Private Showings

By Malachi Stone

Danger lurks around every dark corner when Kyrie Wilde, a young woman realtor, cheats on her husband with a handsome and mysterious college professor whose specialty is abnormal psychology. Kyrie secretly meets her lover for passionate "private showings" in those spooky Victorian houses she pretends to be selling him. But when women realtors start turning up murdered in those same homes where Kyrie has been meeting her paramour, she begins to fear that the killer is someone close to her, maybe so close that she might become his next victim. You'll thrill to the romantic suspense of PRIVATE SHOWINGS!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malachi Stone
• Release date: Jan 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215254073

Malachi Stone

Marlon Brando on Larry King Live quoted an unknown Louisiana woman who said, "Anybody who shows his face in public is an ass." (1) Mindful of those wise words, I created the pseudonym Malachi Stone to author my novels and short stories because, as a practicing attorney in a conservative community, my natural inclination was and still is to avoid notoriety and controversy wherever and whenever possible. That being said, my secret identity affords me a perverse Zorro-like gratification. I've been writing for more than twenty years. For a three-year period I was represented by a fine literary agent (2) in Manhattan, who tried valiantly but without success to place my novels in traditional publishing. Allegedly, objections were raised to negative protagonists and explicit sex. While I am convinced those objections are groundless, I am weary of arguing the point. I'll simply let you, the readers, decide for yourselves. I have garnered many good reviews over the years. See, for example, Elizabeth White (3). Interviews of me may be found on the web, for instance, Steve Weddle, Fiona "McDroll" Johnson, Paul D. Brazill and Ian Ayres (4-7). Please feel free to post reviews of my work, good, bad, or indifferent. Only be sure to remember that most of my books, especially the later ones, are self-published without the dubious benefit of copyediting, content editing or censorship of any kind. So if you post reviews carping about bad language or finding flaws in punctuation, paragraphing or font, I frankly don't care. I'm putting these books out there for the sole reason I wrote them in the first place - to be enjoyed by readers. As my law practice has become more active recently, I have taken a sabbatical from writing but hope to resume soon. My personal and private email is: [e-mail]. I'd be delighted to hear from you!1. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/02/lklw.00.html2. http://variety.com/exec/stacia-decker/3. http://www.elizabethawhite.com/tag/malachi-stone/4. http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2011/04/20/conversations-with-the-bookless-malachi-stone/5. http://imeanttoreadthat.blogspot.com/2012/01/american-banshee-by-malachi-stone.html#!/2012/01/american-banshee-by-malachi-stone.html6. https://pauldbrazill.com/2012/01/19/short-sharp-interview-malachi-stone/7. http://nigelpbird.blogspot.com/2010/09/dancing-with-myself-malachi-stone.html

Book preview

PRIVATE SHOWINGS

A Novel by Malachi Stone

Ninth Edition

©2023 by Malachi Stone

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 as amended, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at

[e-mail].

Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All characters depicted in this book are over eighteen years of age.

For Maria, my first inspiration then, now, and always.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One - The Tower

