“Helping people.”
“Good Lord, baby — you’re an idealist!”
“Another one. Is there a problem with that?”
“No, but it is rather astonishing. Say, don’t get all tense and soft. I suppose I should have guessed from the flag there on your chest.”
“D’you mind if I ask — are you a Cape or a Blando?”
The man guffawed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yeah, I would, actually.”
“Spare me the details. They are for lesser men…like you.” Straight after, Wright waved his hand as he returned attention to the ledger. “All right, Southern Cross, you’re dismissed now. Get out — there’s a good kid.”
For a few seconds, Jack entertained a mad impulse to hop up on the ink blotter, swat the monkey, yank over the publisher, push him to the desktop, and peel down his shirt collar to see if there was a letter ‘p’ there. Surely, in this body, he had the strength to wrestle an old man and his bulging-eyed pet.
But the impulse passed and he ran along as requested.
#125
That night, Jack and Louise found themselves again in the girl’s large bedroom.
The door to the passageway was closed, but the blind at the window remained at half-mast and this allowed in a certain amount of street illumination and moonlight.
On the windowsill were an assortment of small, hand-carved figurines of gods and their associated hangers-on. Jack recognized a clear lead glass Virgin Mary and a rotund, rosewood Buddha. Their cohorts on the sill were carvings of Takehaya Susanoo-no-Mikoto, a Shintō summer storm god, and the elephantine Hindu deity Ganesha.
Louise obviously liked playing it safe, regardless of spiritual persuasion.
There was a big-framed painting on the wall above the bed, an unusual one displaying World War I-era biplanes indulging in a dogfight amidst gloomy-looking clouds.
“My father was a pilot,” Louise said, as she got undressed. “That picture belonged to him.”
To the left of the window, in the large space leading to the bedroom door, was a bookcase jammed with classic hardbacks: Moby-Dick, Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, The Old Man and the Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, The Age of Innocence, The Crows of Pearblossom — and, yes, The Well of Loneliness.
Otherwise, there wasn’t all that much in the way of furnishings except for suitcases, wooden crates and boxes. A vanity table, made up of slapped together old pieces of wood, was cluttered with cosmetics and perfumes.
On a small table by the bed, between the fish tank with seahorses and a loud, ticking chrome clock, was a vase with wilted yellow roses. A wind chime, made of shards of bamboo tied together with wire, dangled from the overhead chandelier.
“You’re so beautiful, Jack.”
Louise kneeled on the carpet beside the bed on which he sat. She was dressed only in a beige chemise — having removed her earrings, glasses and stockings.
Jack placed a hand on each of her cheeks and moved in to kiss the girl’s mouth. She stood again, leaning into him, blonde hair falling across his face. Her breathing quickened as he daringly moved his fingers down her neck, across her chest, and on over the flimsy material that covered her stomach. In return, her hand rubbed the bruising on his back.
“Ouch,” he mumbled between kisses.
He explored her chin, her cheeks, and then her throat, became fascinated with the nape of her neck and rained more kisses there, while his hands located the girl’s buttocks and gently squeezed.
Louise arched her back, peered heavenward, and let out a great sigh.
“Oh, Lee,” she moaned.
Both people froze.
Straight after, Jack’s hands fell away, and then he backed up on the bed, staring at the girl’s upturned face. Louise, for her part, still looked at the ceiling; still breathed in jerky, ragged fashion — but she was gnawing at her lower lip as a tear rolled down the closest cheek.
“Oh, God,” the girl finally squeezed out.
“Louise.”
Jack tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t, couldn’t, look at the man in front of her.
“I’m so sorry.”
Blinking several times, unsure of what to say or do, Jack rubbed his right index finger and studied the foreign joints, the strangely well-manicured nail. “That was his name? Lee? — Your husband’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Finally, Louise lowered her face and peered his way. “Please forgive me, Jack. Please. I’m damaged goods. You shouldn’t be with me.”
“It’s okay.”
He braved himself, reached over, put arms around her, drew her closer. “Louise, really — it’s okay.” Told the truth. “In all honesty, I think I’m way more damaged than you. This evens things out a morsel.”