Black Market (16 page)

Manhattan

It was probably a dream, and a very bad one.

He was standing in an unfamiliar room where the walls met the ceiling at angles that would have been impossible in anything other than dream geometry. Through the half-open door, a pale pearl light created a slat of dull color.

A shadow moved into the light and stood there, just beyond the door. He knew that the figure was Nora. He wanted to move forward, to step out of the room; he wanted to see Nora and hold her. But something held him back, rooted to the floor. He cried her name aloud.

And then-

A bell was ringing. And he imagined it rang in Nora's hand.

Disturbed, sweating, Arch Carroll sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Then he realized that the bell was real. Someone was ringing the doorbell, and this was the sound his dream had absorbed. He swung his legs over the side of the rumpled covers on his bed and wandered from the bedroom. He squinted into the spy hole of the Manhattan apartment he'd once shared with Nora.

“Who is it?”

He could see nothing except swirling blackness where the hallway had definitely been last night.

Years before, he'd lucked into the West Side apartment, a sprawling three-bedroom with a river view. The apartment was still rent-controlled at two hundred and seventy-nine dollars a month, an impossible bargain. After Nora died, Carroll had decided to hold on to the place and use it nights when he worked late in the city.

“Who is it? Who's out there?” Doorbell goddamn ring itself, or was he still dreaming?

Whoever was out in the hallway didn't answer.

Carroll went back for his Browning and then unlocked the Segal, leaving the heavy link chain secure. He opened the door about four inches, and the chain snapped against the sturdy wooden jamb.

Caitlin Dillon was peering in at him through the crack. She looked frightened. Her eyes were hollow and dark.

“I couldn't sleep. I'm sorry if I disturbed you.”

“What time is it?”

“I'm embarrassed to say it's before six. It's about twenty to six.”

“In the morning?”

“Arch, please laugh at this or something. Oh, God. I'm going.” She suddenly turned to leave.

“Hold it. Wait a minute. Hey, stop walking!”

She half turned at the elevator. Her hair was wildly windblown and her cheeks were flushed, as if she'd been riding horses in Central Park.

“Come on in… Please come in and talk. Please?”

Inside the apartment, Carroll whisked clean the kitchen table. He made coffee. Caitlin sat down and twisted her long fingers together nervously. She opened a box of cigarettes and lit one. When she spoke her voice was husky, strange.

“I've been chain-smoking for hours, which is uncharacteristic of me. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't stop pacing around, either. All that information about the stolen securities kept spinning through my head…”

Carroll shook the last remnants of the bad dream from his mind, jerking himself into the present. “Green Band's moving at last. Only I can't figure out the direction they're taking.”

“That's one thing that bothers me,” Caitlin said. “And then I start to wonder how much has been stolen and how far this whole incredible thing goes. I calculated an amount in the region of a hundred million, but God knows how much more has actually disappeared.”

She sighed and crushed her cigarette impatiently. “Also, I'm still really ticked off at not being invited to that meeting in Washington. Do they honestly think I've got nothing to contribute?
None
of them understands the financial world. They really don't.”

Carroll had never seen her in quite this frame of mind. It was like watching her from a whole new set of angles-she was angry, she was worried, and she seemed confused. Her usual business-world professionalism couldn't help her now; she was reduced to asking wild questions that neither of them could answer. Suddenly Caitlin Dillon wasn't quite so untouchable. If he was the son of two generations of New York cops, she was a ruined banker's daughter, and equally serious about her obligations to her past.

Around seven-fifteen they put some Sara Lee Danish in the oven, the only moderately edible items in Carroll's kitchen.

“When I was thirteen or so I actually won a Bake-Off. This was at an Ohio country fair,” Caitlin admitted as she pulled the steaming pastries out of the oven. She kind of looked the part at the stove, too-pure Lima, Ohio.

They moved out to a windowed nook that overlooked the river and the New Jersey Palisades. One whole wall of the room was covered with 35-mm pictures of the kids. A single, fading picture was of Carroll as a sergeant in Vietnam. He'd taken down the last pictures of Nora only a few months before.

“Mmmfff. Tremendous.” He licked sticky crumbs off his fingers.

