embarrassed… All three of them froze for a fraction of a second… appalling embarrassment! The man wore a light-blue shirt open at the collar, but on top of that, a navy blazer. In the blazer he embodied the mortal terror of every young man: Dignity!
Ghislaine tiptoed on the ice:
“Daddy, this is Officer Nestor Camacho! Officer Camacho is here—but you just missed Philippe! He left just a few minutes ago!”
::::::What’s that all about? ‘Yes, we’re alone now, but we haven’t been alone for long—Christalmighty! is that what she’s trying to say?:::::
Pell-mell romped randy clues in Lantier’s head. :::::My God, that Officer Camacho! We have a celebrity in our home! He’s famous! Why is he standing so close to my daughter—within inches of her? And why are their faces so red? Why do they seem embarrassed? What should I do? Rush to shake his hand? Philippe was here?… So what? Welcome him to the house? Thank the famous Officer Camacho… for what?… Has he put his hand on my daughter? Is the bastard here to fool around? Why didn’t anyone inform me he was coming? Look at him… the bodybuilder build bulging in the highlights of his polo shirt. He won a medal! They keep writing articles about him in the paper and showing him on television proclaiming his heroics. He’s important! What right does that give him to fool around with Ghislaine? She’s a child! He’s a goddamned Cuban cop! A Cuban cop! What is he doing here? A Cuban cop! Why is she standing so close to him?—a Cuban cop! Qu’est-ce que c’est? Quel projet fait-il? Quelle bêtise? What’s going on?!::::::
12
Jujitsu Justice
Just about 6:30 p.m. Magdalena unlocked the door to her cover story, her beard—which is to say, the apartment she officially shared with Amélia—took one step inside and UHHhhhnnnnggghhhhhhssssighed a lot louder and longer than she meant to. She heard a man talking in the living room: “Now, let’s just hold on a minute… I am not even suggesting that there’s anything unlawful about it—although I—” A second man broke in: “But that’s almost beside the point, isn’t it. A mistake—a blunder, to use your word—of this—” Actually, as soon as she heard the querulous, stentorian tone in which the first man said, “I am not even suggesting,” Magdalena realized it was only Amélia watching some sort of evening news show on that big plasma TV of hers.
The voices suddenly sank to a barely audible aububblyblumbling mumble mumble mumble and a single wumble wonk wonk wonk wonk of laughter and more mumblemumblemumblemumble, and Amélia appeared in the doorway in her T-shirt, jeans, and ballet slippers with her head tilted to one side and her lips twisted upward on the other side, until they practically closed her eye, that being her way of signaling, “Mockery coming”—and said,
“What was that?”
“What was what?” said Magdalena.
“That groan I heard. ¡Dios mío!”
“Oh, that wasn’t a real groan,” said Magdalena, “it was a sigh-groan.”
“A sigh-groan…” said Amélia. “I see… Does that mean it came from the heart?”
Magdalena rolled her eyes upward in the end-of-my-rope mode and said rather bitterly, “Yeah, from the heart or somewhere down there. I can think of several places.”
She walked right past Amélia and into the living room and practically launched her body bottom-first onto the couch and sigh-groaned again, “Ahhhunnnggghhhh.” She looked up at Amélia, who had come in right behind her. “It’s Norman… I don’t know how much more of Dr. Wonderful I can take,” whereupon she began a detailed recounting of Norman’s behavior at Art Basel, “practically shoving Maurice Fleischmann’s nose into porn to make sure he can keep him on his string and use him for his own pathetic social climbing, and it’s so unethical—I mean, it’s worse than unethical… it’s cruel, what he’s doing to Maurice—”
Sure enough, on the TV screen were three of exactly the sort of dead-serious know-it-alls she figured they were when she heard them from the hallway… the inevitable dark suits and various amplitudes of scarce hair on their domes, domes determined to paralyze you with solemn opinions on politics and public policy. The TV had such a big screen, their arms, legs, and lips, which never stopped moving, appeared big enough to be right here in the room with you, radiating a tedium Magdalena got only the faintest drone of, thank God, as she explained that “Norman’s love of Norman would be embarrassing even if he was subtle about it, and Subtle About It is not Norman in the first place.