Small Town

fifteen

Estelle Safran, known to one and all as Stelli, sat on her stool at the corner of the bar nearest to the front door. It was indeed her stool, and it was not only reserved for her but had been designed and built for her. It was larger than the others, to accommodate her girth, and had a power switch, rarely used, that would raise or lower the seat several inches.

She weighed, well, none of your business, and stood five foot three in flats, which were all she ever wore. Honey, if I wore heels, I’d make holes in the sidewalk. Her round face was capped with a pile of unconvincing blond curls, and her eyes, always elaborately framed in mascara, were a startling guileless blue.

She’d been a chubby child who grew fatter in her teens. Such a pretty face, her mother’s friends said, and it was a phrase she would hear or overhear for years. Such a pretty face, and isn’t it a shame...

Diets hadn’t worked, and Fat Girl Camp hadn’t worked, and by the time she graduated from the High School of Music and Art she had said the hell with it. At Cornell she hung out with the writers and the theater majors and got a reputation for a savage wit and a deft hand in the kitchen. She wrote ten short stories and two-thirds of a novel, played Tony’s wife in a student production of A View from the Bridge, and realized she couldn’t write and she couldn’t act, and, more to the point, she didn’t really want to do either. What she wanted to do was hang out with people who did — and maybe whip up a little something.

She somehow knew that a man would come along who loved her for herself alone, loved her in spite of her weight, and she met the guy shortly after she graduated and married him four months later. Unfortunately he turned out to be a spoiled child-adult, a mean-spirited emotional cripple who’d picked out a fat girl so he could feel superior to her, secure in the knowledge that she’d never leave him, because where could she possibly go? She divorced the son of a bitch in less than a year, kept the apartment, and started having an open house every Sunday.

Friends and their friends would start to turn up around four in the afternoon, bringing a bottle of wine or whiskey, and there’d be nuts and homemade party mix to nibble on, and around seven she’d go into the kitchen and bring out big bowls of pasta and salad. Everybody ate, everybody drank, and everybody talked at once, and at midnight she threw out the last hangers-on and went to bed.

Monday mornings she went off to work, and when she came home the apartment was always immaculate, every dish and glass washed and put away, the floors vacuumed, the kitchen gleaming. That was her one indulgence, having someone clean up for her on Mondays, and it was worth it. Her shrink had suggested it, when she’d said for the tenth or twentieth time how she hated cleaning up afterward. Then hire someone to do it for you, he’d said, and for years she would say that therapy was worth every penny, if only because it got her to hire a housekeeper.

But that was only half of it, because the shrink made one other suggestion, and this one changed her life. She was working the fifth or sixth in a long series of pay-the-rent jobs, currently handling phone orders for an East Side florist, and complaining about it, not for the first time. “I need a career,” she said, “instead of a fucking job. But what? I can’t write, I can’t act, my degree’s a bachelor’s in English, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“What do you enjoy?”

“What do I enjoy? Having people over, listening to them talk, and watching them eat. That’s great if you can live on the half-bottles of booze they leave when they go home. I’ve got two cupboards full of open bottles and a job that makes me want to vomit.”

“You’re running a salon,” he said.

“And if this was Paris in the twenties, they’d write books about me.”

“Add an o.”

“Huh?”

“Change the salon,” he said, “into a saloon.”

She knew instantly that he was right, and told him that he was brilliant, a genius. She only wished she was thin and gorgeous so she could take off her clothes and show her appreciation. When she left his office she phoned her employer and quit, then went to work finding the right location and lining up backers.

Neither proved difficult. Her apartment was in Yorkville, in one of the big prewar apartment buildings on East Eighty-sixth, and she figured that was where they were used to coming on Sunday nights, so why not stick with it? Besides, she wanted to be able to walk to work. It was a pain in the ass getting in and out of the back seat of a cab.

She found the perfect spot, a restaurant that had gone under when the owner retired and his nephew took over and ran the place into the ground. Her lawyer negotiated a lease with a clause that gave her the option of buying the building anytime during the term of the lease. She made phone calls as soon as the lease was signed, looking for backers, and the first person she reached said he’d always wanted to own a piece of a restaurant, and he’d put up fifty grand.

