The Erection Set

I

By the time I had finished my two drinks at the bar, the tourist crowd that had packed the Lufthansa Flight 16 into Kennedy International had left the baggage area. The porters had parked my battered leather bag in the unclaimed area at the far end and I snaked it out from under a set of matched luggage and a pair of skis. The slalom slats looked a little out of place in June, but dedicated skiers could find snow anytime.

The lone cabbie at the curb glanced up from his paper, grinned and swung open the rear door. I flipped in my bag, handed him a ten-dollar bill through the Plexiglas partition separating us and sat down. He looked at the bill first, then me. “What’s this for?”

“A slow ride in. I want to see what New York looks like now.”

“How long you been away?”

“Pretty long.”

“So they tore it all down and built it back up again. Nothing’s new. It’s still crowded.”

I gave him the address I wanted. “Go the long way,” I said.

And he was right. Nothing had changed. Like a farm, the ground was always there. The crops changed, the colors would be different, the stalks longer or the heads heavier, but when it was all cut down the ground line was still the same.

On the Triborough Bridge the driver waved a hand toward the skyline in an idle gesture. “Reminds me of Iwo Jima. All that fighting over a hill. Now all the guys are dead and the hill’s still there. Who the hell ever wanted it anyway?”

“Maybe the people who lived there.” He was thinking the same thing I was.

Outside Lee’s apartment he took the meter fare and the other ten with a big smile, his eyes on mine in the rearview mirror. “Slow enough for you?”

I smiled back. “You were right. Nothing’s changed.”

“Y’know, you could take one of them bus tours and...”

“Hell, I was born here. Between then and now I’ve seen it all.”

The driver nodded sagely and pocketed the dough. Then, slowly, and with that odd, direct curiosity only native New Yorkers seem to have, said, “Who’s gonna catch all the heat, feller?”

I felt the grin twist the comer of my mouth. I had almost forgotten about the taxi psychologists. Next to bartenders they were the best. “Do I look like trouble?” I asked him.

“Shit, man,” he said, “you’re loaded for bear.”

The doorman said Lee Shay had apartment 6D, didn’t bother to announce a visitor and let me edge into the elevator with a mod couple whose offbeat clothes clashed with heavyweight jewelry in antique gold and diamonds. Lee had picked his quarters well. He still had a near-Greenwich Village outlook with an almost businesslike mind. One thing was certain. He was still having fun, so at least he had never changed.

I pushed his door buzzer, heard it hum against the stereo and high, tinkly laughter inside, then the door swung open and Lee stood there, tall and gangly, a highball in his hand, with a sudden grin that split his face from ear to ear. All he had on was a pair of red-striped jockey shorts with a LOVE button pinned to the side, but for him that was the uniform of the day until they posted further notice.

He said, “Dog, you dirty old son of a bitch, why the hell didn’t you let me know what time you were landing?”

He yanked the bag out of my hand, gave me a hug and hauled me into the room.

“It was easier this way. Hell, we had to hold for an hour in the traffic pattern anyway.”

“Damn, it’s good to see you!” He half turned and shouted over his shoulder, “Hey, honey, come here, will you?”

Then the girl with the tinkly laughter came out, a big beautiful brunette who slithered over the carpet like opening the centerfold of Risqué magazine, and handed me a drink. She didn’t have anything on except a black-satin sash tied around her waist and for some screwy reason it was the only thing noticeable.

“Dog, this is Rose,” he said.

“So you’re the Dog?”

“The Dog?”

“From the stories I heard, I was beginning to think you were one of Lee’s war stories. A myth.”

“Rose is a whore,” Lee laughed. “First-class and high-priced. We’re friends.”

I sipped at the drink. It was my usual. A good inexpensive whiskey blend and plenty of ginger ale. I looked at Rose and nodded. “Then we’re friends too, kid. Am I interrupting anything?”

“Come off it, buddy. We’ve been waiting for you.” He stepped back and took a good look at me. “Same damn disreputable Dog,” he said. He glanced at Rose and shook his head. “Never did own a pressed uniform. The only reason the old man in the squadron didn’t chew his ass was because he had more kills than anybody else. Besides, he never left the base anyway.”

“I had more fun in the revetments with duty personnel while you were boozing it up in London,” I reminded him.

Rose sidled up, took my arm to escort me into the living room, Lee behind us carrying my bag. “Like always,” he said, “one lousy suitcase filled with trade goods for the natives, the only clothes the ones he wears on his back and he still needs a shave.”

“I had a half-day layover in Shannon, kid. We got socked in right down the coast. Shannon was the only place open.”

“So you grabbed a bottle and a broad and hit for the hills?”

“I grabbed a book and a beer and hit the lounge.” I stopped at the end of the foyer and let my eyes sweep around his apartment. It was a wild place, this; big, bachelorized, with all the junk professional seducers could ask for and ready for takeoff at the first scramble horn. “Nice,” I said. “Why the hell didn’t you ever get married?”

