Freaky Deaky

Chapter 6

Saturday afternoon, when Skip called during his lunch break, Robin said, "I'm going after them tonight."

"All of a sudden?"

"Mark's picture was in the paper this morning, honorary chairman of a benefit to raise money for inner-city ballet programs. It's a buffet cruise on a yacht, from Lake St. Clair down the river and back, hundred bucks a head. Woody's going too, his name was mentioned."

"See beautiful downtown Detroit from a safe distance," Skip said. "I bet nobody gets off the boat."

"You sound like a tourist. Here's my plan. By the time the boat gets back to the marina I'll be waiting at Brownie's, sitting at the bar. They come in. . . . 'Well, hi, you guys! Gosh, I can't believe it, after all these years.' "

"What if they get off the boat and go home?"

"Brownie's is right there and Woody's never walked past a bar in his life. Listen, I've been getting ready for this, following Woody's limo around town. You know what he does? He eats and drinks, that's about it. He has lunch at one of his clubs, like the DAC, stops off at the theater some time in the afternoon and then goes down the street to Galligan's for the cocktail hour."

"I've been there, it's near my hotel."

"Or he goes around the corner to Pegasus. Remember Greektown? That one block on Monroe is the most popular street in Detroit, but I haven't been able to figure out why."

" 'Cause it's lit up," Skip said. "I know where it is. You go anywhere else downtown you're on a dark, lonely street. So who you gonna work on, Mark or Woody?"

"Woody," Robin said, "since he's got the checkbook. I'm not sure where Mark stands exactly. He isn't dumb. . . . I take that back, he wasn't too bright, either, now that I think of it. He's more of an actor, wants you to believe he's got it together. But Woody's our guy."

"Say you connect. Then what?"

"We're in business. You go to work."

"We're gonna be on the Belle Isle bridge later today, do the kush shot. Then tomorrow we ought to finish up."

Robin said, "You still like the idea?"

Skip said, "You're taking me back to the good old days. I'll call you tomorrow night if I can. Otherwise Monday, after I get to Yale and look over the dynamite situation. I hope the place's still there."

"I forgot to mention," Robin said. "Guess who Woody's driver is. Donnell Lewis."

There was a silence on the line. After a moment Skip said, "You didn't forget. You been saving him, haven't you? What's his name, Donald?"

"Nothing so common, it's Donnell. Remember the party to raise bail money for the Black Panthers? It was at Mark and Woody's."

"I remember you coming out of the toilet with a spade had a beard, wore a leather jacket--"

"And a beret, the Panther uniform."

"That was Donnell, huh?"

"It might've been, I'm not sure."

"It might've--you were in there fucking him, weren't you?"

"I don't remember. We could've been doing lines."

Skip said, "Hey, Robin? I got an ear for bullshit, having worked in the movie business. Don't give me this 'Oh, by the way, Woody's driver used to be a Black Panther' shit. If I'm gonna take part in this I don't want any surprises."

"That's why I told you."

"It's the way you told me I don't especially care for. Donnell wore black leather and had a house full of guns. I know, 'cause I tried to buy one off him. He gave me his big-time nigger look and told me to beat it."

"He wears a suit and tie now," Robin said, "and shines his shoes. He might even shine Woody's."

"Why do I find that hard to believe?"

"I don't know," Robin said. "You're the one told me everyone's sold out, joined the establishment."

Skip said, "Yeah, but I wasn't thinking of Donnell."

That night she was tense for the first time in years, driving into the Jefferson Beach Marina past boat storage buildings and Brownies, the boat people's hangout, past light poles along the docks that showed rows of masts and cabin cruisers, and on down to the lakefront in darkness.

Robin nosed her five-year-old VW into a row of parked cars to wait and within moments felt relief.

Woody's limo stood off by itself, the light-gray stretch with bar, television and Donnell Lewis, tonight inside behind dark-tinted glass. Other times he'd wait outside the car, still sinister in a neat black suit, the shades, the mustache and little be-bop tuft curling around his mouth. He never said much to other drivers standing around, he kept apart. She had studied him for days, watching the way he moved, smoked cigarettes, one hand in his pocket, until finally she checked him out with the doorman at the Detroit Club, who told her, "Yeah, that's him, that's Donnell. You know him?" Good question. You can make it with a tall spade in the powder room during a Black Panther fundraising cocktail party and still not be able to say you know him. Or count on being remembered by him.

Robin smoked a cigarette watching the limo, the gray shape beneath a light pole, the windows black. She finished the cigarette, walked over to the car and tapped on the driver-side window with her key. Then stepped back as the window began to slide down and she saw his face in the dark interior, his eyes looking up at her.

"Are you waiting for that benefit cruise?"

"Tranquility," Donnell said. "That's the name of it, the boat."

"This's the place then," Robin said.

"Went out from here, it has to come back. Pretty soon now."

Robin thanked him, watching his eyes. Not as close as she had watched them the afternoon in the powder room sixteen years ago, her jeans on the floor, hips raised against the rim of the washbasin, Donnell staring at himself past her in the mirror, eyelids heavy, a man watching himself making love, no strain, until he did look at her for a moment before his eyes squeezed closed. But didn't look at her again after that, as he collected the checks and left with his Panthers.

She turned with the hum of his window rising, went back to her car and sat there, not sure what she was feeling--if she wanted to believe he remembered her, if it mattered one way or the other--until she saw the lights of the yacht, Tranquility, a white shape, coming out of the night with the sound of dance music, society swing. A scene from an old movie. Robin circled back to Brownie's, went inside and took a place at the bar to wait.