But she didn’t want a partner, didn’t want to owe important money to anyone. Five, she told him, was the maximum she would take from any one person. And he wouldn’t own a piece of the place, she’d own all the pieces. If the place was successful, he’d get double his money back. If it went in the toilet, well, he could afford to lose five thousand dollars, couldn’t he?

She raised all the money she needed, and on her terms, and the next time she saw the shrink she told him again that he was a genius, and she had one more question. What the hell should she call it?

“What do people call it now?”

“It doesn’t exist yet,” she said, “so nobody calls it anything.”

“On Sundays,” he said, “when they’re getting ready to go to your apartment, your salon, where do they say they’re going?”

“What do they say? How should I know what they say, they’re not there yet for me to hear.” She thought a moment. “They say they’re going to Stelli’s.”

“So?”

“A genius,” she said.

Stelli’s was a success from the night it opened. Her Sunday night freeloaders, most of whom had invested from $500 to $5,000 in the restaurant, showed up not only for the opening but several nights a week. She never hired a publicist, but got in the columns without professional assistance. And why not? The most interesting people in New York were regulars at Stelli’s, and spent their most interesting evenings in conversation at her bar.

She drew writers, of course. They’d been the core of her Sundays, and they were her favorites, not just because she respected their work but also because they had the best conversation. It was important for them to be original. An actor would find a story that worked and use it over and over, delivering it a little better each time. But it was the same shtick, and if you’d heard it once, that was plenty. A writer, though, felt compelled to think of something new.

She got actors, too, and liked them, if only because they were so determined to be liked. And they were decorative, too, and drew the eyes. But she also got politicians, both local and national, and a small international contingent from the UN. She didn’t get the Wall Street guys, or the crowd from Madison Avenue, and she didn’t get the ladies who lunched or the pinky-ring cigar smokers. But she got a few of the more sophisticated cops and the hipper gangsters, and an occasional Met or Yankee. And lawyers, of course. Everybody got lawyers.

She learned how to keep the help from stealing and her suppliers from cheating her. She learned how to avoid serious health violations in the kitchen, and how much to schmear the inspectors to overlook the less-than-serious ones. She refined the menu, dropping the items that nobody ordered. She made money, and by the end of the first year she’d paid back her backers, and six months later had paid them back double. She invested her profits in CDs and T-bills, and six months before her lease was up she bought the building. Now nobody could raise her rent and nobody could make her move and Stelli’s could go on being Stelli’s forever.

Such a pretty face. She put on a few pounds every year, just a few, and she was resigned to it, most of the time. But once, not long after she’d exercised her option and bought the building, she got inspired and went on an Oprah-type diet and lost a lot of weight. She didn’t shrink all the way down to a size three, but she did get to be the size of a normal person, and everybody oohed and aahed over her.

And she discovered that, with the extra flesh gone, she didn’t have such a pretty face after all. Maybe the observation had been true when she was a girl, but since then her features had matured in an unflattering fashion, and she had a big nose and a big mouth, and the face that looked back in her mirror, the face that appeared at the top of this new almost-slender body of hers, looked like it ought to be peering over the parapet of Notre Dame. She looked like a fucking gargoyle, and for this she was eating salad with no dressing? For this she was passing up pasta?

She put the weight back on, and then some, and she felt a whole lot better, and never again thought about taking it off.

Now, on this Friday night, she sat in her custom-built seat with the first of the four or five Chardonnay spritzers she would consume in the course of the evening, greeting her guests as they arrived, with smiles for all and kisses for a few. Her tables were all booked, except for the two she’d hold back in case a cherished regular arrived hungry without a reservation. (Once a Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist, a Sunday salon alumnus and $5,000 backer, had gotten off a flight from the Coast and come straight to Stelli’s, and all her tables were taken. “Hey, it’s all right,” he’d insisted. “I’ll just sit at the bar, and you know what I’ll do? I always have martinis with a twist, but tonight I’ll have them with olives.” She’d served him a full meal at the bar, and started a trend. Now several of her regulars ate at the bar on nights when they came in by themselves. But she always held back two tables, just in case.)