Chapter Two - The Magician

Chapter Three - The High Priestess

Chapter Four - The Hierophant

Chapter Five - The Chariot

Chapter Six - The Emperor

Chapter Seven - The Wheel of Fortune

Chapter Eight - The Empress

Chapter Nine - The Enchantress

Chapter Ten - The Hermit

Chapter Eleven - Justice

Chapter Twelve - The Lovers

Chapter Thirteen - The Hanged Man

Chapter Fourteen - Temperance

Chapter Fifteen - The One of Cups

Chapter Sixteen - The Seven of Swords

Chapter Seventeen - The Moon

Chapter Eighteen - The Devil

Chapter Nineteen - The Judgment

Chapter Twenty - The Nine of Coins

Chapter Twenty-One - The Two of Cups

Chapter Twenty-Two - The Ace of Wands

Chapter Twenty-Three - The Queen of Swords

Chapter Twenty-Four - The Nine of Swords

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Star

Chapter Twenty-Six - The Fool

Chapter Twenty-Seven - The World

Epilogue

About The Author

Connect With Me Online

Chapter One

The Tower

The Bluetooth headset went off in Kyrie Wilde’s left ear while she was stuck at a railroad crossing waiting for a freight train to pass. A good realtor, she knew how to multitask. She took the call, kept up her Kegel exercises and hit her vape pen, all at the same time. She’d synchronized the pleasant springing sensations between her legs to the rhythmic monotony of boxcars trundling past. Imagining Richard already inside her, she’d gotten up to ten boxcars per clench and per inhale before the Bluetooth interruption, and still no caboose in sight. Dreaming of Professor Richard G. Mandrake, PhD, Kyrie clenched her love muscles like a fist to grip his big hard cock inside her. God, she was so high!

The whiny voiced of the charge nurse at Black Forest Care Center instantly fucked up her high. Ms. Wilde, she said without emotion, I’m afraid your father has eloped again.

My God, what is it, the third time this month he’s gotten away from you? Don’t you ever lock the damn doors at that place? Was she talking too slowly? Kyrie really couldn’t tell. Or maybe she was talking too fast and didn’t know it. I have a showing in ten minutes and I’m sitting here losing time, caught behind this damn train. For all it’s costing me, can’t you people even hold on to a patient?

Resident, Ms. Wilde.

What?

Resident, not patient. You had said patient.

Whatever.

Even for a skilled nursing care facility such as ours, Mr. Wilde presents a unique challenge.

"It’s Doctor Wilde."

Kyrie’s call waiting vibrated. She cut the nurse off to take it. Oh, fuck! Tippi, her mother-in-law, was on the other line. Kyrie mentally kicked herself in the ass for not pulling out the earpiece and checking the caller ID first. The last of Kyrie’s high escaped through the cracked window with her exhale.

He’s out again, Tippi said, in a tone that sounded like gloating. The crazy house just called. Your father went over the wall again. What’s that make it, the third time this month?

Mother Zweig, please call Reverend Hoffmann. Sometimes Daddy goes there, to the church. He thinks he’s still choir director, I guess. It’s the disease.

Disease? Since when’s it a disease to turn queer and try to blow your brains out over it? Try and fail, mind you! Shoot yourself in the head and then have the discourtesy to live through it, be a burden to your family—

Kyrie hung up against the ugliness of the remark, exceptional even for her mother-in-law. There would be hell to pay tonight, but right now she didn’t care. The caboose had just gone by, and she was almost late for her showing.

Kyrie drove like a demon, her tires singing against the antique brick streets of the Hexenhut historical district. She pulled up to 903 Kirk Street: the Harmony house. There was no buyer in sight. Stately chateauesque dwelling, the multi-listing read. Seller anxious. Old-world elegance and charm in a quiet location. Formal dining room. Eat-in kitchen boasts updated appliances and butler’s pantry. Unique twin turrets offer two third-story bonus rooms.

Peg Krause had written the copy. It was her listing, one of Peg’s Picks. Kyrie and Peg would split the commission if Richard made an offer today. The old place really did have a certain indefinable curb appeal.

The Harmony House stood apart from all the others, towering over the neighborhood from its perch on a sloping hill. The steep peaked roofs of its twin turrets had given the surrounding district the name that had survived for well over a century: Hexenhut. Witch’s hat.

Kyrie turned down an alley and parked in the rear of the house, behind the moldering detached garage, its roof ready to collapse. She hurried along the narrow, broken sidewalk skirting the side of the house and opened the lock box to retrieve the front door key. The train hadn’t made her late after all. Kyrie made it a point always to be inside the home before the buyer arrived. It put him at a psychological disadvantage—a door-to-door salesman importuning the lady of the house, instead of the other way around. It only seemed to work on the men, though. And the buyer she was meeting today was a man by any definition.

