Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

DeDe.”
    “Not in the sixth month.”
    “It’s a simple salt injection. It’s no more complicated than—”
    “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
    He mimicked her tone. “‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’ Shit! Do you even give a rat’s ass about all the humiliation you’re going to put me through? Do you give a good goddamn about Halcyon Communications—your own father’s business?” His voice lowered dramatically, becoming almost plaintive. “Jesus, DeDe, we’re up for the PU Club this year.”
    “You, Beauchamp. Not me.”
    “It’s the same goddamn thing.”
    Looking up from her suitcase, she mustered a faint smile. “Not anymore it isn’t,” she said.
    He glared at her murderously for several seconds, then slammed the bedroom door and stormed out of the house.
    Hunched over his desk at Halcyon Communications, Beauchamp spent the rest of that Saturday afternoon immersed in the new campaign for Tidy-Teen Tampettes. The work allowed his thoughts to solidify, so that by six o’clock he had settled on another approach to his problem.
    He phoned a number in West Portal.
    “Yeah?” growled a voice at the other end. Its fuzziness, Beauchamp knew from experience, was not caused by postnasal drip.
    “Bruno?”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    “It’s Beauchamp Day.”
    “Oh. Yeah. More snow already?”
    “No. Well, maybe that too. I’ve got kind of a special request this time.”
    “I got some Purple Haze now. And some dynamite Black Beauties.”
    “No. This is different. Remember that friend of yours who … settles differences?”
    Silence.
    “It’s not what you think. Nothing heavy. I just need … well, it’s kind of special … I mean, a special situation.”
    “It’ll cost ya.”
    “I know. When can we talk?”
    “Tonight? Eight o’clock?”
    “Where?”
    “Uh … the Doggie Diner. On Van Ness.”
    “Right. The Doggie Diner on Van Ness at eight o’clock.”
    “No snow, huh?”
    “No, Bruno. Not tonight.”

Lady Eleven
    A GAINST HIS BETTER INSTINCTS, BRIAN HAWKINS made up a name for the woman in the Superman Building.
    Lady Eleven.
    This wasn’t some sort of sicko fantasy trip, he told himself. She was there, like Everest, a nightly reality as fixed and inevitable as the clang of the cable cars or the toot of the foghorns on the bay. It seemed only natural to give her a name.
    She would appear, invariably, on the stroke (could a digital clock strike?) of midnight, assuming her stance against the dim pinkish glow of her bedroom. After that she would scarcely move, except to raise and lower her binoculars and to make an unceremonious exit less than twenty minutes later.
    She would never acknowledge Brian’s presence, nor would she shift her gaze from the window of his little rooftop house. Viewed with the naked eye, she was nothing more than a dark blemish against the distant rectangle of light. With the field glasses, however, it was possible to discern her features.
    A long, full-lipped face framed by hair that was … dark brown? The color was impossible to determine, but Brian settled on auburn.
    Her hair fell lower than her shoulders and appeared to be tied in the back. Her robe was light-colored and undramatic, terry cloth maybe, and it revealed little about the rest of her body.
    There was something about Lady Eleven’s look that suggested she had just stepped from a shower.
    Brian always wondered if her hair was wet and smelled of Herbal Essence.
    This was the sixth night.
    When Brian returned from Perry’s, he couldn’t help but remind himself again how radically his behavior patterns had changed. It was eleven o’clock, for Christ’s sake, and he was home!
    Furthermore, he found that he was showering after work now. Tonight he spent even longer than usual in the bathroom, primping like a college freshman about to immerse himself in a sorority mixer.
    After brushing his teeth and shaving (shaving?), he slipped into his terry cloth bathrobe and sat in an easy chair by the south window with a dogeared copy of Oui.
    Only seven minutes to go.
    The sky around the little rooftop house was alive with Wagnerian tumult. Hoky white clouds, phony as angel’s hair props, drifted past the ghostly monolith of the Superman Building. At 11:56 a light appeared on the eleventh floor.
    The light.
    Brian dropped the magazine and moved to the window. He picked up the binoculars and focused on the lair of Lady Eleven. She wasn’t in sight yet; there was no movement