A Glimpse of Tiger Read online

  Luther obediently found a piece of paper and a pencil. “So noted,” he said. And Tiger knew that a small explosion was silently building, for Luther was not a man to fall in line so quickly behind any authority, let alone a fat one who didn’t pay rent.

  Fat smiled appreciatively at his vassal, accepting his servility, then proceeded. “At any time of the day or night, a member can call in and”—he took a puff on a suspicious-looking cigarette, squeezing out a lot of drama, and then completed his point—“and we will tell him a dirty joke.”

  Tiger felt her toes curl involuntarily, but Luther merely made another note on his paper. “Any time of day or night…a dirty joke. Got it.”

  Fat went on. “We call it Dial-a-Dirty. I’ve already got a collection of about fifty of the raunchiest jokes of all time.” He held up his pile of index cards as evidence. “Nuns, animals, fags, dykes, ducks, goats, you name it.”

  Luther asked innocently, “Horses?”

  “Three,” said Fat, very pleased with himself. “Numbers eight, twenty-two, and thirty-seven.”

  Luther scribbled down the numbers. “Eight, twenty-two, thirty-seven. Check.”

  Fat sailed on. “Believe me, and Leon concurs, there’s a fortune out there in the land of over forty. And, shit—wouldn’t they just love being at one of their cocktail soirees and dialing Dial-a-Dirty and then becoming the hit of the whole fucking evening?”

  “Fish?” asked Luther.

  Fat replied, but with a dash of annoyance. “Whales, sharks, squids…and two electric eels.”

  Luther scribbled it all down. “…and two electric eels.”

  Fat kept going. “Now, when a member calls, he gives us his name and number and we charge his account twenty-five cents. Then, at the end of the month, we send him a statement. It’ll work. Leon concurs.”

  Luther looked up like an interested student. “How do we line up members?”

  Fat was pleased at the intelligent question. “Easy. We print up cards and pass ’em out on Park Avenue and Madison Avenue and the like. Those jerks, they’ll cream just to have a new dirty joke to tell in their office. What the hell else do they have to brighten their days?”

  Luther still projected vital fascination, but Tiger could perceive the obtuse angles of his Lutherian sarcasm. “Fat,” he said, “it’s wild, just wild. And as long as we have a phone, we can make a couple obscene calls on the side, right? Why, there’s a couple ladies in this very building that—”

  “I think we should try to keep the line open, Luther.” Fat had taken it so seriously that Tiger came close to wetting her pants. Fat explained his reasons. “You see, we have to proceed on the assumption that the phone’ll always be busy.”

  Luther kind of sulked. “Not even one call to Two-E? It’d make her day. She’s a cross-eyed spinster with no tits. I don’t see why we can’t put a little fun in her life.”

  “Sorry, Luther. It’s a luxury we just can’t afford.”

  “I see,” said Luther, nodding his understanding, “and Leon concurs?”

  “Leon concurs.”

  “Can Leon concur for himself?” asked Luther as he looked over at Leon, who nodded his concurrence to Luther’s satisfaction. But Tiger could feel Luther stiffen alongside her. It would be just a few moments more—

  “So you see, Luther,” said Fat, “the idea is pretty God damned workable. Matter of fact, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.”

  “Well,” said Luther, warming to the issue at hand, “the first thing wrong with it is the phone will not be in this apartment.”

  Fat was very CIA. “No one has to know. It’s going to be an unlisted number.”

  “Swell. But what if the Community Chest calls? Unlisted numbers have never stopped the Community Chest or the Salvation Army, for that matter. And how about Billy Graham?”

  Fat wasn’t sure of anything. “What about Billy Graham?”

  “What if he calls? What do we do, tell him the one about the nun and the cow and the Boy Scout? And surely you realize that, at any moment, I can get a call from the UJA. What do I do, tell ’em the one about Golda Meir and King Hussein’s camel?”

  Tiger was dying inside, but nothing on the outside gave her away. She just sat immobile, her bright eyes unblinking as Luther pointed to her.

