'Why haven't you written her back?' I asked him.
'Hey!' his girl friend screamed at us, and another taxi, turning downtown, blew its horn at us and dodged around us.
'Is Franny in New York, too?' Chipper Dove asked me.
In a fairy tale, you often don't know what the people want. Everything had changed. I knew I didn't know if Franny wanted to see Chipper Dove or not. I knew I never knew what was in the letters she'd written him.
'Yes, she's in the city,' I said cautiously. New York is a big place, I was thinking; this felt safe.
'Well, tell her I'd like to see her,' he said, and he started to move around me. 'Can't keep this girl waiting,' he whispered to me, conspiratorially; he actually winked at me. I caught him under the armpits and just picked him up; for a quarterback, he didn't weigh much. He didn't struggle, but he looked genuinely surprised at how easily I had lifted him. I wasn't sure what to do with him; I thought a minute -- or it must have seemed like a minute to Chipper Dove -- and then I put him back down. I simply placed him back in front of me in the middle of Seventh Avenue.
'Hey, you crazy guys!' his girl friend called; two cabs, appearing to be in a race with each other, passed on either side of us -- the drivers kept their hands on their horns for a long way, heading downtown.
'Tell me why you would like to see Franny,' I told Chipper Dove.
'You've been doing a little work with the weights, I guess,' Dove said.
'A little,' I admitted. 'Why do you want to see my sister?' I asked him.
'Well, to apologize -- among other things,' he mumbled, but I could never believe him; he had that ice-blue smile in his ice-blue eyes. He seemed only slightly intimidated by my muscles; he had an arrogance larger than most people's hearts and minds.
'You could have answered just one of her letters,' I told him. 'You could have apologized in writing, anytime.'
'Well,' he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot, like a quarterback settling himself, getting ready to receive the ball. 'Well, it's all so hard to say,' he said, and I almost killed him on the spot; I could take almost anything from him but sincerity -- hearing him sound genuine was almost too much to bear. I felt a need to hug him -- to hug him harder than I had hugged Arbeiter -- but fortunately for both of us, he changed his tone. He was getting impatient with me.
'Look,' he said. 'By the statute of limitations in this country, I'm clear -- short of murder. Rape is short of murder, in case you don't know.'
'Just short,' I said. Another cab almost killed us.
'Chipper!' his girl friend was screaming. 'Shall I get the police?'
'Look,' Dove said. 'Just tell Franny I'd be happy to see her -- that's all. Apparently,' he said, with the ice-blue in his eyes slipping into his voice, 'apparently she'd like to see me. I mean, she's written me enough.' He was almost complaining about it, I thought -- as if my sister's letters had been tedious for him!
'If you want to see her, you can tell her yourself,' I told him. 'Just leave a message for her -- leave the whole thing up to her: if she wants to see you. Leave a message at the Stanhope,' I said.
'The Stanhope?' he said. 'She's just passing through?'
'No, she lives there,' I said. 'We're a hotel family,' I told him. 'Remember?'
'Oh yes,' he laughed, and I could see him thinking that the Stanhope was a big step up from the Hotel New Hampshire -- from either Hotel New Hampshire, though he'd only known the first one. 'Well,' he said, 'so Franny lives at the Stanhope.'
'We own the Stanhope, now,' I told him. I have no idea why I lied, but I simply had to do something to him. He looked a little stunned, and that was at least a mildly pleasing moment; a green sports car came so close to him that his scarf was flapped by the sudden passing wind. His girl friend ventured out in Seventh Avenue again; she cautiously approached us.
'Chipper, please,' she said softly.
'Is that the only hotel you own?' Dove asked me, trying to be cool about it.
'We own half of Vienna,' I told him. 'The controlling half. The Stanhope is just the first of many -- in New York,' I told him. 'We're going to take over New York.'
'And tomorrow, the world?' he asked, that ice-blue lilt in his voice.
'Ask Franny all about it,' I said. 'I'll tell her she can expect to hear from you.' I had to walk away from him so I wouldn't hurt him, but I heard his girl friend ask him, 'Who's Franny?'
'My sister!' I called. 'Your friend raped her! He and two other guys gang-banged her!' I shouted. Neither Chipper Dove nor his girl friend laughed this time, and I left them in the middle of Seventh Avenue. If I'd heard the squeal of tires and brakes, and the thud of bodies making contact with metal, or with the pavement, I wouldn't have turned around. It was only when I recognized the pain in my private parts as actually belonging to me that I realized I had walked too far. I'd walked past 222 Central Park South -- I was wandering around Columbus Circle -- and I had to turn around and head east. When I saw Seventh Avenue again, I saw that Chipper Dove and his girl friend had gone. I even wondered, for a second, if I had only dreamed them.
I would have preferred to have dreamed them, I think. I was worried how Franny would handle it, how she might 'deal with it,' as Susie was always saying. I was worried about even mentioning to Franny that I had seen Chipper Dove. What would it mean to her, for example, if Dove never called? It seemed unfair -- that on the very evening of Franny's triumph, and mine, I had to meet her rapist and tell him where my sister lived. I knew I was out of my league, I was over my head -- I was back to zero, I had no idea what Franny wanted. I knew I needed some expert rape advice.
Frank was asleep; he was no rape expert, anyway. Father was also asleep (in the room I shared with him), and I looked at the Louisville Slugger on the floor by my father's bed and knew what Father's rape advice would be -- I knew that any rape advice from Father would involve swinging that bat. I woke Father up taking off my running shoes.