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “I'm not impressed With your kitchen supplies, Arch. Your cupboard's stocked with four bottles of beer and a half jar of Skippy peanut butter. Haven't you heard-the contemporary man in New York is a gourmet cook.”

Maybe
her
boyfriends were, Carroll thought to himself. None of the “contemporary men” he knew could cook anything more complicated than Campbell 's tomato soup.

“What can I tell you? I'm basically an ascetic. Skippy peanut butter happens to be cholestrol free.”

A different kind of look crossed Caitlin's face. A private-joke smile? He wasn't sure he'd read it correctly. Was she laughing at him now?

Then came a quick reassuring smile that was warm and even more comfortable.

“I think we're going to need at least an hour,” she said somewhat mysteriously. “Uninterrupted time. Phone-off-the-hook seclusion and quiet. You didn't have any big plans for the morning, I hope?”

“Just sleep.”

“Boring. Also not very ascetic.”

Carroll shrugged his broad shoulders; his eyes burned with curiosity. “I'm a boring person. Daddy, sometimes mom, of four, straight job with the government, occasional terrorist contact.”

There was a dense silence as he and Caitlin finally walked out of the windowed nook. They cleared their throats almost at the same moment. Caitlin reached for him, and then they were lightly, just barely, holding hands.

Arch Carroll was suddenly very aware of her perfume, the
shh-shh
of her jeans, the soft silhouette of her profile…

“This is one of the more impressive New York apartments I've been in. I really didn't expect this. All the hominess, the charm.”

“What did you expect? Hunting rifles on the wall? Actually, I sew. I can knit. I do iron-on patches for four little kids.”

Caitlin had to smile.

It was the first time he'd seen this particular smile. Irony but also a nice warmth glowed in her eyes at the same time. He felt as if they'd crossed some invisible barrier, made some slightly more solid connection. He wasn't sure what it was, though.

They started to kiss and touch each other lightly in the narrow hallway. They kissed chastely, gently, at first. Then the kiss became harder, with urgency and surprising strength on Caitlin's part.

They kissed all the way to the front bedroom, where amber morning light was flooding the room. Huge, curtainless windows faced the Hudson, which was a flat, slate blue lake that morning.

“Caitlin?… Is this really wise?”

“It
is
really wise. It doesn't mean the end of the world, you know: It's just one morning. I promise not to get hurt, if
you
do.”

She put a gentle finger to Carroll's lips, softening the blow of her last statement. She then lightly kissed the back of her own finger.

“I have one small favor. Don't think about anything for ten minutes or so. No Ohio jokes, either. Okay?”

Carroll nodded. She was smart about this kind of thing, too. A little scary smart. She'd been here before: I won't get hurt; don't you get hurt.

“All right. Whatever you say can be the official rules.”

For a moment they sat together, hugging, on the lowslung, quilt-covered double bed. Then, very slowly, they began to undress. A shivery draft slithered in from the casement windows; the cold air seemed to blow right through the tall black windowpanes.

Carroll was physically and spiritually entranced. Also frightened. He hadn't been with anybody for over three years. There hadn't been anything like this for so very long. He felt a little guilty, automatically comparing Caitlin with Nora, though he didn't want to.

Caitlin's hands had the lightest imaginable touch. Extraordinary control and gentleness as she tugged off his trousers. He felt everything beginning to relax inside. Her fingers were like elegant feathers over his upper back. Tickling. Dusting his neck.

Then her palms. Rotating in easy circles. Into his temples. Gently pulling on the curls of his dark hair.

Carroll was inspired to remember that he was ticklish down both sides of his stomach. He had been since he was a little kid getting baths from his mother up in the west Bronx.

More feathery fingers. Teasing Carroll up and down the insides of his legs…

On to the callused balls of his feet, his bony toes, his soles…

Then everything was moving slightly faster; up another whole notch in tempo.

His body suddenly, involuntarily, spasmed.
Jesus Christ
.

Caitlin was doing some completely unexpected things to him.

She blew softly on the insides of her hands. She cupped warm fingers over his eyelids, then over his ears. She spoke in a voice that was nearly as gentle and sensual as her touch. “This is called a thrill massage. Believe it or not, it was the fad at little Oberlin College.”

