Without Feathers Read Online Free PDF Page B

really knew how to appeal to your fantasies. Long straight hair, leather bag, silver earrings, no makeup.
    "I'm surprised you weren't stopped, walking into the hotel dressed like that," I said. "The house dick can usually spot an intellectual."
    "A five-spot cools him."
    "Shall we begin?" I said, motioning her to the couch.
    She lit a cigarette and got right to it. "I think we could start by approaching Billy Budd as Melville's justification of the ways of God to man, n'est-ce pas?"
    "Interestingly, though, not in a Miltonian sense." I was bluffing. I wanted to see if she'd go for it.
    "No. Paradise Lost lacked the substructure of pessimism." She did.
    "Right, right. God, you're right," I murmured.
    "I think Melville reaffirmed the virtues of innocence in a naive yet sophisticated sense—don't you agree?"
    I let her go on. She was barely nineteen years old, but already she had developed the hardened facility of the pseudo-intellectual. She rattled off her ideas glibly, but it was all mechanical. Whenever I offered an insight, she faked a response: "Oh, yes, Kaiser. Yes, baby, that's deep. A platonic comprehension of Christianity—why didn't I see it before?"
    We talked for about an hour and then she said she had to go. She stood up and I laid a C-note on her.
    "Thanks, honey."
    "There's plenty more where that came from." "What are you trying to say?" I had piqued her curiosity. She sat down again. "Suppose I wanted to—have a party?" I said.
    "Like, what kind of party?"
    "Suppose I wanted Noam Chomsky explained to me by two girls?" "Oh, wow."
    "If you'd rather forget it . . ."
    "You'd have to speak with Flossie," she said. "It'd cost you."
    Now was the time to tighten the screws. I flashed my private-investigator's badge and informed her it was a bust.
    "What!"
    "I'm fuzz, sugar, and discussing Melville for money is an 802. You can do time." "You louse!"
    "Better come clean, baby. Unless you want to tell your story down at Alfred Kazin's office, and I don't think he'd be too happy to hear it."
    She began to cry. "Don't turn me in, Kaiser," she said. "I needed the money to complete my master's. I've been turned down for a grant. Twice. Oh, Christ."
    It all poured out—the whole story. Central Park West upbringing, Socialist summer camps, Brandeis. She was every dame you saw waiting in line at the Elgin or the Thalia, or penciling the words "Yes, very true" into the margin of some book on Kant. Only somewhere along the line she had made a wrong turn.
    "I needed cash. A girl friend said she knew a married guy whose wife wasn't very profound. He was into Blake. She couldn't hack it. I said sure, for a price I'd talk Blake with him. I was nervous at first. I faked a lot of it. He didn't care. My friend said there were others. Oh, I've been busted before. I got caught reading Commentary in a parked car, and I was once stopped and frisked at Tan-glewood. Once more and I'm a three-time loser."
    'Then take me to Flossie."
    She bit her lip and said, 'The Hunter College Book Store is a front." "Yes?"
    "Like those bookie joints that have barbershops outside for show. You'll see."
    I made a quick call to headquarters and then said to her, "Okay, sugar. You're off the hook. But don't leave town."
    She tilted her face up toward mine gratefully. "I can get you photographs of Dwight Macdonald reading," she said.
    "Some other time."
    I walked into the Hunter College Book Store. The salesman, a young man with sensitive eyes, came up to me. "Can I help you?" he said.
    "I'm looking for a special edition of Advertisements for Myself. 1 understand the author had several thousand gold-leaf copies printed up for friends."
    "I'll have to check," he said. "We have a WATS line to Mailer's house."
    I fixed him with a look. "Sherry sent me," I said.
    "Oh, in that case, go on back," he said. He pressed a button. A wall of books opened, and I walked like a lamb into that bustling pleasure palace known as Flossie's.
    Red flocked wallpaper and a Victorian