Icarus

FORTY-THREE

They met at 1 a.m., as per Grace Childress's instructions. She would not tell him why she thought she'd found Samsonite, she would not elaborate on anything. She just told him to pick her up in a taxi and when he did, she directed the driver to head downtown on the FDR Drive.

Jack had spent much of the day sleeping. He had a steam shower in his bathroom and in the interval, when he was awake, he took three long steams. The heat and sweat were cathartic; by the time he was due to dress, his body had made a reasonable recovery. He ached, but he was used to aches. And he was stiff, but he had long ago overcome stiffness. This was something he had learned both from Kid and from the life he had led: it was possible to get used to pain. And once you got used to it, it was rendered fairly harmless. The taxi dropped them off in the East Village, on a small, shabby side street near Rivington and Essex. Grace took Jack by the hand and led him up to the fifth floor of an unmarked tenement building. Once again, nothing was visible from the outside. Inside, after climbing the five flights of stairs, they were met by a bouncer, a black man with a shaved head, dressed all in black except for bright-red suspenders. He opened Grace's purse, checked it out, and patted Jack down. When he found no weapon, he let them pass.

"What was that about?" Jack whispered as they headed down the hallway.

"There's a lot of money inside," she told him. "They don't want guns in there."

"You do know the most interesting places," he said.

When they walked through the door of the club, Jack was amazed to find that they'd entered an enormous room that, from its size, he guessed had been three, maybe even four apartments at one time. But they were apartments no more. Now it was a very serious casino. Jack felt as if he'd been beamed up into a Las Vegas starship.

The action was palpable. Two crap tables dominated the front of the room and a roar went up from the crowd around one of them as the shooter hit his number. Jack counted five blackjack tables. Four of them were filled and one of them was marked "reserved." At that one sat a bulked-up black man, an NFL Hall of Famer and onetime linebacker for the New York Giants. He was betting five-hundred-dollar chips and the only other people at his table were two women, one white, one black, who were availing themselves of his stack to place their own bets. As Jack looked around the room, he saw several other athletes he recognized – one basketball player, a star on the Philadelphia 76ers who was a regular at the restaurant whenever he was in town – and two rap stars, one of whom Jack had read had been arrested the week before on an assault charge.

The decor was not particularly elegant. There were couches and upholstered chairs scattered around, most of which looked comfortable but well worn. The various tables were wicker and glass, cheap and functional. There were two long bars that had been built on either side of the room. There were also four or five larger rooms leading off the main one. As he wandered, Jack caught a glimpse of a roulette table and one small room in which six men were puffing on cigars and playing poker.

Jack and Grace finally found two chairs in the main room. She motioned for him to sit, which he did, while she went to the bar, returning a few moments later with two bottles of beer. She clinked the neck of her bottle against his and said, "So here we are again."

She smiled at him but Jack was not in a smiling mood.

"It's time to tell me what's going on," he said. "What's the revelation about Samsonite?"

"It'll hit you," she said. "I don't know for sure if I'm right, but I think I am. It might be a little early but if I am right, she'll be here. And you'll know when she is."

"I'm not much for games right now," he told her.

"It's not a game," she said. "Just wait and see. If I'm right, you'll understand soon."

They sat for over an hour, not speaking much. Jack was too restless to make small talk, too intent on absorbing the scenes around him. At 2:45, Grace, who had barely moved, leaned forward and said, "I think she's here."

Jack swiveled, glanced around the room, saw nothing that jumped out at him. He turned back to Grace, who simply said, "Just look. Pay attention and you'll see it."

He stayed in his seat, stared at the people sitting around him, at the crowds around the gaming tables. Nothing came to him. He stood, then began walking. In and out of the various rooms, back to the main room, slowly strolling and studying. At one of the crap tables was an extraordinarily sexy woman, her arm around a short Arabic-looking man. The woman had to be six feet tall without the three-inch heels she was wearing. Her legs were long and muscular and she emitted the smoldering sexuality that Jack had come to expect from anyone on Kid's team. He watched her gamble, thought, Yes, she's the one, but how could Grace be so sure she'd be here? How could she know that a particular customer would…

Not a customer.

Samsonite worked in a club.

A singer/bartender/dealer.

It wasn't the woman at the crap table. It was someone who worked there.

He went to the built-in bar to the left of the room. Two bartenders, both male. At the bar on the right, also two bartenders. One man, one woman. The woman had thick red hair cascading down almost to her waist. She wore tight black pants and a blue work shirt, unbuttoned halfway down to reveal a tan neck and chest and a provocative glimpse of firm, white breasts. She was sexy enough, no question about it. Was she the one? Was she as crazy as Kid had described Samsonite? Was she dangerous?

