False Allegations by Andrew Vachss

her.
    “Hi!” she said, climbing in to sit next to me. “Wow! I didn’t expect all this.”
    “Because we’re just going to a club?”
    “Because it’s just me, honey. This must have set you back a bit.”
    “You like it?” I asked her.
    “Oh, I love it!” she said, patting the upholstery. “It’s so elegant.”
    “Then it’s worth it,” I told her.
    Her smile flashed brighter than her rhinestone choker.
     
     
    “Y ou look very pretty,” I told her.
    “Red, white, and blue,” she said, pointing at her shoes, then touching her chest and her thigh. “Our colors too, you know. The bloody Brits had them first, but we made the best of them.”
    Clarence piloted the Jag like it had a crate of Fabergé eggs in the trunk. But we weren’t in a hurry, small talk smoothing the way. Once he hit the FDR heading south, I hit the button and the privacy shield slid up. I lit a smoke— I’d cleared it with Clarence in front— and leaned back against the soft cushions.
    “Well, give us a puff too,” Bondi said.
    I handed the cigarette to her with my right hand but she took my wrist and looped it over her shoulders, moving against me. “Give us a snuggle first,” she said, a merry tone in her voice.
    I slipped my arm around her, held the cigarette so she could take a drag from my hand. Her perfume was light, just this side of the too–sweet edge. Spring flowers after a rain.
    “I haven’t had a date since— “
    “Ssssh,” I said softly. “This is now.”
     
     
    T he club was on the East–West Village border, the ground floor of what had once been a small factory. Ten bucks at the door, two–drink minimum, open microphone. We sat through maybe a dozen numbers. Mostly women, mostly talking about relationships. One did a funny riff about working as a temp. Most of them bombed. The best was a girl who imitated an answering machine, doing the voice mail of a stalking victim: “It doesn’t matter whether I’m home or not, I’m not answering my phone. If you’re calling to promise never to do it again, press One— then go fuck yourself. If you’re in therapy and have some insight into your own behavior, press Two— and then go fuck yourself. If this is a death threat, press your carotid artery…tight. And leave it there until I call you back.” One guy went on and on about Bosnia. Mostly, they were weak, and the people in the audience ignored them, working on their self–images. But no hecklers— it wasn’t that kind of a joint.
    Bondi loved it, clapping loudly for each one, asking me “Isn’t this great, then?” over and over. I watched the people watching the people, See–and–Be–Seen in full swing at every table. The only ones sitting alone were there for one of the performers— who joined them after their sets and watched their competition.
    I looked at Bondi’s face for the first time then, really seeing it. A crackle of red in her dark brown hair, a light bruise of freckles across the bridge of her flat little nose, her wide mouth turning down just a little at the ends, hazel eyes set wide and direct. It wasn’t that the parts were so pretty, it was the mix. And when she smiled, it made you want to taste it.
    It was past eleven when she wanted to go. I tapped a number into the cell phone, waited for her to finish her drink. When we stepped outside, the Jag was in place.
     
     
    “Y ou want to come up?” she asked on the drive back.
    “Yes,” I said. “I sure do.”
    “Honey, would you mind…I mean, I know it’s tacky and all but…could you drop me off and put me in a cab? And just hang out for a half hour or so? Then I’ll buzz you in, okay?”
    “Sure.”
    “It’s just that…there’s no other entrance. And if he sees me come in with…”
    “Nothing to it,” I told her.
     
     
    W e found a cab stand in the Fifties, just off Fifth. I put her inside, gave the driver the address. She reached a hand behind my neck, pulled my face down. “Here’s a down