"A desperate girl is ready for anything."

"You'll be flooded, Larry. Except for priests you're probably the only single thirty-year-old 'Catholic' in Miami who's eligible and unmarried."

"I like that. What about occupation?"

We had some fun with that one, but finally decided upon "Dietician." We figured that he would probably get a few nurses that way, or at least some healthy girl who was an organic food freak. We added an extra degree, making him an M.A., and provided him with some interesting hobbies: making models of World War I airplanes, collecting old bottles in the Keys, and spelunking for buried treasures.

Three days later Larry dropped by my apartment to have a drink, on his way to his first arranged date. We are about the same height, but he weighs twenty pounds more than I do. In his new white sharkskin suit, red silk shirt, with a white-on-white necktie, red socks, and white alligator-grained Ballys, he looked like a friendly giant.

"How do you like the suit?" he said. "Coat and trousers, four hundred bucks. If it wasn't for the expense account, I couldn't have afforded a suit like this."

"You're really pushing the IRS to the wall," I said.

"Not at all. The new suit comes under the allowance for uniforms, and a man has to dress for his job. If I have to date these women, in the pursuit of my investigations, I have to make myself attractive. Right?"

"What's the girl's name?"

He looked at a slip of paper, and grinned. "Shirley Weinstein."

I laughed. "That sounds like a nice Catholic girl."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n," he said. "She might even be a Catholic, for all we know A lot of people think my name is Jewish, you know. Dolman sounds Jewish, if you don't know any better. But no one would make that mistake with my old man, especially on St. Patrick's Day when he used to go around town wearing an orange tie and looking for trouble."

"Where does she live?"

"Miami Beach. Where else? In the Cresciente condominium on Belle Isle."

I whistled. "Those apartments start at a hundred thousand, and that's for a one-bedroom, with one-and-a-half baths. I've seen the ads."

"What's the easiest way to get there?"

"The Venetian Causeway is the quickest, I think. Another short one?"

"I'd better not. What are you doing tonight?"

"I thought I'd call Eddie. Maybe we can get together for some pool at the White Shark. If he can't get away, I'll probably take in a flick. But report in when you get back. I'd like to know how it goes."

I called Eddie, but he was flying to Chicago at eleven p.m. and couldn't drink He said he'd call me when he got back. This was his last flight for the month, and then he would have at least three days off.

After hanging up, I found myself envying Larry. It was such a strange and formal way to meet a woman it was bound to be interesting. I didn't envy him the girl-- Shirley Weinstein--I could pretty well imagine what she would be like, but the formality of the idea was attractive.

Women were not a problem for me. I could telephone two girls I knew in Hialeah, and if they were home, I could drive over and have a three-way orgy. There were a dozen names or more in my book, and half of these girls, if they had a date, would break it to go out with me if I called and asked them. Or, if I wanted some stranger, I could cruise around and pick up a new broad within an hour or so.

But lately, it seemed, the women I screwed were all alike, as if they were cut out of the same batch of cookie dough. The stewardae were alike, and practically interchangeable. Their apartments looked as if they were all furnished by the same decorator. The clear plastic air-filled chair, the Budweiser bottle pillow, the -Rolling Stone- Mark Spitz poster (the one with Spitz lifting his trunks to reveal his pubic hair), the bottle of Taaka vodka, the tall stack of plastic gla.s.ses on the Kentone coffee table, the Port-au-Prince voodoo doll on the pillow, and the bed made up with garish Peter Max sheets--never with a bedspread--and the fresh uniform; always a clean, fresh uniform in a plasticene bag just back from the cleaners, hanging on a black wire hanger on the closet door; never inside the closet. Only the color of their eyes, hair and uniform was different. After a while, a few months back, while I was on my stewardess kick--with one leading me into another as I met the roommate, and she moved, and then I met -her- new roommate, who introduced me to her best friend, and then onto the next--they all blurred together.

They were even the same in bed, as if they had attended the same s.e.x cla.s.ses and had to pa.s.s an examination on -The Sensuous Woman-, -The Joy of s.e.x-, and the collected novels of John O'Hara.

Stewardesses never wanted to screw; with them it was all A.C.F. -- anilingus, c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s, and f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o. You were lucky if one in ten would let you put it in. And there were more than 25,000 stewardesses living in Miami, all hot-eyed and eager to get a husband. They even smelled the same. Like milk They usually wore musk oil, the scent that is supposed to bring out a true and personal odor, and that odor was milk, raw unpasteurized milk.