  “Now Tiger here, though there’s no way you could have known it, is forty-two and a half percent Negro. So what happens if someone from the NAACP calls and wants to speak to her, and you, in your innocence, you tell ’em the joke about Eldridge Cleaver and Snow White and the Three Honkies? We’ll have the Black Panthers on our asses in no time.”

  Tiger faked a sneeze. It was that or die.

  But Fat maintained immaculate equilibrium. “Luther, members will have to identify themselves.”

  “I see. No blacks, eh? Well, I want no part of a segregated filth club.”

  There was a slight rise to Fat’s delivery. “Luther, they can be black. They can be plaid, with sequins, with Coca-Cola comin’ out of their assholes—it doesn’t matter!”

  “It would matter to me. Coca-Cola?”

  “Luther”—Fat was striving for control—“all we do is match their names against their membership numbers. In that way we never get into any trouble over the phone.”

  “There’s another way not to get in trouble over the phone—no phone.”

  Fat’s confidence was wobbling along with the rest of him. “I’ve figured it all out. It won’t work without a phone.”

  “How about if we stick Leon on the roof with a pair of dirty semaphore flags?”

  “Luther—no! We need a phone!” Fat was becoming frantic.

  So Luther became calm. “How about…obscene chain letters? You fuck the girl whose name appears on the top of the list and, within a week, seven airline stewardesses are flown to your house where they blow you till you’re three foot six.”

  Tiger got up and looked out the window, knowing that it had all better end soon. Fat kept nodding, “No…no…no…”

  So Luther ended the discussion. “No phone.”

  Fat looked up, undaunted, even reborn. “Well, I was afraid you might take that attitude so—” He shuffled about some papers and came up with a new batch. “I have an alternate idea. We teach dancing at people’s homes. All the latest stuff. Leon’s a master at it. Anyway, the gig is, though it looks like we’re teaching dancing, what we’re actually doing is booking orgies and—” He stopped abruptly and lapsed into pitiful apologia. “We’ll need a phone. I’m sorry.”

  Luther stood up, signaling finis. “Well, I tell you, Fat—you better figure out a way to make it work with carrier pigeons, ’cause Poppa don’t allow no dancin’ in here.” He became very threatening. “Now the pair of you pornographical wizards, get your bodies back into the east wing before all of us tip over onto Sixty-first Street. The Housing Authority concurs.”

  Fat and Leon shunted off into the east wing, taking their papers and shutting the door behind them. Luther went over to where Tiger was standing at the window. He stood behind her, wrapping, then locking his arms about her waist. “Don’t worry, puss. It’s not going to happen. If I can’t make obscene phone calls on my own phone, it’s just not gonna happen.” He squeezed up closer. “Hey, puss-puss. Ever hear the one about the lunatic and the tiger? Well, it goes something like this.” And his hands groped upward and slid over her breasts and searched for the buttons on her blouse.

  She pulled away. “I’m sleepy.”

  And she went to sleep alone. And Luther respected that.

  12

  The Art Boutique was a very posh, very expensive place. Its denizens that night wore furs, flaunted blank checks, and dropped names. The women, even the short ones, walked tall and strode with confident libidos. The men held back and felt rich because they were. No junk in that place, nothing middle-class or low-brow. Tiger, dressed as nicely as she was, still felt out of her element. But Luther, in tux, was once again in his Jack Bergman period, and he moved in and out of th
e cocktail sippers with pompous assurance.

  On sale that night, owing to the auspiciousness of the occasion, were Grecian statuettes, carved miniatures, the proceeds of which were to go toward the establishment of some kind of worthy endeavor like the laying of the cornerstone for the School for the Stammering Blind.

  Tiger held the finely tooled sculpture that depicted Cupid and Psyche in classic embrace. It was of white marble, delicate and breathtaking, with an attention to detail not found in carvings rendered after A.D. 500.

  Luther came alongside her, swishing his maraschino cherry dizzy in its manhattan glass, while stuffing his face with hors d’oeuvres that kept coming by on silver trays with offers to “take one, please.” He had contended with Tiger’s concentrated silence practically all day long, and now, with the liquor warming both his belly and his temper, he chose to tolerate Tiger’s mood no longer. “Might as well say what’s on your mind, Inspector. It’s this devilish waiting that I cannot stand.”

