Kiss Her Goodbye

Chapter 8

AT NINE P.M., West Fifty-fourth between Broadway and Eighth Avenue was an artery clogged enough to give Manhattan a heart attack. The taxis slightly outnumbered the brave, foolish souls with their own wheels, and it was so hopeless, even the horn-honk symphony seemed halfhearted.

The fuss was over a fairly nondescript entryway for so famous a nightspot—a bunch of doors, a velvet rope, and a modest overhang that said CLUB 52 in light blue art deco lettering on a black background.

The sidewalk was as jammed as the street, although a passageway from the curb cut through the crowd, maintained by security types in black 52-monogrammed blazers, so that the limos that somehow managed to crawl through traffic could disgorge celebrities and other beautiful people. These were gods and goddesses—these were that rarefied breed.

They who were on the list.

On either side of this red carpet were photographers whose flashes popped at each passing fur or gown or Armani suit while gawkers yelped and yelpers gawked as the blazer boys held them back. These were the unfortunate rabble who didn't even bother crowding up to the velvet rope for possible selection.

I encouraged the cabbie to squeeze in behind the nearest limo and by nine-thirty, I was stepping out of a Yellow cab onto the red carpet. The rain had let up but I still had on the trench coat and porkpie hat as I walked in no great hurry up to where the shrimpy kid in the cream-colored sport jacket and no tie would be checking his clipboard, should he not recognize me.

The photographers knew me, at least some of them, and just as many flashbulbs died in my wake as had for Andy Warhol, a skinny broad on his arm, the last ones out before I made my entrance. Warhol was that fifteen minutes of fame clown—weren't his up yet?

Over at my right, standing on a little platform ringed by security guys, was Little Tony Tret—Anthony Tretriano himself. He was skinny and short and dark with a well-trimmed mustache, little dark eyes, and Roman emperor curls; he was in a black tuxedo but his bow tie was a big floppy red thing, vaguely obscene.

When I got to the row of painted-out black doors, the guy with the clipboard asked me for my name and I told him and he clearly didn't know it and also couldn't find it. He glanced at the nearest blazer bully, but a voice called out from above.

Not God. Better.

The boss.

"Steven, don't you know a native New Yorker when you see one?" Anthony said, in a nasal Brooklyn tenor. "That's Mike Hammer. Let him in.... Love the fedora, Mike."

I didn't correct him. That would have been ungracious of me, and we all know how gracious by nature I am. So I gave him a little grin, nodded, tugged the brim of the porkpie in a tip-of-the-hat manner, and got a big smile out of Anthony, who immediately returned to picking lucky numbers from his human lottery.

If human was the word—I paused at the door and glanced at this group, who were dressed up in various ways, from high fashion to low self-esteem. A number were in oddball outfits, gladiators, barbarians, even one doll in a Marie Antoinette getup. A few were playing it cool, and these were the ones most often selected, as those yelling "Anthony!" and "Choose me" and so on were not making it with the exalted arbiter of the worthy

I went on in. Admission was slow, as Nero took his time with his thumbs-up (and mostly -down) routine, so I was alone in a vast entryway, with the half-dozen black doors behind me. Darkness encompassed me. So did thunderous disco music, only slightly muted here. The only light in this space came from a glittering chandelier and an indirect purple glow splashed on the arched ceiling. Up ahead was a lot of light, flashing and colorful but indistinct, like a city making itself known on the horizon.

Somewhere in the darkness, off to my right, a female voice called over the music: "Want to check that Bogart wrap, big man?"

I found my way over there. Behind the counter, two girls in their early twenties wore Roman togas with necklines that allowed the brunette's big ones to spill out and the blonde's perky ones to point accusingly at me, twice. They wore way too much makeup for my taste, but I forgave them even while wishing I'd invested in the blue eye-shadow industry

The brunette took my trench coat and I was about to pass the porkpie to the blonde when Little Tony was suddenly at my side, a hand on my sleeve.

"Hang on to the fedora, Mike," he said lifting an advisory finger. His speech was slurry and his eyes were half-lidded. Drunk? Quaaludes? "People here dress to identify themselves."

