The Girls He Adored by Jonathan Nasaw Page A

Casey after all these years. Unbelievable. But he knew he'd have to proceed slowly, feel his way along. The ideal would be to wait for the other man to initiate the conversation, but the way Casey seemed to have withdrawn into himself, Pender knew he couldn't count on that.
    “Hey,” he said, after a good five minutes had passed.
    No response.
    “Hey—I'm talking to you.”
    “You talkin'a me?” Casey looked up slowly, his eyelids lowered sleepily and his eyebrows drawing together. And again: “You talkin'a me?”
    A perfect Travis Bickle. Pender's laugh came easily. “Not bad.”
    “Not bad?” said Casey. “When did you ever see better?”
    Celebrity impressionists—you never knew what was going to kindle a connection. Pender took the ball and carried it in the direction he wanted to go—place names. “I saw Rich Little do De Niro in Vegas . . . well, tell you the truth, you're about as good as him. But I saw Fred Travelena do him in Dallas—now that guy's a genius.”
    “I do a better Nicholson,” said Casey.
    “Lemme see.”
    The eyebrows peaked, the lips widened to a leer. “Heeere's Johnny!”
    “The Shining, right?”
    “Right. I can also do Christopher Walken: I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my aass two years. . . .”
    “Man, you are good.” Pender slid a little closer toward Casey. “My name's Parker.”
    “Yeah, whatever,” said Casey.
    Pender told himself he hadn't really expected the man to give his true name, but he was disappointed anyway—even an alias might have helped. He shook it off. Back to work. “You ever done that kinda thing professionally? You should give it a try.”
    “Ah, bullshit.”
    But Pender could see that Casey was pleased. A little less guarded, too—the manacled hands, balled into fists at first, had relaxed. “No, really. You should go to one of them, what do they call 'em, open mike things. They had one in that club in Dallas. Actually, I think it was Plano. You ever been to Plano?”
    Casey shrugged; Pender, with a Ph.D. in shrugs, read it as a positive response: not a Fuck, no, but a Yeah, what of it?
    Oh-ho, thought Pender. Oh-ho was his version of Bingo! or Eureka! or Gotcha! On to topic number two. “In my opinion, it's basically a suck-ass town. Wall-to-wall stuck-up bitches. Man, I couldn't get laid in Plano to save my life.”
    “You couldn't get laid in Plano? Jeez, I got more pussy in Plano than the ASPCA. 'Course, I'm better looking than you are. I can get a woman anyplace. Shit, I can get a woman in jail. There's this shrink they sent to check me out—the bitch has already got the hots for me. We fooled around a little in the interview room—we're talking about getting together soon as I get out.”
    Oh-ho. Drilling randomly, Pender had struck a gusher. Casey was speaking freely now, not at all guarded. Pender modeled a receptive posture, hands as wide as the manacles permitted, shoulders relaxed, chest open but not thrust forward, as Casey slid a little closer, until they were only three feet apart.
    “Of course, a guy with your looks, what you might want to do if you ever get back that way and you're horny, there's a motel called the Sleep-Tite in Dallas. Vietnamese hookers. Ask for Anh Tranh. Tightest little piece I ever had. All you gotta do is call the desk, tell the guy you want number one girl, make boom-boom.”
    Pender decided to narrow the focus a little. “They got any white girls there?”
    “Just 'Mese.”
    And a little narrower. “Naah, I like white girls. Blonds or redheads—nothing like a pale-haired pussy.”
    “You're crazy—pussy's pussy,” Casey said quickly. Then he shut down, thud, like an asbestos fire curtain coming down in the middle of a scene.
    Pussy's pussy. Max knew immediately that he'd gone too far. That locker-room bullshit about Irene Cogan. And why on earth had he felt compelled to tell Parker about the Sleep-Tite? He knew what Ish would say: that it had something to do with a need for