Rose squeezed my arm and let out that laugh again. “Kids never get married. They just want to play.”

“A pretty expensive playground.” I looked at Lee. “What are you up to now?”

He picked an ice cube out of his drink and popped it into his mouth. “I’m an arranger, old buddy.” He caught my frown and grinned even bigger. “Not that kind, you nut. I dumped advertising and busted into show biz. What I arrange is hard-to-get properties or people for the theatrical trade. It pays for the playground.”

“Who pays for the playmates?”

Lee reached out and tugged the black satin cord at Rose’s waist and it came loose in his fingers. Somehow it was like undraping a nude. Suddenly she was really naked and the effect was startling. I shook my head and took a sip of my drink.

“Friends are for fun,” he said.

Rose tipped her head and her hair swirled down around her shoulders. “Dog,” she said, “you should be staring. You’re not. Why?”

“I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself so early in our meeting. You won’t be forgotten so easily, so don’t worry.” She finished her drink and put the empty glass down on the table. “Why don’t I leave you two retreads to get your old-timer talk out of the way and when you both sober up I’ll get another girl and we can plow this city up a little.”

I said, “Look, Lee...”

But he stopped me right there with a wave of his hand and gave a handful of her hair an affectionate tug. “You get to be more of a woman every day, sugar. She’s right, Dog. We got a lot of time to make up for in a hurry.” He gave her fanny a tender pat. “Better not go out looking like that.” He handed her the satin cord and she knotted it around her wrist. “That’s more like it,” Lee told her.

I shook my head and laughed. I thought a scene like this had died with the war. We both watched her deliberate burlesque-stage walk toward the bedroom with sheer appreciation, fascinated by the way the muscles of her thighs and back rippled in the light. At the door she turned and looked over her shoulder. “Dog,” she said, “what’s your right name?”

“Dogeron. It’s an old Irish name.”

“I like Dog better. Do you bite?”

“Only in the heat of passion,” I said.

REFLECTIONS

ROSE PORTER, SINGLE, AGE 28.

Three years in whoredom and no married woman can match my knowledge. Except the answer to why to have a man. One push from a forty-five-year-old fat grocer and my virginity became history with two boxes of Shredded Wheat and a candy bar for silence.

Linebacker for Bailey High thinks he’s a rape artist specializing in virgins and, because I was tight, figures up another notch on his scorecard. For a while, I was real popular with the team. Maybe I should have looked in the mirror. I was one of the lucky ones. No acne, big tits and sour-apple fresh with a pussy aching to be filled.

Hal said I was a bitch in heat... but he was a crazy, comic-book artist and the first tender man I had met. Wild, but soft and sweet and tender. He liked to kiss before screwing and laughed when the excitement got me wet. Some nights he didn’t even bother screwing. He laughed and kissed and... then one night he told me how very much he loved me, but he had leukemia and wanted to die somewhere on the slopes of the Florida Keys. He gave me twelve thousand dollars in treasury bonds, told me to take the pill, not get the clap and to have fun.

I bought a college education and became a whore. No man could fool me, trap me or fake me out. That’s what I thought. Two years ago I lost count of all the lays. Anyway, all johns look alike. No scars, either. A few bite marks, maybe, but no scars, no needles and I’m top cat in the trade. The blow-job pro, that’s me. Anal intercourse? A pleasure, mister. Simple screwing? Must be an odd nut to pay for the unfancy.

But they all respond. They dig the long hair, the smooth, long legs.

Oh, they love it, all right, all but this big slob of a Dog. He looks at me naked and says hello. He appreciates, nods his approval, shakes my hand and couldn’t care less. Shekky Monroe gave me five hundred just to run his fingers across my snatch one night. This dirty Dog says hello and smiles.

That’s the bad part. He really smiled. The bastard is for real. They’re all going to take him wrong and somebody will hurt.

Me, I’m lucky. I can’t be hurt anymore. Now I’m curious. Especially about that smile. The louse knew me inside and out like he knew everybody else.

Okay, Dog, now let me read you. Clothes good, but old. Perhaps fifty bucks in your jeans. I made more between cocktails and dinner last night. I had felt his arm and it scared me a little bit because I knew about how old he was and the arm was a little too big and too hard. Poseur? Some do it. A cheap barber had chopped his hair, but it was all there and would be grown back in another week. Gray spotted it and a little white streak tufted up in front. He looked heavy, but there was no fat and he walked funny, one hand always hanging loose, and whatever those green eyes looked at, they saw and understood.

I wanted to screw him, only it wouldn’t be any use trying. Tomcats pick their own time and place.

Time. The clock said three minutes after five. I had known the Dog exactly eight minutes.

The empty Pabst beer cans made odd splotches of color around the room, their big blue ribbon seals decorating every piece of furniture in the bedroom, including two that I had balanced delicately on the headboard of the bed directly over my face. A couple of soggy towels lay on the floor, sopping up the beer that Lee had spilled and I lay there listening to him sound off just like he used to. Only in those days he didn’t wear a LOVE button on his shorts.