"As who they are?"

"Or who they want to be."

His hand was still on my arm. I wanted to flick it off, like a bug, but he was my host.

As we moved toward the flashing lights and pumping music, I said, "To what do I owe this honor? I mean, escorted by Little Anthony himself. So where are the Imperials?"

He only smiled at that. "We'll find time to rap later. You'll soon understand, Mike, that there's no need for the old hostilities."

"Water under the bridge?"

"My feeling exactly." He was guiding me toward the flicker and flash and the storm of sound. "You need to get a feel for my party. It's a party I throw every night, and you may find it addictive."

Some straight lines are just too easy.

So I ignored it and said, "I'm hoping we can sit down and talk, Tony."

"Please call me 'Anthony,' Mike. You're comfortable being called 'Mike'?"

"Have been for some time. Can we talk now?"

He shook his head. "I'll be on the door for another half hour at least. You run a tab and I'll take care of it. In an hour I'll meet you at my office. Just tell any one of my security guys that you have an appointment."

Then he waved and disappeared back into the darkness, illuminated briefly when he opened a door onto the street to resume his duties—he had people to crush and others to elevate. The way those Italian heels elevated him.

When I made it to the flashing lights, and was no longer solitary but one of a crush of people, I still felt encased in darkness. Light was a pulse, timed with the booming bass beat of the deafening disco music—yellow, blue, momentary baths of color in a cavern carved by occasional green laser lights. Cigarette smoke swirled, but the ventilation wasn't bad, and busboys in athletic shorts and running shoes and nothing else were keeping the bottles and glasses picked up and off the packed dance floor.

The bare-chested busboys were part of a bisexual motif—for every nude male statue there was a female one; for every bartender in a hot-pants toga, there was a waitress in a miniskirt toga with a neckline to the navel. I'd heard the term sensory overload kicked around, but never understood it before. I just stood there like Dorothy getting a load of Oz for the first time.

Around me were bizarre towering hairstyles, tuxes, bikini tops, spandex, gold lamé, masks, body paint, glitter, hard hats, athletic T-shirts, pointed collars, berets, sunglasses. Above it all loomed a giant silver man in the moon with a gold coke spoon with glittering lights in its bowl near the moon man's Bob Hope proboscis. Below was a sea of partying souls on a central raised plexiglass dance floor, hands waving as if to heaven as they writhed like the damned, washed in that throbbing red and blue illumination against a painted backdrop of Pompeiian pillars.

The crazy joint did not seem to have tables, other than in a V.I.P. section behind a gossamer-type screen, home to comfortable booths and nonstop champagne. Among the pampered elite were Truman Capote, the mayor of New York, and various models whose faces I'd glimpsed on fashion magazines when I was picking up True and Guns & Ammo at my favorite newsstand. Mirrored bars were at left and right, and the bartenders were muscular young males in vests and no shirts, doing dance moves as they served a frantic nonstop customer onslaught. The only quiet in the storm was the stage—it seemed to have been abandoned for the records the d.j., high in his omniscient booth, was spinning.

I did find tables and booths upstairs, in the balcony, but they were filled with necking threesomes, fornicating twosomes, and the general funky smell of sex. The great ventilation didn't seem to be able to take the edge off that. I was able to find a place at the front rail of the balcony to have a look down at the self-absorbed dancers—many had no partner—whose fluttering hands suggested a revival meeting run amok as they immersed themselves in the repetitive, senses-numbing music.

From my vantage point, I caught some interesting items. For one thing, the bartenders seemed to be dispensing pills and coke vials as much as drink tumblers and champagne glasses. This perch made that obvious, but they didn't seem to be hiding it particularly. I could also see the cash registers at the nearest of the two bars. Starting at about ten-thirty, at staggered intervals, the cash drawers were emptied into garbage bags, and the register tapes were changed.

Clearly a skimming operation Vegas might have envied.

