“No comment,” is my mealy reply.
“Well, it’s about damn time.” Carla stretches across the table and tweaks my nose. “Who’s the lucky girl? Tell me everything, Jack. She give head?”
“Jesus, Carla!”
“Reason I ask, I’m thinkin’ of having my tongue pierced.”
“Stop right there.” I raise both hands.
“All I want to know is, would it make a difference in the b.j. department? My girlfriend Rae, she says the guys go crazy. She’s got a half-carat ruby on a platinum post.”
“And that doesn’t interfere with her tuba lessons?”
“Come on, Jack, tell me.”
“I paid a visit to your mother. How pathetic is that.”
“Oh, I know. I got the whole story,” Carla says.
“And you were right. She’s pretty darn happy.”
“Toldya.”
“Would I be even mildly amused to hear the wedding arrangements?”
“First you’ve gotta tell me”—Carla pauses to lap up the last smudge of her boysenberry yogurt—”what happened Saturday night with you and Loreal. After you split from the club.”
“Not much. I tailed him to some redneck dive and pretended to interview him about Cleo Rio’s new album.”
“You mean CD,” says Carla. “An album is where you keep your photographs, Jack. Speakin’ of which, I got some juicy ones if you’re up for it. Amateur bondage!”
“No thanks. I turned pro last year.”
“So, about Messr. Loreal—tell me more, tell me more… ”
“Schmuck city, Carla, I checked him out. All these groups he says he produced, it’s bullshit. He’s just a studio rat. When Sugar Ray wants a Pellegrino or Snoop Doggy needs an Altoid, this is the guy they send to the mini-mart.”
“You’re saying he didn’t produce the Wallflowers?”
“I’m saying he’s lucky to produce a decent fart.”
“Then why is Cleo with him?”
“Probably because he comes cheap. He thinks Jimmy’s widow is his big break,” I say. “So then, regarding the nuptials of Ms. Anne Candilla… ?”
“Simple ceremony, Jack. I’m the maid of honor. The best man is Derek’s brother Nigel. We’re to call him ‘Nige.’ ”
“Will it be at a church or a KOA campground, in honor of the groom’s distinguished past?”
“Neither,” says Carla. “A private home somewhere down on Miami Beach. Hibiscus Island, I think. My mother has reluctantly agreed to allow bagpipes.”
“And the vows?”
“Traditional,” she says. “Derek wanted to write his own, but Mom thinks she talked him out of it.”
“Thus averting disaster.”
“Afterwards the newlyweds are off to Ireland, and then to sunny Prague.”
“Ugh-oh.”
“Not to wreck your day, Jack, but they’re making a miniseries from The Falconer’s Mistress. Derek’s gonna punch up the script.”
“It’s only fair,” I say with level calm.
“Boy, you must be getting some. I haven’t see you in such a good mood since that big-haired Karen chick was polishing your knob.”
“Carla, are you poaching from Emily Dickinson again?”
“You know what I’m talkin’ about.”
Now I remember what I wanted to ask her. “The other night, did anything happen after I left the club?”
“Yeah. Two Japanese businessmen offered me four hundred bucks for a friction dance. They were incredibly lost.”
“No, I meant with Cleo.”
“She tried to score some X off me in the ladies’ room, but that’s about it. Hey, I really gotta get back to work.”
“Tell your mom I wish her the best. I mean that, too.”
“I know you do.” She scoots out of the booth and slings a mailbag-sized purse over her shoulder. “Sure you aren’t up for some dirty snapshots? There’s this one blond cow, she’s got some wrangler tied naked to a barber’s chair with a string of Christmas lights.” In a whisper she adds: “The lady who brought in the film, she’s a big shot with the Junior League.”
“Very tempting,” I say to Carla, “but I’ll pass.”
Naughtily she cocks an eyebrow. “Jack, you old hound. She must be a hottie, this new babe of yours.”
” ‘Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.'”
“Whatever,” says Carla, sticking out her tongue.
To avoid working on MacArthur Polk’s obituary, I busy myself in the newsroom by scrolling up the many bylines of Emma’s father on the International Herald Tribune’s database. He is, as she told me, a topflight reporter. Among other big stories, he covered the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and the investigation into the automobile crash that killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend. Painfully I realize the disparity between my career arc and that of Emma’s father is so vast as to render insignificant the four-year gap in our ages. He’s batting cleanup in the big leagues, I’m riding the bench in the minors. Anticipating the withering onset of a depression, I abruptly click off the Herald Tribune site and return full bore to Jimmy Storm patrol.