She tried the key. The elegant double doors dragged on the worn sill. The owners had tried weather-stripping, in a desperate bid to seal the huge old barn against escape of the precious heat generated by the two furnaces installed when Ike and Mamie still called the White House home. Spice potpourri competed with musty old house smell.

The Harmonys, non-tenured CIU music professors with three small children and a live-in mother’s help, had transferred to Tulsa and were indeed piss-anxious to unload. Harmony House had become synonymous among local realtors with white elephant. Most of the furniture still remained uncovered. Dust was everywhere. She thought of her own home, where eyeing one glaring cobweb, Tippi had once remarked, I could make a noose and hang myself. Be my guest, bitch. Or better yet, move out.

Kyrie found the sign-in sheet attached to a plastic clipboard on a kitchen counter by the back door, beside one of the updated appliances. She signed her name, then wrote Twin Cities Realty. In the client column she printed Richard Mandrake and added the date and sign-in time.

The Black Forest Board of Realtors insisted on its members’ voluntary compliance with the sign-in procedure, to reassure sellers of continuing activity and a measure of perceived security. At least the people roaming and ranging through one’s furnished home in one’s absence could be identified by name, or so the sellers were led to believe.

Kyrie scanned the list. Four showings had preceded her last private showing with Richard here, and none after: Boris Day Dream Homes (apparently a quick walk-through, the sign-in and sign-out times only six minutes apart); Peg herself, three days ago; Verna Hoffmann, the minister’s realtor-wife, two days later, and most recently Anna Geist, a Jill-of-all-trades who dabbled in real estate, storage rental, health food, pranic healing and God knows what else. None of the buyer names were especially legible, probably by design.

The only one that surprised her was Boris Day. What was Boris doing in Black Forest? Boris had the Dutch Hollow bond for deed market sewed up. He was the man to call if you were looking to buy a fixer-upper on the installment plan. The first late payment and all your sweat equity went back to Boris in foreclosure like a magician’s homing coin. He’d probably made millions over the years selling and reselling half of Dutch Hollow bond for deed. The little man had an undertaker’s appearance about him, an essential creepiness Kyrie couldn’t quite define. He was reputed to make all his own collections door to door. Word was, if the lady—or the gentleman—of the house happened to be a little short for the month, Boris might be persuaded to take it out in trade.

The antique brass twist doorbell jangled. Kyrie started. She saw Richard Mandrake’s rugged profile through lace window treatment and thick leaded glass. Handsome the way Ted Bundy was handsome. She rushed to throw open the doors to him.

Punctual as always, Professor, she said, appraising his appearance. Tweed jacket over a silk shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Casual jeans and shoes. Leg muscles of a fanatical runner. During their two prior meetings, she had learned he jogged six miles a day. Dark wind-tousled hair. A tan unseemly for October. Clear skin, perfect teeth. At thirty-four a full professor in the Department of Psychology at Central Illinois University, with a keen interest in abnormal psychology and something called psychobiology. He cradled a single red rose.

Is that a symptom of something? Compulsive punctuality, I mean, Kyrie asked as he entered. Without answering, Richard offered the rose to her. She took it, closed her eyes and sniffed its perfume, then circled around him and leaned against the doors to push them closed.

Second showing’s the charm, I guess, she said, her own voice suddenly strange to her. Where would you like to begin today?

He embraced her in his sinewy arms. She shivered, feeling his pounding athlete’s heart, his male urgency pressing up against her.

Let’s play hide and seek, he said at last. I’ll be ‘it’.

Giddy with excitement, she bounded up the front staircase, down a corridor, then through a narrow door concealing another, steeper flight of stairs leading to one of the turrets. The turret room had been used for a child’s bedroom, circular with sloping ceiling, its high windows overlooking the front lawn filled with mature trees. She raised one window, which stuck at first, then wouldn’t stay open, its counterweight cord long broken. Improvising, she propped it open with a foot ruler, thinking naughty thoughts of Richard. She undressed quickly, her hands shaking with anticipation.

