JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home (14 page)

The guards were deferential and apologetic as they waited for word from above to let me pass. And the pale young man who escorted me through the hushed teak-paneled maze of the seventh floor— the managing partners’ floor— was overawed and tongue-tied. Only the sturdy Hispanic woman who led me through the double doors of the conference room and offered me coffee was unimpressed. I said yes to the coffee, and she left me alone.

It was a long high-ceilinged room, with doors at one end and a white marble fireplace at the other. The walls were mahogany panels below the chair rail and plaster above. The ceiling was heavy with molding. Two brass chandeliers hung gleaming above the mahogany oval of the conference table and were flawlessly reflected in its flawless surface. Sixteen green leather chairs surrounded the table, and a pair of matching leather sofas ran along one wall, beneath four tall windows. Along the opposite wall were the photographs.

They were portraits of individuals and groups, expensively mounted and gilt-framed— Klein & Sons partners down through the ages. For the first few decades, it was all blood family: Morton Klein, his younger brother Meyer, and their male offspring. As the firm grew and the Klein daughters married, sons-in-law began to appear in the pictures, and by the forties there were a couple of unrelated partners. By the sixties— Klein being rather ahead of its time— it was possible to spot some nonwhite faces in the crowd and even a few women. And the recent photos were of as diverse a group of executives as one could find anywhere on the Street. But evolution has its limits. Klein progeny and their spouses have always held the topmost spots and a controlling interest in the firm.

I walked along the wall until I found my father. He appeared only in the group portraits and only in the back— a pale distracted-looking figure, tall, with straight black hair, a widow’s peak, and an angular sharp-featured face— looks my sister Lauren and I had inherited, down to the green eyes. For a dozen years he’d occupied a spot my grandfather had made for him at Klein, and then one day he didn’t. He never explained why he stopped going to the office, and his in-laws never pressed.

The doors opened and the Hispanic woman returned, carrying a silver tray with a china coffee service on it. Behind her was a gray switch of wood, wearing a blue Chanel knockoff and patent-leather flats: Mrs. Konigsberg. Her cold eyes inspected the coffee service, shifted to me, and narrowed.

Her hair was battleship gray and lay in flat curls against her head. Her precise features were close on her face, and her skin was paper-white. The shoulders beneath her suit jacket were thin as wires, and her tiny hands were veined and spotted like dry leaves. She didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, and it had been many years since she’d been five feet tall. She perched half-glasses on her nose and approached.

“Good afternoon, Mr. March. Nice to see you again.” Her voice wasn’t quite a whisper, but it somehow encouraged restraint.

“Always a pleasure, Mrs. Konigsberg.” She examined me and the picture I’d been looking at. Her mouth became a sliver of disdain and she made a tiny clicking noise.

“Well, then … Mr. Tyne is on his way up. Is there anything else you require?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Konigsberg.”

She nodded. “Then I’ll just show him in.” And she did.

I haven’t gone on many job interviews— not the résumé, what’s-your-greatest-strength, where-do-you-want-to-be-in-five-years kind. Maybe half a dozen apathetic attempts all told while I was in college, maybe fewer. But despite my limited experience and my apathy, there was one bit of wisdom I did acquire about the process: the one about not showing up drunk. Not obviously drunk, anyway. Not extravagantly drunk. Not slurring-your-words, bumping-into-furniture, spilling-coffee, cackling-wildly, pissing-down-your-leg drunk. Not throwing-up-on-your-shoes drunk. Geoffrey Tyne had missed this lesson.

My first clue was the look on Mrs. K’s face as she ushered him into the room— as if someone had simultaneously goosed her and lifted her wallet. Tyne was a medium-sized doughy guy in his fifties, with shiny hair that looked twenty years younger than the rest of him. His face was heavy and flushed, and his small eyes jumped around beneath unkempt brows. His nose was shot with broken capillaries, and his mouth was full of gray teeth. He brushed the lapels of his suit jacket and tugged at his shirt cuffs, and Mrs. K backed away quickly.

My second clue came when he wrapped a moist hand around mine, breathed a gin cloud at my face, called me Mr. Marx, and commented that I didn’t look Jewish. It went downhill from there.