A smile, a nod, a kiss. The out-of-towners got nice warm smiles, too, because their money was as good as anybody else’s, and for all she knew so was their company. Half her regulars had been out-of-towners once, until New York got in their blood and became a part of them even as they became a part of it.

Two men in sports jackets. One she’d seen a few times recently, a cop or ex-cop, and if you gave her a minute she’d come up with the name. “Jim,” she said, “it’s good to see you.” And his companion, a familiar face, damn good-looking, nice clothes, and the minute he gave her a smile she placed him. “Fran! You look terrific, and where the hell have you been keeping yourself? I saw more of you when you were living in Seattle.”

“Portland,” he said.

“Same difference. It’s great to see you, Fran, and you, Jim. I hope you gentlemen made a reservation...”

“Two at eight,” Fran Buckram said.

“That’s easier than eight at two, which is what I had the other night. Or would have had, if I hadn’t told them to get lost. Go to Madrid, I told them. They eat late there, you’ll feel right at home. They thought it was a restaurant, they wanted to know how to get there. It’s in Spain, I said. Just walk to Paris and take a right. Philip? Be sure you take good care of Jim here, and the commissioner.”

“Here I was telling you how to find the place,” Jim Galvin said, “and she greets you like the prodigal son. ‘Take good care of the commissioner.’ ”

“ ‘Take good care of Jim and the commissioner.’ ”

“I gotta say I’m surprised she could come up with my name. It’s not like I’ve been coming here that much.”

“She’s good. Next time she’ll know your last name, too.”

“How do you know she didn’t know it now?”

“Either way,” Buckram said, “it would have been Hello, Jim. But then when she handed you off to Philip it would have been Take good care of Mr. Galvin.”

“And the commissioner.”

“Well, titles are for life, as far as the public is concerned. You run into Clinton, you’re not going to call him Bill.”

“How ya doin’, Mr. President? Except not everybody gets that treatment, Fran. It’s still Mayor Koch and Mayor Giuliani, but how about Dinkins? And it stopped being Mayor Beame ten minutes after Koch got sworn in.”

“So I’m the commissioner for life, is that what you’re saying?”

“Unless you get to be something else that trumps police commissioner.”

No, he wasn’t going to have that conversation again. “The mix is what makes this place work,” he said. “I started coming here after I got my gold shield, not all the time but every couple of weeks. You remember a wise guy named Teddy Kostakis? We had him for something, I forget what, and he rolled over and was gonna make all kinds of cases for us. And we brought him here one night, we’re feeding him, we’re buying him drinks, and he’s feeling like a pretty important guy, like a celebrity. And it turns out Teddy’s one of those guys, the alcohol messes with his volume control. More he drinks, louder he gets.”

“There’s a lot of guys like that.”

“And they’re usually sitting at the next table, but not this time. And here’s Teddy, telling his stories so they can hear him out in the street, and you can’t get him to pipe down. Now this is a nice place, you know that—”

“Sure.”

“And they get a decent crowd, but more often than not there’s a couple of made guys in the joint, and if they’re hearing what he’s saying, and if they’ve had as much to drink as he’s had, well, I don’t mind that much if Teddy gets shot, but I’m sitting right across the table from him, and whatever misses him could hit me.”

“Wha’d you do, yank him out of there?”

“You remember Phil Carnahan? A sweet guy, retired to Florida and lasted about six months down there.”

“Couldn’t take it?”

“Loved it, but he had one of those kinds of cancer that gets you out in a hurry. He called me to tell me he had this boat, I had to come down and go fishing with him, and then he called two weeks later to say he’d been to the doctor and got some bad news. And the next call I got was from his wife. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get off on this track. Where the hell was I?”

“He was sitting next to Teddy.”

“Oh, right. So he takes him by the shoulder, he shakes him, gets his attention, which isn’t the easiest thing in the world at this point, and he says, ‘Teddy, Teddy, you got to watch what you say. Don’t you know where you are?’ And Teddy looks at him, like Huh? And Phil says, ‘This is Stelli’s, Teddy. The fucking place is crawling with writers. They’ll steal your material!’ ”

She read Stelli’s face as she entered, and decided to improvise. “Hi, Stelli,” she said. “Did Maury Winters get here yet?”