An Indian summer breeze spun a flurry of saffron and crimson leaves against the corroded window screen. She breathed in autumn’s incense of smoke and ripeness. The buzz and whine of traffic on the brick street below blended with the noise of a power mower mulching away in the distance.

This will make a nice room for one or two of our kids, he said from behind her where she crouched below the window, genuflecting to nature, looking out like a child, hiding her nakedness from everyone in the world but him. She turned to regard him over one shoulder, watched him standing stark naked in the doorway to the bedroom, preening himself for her, flexing his workout abs, his risen manhood saluting her from a triangle of Speedo tan lines in full view of the street.

Kyrie yelped with surprise and pretended dismay at his immodesty, although totally nude herself. She tried to throw a blanket over him, but it hung up on his fleshy peg, adding to the ridiculous lewdness of the pose he continued to hold. Hooting with hoarse laughter, she scrambled under the Raggedy Ann and Andy bedcovers. Throwing the blankets aside, he leaped to join her.

As with the one other time she had made love to Richard in this same house, Kyrie played a secret game with herself. Extending her arms above him, behind his head, she glanced at her watch—not from boredom or excess of punctuality, but to time herself.

Richard was the only man who had ever made her come.

This time, Kyrie meant to surpass all her prior efforts at driving back her climax. For fifteen full minutes, her body refused to surrender to his grinding mortar-and pestle insistence. Each time he thrust into her, she clenched her PC muscles just like the Internet article said to do, and each time he withdrew from her tightened pussy she felt the slippery, sliding onset of surging orgasm. Then, just when she felt herself stretched, tickled and probed beyond all endurance, the breakpoint offered itself and she seized it. She screamed once, then again.

A pigeon, startled from its roost by Kyrie’s ecstatic cri de coeur, flapped away from the eaves outside the bedroom window. Kyrie’s paroxysms of laughter merged easily with Richard’s persistent thrusts, and brought him off as well.

Her husband Charlie would always roll over and snore like a pig after their infrequent and unsatisfying lovemaking. Richard poised his muscle-defined arms in a pushup position, raised his torso free of her breasts, then took his time surveying her as would one in possession. She felt a tiny bonus thrill when he unsheathed his firmness from her; he then drew up his knees and began brushing its tip in wild, swirling Van Gogh strokes all over her abdomen, undulating his pelvis, becoming rock-hard again as he mesmerized her with his enraptured dark eyes, painting her body with the fruits of his passion.

Marking another man’s territory as his own. Kyrie did not resist.

Black Forest. Perfect home for Professor Richard Mandrake. He painted away with abandon. Unlike Charlie and every other man she had ever known intimately, Richard seemed energized after climax.

"God, those clenches of yours! Richard marveled, turning onto one side after leisurely painting her for many minutes, yet still fully erect. Incidentally, I really do love the house, he added, and not only because of what we just did in it. Although that was a particularly persuasive factor."

She stroked him, not wanting their time to end. You’ll need to use a more conventional writing instrument to sign the contract, Professor.

Boring black ink instead of semen? How mundane, Richard grinned. His expression was impish, his dark hair fallen down almost into his eyes. Let’s talk contracts, shall we? I’ll make an offer, but only if that Nazi gets cut out of her commission.

I can’t leave Peg out of the deal, Richard. It’s her listing. I’d be blackballed; my career in real estate would be over. We’d both wind up in a lawsuit.

Tell her I won’t sign unless you get one hundred percent of the commission. And there’s one other contingency, of course.

What’s that? Kyrie knew what he meant, knew his impetuous persistence.

Leave your husband and come live in it with me.

Richard, please. We’ve already had this discussion. I can’t leave Charlie and the twins. Not now.

Ah, ‘not now’, eh? Then there’s hope for the future?

I mean, Lori and Larry need me more than ever. They’re just starting high school and all, and they don’t have their mother.

"But they’re not your kids. You’re nurturing some other woman’s offspring, while the man of your dreams—me—languishes here."

