Savages

78

They take a limo to the Salt Creek Grille.

Hard to get a table there at short notice unless you’re Ben the King of Hydro and then you could get a table at the freaking Last Supper if that’s what you want. Yeah, they’d rush Jesus through dessert to accommodate Ben (“The gentleman at the end already took care of the bill, sir. With cash. Come back and see us again soon”), so table for three is no problema.

Beautiful there under the strings of lights on the PCH.

Nothing not to love.

Fine soft spring night, the air smells like flowers and O is beautiful, smiling, and happy. The food is great although Ben just has the miso soup, which he seasons with Lomotil tablets, the chemical cork, as any Third World sojourner knows.

Not O—she fired up some of Ben’s appetizer boo and eats like a pregnant horse. Starts with the calamari then hits the French onion soup, the grilled ahi with cracked pepper crust and aioli, garlic mashed potatoes, Gujerati green beans, then the crème brûlée.

The wine flows.

No bill, no tab, no receipt but they leave a liberal “as-if” tip, then go out to the limo, blaze up, and hit the exclusive hotel bars—the St. Moritz, the Montage, the Ritz-Carlton, the Surf & Sand. Apple martinis and O grabbing glances everywhere, she’s so hot with her two men.

“It’s like that movie,” she says, standing on the patio of the Ritz looking out at the moonlight hitting the breakers.

“What movie?” Ben asks.

“That old movie,” O says, “with Paul Newman when he was alive and Robert Redford when he was young. I was home sick one day from school and it was on cable.”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Chon kicks in. “If I follow O’s drift, you’re Butch and I’m Sundance.”

“Which one was Butch?” Ben asks.

“Newman,” Chon answers. “Which fits, because you’re into the philanthropist thing. I’m the sexy shooter.”

“I’m the girl in it,” O says happily.

“Didn’t they get killed at the end?” Ben asks.

“Not the girl,” says O.