear," he said. "They go somewhere else." I sensed him debating whether to continue. Finally he said, in a kind of rush, "He wasn't Greek. He wasn't married. His name obviously wasn't Z. He wasn't in the import-export business, or even the drug business. He arrives out of nowhere, spends four months hanging around places like this, then disappears without a trace. What was he up to?"

"You could be talking about twenty different people," I said, but even as I spoke, I knew it was pointless; for some reason, Z had a.s.sumed a place in the detective's imagination. Maybe for no reason.

"In my opinion," Halliday said carefully, "you know a lot more about this guy than you're willing to say."

"You thought that before you met me," I said, and he didn't deny it. "Why?"

"Instinct."

I turned on Anthony Halliday what I hoped was a winsome, careless smile; I crouched behind it as if it were a sparkling bit of scenery. "I have pretty good instincts, too," I said.

"So why not share them with me, for a change?"

"You're angry about losing your daughters," I said, and knew the instant I heard it, even before surprise had rinsed Halliday's face of everything else, that I'd hit. "The redheads," I added, for good measure.

"How do you know I have daughters?"

I just smiled, watching him figure it out. He was a detective, after all. "The picture," he said, and grinned.

"They could have been your nieces."

He made a face. "Who keeps pictures of their nieces?"

"People without children."

After a pause, he said, "You're right. I miss my girls."

I hadn't said he missed them-I'd said that he was angry about losing them. But I let it go. "I need a drink," I said.

"That's the last thing you need."

I proceeded to the bar, ordered a double vodka and downed it. And in a single moment-the one during which I downed the drink-I traversed, with telescopic swiftness, the many gradations from mild tipsiness to staggering inebriation that I had savored at other points in my life, from fuzzy to toasted to totally gone-I swept through them all in one sip, one gulp (a gulp that encompa.s.sed a double vodka, it was true) and my arrival at the far end of that spectrum made me stagger. The room tipped on its side while my body strained to adjust to its new chemistry. Delicately, I rejoined Halliday at the balcony, where he was looking down at the boiling cauldron of non-VIPs. "Would you like to dance?" I asked, just managing to keep the words from smearing into one.

He took a moment to answer, watching me, a.s.sessing my drunkenness with the infallible radar of the newly reformed, or perhaps just weighing the question itself. Dancing in clubs was not for everyone.

"All right," he said.

By tacit consent, we bypa.s.sed the small VIP dance floor with its high-schoolish crowd of young models all dancing together, descended the curved staircase past the grim-faced VIP bouncer, then b.r.e.a.s.t.stroked our way onto the dance floor. To my surprise, Anthony Halliday could dance. He knew how to move, and, most important, he knew not to do too much. At first, I attributed this apparent skill to his detectivehood and the chameleon-like abilities it required, but it was more than that: he was a man who had danced a lot at some point in his life. I yelled this observation to him over the music, and he conceded its truth. "Not in a long time, though," he said.

"When?"

"As a teenager. Latin clubs."

The exchange of speech drew us closer, and Anthony rested his hands on my waist. I would submit that regardless of how many people one has touched in one's life, the very first time, whatever the occasion, is invariably interesting-to become creatures, rather than just voices and thoughts. In that moment, I released Irene Maitlock to the arms of her adoring husband and resumed my existence as Charlotte Swenson. Despair was left alone, without a partner.

"Why Latin clubs?"

"There were amazing dancers there," he said. "It was a whole world. I didn't care about the things I was supposed to be doing, and I got caught up in that."

We were touching from our chests to our knees. It having been several hundred years since I'd touched another person, I had to quell the riot of gasping relief this contact wrought inside me. "You probably have some policy about not getting involved with clients," I said, my mouth close to his ear.

"Actually, I do."

"I'm not a client," I reminded him.

I felt his chest move as he laughed. "Yeah, I know."

"Come on," I whispered, brus.h.i.+ng his ear with my lips, "let's ruin each other's lives."

"I already did that," he said. "I'm trying to fix it."

"I can help!"

