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Looking into her sleepy brown bedroom eyes. Shit.
"Was it a girl?"
"It was nobody. Eleven's when I felt the need to start kissin'. It wasn't till I was in Young Boys, twelve going on twenty-one, I had any pussy. You in Young Boys you have pussy in your face all the time, big-girl pussy. You ain't had none by the time you thirteen, you homasexual."
"You think you talk street it turns me on." "Doesn't it?"
She said, "Come on," and took him by the arm into the sitting room-Robert checking out the bottle of white in the ice bucket, two bottles of red and the basket of popcorn on the table where the lamp was on low-taking him toward the sofa in her kimono, this girl who could stride down a runway to the disco beat and turn you on.
"Did you see Jerry?"
"He's playing dice. Wi
"Wuz wrong with that?" Robert smiling again. "You ever see that interview with Miles-the man goes, `Then we come to the lowest point in your career, when you were pimping,' and Miles says in his voice, 'Wuz wrong with that?' "
The door to the balcony was open. Robert steered A
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"Not enough that he'd stop."
"You think we have time?"
Across the lawn spotlights came on and Robert said, "There it is," the ladder and tank lit up top to bottom now. He saw De
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" 'Cause we're as high as it is. Get down on the ground and look up, it's high."
She said, "What if Jerry walks in?"
"Put the chain on the door."
"Then he'd know for sure."
"You're in there taking a nap. I'm out on the balcony watching the show. He won't say nothing, he trusts me."
She kept staring at him with those eyes, liking the idea.
"We ever been caught? He trusts me," Robert said,” 'cause he needs me to make things happen."
He kissed her on the cheek and said, "Go on get in the bed."
She slipped her hand from under his sweater and gave his butt a pat as she walked away, Robert looking out at the tank again.
He saw lights come on in the pitching cage, Chickasaw Charlie standing there with a young woman-the TV woman, 'cause now a dude with a video camera had come out of the cage and another one carrying a couple of black cases, yeah, the TV woman's soundman. Now all four of them were heading toward the tank.
Robert looked at his watch. Five of nine, the show in twenty minutes. He walked out on the balcony to stand at the rail and looked down to see a good crowd on the patio having drinks and people straggling out on the lawn and coming out of the trees from the parking lot, some of them carrying their lawn chairs. Chickasaw Charlie was talking to De
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9
DENNIS SAID, "I'M STUCK WITH YOU calling the dives again? Tell me you're kidding."
Charlie shook his head. "She's too nervous, afraid she'll screw up. You don't know Vernice like I do," Charlie said. "She has to do things her own way, how she's always done it. You give her something different, she gets confused." Charlie stepped to one side then saying, "De
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Diane said, "Like a
Quick and perky, a cute blonde not more than thirty in her khaki shorts and white blouse, slim legs, tan feet in sandals.
"All there is to it," De
Charlie pulled the script, folded the long way, from his waist in back. "I can help her, show her what to say." He handed the script to Diane. "You read the parts that're checked. Like you tell everybody to stand back from the tank, so they don't get splashed? He's got his dives, what he'll do, numbered, one, two, three…"
Diane was looking at the script now. "Where will I be?"
"About where you are," De
"I won't be on camera, will l?"
"You can have the camera go to you if you want."
She looked up from the script. "You're the show, De
He liked her anchor-lady voice, calm and just a touch nasal. She had a cute nose and some freckles, a country girl. "You from around here, Diane?"
" Memphis. I was a deejay with a hard rock station. I hated all that chatter, so I quit."
"I trained as a blackjack dealer once," De
"You'd rather show off your body," Diane said. "Why not? I know the girls think you're hot." She glanced at the script again. "Okay, I'll do it-if I can have a few minutes alone with you first."
"For an interview," De
She gave him a flirty look, having fun with him. "What else would I have in mind? I'll ask how you got into high diving. What it's like to go off from up there… "
He said, "You know what the tank looks like?"
"I'd imagine about the size of a teacup," Diane said, "but save it till we're on."
Another teacup. It made him think of Billy Darwin and wonder if she had talked to him. But now she was walking over to the side of the tank, looking at the scaffolding that supported the threemeter board. She turned to him saying, "Is that where the guy was shot? Under there?"
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She said, "Oh? I thought you were up on the ladder, you saw the whole thing."
"No, uh-unh. Where'd you hear that?"
She seemed to think about it before saying, "Someone heard it in a bar and told someone else. You know, passed it along. I'm trying to remember who told me. It might've been someone in the sheriff's office. I talk to the staff there a lot." Diane the TV lady kept staring at him. "If it was true-boy, wouldn't that be a story."
Robert had opened the bottle from the ice bucket and poured two glasses, Pouilly-Fuisse, A
Across the way in the lights, De
Robert said, "How's he have time to do all that in the air?"
"Perfect execution," the woman's voice said. "Wait until he's out of the pool… Okay, and now let's hear it for our world champion De
"Beautiful," Robert said.
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