Anthony Tretriano and his curly Nero hair and his black tux and floppy red bow tie had taken his d.j. booth box seat at this coliseum of decadence and was now interrupting the thudding, mechanical songs with celebrity announcements. Most of those he introduced were the kind who were recognized by a single name and he had a kidding put-down for each of them.

Funny thing is, there was never applause. Just smiles of recognition. Maybe Club 52 was too cool for clapping. But probably not the clap.

I had been here before, in this space, even in this very balcony, long before it was the trendiest club in town. This had been a theater, or anyway a radio and television studio, its traditional seating long since ripped out. CBS Studio 52—that's why a club on Fifty-fourth was called 52—had been home to Jack Benny, Captain Kangaroo, and countless game shows, What's My Line? To Tell the Truth, The $64,000 Question.

The $64,000 question I was mulling was whether that stage was still used for anything. Like a black hole, the proscenium where so many mainstream entertainers had performed was a void in the midst of flashing lights.

Then the recorded music was cut off and dead silence filled the room.

Little Tony's voice burst forth: "She's Manhattan's favorite Latin, my children—everybody's favorite pink taco..."

Lots of laughter at that.

"...Chrome!"

This time the room did erupt in applause.

On the wall behind the stage, a rainbow of neon tubes finally illuminated the stage as the star performer strode from the wings with a wireless mike in hand and all the confidence that could fit into one tall, curvy, leggy frame. A backup band was revealed as well, but just a drummer on a riser and one guitar player and a guy at a synthesizer. The sound coming from speakers all around conveyed more instruments than were up there, and whether they were miming their performance or not, I couldn't say.

But Chrome was singing all right.

She had a strong alto that cut with authority through all that disco noise and made her delivery of this updated "Boy from Ipanema" appealing. Against the now-alternating neon slashes of yellow, pink, blue, green, her bronze flesh made the white of her teeth startling, her almond-shaped eyes big and brown and lavishly lashed, her nose pert, her mouth moist and ripe and scarlet red. Exuding a charisma that seemed to shimmer around her, she stalked the stage in pink platform heels carrying long, almost masculinely muscular legs that climbed all the way to the fringe of her shocking pink dress.

If you could call it a dress—it was skintight with a cutout that exposed her supple midsection, navel and all, and a V-neck that did its best to contain those firm D-cup globes. I hated the thud thud thud of that disco beat, but her strong voice and her confident manner, and the rhythmic bounce of her bosom, won me over.

Of course, in that place a star performer was just so much window dressing. Nobody in the balcony stopped necking or fucking to watch Chrome, and the dance floor remained filled with Holy Roller hand wavers lost in their own narcissism. Come to the cabaret, my friends, and why not? Liza had.

Chrome and I did have a moment, or maybe I just imagined it. As I stood in the balcony, twelve kinds of sex behind me in a living Hieronymous Bosch tapestry, I thought I saw her look right at me, and hold my gaze, and smile, before she moved on down the stage on those magnificent, endless legs.

She did only half a dozen songs, and was gone. No encore but Tony praised her over the sound system and the applause rang, just like in a real nightclub.

When I left the city a year ago, this had been an empty theater, out-of-date studio space the TV network had been trying to dump unsuccessfully for many months. Now it was the most famous nightclub in town, maybe in the world. And it had all been the doing of that punk Little Tony.

The office was one flight up from the balcony. Tony had said to meet him in an hour, but it was more like two—I didn't bother asking one of his flunkies for my audience until I saw the party's host move out of the d.j.'s perch. The blazer boy who led me up was as polite as he was muscular. On the stairs, he glanced back at me.

"Ain't I seen you at Bing's?"

"Could be."

"I do some boxing. Why's an old guy like you working out for? No offense."

"It's a Zen thing."

That stopped the conversation.

The honcho's office was nothing fancy—drywall painted light blue, some framed Broadway show posters, a bulletin board with news articles about the club, a metal desk cluttered with Rolodex, business-card caddy, ashtrays, pill bottles, a few drink glasses, and a pile of register tapes. On the floor next to the desk was a garbage bag, twist-tied shut, but I knew it was full of cash.

