86'd: A Novel - By Dan Fante Page 0,24

let me go slip something on,” she whispered, looking away.

“No. I like you the way you are. Just stand there.”

I held up my jug. “How about a nightcap? One drink for the good of the company. It won’t kill you.”

“Actually, I’ve had a bit of wine already…it helps me sleep.”

“C’mon.”

“Very well. But only one.”

I took a hit then passed the bottle to the skinny girl. She downed most of what was left with one gulp.

Screwing Portia on the pull-out bed in the chauffeur’s room was like trying to run backward. Clumsy. Elbows and knees everywhere. And nearly without participation.

Ten minutes after we started, when I couldn’t cum, she sucked me off.

“Well…did you enjoy that?” she asked finally.

I checked my jug. It was empty. “Any liquor in the office?”

“There are two bottles of that inexpensive limo champagne in the fridge. Shall I get one?”

“Get both.”

“I feel quite good. Sex relieves stress, you know.”

“You’re right. So does drinking.”

“Well…I’ll get the champagne.”

“Good idea.”

For the next half hour we lay wordless, sipping fizzy wine, crunched together on the mattress. Two fools connected by the darkness.

eleven

The next morning I picked up one of our freebie geriatric clients. My dispatch slip read, “J. C. Smart: The Garden of Allah Villas.” Portia had mentioned that Mrs. Smart was eighty-seven years old.

I knew the address on Crescent Heights Boulevard because I’m into Hollywood history and used to drink coffee at Schwab’s drugstore around the corner on Sunset.

The Villas was an elegant retirement community composed of a dozen thirties-vintage single Spanish-style bungalows at the mouth of Laurel Canyon. It had once been Scott Fitzgerald’s old stomping ground.

I was a few minutes early so I parked on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, in front, and read from the new novel by the underground writer Mark SaFranko.

J.C. lived in bungalow #1. The outside of her tiny, white-fenced yard was well manicured, and her small garden was festooned with freshly blooming roses and carnations.

I knocked on the door.

No answer.

I knocked again. Maybe J.C.’d had a heart attack and was floating facedown in her tub, the old girl’s aluminum walker tipped over on the bathroom floor.

Then the door swung open and there she was, dressed to the nines and fully made-up and holding a big, expensive-looking red leather handbag. “You’re late,” she barked.

“Our pickup time is for nine o’clock,” I said. “It’s nine o’clock.”

She was grinning. “I beg to differ. It’s nine-oh-two Greenwich meantime. You might possibly consider resetting your watch.”

“You’re Mrs. Smart, right?”

“You may call me J.C.”

“Well, good morning, ma’am.”

“My proper name is Joyce Childers Smart. I’m a retired English lit teacher and not a bank president. So the diminutive J.C. will do just fine. And you are?”

“Bruno Dante.”

My reply seemed to lighten my client’s expression. “Dante,” she smiled, “as in La Divina Comedia?

“The same,” I said.

“Ah, the Comedia. How appropriate given your propensity for tardiness and embarrassing justifications. Tell me, Mr. Bruno Dante, have you read your namesake’s work?”

“Yeah, I have, but it’s been years,” I said.

“And…”

“Well, it’s okay. Not my favorite piece of literature, but interesting, I guess.”

“Interesting? And not your favorite tidbit of writing from the Middle Ages? The Divine Comedy. Really?”

“The car’s in front. Shall we go?”

“Are you, by chance, related to a writer named Jonathan Dante?”

“He was my father.”

J.C. was beaming. “Well, well, well. My husband and I knew Johnny. He was a fine writer. As I recall he died and then all of his books were republished a few years later. He got quite famous.”

“That’s right.”

Mrs. Smart extended her hand and I shook it. “How nice to meet you,” she said. “Nothing replaces good breeding.”

Then my new client leaned past me and glanced at the black stretch limo parked at the curb. “You want to take me—in that?”

“Sure. First-class transportation. You deserve the best, right?”

“Mr. Dante, son of Jonathan Dante, I did not just win second prize in one of those lurid televised game shows. I’m a rich old lady and not a crack dealer. I do not hold with glitz and ostentation. Please tell me, does your firm have other, smaller cars?”

I thought about it for a second. “Only my own car. My Pontiac,” I said. “It’s twelve years old. But it is a four-door.”

“What color is this Pontiac?”

“Color? Light brown. Beige, I guess.”

“That’ll do for next time. I now intend to open an account with your company. I’ll provide my credit card information and whatever else you require.”

“Sorry, I thought you knew. You ride free of charge. Our deal is to drive seniors in the neighborhood