Jake's 8 (18 page)

When I got back they were gone. His four beers still stood where he left them and the ice had long ago melted in her glass. I saw cash laid on the table. I threw down my own twenty on the bar and stepped outside, but they were nowhere to be seen. I did a walk around the block and came up with nothing. I headed back to my car and glanced over to where her’s was at. It was gone. With him? I had no idea.

I didn’t hear from Mr. Weston for two days then on Friday morning he texted: ‘She said she’s going to a museum reception downtown tonight. I’m out of town on business. Any news yet?’

I texted back: ‘I told you to give me a week.’

He texted back: ‘K.’

I didn’t feel like sitting in a car in front of her house again to see where she might go. She’d lied the prior two times, but I googled around and did find a reception on Friday at the Contemporary Arts Center. A bit more googling and I came across her name as a Silver Sponsor. I bet she’d be there. I bought myself a fifty dollar ticket to the soiree then closed the browser and spotted a shortcut on my desktop to a woman’s shoe store. Kendra had been using my computer.

I hadn’t heard from Kendra in Boston. It wasn’t said, but something told me to give her her space. Or was it the other way around? Was I to show how nuts I was without her? Was I supposed to text twenty messages a day and call to whisper goodnight. I followed her lead and maintained radio silence.

Friday evening came and I did Beau Brummell proud in my best black suit, gold cuff links and a silk tie in a half Windsor knot. I shod myself in high shine wingtips.

I gave thought to a cab, but it was a nice night and the museum is only twelve blocks away. I hit the sidewalk and realized it was one of those warm summer nights where the whole city becomes a neighborhood block party. Whites and blacks meet each others eyes and maybe even say hello. Everyone laughs a little louder and judges a little less. Parents let their kids run around being silly and the hipsters and childless middle-aged people don’t mind as much. As the night goes on women’s skirts get shorter and men’s stares get longer. Long time couples out for the night with other long time couples switch dance partners and let their hands roam wider than before. Singles stay out later than usual and imbibe more than normal and those that didn’t pair off all crash together into a late night eatery. Either the Pepper Pod in Newport, or Shanghai Mama’s on Sixth, or Lucy Blues on Walnut, or the Camp Washington chili parlor.

I loved these nights.

I rounded onto Sixth and spied the front door of the museum. Mrs. Weston was leaving. She had purpose in her walk with her purse slung across her shoulder. I pocketed my fifty dollar ticket I’d just pulled out and shadowed her. She only went a block over and a block down. A doorman at the Netherland Hotel pulled open a large, gold door and she walked through without so much as a look at him. I paused, counted my Mississippis and entered behind her compensating the door man with a smile and thanks.

At the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the lobby, I looked and saw Mrs. Weston’s mature yet alluring caboose hook a right into Orchids, the hotel’s bar. I took my time on the steps. I looked over at the front desk and her beau looked to be next in line checking in. I walked into Orchid’s and climbed up on a stool. Their oval shaped bar sat in the middle of the room. My stool was opposite where Mrs. Weston took her seat at a small banquette. I could see her through bottles and upside down hanging glassware. The boyfriend entered and stood at the table next to her. He shook the little, plastic key card at her as if to say ‘I got it.’ She smiled at him with what I took to be condescension and gestured for him to sit. He obeyed.

I hadn’t been in this bar in a long time. It’s like most downtown hotel bars. It’s full of out-of-towners. On weekdays, it’s businessman numbing the pain of a lost deal or celebrating the day’s sale. On weekends, it’s full of wedding parties or anniversary parties or high school reunions. Not my kind of place.

The barman came over to me and I asked for a Manhattan. Up. He smiled and asked what kind of bourbon I preferred.

“I don’t. Rye. Bulleit if you got it.”

He smiled a knowing smile and I could have kissed him when I saw him pull the vermouth out of the cooler. Unchilled vermouth is musky vermouth—at least after a few days. It never makes a good Manhattan. He mixed with care and I sipped with appreciation and noted to myself to tip big.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was Mr. Carmichael.

