The Blonde by Anna Godbersen Page B

she spoke again, and the pitch of her voice changed, as when something meaningful has occurred. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
    “Washington,” he replied bluntly.
    “Mmmmm …” she purred, as though he were just making sounds and she was in no state to absorb any information, instead of pressing him, on Alexei’s behalf, for some secret detail. “So you’re here on business?”
    “Pleasure. Come to my room tonight.” It was half command, half request. His voice had lowered, too.
    She shook her head faintly, a drop of sadness. “I can’t,” she whispered, as though denying herself something she wanted badly. She did want him, a little. But if they went to bed too quickly, she knew he wouldn’t talk at all. They couldn’t both have what they wanted. “But don’t leave me yet. Talk to me. I like the way you talk. Tell me anything—about your work. Did it bring you here?”
    “In a way,” he replied evasively, without meeting her eye. The tautness of his muscles changed—abruptly his interest had slipped.
    She summoned a pink warmth, let it spread over her cheeks. She averted her gaze before raising it to meet his, the vulnerability quivering and dense. Her body got heavy with it, so he almost had to hold her up. “If I did,” she went on, helpless and hopeful as a child. “If I came to your room, I mean, you’d forget about me as soon as you were done, wouldn’t you?”
    “A broad like you?” He shook his head in disbelief at the suggestion. The moment of his flagging attention had passed; she had him again, and stronger this time.
    “Maybe we could meet in Los Angeles. I keep a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” Her voice was halting, as though she were afraid of the suggestion—afraid of what it might mean, afraid it might be rejected. “My husband prefers New York, so I’m more free on the Coast. Plus it’s so nice in the sunshine, don’t you think? When the sun makes your skin real hot.” When she said hot she wrinkled up her nose, just like she had for Wilder’s picture.
    “I’m going there in a couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll call you.”
    “Would you?” she whispered, as though she wanted to trust him but was afraid to. They looked at each other, and she knew he couldn’t wait for it, for balmy California, to hammer her on the sand. She made her eyes big as buttons, like Betty Boop. “But tell me something now,” she went on in the breathy voice she used when she performed. “Tell me a secret. Tell me something real, something you don’t want anybody to know. That way I’ll have a little dirt on you, and you’ll have to come back and treat me nice.” Many times she’d practiced saying nice like that—girlishly, but so that any man who wasn’t queer couldn’t help but think of the word naughty —but it had never come out of her mouth quite so perfect.
    He gave her that swanky grin, and turned her so that she was facing the direction he had been facing a moment ago. Over his white tuxedoed shoulder she could see the booth where he had eaten dinner, a table full of men who had just been staring at her. They’d changed their posturesquickly, but she could always tell, and suddenly she knew what Jack had been doing. He’d been holding her, on that spot, so that his friends would have the best view—the open back of her dress, that channel of white skin pointing down like an arrow to the fat black-sequined apple of her ass. The corners of her mouth curled, and she let her irises drift up till they were half obscured by her eyelids. Alexei had been right—she was going to enjoy stealing from Jack.
    “See that man with the little glasses and the big sausage nose?”
    “You mean at your table?” she asked innocently.
    “Yes.”
    “The one in the middle? The one who’s talking like everyone should pay attention?”
    “Yes, that one. And everybody is paying attention. That’s Sam Giancana—he runs Chicago.”
    “What do you mean, runs ?” She gave him