Eddie awoke in complete darkness. The phone was ringing.
“Tiffany?” he said.
He felt the space beside him and discovered he was alone. The phone kept ringing. The sound came from somewhere on the other side. He crawled across the bed, reached down for the phone, and knocked the receiver out of its cradle.
A telephone voice, small and faint, spoke from down on the bedroom floor. “Hello? Tiff? Is that you? Tiff?”
It was Prof. Eddie could picture him, standing at the pay phone outside the rec room, other cons in line behind him waiting their turn, not patiently. Eddie fumbled for the receiver, got it in his hand.
“Tiffany?” said Prof.
Eddie hung up.
He got out of bed, moved through the darkness toward the kitchen, stepping over something that felt like satin on the way. He bumped into the stove, ran his hand along the control panel to the light switch, flicked it. The fluorescent strip buzzed on, radiating a tremulous blue-white light. It was an old stove; the clock had hands. They said ten to eleven, but Eddie didn’t know if it was day or night.
There was a sandwich on the table and a note beside it. The note read: “Gone to work. Back at noon. Get some rest. You’re going to need it. T. Oh yeah-I’m taking your clothes to the cleaners. Sit tight.” His possessions-the two hundred-dollar bills and the Speedo-lay on the table too.
The sandwich-white bread, peanut butter and jelly-was not unlike a prison sandwich. Eddie opened the fridge. There wasn’t much in it. Ultra Slimfast, a container of yogurt, a pint of milk, two lemons, an unopened bottle of maple syrup. Maple syrup from Vermont. Real. Genuine. Eddie opened it, poured some inside the sandwich. He sat down and ate. Delicious. He filled a tablespoon with maple syrup and had some straight.
The clock on the stove still said ten to eleven.
There was a tiny bathroom off the tiny bedroom, with toilet, sink, and shower stall all jammed together. Eddie had a shower, washing himself with a bar of soap that smelled like a freshly split coconut. After, he opened the bedroom closet. Women’s clothes hung from the bar, women’s shoes were scattered on the floor. At the back lay a cardboard box that had once contained a twenty-four-inch Gold Star TV. On top was an envelope. Eddie opened it, found ten or twelve blue Social Security cards with no names on them. Underneath were Prof’s clothes.
Eddie tried on a blue shirt with yellow parrots, and a T-shirt that read “Rust Never Sleeps-Neil Young 1978,” both too small. There was a pair of black Levi’s he couldn’t get into and baggy corduroys that he could fasten but were four inches too short. He settled for thick gray sweats that looked new-a hooded sweat shirt and drawstring pants with deep pockets at the front and a zippered one in back. Eddie put on Prof’s sweats and a nice pair of wool socks he found at the bottom of Prof’s box, laced on his own sneakers, stuck the Speedo in a front pocket and zipped the two hundred-dollar bills in the back, and sat down at the table to write Tiffany a good-bye note.
What to say? How to begin? Eddie didn’t know. All he knew was that he couldn’t stay. Not when the phone could ring at any time with Prof on the other end. What he’d done was wrong, even though Tiffany had been the one to start. All he had to do to know it was wrong was to put himself in Prof’s position, and he could do that quite easily. Choosing the right words to tell her was the problem.
Eddie sat at the table, a blank sheet of paper in front of him, a pencil in his hand. He doodled. He doodled a flower, a burning cigarette, a bird. A big bird with an enormous wingspan, gliding over a calm sea.
“Dear Tiffany,” he wrote. “I’m-”
There was a knock at the door. Eddie got up, sticking the sheet of paper in his pocket. It was probably noon-it could be anytime at all in Tiffany’s little bunker-and that was probably her. Eddie opened the door.
A woman stood outside, but it wasn’t Tiffany. This woman had thick black hair, red lips, smooth double-cream-coffee skin, and a voluptuous body under her short fur jacket and tight jeans.
“Whoop-dee-do,” she said. “My long-lost high-school graduate.”
He remembered her, remembered that mocking voice, remembered her red convertible in the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot and the red jelly spurting from the cop’s mouth. But that was down south and now she was here. Meaning? His mind raced to find some meaning.
“Hey, graduate,” she said. “You’re forgetting your manners.”
“Manners?”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in? I don’t want to stand out here-this place gives me the creeps.”
Eddie stepped aside. She walked in. He closed the door.
“What a dump,” she said, looking around. She circled the tiny space like a big cat. Prof’s charcoal drawing lay on the kitchen counter. She examined it.
“Naughty, naughty.”
Then she glanced into the bedroom at the unmade bed, smiled as though amused by some private joke, and said, “So, Mr. Eddie Nye, a.k.a. Nails-are you going to play ball this time, or hard to get?”
“What do you want?” Eddie replied, remembering the way Tiffany had gone into the bedroom soon after his arrival, and how he’d heard her voice mixed in with the TV voices. The prison, so rigid when he was in, reached out elastically when he was out.
“Dyslexic,” said the woman with the double-cream-coffee complexion. “I forgot.” She sat down at the table, brushed away crumbs with her beringed fingers. “We had a date, chico,” she said, mouth smiling, eyes not. “Arranged by a mutual friend. Arranged and paid for, if you’re going to make me spell it out, by this mutual friend. Blink twice if you get it.”