“Mr. Carmichael.”

“Hello Mr. Gibb, I’ll still be gone next week.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for taking care of Mrs. Swanson. That issue with Mr. Weston and his wife? That’s not our kind of work.”

“I’ve been working it.”

“Good instinct for client service, but I’m not comfortable with it.”

“I’m working it now. It’s kinda all wrapped up. If I don’t tell him what I know, how will that look?”

“Ah.”

“What should I do?”

“Exercise your best judgment. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

As I hung up, I thought I caught Mrs. Weston looking me dead in the eye. I didn’t think much of it. Maybe she just liked my look. Her beau stood and held his hand out. She took it and used it to bring herself out from behind the table. She arranged a blue silk scarf around her shoulders and picked up her bag.

She whispered something to him, he smiled and they kissed. I glimpsed her tongue quickly dart into his mouth then withdraw. He smiled more. She patted him on the shoulder and he left. She turned and laid down some cash on the table then began to follow him

I kept my gaze forward not wanting to make eye contact again. I was counting my Mississippis before I turned to confirm they were heading upstairs.

Then I felt someone too close.

“You’ve been drinking alone in three bars this week,” Mrs. Weston said. “Maybe you should give your liver a break.”

I turned. Up close she was radiant. Quite beautiful actually. Maybe the radiance was love, I thought. Maybe it was the drinks. Or maybe she was just horny. There was no escaping that she knew I was following her. I’m a bad gumshoe.

I motioned for her to take the seat next to mine. She did.

“My husband put you up to it.”

I nodded.

“A private detective?”

“An investment advisor. Jake Gibb. I work for Prescott Carmichael.”

“I didn’t know Mr. Carmichael worked sleazy like this.”

“He doesn’t. He was out of town. It was my call. He just phoned me calling it off.”

“So when are you going to report back to my husband. I’d like to know what time my marriage is going to end.”

“I’ve not thought that through. Mr. Carmichael doesn’t like this business. I should just phone your husband and tell him that. If Mr. Carmichael phoned after that night you were supposed to be in a pottery class, I’d be fine, but now I know you are stepping out.”

“You think you know that.”

“You are.”

She smiled at me. It was a smile of wisdom.

“You married?”

I shook my head no and took a sip of my Manhattan.

“Thirty-five?”

“Thirty-six.”

She smiled again.

“Mr. Gibb, I was born a romantic forced to live a pragmatic life.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“No. Very few of us are true romantics. Maybe more of us were at one time, but half a million years of evolution made most of us pragmatists. We’re all about food and sex. Utility and survival. Of ourselves and our species. Romantic cavemen never got the cavegirl because they couldn’t feed or protect her as well as the pragmatic cavemen. My husband is very pragmatic. Pragmatism can be a very sexy thing. It makes a man a good provider and a protector. That he-man stuff can be pretty sexy to a girl of twenty-two. But after thirty years of grunts and knuckle dragging, it gets to be a bore, Mr. Gibb.”

“Your boy upstairs a romantic?”

“He’s head-in-the-clouds romantic.”

“His head is in the clouds, but his hands are on another man’s wife.”

“Yes, but they’re nice hands. I met Brad at my pottery class. He was new and I helped him and he flirted with me. You might not understand, but at my age men in their mid-thirties don’t flirt with women in their mid-fifties. He was paying attention to me. I don’t think you know how painful it is, the atrophy of attention from men that comes with age. It seems one day you walk into a room and turn heads. You’re the hot young thing or the pretty bride or maybe the sexy mom and then one day your husband doesn’t look at you that way anymore and no other man does either. Then one day Brad flirted with me. It felt nice. It made me feel good. He made me feel beyond good. I was finally flushed for the right reasons. The next week he asked me out for a drink. I went. Nothing happened, but when I came home I climbed into bed and made love to my husband like I hadn’t in fifteen years… I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.”