“Yeah? You're very good at it. At this. You're wonderful, in fact.”

“Awh gee blush… Wild youth in long-forgotten midwestern cornfields.”

He was beginning to like her. Maybe an awful lot. He didn't know if he should, if this truly
was
wise.

She brushed his legs again… his upper back again… neck, scrotum. Only much faster, even lighter, now. Turning him into jelly, no container.

There was no real impression of fingers, he was noticing. Quite amazing. More like the softest combs of air.

How had she gotten this good?… A little unbelievable in a way… being who she was… Who was she, really?

Her lovely face came down very close. “Smile for the camera, Arch.” Faint, smiling whisper from Caitlin. “My heart is pure, but my mind is occasionally kinky.”

At some time, somewhere in all the light touching, brushing, tickling, Caitlin had taken off her jeans and blouse. She still wore pink underpants, wool knee socks. Her breasts had the loveliest, delicate, shell pink nipples. They were hard now, totally aroused. She touched one erect nipple, then the other, to the head of Carroll's penis.

She was a classic feminine masterpiece, Carroll couldn't help thinking, completely filling his eyes. She was so elegant to look at, to drink in like the finest wine. He remembered what she'd said before in the kitchen, and it made him smile:
We're going to need at least an hour
.

There was no longer such a thing as time; no Green Band urgencies existed right now. Carroll had the comfortable, wonderful idea that he trusted Caitlin Dillon… How could he so easily trust her already?

“Tell me all about yourself. Whatever comes out. No editing, okay, Carroll?”

To the continuing rhythm of her fingers, to the slightest crooning of the bed springs, to the dancing morning sunbeams, Carroll spoke the truth, as he knew it.

“Whole life story, about thirty seconds… As a little kid I always wanted to play for the Yankees, maybe, maybe for the football Giants. I settled for the Golden Gloves-Arch ‘White Lightning’ Carroll. Son of a New York cop. Very good, honest, poor cop. Typical Irish-Catholic family from the west Bronx. That's my youth. Notre Dame on scholarship… Law school at Michigan State, then drafted. I didn't try to dodge it, for some crazy reason.

“Four great, absolutely terrific kids. Kind of a perfect marriage until Nora passed away. That's middle American for she died… I'm, I think I'm a very different person when I'm with my kids. Childlike and free. Maybe a little retarded… um… boy… that's very nice… Yes, right there. Ohio, huh?”

“What else? You were telling me your life story
Reader's Digest
condensed version.”

“Oh, yeah… I have this recurring problem. Big problem… with
them
.”

“Who's
them?
”

Arch Carroll suddenly felt a sharp twist of tension. Not now. He made it go away.

“Just
them
… ones who make all the most important decisions… ones who rob people, without caring one way or the other. On Wall Street, down in Washington. Ones who trade terrorist murderers for innocent, kidnapped businesspeople. The ones who kill people with brain cancer. The bad guys. As opposed to…
us
.”

Caitlin gently kissed Carroll's curly brown hair; she kissed his puffed cauliflower ear. She finally found his mouth, which tasted very nice, she thought. Fresh and clean and sweet.

“I don't like
them
, either. I think I like you. I think I like
us
. Please like me a little.”

“All I can do is try, Caitlin. You're beautiful. You're witty. You seem to be nice as hell. I'll
try
to like you.”

Somewhere else that morning…

“Now me. Your turn to…”

“This an' that, the next thing.”

“Really softly, Arch… with you that name's more like the verb. To arch. Anybody ever call you Archie?”

“Not more than once.”

“Tough guy,” she purred.

“Grrr. I'm a street cop.”

Carroll slowly rose onto his hands, then his knees. He was very hard, almost painfully hard.

At his first touch, Caitlin tightened her stomach. Then slowly she let herself relax. She tightened the abdominal muscles in her long flat stomach, then let herself relax again. She controlled her breathing magnificently, holding effortlessly for several seconds. Her pulse was slow, that of a long-distance runner…

Where did she learn this stuff? he wondered. Not in Ohio; not at Oberlin College.

Her eyes closed softly. She was unbelievably easy to be with.