Shoedog (17 page)

“Hello, Delia,” he said.

She pointed her chin in his direction. “Constantine.”

Constantine stepped into the room, closed the door behind him. He tossed his room key onto the formica top of the varnished dresser.

“How’d you get in?” he said.

“I made friends with the concierge.”

“The concierge?” Constantine said, and laughed.

“Yes,” Delia said. “You know, the guy behind the desk.”

“He likes to read, that guy.”

“Uh-huh. He was reading something called
Skank
when I walked into the lobby.”

Delia smiled. Constantine knew it was a smile because the corners of her mouth turned up when she did it. On her even a smile looked a little bit sad.

“So you made friends with the genius down in the lobby.”

“With money,” she said, “it’s easy to make friends.”

“I guess so.”

Delia uncrossed her legs, stood up, smoothed out her skirt against her legs as she walked toward Constantine. Constantine traced the muscles on Delia’s back through the silk of her shirt as they embraced. He kissed her on the lips.

After a while, she pulled away, shook her blond hair away from her face with a toss of her head. Constantine touched his finger to the vein in Delia’s neck, felt the drum of her pulse.

“Not in this place,” she said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” said Constantine.

He went to the bathroom, urinated, brushed his teeth, and washed his face. He combed his hair, pushed it behind his ears, and walked back out into the room. Delia stood by the window, looking down onto the street. In the light that came in through the window, Constantine could see the crystalline blue of her eyes from across the room.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “You hungry?”

“Yes,” she said, “I’m hungry.”

“Come on,” Constantine said. “Let’s grab somethin’ to eat.”

C
ONSTANTINE
and Delia ate lunch in a small Italian restaurant on Sligo Avenue, a few blocks north of the District line in downtown Silver Spring. The place had been thoughtlessly decorated, one square dining room with clown-face prints hung carelessly on salmon-colored walls. But the food was both reasonable and good, and the tables had turned over twice during their visit. Their waiter, a deeply lined guy with the manners of a two-day drunk, had been properly surly throughout the meal. Constantine gave the place high marks.

Constantine finished the rest of his anchovies and peppers, took the heel of the loaf from the bread basket, sopped the heel in the olive oil that remained pooled in the dish. He ate that and poured house red from the carafe into his glass. He topped off Delia’s glass and set the carafe back on the table. Delia swallowed the last of her white pizza, wiped her mouth on the checkered cloth napkin that had been folded in her lap. Constantine watched the cloth move across her lips as he sipped the red.

During lunch he had told her much of what he had done in the last seventeen years. His story sounded romantic, even to him, as if the telling of it had altered the reality. Delia was a good listener, and she was beautiful, and it was easy to have lunch with her, sit across from her and talk.

“In all of that,” Delia said, when Constantine was finished, “you never mentioned your family.”

Constantine took the Marlboros from his pocket, shook the pack in Delia’s direction. She refused, and he lighted one for himself.

“My folks are dead,” Constantine said, the words coming easily. “You?”

Delia looked into her plate, back at Constantine. “My mother died a few years back. I don’t know if my father’s alive. I don’t know anything about him. He left when I was an infant.”

Constantine thought of Grimes, the substitute for the father she had not known. With the money added to the quotient, that explained the relationship. He kept his mouth shut, smiled thoughtfully at Delia.

“Ready to go?” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Delia signaled the waiter. He came, took her credit card, muttered something under his breath about credit cards, and walked away. Constantine dragged on his cigarette, watched the little waiter run the card through the machine, standing there in his tight pants and crooked bow tie, still mumbling hatefully under his breath. The guy looked like the dark side of Vegas, one scotch away from a ruptured aorta.

“Where we headed?” Constantine said.

“My mother’s place,” Delia said. “I still keep it, you know … in case I want to get away.”

Constantine nodded as he stubbed out his smoke, killed the rest of his wine. The waiter returned, dropped the voucher on the table. Delia signed it, added ten percent for the tip, and the two of them got up to leave.

Constantine pinned a five under his wineglass before heading for the door.

