Then having declared his poetry unworthy of discussion, she said, “I think we’ll go to the Stuarts’ this weekend.” She tossed the bowl and spoon in the sink. “They invited us for dinner.”
“You go. Me, I’m going away this weekend. To a writers’ retreat upstate.”
It was too much. “You mean you’re going
now
?”
She would make it sound as if he were abandoning his home-land in the manner of Odysseus. “For the weekend, that’s all.” Jimmy laughed and scooped ice cubes out of the bucket, mostly water by now, and dropped them in a glass. “Can I say anything that doesn’t astound you tonight?” He poured a couple of fingers of vodka in the glass.
“Most of what you say doesn’t astound me.” She held her hands in a floppy position as if they were broken at the wrists.
Good one, Lilith,
he thought, sadly. He explained about places such as Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. “This one, though, this particular retreat lets you come for a weekend, to see if you like it.”
“Why would you want to see if you
liked
it?”
“To decide if one of these writers’ colonies is what I want to do for six months or a year. That’s what I’ve been saying: I want to take time off to write.”
She quit her floppy-handed pose and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. She was wearing white cashmere and looked especially beautiful tonight. With that red hair.
Her beauty stung him, as if he had betrayed it in wanting to do anything that displeased her, in wanting anything but to go to the Stuarts’ this weekend simply because she wanted to. He moved across what seemed limitless space and wrapped his arms around her, stroked her hair, kissed her on the cheek. “Lily, you once were—”
My girl.
But she broke away before he could say it, not at all wanting to hear what she once was. “You’re springing all sorts of things on me and don’t expect me to be surprised?”
“Of course I do, except you’re not only surprised, you’re resentful—” This was going no place. “I’m sorry, but I
am
going.”
She wheeled around and stomped out of the kitchen.
(“I cannot hate you, for I loved you then.
The woods were golden then. There was a road . . .”)
Jimmy sighed and went to the room he called his office.
TWENTY-FIVE
T
he Chelsea Piers. Same movie-fog, movie-fog-horn ambience. Danny Zito—writer, artist, bon vivant—would come trailing out of it like a movie-mob guy.
Clive wondered about all that while he waited in the wet and seeping cold: the Godfather, Don-who’s-it—Corleone?—name like a kind of pasta. Gotti was real. But was it really like that? He wondered what, exactly, you had to do to be a made man. Did you get points for different things? So many for a body stuffed in a car trunk? Buried in the desert outside of Vegas? A gunning down in some spaghetti restaurant? (Extra points for the Four Seasons or Le Cirque?) Avoiding the slaughter of innocents? Not avoiding the slaughter of innocents? Drive-by shootings probably ranked really low—no panache, no style. Or was being “made” more to do with longevity? Was it loyalty that was important? Would he know the answers to all of these questions when Danny handed over the next hundred pages of opus number two? Probably not; probably it would be a treatise on ephemeral art.
Clive looked out over the Hudson, at the mist that clung to its surface like a river specter, ghosting across the water’s surface. What he should have done when he was young was to catch a freighter. He could still do it . . . Oh, get real. Nothing kills you quicker than romancing things. The trouble with those romantic ideas is that your mind always shoots straight to the payoff—to the black sands and turquoise water, and you walking the beach; to the exotic and the beautiful. The mind skips right over the day-to-day stuff it takes to get to the good parts. Buy the castle in Scotland. The mind sees you moving through the baronial splendor of the big rooms, fingering the lush fabrics of draperies and sofas, conveniently omitting the hassle of moving the sofas in and hanging up the drapes, or the dreary cold from inadequate fires, the clanging pipes, the awful plumbing, the hook-nosed gardener, and the need for many servants. In other words, the daily grind, the dreadful awareness of being You again, only now you’re You again and cold as Scott of the Antarctic.
And for you who abscond to backwoods cabins in Minnesota and Saskatchewan so that you can write that edgy memoir—are you going to set down the days and weeks each following one another until you collapse from the boredom of it all?
“Mr. Editor, yo!”
Clive jumped.
“Man, you were orbiting. What the hell are you smoking?”
“Hello, Danny. Marlboro Lights, a carnival of sounds and colors. I started again.” Clive dropped the cigarette, ground it with his heel, nodding at the white Dean & DeLuca bag Danny carried. “That where you do your grocery shopping?”