“You’re hoping I won’t tell your husband.”

She smiled at me.

“I love my husband. We’ve had a good life together. Our kids are good kids who visit often and bring our grandkids. And Jack and I love to spoil them all. I don’t want to jeopardize that. I don’t. But when I get in bed with my husband, I’m getting in bed with thirty years of history. I’m getting into bed with thirty years of joys and hardships and miscarriages and childbirths and parent’s deaths and lean times and flush times and sins and forgiving those sins. It’s nice to put all that baggage down and just be looked at like a carefree woman again.”

The bartender interrupted. “Something for the lady,” he asked. I looked at her and she told him no thanks. “And you, sir,“ he asked. I sipped my drink. It was getting warm. I shook my head. I was thinking over what she was saying. She wasn’t trying to play me. She wasn’t trying to get me to keep mum. She was getting this off her chest. I was probably the only person she’d talked to about this. Something in me made me want to challenger her though.

“So you get to drop your baggage at the front desk, have a roll around with your boy Brad and make your husband a cuckold, eh?”

“It’s not like my husband hasn’t strayed. He’s not good at it. Hiding it, that is. It’s only happened a few times, but I can tell because he feels guilty. All of a sudden we’re going on what he thinks is a romantic trip and I get a new car and he doesn’t grouse when I want to redecorate a room. Then after about three months it’s back to grunts and knuckle dragging. Do I mind? I did. I cried the first time. The last time I gave my kitchen a fifty thousand dollar remodel.

“I know my husband’s been wondering about me ever since I started having drinks with Brad and came home that night and curled his toes. He’s been wondering, but he’s also been attentive. Like when he strays. He’s been kissing me hello when he comes home now. He makes me breakfast in bed on Saturdays. He’s been bringing me home little presents. Flowers even. Maybe Brad sparked some caveman mating competition gene in Jack. I like it. That makes me feel sexy and at night I show my husband my appreciation.”

That made me smile. The thought of two almost seniors rocking it like that.

“Mr. Gibb, I’m going to pay for your drink.” When she laid a fifty on the bar, I thought I saw General Grant wink at me.

“Now I’m going to go up to a room on the eighth floor for a few hours and enjoy myself. I’m going to feel sexy, passionate and desired. If things go well, I’ll even come a few times. I’m going to feel the way I use to feel. I’ll sleep a bit, shower then I’ll drive back to Mariemont and make a nice house for my husband to come home to and my children to visit and my grandchildren to sleep over in. My husband just needs to not ask questions and enjoy what could be a nice final third of his life.

“You can tell him what you want, Mr. Gibb, but do me a favor. Let me know. Just drop a note to the concierge, okay. Just so I know what I’m walking into when I get home.”

With that she touched my arm then gave it a squeeze. She looked down, gave my arm another squeeze and smiled. ‘Nice,” she said and left. I saw her pass the corner into the elevator banks. I heard the bell ring and imagine her pressing ‘8’ and rising to an enjoyable night.

The bartender came by and picked up the fifty.

“Add another Manhattan to that, will ya?”

“Sure thing,” the barman said.

“And a notepad. Something to write on.”

I let the second Manhattan push my thoughts around as a jazz pianist started playing something familiar that I couldn’t name. He then launched into a more syncopated number. I saw three couples, all past their Social Security full retirement age, stand up and head for the small dance floor. One man had a handkerchief in his breast pocket that reminded me of Kendra’s eyes. I disrespectfully slammed back the rest of my cocktail and scribbled a note. I folded it three times then wrote “Mrs. Weston” on the outside. On my way out I handed it to the concierge.

“I’m not sure of her room number. Somewhere on the eighth floor.”

“I’ll make sure she gets it, sir.”

I ambled down the flight of stairs to Fifth Street taking my time making sure my drinks didn’t tangle up my feet. I pushed through the doors and pulled out my phone.

“Mr. Weston, Jake Gibb here.”