Sinners (22 page)

‘Were you?’

‘Sure I was. Any fellow worth his balls would have been.’

Charlie laughed modestly. ‘Michelle was a fabulous woman.’

‘Come on, let’s have another drink for Serafina, she was always fond of a drop of scotch. I’m going to miss that grand old lady.’

Solemnly they re-filled their glasses and toasted Serafina.

Clay said, ‘Fancy dropping into a disco?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘You go.’

‘Come on, it will do you good. Anyhow, I fancy having a ride in that flash car of yours.’

*    *    *

The discotheque was jammed as usual. Charlie had only ever been there once with Dindi. The place made him uncomfortable. It was jammed with starlets and beach-boys and actors and young celebrities and a few old celebrities who figured they were still young, and hookers of both sexes.

Clay pushed his way through and found them a place at the bar. He immediately started to chat to a blonde in a gold catsuit who looked completely stoned.

Charlie wished he hadn’t come. Clay meant well, but this really wasn’t his scene.

‘You’re Charlie Brick, aren’t you?’ a smaller, not so pretty version of Dindi asked him. She had the same flaxen hair and big blue eyes. ‘I’m here with my boyfriend, but I wanted to tell you that you really turn me on.’ She fidgeted in her see-through mini and abstractedly stroked her small breasts. ‘Your glasses are so sexy. What star are you?’

‘Virgo,’ Charlie replied, fascinated as he watched her nipples harden under her own touch.

‘Hmm,’ she cast her eyes heavenwards, ‘I thought so. I’m Aquarius. I’m an actress.’

As if I didn’t know, he thought.

‘Well, I guess I’d better get on back to my boyfriend. Shall I call you?’

‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’

‘Huh?’

‘Nothing. It’s a joke. Yes, do call me. I’m at the Hilton.’

She flitted away, and Charlie turned to see how Clay was getting on. He was doing nicely, whispering in the blonde’s ear.

‘Er, I think I’ve had enough of this place,’ Charlie commented. ‘Shall we move on?’

Reluctantly Clay agreed, scribbling the blonde’s phone number in a small notebook.

Then he suggested they cruise down the Strip to inspect the action there. ‘If I’m lucky, I might find myself a fourteen-year-old drop-out,’ he joked.

Charlie had lost all enthusiasm for the trip. They might just as well have phoned for a couple of hookers, because whoever they found wandering about at this time of night was bound to be one anyway. He wasn’t sure if he even felt like getting laid.

‘Slow down, get over to the side,’ Clay said excitedly.

Two girls were walking towards them, both dressed in tight chinos and clinging sweaters, both swinging fringed suede handbags and chewing gum. They edged towards the car as it stopped, first having a good look around for any cops.

‘Looking for a little action?’ the first girl asked, leaning down to the open window and peering in at Clay. ‘We’re available for any trips you care to take.’

He started to reply, but Charlie suddenly jammed his foot down on the accelerator, sending the car racing away.

‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ Clay asked indignantly.

‘For God’s sake, the pair of them stank. Hopped up to the eyeballs on top of the stink!’

‘I didn’t realize we were on the look-out for Miss Clean America.’

‘Fuck you.’

They rode in silence.

‘What do you want then?’ Clay finally asked.

Charlie shrugged. He was tired. What he really wanted was to go home to bed. They were passing by a strip joint. ‘Let’s go in here,’ he said, swerving the Lamborghini into an adjoining parking lot. It was certainly better than cruising up and down like a couple of hicks.

‘Good idea.’ Clay’s face brightened.

Charlie thought, What’s this all about? What the hell are we looking for? A quick flash of tit like a couple of high-school boys? He was annoyed with himself and annoyed with Clay.

The place was sleazy, with plain wooden tables arranged around an L-shaped stage. A waitress, wearing black tights and a tired red bra, took their order.

A girl was up on the stage, going through her routine. She was wearing a bathing suit and a sash saying ‘Miss Hot California’. She had flaming red hair and an enormous bosom. California packed in more enormous bosoms, thanks to all the doctors using silicone injections, than any other state.

She moved energetically, wriggling out of the bathing suit before you knew it, wearing just the sash and a red-white-and-blue G-string.

‘Get a load of that!’ Clay exclaimed happily.

