Night vision

CHAPTER 37

Max Blinderman. Ex-jockey, penny-ante con artist, a life told in a series of yellowed newspaper clips and scraps of microfilm.

Roberta Blinderman. Goes by Bobbie. Ex…Ex-what?

Just who the hell was Roberta Blinderman? No criminal record, at least not under that name. I had been watching her swiveling walk but not paying attention to anything else.

My thoughts were interrupted by someone pounding on my front door. They do that after pushing the button half a dozen times. The doorbell hasn't worked in years. I yelled that it was unlocked. I heard some feeble pushing, but the door didn't budge. In the humidity it swells up like a patrolman's feet.

"Hit it with your shoulder," I yelled.

A thud, a curse, and a moment later Bobbie Blinderman high-heeled it into my combination library, living room, conversation pit, and entertainment area. It's a library because the sports pages are usually spread across the floor. I spend most of my time here, hence the living room, and I entertain myself with one-sided conversations. At the moment I was lying on a sagging sofa, nursing a sixteen-ounce Grolsch, my gimpy leg propped up.

"I was just thinking about you," I said, telling the truth.

She wore a black scooped-back dress, molded to her body, with a sweeping skirt. It was the first time I couldn't see a mile or so of thigh.

"You look very nice," I said. "Almost ladylike."

"We need to talk."

"About Max."

"No. About Pam."

"Pam?"

The name sounded familiar, but I hadn't thought about her since she had hustled me into an elevator at the hotel. The emotional wounds must be healing, or were they only superficial? I hoisted myself to a sitting position, offered Bobbie a seat, and she gracefully bent at the knees and lowered herself into the cushion at the far end of the sofa. She had spent some time tending to herself. The blush emphasized the sanguine complexion, the black hair was in a cultivated shag that suggested wildness under control. Her dark, wide-set eyes were accented with liner, shadow, and mascara.

She took a breath and said, "I thought Pam and I might really have something special. And we do, or did. I gave her all my love, and believe me, Lassiter, it's a lot. You have no idea how hot I burn, the depth of my passion."

She looked at me with eyes both smoldering and vulnerable. It was a new look, as if she had been playing a role, tough and loose, and now something else had opened up, sensitive and giving. As for the depths of her passion, if I didn't know now, the look said I might soon learn.

"Now Pam wants to know all about you and me," she said.

"A short conversation."

"That's what I told her, the truth, that you arouse me and I flirted with you, but you never responded."

"I responded, but you're married, and even if you weren't, it would be a conflict of interest with the investigation going on."

I patted myself on the back, gave myself the discretion-is-the-better-part-of-ardor award. Then I realized I wasn't investigating anything anymore. I had been fired. I was supposed to give blood but said to hell with it. I was supposed to turn in my gun, but Cindy couldn't find it. Now, revising the equation, the only hang-up was that Bobbie Blinderman was married.

And promiscuous.

And bisexual.

And her husband may be a maniac who kills anyone who dallies with her.

Other than that, we were made for each other.

"Pam doesn't believe me," Bobbie said, her eyes on the paddle fan, seemingly hypnotized by the churning blades. "She's obsessed with the thought that you and I are lovers…"

She let it hang there, and unspoken words passed between us. And if she believes it's true, why not make it true? Because, I reminded myself, she's married, promiscuous, and bisexual, and her husband…and so on and so forth.

And another reason, too, Lassiter, old buddy. The days of easy flesh are gone, my friend. Oh, a guy with an itch can still find an evening's diversion, just a bar stool or computer terminal away. There was a time when even a semi-tough linebacker knew every nightspot in the AFC East and most of the barmaids therein. But no more road trips, groupies fluttering in the lobby bar, then up the service elevator for curfew-busting pregame revelry. It's not the seventies anymore. The sexual revolution has been repealed by a vote of the electorate. And not just because of communicable rashes and deadly viruses. There's an old-fashioned word that makes us smart guys wince: morality. Or if that's too self-righteous for you, remember the flip side. Chilly awakenings in strange beds, the harsh light of morning, and not a word to say. What was her name: Susie, Sandy, Mandy, Candy? A flight attendant or travel agent or cosmetics salesgirl who liked opera or Cancun or hockey. Hey, it's hard enough when you're aglow with the buzz of someone special and it turns out to be a false alarm. No use sighing and sweating just for the exercise.

Jake Lassiter, number fifty-eight, placed on waivers, emotionally unable to perform. Refuses to hit and run. Welcome to the grown-up world, Lassiter. I'm almost proud of you, buddy.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude," I said, "but I've got other things on my mind besides your relationship with Pam."

"Such as?"

"Where's Max?"

She shrugged.

"I mean, if he's following you around, maybe I ought to find my Louisville Slugger, get ready-"

"I told him not to bother you again," Bobbie said.

"How considerate. Did you tell him not to bother Alex Rodriguez?"

She looked puzzled, so I told her. She kept shaking her head and biting her lower lip. "What time did it happen?"

"ME says between noon and three p.m. yesterday." Bobbie let her face relax. "Max was in the office all afternoon. He drove me back from Key Biscayne after your…disagreement, and we worked all day."

"Who else was there?"

"Just the two of us."

"Uh-huh."

"You don't believe me."

"No. I think you're covering for him."

"Max would have no reason to kill the cop."

"Really? Who would he have reason to kill?" She didn't answer. "Let's play a little name association game," I said. "Marsha Diamond."

"What about her?"

"You tell me, Bobbie."

