Iceman

Moss Grove

Pouring tea over ice cubes, the attractive woman glanced in at her friend seated in the small dining alcove. The white shades had been rolled down to keep out the blistering sun, a curse that came blasting out of the sky in the midafternoon, baking the flatland, cooking brains, making everybody tired and a little silly.

First the drought, then the rains, then the heat.

“Every year is supposed to get worse from now on,” her friend was telling her, and she detuned. Somebody had told her at the bank, “It's hot enough to fry an egg on the—” and she had finished the sentence snappishly, “hood of a car, I know. Yes!” Smiling, but saying it in a wise, tough voice that wasn't her at all.

It wasn't Diane talking, it was the heat talking. But you didn't deal with people that way in a small community like Moss Grove, and she softened it even as she smarted off to the nice lady, giving her a warm, sort of loopy smile and asking her, “So, why don't you make it rain?” A full shot of her best cutes on this last part of the exchange, hoping to take the sting out of her wise-ass lip. Remembering this, she bit her tongue this time, not telling Bonnie what she wanted to say, which was ... Talking about heat is boring.

“I wonder if it's something we're doing to the atmosphere? You know, hurting the environment?” And Bonnie began one of her long and laborious explanations, a rehash of a half-recalled newspaper story. But it gave her time to breathe. Make the other glass of iced tea. Calm herself down a little. Cool off.

It was just the heat ... No, it wasn't. She knew that would be the next thing. It isn't the heat, it's the HUMIDITY. The fucking humidity. She was so bored.

The day had been a cliché day of nonconversations, little nondialogue with semistrangers, snatches of mouthings and empty phrases spoken a hundred times a day as one went around doing crappy little errands. Moving without thought or concentration, sliding in and out of hot car seats, walking across hard, baking parking lots, moving down the long walkways of malls. Nothing tough or physically demanding, but on a hot day like today you could do five things like run to the grocer's or to the post office, and you'd be wringing wet. Cranky. Starting to feel the edges of a headache starting back there in your neck, working its way north.

The phone jangled, snapping her out of it and she said, “'Scuse me, Bon.” Hand-picked up the receiver. “Hello?"

“Is this my princess?"

“Hi,” she said, softening instantly.

“Whatcha doon?"

“Melting,” she breathed.

“It's so good to know I have that effect on you,” he said to her in a deep, sexy voice, whispering into the mouthpiece miles away in Buckhead.

“Well, see. You do.” She smiled as she pulled an earring off. “Are you hot too?” She played with him.

“Is this what they mean by phone sex?"

“I guess so,” she said, still smiling. “I was thinking about you."

“Something we can talk about?"

“Not just this second,” she said, lowering her voice to a faint whisper.

“Oh,” he snarled on the other end, but didn't let the menace and disappointment creep into his voice. Kept his tone pleasant as he said, “Your friend Bonnie must be there."

“Yeah. We're having a glass of cold iced tea. Wanna come?” she teased him.

“Listen, Princess Di"—she loved the way he called her that—"you are my princess, aren't you, baby?"

“You better believe it."

“Well, Princess, you know how the song goes: ‘Someday your Prince will come.’”

“You're my Prince Charming,” she said huskily—stupidly, he thought, obviously missing his double entendre.

“I'm lonesome for you."

“Umm. Me too."

“Are you gonna make me come?” He quickly changed his direction. “Are you going to come over here and see me tonight?"

“Sure,” she said, “if you want me too."

“Absolutely. What would you say if I asked you to clear the decks so you could spend the night at my country place? And, you know, no strings or anything. You'd have your own room. We'd have some fun. Have some laughs. Spend the weekend with me. Catch some rays.” Go muff diving, he thought to himself. “Whatdya say? Sound good?"

“It sounds great,” she said after a beat. “Sounds fun.” Fun. She wondered about doing it with him. Wondered what he'd be like—that way. She couldn't help but think about it. She knew what he wanted her to do.

As if he could read her thoughts, he turned on his perfect Bela Lugosi voice and said, “Fun? Boodle-doodledah! You make me vant to suck your neck!"

She laughed with surprise. “You should be on TV. You missed your calling."