My, aren’t we sure of ourselves? She swept a damp lock of hair from his brow.

Reticence is maladaptive, a psychobiological dead end, he said. Kyrie feared a lecture but knew one was coming. She’d heard it all before. "And in the most basic sense, all we are and all we ever will be, is locked in our DNA. Our whole self is encoded into that double helix of genetic material, that spiral staircase of nucleotides. The powerful instinct of self-preservation is at work in all of us, all the time. I am offering you the opportunity to reproduce, only not with the lazy, mediocre schlub you’re currently unhappily married to. No, Kyrie you owe it to your sweet self to reproduce with the one who’s perfect for you: the ideal human male specimen. Namely, me."

Modest, aren’t you?

Modesty is maladaptive. We’re dealing with the biological imperative.

How romantic. Her hand crept toward the conjuncture of his thighs. His voice quavered at her touch, but he continued.

It’s psychobiologically pre-determined, in our genomes, in our pheromones, in our bones and hormones, and in your erogenous zones. It’s futile to resist my advances, Kyrie—purest folly on your part. Nature programs an irresistible drive into every human being to reproduce his genetic material with his ideal biological mate. He cannot help but do so. He will literally die trying until that goal is attained.

Feeling any drives kicking in right now, Professor?

Richard sighed. You agree with me intellectually, don’t you? You concede my point?

Yes, Professor. It’s not your point I’m interested in right now, though. At least, not that point.

At the unquiet center of her mind, the remnants of Kyrie’s interrupted liberal arts education stalked her, whispered to her that Richard was right. But her realtor’s training, which had come later, offered up a truism of its own: the buyer is a liar.

What’s the most basic human need, Kyrie?

I don’t know. Good credit?

By way of answer, he burrowed his face between her breasts, his mouth making rude noises. She laughed low in her throat, then said: "Self-preservation. I’ve taken psychology, you know. I’m so much more than a mere realtor."

Richard raised his head. What does your realtor’s code of ethics say about making love to a buyer? Not that I care, of course, but are buyers off-limits, in the same sense that my students are off-limits to me?

She positioned herself over him, heedless of the naked windows, the tower room whitewashed in morning sunlight. As long as I haven’t committed a felony or racial discrimination, my license is secure.

Are you, or have you ever been, racially indiscriminate? Answer me, woman! Richard pushed her over on her back and entered her again, his face flushed, neck muscles taut. She thought of the carload. The shy black boy. She ran her fingertips through Richard’s chest hair. One exultant thrust of his brought her over the edge once more. Sounds of a motorcycle engine, probably a chopper, reverberated from the street up to the third-story open window, close enough and loud enough to drown out her cries.

Kyrie’s Bluetooth vibrated where she’d forgotten it, still in her ear. Business before pleasure, she said. She extricated herself from Richard’s embrace. He suddenly bolted out of bed and left the room while she took the call. It was Reverend Hoffmann.

Dr. Wilde just dropped by for an unexpected but welcome teatime visit, Kyrie. We’re sharing old memories over a cup of Earl Grey’s finest. His voice was kind and soothing, as if Daddy was within earshot.

Oh, Reverend, I’m so sorry! I hope he hasn’t disturbed you or Mrs. Hoffmann.

Not at all. He’s a delightful man, your father. He’s always more than welcome here. It’s a testament to his faith that, even after his devastating injuries, he still considers our church his spiritual home.

Kyrie caught herself doing her Kegel exercises and stopped, suddenly ashamed. I’m right in the middle of a—a showing, but if you can keep him at bay a few minutes longer, I’ll be right over. That is, if you don’t mind. Reverend Hoffmann’s kind voice told her to take all the time she needed. After disconnecting, she called out Richard’s name, but there was no response.

Dreading the embarrassment sure to be caused by her father, Kyrie took her time getting dressed, then made the bed. After giving the unique room a final once-over, she retrieved her purse and went downstairs. She again called out Richard’s name. Silence. She treated herself to a walk through the two-story great room, admiring its twenty-foot stuccoed ceiling, filigreed cherry wood accents and musician’s gallery. Peg would call this room a show-stopper.