Charlie sighed. The girl looked unreal. Two great globes of upstanding flesh. He ordered a bottle of scotch, which he proceeded to empty fast.

The next performer had piles of raven hair and a low-cut purple beaded evening dress. She was introduced as Crazy Harold, and the music blared ‘Big Spender’. She bumped and grinded her way automatically around the stage.

Charlie found the whole thing completely asexual. Clay was as excited as a schoolboy getting laid for the first time.

Between strippers, a comedian told weak blue jokes in a straight out of Brooklyn accent. Charlie studied the voice. He found it much more interesting than the girls. It had a particular nasal twang that he wished to capture exactly for the character he was playing in his next film.

‘Now I give you a coupla wild mustangs! Little Skinny Sackcloth and Fantastic Fat Fanny!’ the comedian said.

The way he said ‘Mustang’ knocked Charlie out. He muttered it under his breath, trying to get the intonation right.

Clay was roaring with laughter, along with the rest of the room, as the two new strippers appeared.

Little Skinny Sackcloth was a Twiggy-type girl, extremely pretty and wearing a pink mini shift.

Fantastic Fat Fanny was also pretty, but a mountainous balloon of a girl from her wobbling double chins to her jellylike legs. She too was wearing a pink mini dress.

They paraded the stage to the strains of ‘Hello, Dolly’.

‘Christ!’ Clay muttered. ‘I always fancied having a fat girl.’

Charlie was getting through the scotch and feeling no pain, but even in the most stoned of conditions he could never have fancied the fat one. The little skinny one was a different proposition. She was rather appealing, with her wispy yellow hair and fawn-like eyes.

The girls removed their clothes in unison. First the skimpy mini shifts, under which they were wearing bras, panties and stockings clipped to old-fashioned suspenders.

Fat Fanny was grotesque, rolls upon rolls of uncontrollable flesh, quivering and shaking in time to the music. In comparison, Skinny Sackcloth was a skeleton, with ribs sticking out of an emaciated ribcage.

The combination of the two female forms was almost obscene. Their bras unclipped down the front, and now rolling their hips in time to a honky-tonk arrangement of ‘Hard-Hearted Hannah’, they undid the clips.

‘I’ve got to have the fat one,’ Clay groaned.

If Natalie could only see him now, Charlie thought, amused at Clay’s enthusiasm. Fat Fanny looked like some sort of gross animal. Big boobs flopping and falling, nipples the size of the skinny one’s entire little buds.

They ended the show. The comedian leaped up on the stage, cracked a couple of stale jokes, and promised everyone a brilliant new show in exactly one hour’s time.

Clay grabbed the man on his way to the bar. Charlie called for the check and paid it. He was going to drop Clay off at his car and go to bed. Any more cruising Clay could do on his own.

Clay fumbled in his pocket and handed the comedian money.

Charlie got up. He had taken off his glasses, as no one ever recognized him without them, and who needed to be recognized in such a dump? ‘Come on,’ he said patiently.

‘It’s all arranged,’ Clay said excitedly. ‘All fixed.’

‘What’s all fixed?’

‘Fantastic Fat Fanny and the Skinny bit. I gave the fellow two hundred dollars and we’re to go across the street to their apartment. They’ve only got an hour. How about that for organization?’

‘Two hundred dollars for those two freaks. I think you’re going soft.’

‘Soft I’m not. Let’s go.’

Reluctantly Charlie trailed behind. Natalie had always said that Clay would screw anything, but this was ridiculous.

Little Skinny Sackcloth opened the door of the apartment. She was wearing a black chiffon ostrich-feather-trimmed dressing-gown and a vacuous smile.

The apartment was one room, and reminded Charlie of his first sexual encounter so long ago in a dingy dressing-room with a sister act. It had the same smells: cheap perfume and stale sweat.

Clay pushed eagerly forward. ‘Got any booze?’ he asked.

Skinny looked at him blankly. ‘Jake didn’t say nothin’ ’bout booze bein’ part of the deal.’

A toilet flushed and Fat Fanny emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing the same style dressing-gown as the skinny one. Immediately she took control. ‘You want scotch, it’s ten bucks a piece. Take your pants off and make yourselves at home, not too at home, we’ve only got an hour. Any rough stuff is extra, you read me – extra. And if you both want to make it with me at the same time, that’s also extra.’ She spoke very quickly in a fluffy light voice that didn’t match up to her size.