And she saw the woman’s expression soften. She’d greeted her by name, she’d mentioned a prominent local figure who was an occasional if not frequent patron of the restaurant’s, so she must be okay. Stelli told her that the lawyer hadn’t made a reservation, which didn’t surprise Susan greatly because she happened to know he was in Amagansett for the weekend.

“We made a very tentative date,” she said. “I’ll be at the bar if he comes in. It’s Susan Pomerance.”

“Of course, dear.”

Yeah, like you recognized me, she thought, moving to the far end of the bar, where there were several seats open. That’s fine, dear, she thought. I’ll pretend I’m waiting for Maury and you pretend you know who I am, and we’ll both pretend your first take on me wasn’t that I was a hooker.

She ordered a Cosmopolitan and watched the bartender prepare it. He set it down and waited while she took the first sip, and she smiled her approval. He smiled back and moved off, and he was cute, a little young but that was all right. But you had to wait around all night if you wanted to fuck a bartender, and even then there was no guarantee. He could be gay, he could have a wife or girlfriend. Too bad, she thought, because he was cute.

To her left, a man and woman were deep in conversation. To her right, two men were telling Tallulah Bankhead stories. That was before her time, but it was before their time, too, and it was the sort of place where you could horn in on a conversation if you had something to contribute.

She said, “The line of hers I always liked was My daddy warned me about men and whiskey. He never said a word about women and cocaine.”

They liked that, and at once turned to include her in the conversation. The one closer to her signaled for another round, and asked her if she was ready for another Cosmo. She smiled and shook her head, she’d hardly touched hers. “Next round,” she said, and when their drinks came she raised her own glass.

The man farther from her said, “To men and whiskey? Or women and cocaine.”

She thought about it. “It’s probably déclassé to admit this,” she said, “but I never much cared for cocaine.”

They liked that, too, and the man next to her introduced himself and his friend. He was Lowell Cooke, he told her, and his friend was Jay McGann, the writer.

“But don’t pretend you’ve heard of me,” McGann said, “because nobody has.”

“But that’ll change very soon,” Cooke said, “as soon as your book comes out.”

“He has to believe that,” McGann said. “He’s my editor. And you are...?”

“Susan Pomerance,” she said. “I have an art gallery in Chelsea.”

“A woman of substance,” McGann said. “I have to confess, I’m partial to women of substance. They’re so...”

He turned to his friend for help.

“Substantial,” Cooke supplied.

“That’s it, they’re so substantial. You see? I need an editor.”

If she had to choose, which one would she pick? Neither was male-model gorgeous, though McGann had a rugged Marlboro Man quality to him that she liked. Cooke had a nice sensuality about him, though. When he moved his hands, she could feel them on her body.

Pie or ice cream? But why couldn’t she have pie à la mode?

God, she was wet at the very thought of it, and maybe it hadn’t been such a brilliant idea to go out without underwear. But it felt sexy, Jesus did it ever feel sexy, with her nipples (and they tingled, they always tingled now) rubbing the inside of the dress when she moved, and no cloth to bind her bare and dampened loins, and what if she did go home with the two of them? What if she fucked them both, one after the other or, better yet, both at once?

She’d never done that. Gary, that asshole husband of hers, with his oh-let’s-be-swingers number, had never really arranged anything interesting. And men who drooled at the thought of two girls and a guy got uptight at the idea of two men and one woman. Afraid they’d be shown up as less virile than the other guy, she supposed. Or, worse, scared of having some kind of sexual contact with him, and terrified that they might enjoy it.

Men...

Roz had made the reservation for nine, and he was ten minutes late. Stelli was there to greet him, and he said he was with Roz Albright.

She took his hand in both of hers, which surprised him. “She’s waiting for you in back,” she said. “I don’t know where Philip is, but go ahead back, you’ll find her. And John?” She was beaming. “I heard the news. Congratulations.”