“Just quit being a silly bastard,” he said. “And don’t tell me staying here is an imposition. Shit, man, why spend loot on a hotel room? You can’t even find a decent apartment in this town anymore unless you’re loaded with cash or have a couple months to poke around in.”

I popped open another beer. “Can it, Lee. You lover types need privacy.”

“Balls. I got two bedrooms right now. If it gets crowded, so we have an audience. I lost all my modesty twenty years ago.”

“Look...”

“Forget it,” Lee said. “You’re staying here. We shared everything during the war, we do it again. Besides, you’re going to need more than a pad, buddy. I’m damn glad we’re both the same size. I got three closets full of clothes and we’re both about the same height. You take your pick of the rack, I’ll get them let out a little in the chest and shoulders and you can look like nowadays.”

I went to say something and he shut me up again. “I get them wholesale, Dog. I do big favors for a guy who heads up a chain and he pays off in threads. What the hell do I need? I change twice a day and it would take me a month to repeat a suit. Nice, hey? I’m not rich, I’m not poor, I get along pretty well and, by damn, you’re my buddy and you’re going to share it with me. I’ll give you a week to get stretched out, find your way around, then well hunt up something with scratch behind it so you can get on your feet.”

The beer stopped halfway to my mouth. “Lee...”

“Don’t crap me out, Dog. I got plenty of contacts and it won’t be all that hard. Who has to know you stuck yourself in Europe all this time because a bunch of half-assed relatives kicked you out? Man, you have too much false pride. You were a fucking war hero, man. You could have shoved it up their tails. Why the hell did you try to bury yourself for?”

I tried to answer him, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Oh, sure, there’s always a dame. But you’re still not married, are you?” I shook my head. “See, so you blew it, you didn’t even nail a broad. You still look like you always did, a raggedy-tail flyboy who’d sooner scream around the wild blue yonder than screw a dame.”

“I got my share.”

“You could have gotten more.”

“I was too busy flying,” I said.

“And you came up with zilch. Plenty of kills, lots of ribbons and you weren’t even smart enough to get bullet creased a little so you could get a partial pension. No, you have to come home anyway.” He yanked a cold beer out of the bucket of ice water and looked at me with funny Pabst-colored eyes. “Why did you come back?”

“The old man died and left me an inheritance. I’ve been trying to tell you.”

He paused, his finger hooked into the circle of the pop top. “Old Cameron Barrin?”

I nodded. “My maternal grandfather. I guess he figured he owed me something, my being a sort of blood relation. If I can establish myself as having a good, clean... or, let’s say, totally pure... moral record since leaving his household, I can claim the munificent reward of ten thousand dollars.”

“Cash?”

“Uh-huh.”

Lee finished opening the can and let a grin twitch at the corners of his mouth. “How much chance have you got?”

“Not a smidgen,” I told him.

“Then why come back?”

“Hell, maybe I can lie a little,” I said.

For a good ten seconds, he looked at me, then took a long pull of the beer and shook his head. “Damn, it’s the same old Dog. Still as naive as they come. You never did learn, did you? Ten grand and you come all the way back for something that can be eaten up in a matter of months. Buddy, the world has changed. The war’s over. This isn’t Europe. The old days are gone. If we were kids all we might ask for is a bike, sleeping bag and an occasional remittance from home to buy some pot or a little snatch and maybe a side trip into a little bistro on the Left Bank for some gourmet spaghetti, but we’re big kids now and we can’t go that route.”

I shrugged and drank my beer.

“Brother,” Lee said. “Am I glad you checked in with me. I guess I got a father image. I got to take care of you, Doggie boy.”

My teeth showed in a grin when I looked at him.

Lee grinned back and nodded. “Sure, I remember you pulling those ME109s off my tail. I got a good picture of you squiring me through the skies like a Dutch uncle and keeping my ass intact. You got one lousy year on me, nursed me through the whole damn war and made sure I came out with all my skin and now it’s my turn. I play big daddy. From here on in until you’re on your own two pedals again I’m going to be big daddy and take care of you.” He finished the beer off in a single long pull. “You are now my responsibility and the first thing I’m going to do is dump your past into the incinerator, dress you like a living New Yorker and put you back into the world again.”

He flipped the empty can against the wall, yanked a dressing robe from a hook behind the door and wrapped it around him. With a faked gesture of distaste he picked up the battered suitcase with all the pasted-on stickers that were loose around the edges and said, “Anything in here of sentimental value?”

I took another taste of the beer. It was cold, refreshing and lighter than all that other stuff. “A few things,” I said. “You can tell which ones.”

Lee tossed the old bag on the bed, undid the straps, fingered the clasps open and threw the lid back. His expression was very funny. He took his two forefingers and poked around in there and didn’t quite know what to say.

It wasn’t often that a guy saw a couple of million bucks in ten-thousand-dollar bills.

He looked up. “No underwear?”

“No underwear,” I said.