Dressed as he was only in boots and faded jeans that rode low on his hips, I had an overwhelmingly excessive view of his body hair, all black and curly on his chest and belly, straggly and streaked with gray on his head, and sprouting in thickets on his jaw and upper lip. His nose and cheeks were rosy, his mouth almost feminine. There was nothing feminine about his arms, however; they were so densely tattooed that virtually no flesh between his wrists and his neck retained its original hue. He seemed to realize I was taken aback, and with a wry smile he said, “Be careful, ma’am. The railing’s rotten and it’s a long way down. Something I can do for you?”
“I’m looking for Arnie Riggles,” I said, desperately trying to prevent myself from gaping at the colorful swirls on his arms. I was not at a sideshow, and I hadn’t paid a quarter to justify rudeness. Then again, he could have put on a shirt before he answered the door.
“He lives in the next apartment, but he’s not home. He came by a little while ago to see if I wanted to shoot some pool. I didn’t. You want me to give him a message?”
“No, I don’t think so. Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”
“He didn’t say, but he’s only down the road at the Dew Drop Inn. You can catch him there.” Clearly amused at my demeanor and having little difficulty interpreting it, he turned around to expose his back, which was more ornate than a medieval tapestry. When he held up his arms and flexed his biceps, a mermaid rippled as if swimming amid purple and blue fish, and a dragon swished its silver tail. “Pretty neat, huh?” he said, grinning over his shoulder at me. “I’ve got more, but I usually don’t show them to ladies unless we’re…, intimate.”
The railing bit deeper into my back, and my voice may have risen as much as an octave as I said, “Please don’t. If you could be so kind as to point me in the direction of the place you mentioned, I’ll-I’ll be on my way.”
“Tell you what, let me grab a shirt and I’ll go with you. The Dew Drop’s not the sort of place for a lady to go by herself.” Before I could decline his offer, he disappeared into the apartment. When he returned, carrying a translucent black helmet, he was more pedestrian (and a great deal less colorful) in a long-sleeved shirt and black leather vest. “Why’s someone like you looking for someone like Arnie?” he asked as we went downstairs.
“I need to ask him a few questions about some recent events,” I said vaguely. “That’s my car. Shall I follow you?”
“You’re welcome to ride with me, and I’ll bring you back whenever you’re ready.” He spoke politely, with no edge of challenge in his voice, but his mustache quivered as he struggled not to smile. “It’s only a mile or so. Nice, warm evening like this, you might enjoy it. ‘In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.’ Milton, 7lractate of Education, of course.”
“Of course.” I wasn’t nearly as intimidated by him as I’d been when he opened the door. He was no taller than I, and although he was built like a barrel, he was hardly a massive monster seething with rage and likely to rip apart live chickens with his teeth. There was no skull emblazoned on the back of his vest. Except for the facial hair and that which I, like the Shadow, knew lay beneath his shirt, he was rather ordinary, perhaps as old as fifty, a benign, middle-aged version of Santa Claus. Ordinary, that is, except in his ability to quote Milton.
“Shall we?” He gestured at the motorcycle.
Changing my mind was one thing, but losing it was another I stayed where I was. “I don’t even know your name.”
“‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Or, in my case, would be as willing to escort such an attractive woman to a dive like the Dew Drop, if only because I’m curious why you want to find Arnie. You game or not?”
That was the question, all right. Approximately twenty-four hours earlier I’d decided that I had insulated myself, that I needed to expand my boundaries, meet new people, experience new things. At the time, I hadn’t counted on being offered a ride on a motorcycle, particularly one that could have come screaming out of a futuristic movie that featured heavily armed cyborgs with poor attitudes. But hadn’t Peter Rosen, Mr. Propriety himself encouraged me to go out with other men? There was no doubt about it: this was about as far out as I could go.
“Sure,” I said, “I’m game. What do I do?”
He gave me the helmet, helped me onto the padded seat, and showed me where to rest my feet. “All you have to do is hang on and flow with it,” he added as he straddled the seat in front of me, did something mysterious, and leaned back as the machine bellowed to life with a fury not unlike a rabid buffalo’s.
Just hang on and flow with it, I told myself as we squealed out of the parking lot and shot down the highway, easily passing a pickup truck on one side and a tractor trailer on the other. I’d expected to be stoic yet terrified, but after a minute, I loosened my death grip on his waist and acknowledged that I was enjoying the speed, the wind that stroked my skin and ballooned under my shirt, the vibrating power the continual roar that isolated us from our surroundings. The traffic moved; we were motion itself.
I was a little disappointed when we slowed down and pulled into a parking lot. My chauffeur cut off the engine. The abrupt cessation of sound was unnerving.
“So what’d you think?” he asked.
I took off the helmet. “A memorable experience, unlike anything I’ve ever done.”
The Dew Drop Inn was shabbier than the Airport Arms, if possible, and held together with splintery sheets of mismatched siding, indecipherable metal signs, spit, and a goodly amount of prayer There were more than a dozen vehicles in the lot, and as I passed over the helmet, another car pulled in.
“Today’s Sunday,” I said as we started for the door “Why is this place doing a brisk business when it isn’t even supposed to be open?”
“The Dew Drop’s more of a social club than your ordinary tavern, and the NBA playoffs are on this afternoon. Last year Millie put in a big screen. It’s a male rite of spring to congregate and watch the game over beer and bullshit. There’s plenty of both here.”
All the NBA signified to me was the National Book Award, but it was hard to envision the literati slinging quotes at each other across a net. If they were to do so, sophistry and sherry would be their accouterments of choice. Mystified, I entered the Dew Drop Inn.
The room was dark, and the smoke was as pernicious as the skies of Los Angeles. There were only two sources of light: a swaying rectangular fixture above a pool table and a large television screen on which men in boxer shorts cavorted in pursuit of an elusive ball. Most of the twenty or so men were seated at tables, watching the game, but three or four stood in the shadows beyond the pool table. Oblivious to the ashes dribbling from his cigarette, a man in a cowboy hat was bent over the table, the tip of his cue stick resting on the worn green felt. Competing with the outbursts of laughter, good-natured curses, and inanely bright chatter from the game announcers was the persistent ringing of unseen telephones.
“Ho, Senator!”
I located Arnie at one of the tables. It was not challenging, in that he was waving his arm above his head while pounding on the table with a beer bottle. “I guess we found him,” I said to my companion. I’d garnered enough attention, some of it curious and some of it smirky, to be glad to have him beside me, and unless I’d misjudged him a second time, I was safe from the advances of the rednecks in the room.
“Come join us, Senator!” Arnie yelled, still carrying on as if we were at a pep rally rather than a seedy tavern. “I got something I want to ask you about this trade imbalance with the Pacific Rim.”