Nurses were a little better, but they had their peculiarities, too. At least one hand, but usually both hands, had to be touching you at all times; on the arm, the shoulder, the leg, and an arm was always around your waist when you walked. And a nurse's taste in civilian clothes was abominable. They looked great in their white uniforms, brisk, clean, and iodoformy, but then they would put on a red dress or a purple pants suit, or a peasant blouse and a plaid skirt, and they looked as if they had closed their eyes and grabbed something out of a Goodwill clothing bin. But nurses were all right, much better than stewardae. They were earthy, dependable, predictable, and almost always on time.

The problem, of course, was me. Not the stewardesses, not the nurses, but me. I was bored with their conversational subjects, flying schedules and ports of call, hospital schedules and patients. I had been through the same conversations again and again, and I didn't want to listen to them any longer. But people always talk about their work, and it was only natural for them to talk about their flying and floor schedules. I just didn't want to listen to them, that was all.

With Rita and Tina, the two Cuban girls in Hialeah, there was no talk at all. 1 didn't even know where they worked, or what they did for a living, although I had a hunch that they were divorcees on alimony. I would bring over a bottle of scotch, undress as I fixed a drink, and then we went to it, all three of us, without any discussion. It didn't cost me anything, but a man has to be in the right mood for an orgy...

I left the apartment and went out to a John Wayne re-run, -The Train Robbers-, probably the worst western the Duke ever made.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

I had just finished watching the eleven o'clock news when Larry knocked on my door. He took off his jacket, refused a drink--he was already a little tight-- and put a pot of water on to boil for instant coffee. He spooned two heaping teaspoonfuls of instant into a cup, and I asked him how it went.

"It was different," he said, after a long pause. "I've never had a date quite like it, and I had a much better time than I expected. It was weird, and gross, and yet I had a h.e.l.lova good time."

He removed his tie and began to roll it around his finger the way I had taught him to do. I always do this, no matter how drunk I am when I get home. By rolling your tie into a tight roll, and putting it away in a drawer all rolled, it will be ready to use the next time without a wrinkle.

"This apartment," Larry said, "the Weinstein apartment, is on the top floor, the twelfth--not the penthouse, but the top floor. The Cresciente is on the bay side of Belle Isle, not on the ocean, but up this high, and on the southeast side of the building, with a screened veranda on both corners, there's a beautiful view of the Miami skyline and the ocean too.

"One hundred and fifty thousand hard ones, it cost."

"How do you know?"

"Irv told me. Mr. Weinstein. He was happy to tell me. He could hardly wait to tell me. Three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, a living room, a dining room, and a recreation room with a snooker table."

"A pool table..."

"No, a -snooker- table, regulation size, and two high pool room chairs, too. Irv had them made of rattan and fitted with custom cushions."

He stirred his coffee, and sat down across the coffee table from me.

I pointed the gadget at the TV set and switched it off. Larry said: "The date didn't cost me a dime. I'd planned on taking Shirley to Wolfie's, or some place like that. I was a little nervous about this idea when I saw the Cresciente, but I was going to go through with it, anyway. But they had other plans. Mrs. Weinstein had fixed dinner, and on this first date they thought it would be best if we all just sat around and got acquainted with each other. Oh, yeah, they kept calling me 'Doctor."

"Did you go along?"

"Sure. Except I told them I was a Doctor of Philosophy. They didn't know the difference. 1 think the people down at ElectroDate must've told them I was a doctor. If it had been you, instead of me, you could've pa.s.sed yourself off as an M.D. easy because you got all that medical jargon down. But they were just as happy with a Ph.D. They figured I was a college professor, at first, but I told them I was working as a private investigator for National Security, and that I was planning to write a book later on the philosophy of security."

"What's that?"

"How do I know? You're always saying I can't think in abstract terms, but it went down okay with the Weinsteins."

"What about the girl?"

"I don't know about the girl. Shirley didn't say much. Her mother dominated the dinner conversation, and then I played snooker with Irv. So Shirley didn't get to say much of anything."

"Was she pretty?"

"It's hard to tell, really. These Jewish girls all look alike to me, you know, at least the ones on Miami Beach. She'd had a nose job but they took off too much, as they usually do. Somehow, that Irish -rtrouss- nose never quite fits aJewish face. If you'd studied as many mug shots as I have the last few years you'd know what I mean. She had nice hair, though, black, long, and straight down her back-- almost down to her a.s.s. She wore round, lightly tinted blue gla.s.ses, and a full-length granny dress. She had a weight problem, I think--at least her face was chubby--but she was fighting it. She hardly ate anything at all at dinner."