  “Some things don’t have to be said,” she said, saying nothing and proving her point.

  “Oh, listen to her,” said Luther. And some passing fool did just that, actually stopping and listening because he had overheard Luther’s directive. Upon discovering that there was nothing forthcoming from Tiger, he then moved on, dribbling his champagne on a crotchety dowager, who gave him the good talking-to he had been seeking since his Oyster Bay mother had stopped spanking him ten years prior.

  Luther spoke directly into Tiger’s ear, softly but with resolve. “I’ll tell you the truth, cat—I may be sick, but I ain’t that sick.”

  “That’s very encouraging.” She strode away, still holding the statuette up before her, admiring its beauty.

  Luther tagged after her. “I’m sick, but not for the reason you think.”

  That stopped her. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Oh. So Fat is weird. Big deal. We all know nothing’s gonna come of his ideas. He just likes to talk because he knows he’s never gonna get it all together. So why the hell are you so uptight about him?”

  “I am not uptight about Fat.”

  “No. Of course not. You always walk around like there’s a steel pool cue up your poop.”

  “Phrasemaker.”

  “Ramrod.”

  “It’s not Fat who bothers me, okay? It’s Leon. Super Rodent.”

  “So he’s a little shady, so what?”

  “Shady?” She had to laugh. “He’s so shady that anyone within five feet of him loses his suntan. He’s so shady that whenever he walks across a lawn, grass dies.”

  Luther stepped back and flicked a smile of admiration at her. “Very good, darling, I must say.”

  Tiger barreled on. “He’s been with us a week, eating all our cheese, and I’ve yet to hear him say one word.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that he might be a deaf-mute?”

  “And did it ever occur to you that both he and Fat were supposed to be gone in a few days and that if they stay any longer, they become ours by common law?”

  “I’ve always wanted children.”

  “Shouldn’t they be born of woman?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a very messy procedure.”

  Tiger held the statuette up to a man who she correctly assumed was in charge. “How much is this, please?”

  He smiled authoritatively. “Three hundred eighty-five.”

  “Pounds?”

  “Dollars.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” The man walked away, wondering why he couldn’t quite place that girl who was so obviously of the international set. Perhaps he should have quoted the price in marks and francs as well. And escudos. And rubles.

  Luther bellied up to Tiger and let her have it squarely. “We haven’t balled since Fat showed up. And I tell you, I have to get rid of this poison.”

  She applauded him sarcastically. “Oh, bravo. Well struck. Lord Byron could not have stated desire more poetically.”

  “Fuck Lord Byron.”

  “Browning, too, I suppose.”

  “Browning, Shelley, Keats, Joe Namath—the whole bunch of ’em!”

  She turned away. “You’re shouting.”

  He followed her. “Fuck shouting.” He grabbed her arm and stopped her. “What the hell are you—on strike? Just because I’m trying to help a couple lost cats make their way?”

  She faced him. “I don’t like them around. I’m sorry, but aren’t we trying to make our way, too?”

  “Right.”

  “So? Why are we keeping them around when the landlord distinctly said ‘no pets’?”

  “At least they don’t steal, like we do.”

  “You steal. I don’t.”

  “You qualify as an accessory and a moll.”

  She grabbed his lapels and pulled him roughly to a corner. And she held him like that, crudely, shaking him as she spoke. Her grip on him was firm, but her words came out all soft. Again, her own dichotomy. She wanted to kill him and kiss him simultaneously. “Luther, when it was just you and me, it was fine. That was nice. We had our problems, but we were all right. Now, suddenly, there’s four of us. How did that happen?”

  “Amoebic fission.”

  She ignored his observation and kept pressing her point which happened to be a good one. “I love making love with you—but not in a crowd. Not in Yankee Stadium. I’m terrified that when you roll off me, sixty thousand fans will cheer because you scored.”

  “Nobody spills over. That’s the house rule, and they know it.”