Eddie got it. “It’s the money.”
“Wow. You’re something, you know that? Yes, chico, it’s the money. You weren’t trying to abscond with it, were you, like some little sneak thief?”
Eddie didn’t like that. She could see that, but it didn’t seem to impress her at all. “I didn’t even know it was there till I tried to smoke that cigarette. You and El Rojo or whatever he calls himself are the ones playing games.”
She studied his face for a moment or two, then nodded. “That’s what they thought.”
“Who?”
“It was all a mistake. No rough stuff necessary.”
“Rough stuff?”
“Nothing to worry about. Not necessary.”
The phone rang in the bedroom. Eddie let it ring. The woman watched him letting it, the mocking look in her eyes. It rang for a long time. When it stopped she said: “Have you still got it?”
Eddie unzipped the back pocket of Prof’s sweats and handed her one of his hundred-dollar bills. She stuck it inside her fur jacket.
“I love happy endings,” she said.
“What’s this all about?”
“You already know the answer. Money.”
Eddie didn’t believe that El Rojo would go to so much trouble over a hundred dollars. Some matter of principle was involved, macho Latin bullshit principle or crazy inmate bullshit principle.
“Just money?” Eddie said.
“That’s right,” she replied. “Now how about our date?”
“What date?”
“Madre de dios. The date that’s paid for.”
Eddie laughed. He was laughing a lot all of a sudden. “We didn’t sign a contract,” he said. “I’ll let you wriggle out of it.”
The woman wasn’t laughing. “You’re not very bright, for a high-school graduate. There’s no wriggling out where our friend’s concerned.”
She paused to let this sink in. Eddie thought of their long-faced friend in the prison library pushing away the bloodied Business Week with distaste, and tried unsuccessfully to see the danger in him. Then he remembered how those liquid brown eyes had reminded him of maple syrup, and felt a tiny wave of nausea.
“So let’s roll,” the woman said. “I’ve got a car outside.”
Eddie didn’t want to go on a date; on the other hand, he had to get out of Tiffany’s apartment, and a car was waiting. He turned over the sheet of paper with the doodles on it and wrote, “Thanks.” What else? Didn’t he owe Tiffany some explanation? Then he remembered her phone call, the one that had brought this woman. Maybe he didn’t owe her anything.
Meanwhile the woman was on her feet. “There’s nothing to say-don’t you know that by now?” She dropped an envelope on the table. It was a thin-papered envelope; Eddie could see that there was money inside. “Let’s roll,” said the woman.
Eddie tore up the note, tossed it in the trash, and followed her out the door. They walked down the dark basement corridor, through the entrance hall, outside.
It was night. Late night, to judge from the quiet. Eddie was wide awake and disoriented at the same time. The state had regulated his sleeping patterns for fifteen years; now that he was on his own they were falling apart.
“God, you’re slow,” said the woman, crossing the street toward a silver sedan. She unlocked the door and they got in. “Ow,” she said, reached into her waistband, pulled out a gun, and laid it on the seat between them. “These things are so uncomfortable.” She started the car and zoomed away from the curb without looking. Eddie fastened his seat belt.
“Don’t trust my driving?” she said, speeding up.
“I don’t trust anyone with a gun.”
She laughed. “You’re going to be a very lonely guy.”
She drove into a tunnel, emerged by a river, cut down a side street and double-parked outside a club called L’Oasis. The clock on the dashboard read two-ten, but twenty or thirty people who had given some thought to what they wore were waiting to get in. The woman went straight to the head of the line where a big man wearing sunglasses stood with folded arms. He smiled when he saw her.
“Well, well,” he said. “Sookray. The night is young.”
“Bullshit,” said the woman. “And I’m freezing my ass off out here. Let me in.”
The door was an elaborate affair of leather and studs. The big man swung it open, saw Eddie coming and held up a hand.
“He’s with me,” Sookray told him; and Eddie, in Prof’s gray sweats, followed her inside.
They climbed over a furrowed sand dune and down to an oasis-date palms, soft breezes, a pool of still water. Chairs and tables ringed the pool. Beyond lay the casbah, with a bar at the bottom and a restaurant behind the battlements on top. There was a minaret too. An oil-smeared man wearing Ali Baba pants stood in it, swallowing fire.
Sookray sat at an empty table, kicked off her shoes, dipped her feet in the water. She patted the chair beside her. Eddie sat.
“Care for a swim?” she said.
“Had one.”
A harem girl appeared with champagne. Sookray sent it back. The harem girl returned with a different brand.
“Salud,” said Sookray, raising her glass.
Eddie drank. It was bliss: more than the equivalent of Holesome Trail Mix, infinitely more. His mind returned at once to the dinner at Galleon Beach.
“We can have sex later, if you want,” Sookray said. “It’s all paid for.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“Really. I don’t mind. You’re kind of attractive, except for that shaved-head shit. I just hate that look. You might as well wave your cock around, you know?”
Caviar came next, followed by a spicy pie made with pigeons, and other dishes Eddie didn’t know. He ate every scrap. Then there was more champagne. Music played, very loud. People danced on the battlements.