Kyrie stopped. Something had caught her eye.

A solitary female figure sat motionless in an armchair facing the window. Peg Krause, the listing agent, judging from her carrot-orange hair clashing with her chartreuse jacket. Peg Krause, legendary scandal monger, probably waiting stealthily all this time, ears attuned, listening in as Kyrie abandoned herself to Richard.

Kyrie’s pulse pounded in her ears. She winced at the keen fear of discovery and imminent disgrace.

Peg? No response. Kyrie took one step towards her, then another. Was Peg giving her the silent treatment? Pausing for dramatic effect, drawing Kyrie in closer before unloading on her? The tittle-tattle mill would churn today for sure. Black Forest was no different from any other small town. Gossip and rumors would fly. How long would it be before Charlie and Tippi heard?

She tried nonchalance. Peg, have you seen my buyer anywhere? I seem to have misplaced him. She rounded the chair, then gasped.

Peg Krause’s face was frozen in death, suffused with purple, cheeks puffed from a silk scarf stuffed into her mouth. Her dull eyes, pupils fixed and dilated, stared unseeing at the stained-glass panel above the window seat. Her hands and feet had been bound in a makeshift arrangement using a drapery cord. Her tape measure, tied in a huge yellow bow around her neck, a streak of fresh blood on its blade edge, buried into her neck wattles. Voided urine discolored the lap of her skirt. And there was something else, something like drool across her forehead.

Kyrie heard someone give the doorbell a powerful twist. Peering around a corner, she could clearly make out the figure standing at the unlocked front doors: Boris Day, ready to show the house to his buyer. She sprinted through the house to the kitchen, to the clipboard for the sign-up sheet.

It was gone.

Chapter Two

The Magician

Saint Christopher dropped into the Hoop just after midnight, his attire out of sync with the college crowd shoehorned into the campustown bar. His black leather Patrick Cox coat flared open when he put his hands on his narrow hips as he was doing now, revealing a tall-cut Ralph Lauren Collection pinstriped charcoal suit over a blood-red shirt. His black adder snakeskin belt seemed to come alive at the smoke and rowdy noise of the place. The flash finish of his Paul Stuart shoes reflected the beer-sign lights and caught the flicker and glow from the music videos playing on the flat screen.

Once Saint Christopher’s eyes dilated in the dim lights he spotted Wendell pulling beer taps two and three at a time. Saint Christopher summoned him with a new fifty on the damp bar, pinning it down with his fingertips as though it were a live thing liable to escape. Wendell rescued it; a vodka gimlet took its place as if by magic.

I bet your outfit cost more than half the cars in the lot outside, Wendell said, pocketing the bill without offering to make change.

Whaddaya mean, half?

You check out that red Ferrari, though? Looks more out of place than you do in this toilet.

Yours? Saint Christopher took a hummingbird sip of the gimlet. His eyes darted around the room.

Thanks for the compliment. Belongs to a frat lad. Get this: he’s tired of it. Told him I’d put you in touch. That’s him over there, with the blonde in the fuck-me sweater. Watch out for her, though. She’s got an attitude bigger’n her tits. And as you can plainly see, them ain’t small.

Saint Christopher nodded in appreciation. Party size, to be sure, Wendell, he agreed. Party size. Only there seems to be one too many for the party I have in mind.

That’s the guy I’m talking about. He’s in here every night tanking up and raising hell on daddy’s money. Life sure ain’t fair.

Life sucks, Saint Christopher acknowledged, and then you die.

