Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard Page B

the boat people who overdid the boat thing with their boat words, their boat outfits, the Topsiders and Sou’westers, and made a fucking ritual out of boats. That was the thing, they weren’t real boats. They were phony boats for phony people who had to have a phony bar to come to after drinking on their boats and pissing in Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River all day.
    She was tired of waiting for a time to come.
    The cognac helped ease the knot in her tummy.
    She was tired of remembering. . . .
    Voices were coming from the front entrance hall,a mix of benefit cruisers arriving: traditional Grosse Pointe ladies with their scrubbed look, their out-of-style hairdos, their pearls and camel’s-hair coats, followed by husbands out of Brooks Brothers; trendies now, younger women in real furs and fun furs, a couple of guys in form-fitting topcoats, styled dark hair glistening; more young ladies in layers of sweaters, scarves and coats, and a full-length coyote entering in a noise of voices. It was Woody, Woody’s bulk filling the coat, Woody’s hair down in his eyes. Robin watched, half turned from the bar. Woody didn’t see her. Smiling faces at a table were raising their glasses to him. Woody lifted one arm with some effort, acknowledging.
    Voices brought Robin’s gaze back to the entrance hallway, to another group coming in, and now she saw Mark, a tan cashmere topcoat draped over his shoulders. Mark Ricks holding the arm of a girl who smiled at something he was saying. It wasn’t much of a smile, there and gone. A girl with short red hair. She seemed tired, or tired of smiling. She came in and turned to Mark, as tall as Mark, then looked this way because Mark was, staring. Now he was walking away from the girl, coming this way.
    Robin touched her braid, stroked it, waiting, and felt her plan begin to change.
    Mark the producer, coat over his shoulders, said, “Come here,” with no expression. He reached withboth hands to bring Robin off the bar stool. He stared and said, “The last time we saw each other, was it yesterday or the day before?” Still solemn, deadpan. “I mean it’s incredible. I see you, I get like a rush of instant recall, all the incredible things we did together. And yet I know it’s been—what, eight years?”
    Robin said, “Cut the shit, Mark. How are you?”
    “Not bad. How about yourself? You haven’t changed at all, you know it?” His eyes raised and he hesitated. “Outside of your hair’s different.”
    Robin’s hand stroked the braid and tossed it over her shoulder. The girl with short red hair was watching them. She wore a black double-breasted winter coat. She looked away and back again as Mark was saying, “I want to know what you’ve been doing and why you haven’t called me.”
    Robin said, “Well, let’s see. I did time, for one thing.” Staring at his solemn brown eyes. “Thirty-three months and ten days in Huron Valley.”
    Mark said, “I was there, I was in court when they sentenced you. I couldn’t believe it. Then I heard you went to New York after you got out.”
    “I wanted to start writing again, so I got next to some people in the publishing business, to find out what they’re buying. Came back and went to work.”
    “ ‘Tales from the Underground,’ uh?” He started to grin and touched his hair carefully, thinning hair combed forward now.
    “I’ve written four historical romance novels.”
    “You’re putting me on.”
    “With a lot of rape and adverbs.”
    “You know what I’m doing?”
    “You kidding? I read about you all the time.”
    “You see the story People did?”
    “I loved it. ‘Yippie turns Yuppie.’ ”
    “How come you haven’t called me?”
    “I’ve thought about it. I don’t know. . . .”
    Mark was getting a nice wistful look in his eyes, the cool deadpan expression gone. Beyond him, the girl with short red hair stood waiting, hands in the pockets of her black coat. Mark said, “This is totally amazing, we run