Skinny little Tony had tossed his tux jacket on a couch under the Broadway posters and undone the red tie, the fabric flaccid around his collar. Under the fluorescent lighting, his curly Roman emperor locks appeared shiny and wet. He had the casually drowsy demeanor of a guy who'd been doing an untold combo of drugs, and seemed like anybody but the mastermind behind Manhattan's biggest success story.

He was probably thirty-one and looked like a kid on prom night who'd overdone it.

"Excuse the mess, Mike," he said, not rising, but gesturing genially toward a hard wooden chair opposite his comfy-looking black leather swivel job, the only class appointment in what could have been the office of the manager of a Dunkin' Donuts in Queens. If that manager was into Broadway shows, anyway.

He was beaming at me, the small dark eyes red-tinged and half-hooded. Were those caps under that perfectly trimmed mustache?

"Well, Mike? What do you think? What do you think of my party?"

"People are having fun." The never-ending pounding bass was a reminder of that—no music could be heard in the office, but that relentless thudding went on.

He threw his hands up and the grin got even bigger. "Exactly! That's the point. That's what I was after. Famous people need a place to let their hair down, and not be bothered. Not-so-famous people, if they're good-looking and know how to party, this is their place, too." The dark little eyes flared. "Say, what did you think of Chrome, Mike? Isn't she something?"

"Oh yeah. Crazy. I can see why you're having her open your new clubs."

"She'll hit the top of the charts, wait and see. She'll win a fuckin' Grammy. Love of my life, that woman."

Was that for real, or just show biz talk? In the old days, Little Tony made a point of going out with big, bosomy babes on his arm. But the word was he swung the other way. And with all those bare-chested bartenders downstairs, I had to wonder.

"Tell me, Anthony—that curbside circus out there. Why do you run the door yourself? Can't you trust anybody else to do the picking and choosing?"

He shook his head firmly. "Mike, this place is ... it's my living room. You don't just let anybody into your living room. When you invite guests in your home, you make sure it's a good mix, right?"

"I don't do that much entertaining."

He chuckled. Shook his head. "You're perfect for 52. You're a legend. Larger than life. You are welcome here anytime."

"Do I rate an all-access pass?"

His smile turned pixie-ish. He raised a cautionary palm. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's your first night."

"Bill Doolan rated one."

Without hesitation, Tony nodded and kept nodding. "Great guy. Perfect fit. Best addition to the family since the Disco Grandma."

"How the hell is an old-time copper like Doolan your 'perfect fit'?"

Tony lighted up a cigarette, swallowed smoke through a smile. "Mike, he was famous in this city—not as famous as you, but the papers were full of him. He cleaned up his neighborhood, the capper of a career full of putting thieves and robbers and hoods away."

"Some of whom you're related to."

He waved that off. "That's history. That's the past. That's not who I am anymore. But Doolan, he was a real character. He could put away the booze like Sinatra. He liked the ladies, too, the young ones. I think he had a thing for Chrome, y'know. Whether it went anywhere or not, I couldn't tell you. Probably just a flirtation."

"How often was he here?"

Tony shrugged. "Maybe once a week—for a couple of months. Not a regular, but a familiar and always welcome face."

"He took photos here."

"Did he?"

"Is that allowed?"

He gave up a sluggish shrug. "We let media types in, if they behave. If we got somebody here, Princess Grace or Baryshnikov, and they don't wanna get photographed, they don't get photographed. That must be understood."

"Is that who Doolan was to you? A media type?"

"No! He was just another wonderful eccentric. I never saw him shoot photos. If he did, it was probably just snapshots for his scrapbook. To paste pics of Chrome in next to his grandkids or whatever. Or to do whatever dirty old men do with photos of sexy young women in the privacy of their own homes."

"A dirty old man? Doolan?"

"Why, won't you be one someday, Mike? And me, if I live long enough?"

I shrugged. "If you live long enough."

Not much threat had been put into that, but it sobered Tony. Anthony.

