'Gino, I swear to G.o.d, it beats me. I see him on the street, I'll make a citizen's arrest. You're the first guys I call.'

'Would Robert Kamin know?'

'I'll have to ask Robert Kamin next time I see him.'

'When would that be?'

'No telling. He seems to be somewhat indisposed.'

'Yeah, he seems to be.' He shared looks, a smile, with the two other coppers. Finding Bert, I suspected, had recently occupied a lot of their time. 'What about Koech.e.l.l?'

'Honest to G.o.d, I never met him.' I raised a hand.

'Honest. And I have no idea where he is now.' That was true too. Pigeyes contemplated all of this.

'Which one's the h.o.m.o, by the way?' I asked. 'Koech.e.l.l?'

Pigeyes put his hands on his knees again, so he could get up in my face.

'Why ain't I surprised that's of interest to you?'

'If you're trying to disparage me, Pigeyes, I'm going to have to call the Human Rights Commission.' We were heading back to where we had been. Fun and games. Gino's bladder had run dry on the hot p.i.s.s of vengeance for only a moment. The reservoir was filling and he was ready again to lower his fly. It came back to him as the lodestar of his universe: he really did not like me.

'Suppose I tell you,' he said, 'that you could fit a Saturn rocket up Archie Koech.e.l.l's hind end, you gonna tell me how come you're so curious?'

'I'm just looking for clues to Bert's social life. That's all. Guy's out of pocket. You know that. My partners are worried and asked me to find him.' I gave an innocent little shrug.

'You find him, I wanna know. He talks to me about Kam, he can go home. But you screw around, Malloy, it's the whole load: break and enter, credit card fraud, false personation. I'll f.u.c.k you up bad, big guy. And don't think I won't enjoy it.'

I knew better than that. Dewey opened the van door from inside and I stepped down to the street, enjoying the daylight and the cold, the greatness of all outdoors. Twice now, I thought, two miracles. I spoke words of thanks to Elaine. Pigeyes had let me go.

XV. BRUSHY TELLS ME WHAT SHE WANTS AND I GET WHAT I DESERVE.

A. Brushy Tells Me What' s on the Menu For our luncheon on Friday, Brushy had chosen The Matchbook, a quiet old-line place that tried to preserve some atmosphere of leisured sanctuary for the business cla.s.s. You walked down from street level into a feeling of soft enclosure. The ceiling was low; the lack of windows had been obscured by little puddles of light projected onto the faux marble wallpaper from the top of the plaster columns dividing the room. The waiters in black waistcoats and bow ties did not tell you their first names or get so chummy that you started hoping the meal might be on them.

Following my adventure with Pigeyes, I'd had an uneventful morning, ruminating periodically about the body vanished from Bert's fridge. I wanted to believe that its disappearance had nothing to do with my visit to the apartment, but I was having a hard time convincing myself.

Eventually I tracked down Lena in the library. She had her feet up on her oak carrel and was absorbed in one of the heavy gold-bound federal reporters as if it were a novel, giving off the fetching aloof air of all brainy women. I asked if she had a pa.s.sport and a free weekend and still wanted to work on that gambling case, the one where she'd cracked the bookmaking code on Infomode. She was enthusiastic. I did the usual law firm delegating, s.h.i.t always rolling downhill, and told her to call TN's executive travel service, pull strings if need be to get us on a plane to Pico Luan Sunday and a decent hotel, the beach if they could. She took notes.

'So,' I said, when Brush and I were seated side by side in a booth at the back. The maitre d had greeted Brushy by name and took us to a rear corner on a raised terrace of the room, with a column and a plant buying a little more privacy. The table was adorned with big linen napkins and a splendid anthurium, looking like a priapic valentine, and a huge cloth, stiff and white as a priest's collar, that ran to the floor. I looked about and marveled. For Center City, The Matchbook was a great place. A few years ago I would have pleasantly surrendered to temptation and had a drink at lunchtime, which would have been the end of my day. I asked Brushy when she was here last.

'Yesterday,' she said. 'With Pagnucci.'

I'd forgotten. 'How was that?'

'Strange,' she said.

'What did he want? Groundhog stuff?' 'Just a little. Basically I think he was trying to figure out why I keep having lunch with Krzysinski.' 'Jeez, I hope you slapped his face.'

She squeezed my knee with a grip strong enough to cause pain.

'He wasn't being like that. It was business.'

'Pagnucci? What a surprise. What did he want to know?'

'Well, he said it's a turbulent period for the firm. He wondered how I viewed things, my practice. He made it sound like a management review.'

'Sort of checking you out for a mid-life crisis?'

'Sort of. I thought he was trying to set a context. You know, for Groundhog Day. Points. But the way he ended up putting it was, did I think that my personal relationship with Tad was strong enough that TN would remain a client of mine, come what may?'

' "Come what may"?'

'His words.'

I took a moment. Brushy and Pagnucci would make a great team, a litigator and a securities guy, two up-and-coming Italians.