“Dance?” said Sookray.
Eddie shook his head. He had a good buzz going, but he was still too sober to want to shake around up there in gray sweats, next to all those fancy people. He refilled their glasses instead.
After a while the music stopped. The dancers returned to the restaurant, the bar, the tables around the pool. One of the dancers approached theirs.
He was a fat-faced man in a dark silk suit. He sat down uninvited and patted his forehead with a white handkerchief. A big diamond nested on his hairy pinky. Sookray took her feet out of the water and put her shoes back on.
“This is Senor Paz,” she said. “Mr. Nye.”
Senor Paz nodded but didn’t offer his hand. He took out a cigar, cut off the end with a gold cutter, lit up with a gold lighter.
“Having a good time, Mr. Nye?” he asked after he had the cigar burning nicely.
“Till Rommel rolls through with his panzers.”
The corners of Paz’s mouth turned briefly up.
“Is that the new band?” Sookray asked. “I heard they were hot.”
Paz ignored her. “Enjoy,” he said, waving his hand around the oasis. “It will all be gone tomorrow, nothing more than an alcoholic dream.”
“Why is that?” said Eddie.
“Business. We do a redesign every two years. Frankly, it can’t come too soon. I’m so sick of climbing that dune I cannot tell you. We’re going with virtual reality next time. The name will be either Synapse or Neuron, I can’t decide.”
“Do you run the place?”
“Own it, actually. Although I’m a surgeon by profession, training-and inclination.”
Sookray frowned. Paz noticed and said, “You don’t look well, my dear. Would you like to rest for a while? Some aspirin, perhaps?”
“I’m fine,” said Sookray, sitting up straighter.
“Good. More champagne, then.” He snapped his fingers. A harem girl arrived at once. “Champagne,” he said. “Krug Grande Cuvee.” She went off. “The only champagne worth drinking,” he said to Eddie. “For a man. All the rest are just fizz, suitable for women and children.” He looked at Sookray. She looked down.
The harem girl arrived with new glasses and a new bottle. She popped the cork and poured. Paz covered his glass when she came to him. He rose and knocked a cylinder of cigar ash into the pool.
“Glad to have met you, Mr. Nye. And glad we’ve cleared up our little misunderstanding.” He started away.
“Who is we?” Eddie said.
Paz stopped, turned, smiled. “And especially glad it was just that-a misunderstanding.” He went away.
Eddie emptied his glass. “He’s right.”
“About what?” said Sookray.
“Krug. It’s the best.” He refilled his glass. Two days ago-or was it three? — he’d been eating shit and drinking swill. Now he was eating caviar and drinking the best champagne in the world. A thrill went through him, strong and physical: he felt his freedom through and through. It made him want to move.
“Who are the Panzers?” asked Sookray.
“They were hot in their day,” Eddie replied. “How about that dance?”
Sookray shook her head.
“I thought it was paid for.”
“If you insist,” she said.
Eddie gave her a closer look: he’d only been joking. He saw that the mockery had gone out of her eyes; they were dull and tired. Her body too had lost its vitality. She sagged in her chair.
“I don’t insist,” Eddie said.
Sookray smiled at him, a little smile, almost shy. “You can come home with me, if you keep it a secret.”
“A secret from who?”
Sookray’s eyes darted in the direction Paz had gone but she replied, “Just a secret in general.”
Eddie smiled back. “Forget it.”
“You don’t want me?”
“It’s not that.”
“Because I’m a whore.”
“No,” Eddie said, although that was probably part of it. The rest of it had to do with Paz; and El Rojo.
“How do you know El Rojo?” Eddie asked.
Her eyes narrowed and all at once were wide awake. “Who said I knew him?”
“He’s our mutual friend, remember?”
Sookray said nothing.
“What’s his relationship to Paz?” Eddie looked around. “Does El Rojo own this place?”
Sookray bit her lip. “I don’t feel very well,” she said. “Do you mind if I go to the bathroom?”
“Of course not.”
Sookray left. A harem girl arrived with more Krug.
“I don’t think we ordered that,” Eddie said.
“Drink up,” said the harem girl. “It’s all on the house.”
Eddie drank up. Soon-at least Eddie thought it was soon-a beautiful woman-at least Eddie thought she was beautiful, although he wasn’t seeing too clearly-asked him to dance and he said yes. He wanted to dance with Sookray, but more than that he wanted to dance.
Eddie and the woman went up on the battlements and danced. He forgot about Sookray. He and the woman-she had platinum hair and taut skin everywhere but under her chin-drank another bottle or two of champagne. After that they set out across the sand. They rolled around on the dune for a while. There was some kissing, some more champagne. A crescent moon floated over the desert and the sky filled with stars. The shadow of a huge bird passed overhead. The oasis grew darker and darker, the moon and stars brighter and brighter, the music louder and louder. The bass boomed through the earth with a seismic beat.
“I’m free,” Eddie shouted into the woman’s ear; taking up where he’d left off fifteen years before, having fun on the sand and winning races in the water.
She laughed hysterically. “Me too. We’re both free, free as the fucking wind.” She bit his ear.