"What did they feed you?"

"Whitefish, with the heads on and all, some kind of meat and tomatoes and cheese ca.s.serole, and a Caesar salad. I didn't eat any whitefish. I don't like to see a fish with the eye staring up at you, and I was afraid of bones. Besides, by the time dinner was served, I was a little looped.

"Irv, you see, likes to drink, but I could tell he isn't allowed to have very many unless there's somebody else around. As soon as I'd drink half my drink, and it was Chivas and soda, too, he'd say, 'Let me freshen that for you, Doctor,' and he'd whip over to the bar. He'd add a couple of jiggers to his gla.s.s, too, except that he was drinking a full drink every time, not half-a-drink like me. The old lady noticed it, too, but she couldn't say anything to him with me there. Old Irv was really putting the stuff away."

Larry sipped his coffee, and said: "He's a retired furrier, about fifty-five or -six, somewhere in there."

"What about the girl? Shirley?"

"Under thirty. I don't know how much under thirty, but she was definitely under thirty, and she was unhappy about the situation, the date. I knew she wanted to go out, to get away from her parents, but there wasn't anyway to work it. And after dinner, once I started to play snooker, I didn't want to go out anyway. Irv is a good player, and he beat me the first game. But I beat him the second two games. His problem, he doesn't play enough with other people. He probably practices a lot, and you know how it is when you practice, you try a lot of shots you wouldn't consider seriously in compet.i.tion because they're too risky. So he would try some of these risky shots, and he missed a lot. I haven't played any snooker for four or five years, and I didn't really get my eye back until the middle of the second game. I wish I'd known about the snooker table, I'd have taken my own cue stick along..."

I laughed. "Shirley would've appreciated that," I said. "Bringing your cue stick along on a first date."

Larry laughed. "Yeah. But what I mean is the way it worked out."

"Did Shirley play, too?"

"No. She just sat in one of the high chairs and watched. She didn't say anything then, and before dinner and during dinner she didn't really get a chance to say anything. Her mother talked all the time, a real brittle woman, with a head of bleached blonde hair that looked like it was carved out of sandstone. You knew how hard it was by just looking at it."

"What did she talk about?"

"In a couple of weeks or so, all three of them are going on an around-the-world cruise. She talked about that. For the last year-and-a-half Shirley's been in Israel, living on a kibbutz. When they went to visit her there, Irv and Helen, they were so appalled by the living conditions they brought Shirley home. The water was alkaline, they had outside johns, the food was bad, the place was unsanitary, and they worked the s.h.i.t out of poor Shirley. They had her running a buzz saw, making furniture. Shirley, I gathered, didn't want to come home, although she didn't say anything at the table. But this 'round-the-world trip is supposed to be a present to make up for it. That was the implication, anyway. Shirley hardly opened her mouth, but she looked at me a lot.

"Then, on purpose, but trying to pa.s.s it off, Helen, Mrs. Weinstein, said that the cruise would be a honeymoon gift for Shirley, if she wanted to take advantage of it."

"That was pretty blunt, Larry. Did they think, all this time, that you were Jewish?"

"I think so, yes. Irv didn't care, but Helen stiffened up when I finally said I was a Catholic. And it upset Helen, too, when I said that I thought they were all Catholics and that that's what they'd told me at Electro-Date."

"They didn't tell you that at Electro-Date."

"I know, but that's what I said. Can you imagine some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d getting married and having mother- and father-in-law along in the same cabin for three months?"

"They'll find someone. He's got money, this guy."

"Irv's got money all right. He's rich, man. And a d.a.m.ned good snooker player. Why don't you and I got out for snooker some night? Did you ever play it?"

"I used to, but I don't even know where there's a table in Miami."

"We could play over at Irv's. He said to call him any time I wanted to play. But that's out, I suppose. I'm not interested in the girl, and if I went back, it might give her a false idea."

"Did you get a chance to talk to her alone? You said she didn't talk much, but you haven't told me anything she said."

"Well, we didn't talk alone until I actually left. When I got ready to leave, her mother called her into the kitchen for a minute, and Irv went to get my coat. I'd taken it off when we played snooker, and left it in the rec room. When I opened the front door, Shirley said, 'I'll ride down to the lobby with you.'

"We got into the elevator, and about the sixth floor she pulled out the red emergency k.n.o.b and stopped the elevator. I was still a little high, and when the elevator stopped suddenly that way I lurched against the wall. She looked into my eyes, through those blue-tinted gla.s.ses of hers, and said: 'Are you circ.u.mcised, Larry?'