She ordered a cognac and sat quietly in her raincoat in the nearly empty marina bar-restaurant, hearing faint voices, a woman's laughter, thinking, making judgments. Deciding that boat lovers were essentially smug, boring people. They came in here off their boats into another boat world with all the polished wood, the bar section that was part of a boat, and all the nautical shit, life preservers on the wall. Thinking, What is it about boats? Deciding boats were okay, it was the boat people who overdid the boat thing with their boat words, their boat outfits, the Topsiders and Sou'westers, and made a fucking ritual out of boats. That was the thing, they weren't real boats. They were phony boats for phony people who had to have a phony bar to come to after drinking on their boats and pissing in Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River all day.

She was tired of waiting for a time to come.

The cognac helped ease the knot in her tummy.

She was tired of remembering. . . .

Voices were coming from the front entrance hall, a mix of benefit cruisers arriving: traditional Grosse Pointe ladies with their scrubbed look, their out-of-style hairdos, their pearls and camel's-hair coats, followed by husbands out of Brooks Brothers; trendies now, younger women in real furs and fun furs, a couple of guys in form-fitting topcoats, styled dark hair glistening; more young ladies in layers of sweaters, scarves and coats, and a full-length coyote entering in a noise of voices. It was Woody, Woody's bulk filling the coat, Woody's hair down in his eyes. Robin watched, half turned from the bar. Woody didn't see her. Smiling faces at a table were raising their glasses to him. Woody lifted one arm with some effort, acknowledging.

Voices brought Robin's gaze back to the entrance hallway, to another group coming in, and now she saw Mark, a tan cashmere topcoat draped over his shoulders. Mark Ricks holding the arm of a girl who smiled at something he was saying. It wasn't much of a smile, there and gone. A girl with short red hair. She seemed tired, or tired of smiling. She came in and turned to Mark, as tall as Mark, then looked this way because Mark was, staring. Now he was walking away from the girl, coming this way.

Robin touched her braid, stroked it, waiting, and felt her plan begin to change.

Mark the producer, coat over his shoulders, said, "Come here," with no expression. He reached with both hands to bring Robin off the bar stool. He stared and said, "The last time we saw each other, was it yesterday or the day before?" Still solemn, deadpan. "I mean it's incredible. I see you, I get like a rush of instant recall, all the incredible things we did together. And yet I know it's been--what, eight years?"

Robin said, "Cut the shit, Mark. How are you?"

"Not bad. How about yourself? You haven't changed at all, you know it?" His eyes raised and he hesitated. "Outside of your hair's different."

Robin's hand stroked the braid and tossed it over her shoulder. The girl with short red hair was watching them. She wore a black double-breasted winter coat. She looked away and back again as Mark was saying, "I want to know what you've been doing and why you haven't called me."

Robin said, "Well, let's see. I did time, for one thing." Staring at his solemn brown eyes. "Thirty-three months and ten days in Huron Valley."

Mark said, "I was there, I was in court when they sentenced you. I couldn't believe it. Then I heard you went to New York after you got out."

"I wanted to start writing again, so I got next to some people in the publishing business, to find out what they're buying. Came back and went to work."

" 'Tales from the Underground,' uh?" He started to grin and touched his hair carefully, thinning hair combed forward now.

"I've written four historical romance novels."

"You're putting me on."

"With a lot of rape and adverbs."

"You know what I'm doing?"

"You kidding? I read about you all the time."

"You see the story People did?"

"I loved it. 'Yippie turns Yuppie.' "

"How come you haven't called me?"

"I've thought about it. I don't know. . . ."

Mark was getting a nice wistful look in his eyes, the cool deadpan expression gone. Beyond him, the girl with short red hair stood waiting, hands in the pockets of her black coat. Mark said, "This is totally amazing, we run into each other like this, eight years later."

Robin hesitated, looking down at her hands. "I didn't just happen to be here." She paused, raising her eyes very slowly. "I was hoping I'd see you."

"You're putting me on."

"Really."

"You read I was gonna be at this boat thing?"

"I took a chance."

"This is amazing."

"I couldn't phone you--I don't know why. I thought if we just happened to meet . . ."

"You sound different, you know it?"

Robin cocked her head to one side. "I do?"

"You're quieter. You used to be so ballsy. You know the first time I ever saw you on campus? You were breaking windows in North Hall, the ROTC building."

"The summer of 'seventy," Robin said. "We went to the Doors concert. . . . We went to the rock festival at Goose Lake. You remember that?"

Mark said, "Do I remember? I think about it all the time, constantly. I mean, after Goose Lake what is there? What's left you haven't done?"

Robin said, "You had a pretty good time, uh?"

"Not bad," Mark said, straight-faced, but couldn't hold it. He was grinning now. "You remember I got Woody to rent the limo?"

"If I'm not mistaken I put you up to it."

"You're right. It was an outstanding concept--we drove right in, no problem."

"I told you, like we were part of the show," Robin said.

"Two hundred thousand people," Mark said. "I think it was at that moment, driving in past everybody in that fucking stretch, I knew I would someday be in the entertainment business, produce shows of my own. I'll never forget it." The memory gave Mark a dreamy look.

Robin's gaze moved. She saw Woody coming away from the people at the table, several trendy girls following behind.

Mark was saying, "Listen, why don't you join us? We're going to my brother's for a little impromptu. Huh, what do you say?" There was an abrupt change in his tone, almost a plea, as he said, "Give us a chance to talk. Okay? Will you?"

She glanced at him and saw it in his eyes, Mark wanting to confide, tell her something. Then looked away again to see the full-length coyote coming toward them, weaving, veering off to one side a few steps, but not off balance. Robin watched Woody wrap a furry arm around the girl with short red hair and bring her along.