Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley Page A

loose blouse. He carried her raincoat clutched in his fist and it preceded him into battle like a weapon or a shield. It masked his vulnerability, like something with which to ward off blows.
    “Thank you,” she said, and disarmed him. “Well” she said, “come on in.”
    The house itself unsettled him further. It was big. He had to come to terms with the idea that its owner was an unattached woman. She ran this house and household, occupied space in the world exactly the way a man did. He had never thought of a woman in this light before and it was difficult for him. She was not a man. She would not know how to fix a leaking faucet, and she would be subject to all of a woman’s curious vulnerabilities. Or would she? She was too new to him. He could not be sure.
    Did her house give any clues? In her living room stood two barber’s chairs. They were low leather chairs out of some rich men’s club probably. They shocked Powers. So did a Wurlitzer jukebox that served as her sound system. So did what it was playing: rock music.
    “I was listening to the Bee Gees,” she said. “Do you like the Bee Gees?”
    As a conversational opening this reminded Powers of his adolescence, and as music the Bee Gees did not match his age - or hers. He was glancing around, trying to learn about her from the decor. But there was no one style here. Nothing matched. Real Persian rugs on the floor. Abstract paintings on two of the walls. Signed photographs on a table of Carol interviewing celebrities, including the President of the United States.
    “Would you like a drink? What would you like?
    He looked her over. She wore a lot of makeup today too, and looked younger than he remembered. She had rather more bosom than he remembered as well. She had a nice figure.
    “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
    He followed her into the kitchen where she took a bottle of Chablis out of the fridge. He followed her outside onto a terrace. Long shadows on her lawn. She opened and poured the wine. There was a short upsweep of grass and then flowers amid rocks. He stared into the cold white wine. She must pay a gardener plenty, he thought.
    “Is that nicer than Chinese champagne?” she said, and he laughed.
    There were certain questions that had to be asked immediately. Otherwise no relationship of whatever kind was possible. He began to ask them.
    “Do you live alone in this big house?”
    The house, she said, was for her daughter, because all children should grow up in houses, not apartments, didn’t Powers agree? Her daughter, who was away at college at the moment, was eighteen. Carol added quickly, “I was married very young.”
    So she was sensitive about her age, whatever it was.
    “You never remarried?”
    No. She was perfectly willing to talk about her life, much of which, he supposed, had appeared in gossip columns. Her concept of privacy was not the same as his. She had been divorced fourteen years, and had since lived, she said, four years with one man, almost five with another. She had almost married the first one. They had taken out a license, a date was set. Powers did not ask what went wrong and she did not tell him. Instead she peered wistfully off into the middle distance.
    “And you? Are you still married to the same woman?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m not even seeing anybody now,” she said. “You’re the first man I even felt like talking to in over three months.”
    He weighed these words. Maybe she felt sex-starved. Or found him attractive. It was possible. Maybe she still hoped to make use of him professionally. Maybe she was only making small talk. Powers felt like a student staring at symbols on a blackboard. He couldn’t decipher any of them.
    From time to time Carol leaned forward to refill their glasses.
    “You’ve killed two men. What did that feel like? To kill somebody?”
    Powers looked up sharply. “The first was a psycho who had already killed three people. The other was a guy sticking up a store.” He