The little emperor leaned forward. "Listen, Mike, this place is legit. I got no mob ties whatsoever. My brother Leo and me, we haven't spoken for two years. You saw the mayor downstairs. We got councilmen and congressmen as regulars."

"Like your friend from the Enfilade, Alex Jaynor?"

"No, Alex has never been to 52. And we shoot on different days at the Enfilade. We've spoken a few times at events. Why?"

"He was tight with Doolan. All three of you belong to that gun club. Just wondering what the connection was."

Tony shrugged again. "Just what meets the eye. I think Jaynor and Doolan were in the same regular shooting group, but I wasn't. We got along. Were polite. My hunch is Jaynor may harbor suspicions about me. About my background. He's a do-gooder, and I frankly don't trust do-gooders."

"Yeah. They can spoil a party. No mob ties at all, Tony?"

"Please, Mike—it's Anthony. No. None."

I gestured to the garbage bag. "But that's a mob-style skim you're running."

The smile under the mustache froze. Then it melted and he said, "We don't need the mob for that. It's a cash-and-carry business, Mike."

"How much are you carrying that the I.R.S. doesn't know about?"

"Why, are you a fan of the I.R.S.?"

"Not particularly. They did a nice job on Capone. What have you made in a year, Anthony?"

Another shrug. "Seven million."

"Before or after the skim?"

He shrugged. "After. Skim's around two mil. See, Mike? We got no secrets, you and me."

"And you're not worried? If I could spot that action from the balcony, so could an I.R.S. agent."

That smile again. "He'd have to get past the velvet rope. Look, Mike, we're hot right now. Everybody loves a winner and we're winning."

"So the drugs your bartenders peddle, and the coke I saw those orgy girls and boys using in the balcony—local law enforcement looks the other way?"

"These are hedonistic times, Mike. It's not criminal activity, it's a lifestyle! My God, an individual like you surely can't object. You've laid more pipe than all the plumbers in the Bronx! You killed more people than Audie fuckin' Murphy."

"Not as many at one time."

Little Tony shook his head; the Roman curls stayed put. "You are a pisser. You always have been a pisser." He got up from behind his desk, clearly ready to walk me out.

So I got up. At the door, he stuck his hand out and I shook it. He was my host. But, my God, his palm felt greasy.

"You are always welcome at 52, Mike. You are on the list."

He was on mine.

I said, "Like Doolan?"

"You said it earlier—he had all access. He could go anywhere in my world."

"Like, where can't I go in the club, without that pass?"

This seemed to amuse him. He opened the door and the young boxer in the 52 blazer perked up like a puppy who heard the rustle of a candy wrapper.

"Louis," Tony said, "show Mr. Hammer to the V.I.P. room."

"You mean the lounge, Mr. Tretriano?"

"No—the room."

The kid from Bing's led me down the stairs into the balcony and below to the main floor, then to a door near the stage that was guarded by a pair of blazers. We went down creaky wooden steps into the basement. A path cut between chained-linked supply areas, decorative crap on one side, boxes of liquor and beer on the other. Then I followed my escort down a drywall corridor to a guarded metal-grillwork door through which could be seen another, smaller party.

Like the upstairs, the lighting was dim though no flashing lights or laser lances were cutting through the darkness. The illumination came from the yellow and orange of an old Wurlitzer jukebox, an Elton John pinball machine, some funky vintage neon signs, lava lamps, and glowing fiber optics sprays. The limited lighting provided mood, sure, but it also concealed a multitude of sins. And not just those that might be committed by the guests.

As that grating door yawned open for me, and I stepped inside, I realized Little Tony Tret really was a hell of an entrepreneur. After all, he had transformed a dank, nothing basement into a celebrity lounge that the likes of Mick Jagger, Cary Grant, and Liz Taylor were dying to get into.

I'm not saying Mick, Cary, and Liz were present in this rec room for degenerates, but you would recognize just about every face. The furnishings were strictly thrift shop, mostly '50s atomic-age junk but also comfy easy chairs and couches and even plastic lawn furniture. A wet bar had a single bare-chested bartender, but there was a corner for pot smokers, too. A few of the famous faces were just standing around, chatting cocktail party—style. There was a bathroom marked His & HERS off to one side with an OCCUPIED card hanging on the knob.