'Did he actually say it? That he was thinking of leaving the firm and taking you with him?'

'Mack, we're talking Pagnucci here. He barely gets a word out. He made it sound, you know, like some remote curiosity.'

'Like a dinner party game. Who Would You Be If You Weren't You?'

'Exactly. And I cut him off. I told him I was fond of my partners and proud of the work we do and that I didn't spend my time thinking about questions like that.'

'Good for you. Leotis couldn't have done better. Was he abashed?'

'He completely agreed. He fumpfered around. "Of course, of course." He tried to act as if it was nothing to him.'

'Carl obviously thinks I'm not finding Bert, the money's not coming back, TN's going bye-bye, and the firm is too. Right?'

'Maybe. He's probably just being cautious. Considering all the angles. You know Carl.'

'Maybe he knows I'm not going to find Bert.' 'How would he?'

I couldn't figure much that made sense. Especially after Carl had blessed my voyage to Pico.

The waiter came and we ordered iced teas, then Brushy on second thought asked for white wine. We looked over the menus, a foot and half if they were an inch, oldfashioned, with vellum pages and a ta.s.seled binding. I remained puzzled by Pagnucci's game, but Brushy cut me short when I returned to the subject.

'Mack, do you really think I wanted to have lunch so we could talk about Pagnucci?'

I told her if I had, I probably wouldn't have come.

'I want you to try to be serious about something,' she said. 'You hurt my feelings yesterday.'

Within, I recoiled. Some ancient retractile mechanism set in. Another lecture from another woman about how I'd disappointed her. We were going to have feminist reconstruction of my spicy remarks about her wandering loins.

'Hey, Brush, I thought we went past that. It's me, us, you and me. Pals forever.'

'That's the point.' She faced me in a casual way, so that we were more or less knee to knee. Her back was to the adjoining wall and she propped an arm on the top of the banquette and leaned her full face and her soft hairdo against a hand in an appealing fashion. She looked frank and friendly, like a teenager in her rec room. 'I thought the next time you danced the hokey-pokey, Malloy, it was going to be with me.'

That one took me a sec.

'You did?' This was apparently one of those male-female understandings that so often eluded me. 'Yes, I did.' She pouted. Cutely.

'I guess, Brush, I thought I'd missed my chance. I figured we'd just sort of finished that.'

I guess I figured we'd just sort of started.' Her little eyes were luminous and very much alive, full of the quest. Like a great inst.i.tution, say a university or the President of the United States, Brushy was seldom formally rejected. According to the know-alls with whom I served on recruiting, nosy fishwives who somehow always heard this stuff, Brushy over the years had mastered a perfect line: Im wondering if I should let you make love to me.' The nonplussed or the sincerely uninterested could back off, with little harm to either party. I was touched that she'd actually gamble, but I was confused in the presence of real emotion. While I went blank, she, as usual, took the lead.

'Unless,' she said, 'there's no spark.' I felt, with that, her fingers laid daintily on the meat of my thigh, and then as she held my eye, her palm touched down and her hand skated home. She gave my little business a squeeze which in the scheme of things might best be called affectionate. I had no doubt anymore why she'd wanted a place with tablecloths.

How to respond? The adrenaline, the shock inspired an elevated mood, a kind of lunacy which in retrospect I attribute to the dizziness of the rare feeling that something significant was at stake. She was, as I have always known, a h.e.l.l of a gal. And I was vaguely amused by how close this was to what I'd imagined with Krzysinski. But Brushy had the talent of all seductive females, to recognize a guy's fantasies and play along with them, without feeling debased.

I would say there's a spark,' I told her, still caught up in that fixed look, her green eyes with their clever gleam. 'I would say you'd make a h.e.l.l of a Boy Scout.'

'Boy Scout?'

'Yes, ma'am, cause you keep rubbing that stick, you're gonna get a lot more than a spark.' 'I'm hoping for that.'

We were eye to eye, nose to nose, but in the dignified air of The Matchbook there would be no embrace. Instead, I turned a bit on the bench, diddled my fingers a little on her knee, then, leaning close like I was about to impart a little joke, slid my hand up her hosiery toward the female zero point, thinly guarded by the layer of panty hose. I looked her square in the eye, gathered the fabric, and gave it a sharp yank so that Brushy actually flinched. But she kept watching me, highly amused, as I found the gap I'd rent and tenderly as I could nuzzled two fingertips against her l.a.b.i.a.

'Is this what we call equal opportunity?' she asked.

'Maybe. But you see, Brush, I got further than you. It's still a man's world.'

'Oh,' said Brushy, and lay back a bit, grabbing the tablecloth and tenting it in a casual way over my hand, which was already beneath her napkin. She opened the menu and rested it between her waist and the edge of table, making it more or less a roof, a privacy panel. Then her hips came forward and her knees parted. She lit a cigarette. And took hold of her wine. She faced me, taking her pleasure with a wild gimlet eye, a woman who loved life when it reduced itself to this basis.

She said, 'I'm not sure I'd agree with that.'

B. Would You Call This a Success?

In the room at Dulcimer House things were going pretty well until I took off my shorts. Then Brushy screamed. She covered her mouth with both hands.

'What's that?' She was pointing at me and it wasn't because she was so impressed.

'What's what?'

'That rash.' She steered me to the mirror. There I was with half a b.o.n.e.r and a livid band, shaped like a land ma.s.s, covering my hip. There was an island extension that broadened as it crossed my circ.u.mference and disappeared in the pubic overgrowth. I stared, feeling direly conspired against. Then it hit me.

'The f.u.c.king Russian Bath.' 'Ah hah,' she said.

She reared back when I moved toward her again. 'It's dermat.i.tis,' I said, 'it's nothing. I didn't even know I had it.' 'That's what they all say.' 'Brushy.'

'You better see your doctor, Malloy.' 'Brushy, have a heart here.'

'It's the nineties, Mack.' She stalked naked through the room. She pushed through her clothes and I was afraid she was dressing, but it was only a cigarette she was after. She sat across from me on an overstuffed brocaded chair, smoking, naked as a jaybird with her heel on the fancy fabric, leaking female fluids on the nice furniture. The stick figures do well for clothes racks, but naked, a woman with Brushy's Rubensesque proportions was still a lovely sight. I remained rosy and pointed for action, but I could tell from her posture that I had reached my s.e.xual high point at lunch.

I lay down on the bed and, feeling I had every right to, began to moan.

'Mack,' she said, 'don't be like that. You're making me feel bad.'

'Jeez, I hope so.'

'It'll just be a few days,' she said. She gave me a doctor's name and said he might even prescribe over the phone. She sounded authoritative, but I stowed all those questions she didn't like me to ask.

I quieted eventually. Soon I was back to being myself, primarily sad, staring at the cla.s.sy ceiling here at the Dulcimer House, where the plaster decorations around the light fixture radiated off in various whitish doodles. We had been here once before, of course - with similar success.

I had felt it was a mistake to start, checking into the same hotel - the same amiable stroll over here, a little frozen up with antic.i.p.ation and propriety, trying, within hailing distance of the office, to look like anything but two people going to f.u.c.k; the same kind of sycophantic desk clerk; the same sort of room with heavy furnishings, a bit too dated to be tasteful. One more failure to connect. I felt rather imprisoned by the cycles in my life.

'I got drunk two nights ago, Brush,' I said suddenly. 'What do you think of that?'

'Not much,' she said. I didn't think she meant she had no opinion. When I cranked my head around to see her in the chair, still naked, still smoking, I could tell from her level expression that this hadn't been a thunderbolt. 'You looked pretty awful yesterday,' she said. She asked if I had enjoyed it.

'Not particularly,' I answered. 'But I can't seem to get the taste out of my mouth.'

'Do you think you're going to do it again?'

'Nope,' I told her, and then, feeling almost as tough as she is, added, 'I might.'

I lay there feeling all the weight of my big fat body, this belly like a medicine ball, these saddlebags of fat that ride my back above the hipbones.

'Oh, don't you get sick of it?' I asked. 'Another Irish lawyer. Another Irish drunk. I'm so tired of being myself -of f.u.c.king things up the way I do. It's a tiredness not lost in sleep and only worse on waking. I can't help thinking how great it would be to start new. A really clean slate. It's the only thing left that excites me.'

'It makes me sad when you talk like that,' she said. 'It doesn't become you. You're just asking for someone to tell you that you're really okay.'

'No, I'm not. I wouldn't believe it.'

'You're a good man, Malloy. And a good lawyer too.'

'No,' I said, 'no. Wrong on both fronts. To tell you the truth, Brush, I don't really think I'm cut out for the law anymore. Books and bills and briefs. It's a black-and-white life and I'm a guy who loves color.'

'Come on, Mack. You're one of the best lawyers there. When you do it.'

I made a sound.

'In the old days, you were there all the time. You had to enjoy some of it.'

When I drank, I worked like a demon, billed twenty-two, twenty-four hundred hours a year. I was in the office until eight and in the bars until midnight - then back in the Needle at eight the next morning. Lucinda used to bring Bufferin with my coffee. When I set about changing my life at AA, that was another of the habits I broke. I went home at six - saw the wife, the kid. And was divorced inside a year. It doesn't take Joyce Brothers to figure out what that proves.

'The truth?' I asked. 'I don't even remember. I don't remember what it was like to be busy. I don't remember where I stood at the firm before Jake decided I was a useless piece of dung.'

'What are you talking about? Are you grumping because he doesn't send you work right now? Believe me, Mack, you have a great future with that client. Krzysinski respects you. Give that time. It'll work out.'

Krzysinski again. I mulled on that, then set her straight.

'Look, Brush, there is no future. Jake stopped sending me work because he knows it's his a.s.s if anybody at G & G drops the ball and he figures I'm a guy who can't catch a pop fly.'

'That's not so.'