Tyne sat long enough to spill my coffee and tip the sugar bowl; then he rose, to careen around the room and babble. From what I could follow, his rantings had mainly to do with his assignments overseas— which, as he made it sound, had taken place sometime during the reign of Victoria, in locales he described as the back of beyond and the Fourth effing World. They were peppered with phrases like our little brown brothers, and they went on for a long twenty minutes. For his grand finale, Tyne turned a khaki color, ran trembling hands down his face, and puked on his brogues. Then he collapsed on one of the sofas. I’m not sure when he wet his pants.

I checked his pulse and loosened his tie and made sure that his airway was clear. Then I left quietly. I never asked a single question. Ned was in his office.

As offices of the second-in-command go, his was a modest affair, barely a thousand square feet. It was half-paneled in mahogany, like the conference room, and the upper walls were painted a pale yellow. To my left was a miniature version of the conference room table, with seating for six, and to my right, a living room: sofa and chairs upholstered in yellow silk, spindly end tables, brass lamps, and a few English landscapes on the walls. The long wall to my right was floor-to-ceiling shelves. One section, I knew, hid the door to a washroom, and another opened into a kitchenette. The desk was at the far end of the room by the big windows, a carved black reef in an ocean of yellow carpet. There was a console table beside it, covered with silver-framed photographs. Ned was on the phone when I came in. He turned around and a smile lit his square face.

Like most of my siblings, Ned favors the Kleins in his looks: wavy ginger hair, ruddy complexion, small blunt features. He’s approaching forty-five, though the running of Klein & Sons has put more miles than that on him. Behind his reading glasses, his pale eyes were lined and tired-looking, and there were new creases on his forehead and at the corners of his mouth. His stocky build had edged a little closer to fat. He put his hand over the telephone mouthpiece.

“Five minutes,” he whispered. He smoothed his tie down on his bright white shirt and made an affirmative noise into the phone. I wandered to the console table and looked at his photos.

It was not a collection of vanity shots, no pictures of Ned gripping and grinning with the great and near-great; that’s not his style. Rather, it was family. The largest photo showed a smiling woman sitting erect in a Napoleon armchair, with two small boys standing beside her. The woman was blond, blue-eyed, and hollow-cheeked, with the sort of finely crafted good looks you see a lot of on the Upper East Side, the sort that could be anything from thirty-five to fifty and are unmistakably rich. Her slender hands rested comfortably— rings gleaming— in her small lap, and her smile was cool and practiced: Ned’s wife, Janine.

The boys at her side were grade-school age and had full round-featured faces and thick ginger hair— plastered down for the occasion. They were dressed identically in blue blazers and white shirts, and with identically hideous madras ties around their necks. Their smiles were artificial and inert, but their eyes were full of wild scheming. Derek was the older one; his brother was Alec. I knew the look in my nephews’ eyes well, and I smiled to myself. I was willing to bet the photo session hadn’t lasted long after that shot.

Not all the pictures were posed. There were snapshots of the boys playing soccer in Central Park, of Janine on a chestnut mare, and of the boys with both parents atop a ski slope somewhere, leaning on their poles and squinting in the glare. And not all the photos were of Ned’s brood. There was a nice shot of Lauren and her husband, Keith, outside the laboratory building at Rockefeller University where Keith does arcane things with DNA. They stood against a brick wall, and orange leaves fell all around them. Next to that was a picture of my older sister, Liz, seated at the trading desk she runs for Klein & Sons. She was talking on the telephone, surrounded by monitors and keyboards and stacks of paper. Her thick blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her dark brows were drawn together, and she scowled menacingly at whoever was behind the camera. Beside her picture was another posed portrait, a man and a woman standing at the foot of a curving marble staircase. The man was slender and had the same wavy, gingery hair as Ned but more of it. His pointy features were crowded together on a narrow face that seemed on the verge of some rebuke. The woman beside him was skinny and pale, with odd wiry hair, and dark over-large eyes full of tension and envy. My older brother David and Stephanie, his wife. I worked my jaw around, to loosen it.

At the end of the table were two pictures I hadn’t seen in a long while. The smaller one was in color, though the color had faded over time. It was taken on a beach and showed a tanned fair-haired young man and a dark-haired boy pulling a dinghy out of the surf. The man was stocky and the boy was skinny and pale, and white foam swirled around their knees. The man was laughing, and muscles stood out in his arms and legs as he hauled on a dripping line; the boy gave the camera a surly stare as he tugged— halfheartedly, I recalled— at his own rope. Ned was barely twenty-four then, fresh from B-school and just starting work at Klein & