placed it back in the package.
After that I drove west and met Rodney White at a junior high gymnasium in upper Northwest. I did ten sets of abs and several sets of lat and tricep push-ups, then jumped rope while he taught his class. When he had dismissed his students we put on our sparring equipment and went to it.
“Move to the side, Home,” Rodney said after I had taken a particularly vicious flurry of punches and squared off in front of him. “Just slide over, man, then make your move.” He demonstrated, suddenly springing to the left, throwing mock jabs to my kidneys. I was facing away from him.
“What about doing that Hemingway thing, standing in there, going toe-to-toe?”
“Only in gladiator movies, Nick.”
We sparred for another fifteen minutes, until my hands became too heavy to hold up in front of my face. Rodney White removed his mouthpiece and rubbed it dry on the arm of his gi.
“All right, that ought to do you for tonight.” He pulled a towel from his bag and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Say,” he said. “Been a while since you’ve been in to see me, for a checkup.”
I pulled out my own mouthpiece. A string of bloody saliva ran from the side of it and clung to my mouth. “A checkup?” I said, fighting for some air. “Doctor, I believe I could use one. Right about now.”
A HALF HOUR LATER I was back in my apartment. I threw my wet clothes into the hamper, showered, shaved, dressed in a rented monkey suit, and fed and watered the cat. I got into my black forty-dollar Robert Hall overcoat and slipped a fresh deck of Camels into its breast pocket. Then I locked my apartment, ignitioned my Dodge Dart, and went to pick up Jackie.
JACKIE KAHN LIVED IN a two-bedroom condo with her lover, a woman named Sherron, in a three-story building on the edge of Kalorama. The D.C. guidebooks all claim that Kalorama means “beautiful view,” from the Greek
kalo
. Not to split hairs, but
kalo
is actually the Greek word for “good.” The word for beautiful is, phonetically,
orayo,
but I would never lobby for the change—Orayorama sounds a little like the gimmick for a fifties horror movie.
Jackie’s building was an elaborate Grecian knockoff with egg-and-tongue molding that ran below the roofline, with an urn pediment centered above the stone portico. It was quiteregal, and I supposed she was paying for it. I entered an unlocked set of glass doors and pushed her buzzer. After the usual formalities I made it through the second set of doors and took the gated, open lift to her floor.
Sherron opened the door on my first knock. She was wearing winter white pleated slacks and a black sweater with black buttons sewn along the top of the shoulder. On the front of the sweater hung a necklace of spheres that may or may not have been made of gold and that grew progressively larger as they converged at the center. She was taller than me and had wonderfully long legs, and in total she had the build of a Thoroughbred. I had seen reasonably intelligent men commit public stupidities in her presence.
“Can Jackie come out and play?”
“Come on in,” she said in an accent laced with Puerto Rican.
“Thanks.” I kissed her hello and caught the edge of her ripe mouth. She frowned and led me through a marble foyer to an airy living room painted primarily in lavender. There was a fire burning in a marble-manteled fireplace that was centered in the west wall.
“You look different dressed up,” she said, her idea of a compliment. “Have a seat and I’ll fix you a drink. Jackie will be out in a few minutes.”
“Bourbon rocks,” I said. Sherron left the room, and I watched her do it. After a few minutes she came back in and placed a tumbler filled with bourbon whiskey and cubes on a cork coaster edged with a silver ring. I had a long pull, tasted Wild Turkey, and set the glass back down on the tumbler. Sherron had a seat on the divan against the wall across from my chair. She looked me over as if I
After that I drove west and met Rodney White at a junior high gymnasium in upper Northwest. I did ten sets of abs and several sets of lat and tricep push-ups, then jumped rope while he taught his class. When he had dismissed his students we put on our sparring equipment and went to it.
“Move to the side, Home,” Rodney said after I had taken a particularly vicious flurry of punches and squared off in front of him. “Just slide over, man, then make your move.” He demonstrated, suddenly springing to the left, throwing mock jabs to my kidneys. I was facing away from him.
“What about doing that Hemingway thing, standing in there, going toe-to-toe?”
“Only in gladiator movies, Nick.”
We sparred for another fifteen minutes, until my hands became too heavy to hold up in front of my face. Rodney White removed his mouthpiece and rubbed it dry on the arm of his gi.
“All right, that ought to do you for tonight.” He pulled a towel from his bag and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Say,” he said. “Been a while since you’ve been in to see me, for a checkup.”
I pulled out my own mouthpiece. A string of bloody saliva ran from the side of it and clung to my mouth. “A checkup?” I said, fighting for some air. “Doctor, I believe I could use one. Right about now.”
A HALF HOUR LATER I was back in my apartment. I threw my wet clothes into the hamper, showered, shaved, dressed in a rented monkey suit, and fed and watered the cat. I got into my black forty-dollar Robert Hall overcoat and slipped a fresh deck of Camels into its breast pocket. Then I locked my apartment, ignitioned my Dodge Dart, and went to pick up Jackie.
JACKIE KAHN LIVED IN a two-bedroom condo with her lover, a woman named Sherron, in a three-story building on the edge of Kalorama. The D.C. guidebooks all claim that Kalorama means “beautiful view,” from the Greek
kalo
. Not to split hairs, but
kalo
is actually the Greek word for “good.” The word for beautiful is, phonetically,
orayo,
but I would never lobby for the change—Orayorama sounds a little like the gimmick for a fifties horror movie.
Jackie’s building was an elaborate Grecian knockoff with egg-and-tongue molding that ran below the roofline, with an urn pediment centered above the stone portico. It was quiteregal, and I supposed she was paying for it. I entered an unlocked set of glass doors and pushed her buzzer. After the usual formalities I made it through the second set of doors and took the gated, open lift to her floor.
Sherron opened the door on my first knock. She was wearing winter white pleated slacks and a black sweater with black buttons sewn along the top of the shoulder. On the front of the sweater hung a necklace of spheres that may or may not have been made of gold and that grew progressively larger as they converged at the center. She was taller than me and had wonderfully long legs, and in total she had the build of a Thoroughbred. I had seen reasonably intelligent men commit public stupidities in her presence.
“Can Jackie come out and play?”
“Come on in,” she said in an accent laced with Puerto Rican.
“Thanks.” I kissed her hello and caught the edge of her ripe mouth. She frowned and led me through a marble foyer to an airy living room painted primarily in lavender. There was a fire burning in a marble-manteled fireplace that was centered in the west wall.
“You look different dressed up,” she said, her idea of a compliment. “Have a seat and I’ll fix you a drink. Jackie will be out in a few minutes.”
“Bourbon rocks,” I said. Sherron left the room, and I watched her do it. After a few minutes she came back in and placed a tumbler filled with bourbon whiskey and cubes on a cork coaster edged with a silver ring. I had a long pull, tasted Wild Turkey, and set the glass back down on the tumbler. Sherron had a seat on the divan against the wall across from my chair. She looked me over as if I
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