Was she a potential killer?

Jack turned away, trying to figure out how best to approach her. Ask her about Kid? Try to buy drugs? Strike up an innocuous conversation?

He tried to drown out the sounds coming from the rest of the casino but was unsuccessful. He heard another roar come from one of the crap tables and a shooter yell out, "Ee-yo, baby, ee-yo," and then another roar as the eleven hit. He heard the spin of the roulette wheel, that distinct clackety-clack of the steel ball wending its way around and in and out of the numbers. He heard a groan from one of the blackjack tables and then a woman's voice, from the same table:

"That's thirteen… fifteen…"

A man's voice: "Hit me."

The woman's voice: "Twenty-two. Sorry." Then, the same voice, raspy from too many cigarettes and raw from too much whisky: "And twenty for the dealer."

Jack turned now, watched as the woman he'd just heard shuffled the new deck of cards. Her shuffling was mechanical and expert but not clean or sharp. When she dealt, her movements were a little off, slightly dulled. He heard her say, "Two aces… wanna split 'em?"

Now Jack was moving toward the table. He'd forgotten about the bartender, was standing a foot behind the seated blackjack players, staring at the woman as she handed out cards, tapped and collected the hands of the losers, and paid the winners.

A singer/bartender/dealer.

He heard Kid's voice: Samsonite wants to be Courtney Love but for now she's a singer-slash-bartender-slash-dealer.

A dealer.

A blackjack dealer.

He turned back toward Grace, who was nodding and smiling. Then he turned back to the woman behind the table. She wore a flimsy black skirt slit up both sides; the slits revealed thighs that were both ripe and sinewy. Her shoulders were bare and in her sleeveless black-and-blue top she looked angular and hard and spectacularly, dangerously sexy. Her nipples jutted out from under the fabric of her tight shirt. Her arms didn't just ripple with muscles, the left one was covered with tattoos running from shoulder to wrist, the right one had a tattoo chain drawn around her taut bicep. Her hair was very short, almost mannish, and as dark as could be. Her face was white and thin, her cheekbones spectacularly high; her skin tightly drawn and flawless.

She looked up now, saw him staring at her. She smiled and he was reminded of nothing as much as a vampire. It was a blood-sucking smile that both aroused and chilled. But he didn't move or back away or stop watching her until, twenty minutes later, she was replaced at the table and stepped away to take a short break. Jack was next to her in a flash, holding on to her thin, steely arm and asking, "Do you know Kid Demeter?"

She looked at him blankly, he could see her trying to focus, and suddenly he thought, I'm wrong. She doesn't have a clue who he is, but then she smiled again, baring those sharp teeth, and Samsonite said, "Hey, baby, kneel and cross yourself when you say that name. Kid was a fucking saint."

– "-"-"IT WASN'T EASY convincing Grace to let him go off with Samsonite. But after a few heated moments, his logic won out. If she talked at all, he was certain she would talk more freely one-on-one, particularly to a man. And if she was indeed dangerous, they shouldn't go together. Using the only analogy he could think of, he said that one of them had to stay down underneath their own basket and play defense. It made much more sense for Grace to be that defensive player. He told her that if he didn't call her within two hours after he left, she should call Sergeant Patience McCoy at the Eighth Precinct. Reluctantly, Grace agreed. At 4:30 a.m., the fourth member of Kid's team said she could leave work and she and Jack headed for her apartment, where she said she could drink and smoke and he could talk about whatever the fuck he wanted.

Samsonite – her real name, she said, was Rita; no last name, just Rita, but Jack couldn't stop thinking of her as Samsonite, it fit her too perfectly – lived on a run-down street in the East Village, one that had not yet been made aware of the booming economy and the renovations going on in the neighborhood. The entire block was little more than a row of burned-out tenements and rubble. One of the tenements was Samsonite's apartment building.

"You live here?" Jack asked, surprised. He thought it looked as if it had long ago been abandoned.

"I've lived in worse, believe me."

She fumbled for the key to the front door, couldn't find it in her purse. After several minutes, she mumbled a curse and reached into the right pocket of her skirt to fish out the key. When she opened the door, she motioned for Jack to go ahead of her.

Inside was even worse. The hallway was squalid and filthy and smelled as if it hadn't been cleaned in years. She headed up a flight of stairs and Jack hesitantly followed. One of his feet grazed a pile of rags on the first landing – and the pile moved angrily.

"A crackhead," Samsonite said. "Don't mind him."

She also told Jack not to mind the rat that scurried past them on the way downstairs. He considered grabbing her, dragging her the hell out of there and taking her back to his place, then he thought: No. I'm too close. I'll know what's going on soon. Don't spook her. Just let it go.

