Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [61]
“Maybe it’s in your sock,” she says. “Bullshitter.”
“Come over to my place later and get it,” he says, and straddles the stool, grinning.
“Yeah.”
“We had fun,” he reminds her.
He can see she’s already shaking up his Inquisition Fizz. Drink to excess before Victor gets here, is their strategy, bartenders included. The extra Fizz goes into a shot glass, which Janet clinks, cheers, with Nicky, and throws back in a fluid move, turning toward the cash register, as if she’s going to ring him up.
“You look good with no makeup,” Nicky calls out.
Janet flashes him a smile, then slinks up to him, elbows on the bar. “I’m wearing makeup, sweetie. Lose the shades and see for yourself.” She hooks the frames with a finger and sets them down next to his cell phone. “I just don’t look like a raccoon for once, unlike you.”
He forgot about the shades, and squints now, adjusts his vision. Waning sunlight illuminates the tabletops by the windows. Throughout the shadowy room, dim candles flicker in wrought-iron candelabra.
And then he spots his favorite patron, famously sexy anchorwoman Stacy Fredericks, whose sliver of a profile he recognizes despite the lineup of beer taps and the distance from here to there, not to mention her uncharacteristic Black Widow getup and the familiar swarm of blunderers already stuck in her web. Apparently, like Nicky, Stacy decided to get into the spirit of Nostradamus tonight, to lose the anchorwoman skirt suit and play along, in the fashion, neo-medieval style. By her side, and forever unable to extricate himself, is her network sidekick, Lester Dent, who evidently doesn’t see his own combover in the mirror when he leaves his house, or doesn’t yet appreciate the fact that his thin orangey coif is just one of the reasons that Stacy always maintains a polite distance—his nearly senior-citizen status, baggie pastel suits, and wife and kids rounding out the list of other reasons.
Nicky drains his drink, and Janet is there with a fresh shaker of Fizz.
She follows Nicky’s gaze. “Well, that didn’t take you long.”
Lester Dent lets out an awful laugh as he wraps an arm around Stacy.
“They are so fucking,” Janet says.
“No way,” Nicky says.
“Never underestimate a woman’s love for power and money.”
Nicky lets his jaw drop in mock astonishment. “Not Stacy Fredericks.” Janet sneaks her shot, and Nicky follows suit with a good slug, secretly eager to get the scoop, egging her on: “She already has power and money.”
“Especially the ones with power and money, honey,” she says.
“I guess I’m out of luck,” Nicky says.
“Hardly, sweetie. You’re cute. Cute trumps everything.”
She fills his glass, and his heart swells. Still, his eyes return to Stacy Fredericks, who in one splendid motion twists at the waist, finishes her drink, and sets her martini glass on the bar. Before she turns back to the dull network crew, Nicky can swear she locks eyes with him, but his mind is playing tricks, of course. He feels as if he knows her, ever since last year when she spilled her guts at the end of that broadcast, tearing up, still battling a broken heart, she said, grateful for the city’s welcoming embrace. Welcoming embrace, his ass. Still, Nicky fell for the whole bit, hook, line, and sinker. Two divorces. A woman in a man’s business. From the South, no less. He remembered what it was like to be new in the city. He defended her against the cynics who thought the performance a ploy, a false confession, meant to dupe hard-hearted Philadelphians who’d dubbed her Ice Queen.
After that, Nicky started TiVo-ing the news, fast-forwarding through the Lester Dent parts. He studied her expressions. He imagined her at home with her dogs, kept his eyes out for her on Spring Garden, caught a glimpse of her a few times on the sidewalk, heading from the network building to the parking garage, always appearing sad and alone, despite her buoyant gait, that gleaming smile as she clapped her cell phone shut, the white Land Rover sailing