T
HEY
picked up a bottle of dago red from an Indian market on Fenton Street, then drove a mile to a group of garden condos at 16th Street and East-West Highway. The buildings had been whitewashed, their shutters painted a forest green.

Delia parked the Mercedes next to a brown dumpster in the lot. On the way to the apartment Constantine watched two Vietnamese boys chase each other across the lawn. The chaser, a skinny boy no older than eight, screamed, “I get you, muthafucka!” to his friend. They disappeared over a rise behind the building, their laughter fading in the air.

Constantine and Delia entered a bleak stairwell, took the stairs down to a door marked 11. Delia used her key, pushed on the door, and Constantine followed her inside. She switched on a light.

The apartment was sparsely furnished, Early American on faded hardwood floors, ropy throw rags. Currier and Ives prints centered on white walls. They walked through the living room, passed a dinette set on the way to the kitchen. Delia switched the kitchen light on by pulling on a string that hung from the ceiling fixture. Constantine could see the silhouette of bugs lying in the globe of the fixture.

“I’ll be in there,” Delia said, pointing across the narrow hall to the only remaining room. “Why don’t you open the wine?”

Constantine found glasses and a corkscrew. He corked the wine and walked into the darkness of the room across the hall.

The Venetian blinds had been lowered and drawn in the room. Delia stood in her bra and panties by a tall dresser, removing her earrings as she stared into the mirror. Constantine stopped behind her, traced a group of freckles sprayed across her shoulders. He poured two glasses of wine, placed the bottle on the dresser, and handed one of the glasses to Delia.

“This your mother’s room?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You don’t mind?”

“No, it’s all right.” Delia put the wine glass to her lips, wrinkled her nose, smiled. “It smells like ginger,” she said.

“That Indian place,” Constantine said.

Through the window, in the stillness of the room, they could hear the laughter and taunts of children, playing on the grass behind the building. They spoke in English, their accents Asian and Hispanic. “Your mother!” said one, and then “Your father!” from another, and after that more laughter.

“It would be good to be a child,” Delia said. They were naked on the bed now, lying side by side, the cotton bedspread and sheets drawn back.

“I don’t know,” Constantine said. “Nature corrects itself, I think. There’s something good about every time.” He kissed her on the lips, then touched his tongue to the cup of her armpit. He tasted her perspiration and perfume.

“Children don’t have this,” he said.

Delia’s blond hair fell around the pillow, her arms back and underneath it. She stared at the brushstrokes patterned in the ceiling, swallowed, half-closed her eyes. Constantine kissed her belly, the inside of her thighs. He blew softly on the light brown hair of her pudendum, and took in her scent. He spread her lips with his thumb and forefinger, ran his tongue along the silk of her pink flesh, blew his breath inside of her.

“Constantine,” Delia said.

She came quietly. Afterward they sat facing each other on the bed. Delia put her legs over his thighs, held him in her warm hand. She lowered herself onto him, moved him inside her, kept him there. He kissed the long curve of her slender neck, smelted her hair, held her. He rested his head against her breast.

C
ONSTANTINE
poured wine into his glass. He walked to the window, stood naked beside it, peering through the spaces in the drawn blind. Dusk threw vague slashes of light across his hips and chest.

Delia rose from the bed, moved across the room, stood behind Constantine. She put her arms around his shoulders. He felt the wetness of her groin against his skin.

“What about tomorrow?” Delia said. “Are you going to be here after tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” said Constantine.

“I’d like to go away,” she said.

“Where would you go?”

Delia shifted her weight, ran her fingers lightly through the hairs at the top of Constantine’s chest. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’d raise horses somewhere, I guess.”

Constantine sipped wine, stared at the lines of gray in the blinds. “You’re doing that now. You’re doing it in style.”

“I want to get away from
him,
Constantine.”

Her hand fell to his hips, then touched between his legs. She wrapped her fingers around him. Her fingers brushed the end of him, where the remains of their lovemaking still came and dripped to the hardwood floor.

“You made a mistake,” Constantine said. “You never should have—”

“It just happened,” she said. “I wasn’t looking for anything. He came into my life, just after my mother died. I don’t even remember how we met.”