  “And it’s a fine rule as far as it goes. But one of those two is shooting something so weird that he’s…flying around every night. I thought we drew the line on just pot.” She began to feel the frustration gathering in her throat, so she quickly walked out of the gallery and stood on the street, where she swallowed air in big drafts.

  A few moments later Luther came moseying out. He tapped her shoulder confidentially and turned Mexican. “Hello, lady—care for to see hot postcards? Very feelthy.”

  She walked away, but he stayed right on her heels. “You weel like thees. Very clear. Also, beeg show in cantina at two o’clock, si? Speedy Gonzales going to fuck two girls from Vassar, and on the ceiling. Come one, come all.”

  She stopped walking and faced him angrily. “You say you want me to stay. Yet you keep melting into a self-induced crowd. At which point all this rebellion goes foggy on me. And I forget what it is I’m rebelling against. I mean, sir…until I met you…I was the Establishment.” Her phrases came out in tearful lumps. “I want to stay with you, Luther. But you have to give me a climate I can thrive in. I’ll cross over to anywhere with you, but you have to help me. You have to…Jesus, Luther…take my hand.”

  He took her hand. “Gotcha.” And he pulled her close. “I love you. Tiger, I love you. And I want you to have something that’s really worthy of you. Something…beautiful.” He opened his jacket, and she saw it there. The statuette. She gasped in disbelief, but he spoke first. “And now I think we should be running along.”

  And run they did. Luther like a disinterested miler, just chugging along, pacing himself. Tiger like a refugee, continually looking over her shoulder at whatever must surely come chasing after. Ultimately she found herself laughing as she ran. It was all so preposterous. And soon, laughing or not, they found themselves caught right smack in the middle of Park Avenue traffic. Luther protected her from the zooming cars, choosing to hold her close with one arm while directing traffic with the other. He also shouted at the rushing vehicles. “Too much lead in your gasoline there, Al!…Polluter! Polluter!…Get a horse!”

  She was laughing so hard that he practically had to carry her up the stairs. And she was very glad to be laughing because it dissipated some of the pressure. She felt that she had made her point without being forced to leave. She felt good and fine and hopeful. In the west wing they studied the statuette of Cupid and Psyche. Then they tried the same position. Then they did some variations on the theme. Then
, at about 3 a.m., they thawed out a frozen pizza and ate most of it. At 4 a.m. they got back into bed and burped until 4:30, at which time they fell asleep in Position No. 94, visions of anchovies dancing in their heads. Starting at 7:30 a.m. and well on into the rest of the following day, they were on a diet of Rolaids and Alka-Seltzer. It rained hard that afternoon, so they never really got out of bed. They just lay there, on their backs, watching Cupid and Psyche carry on their three thousandth year of almost motionless copulation. Those Greeks, they had a way.

  13

  Tiger climbed the stairs, having to stop at every landing to rebalance the heavy bag of groceries she had bought at the all-night grocery. She thought of leaving it right inside the hallway door, going up without it, and sending Luther down for it. But of late, Luther had been so incredibly amorous that it would be at least an hour before he’d let her go, and if the bag hadn’t been stolen by then, certainly all the frozen foods within would have been disastrously defrosted. So she carried the bag up by herself and wondered happily if she’d ever get a chance to put it down—or would she be holding it all the while Luther took his pleasure? The compromise, of course, would be to set the bag down just prior to entering the pad. But that would take some of the danger out of her life. So, no—she’d carry it in, devil take the hindmost.

  She knew she must have sounded like Frankenstein’s monster, clomping up the stairs with so deliberate and ponderous a tread. So she wasn’t surprised to see the apartment door swing open. It would be Luther doing Dracula, and he’d flash his eyes and exclaim, “Walcum to my kethil.” She wasn’t quite right because it was Leon, and he wasn’t saying anything. But then he never did. The question then was: what was Leon doing opening the door? From the look on his squeezed and narrow face there had to be something very, very wrong inside the pad.

  “Where’s Luther?” she asked, not waiting for an answer, moving right past Leon, hearing him shut the door behind her—and lock it. That door had never been locked before. Through plague, drought, and famine it had always remained open. The click went off in her mind like a grenade. Lock the door against what?