But the main attraction was a massive glass-top coffee table with a mirror the size of an LP cover that was heaped with cocaine—a staggering pile of the stuff, like an ungainly pyramid of powdered sugar. Celebrities of every stripe were on the edge of couches and sofas, worshiping at this white altar, leaning in to cut lines with razor blades and sniff through rolled-up C-notes, lolling back laughing with white stuff on their noses, like kids who'd stuck their faces in the snow. And hadn't they?

I moved around the room nodding at people. I'd met some of them before. A lot of them recognized me—I did have the porkpie on—and sometimes laughed and pointed and occasionally patted me on the back as I passed. To them I was a cartoon character come to life out walking among them.

I spotted a big platinum blonde at the bar getting herself a glass of champagne. She had on a pink minidress with shoulder straps, lots of well-tanned flesh on display, and an ass that could make a man sit up and beg. I asked for a beer and was given a bottle of Michelob. The big blonde turned to me and it was Chrome.

Not a tan, then—she was natural bronze, if not natural blonde. That shade of platinum on a brown-eyed doll took help. And I liked the Asian look of her eyes.

"You were in the balcony," she said, with a musical accent, faint but there. Brazilian?

"I thought I imagined it."

A dark, well-shaped eyebrow arched. "Imagined what?"

"That we made eye contact."

We left the little bar for the next customer, finding a two-seater sofa we could plop down in. She crossed her legs and unleashed her very white smile on me.

"Your hat, I like it."

"So do I."

"You are some kind of cowboy?"

"Close. Private eye."

She nodded and laughed. "You are that Mike Hammer person. You are not so well known in my country, but here at 52? They whisper about you being here tonight. Much excitement."

"I make friends everywhere I go." I patted her hand. "You sing good. I hate disco, but I like you."

She shrugged. "I did not start with the disco music. I like the jazz. Jobim? I was one of the first to record his songs, you know."

"I didn't know."

She bobbed her head; the feathered platinum locks bounced off her shoulders—I'd thought that might be a wig, but it was real.

"The records," she was saying, "they were never released in your country. I have six gold records in Latin America. But I have the American contract now. My boys and I, we will do a big tour."

"Of the new Club 52s that Little Tony's opening?"

She smiled. "Little Tony, you say. He hate to be called that."

"Yeah, I know. He prefers Anthony. But I knew him when."

"When?"

"When he was a little punk in his old man's crime crew. They pulled heists and pushed dope."

She smiled a little, but no teeth—it was a pursed kiss of a smile. "The drugs, do they offend you?"

I was looking toward that coffee table with its jet-set worshipers. "It's poison."

"I myself do not use them. I do drink. And that is a drug, too, they say."

"Maybe."

"You are a funny one."

"Yeah, I'm the life of the party."

"I would guess you could be ... if you were in the mood."

I grinned at her and it shook her.

"Ooooh ... that is a nasty smile you have there, Mike. And your eyes—they are very strange."

"Watch this."

I got up and went over to the central coffee table where the rich and famous were tooting it up. I said excuse me a couple of times, and then I edged in close.

An actress I used to know looked up at me and said, "Not you, Mike! Indulging? Oh how the mighty have fallen...."

"Think so?"

I leaned over and picked up the mirror with its pile of coke, and with surprised yelps of protest at my back, I carried it like a busboy with a tray of empty glasses over to the His & HERS. Ignoring the OCCUPIED notice, I yanked the door open and found a guy in the middle of a perfectly good blow job, and from a female, too.

"Hate to interrupt, but would you excuse me?"

The guy, who acted on a cop show, hopped up off the lid of the toilet with his pants around his ankles and almost stabbed the girl in the eye. A redhead with her top down, she quickly got to her feet and plastered herself to the wall in the close quarters.

I lifted the toilet lid, seat and all, and dumped all of the white stuff into the crapper.