"'No.' I said.

"'Let me see it,' she said.

"1 took out my c.o.c.k and showed it to her. She looked at it for a long time, as though she'd never seen a dong before, at least an uncirc.u.mcised dong, and then said, 'I don't care.'

"What do you mean,' I said, 'you don't care?'

"I mean,' she said, 'that it doesn't matter to me whether you're circ.u.mcised or not."

"She was propositioning you, Larry. That is, she was telling you that she was available."

"I know that, Hank. I put it away, zipped up, and took the elevator off emergency. It really turned me off, man, not that I was turned on by her in the first place, but it was all so weird, standing there with half-a-buzz on, you know, with my dong out, and the way she stared at it. Maybe a soft, uncirc.u.mcised p.r.i.c.k isn't a beautiful thing to see, but it's mine, you know, and that curious, scientific look she had, the blue-tinted gla.s.ses, the way she leaned over, with her hands on her hips--I don't know, Hank, Ijust don't know. For a moment there, it scared me. I had a funny feeling, or a premonition, that it would never get hard again.

"Anyway, when we got down to the lobby, I gave her a good-night kiss, a long s...o...b..ry one. And she responded, too. But there was nothing there, man, nothing. My b.a.l.l.s were ice cubes. So much for the first date. I think I'll put down about thirty-five bucks for this one on my expense account, and call it a night."

Larry rose, and picked up his white jacket. He put his rolled white tie into the left jacket pocket.

"Something's wrong with the computer at that electronic dating service," I said. "You couldn't have been matched any worse if you'd picked up a lez at a gay bar."

"I know. Tomorrow I'm going to call Electro-Date and raise holy h.e.l.l. Even though I'm not a Catholic I said I was a Catholic and I'm ent.i.tled to either a Catholic or to someone who has lied about it the way I did."

I laughed. "Say that again."

Larry grinned. "I can't."

After Larry left, I thought about this strange evening for a few minutes, and then went to bed myself. The dating service didn't enter my thoughts again until I ran into Larry with his second date at Don's birthday party a week later.

That's when I met Jannaire.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

There were more than twenty cars parked on Don's lawn and along the curb and on neighboring lawns by the time I got to his house for his birthday party. The quiet of the suburban neighborhood was bothered by gibbering drums which pulsed above the shattering rise and fall of voices from the poolside patio. I learned later that some maniac had given Don a birthday present of three LPs of the authentic tribal drums of Africa.

Clara Luchessi, in a losing effort to keep as many people out of her house as possible, had centered the festivities around the pool and patio. The bar, the tables loaded with catered food, and even two green-and-white striped tents, with extra swimming trunks and bikinis, one tent marked HE and the other SHE, as dressing rooms, were outside. There were no emergency latrine facilities at poolside, however. One still had to go inside the house to use the john, or else pee in the pool.

There was a lopsided pile of birthday presents on a card table at the far end of the pool. I added mine to the pile and checked the birthday card again to make certain the tape would keep it secure on the package. My present to Don was in poor taste, but it wasn't really for Don's benefit-- it was for Clara's. I had found a used copy, almost in mint condition, of George Kelly's -Craig's Wife-, in Maggie's Old Book Shop, and I had talked Maggie into giftwrapping it for me. Don would read the play and laugh, knowing it was ajoke. But if Clara read it, she might, quite possibly, take some of the pressure off Don around the house.

The soft night air was muggy, with the humidity at ninety percent, according to my car radio, but a warm heavy breeze huffed across the patio from the flat green fairway beyond the back of the house. Don's backyard pool was merely an easy lay away from the No. 8 green of the Miccosukee Country Club. Around the edges of the yard, and along the fairway border, Clara had placed lighted candles. They were upright in sandfilled paper sacks, and the surprisingly good light made the faces of the guests slightly distorted because they were lit from below. There was a strong electric light above the bar, however. The bartender, Joe T., or Jotey, as he was called, was a black man who bagged groceries regularly at the Kendall Kwik-Chek. All four of us guys had hiredJotey as a bartender at one time or another for parties because he had surprisingly good judgment. If someone was about to get overloaded, Jotey would gently taper him off by reducing the alcoholic content of his drinks. Moreover, because Jotey didn't have to go to work at the Kwik-Chek until ten a.m., he would come back willingly, early the next morning following a party and clean everything up for an extra ten bucks.

"Mr. Norton," Jotey said, as I reached the bar; "a J.B. and soda." He grinned, and handed me my drink.