"She belonged to Compu-Mate. You know that."

"Ever make love with her?"

"No!"

"Never shared her bed, had that something special you had with Pam?"

"No! We never met. I've already told you." When a witness starts to open up, keep the questions coming, short and sweet. Process the information later. "Mary Rosedahl."

The long, black lashes fluttered. "She was so lovely. Bisexual since her teens. We were together off and on. I was shocked when she was killed."

"Priscilla Fox."

"She wanted to experiment, that's all. Very adventurous. A one-nighter. We laughed about it. She was so full of life. It's awful what happened."

"Alex Rodriguez."

"The flatfoot! Give me a break. Except for a vice cop when I was a kid, I never-"

"Where were you married and when?"

"Miami Beach, three years ago, August third."

"So why doesn't Dade County have a record of the marriage license?"

"I don't know. Max handled all that."

"What's your maiden name?"

"Why?"

"What is it?"

She stood and walked to the wall. She was staring at a poster of a Hawaiian kid doing a three-hundred-sixty-degree flip on a sail-board. Either she was fascinated with aerodynamics or she was thinking.

"St. Simeon," she said. "Roberta St. Simeon."

"Unusual name."

"I'm an unusual person."

"If I ran that name through the Metro computer, what little shocks would I get?"

She turned back to me. "How easily do you shock?"

I didn't answer. I just sat there studying her. For once, she wasn't trying to be provocative. No risque jokes, no limericks. Something was bothering her. And me. If I could only draw the two bothers together.

"Was there really a Simeon who was a saint?" I asked.

"I'm told there was. A monk who lived on top of a pillar, just praying and praying, denying all flesh."

That almost made me laugh. Life is more pleasurable if you develop a sense of irony.

"Saint Simeon," I said, the name tickling my mind.

"Saint Simeon," she repeated.

"There's a name for it, isn't there, an ascetic monk who lives atop a column or pillar."

"I believe there is."

"What is it?"

"Can't remember," she shot back, too quickly to have tried.

Something was there, creeping around the shadows of my mind. I wanted to open a book, but what book?

"Well," she said, "if the interrogation is over, perhaps I should leave."

I didn't try to stop her.

She gathered herself in the way women do before making an exit.

"You said you responded to me. Did you mean it?"

"You're a sultry enchantress and damn well know it."

"But you're still not interested."

"Lately, I've been trying to do my thinking north of the equator."

She smiled and looked at me straight on.

"'Then I shall fly for my I good, perhaps for thine, at any rate for thine if mine is thine.'"

It took me a moment to decipher. "That's very good. Original?"

"I wish."

"Who wrote it?"

"Tennyson. Ever heard of him?"

Bobbie Blinderman was telling me about Alfred Tennyson's emotional problems and his letter to Emily-somebody breaking off their engagement, flying for his own good, perhaps for thine, blah, blah, blah. But I wasn't listening. Not really listening. I was thinking, running it all through my head.

Woman is the lesser man,

And all thy passions, matched with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, And as water unto wine.

"Why belittle women that way? What does Bobbie Blinderman know of male passions, anyway?"

"Who is the hunter, Bobbie?"

She spoke slowly, her voice heavy. "You know that, Jake. You've read it so many times. Man is the hunter."

And woman is the game. All I knew were the words. But now I remembered more of hers. The less you know about me the better. Flippant at the time, meaningful now? Come into focus. Come on, think. Two hyenas sniffing around, Charlie had said. What was it she had asked? Would appearances put you off?

Saint Simeon. She was trying to tell me something.

"You're the Passion Prince, aren't you?"

"I liked the name, borrowed it."

"You never met Marsha Diamond, but you computer-talked with her the night she died."

"Yes, but I was so new at it, I was…too crude. It was the beast in me."

"From then on, you took the poet's words."

"Yes."

She moved closer to the sofa. Tears formed in the corners of her dark eyes. Her eyebrows were scrunched. She was silent.

On the sailboard was a stack of books and old newspapers. I fished around and pulled out the worn volume Prince had given me. The Poems of Tennyson. I thumbed through it, found what I wanted, and said, "They're called stylites, aren't they, the monks on the pillars?"

"Yes," she said.

"Saint Simeon isn't your name. You took it from a poem called Saint Simeon Stylites. "

She nodded. I read:

"' I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold

Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob,

Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,

Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin! '"

A tear ran down her face.

"Help me figure you out. What does it mean? What is your sin?"

"You don't care about me," she said.

"I want to help you. Tell me."

She stood two feet in front of me. I was still on the sofa, my head at the level of her waist. She faced me and slid one shoulder free of the black dress. Then she pushed the other side away, the dress sliding over her breasts until she was naked to the waist. It was a flat, smooth waist. The breasts were small and pointed. She placed a hand on each of her nipples and stroked them erect. Softly, she spoke the lines, "'Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, and left her woman…'"

She closed her eyes and moved closer to me, straddling my knees with her legs. She reached down and gently circled my hand with hers. "'Lovelier in her mood than in her mould that other, when she came from barren deeps to conquer all with love.'"

She placed my hand underneath the hem of her dress and moved it slowly up her leg, guiding me.

Then she chanted it, as if in a trance:

"' But woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse: could we make her as the man,

Sweet love were slain: his clearest bond is this,

Not like to like, but like in difference.

Yet in the long years liker must they grow;

The man be more of woman, she of man. '"

My hand slid between her smooth thighs, higher and higher.

When it would go no farther, she held it there. And then I knew.