The building had a concierge at a little desk, who told Ms. Kaufperson that "that person is waiting outside."
"Jeezus H. Christ," said Ms. Kaufperson. "He hangs in there like a toothache."
Remo and Sashur took an elevator to the downstairs garage.
"We'll have to use my car. I wanted to cab it. No parking places in this city. But I'll drive. I hate to bring a car into a socio-economically deprived neighborhood where the oppressed lumpen-proletariat will express their struggle for freedom against even such symbols as a car."
"What?" Remo asked.
"Niggers steal hubcaps."
"I thought this Dewar kid was white."
"He is. He lives in a highrise, but it's near a slum. Not like this."
"What's this place cost a month to live?" asked Remo.
"It's a ripoff. Fifteen hundred a month."
"You do that on a teacher's salary?"
"Of course not. You don't think a society as corrupt as this would allow a teacher such luxurious surroundings."
"How do you afford it?"
"I told you. I found a way."
"What way?"
"I have my own liberated way that's none of your male business."
"I think it is," Remo said. At first, she thought he was going to make love to her in the elevator but when the pain became great she knew there was something else.
"The money. Where did you get the money?" Remo asked.
"Divorce settlement. Fathead was loaded."
Remo released the grip.
"I bet you're happy now, Pig," said Sashur, rubbing her elbow. "Now you know, so flaunt it. In this oppressed society that's the only way for a woman to make money, bastard. What're you, a sadist or something?"
"A sadist likes pain," Remo said. "Therefore he is sloppy because he has no purpose in his causing of pain." And he explained to her that pain was actually the body working well and should be used as a signal device for the mind. The problem with most people was that they ignored the first gentle signals until it was too late and all they had left was strong useless pain.
"You like pain, you mother, you try this," said Sashur, and with the toe of her Gucci sandal, sent a wide screaming kick toward Remo's groin. It struck nothing, and as the elevator door opened, Remo helped her to her feet.
She swung at his head and missed. She kicked at his stomach and missed.
"All right, you win," she said.
In the silver Mercedes sports coupe, littered with pamphlets about the oppression of the poor, she insisted that Remo fasten his safety belt. He said he was safer floating free. She said no one was going anywhere without the safety belt fastened. Remo consented. He could still survive a crash, even with a locked safety belt.
Snap went the belt. Swish went Sashur's right hand down on Remo's strapped midsection. Owwww went Sashur's mouth when she met a knuckle coming up.
"Animal," she said and gunned the Mercedes up the ramp to the fading sunlight of a Chicago evening, the evening spread in rich red colors, largely the reflection from tiny pollution particles in the air.
At a red traffic light, she moaned.
"Lights bother you?" Remo asked.
"No. He's going to get us now."
Behind him, Remo saw a balding man in a gray suit dash from Sashur's building like he was going over hot coal barefoot. He skittered around an oncoming taxi whose tires squealed, burning asphalt and rubber in an effort not to put him away, midsection.
"It's nothing, George," yelled Sashur as the man's reddened twisted face intruded itself into the driver's window. "It's strictly a platonic relationship. You're so damned jealous it's sickening, George. George, meet Remo. Remo, meet George, who thinks I sleep with every man I meet."
"You can't do this to me," said George.
"You're incredible. The male psyche is not to be believed."
"Why did you try to avoid me?"
"Why? Why? Because of just this kind of scene. Just think of this kind of suspicious jealous scene."
"I'm sorry."
"You're always sorry, and you do it just the same."
"You know how difficult Justice is sometimes."
"Go away," Sashur said. Bang. George's head knocked against the oncoming window. Sashur gunned the Mercedes through the red light.
"Creep. He drives me up a wall. The male mind is so suspicious."
Remo flicked her right hand off his thigh.
"I wasn't going to hit."
"I know that," Remo said. "What'd he mean about justice being difficult?"
"Who knows ? Who cares ?"
In a plush white twenty-two-story building, set like white marble in a field of ghetto mud, the doorman halted Ms. Kaufperson and Remo. They had to be announced.
"Alvin is not here," came the fuzzy voice through the little speaker.
"Tell her it's all right. Ms. Kaufperson is here," she said to the doorman.