He walked the length of the restaurant, feeling as though every eye in the place was on him. Roz was at a center-rear table, and there was an ice bucket on a stand next to the table, with a bottle of champagne chilling.

Jim Galvin interrupted himself in the middle of a war story. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “You’re not going to believe who just walked in.”

“Who?”

“Don’t turn around. Shit, he’s coming this way.”

“Who is it?”

“My fucking client, and how did he even know I was here? Wait a minute, he didn’t, and he doesn’t even see me. The champagne’s for him, and what do you figure he’s got to celebrate?”

Buckram could see him now, giving the big blonde a hug and a kiss, then sitting down opposite her. The guy’s face was familiar, but he couldn’t think why.

He said, “Who is he, and what are you doing for him?”

“I’m doing jack shit for him, which I guess is why it spooked me to see him walk in like he’s gunning for me. Who is he? He’s John fucking Creighton is who he is.”

“The writer?” And he put his hands together and mimed wringing an invisible neck.

“Yeah,” Galvin said. “That writer. I’m supposed to turn up a witness that’ll help the defense. Like what? Somebody who saw him not kill her?”

“Be a neat trick.”

“I got one guy, says he’s pretty sure the two of them left the bar separately. But hell, there’s evidence puts him in the apartment with her. Maybe this muddies the water some, maybe Winters can do something with it, but—”

“Maury Winters? That’s who you’re working for?”

“Yeah, and I never thought I’d see the day. I’ll never forget how he made a monkey out of me in court one time. Anything comes of this, the DA’ll be trying to make me look stupid, and Maury’ll be objecting left and right. Funny how it comes around, isn’t it?”

“Maury Winters.”

“Is that the magic word, Fran? You and him got a beef or something?”

“See the brunette? Fourth stool from the end?”

“Changing the subject again? Yeah, I noticed her when she walked in. She’s a beautiful woman, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her, but what’s she got to do with my boss?”

“The last time I saw Maury,” he said, “was in a fancy French restaurant.”

“Yeah, well, I guess he can afford to eat anyplace he wants.”

“He was all by himself at a table, and she was under it.”

“Come on, Fran.”

“Cleaning his pipes. Swear to God.”

“Jesus. If she pulled something like that here...”

“She couldn’t, Jim. She’d never get away with it. She’d have to do everybody.”

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Roz said. “I was trying to remember when I saw you last. When did you shave?”

“About an hour ago.”

“I mean when did you lose the beard, not when did you last run a razor over your face.”

“Same answer,” he said. “It needed a trim, and I got carried away. I feel slightly naked, but I probably would anyway, being suddenly out in public. And Stelli recognized me. She even congratulated me. She couldn’t be referring to the indictment, or the shave, so I can only assume she heard about the deal. You told her, right?”

“I did,” she said. “I couldn’t help myself. But if I hadn’t, someone else would have before the evening was out. Word gets around in nothing flat, you know that. When you get home, I’ll bet you’ll have congratulatory messages on your machine. Which reminds me, did Esther call?”

“Right after I got off the phone with you. I swear I’ve never met the woman, but the way she talked you’d have thought at the very least we shacked up once for a week in Cancún.”

“If you’d ever seen her, you’d know how funny that is.”

“Right now,” he said, “she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, as far as I’m concerned. Next to you, of course.”

She grinned. “Goes without saying. Oops, here’s somebody.”

He turned as a tall silver-haired man, wearing a seersucker suit over a black T-shirt, approached the table. Creighton recognized him, got to his feet.

“John Creighton? I’m Roger Delacroix, I heard your good news and I just wanted to extend my congratulations.” They shook hands, and Delacroix lowered his voice to add, “And my support. I can imagine — no, actually, I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But I know you’ll come out of it all right.”

He sat down, watching as Delacroix rejoined his party at a table on the far side of the room. “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said. “Roger Delacroix.”

“And half the town just saw him come over and shake your hand.”

“Roger fucking Delacroix. I wouldn’t have thought he knew I was alive, and this morning he probably didn’t. But that was a hell of a nice thing he just did, and with no ulterior motive that I can see. I mean, it’s not as though I can swing a couple of votes in Sweden and get him the Nobel he’s had coming for the past twenty years.”