The young man in question, a slim young drunkard of about nineteen, sat chasing a shooter with big gulps of draft beer from a pewter tankard inscribed Paisan. Some of the beer slopped onto his denim jacket. He did not appear to notice or care. The twenty-something woman across from him in the booth sat poised behind a margarita glass that looked as drained as she did. Her bored expression remained unchanged when her date headed for the men’s room without excusing himself. She seemed to liven at the sight of Saint Christopher, the only GQ-dressed man in the place, standing at the bar. He lifted his glass to her. She took a long drag on a Merit and surveyed his clothes with an expression like a model in a print ad for women’s cigarettes. Wendell signaled the lone waitress, in conversation with a barfly graduate student, to bring fresh drinks to the booth. When the drinks arrived before her date, the young woman raised her glass to Saint Christopher with a conspiratorial smirk.

Bet you could cut yourself a piece of that right now, if you wanted, Wendell marveled, scratching his steel-gray brush cut with the knuckle of his middle finger. She’s over eighteen. I seen her ID’s.

What do you mean, ‘if I wanted’? Saint Christopher stared over at the woman. When she made eye contact once more, he flashed her a cavalier smile. Cardiologist wouldn’t like it, though.

So what’s a little chest pain when you got something like that under you to take your mind off it? You don’t get a chance like her every night. Leastways, I don’t. Wendell mopped the bar. Two tables of frat rowdies began an antiphonal chorus of Chester Pheeters over a few pitchers of draft.

You got any humpties for me? Saint Christopher asked, never taking his eyes off the woman.

Do I got any humpties for you? Spent the better part of the night putting car pools together. Four crash dummies so far.

No repeaters?

No, but Boog and Shoog been in here asking for you.

Saint Christopher slipped another fifty from a flat wallet in his breast pocket. Keep the drinks flowing for my new friends and business associates, he told Wendell.

What about Boog and Shoog?

Fuck Book and Shoog. Tell them I got lucky and left early. He shrugged. Hell, maybe I’m psychic. Saint Christopher carried his drink the length of the bar, until he stood over the booth where the young woman, practicing a French inhale, pretended to ignore him. He watched a video on the big screen. Paula Cole thrashing around, rolling on the floor, emoting. Singing something that sounded like Idowanna wait in a reedy soprano that managed to hit all the notes without seeming to.

When I went to school, it was Janis Joplin and Hendrix, he said. Nowadays you have groups like Toad the Wet Sprocket, Goo Goo Dolls and Chumbawamba. Mind if I sit down? He slid into the booth beside her. She didn’t seem to mind.

Are you an archeo-musicologist? Time-traveler, maybe? she asked with a sorority girl’s irony. Because those groups are, like, so retro nineties it’s painful. Exquisitely painful, in fact. Her manicured fingers moved with easy grace to cover a fraternity pin fastened to her sweater above her right breast. God, her makeup was perfect, professional even, her delicate facial features without flaw. At a distance Saint Christopher thought she might have had a little surgery, but now he saw that her nose was something no surgeon’s skill could have crafted. Fine and aristocratic—a model’s nose. No, a supermodel. The video ended and another began.

I’m a businessman, he said with a casual toss of his hand. I bring people together, arrange highly specialized encounters for their mutual benefit. And mine.

"How nice for you. Of course, you realize these are old, old videos. Virtually unknown to members of my generation. The bar—what those in your time referred to as the ‘cocktail lounge’—strings them together on ladies’ night because they’re all female artists. It’s part of a gender theme, get it? A prehistoric gender theme to appeal to the, dare I say, older crowd?" She looked away as her date approached. He was dressed like The Boss in the Philadelphia video.

Hey, I was sittin’ there, the young man said, reckless behind a Jack Daniels and beer buzz. On the big video screen. Alanis Morissette and three of her clones gesticulated and thrashed around in a moving car. The woman, seated unconcerned beside Saint Christopher, sang isn’t it ironic? along with Alanis, her voice releasing little puffs of smoke.

Hey, I’m talking to you, asshole! the young man said. When Saint Christopher made no response, he added, You tired of living, numb nuts?

You could say that, Saint Christopher replied evenly, looking past him to watch the screen, thinking about Janis. Big Brother and