Billy sighed happily. “Are we going to stand this city on its ear?”
“Nobody will sleep tomorrow night.”
“Have you decided what lines you’ll write on the wall?
Bollinger waited until a city bus rumbled past the booth. His choice of
quotations was clever; and he wanted Billy to appreciate them. “Yeah.
I’ve got a long one from Nietzsche. ‘I want to teach men the sense of
their existence, which is Superman, the lightning out of the dark cloud
man.”
“Oh, that’s excellent,” Billy said. “I couldn’t have chosen better
myself.”
“Thank you.”
“And Blake?”
“Just a fragment from the alternate seventh night of The Four Zoas.
‘Hearts laid open to the light .
Billy laughed.
“I knew you’d like it.”
“I suppose you do intend to lay their hearts open?”
“Naturally,” Bollinger said. “Their.hearts and everything else, from
throat to crotch.”
Promptly at six o’clock, the doorbell rang.
Sarah Piper answered it. Her professional smile slipped when she saw
who was standing in the hall. “What are you doing here?” she asked,
surprised.
“May I come in?”
“Well .
“You look beautiful tonight. Absolutely stunning.” She was wearing a
tight burnt-orange pantsuit, flimsy, with a low neckline that revealed
too much of her creamy breasts. Self-consciously she put one hand over
her cleavage. “I’m sorry, but I can’t ask you in. I’m expecting
someone.”
“You’re expecting me,” he said. “Billy James Plover.
“What? That’s not your name.”
“It surely is. It’s the name I was born with. I changed it years ago,
of course.”
“Why didn’t you give me your real name on the phone? ”
“I’ve got to protect my reputation.”
Still confused, she stepped back to let him pass. She closed the door
and locked it. Aware that she was being rude but unable to control
herself, she stared openly at him. She couldn’t think what to say.
“You seem shocked, Sarah.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess I am. It’s just that you don’t seem like
the sort of man who would come to a woman-to someone like me.”
He had been smiling from the moment she’d opened the door. Now his face
broke into a broad grin. “What’s wrong with someone like you?
You’re gorgeous.”
This is crazy, she thought.
She said, “Your voice.”
“The Southern accent?”
“Yeah.
“That’s also part of my youth, just like the name. Would you prefer I
dropped it?”
“Yeah. Your talking like that-it’s not right. It’s creepy.” She
hugged herself.
“Creepy? I thought you’d be amused. And when I’m Billy … I don’t
know … I kind of have fun with it …
kind of feel like someone altogether new.” He stared hard at her and
said, “Something’s wrong. We’re off on the wrong foot. Or maybe worse
than that. Is it worse than that? if you don’t want to go to bed with
me, say so. I’ll understand. Maybe something about me repels you.
I haven’t always been successful with women. I’ve lost out many times.
God knows. So just tell me. I’ll leave. No hard feelings.”
She put on her professional smile again and shook her head. Her thick
blond hair bounced prettily. “I’m sorry. There’s no need for you to
go. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.
He looked at the living room beyond the foyer arch, reached down to
finger the antique umbrella stand beside the door. “You have a nice
place.”
“Thank you.” She opened the foyer closet, plucked a hanger from the
clothes rod. “Let me take your coat.”
He took it off, handed it to her.
As she put the coat in the closet, she said, “Your gloves too.
I’ll put them in a coat pocket.”
“I’ll keep my gloves,” he said.
When she turned back to him, he was standing between her and the front
door, and he was holding a wicked switch-blade knife in his right hand.
She said, “Put that away.”
“What did you say?”
“Put that away!”
He laughed.
“I mean it,” she said.
“You’re the coolest bitch I’ve ever met.”
“Put that knife in your pocket. Put it away and then get out of here.”
Waving the knife at her, he said, “When they realize I’m going to slit