“I wish somebody could.”

“So do I, especially now. Did you hear what he said at the end? Just to me, not to the whole room. Not ignoring the murder charge, but acknowledging it and dismissing it. Essentially saying he knows I’m innocent, and how the hell can he?”

“I can think of slightly more than three million reasons.”

“Is that it, do you figure? I can’t possibly be guilty if I’m worth all that money? And speaking of which, you were going to tell me how it got to be three million.”

“I was wondering when we were going to get to that.”

“St. Martin’s bid two point four,” he said, “and that plus fifteen percent comes to exactly two point seven six. Which is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s not where we wound up.”

“I was a pretty good editor,” she said, “but I’ll tell you something. I’m a better agent.”

“And?”

“Before I called Esther,” she said, “I called Joan at St. Martin’s and told her she was the last one standing.”

“At two point four.”

“At two point four, and I reminded her Crown had the right to top that with a bid of... what did you just say it came to?”

“Two point seven six.”

“So, I said, I wanted to give her a chance to raise her own bid, because this was her last chance, and I had the sense she really wanted the book—”

“If not, she was bidding like a lunatic for no good reason.”

“—so maybe she’d like to edge it a little bit higher and make it that much harder for Esther to top. She thought about it and said what did I think about two point six.”

“And I bet you thought it was dandy.”

“Now here’s where I’m really proud of myself, sweetie. What I said was it was a step in the right direction, but if she went one notch higher to two point seven, then Esther would have to go over three million dollars to beat her out, and she was a lot less likely to get clearance at that figure.”

“And she went for it.”

“She thanked me. Pour us some more champagne, why don’t you? You want to know the best part?”

“You just told me the best part.”

“No, this is even better. I called Esther, not really thinking she’d top, because you have to remember we haven’t heard from her since it was her floor at one point one. I kept her in the picture, I told her what level we were at, but she never said anything, because what was there for her to say? Now we’re at two point seven and she’s got to say something, and what she said was yes.”

“ ‘Yes I said yes I will yes.’ ”

“Her exact words. No, as a matter of fact her exact words were I’m glad we wound up where we did, so we can announce a sale in excess of three million dollars. The more they spend, the more important the deal is to everybody, and the more ink they’ll get for it, and the ballsier Esther looks for throwing all those dollars on the table.”

“What did you say to Joan?”

“That she gave it her best shot, but that frankly I didn’t see how anybody was going to get you away from Crown. And she said evidently two point seven wasn’t enough, and maybe she should have gone to three herself. And we both told each other that three probably wouldn’t have worked either, and I said I’d better get off and call you, because you were probably climbing the walls.”

“As indeed I was.”

“No, because I’d already spoken to you, I wasn’t going to make you wait until I called her. I’m telling you all my secrets, and from now on you’re probably not gonna believe a word I say, are you?” She put a hand on top of his. “Saved by the bell. You don’t have to answer that, because here’s somebody else to congratulate you.”

“Oh, dear,” Susan said. “It’s beginning to look as though I’ve been stood up, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t believe that,” Jay McGann said. “Whoever he is, the man’s probably dead.”

“Or kidnapped by terrorists,” Lowell Cooke offered. “Or he’s a damned fool. Which is what I feel like, because I’m afraid we have to desert you.”

She’d seen this coming. When McGann had ordered the last round of drinks, Cooke had reminded them that they had to roll, that they were running late.

“I’ve enjoyed this,” she said.

“So have we,” Cooke said, “but his wife’ll kill me if I don’t get him home to her in a hurry. Mine’ll kill me anyway. Susan, tell me your last name again, I’ve got a mind like a sieve.”

“Pomerance.”

“And the name of your gallery?”

“The Susan Pomerance Gallery.”

“Duh,” Cooke said, and McGann asked what hours she was open. She told him, and added that she could certainly arrange a private appointment after hours if that would be more convenient. He said he wouldn’t want to put her to the trouble, sending a little message with his eyes, and she said it wouldn’t be any trouble, and sent the message right back to him.

