Painted Ladies

25

I was halving oranges and squeezing the juice into a glass in my kitchen when Susan appeared, fresh from the shower and the makeup mirror. I took a deep breath. Whenever I saw her I took a deep breath. It was more dignified than yelling “Jehoshaphat!”

“Isn’t that a lot of trouble?” Susan said. “I like the stuff in a carton fine.”

“That’s pasteurized,” I said. “I want the authentic experience. Unprocessed. Nothing between me and the orange, you know? Mano a orange-o!”

I gave her the glass and squeezed some for myself.

“You are, as they say in psychotherapeutic circles, a weird dude,” Susan said.

“And yet you love me,” I said.

“I know.”

“It’s all about the sex,” I said. “Isn’t it.”

“Not all,” Susan said. “You cook a nice breakfast, too.”

She had on tight black jeans tucked into high cavalier boots, the kind where the top folds over. Her open-collared shirt was white, and over it she wore a small black sweater vest. It set off her black hair and big, dark eyes. She probably knew that.

“Good sex and a nice breakfast,” I said. “An unbeatable combination.”

Susan smiled.

“I don’t recall anyone using the word ‘good,’ ” she said.

“Seems to me,” I said, “you were singing different lyrics an hour ago.”

She actually flushed a little bit.

“Don’t be coarse,” she said.

“Not even in self-defense?” I said.

She grinned at me.

“Well, maybe,” she said. “We were quite lively. Weren’t we.”

“With good reason,” I said.

I finished my orange juice and poured us both some coffee. Susan wasn’t anywhere near finishing her orange juice. But she might never finish it. Over the years I’d learned to proceed and let her sort it out.

Pearl was asleep on her back on the couch, with her head lolling off. She was waiting, I knew, for actual food to be prepared and served, at which time she’d get off the couch and come over and haunt us.

“I have a question,” Susan said. “And a comment.”

“Is this one of those questions where you also know the answer, but you’d like to hear what I have to say?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “But first the comment.”

“Okay.”

“It was very clever of you to turn the situation around the way you did.”

“You mean opening the door and sitting tight?”

“Yes. Up to that point, they had the power. They were waiting to ambush you. When you pushed the door open, you took the power from them. Now you were waiting to ambush them.”

“Astounding, isn’t it,” I said.

“Do you think of these things in the moment?” Susan said. “Or do you keep a little list?”

“Like a quarterback with the plays on his wristband,” I said.

“Whatever that means,” Susan said.

“A sports metaphor,” I said. “Mostly I react. But in fact, in this case, I had done it before. I used that ploy a long time ago, in London. It sort of came back to me when Pearl gave me the heads-up.”

“Why do you suppose she did that?” Susan said.

“She loves me?”

“She and I both,” Susan said. “But I’m serious. What made her growl like that? You say you’ve never heard her make that sound before.”

“No. It did not sound like her.”

“So why did she?”

“A smell in the room that she hadn’t encountered?”

“There must be a hundred smells,” Susan said. “Cleaning people. Clients. Why this smell?”

“I don’t know.”

We were quiet. Pearl shifted slightly into an even more comfortable position.

“I’ve had dogs nearly all my life,” I said. “And most of them have been German shorthaired pointers named Pearl. I try not to romanticize them. But it is very clear to me that more goes on in there than we understand.”

Susan nodded.

“You think she somehow knew something was bad?” Susan said.

“Very little is known about dogs,” I said.

Susan nodded and looked at Pearl.

“Well, whatever motivated her,” Susan said, “good dog!”

Pearl opened her eyes and looked at Susan upside down, saw that nothing more consequential was coming her way, and closed her eyes again.

“There was also a question?” I said.

Susan emptied a packet of Splenda into her coffee and stirred it carefully.

“When Pearl warned you,” she said, “and you went across the street and looked, and saw those two men waiting for you in your office . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you just call the police?”

“ ‘Call the police,’ ”I said.

“Yes.”

I drank some coffee. Susan waited.

“I never thought of it,” I said.

“Literally?”

“Literally,” I said.

She nodded slowly.

“And if you had thought of it,” she said, “you wouldn’t have done it, anyway, would you.”

“No,” I said.

“Because you clean things up yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Still your father’s son,” Susan said.

“And my uncles’,” I said.

She nodded.

“Still chasing the bear,” she said.

“You knew the answer before you asked the question,” I said.

“But I kind of wondered if you did,” she said.

“You know where I came from,” I said. “And you know what I do, and if I’m going to continue to do it, I can’t be someone who calls the cops when there’s trouble.”

“Because it’s bad for business?” Susan said.

“It is bad for business, and that’s a perfectly rational answer, but it’s not quite why,” I said.

“Because it’s bad for you,” Susan said.

“Bingo,” I said.

“To do what you do, you have to know you can take care of business yourself,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“You can get help from friends . . . Hawk, for instance,” Susan said. “But you’re still in it. And you’re in charge.”

“More or less.”

“You call the cops,” Susan said, “and you are expected to step aside and let them handle things.”

“More than expected,” I said.

“You’re a professional tough guy,” Susan said. “And professional tough guys don’t hand off.”

“Wow,” I said. “A sports metaphor.”

“I try,” Susan said. “I want to be just like you.”

“I’d hate like hell to be sleeping with someone just like me,” I said.

“Funny thing,” Susan said. “I’ve never minded.”

“A puzzle,” I said.

“Yes,” Susan said. “But there it is.”

Susan’s juice glass was still nearly full. She ignored it and drank some coffee.

“It meant you had to kill two men,” she said. “How does that feel.”

“They would have killed me,” I said.

“Yes, they would have,” Susan said. “But how do you feel?”

“Several ways. I won; they lost.”

“And?” she said.

“Glad they didn’t kill me.”

“Me, too,” she said.

“And I do not like killing people,” I said.

“But you do it,” she said.

“And will again,” I said. “But I do not like it.”

“You could get out of this business,” Susan said.

“I could,” I said.

“But you won’t,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Because this is what you are and who you are,” she said. “And if you quit, you would like that even less.”

“I’d still be with you,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be enough,” she said.

“If you asked me to change,” I said, “I’d change.”

“I’ll never ask you,” she said.

“You’d be enough.”

“We’re each enough for you,” she said. “The rest is speculation.”

“You’re a pretty smart broad,” I said.

“I know,” Susan said. “You’re a pretty interesting guy.”

“I know,” I said.

“Maybe we are about more than good sex and a fine breakfast,” Susan said.

“Maybe we are the two most interesting people in the world,” I said.

“Probably,” she said.