“I need some fresh blood,” Dracula said, but he wasn't kidding at all. It stiffened him to think about what he would do to Princess Di tonight. He said in his own voice, “Darlin', one thing, and don't say anything about this, you know, to your friend Bonnie, I want to send my secretary over to pick you up tonight, do you mind?"

“No,” she said quickly, but irritated at the thought. Still, she understood the reason why. She realized how difficult it must be for him. “But why don't I just hop in the car? I'd really rather."

“No, dear,” he said, back in control. “When she gets there, she'll explain what you need to bring. I want you to bring a couple of things. I'll explain later. Just go along this time—okay? Nicki's okay. You just let her help you, okay?” Selling it and closing the deal.

“Sure. Fine. No problem.” Her name was Diane Taluvera. Thirty. She'd been with First Bank of Moss Grove since she quit at Buckhead Middle School four years ago. Wasting an MA at the bank. Worrying her mother, who thought she was going to end up a spinster. Worrying Bonnie.

“Don't melt before you get here, Princess,” he said, and they agreed on a time and he rang off.

“I don't have to guess who that was, do I,” Bonnie said with a sneer. “Mister Wonderful."

“You'd like him if you knew him,” Diane said defensively.

“I want to know how come he's such a mystery man I can't even know his name, Mister Wonderful and all. I mean, if he's married I don't care. I'm not going to call his wife and tell her, Hey, your no-good husband is fooling around with my best friend.” She was laughing, but Diane knew she wasn't kidding completely. He'd been adamant about her not saying anything.

“His divorce is about to go through, Bon, I told you. And he's a prosperous guy, has his own company, and I guess there's a lot of money at stake. I promise I'll introduce you to him soon and you'll change your tune. You wait and see."

“I don't like the SOUND of him. If he's on the level how come it's so hush-hush?"

Diane slumped into a chair and sipped her iced tea. Trying to sort it all out. All she knew was that Al made her feel so good. She wondered what Bonnie would say if she told her the rest of it. What he was. And how they'd met. The man with the beautiful secretary who had come in the bank. The flirtation and what it had led up to. She stared at her friend over the rim of the glass and decided to keep her mouth shut. It was too good a thing to take a chance on blowing it, and she wanted to be able to tell him she hadn't told anybody about them if he asked her later.

The man pulled the tip off an expensive pen and carefully printed the words: enter. di, postcards, suitcase, makeup, note to bank, bonnie, and replaced the cap. He'd go over the notes with Nicki tonight. He pushed the bitch out of his thoughts. He was in his special place now, his secret sanctuary.

The room at first appears stark, severe, the absence of color unsettling, and then the eye perceives the color of the line. This is where he comes in the fierce hours when he lets himself become the other thing—the thing that his newly regained power now allows him. And this is the room that nurtures and prepares and decompresses and decelerates him when he returns from his sojourns into the lonely, dark places. He thinks of it as his safe house.

In the white room he folds the note, slipping it into a pocket, allowing himself to backslide for just the time it takes to think about what the cunt will look like tonight. A low-cut dress over unspecial breasts. Everything cut just a little too low. Even the bitch's SHOES too tight, cut too low. He hated the way he could see the beginnings of her little toes squeezed together above the pointed toes of her high-heeled shoes. He let the room wash her from his mind.

It is white. Bone. Off-white. Cream. Lines and shadows and angles the only coloration against the textures of wood and wall and countertop and ceiling and floor, all unsullied by marquetry or faience. Unaccessorized and denuded of what we think of as the human touch, the furnishings and bric-a-brac and gee-gaws and gimcracks one associates with a room one lives in. This is not a room you associate with the presence of an occupying humanity.

The color of the line has been carefully chosen, sculpted to reflect the essence and purity of 1915's L'Ex-position Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. And the absence of color is but illusion, to soften the screaming angles and wildly, sweeping planes and dizzyingly perfect curves that are at once deco and post-modern, simplistic and complex, pure, white, and cold.

He keeps the austere room very cold. Icy in fact. Throbbing, dripping, central air capable of British Thermal Units that will lower this baby to a meat locker hums away unseen. And he breathes deeply of this chilling purity, here in the room that is his shrine, this hidden sanctuary where no outside influence can intrude.