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“I know it, Constantine.”

She moved around to face him, then dropped to her knees. He felt the cool sweat on her hair as it touched his thighs. He felt her breath on him, her lips around him, her tongue. Constantine braced his hand against the trim of the window, and closed his eyes.

T
HEY
fell to sleep on the bed, woke to darkness. Delia found a candle, pushed it into the wine bottle, lighted it, and set it on the dresser. They showered together, then dressed together in the bedroom.

Delia stood in front of the mirror and brushed her hair. Constantine stood next to her, took his wristwatch off the dresser. Among the woman’s articles on the dresser, he saw a St. Christopher’s medal, a cloth patch embroidered with the numbers 1221, and a scuffed baseball. He fastened the clasp on his wristwatch.

“Did a man live here, too?” Constantine said.

“No,” said Delia. “I found those, in the bottom of the dresser, after she died. My mother had friends, after my father left. But only friends.”

“A woman can get along all right without a man, I guess.”

“She lived a long life. But she was never happy.” Delia’s eyes were wet in the light of the candle. She blew out the flame, touched Constantine’s hand in the dark. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”

D
ELIA
drove Constantine to the motel on Georgia Avenue, stopped the Mercedes out front. She kept the headlights on and let the engine run. Constantine leaned across the seat, kissed her on the edge of her mouth.

“Thanks.”

Delia wrote the number of her private line on a card, handed it to Constantine. She touched his cheek.

“This isn’t over,” she said.

Constantine did not answer. He got out of the car, shut the door, moved across the sidewalk to the doors of the motel, heard the Mercedes pull away from the curb. He bought a pack of smokes from the machine in the lobby, went to the elevator and pushed on the up arrow.

Constantine waited for the elevator, listened to a Johnny Guitar Watson tune coming from the lounge. He smiled a little, shook his head, turned, and headed for the lounge.

At the entrance, he passed a middle-aged man holding the wall for support. The man nodded at Constantine, tried to focus his eyes.

Constantine smiled. “A real mother for ya,” he said.

The man pushed his hat back on his head and said, “Ain’t that cold?”

Constantine entered the lounge and took a seat at the bar.

Chapter
18

I
SAAC
sat on the edge of the bed, polishing his .45 in the yellow light of the lamp that sat on the nightstand. Next to the lamp, a General Electric clock radio, the dial set on WHUR, played softly in the room: Norman Conners, “You Are My Starship.” Isaac loved that one. He rubbed the oilskin down the barrel of the Colt, and sang along.

He had cleaned and oiled the gun while Nettie, his wife of twenty-three years, cooked dinner one floor down. Isaac could smell the garlic of the pork roast, the biscuits, the onions frying with the potatoes, all of it coming up the stairs, warming the house. It felt right, sitting there, the aroma of the dinner in the room, Nettie working in the kitchen, the sounds of her pans clattering below, the fit of the .45 in his hand.

It had been a while since he killed a man. Twenty-two years, back in Vietnam. The way he felt then, he would have done anything to get back to his young wife and baby girl. He would have killed them all.

Besides, it had been work, and when a man was paid to do something, he did it. He had gotten back to the world, and he had gotten a straight-up job, and the baby girl had grown up fine, a junior now at UDC. He had stayed married to Nettie, too, not always an easy woman to live with, but a fine woman just the same. Good God, the woman could cook.

The job at the liquor store, that had always done him right. His paycheck read two fifty-five, but young Rosenfeld added two hundred in green to the envelope every single time, and it was the saving of that cash over the years that had bought his daughter’s education, some other things as well. Yeah, the Rosenfelds had always done him right.

And there was the other thing. Isaac’s father had been a stone drunk, a street-corner fixture in the Le Droit Park neighborhood where he had grown up. Old man Rosenfeld had taken Isaac’s father in, taken him off the street, and given him a full-time job at the old liquor store on 5th and T. Isaac’s old man straightened up then, and though the damage had been done—a rotten liver and a chest full of cancer—he lived out his last years with some dignity.