David said, ‘Martell.’ And with more passion than he’d planned, ‘How the hell do you stay so cheerful?’
Teddy replied blandly, ‘Try killing someone you hate.’
Vanessa laughed, accepting it as a joke.
But David was chilled as if his friend had looked directly into his soul.
Teddy went away. Vanessa said, ‘You forgot to get a Christmas tree for the office.’
David nodded, wanting to talk to Teddy, to question him about that last remark. His dream . . . the woman on the train . . . throwing her to death . . .
Teddy was back with their order. David said, ‘Let’s get together for dinner.’
Teddy was looking at him, appraising him. They had often served each other as listeners and advisers during the ten years of their friendship. They had served each other in more practical ways as well, David as banker during Teddy’s lean and occasionally dangerous times before the opening of Thomasine’s four years ago; Teddy as contact to the demi-mondes of the Sunset Strip who had filled David’s needs during his own lean (emotionally) and dangerous times.
Teddy said, ‘You got it.’ He began to turn away, then stopped. ‘Vanessa, you taking care of my main man here?’
She flushed and looked into her pewter mug. ‘When he lets me.’
The fat woman said, ‘Excuse me for interrupting, but could I have another Rob Roy?’
Teddy said, ‘You can have anything you want, lady.’
She’d obviously been drinking for a while. ‘I want a Teddy Bear to cuddle. A live one.’
Teddy leaned close. ‘Be nice. Write your name, your phone number, on the napkin.’ He drew a ballpoint pen from his breast pocket. ‘Then either go into the restaurant or leave.’
‘Don’t be angry . . .’
He leaned closer. ‘I’m not angry, big momma. I’m sizzling for you.’ He gave her the teddy bear.
She was smiling, biting her lip, flushed with pleasure when she finished writing on the napkin and handed it to him. ‘Forget the fresh drink,’ she said, opening her purse.
Teddy said, ‘Forget the tab,’ and watched as she clutched the bear and walked to the door, her huge rump rolling. ‘Must be jelly,’ he sang softly, and went to serve his customers.
‘He can do better than that,’ Vanessa said, ‘even if she is white.’
David didn’t bother explaining. It should have been obvious that Teddy sipped from many cups. He said, ‘Let’s take our drinks to the dining room.’
She touched his arm. ‘Hon, you didn’t mean that about not seeing each other until after New Year’s? What about our plans? The parties?’
He got off the stool. He remembered Teddy quoting an African writer: To be happy, one must live easy inside his own skin. His skin felt tight as a drum’s. He didn’t think he had ever lived easy inside it.
‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘Maybe New Year’s Eve. Colleen does expect us.’
She got off her stool and walked with him. ‘What about Christmas? We have the studio party on the twenty-second. And Christmas Eve, Dave!’
His head hurt. He had to get home early tonight; had to sleep a peaceful eight hours.
‘We’ve never been apart on Christmas . . .’
‘Fuck Christmas!’ he exploded. ‘I’m a Jew, dammit!’
The maître de at the dining room archway turned to stare. A couple waiting for a table also turned. David didn’t know whether they’d heard his words or simply his raging tone, but he decided this lunch was over.
He walked to the street door, pausing at the bar to drain his glass. Vanessa followed him outside, face pale. ‘I know you’re a Jew. What I didn’t know was that it meant anything to you. You never spoke about going to temple or, you know, about feeling Jewish.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, and took her hand. It was icy cold despite the warm afternoon sun. ‘Forgive me.’ They had always treated each other with kindness, with consideration and affection. Six years of such civility and physical closeness counted for something. ‘Come to the house tonight.’
She nodded. Tears trickled from her eyes, and he felt terrible.
He also felt worried about tonight.
Teddy phoned Roberta Alden, the big momma, at three thirty. Her voice shook as she gave him directions. Twenty minutes later, at her North Hollywood home, everything else she had shook as he plunged wildly between her thick white thighs.
Afterwards, he put his head on her bulging belly and closed his eyes. And thought of Montecassino. Not that he’d had a fat woman there and not that anything here reminded him of that place of explosions, shrieks, cordite stench, human cowardice and inhuman courage. It was just that he’d been thinking of it for years now, more and more often lately. Thinking not only of the corpse-covered slopes leading to the German stronghold, but of Lieutenant Borden, ex-highschool athlete, freshman enlistee from Texas A & M, who had come to the portable kitchen where li’l black Teddy was working and said he was empowered to ‘raise a few fightin’ men from this miserable mongrel ratpack’; said it grinning as if in jest, and said it with contempt and hatred. Later, he had humiliated Teddy in a brief weapons refresher course behind the field kitchen, using some of the Southern racist shit of the day: ‘C’mon boy, let a little light into that African bone head of yourn,’ and on and on. And at last Teddy had answered back, saying that if Borden hadn’t been wearing bars he’d have been chewing on a ‘boy’s African fist.’ So Borden took off the bars and beat the hell out of l’il black Teddy.
Teddy had planned to kill him with a hand grenade on the slopes before the ancient Italian monastery . . . though it was more fantasy than hard plan. Whether he could actually have done the job became academic when the Germans did it for him, in the first few moments of the reserve company’s assault.
But instead of gratification he had felt anguish on learning his enemy had escaped him. As he felt anguish now, lying on the warm pillow of flesh, a fine mist of sweat between his cheek and Roberta’s stomach, mouth twisting in self-contempt. Because anguish or not, he suspected he would never have fragged his man.
Driving back to Thomasine’s, he wondered at his pain. All right, so he hadn’t killed his enemy. So he could never kill his enemy.
But Montecassino and Borden were thirty-seven years ago. No one suffers over something that far back. And he hadn’t begun tormenting himself until four, maybe five years ago, about the time he’d opened Thomasine’s.
Had anything happened then; anything that had torn open that old wound?
His mind closed down on the subject, causing him to concentrate on the traffic and on a cute chicana waiting at a bus stop. Because there was something very ugly waiting to wound Teddy Bear; wound him more deeply than he could tolerate.
Vincent said he’d brought her to his apartment because he was a gourmet cook. ‘Wait, Rita, you’ll see.’
She knew what she would see, but last night had been so long, so empty, and there were four more such nights to fill before she met David and could revive her hope, that she hadn’t insisted they go to a restaurant as he had promised. Besides, his voice was good; almost as soft and strong as David Howars’ and Daddy’s.
His meal was basic: broiled steak, baked potatoes, and California burgundy, but she was hungry and ate well. And he sat close beside her and touched her hand as often as he could and she liked hand touching and holding.
They moved to the living-room couch for coffee. He smoked, which she didn’t like.
Still, she had