And they were gone, and Jesus she was hot, and the bartender really did look awfully cute, but she didn’t intend to waste half the night waiting for him. She took a wee sip of her Cosmo, then turned to survey the room.

She looked, not for the first time, at the big man at the center table on the rear wall. She’d noticed him when he came in, noted with approval the athletic stride, the strong jawline, the don’t-care masculinity of his corduroy jacket and black jeans. But he was with a woman, and they were drinking champagne and talking a mile a minute, so she’d put him out of her mind.

Then the word filtered down the bar that he was John Creighton, John Blair Creighton, which made him the man who’d gone home with Marilyn Fairchild and strangled her. But that wasn’t the news, she learned. The news was that he’d just signed a book contract for over three million dollars.

She wouldn’t have recognized him, he’d had a beard in the photo that ran in the newspapers, but she could see now that it was the same face, the same strong presence.

She looked at him now, saw him moving his hands as he talked, and she could feel those hands on her body, taking hold of her, turning her, positioning her the way he wanted her. Taking her from behind, splitting her like a melon, his big hands gripping her shoulders, then moving to grip the sides of her head, then settling on her throat...

But he was with someone. Her eyes moved from him, and found those of a man a table away from Creighton. She’d seen him before and known he looked familiar, but now she was able to place him. And he was looking back at her.

She held his gaze, just for a moment, then turned for another sip of her drink.

Jim Galvin was saying something, but Fran Buckram had stopped paying attention when the two men at the bar left and the woman in the black dress remained behind. He watched her, trying to figure her out, and then she caught him, her eyes locking on his. It was such a damned cliché, eyes finding each other across a crowded room, but he felt something. Fifty-three years old (a youthful fifty-three, you could say, but when you used the word youthful it meant you had to) and he could feel it just the same, a stirring, a quiver of excitement.

He was on his feet without having consciously decided to get up. Jim had stopped in midsentence and was looking up expectantly, waiting for an explanation. Well, he’d have to wait.

He walked straight across the room to her, threading his way among tables, pulling himself up short to avoid bumping a waiter with a tray. She had turned away from him, she was facing forward, drinking her drink. He stood at her shoulder, close enough to breathe her perfume, and groped for an opening line.

“They’re not coming back,” she said, without raising her eyes from her glass. “Have a seat.”

“I’ve been sitting all night.”

She turned to him, smiled. “Me, too,” she said.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I don’t really want another drink,” she said, and he felt rejected for an instant before she smiled again and extended her hand. “I’m Susan Pomerance.”

Her hand was warm and soft, her grip firm. “Fran Buckram.”

“I know. You were pointed out to me.”

“Oh?”

“Not tonight. Sometime last month, it must have been, in a French restaurant called—”

“L’Aiglon d’Or. You were with Maury Winters.”

“You know Maury? He’s a dear man.”

“Good lawyer, too.”

“And you remember me from just seeing me that night?”

“I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Except for when you weren’t there to be seen.”

“I dropped my earring.”

“I remember.”

“It took me a while to find it. Of course it was dark there.”

“It must have been.”

“And there were diversions. You’re a very attractive man.”

“You’re a beautiful woman.”

“Thank you, Fran. Do they ever call you Franny?”

“No.”

“I might. Would that upset you?”

“No.”

“Turn toward me more. And stand closer. Now put your hand under my dress. Go ahead, nobody can see. Yes, that’s right. What are you thinking?”

“That your barber’s a lucky man.”

“Oh, thank God. You’re witty. I’d fuck you even if you weren’t, but this way it’s so much nicer.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“First make me come.”

“I’ll make you come later.”

“You’ll make me come all night long, but I don’t want to wait. Do me now, with your fingers. That’s right.”

She sat perfectly still, she didn’t move, and her face didn’t change expression. Her eyes held his, and when he felt a trembling in her loins she caught her breath almost imperceptibly, and something changed in her eyes.

After a moment she said, “That was lovely. Franny? You were the police commissioner. You’re used to being in charge, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t been commissioner in a long time.”

“But you’re still used to being in charge.”