They reached her apartment, which was on the third floor. The soiled green door was protected by four interior locks and one outside padlock. As Samsonite began her unlocking process, she said, "It's not like I'm paranoid. I know you're thinkin' I'm paranoid. It's the Russian mentality. You always think someone's trying to take whatever you've got."

By now she had managed to open her door. She stepped into the apartment, flicked on the light, and recoiled at the brightness. She immediately flicked it off and, as Jack stepped in behind her, she began scurrying around lighting candles. Not three or four candles. Fifty, sixty candles, maybe even a hundred that were scattered all over the place. And there was not all that much place in which to scatter.

Samsonite lived in two rooms plus a kitchen. Although it could barely be called a kitchen now. It was a room with a dirt-streaked white refrigerator and countertops that were covered with food-encrusted plates and bowls and ancient cardboard cartons of Chinese food. When she lit the four candles that sat by the sink – which was filled to the brim with dirty plates and silverware – Jack saw what looked like a herd of cockroaches scuttle into the cracks in the wall.

The living room had rags and towels thumbtacked up as window curtains. There was one sofa that looked as if it would collapse if anyone sat on it, and a small orange crate that Jack guessed was a makeshift coffee table. That was it. Through the open bedroom door, he could see mounds of clothes scattered on the floor and an iron, four-poster bed.

"You know, when I first came here, I thought I'd be a model. That's what everyone said, beautiful girls come here from Russia, they become models."

"What happened?"

"Maybe I'm not beautiful enough."

"I don't think that's it."

She smiled a bitter smile and continued lighting the candles scattered around the room. As she reached over to light two on the floor, in the corner, she picked up a small hypodermic needle and held it up for inspection. "Maybe I found something else I like better," she said. When she was done lighting the candles, she seemed exhausted by her effort and flopped down on the ruin of a sofa. "Have a seat."

"Where?" he asked.

Without answering – he wasn't certain she'd even heard him – she popped back up off the couch and went to the kitchen. He heard the fridge open and the rustling of various implements in her cabinets, then saw her, her back to him, pouring wine into two paper cups. On her return trip to the sofa, she handed him one of the cups, filled nearly to the brim. She flopped again, this time stretching out so her head rested on one arm of the couch and her black boots on the other.

"Oh, God," she sighed. "Will you take my boots off?"

Jack hesitated, then set his wine down on the scuffed hardwood floor. He moved to the couch and she gingerly lifted one leg. He took her left foot in his hand, worked his fingers around the black heel, and pulled. It took three yanks, then it came free. He saw the look of pleasure on her face as she wriggled her toes. Without a word, she lifted her other leg and held her foot out to him. He grabbed this boot and pulled. When it was off, he set it down on the floor in front of her. Her head back, her feet flexing, she closed her eyes and Jack wasn't certain that she hadn't fallen asleep on him. But before he could even check, her eyes flew open and she said, "You know what Kid's biggest problem was? He was trying to reform me. I mean, shit, reform me from what?"

She took a long sip of her wine. A tiny bit of it slid from her lips and down her chin. She caught it with a finger and, with a look of great contentment, stuck that finger in her mouth and sucked it. Jack went back to where he'd been standing, picked up his own wine, and took a long swallow. It was cheap stuff, too cold and vinegary-tasting, but he didn't really care. He drank again.

"Someone was with him that night, just before he died. Did you know that?"

"Who?"

"I don't know. I was hoping you would. It was a woman."

"Oh." She was drifting now. He wondered if she'd taken something when she went to get the wine. "Kid." She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. "Besides," she said, "who wants to be reformed?"

"Were you with him?"

"I was with him a lot," she said dreamily.

"That night. The night he fell, were you with him then?"

"How the fuck would I know?" she said. "I don't even know where I am now. Where are we? I mean, Jesus."

She reached down under the couch without looking, felt around, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches, and lit one.

"Kid was tripping when he fell," Jack said.

"Yeah?"

"Are you surprised?"

"You wanna know the truth? I'm beyond surprise. That particular, whaddyacallit, that thing in my brain, it's like some kind of electrical thing, well, it's gone. The fuse is blown or whatever. I don't know the exact medical terminology."

Jack sipped his wine again. He was surprised to find that it was tasting better.

"Goddamn, I miss him, you know? I mean, he saved my ass. Did I tell you that already? Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry. Sometimes I don't remember what I said and what I didn't say.

"No," Jack told her. "You didn't tell me."

"Really?"

"What happened?"

"Oh, man, I did somethin' so fucking stupid. I mean, it was so fucking stupid it was even stupid for me. But all that money, you know, it's just right there in front of you."

