that just yet, but she didn’t argue. Then we drove the relatively short distance down Oracle to the Hilton El Conquistador for Puttin’ On the Dog, benefiting the Arizona Humane Society.
My impression for the first couple of years I’d lived here was that Tucson was where strip malls came to die. Mallory set me straight on that. “It’s not Manhattan,” she would say, “but it’s not Green Acres, either.”
Now, my career put me often enough in the path of the rich that I could appreciate the taste of Montrachet, the texture of Thai raw silk, the kick of superior cocaine, and the value of a de Kooning, but I don’t envy rich people. I’m just glad I’m alive.
I mean that literally. When you’ve been shot at, gotten stabbed in the spleen with a nail file, fallen off a horse, gotten rabies vaccine after being bitten by a rabid Rottweiler, and offered yourself as bait to a sexual serial killer, that’s not an idle cliché. I really am glad I’m still alive.
I paused at the entrance to the gathering, just past an arching trellis covered with fake ivy. Staying alive had always been a matter of staying aware. Aware even now, I thought about how the only wire I was wearing was an underwire, and I was not carrying. I looked around to see if I could figure out who was. It wasn’t like I was expecting a bloodbath or anything. It’s just that public gatherings like this make me a little tense. They’re so uncontrolled, so many strangers, so many unknowns. And I was all too aware of what could happen. So I scoped out the place, did a quick threat assessment.
Among the older guests, some beaded tops, some silk, maybe a dozen tuxedos, none with bulges in either of the places a man hides something. Among the younger, a preponderance of black linen, dress shirts, no ties. I felt just right in a sleeveless navy blue maxi dress and lime green drape, which would provide a little warmth when the late afternoon sun lost its heat.
Most people stood holding champagne flutes and small plates, while the round tables covered with white cloths that puddled on the ground were largely left alone. The rule at one of these things is, if you sit down you’re a loser, the opposite of musical chairs. Local restaurants had tents, and the smells of garlic, sweet and sour sauce, and curry competed for attention. A small combo played cool jazz, which is to say the kind without a tune that you couldn’t hum if you tried. A waiter wearing a tux and a papier-mâché hound’s head passed perilously close with a silver tray holding champagne goblets. You could tell he couldn’t see very well.
“They don’t even know how to be pretentious,” I said to Carlo.
“Don’t be a snob,” he said. “You have to allow Tucson its pretensions. It doesn’t have that many.”
I estimated three hundred people, three fifty tops, not counting the animals, which were mostly dogs except for a miniature pink pig on a leash of the same color.
That man over there, khaki shorts and sandals at a formal affair. Is it because this is Tucson and anything goes, or does he clearly not belong? He’s standing alone, looking isolated. Is he nervous?
I felt unexpected fingers around the back of my neck, a little tug. The nerve sparked, and I jumped a little, my muscles galvanized for action.
“Sorry to startle you,” Carlo said, “but stop working, O’Hari.”
Carlos knows me almost better than anyone ever has. Sometimes it feels like he knows things about me I don’t even know, as if I’ve unzipped my skin. It’s not a totally unpleasing sensation.
Partly because of this, and partly because I had been slowly sharing more and more about my past lately, he knew that I had been instinctively doing a threat assessment at the entryway to a fund-raiser. And him calling me O’Hari, an Irish version of Mata Hari, always stopped me from taking myself too seriously.
I spotted Mallory, who hadn’t spotted us. Her sights were on the man we had met at St.
My impression for the first couple of years I’d lived here was that Tucson was where strip malls came to die. Mallory set me straight on that. “It’s not Manhattan,” she would say, “but it’s not Green Acres, either.”
Now, my career put me often enough in the path of the rich that I could appreciate the taste of Montrachet, the texture of Thai raw silk, the kick of superior cocaine, and the value of a de Kooning, but I don’t envy rich people. I’m just glad I’m alive.
I mean that literally. When you’ve been shot at, gotten stabbed in the spleen with a nail file, fallen off a horse, gotten rabies vaccine after being bitten by a rabid Rottweiler, and offered yourself as bait to a sexual serial killer, that’s not an idle cliché. I really am glad I’m still alive.
I paused at the entrance to the gathering, just past an arching trellis covered with fake ivy. Staying alive had always been a matter of staying aware. Aware even now, I thought about how the only wire I was wearing was an underwire, and I was not carrying. I looked around to see if I could figure out who was. It wasn’t like I was expecting a bloodbath or anything. It’s just that public gatherings like this make me a little tense. They’re so uncontrolled, so many strangers, so many unknowns. And I was all too aware of what could happen. So I scoped out the place, did a quick threat assessment.
Among the older guests, some beaded tops, some silk, maybe a dozen tuxedos, none with bulges in either of the places a man hides something. Among the younger, a preponderance of black linen, dress shirts, no ties. I felt just right in a sleeveless navy blue maxi dress and lime green drape, which would provide a little warmth when the late afternoon sun lost its heat.
Most people stood holding champagne flutes and small plates, while the round tables covered with white cloths that puddled on the ground were largely left alone. The rule at one of these things is, if you sit down you’re a loser, the opposite of musical chairs. Local restaurants had tents, and the smells of garlic, sweet and sour sauce, and curry competed for attention. A small combo played cool jazz, which is to say the kind without a tune that you couldn’t hum if you tried. A waiter wearing a tux and a papier-mâché hound’s head passed perilously close with a silver tray holding champagne goblets. You could tell he couldn’t see very well.
“They don’t even know how to be pretentious,” I said to Carlo.
“Don’t be a snob,” he said. “You have to allow Tucson its pretensions. It doesn’t have that many.”
I estimated three hundred people, three fifty tops, not counting the animals, which were mostly dogs except for a miniature pink pig on a leash of the same color.
That man over there, khaki shorts and sandals at a formal affair. Is it because this is Tucson and anything goes, or does he clearly not belong? He’s standing alone, looking isolated. Is he nervous?
I felt unexpected fingers around the back of my neck, a little tug. The nerve sparked, and I jumped a little, my muscles galvanized for action.
“Sorry to startle you,” Carlo said, “but stop working, O’Hari.”
Carlos knows me almost better than anyone ever has. Sometimes it feels like he knows things about me I don’t even know, as if I’ve unzipped my skin. It’s not a totally unpleasing sensation.
Partly because of this, and partly because I had been slowly sharing more and more about my past lately, he knew that I had been instinctively doing a threat assessment at the entryway to a fund-raiser. And him calling me O’Hari, an Irish version of Mata Hari, always stopped me from taking myself too seriously.
I spotted Mallory, who hadn’t spotted us. Her sights were on the man we had met at St.
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