“Absolutely. Best produce in town.”
“Most expensive, that’s for sure.” The man had to be kidding. “You’re in the witness protection program, remember?”
Danny winced. “Oh, come on. Who’d expect one of them to turn up in Dean and DeLuca?”
“Well, hell, then, why don’t we meet in produce at Dean and DeLuca instead of this godforsaken pier?”
“Dean and DeLuca ain’t a place for a meet, Clive. That’s what you got piers for. Come on. And what’s so ‘godforsaken’ about it?” Danny swept his arm out. “You got your skateboarding, your hoops down there”—he pointed into the darkness—“and there’s two more galleries opening in that warehouse.” He nodded to a place over Clive’s shoulder.
Clive did not bother looking around. “Spare me Chelsea art. What about the, uh, contact, Danny?”
“Yeah, yeah. I got a name for you. Did you get those details worked out? What we talked about?” Danny folded a stick of gum into his mouth.
“Details?”
“What we talked about.”
Clive tried to call this up, which was hard with Danny’s damp brown eyes wide on him as eager as a Derby entrant a furlong from the finish. Then he remembered. “The hard-soft deal, the split? Sure. Fifty-five, forty-five, just what you asked for.”
Danny kept looking at him. “And—?”
“ ‘ And’?”
“Jacket art.”
“Oh, yeah. Jacket approval. No problem. It’s yours.”
“
And
—?”
Clive searched his mind but did he need one for this? “And . . . copy. You write your own copy?” That would be a break for Clive or a copy editor.
“Good. Here.” Danny smiled as he handed over the white bag. “I think you’re gonna like it if I do say so. It’s set in Vegas.”
“In Vegas? My, my. De Niro will be all over it. Come on, Danny, do you think that’s wise?” Wise? What in hell did wisdom have to do with any of this? “I mean, there was
Casino,
there was
Bugsy
—every mob story’s set in Vegas or New York.”
Danny shut his eyes, pained by such obtuseness. He shook his head slowly. “No, no. This is way different. This is totally different.”
Clive hated himself for asking, but he did. “How?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s like a comparison with the Romans. All of them Caesars. Julius is only one—”
“How does Julius get to Vegas?”
Danny snorted. “You never heard of Caesars Palace? The old world and the new. Just read it, you’ll get it. It’s myths. That Bellagio place, you know, with the fountains out front, hell, that’s a myth run wild. I got another hundred pages done.”
Myths. “I can hardly wait.” In some insane way, this was true.
“And when it comes to movie rights, I get cast approval. And director. That’s important. Lynch would be right for it. Maybe Christopher Nolan. As me I see Pacino or maybe Ray Liotta. Joe Pesci, I don’t think so. But that newer guy, what the hell’s his name . . . ?” Danny was chewing gum furiously now, thinking of who he wanted to play him.
“Good.” Clive smiled. “The name, Danny?”
Danny snapped his fingers. “Vince Vaughn.”
“Not the actor, Danny, the investigator.”
“Oh, yeah. You got a pencil? Oh, a Montblanc, excuse me.”
Clive had his pen out and gave Danny a sour look.
“Blasé Pascal, that’s P-a-s-c-a-l. Phone number—”
For a moment Clive was struck dumb. “Hold it. That’s a philosopher.”
“What philosopher?” Danny frowned.
“Blaise Pascal. He was a philosopher. You’ve heard of that famous wager—”
“He’s Vegas, too?”
Jesus!
“This name. What is it, a pseudonym?”
Danny shrugged, chewed his gum. “Fuck do I know? B-l-a-s-é P-a-s-c-a-l.”
“Danny, that’s ‘blah-
zay
’ you’re spelling. Meaning, ‘apathetic,’ ‘bored.’ ”
“Don’t blame me. Anyway, here’s the number.” He watched Clive write it down, then said, “So how’s Karl and Candy doing? They’re good, right?”
“I don’t know. They’re certainly on the job. But would you please explain something?” He was feeling pretty damned edgy. “Why do these guys insist on getting to know the target? Or mark or whatever you call him?”
Danny shrugged. “That’s how they operate.”
But Danny, Clive felt, was not attending to his answers; his mind was all on the Dean & DeLuca bag and Vince Vaughn and his hundred pages. Clive said, “I can’t imagine wanting to know anything about the person I was hired to gun down.”
