The Pain of Others

She’d stopped to calm herself, leaning against one of the timber columns, her head swimming, when thirty feet away, a bell rang, two brass doors spread apart, and the man named Arnold strode off the elevator, looking casual in blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a sports jacket. She followed his progress, watching him thread his way through the crowd, finally arriving at the entrance to the Sunset Terrace. He spoke with the hostess at the podium, and without even thinking about it, Letty found herself moving toward him, wishing she’d honed her pickpocket skills during one of her stints in prison. She’d known a woman at Fluvanna who had it down so cold she’d once lifted fifty wallets during a single day in Disney World. Arnold’s back pockets were hidden under his navy jacket, no bulge visible, but people with sense didn’t keep their wallet there. Inner pocket of his jacket more likely, and she knew enough to know it took scary talent to snatch it from that location. You had to practically collide with the mark, your hands moving at light speed and with utter precision. She didn’t have the chops.
Arnold stepped away from the hostess podium, and she watched him walk across the lobby into the Great Hall Bar, where he slid onto a barstool and waited to be served.
Letty cut in front of a striking couple and elbowed her way to the bar. The stool to Arnold’s left sat unoccupied and she climbed onto it, let the duffle bag drop to her feet. She recognized the scent of his cologne, but she didn’t look at him. Watched the barkeep instead, his back to her, mixing what appeared to be a Long Island Iced Tea, pouring shots from four different liquor bottles at once into a pint glass filled with ice.
Arnold drank from a long-necked bottle of Coors Light, picking at the label between sips. Something about his hands fascinated Letty, and she kept staring at them out of the corner of her eye.
When after two minutes the barkeep hadn’t come over to take her drink order, she let slip an audible sigh, though in reality she sympathized. The lounge was crowded and she could tell the guy was doing the best he could.
She glanced over at Arnold, back at the bar, thinking he hadn’t noticed her predicament. Like everyone else, exclusively engaged in his own world.
So it startled her when he spoke.
“Bartender.”
And though the word hadn’t been shouted, something in its tone implied a command that ought not be ignored. Clearly the barkeep picked up on it, too, because he was standing in front of Arnold almost instantaneously, like he’d been summoned.
“Get you another Coors?”
“Why don’t you ask the lady what she wants?”
“Sorry, I didn’t know she was with you.”
“She’s not. Still deserves a drink before the icecaps melt, don’t you think?”
The barkeep emanated a distinct don’t-fuck-with-me vibe that gave Letty the feeling he’d probably killed a number in medium security. A hardness in the eyes she recognized. But those eyes deferred to the customer seated to her right, flashing toward her with a kind of disbelief, like they’d grazed something harder than themselves and come away scratched.
“What would you like?”
“Grey Goose martini, little dirty, with a free range olive.”
“You got it.”
Now or never. She turned toward Arnold who’d already turned toward her, anticipating the attention, the tips of her ears on fire again, and got her first good look at him. Forty years old, she would have guessed. Smoothshaven. Black hair, conservatively cropped. His collar just failing to hide the end of a tat, what might have been an erotic finger strangling his neck. Green eyes that exuded not so much hardness as an altogether otherworldly quality. She didn’t know if it was Arnold’s confidence or arrogance, but under different circumstances (and perhaps even these) she might have felt a strong attraction to the man.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she said.
He broke a slight smile. “Do what I can.”
She fell back on her break-in-case-of-emergency smile, the one that had disarmed a cop or two, that she’d used to talk her way out of a hotel room in Vegas.
“I’m Letty.”
“Arnie.”
She shook his hand.
“So’s Letty short for—”
“Letisha. I know, it’s awful.”
“No, I like it. Nothing you hear every day.”
The barkeep placed a martini in front of Letty, slid a fresh beer to Arnold.
“I got these,” Letty said, going for her purse.
“Get out of here.” Arnold reaching into his jacket.
“Actually,” the barkeep said, “these are on me. Sorry about the wait, guys.”
Letty raised her martini by the stem, clinked her glass against the neck of Arnie’s bottle.
“Cheers.”
“New friends.”
They drank.
“So where you from?” Arnie asked.
“Recently moved here.”
“Nice town.”
“S’okay.”
She could already feel the conversation beginning to strain, climbing toward a stall.
“I have a confession to make,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I shouldn’t. You’ll think I’m awful.”
“I already think you’re awful. Go for it.” He bumped his shoulder against hers as he said it, and she loved the contact.
“I’m here for a blind date.”
“What’d you do? Ditch the guy?”
“No, I’m chickening out. I don’t want to go through with it.”
“You were supposed to meet him in the lobby?”
“This bar. I got scared. Saw you sitting here. I’m a bad person, I know.”
Arnold laughed and slugged back the dregs of his first beer. “How do you know I’m not the guy?”
“Oh God, are you?”
He raised his eyebrows as if dragging out the suspense.
Finally said, “No, but this poor sap’s probably walking around trying to find you. He know what you look like?”
“General description.”
“So you want to hide out with me. Is that it?”
She dusted off her cute, pouty face. “If it’s not too much trouble. I can’t promise to be witty and engaging but I will get the next round.” She sipped her drink, staring him down over the lip of the martini glass, the salt of the olive juice and the vodka burn flaring on the sides of her tongue.
“Do you one better,” he said.
“How’s that?”
“Well, if we’re really going to sell the thing, totally throw this guy off your trail, you should probably have dinner with me.”
They told each other lies over a beautiful meal, Letty becoming a high-school English teacher and aspiring novelist. She would rise at four every morning and write for three hours before driving into work, the book already five hundred pages, single-spaced, about a man who bears a strong likeness to a movie star and uses that resemblance to storm the Broadway scene and ultimately Hollywood, to comic and tragic ends.
Arnold worked for a philanthropist based out of Tampa, Florida. Had come to Asheville to investigate and interview the CEO of a research and development think tank that had applied for funding.
“What exactly are they involved in?” Letty asked after the waiter had set down her steak and topped off her wineglass, and she’d sliced into the meat, savoring both the perfection of her medium-rare porterhouse and the impromptu train of bullshit Arnold rattled off about bioinformatics and cancer applications.
They killed two bottles of a great Bordeaux, split a chocolate lava cake, and wrapped things up with a pair of cognacs, sharing a couch by a fireplace in the lobby, Letty adding up the three martinis, her share of the wine (more than a bottle), and now this Remy Martin which was going down way too easy. Part of her sounding the alarm—you’re letting it get away from you. The rest wondering how fast the Hispanic bellhop pulling a cart of luggage toward the elevators could score her some tweak and would Arnold be down for it if he did?
In the dull brass doors, she watched her and Arnold’s warped reflection. He kissed the back of her neck, those fascinating hands around her waist which she was too drunk to bother sucking in.