Free Shark Infested Custard by Charles Willeford Page A

socks, and white alligator-grained Ballys, he looked like a friendly giant.
           "How do you like the suit?" he said. "Coat and trousers, four hundred bucks. If it wasn't for the expense account, I couldn't have afforded a suit like this."
           "You're really pushing the IRS to the wall," I said.
           "Not at all. The new suit comes under the allowance for uniforms, and a man has to dress for his job. If I have to date these women, in the pursuit of my investigations, I have to make myself attractive. Right?"
           "What's the girl's name?"
           He looked at a slip of paper, and grinned. "Shirley Weinstein."
           I laughed. "That sounds like a nice Catholic girl."
           "I don't give a damn," he said. "She might even be a Catholic, for all we know A lot of people think my name is Jewish, you know. Dolman sounds Jewish, if you don't know any better. But no one would make that mistake with my old man, especially on St. Patrick's Day when he used to go around town wearing an orange tie and looking for trouble."
           "Where does she live?"
           "Miami Beach. Where else? In the Cresciente condominium on Belle Isle."
           I whistled. "Those apartments start at a hundred thousand, and that's for a one-bedroom, with one-and-a-half baths. I've seen the ads."
           "What's the easiest way to get there?"
           "The Venetian Causeway is the quickest, I think. Another short one?"
           "I'd better not. What are you doing tonight?"
           "I thought I'd call Eddie. Maybe we can get together for some pool at the White Shark. If he can't get away, I'll probably take in a flick. But report in when you get back. I'd like to know how it goes."
           I called Eddie, but he was flying to Chicago at eleven p.m. and couldn't drink He said he'd call me when he got back. This was his last flight for the month, and then he would have at least three days off.
           After hanging up, I found myself envying Larry. It was such a strange and formal way to meet a woman it was bound to be interesting. I didn't envy him the girl—Shirley Weinstein—I could pretty well imagine what she would be like, but the formality of the idea was attractive.
           Women were not a problem for me. I could telephone two girls I knew in Hialeah, and if they were home, I could drive over and have a three-way orgy. There were a dozen names or more in my book, and half of these girls, if they had a date, would break it to go out with me if I called and asked them. Or, if I wanted some stranger, I could cruise around and pick up a new broad within an hour or so.
           But lately, it seemed, the women I screwed were all alike, as if they were cut out of the same batch of cookie dough. The stewardae were alike, and practically interchangeable. Their apartments looked as if they were all furnished by the same decorator. The clear plastic air-filled chair, the Budweiser bottle pillow, the 'Rolling Stone'' Mark Spitz poster (the one with Spitz lifting his trunks to reveal his pubic hair), the bottle of Taaka vodka, the tall stack of plastic glasses on the Kentone coffee table, the Port-au-Prince voodoo doll on the pillow, and the bed made up with garish Peter Max sheets—never with a bedspread—and the fresh uniform; always a clean, fresh uniform in a plasticene bag just back from the cleaners, hanging on a black wire hanger on the closet door; never inside the closet. Only the color of their eyes, hair and uniform was different. After a while, a few months back, while I was on my stewardess kick—with one leading me into another as I met the roommate, and she moved, and then I met 'her'' new roommate, who introduced me to her best friend, and then onto the next—they all blurred together.
           They were even the same in bed, as if they had attended the same sex classes and had to pass an examination on 'The Sensuous