“Me neither, but that’s us.” Danny shrugged his dark peacoat up around his shoulders. “You’ll get back to me on that”—a nod toward the manuscript—“real soon, okay?”
Clive nodded. Blah-zay Pascal.
TWENTY-SIX
A
rthur Mordred was eating a lemon crepe when Paul sat down at the table in the same espresso-cappuccino café. Paul had nearly missed him again, even though he’d seen him in here before. What was it with this guy? How did he manage to blend to the point of evaporation, like the steam coming off the espresso machine?
“So, Paul,” Arthur said, “we meet again.”
“I’m curious. Sammy says you can’t stand the telephone for, ah, business arrangements.”
“True. They’re too easy to tap. I assume mine is.”
“But isn’t it more dangerous to be meeting in public places?”
“No.”
Paul waited. No explanation. He sighed. “I wanted to tell you that Ned Isaly is going to Pittsburgh tomorrow.” Paul consulted a page of his small notebook. “In the morning on American Airlines.”
“I know, 204. I got myself on the same flight.”
Paul’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you—”
A labored sigh was Arthur’s response. “Because I was in the travel agent’s at the same time. I
am
supposed to be following him. Though why anybody needs a travel agent to get to Pittsburgh, I ask myself. This guy’s the head-in-the-clouds type.”
“Just keep him in view, that’s all.”
His chin resting in his hand, Arthur made an
ummm
sound, as if he’d tasted something rich and sweet. “I love Pittsburgh, always have. My mother was born there. A gem of a woman, dead now, God rest her.” He polished off another bit of the crepe. “I can do this quickly if you’re in a hurry.”
Paul waved both his hands as if clearing the space between them of smoke. “You don’t remember what I
said
last time? Listen to me: remember that you’re not supposed to shoot him; you’re supposed to keep anyone
else
from shooting him.”
Arthur looked at him for a blank moment, then squinched his eyes shut. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry, I must’ve been thinking about someone else.” He forked up a piece of his lemon crepe.
“Wait a minute!” Paul was beginning to panic. “You’re saying you
forgot
? You
forgot
what you’re supposed to do?”
Arthur pulled a paper napkin from the aluminum holder and touched his mouth with it. “Paul, you’re much too excitable. But then I guess that’s because you’re a writer. You artistic people do seem to be high strung.”
Paul glared. Then whispered, “Look, how do I know you won’t forget again? Jesus Christ, if you can forget
once
—”
“Because I won’t.” Arthur grinned. “Never lost a client yet!” Arthur laughed, appreciating the double entendre.
Paul realized he couldn’t pull Arthur off the job at this point.
The white heat of Pittsburgh was coming up like the sun over the horizon.
TWENTY-SEVEN
C
live sat behind his desk, hands tented before his face, waiting for Pascal. He was afraid he was starting something he couldn’t stop, like a runaway train. Correction: he had
already
started something. What he was trying to do now was slow it down.
Pascal’s secretary—he hadn’t talked to Pascal himself—hadn’t sounded smart, exactly, but she’d been perfectly polite. “Yessir, I was to tell you Tuesday at three P.M. if it suits your convenience.” The voice grew even more nasal when she got off phrases like “suits your convenience.” Clive pictured a soft pillowy-breasted blonde wearing something that showed her cleavage. She’d be chewing gum that she cracked or blew bubbles with.
He shook his head to clear it. Had he fallen victim to such stereotyping because of this fucking Dwight Staines manuscript?
StandOff.
Clive wished Mr. Staines had been as parsimonious with the content as he had been with the title. The title promised all sorts of brevity, conciseness, and crisp prose. But no, the damned thing was six hundred pages long (a number that would be mercifully shortened in print) and the prose as turgid as ever.
StandOff
still sat in the same place atop his desk. Seventy-five pages was as far as he’d gotten. What he’d probably do would be to skip a couple of hundred pages and find something in the middle to comment on and editorialize over to keep Staines thinking he was really being edited. He’d already forgotten what was in the seventy-five pages he’d read. He actually did the exercise of setting his mind to remembering. All he could dredge up was that female on the train—Blanche? Belle?—and the only reason he remembered her was because she was irrelevant, even at that early stage of the character’s appearance.