“I guess so.”

“Tonight,” she said, “I’m in charge.”

“All right.”

“No,” she said firmly, “I’m in charge. We do what I say. If you want to come home with me, those are the rules.”

“Fair enough.”

“You have to promise.”

“I promise.”

She looked at him as if to determine what his word was worth, and nodded shortly.

“Wait for me outside.”

“I have to take care of the check.”

“Go ahead, and then wait for me outside.”

Back at the table, he palmed two fifties to Jim Galvin and asked him to take care of the check. Galvin was saying something, but he acted as if he hadn’t heard, clapped the man on the shoulder, and headed for the door. Stelli caught him on the way out, told him not to be a stranger, presented her fleshy face for a kiss.

He turned at the door, and saw her walking toward his table. Had Galvin called her over? But no, Galvin didn’t even see her, he was holding his glass of whiskey and looking into it as if it were a crystal ball. And Susan Pomerance wasn’t going to that table anyway, she was going toward John Creighton’s.

Or for all he knew she was looking for the ladies’ room, because someone stood and blocked his view, and what was he standing there for, anyway?

He went outside and stood on the sidewalk in front of a shop that sold mineral specimens and semiprecious stones. He wondered if she’d come out, wondered if he’d get to go home with her. Wondered what in the hell he was getting himself into.

I don’t want to wait. Do me now, with your fingers.

Wherever it went, he thought, it had to be more fun than running for mayor.

Roz was saying that she’d felt all along they were better off with Crown. “Now we don’t have to fight with them over those two backlist titles. As a matter of fact, they’re going back to press on both of them. They’ll be back in print by September. By John Blair Creighton, this time around.”

“If they promote the new book right—”

“Honey,” she said, “they’ll have no choice, not with what they’re spending already. And it’s gonna be easier to sell than umbrellas in a shit storm. Oh, I was shameless hustling this one, John, but it’s easy when you’ve got something good to sell. Imagine if OJ could write like Faulkner, I told them.”

“I don’t write like Faulkner.”

“No, and neither does OJ. Imagine if Mailer hit an artery the night he stabbed his wife.”

“Imagine if Nabokov did Jon-Benet Ramsey.”

“God, you’re worse than I am. Imagine if he caught her in a net and mounted her like a butterfly. And speaking of lepidoptera, here comes yet another moth drawn to the lamp of your genius.”

A woman in a black dress, whom he’d noticed earlier at the bar. She rested a hand on his shoulder, leaned in toward him. She said, “Mr. Creighton? It’s awful to intrude, but I can’t help myself. My name’s Susan Pomerance, and I’m a very big fan of yours.”

“You are?”

“Huge,” she said. “And I heard your good news, and I couldn’t be happier for you.” She slipped a business card into his hand. “I hope you’ll call me,” she said, and smiled gently at Roz. “I’m sorry,” she said, and turned from them.

“ ‘The Susan Pomerance Gallery,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘Folk and Outsider Art.’ With an address in Chelsea and a phone number, and the URL for a website.”

“Everybody’s got a website. Except you, now that I think of it. Don’t worry, they’ll have one built for you. There’s something on the back.”

He turned the card over, shook his head, passed it to Roz.

“ ‘I’d love to get to know you better.’ Yes, dear, I’m sure you would. Signed Susan. And there’s another number, no doubt for the phone on her bedside table.”

“Amazing,” he said. “What was that all about? I figured she had to be a reporter, but not many of them own art galleries. Well, she did say she was a fan.”

“And she wants to discuss the color symbolism of the stories in Edged Weapons. Why do writers turn into morons when you get them away from their keyboards?” She leaned forward. “John, wake up and smell the champagne. She wants to fuck you.”

“I thought of that, obviously, but...”

“But what? You couldn’t believe your good luck?”

“Roz, I can’t believe any of my good luck.”

She sighed and patted his hand. “It’s a lot to take in,” she said. “Don’t try to make sense out of it right now. Just relax and enjoy it. Meanwhile, do you want me to get rid of this for you?”

“No,” he said, reaching to take the card from her. “No, I might as well keep it.”