People were yelling, even screaming behind me, crowding around, but nobody touched me.

It didn't all go down in a single flush, which meant I had to wait a little while for the toilet water to fill back up again.

Just making conversation, I said to the actor, "Give me a call if you ever have research questions," and he just smiled over his shoulder at me nervously, while the little actress, who was on a top ten sitcom and had lots of Orphan Annie curls, gave me a wide-eyed look and was shaking. Like I was a maniac or something.

After the second flush had done its work, I said to the actor and actress, "As you were," and shut them back in there. I had a hunch they may have lost their momentum. Pity.

I went back to the coffee table and flipped the mirror onto the glass. It skidded a little through the remaining white lines.

An Academy Award—winning tough guy got in my face. Either he thought he had plenty of backup or the coke had made him foolish and brave.

"What the fuck's the idea, you goddamn Neanderthal?"

I pushed him away, gently, then said to the startled, outraged bunch, who were all on their feet now, "I hate to be the turd in the punch bowl, kids. But that stuff is illegal, and I don't want to risk going down for it."

This elicited lots of comment, running mostly to "Oh, Jesus!" and "Do you believe this asshole?"

I said, "I mean, not on a night when there are rumors of a police raid."

The place emptied out faster than that theater when King Kong broke loose.

And then it was just me and Chrome in the wet cellar that posed as a V.I.P. room.

She was laughing and applauding, saying, "Mike! I think maybe you are a cowboy."

Chrome came over and took my hand and led me to a big comfy leather chair near the ruined fun of the coffee table. I sat down and she nestled onto my lap, slipped her arms around my neck, like I was Santa and she had a wish. She was a big woman, and not light, but I didn't mind. Her lips found mine and they were moist and hot. I glanced over at the guard on the other side of the grating door. His back was to us.

"Listen," I said. "I want to talk to you...."

She was nuzzling my ear. "I want to talk to you, too, Mike. We will talk later...."

"Did you know Bill Doolan?"

Her head reared back and the big brown almond eyes locked on to me. "Yes. I did. Not well. So sad that he die. He was very nice."

"How nice?"

"What do you mean, Mike?"

"Nice, like ... this?"

And I put my hands on her breasts and just squeezed gently, like I was checking the freshness of fruit at a market. They were ripe and firm, all right.

"No," she said. She kissed me again, warm, sticky with lipstick, full of promise. Then her tongue was flicking and licking at my ear, darting like a snake's, as she whispered, "He was just a nice old man. He come stand and watch. Never dance. Just watch."

"Some people like to watch...."

"Some do not."

She slipped off my lap and onto the floor where a shag carpet was waiting for her knees and her hand found my zipper and tugged it down. She had me out and in her grasp and her mouth was about to descend when I held her back, the heel of a hand at a shoulder.

"I don't like sex in public places," I said.

"There is no one here but us."

I nodded toward the guard beyond the grating.

She shrugged. "Like I said ... there is no one here, Mike."

"I thought you were Little Tony's girl."

"I'm nobody's girl."

Her head bobbed down, but I pulled her up.

"No," I said. "Not now. Not like this."

Her full lips teased me with a smile. "And here I think they say that you are the wild man."

"Wild, yes. Not kinky."

She rose, sat on the arm of the easy chair, slipped an arm around my shoulder; her other hand still grasped me and gently, gently stroked. "We could go to your place."

"I don't have a place."

"We could go to mine."

"We could. But not tonight. Not now. This place ... your precious 52 ... Chrome, doll, this is not my scene."

The aftermath was expectedly awkward. My fly got zipped, her makeup got unsmeared, and so on. But she gave me her address written in mascara on a Club 52 cocktail napkin.

"Where do you live?" I asked her.

"Rio de Janeiro. Why?"

"This is a Park Avenue address. You staying with somebody?"

"No. I have a Manhattan apartment now. I will be spending much time here. Much time in America. You see, Mike ... you have not escaped me. You will never escape me."

"Is that a promise? In the meantime, where's the nearest exit? I got a feeling after Little Tony hears about this, he may take me off the list."