Clay looked at Charlie and Charlie looked at Clay and they both burst out laughing.

‘Well,
you
might be able to get it up but I certainly can’t,’ Charlie said.

‘For two hundred dollars I’m going to try,’ Clay replied, unzipping his pants and stepping out of them.

‘I think I’ll just watch,’ Charlie said politely as the skinny girl approached him.

The fat one shook off her dressing-gown and lay on a couch. Clay mounted her, a foolish grin on his face.

Tell my friend I’ll wait in the car,’ Charlie said to the skinny one, and quietly slipped out.

Sunday caught the first plane out of Acapulco airport. Destination – Mexico City.

She wore her hair scraped back, dark glasses, and bought her ticket in the name of Miss Sands. She hadn’t decided where she was going, but she had to move fast before the barrage of publicity broke.

Getting engaged to Steve Magnum had catapulted her into the public eye. And how she had to get away – especially from Steve. She knew if he found her there would be excuses and apologies and finally insults. She didn’t want to go through that.

Once in Mexico City she scanned the next flights out. She didn’t want to travel too far. Then the idea of Rio occurred to her. Why not Rio? She had not been back since her parents died, and this was the perfect opportunity. There was a plane leaving within the hour.

*    *    *

The small boy stood wide-eyed by the boarding-gate. Sunday noticed him immediately, because for one thing he seemed much too young to be travelling alone – about five or six – and secondly, he was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. He had long dark hair framing his face like a halo, and huge black eyes set in an olive-skinned oval face. If I ever have a child, she thought, I would like him to look just like this.

The boy stood very still, occasionally darting his huge eyes anxiously around, obviously expecting someone.

When the flight was called he started to cry, not in a whining, snivelling way; tears just seemed to form in his big black eyes and trickle down his cheeks.

She went over to him. ‘Are you waiting for your mother?’

He shook his head.

‘Is someone coming for you?’

The child nodded.
‘Oui, Papa.
’

‘Are you French?’

‘Yes, he is French,’ a bored masculine voice said behind her. ‘And he is quite all right, thank you, so you may now leave him alone.’

The man took the boy firmly by the hand and they set off for the plane, leaving Sunday standing there.

She followed them, catching up as they entered the aircraft.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I thought he was alone. I was only trying to see if he needed any help. He was crying.’

‘Crying?’ the man’s voice was amused. ‘Jean-Pierre never cries.’

‘Oh, you’re Claude Hussan, aren’t you?’ She could have bitten off her tongue, she sounded like some cloying fan.

He ignored her, just took his seats without giving her another glance.

She realized that he obviously didn’t remember her. She had been all dressed up and at her most glamorous when they had met in Acapulco. Now she was hidden behind glasses and her hair was a mess. Still, he
was
a rude man, and the child
had
been crying. ‘Jean-Pierre never cries.’ What a ridiculous and typically masculine statement to make about a five-year-old boy.

The plane taxied down the runway and was suddenly airborne. Sunday loved flying. It was so exhilarating, so powerful.

She felt relaxed and in a way relieved. Steve Magnum had not been the right man for her. She had accepted him for all the wrong reasons. Down the aisle Claude Hussan was chatting to a stewardess who was smiling and flashing even white teeth. He wasn’t being rude to
her
.

The journey went fast. At the stopover Sunday bought the newspapers, but there was no report yet about her and Steve Magnum. She had a coffee, went to the ladies’ room, and again noticed the little boy standing alone. She smiled at him, and he grinned back. His two front teeth were missing and he looked like a little urchin.

She wondered where his father was – probably in a bar somewhere, getting drunk.

She re-boarded the plane, and shortly before take-off Claude appeared with Jean-Pierre. She turned her head away as they went past.

*    *    *

Carey arrived at her office direct from the airport. She was tired and hot, and the copy of a Saint Laurent suit she was wearing had crumpled from the journey.

Marshall – who had flown in with her – had spent the entire journey trying to convince her they should get married immediately. He had suddenly – for some unknown reason – blown his entire cool after she had slept with him for the first time following Sunday and Steve’s party. Instead of saying ‘Think about it’, ‘Take your time’, ‘I know I’m much older than you’, he was now saying, ‘Name the day, Carey, and make it soon; in fact next week would be perfect.’