He laughed again. "Forgive me for doubting that."

"A teeny little relapse can be very cathartic."

"There's no such thing," he said. "I've tried it." We danced in silence, or rather, we danced in the roaring cacophony. I felt Anthony's chest rise and fall as he breathed. "Anyway," he said, "you won't miss very much."

"You're lousy in bed?" I felt him laughing. "Impotent?"

"Not until after the first bottle," he said. "Knock wood."

I drew back and eyed him skeptically-a shameless goad which (to his credit) he ignored. "I'll just have to live with your doubt," he said.

"The right partner is everything," I said. "Your wife obviously wasn't."

"She wasn't my partner. Johnnie Walker was my partner."

"Her loss."

"She might say so," he said. "Actually, I think it was my loss."

I lifted my face from his shoulder and kissed him, first lightly, a feathery lip-brus.h.i.+ng baby kiss, then a kiss of deeper inquiry. Halliday didn't respond at first, beyond letting me do it. Then, as if a drawer inside him had fallen open, dislodging its contents, he suddenly kissed me back, pus.h.i.+ng his tongue deep inside my mouth, running his hands down my back until he was holding my a.s.s. A caul of desire dropped over my head, covering my eyes. I reached down and seized him through his jeans, but he took my hand, lacing our fingers together. "Not here," he said.

A line of taxis waited outside, and we tumbled into one. I gave the driver my address and the cab bolted east on Twenty-third Street. Anthony and I exchanged a long, tangled kiss, a kiss that involved pa.s.sing through a series of doors to a series of rooms, so that withdrawing was difficult, tortuous. When I reached for his zipper, I saw him glance at the driver's mirror, where an alert pair of eyes flicked away. Anthony slid to one side of the cab, outside the driver's range of vision, braced his back against one of the doors and pulled me into his lap, kissing my neck, reaching inside my dress and holding my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I stroked my a.s.s against him. "Well, we've solved the impotence question," I said, and his laugh filled my ear with warm breath. He pinched both my nipples until the block of wax in my stomach, a block that had been solid ever since the accident-melted suddenly away. I felt for my purse, took out my flask and poured some tequila down my throat. Anthony stiffened behind me.

"Don't," he said. "No more."

"Okay," I said, and took one last, br.i.m.m.i.n.g, burning sip. Then I turned around, the tequila still in my mouth, rose onto my knees and kissed Anthony from above, letting the booze flow directly into his mouth. I saw the shock in his eyes. For a second or two, our lips were still touching, and then he choked and jerked away, gasping, and spat the tequila onto the floor. He stayed like that, face turned away, then slowly wiped his mouth with a hand. When he looked at me again, he was a stranger-pale, enraged. "What the f.u.c.k was that for?"

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to move near him. "I was just ..."

I was just what?

He pushed me away, but I forced myself back toward him. I wanted us to kiss-just once more, so he would forget, so we could go on. "Stop!" he said. "Get away from me!" But I wouldn't stop or get away, and finally he hunched over, s.h.i.+elding himself from me so the only thing left to do was to climb on top of him, fighting to keep my balance in the bouncing cab which at this point was careering north on the FDR, my knees on Halliday's back like a child playing horsey. "Get off me!" he said in a m.u.f.fled voice, but I ignored him, I draped my head alongside his and searched for his lips, which were sadly inaccessible-in fact the only means of ingress I could find was an ear, a white, lovely, vulnerable ear hidden like a seash.e.l.l under his dark hair. I crammed my tongue inside it.

Halliday jolted as if I'd stuck him with an electric prod, then he reared up beneath me and flung me across the cab. The back of my head slammed against the window, and I saw stars, except they didn't look like stars, they looked like radioactive sperm.

"I've lost everything," he said, his voice hushed. "Everything I had in the world. But what the f.u.c.k do you care?"

My head throbbed and my eyes were full of water. I was afraid he would think it was tears.

"Stop the cab," he told the driver.

"Can't stop here," the cabbie said.

"Stop the f.u.c.king cab."

