About Schmidt - Louis Begley [95]
You want to try it, Albert? Just once? It’s the good stuff. Not the usual small-time goods.
No thanks. I’m about to light a cigar.
Hey, pass it to me, says Carrie.
Her eyes are open. Puff puff, lick lick. Back to Bryan. For Christ’s sake, Schmidtie, will you relax! This is nothing: they regularly exchange body fluids.
Shit! You weren’t kidding.
You know, Albert, if any of your friends would like some, I could get it for them. Other kinds of stuff too. Out here, rich people sometimes don’t know the ropes. They want to make a purchase, and they want the best quality, but they don’t know who to ask. I only go for the quality stuff.
Fuck off! You leave Schmidtie alone. He isn’t interested.
Carrie’s growl—it is the first time Schmidt hears it. A tigress! She would fight to defend him. Still, the tension is unpleasant.
It’s a nonissue. I don’t have many rich friends. Besides, I hardly ever see anybody.
But you know them, Albert, that’s what counts. If any of them are interested, all I need is an introduction.
Will you fuck off, you shithead? I gave you your package last night. What’re you doing here anyway?
Hey, Carrie, remember? You and I are going to show Albert that house that’s come on the market. Don’t hassle me. It was your idea.
I’m going to fix some lunch. Soup OK with you, Schmidtie?
Of course.
Now he remembers. Carrie has told him Bryan and his partner work for a builder whose client didn’t have enough money to close on a house. He said he would look at it.
Nice girl, that Carrie, and crazy over you, Albert. She’s never felt that way about me.
I’m just an old guy. I guess she enjoys having someone to look after.
Sure, like last night. I’m with her, and, right away, the party’s over. She has to go to see if you’re all right. How do you think that makes me feel?
Schmidt shrugs his shoulders. I thought I just heard her say she gave you a package last night.
Bryan rolls another joint and pats down the pouch.
She delivered it all right, he says. This stuff. That’s where it came from. One hundred percent pure Moroccan hashish. Nothing but the best! You don’t want to fool with that. Carrie’s OK. She knows when I need her. But with you it’s something else.
Schmidtie, I want to drive. Can you get the top down?
She really can’t keep her hands off the Saab. They cross the highway and head for the stretch of scrub oak beyond the railroad track. Scruffy, badly marked road: the center line is hardly visible, the edges of the asphalt have been chipped away by frost, winter after winter. The borders along it are half sand and half weeds. They are littered with debris tossed from trucks like Bryan’s and the cars of slobs who own or rent in this part of the world: paper plates, beer cans, Kleenexes smeared with lipstick, broken glass, cigarette packs, and take-out cartons from Burger King. Here and there, a busted white plastic bag surrounded by its load of rotten vegetables, empty Evian bottles, and chicken bones. It’s one way to avoid that trip to the town dump, and who wants to cart garbage to New York in the back of the station wagon and hand it to the doorman? They pass a grim old fellow walking toward them on the other side of the road. He carries one of those white garbage bags and is actually picking up the stuff! A bum scavenging for food? No, he wears clean garden gloves, therefore, a deranged householder. Carrie toots the horn at him, but he doesn’t look up.
What a yoyo, she cries out.
Hey, slow down, it’s here on the right.
Bryan is in the backseat, behind Carrie. His hands reach over the driver’s seat to her shoulders. Then one of them moves farther down, finds her breast, and squeezes.
Cut it out, will you? You want me to go off the road?
Schmidt negligently throws out his cigar. It’s just tobacco, but immediately he regrets the gesture. Bryan will think he’s OK, behaving just like Mr. Schmidt, when he next heaves a broken muffler pipe over to the side of the road.
They turn into a driveway, really a curving swath cut