I found out later her name was Barbara Le Fang. I had met her last week
in, well you know, one of those bars. Business had been great and I wanted to
celebrate. Honest, I had only a couple of trays drinks when she walked by my
table.
She was gawking around for somebody in a place where people get fussy
about being marked, so I decided I’d clue her in. My good deed for the day. I
used my size twelve and pushed a chair in her path, which had been keeping me
company.
Now, I’m not, as a rule, irritatingly forward, and you can trust me when I tell
you that I’ve been known to stop along a busy street to rescue a confused puppy
with a droopy head and a floppy tongue.
Stray or runaway, this French poodle was lost.
How she got here was anybody’s guess, but rest assured I guessed plenty.
Then our eyes clunked together—locked like two empty boxcars in the Eastside’s
train yard.
She slipped into my booth opposite me, removed her scarf, and shook out the
cold. The inside of her overcoat was fur, real fur, and not rabbit.
I flagged down Espy, so the lady could order.
“Bring me a Black Rose,” she said with a voice that was wounded yet strong.
I thought she might be confused, this wasn’t a flower shop, but Espy seemed
to understand.
“You ready, Sugar?” Espy asked.
I nod; ‘cause, that lost puppy continued to stare, making me squirm, like I’d
never been close to the opposite sex before.
Then the mystery woman asked, “Why did you do that?”
My celebration had been the extended variety type, so I was one hangover
away from a partial recovery of my mental faculties. Lost, I asked, “What? Offer a
lady a seat?”
She shook her pretty face, but her big eyes remained steady, fixed on me.
Bejesus. I was lost. “I am awfully sorry, Miss—“
She interrupts. “It’s Mrs. to you.”
Well, that wasn’t much of a revelation. She must have thought I was blind, like
I had missed that block of ice she wiggled, just a notch below being downright
arrogant about it.
At this point I wanted to get back to my private celebration, but she does the
most surprising thing. She stuck a cold, nylon-covered toe up my pant leg. Then
she pinched down my sock and rubbed my shinbone. This extravaganza
reminded me of the cold-toed experiences with my ex-wife, or was it my ex before
my ex-wife? Now I’m confusing myself and this isn’t important to my story.
Anyway, I was annoyed at first but then started to feel warm and fuzzy. She
helped herself to a look into the murky depths of my inner me that I thought I had
boarded over; because, I had decided that I was a hazard to women, like an
abandoned well near a playground.
I’m-Mrs.-to-you received her Black Rose and yours truly got a fresh gin and
rocks, no twist. I moved my leg out of reach of her mini-massage parlor. This
noble action commanded some effort to discern feigned romance from stark
reality.
“Look, Lady, We’ve both made a mistake here, so why don’t you find another
warm leg to rub.”
“That was your leg?”
All right, you’re probably thinking what I’m thinking, but you got to know that
she looked innocent as hell. My legs aren’t what you’d call athletic; however, they’
ve never been mistaken for table posts with socks. I decided she was full of it, so
I just gave her my best I-wasn’t-born-stupid look.
“I was told you frequented this…this place.”
“You must have the wrong chump, ‘cause I’m not the kind to—”
“Nate Cahill. You’re him, right?”
She had me there. So, I stretched a neck to see if she came with a muscled-
up chaperon, some hairy beast, who might be keeping tabs on her, and me.
“In living gray,” I said, as I returned to her drop-me-dead and shovel-dirt-on-
top-of-me eyes. “Okay, so who sent you here?” She was the most knocked-out
arm-twister I’d had shake me down—ever.
“No one sent me. I found your business card. Thought it might be wise to
connect a face with my future stalker, but you don’t seem the degenerate, private
dick type.”
Between you and me that hurt, and, naturally, I took offense. This was my
chosen profession.
I don’t print extra cards, so it was a short list I flipped through to try and figure
out where she might have pinched one; most likely, from her husband’s wallet or
from his desk drawer, but who?
She seemed to be the type, lonesome and left alone near wells that weren’t
boarded up.
“This party is over. I’ll probably be seeing you again, but try and smile for the
camera, Sweetheart, while you’re cheating on your husband.” I’m accustomed to
dodging wild swings and provoked punches, but she caught me in an inebriated
state of un-readiness. She smacked me on my left cheek, with a pop that turned
heads; mine included, hushing an already hushed gathering.
“It’s not fair.” She blinked with Bambi’s big deer eyes.
Damn straight, I was thinking at this point in my sidetracked celebration. I
restrained a retaliatory blow, and considered, in my intoxicatedly profound mental
state, that the almighty had erred when he didn’t assemble women with
appropriate spots to smack back at, even if custom were to allow such equal
behavior.
“Try keeping those cold toes at home, maybe.” It’s not that I wasn’t sure she
was the type. Somehow I didn’t blame her.
She might have thought about round two with a backhand to the other cheek
but hit me with the check for her Black Rose instead.
Like I said, that was last week.
Sure enough, I got a call from one Jacob Le Fang, who made sure I knew how
important he was to have an unfaithful wife, which translates to: I’ve abused my
dog and it ran off. I half listened to the rest of his BS while I watched the rain run
down the window in a smooth-flowing waterfall, turning the Motor City’s skyline
into a blurry smear of lights. I was half listening to his sad song, clicking,
refreshing my browser, looking for his email, which he’d just sent as he yakked
on.
Then. There it was. I sat up straight and blinked to refresh my memory of the
mystery lady with the cold toes. It was her, all dignified and smiling like she had
life by the short hairs.
“Do we have a deal?” He asked.
“Nope. No deal,” I said to the dead fish and hung up on him.
I watched the rain cry down my dark window and wondered if Barbara Le Fang
was caught in the rain tonight, or, maybe, I hoped, she had someone warm next
to her cold toes.
The End
Cold Toes
(2007) (Unpublished)
A Short Story by Russell Traughber
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