We pulled off the FDR and Halliday got out without a word. I didn't say anything, either. My ears were ringing so loudly, I couldn't hear the door slam, although the cab shook from the impact.

As the driver continued to my building, I relaxed into a dreamy numbness, a confusion about what had happened, exactly. But once I was back inside, taking my familiar steps past the sleepy-looking doorman, under the vast chandelier that looked like it had been filched from the nearest Hyatt, toward the bank of elevators, I felt my new paramour welcoming me home with a cold, seeping weight. I opened my flask and finished off the tequila in the elevator.

My apartment was just as I had left it, except that now the empty bottles and chaos of discarded outfits looked like the hopeful prelude to a ruined evening. I'd forgotten I had no booze. I stood in my living room, mulling this over for two or three seconds, then turned on my heel and headed back down to the lobby. It was 3:45 A.M. A.M., so my bar options were going to be limited. I turned down my doorman's offer of a taxi and tramped back into the freezing night. Three-fifty; I had ten minutes to find a bar. I proceeded calmly to First Avenue, heading for McFadden's, a tiny Irish pub I'd gone to once or twice before the accident, where the atmosphere of seedy die-hard drinking was offset by young couples swirling Irish coffees and eating lousy pie a la mode, but when I reached the place where McFadden's should have been, I found the s.p.a.ce vacant, garbage piled behind its dusty windows and a "for rent" sign hanging askew. Three-fifty-seven.

Fine, I thought, no drink. I thought "fine" but I didn't feel fine-I felt extremely unpleasant, and the unpleasantness wasn't something I could put a name to; words like "bad," "sad," "sick," seemed mincing beside it. I surveyed my vital signs. Pulse: very fast, possibly around 120. Temperature: low. Hands shaking, heart racing a little ... diagnosis? I was flipping out. Okay, I told myself, so it was a bad night, you made one bad call and it cost you a roll in the hay with a former drunk who has a violent streak-this is a tragedy? Go home, take a sleeping pill ... tomorrow's another day, blah blah blah, but this rational part of me was oddly disenfranchised this evening, because the more I chastised myself, the more agitated I became, to the point where I actually screamed-doubled over and bellowed aloud in the empty street-a shriek of pain and helplessness that sounded like an animal's cry, even to me.

I began walking toward the East River. I had found that states of mental discomfort could be managed only through physical activity. Don't think! Don't think! I can take this, I told myself. I'm strong, look what I've been through and survived. I wanted to get to the river, but it was hard to reach; a park blocked it off, and its gates were locked at sundown. But tonight, mercifully, mysteriously, the gate had been left open. I entered the park and crossed the FDR on an overpa.s.s. A frigid wind was holding court along the river, full of ice crystals and the smell of gasoline. I pa.s.sed what I thought were bags of garbage, but they turned out to be people, human beings lying on the pavement and huddled under boxes-how could they survive this cold? Were they already dead? I walked faster, half hoping someone would leap out of nowhere and murder me, toss me into the freezing river-innocent me, cut down in my prime! Ah, tragedy. I can take this, I told myself. I'm strong, look what I've been through and survived. I wanted to get to the river, but it was hard to reach; a park blocked it off, and its gates were locked at sundown. But tonight, mercifully, mysteriously, the gate had been left open. I entered the park and crossed the FDR on an overpa.s.s. A frigid wind was holding court along the river, full of ice crystals and the smell of gasoline. I pa.s.sed what I thought were bags of garbage, but they turned out to be people, human beings lying on the pavement and huddled under boxes-how could they survive this cold? Were they already dead? I walked faster, half hoping someone would leap out of nowhere and murder me, toss me into the freezing river-innocent me, cut down in my prime! Ah, tragedy.

The narrowing spit of concrete I was rus.h.i.+ng along had winnowed away, and I'd reached the mouth of a tunnel. The wind crowded my ears, forcing a needle of pain deep inside each. I looked up at my apartment building looming overhead, its staggered balconies making the silhouette of a ziggurat against the pink, chemical sky. I turned and quickly began walking back.