Jack watched her sit up. Her movements were almost snakelike. She seemed to slither when she moved. She looked at him and bared her teeth. As she did, she took her right hand and began rubbing her left breast. She twisted the shirt fabric over her nipple and squeezed and massaged it. Her head lolled back and her mouth opened just a bit. He saw her eyes lose their focus and he thought she was about to begin masturbating. But then, as suddenly as she'd started, she stopped. She was just sitting on the edge of the couch now, leaning forward intently, staring at him.

"You're talking about when you're dealing?" he asked, trying to get her back on the subject. He glanced at his watch. He'd left Grace exactly half an hour ago. "Where all that money is?"

"Yeah," Samsonite said. "When I'm dealing. It's not like we're in Vegas, you know. I figured, with those bozos, I mean, you slip a coupla chips into your panties, who the fuck is gonna know?"

Jack realized he was sweating heavily. He wiped his forehead as perspiration dripped down into his eye. "Can I open a window?" he asked. "It's very hot in here."

"Open whatever you want," she told him.

But when Jack went to the living room window, he was surprised to find it was already open. The air was cool and blowing and he realized that now he was shivering slightly.

"Somebody caught you?" he asked.

"You got that fucking right. They were gonna cut my fuckin' hands off if I didn't make good on it in twenty-four hours. Yeah, like it wasn't already up my fuckin' nose."

"Five thousand dollars," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"How much did you steal?"

"Hey, it wasn't stealing. I mean, it didn't really belong to anyone, it was, like, gambling money, you know?"

"You took five thousand dollars, right?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

Half to himself he said, "The Entertainer's money."

"You're really weird, you know that?" Samsonite announced.

Jack felt as if one minor key had been unlocked. "That's why he needed the money. Kid gave you the five thousand dollars."

Samsonite sat up now, excited. "In a flash. I mean, that day. It was, like, amazing. Like he was some kind of angel, you know? I paid those assholes back ASAP and it was, like, totally cool."

Jack was sweating again. He realized that his shirt collar was sopping wet and his hands were moist. He felt like he had a fever. He was suddenly dizzy.

"But… you're still working there," he said. His voice sounded strange to him, as if he were in an echo chamber.

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't they fire you?"

"Hey, good people are hard to find."

He felt himself rocking from side to side. He thought he should sit down but he suddenly didn't think he could make it to the couch. Talk to her, he thought. Keep talking. Focus. You'll snap out of this.

"His other women… Did Kid ever talk to you… about… his other women?"

She was standing now. Walking around the room. Circling him, he thought. Like a vulture.

"Oh, he talked," she said. "He was a good talker. There was the rich old lady in the 'burbs. She was hot, he said. Wild. And there was a stripper; I remember that 'cause I wanted him to bring her up here, do a little threesome thing. I always wanted to be a stripper, you know. I think it'd be cool…"

Jack felt himself go down on one knee. He wasn't aware of his body touching the floor, though. It was as if he were in some kind of dream. Disconnected from his body. Looking down, seeing himself sag and fall.

"Then there was this Miss I'm So Perfect Downtown SoHo Art Bitch. He used to go on and on about her. Oh, man, it used to make me puke. And it takes a lot to make me puke."

She was standing in front of him now, staring down at him. She didn't look concerned. Just predatory. He felt his hands start to tingle. The left one went numb. He reached out to her, wrapped both arms around her hard thighs, fell forward.

"He used to talk about you a lot," she said.

She seemed so far away… so out of focus…

"Christ, what I don't know about you. Your stupid red-meat crematorium. Your fantasy apartment. The whaddyacallit, the balcony that you're terrified of. Your big affair in London. How you tried to have a baby but your wife had an abortion. Kid told me everything about you. Stuff he didn't even know he was telling me…"

It sounded like she was speaking in slow motion. Everything was in slow motion. His hands slid slowly down her legs. Her skin felt so smooth, so warm. His legs fell out, ever so slowly, from beneath him. He was stretched out on the floor now, his chin resting on the top of her bare foot. With her other foot, she nudged his chin and he felt himself roll over. Twisting, turning, on the wood floor…

"I know why you're here," she was saying now. Her voice was even slower, and deep, like a record being played at the wrong speed. "I know what you want me to say. I figured it out, too. But when he came to buy the fucking acid, I didn't know who it was for. I didn't know what he was going to do with it…"

The rest made no sense to Jack. It was too slow. Too deep. He was drifting. He was almost gone. His last thought was Goddamn you, what did you put in the drink…?

Then he was still, not moving at all. He was lying on his back and Samsonite was kneeling over him, straddling his chest.

"This is going to be way cool," she said. "Way fucking cool."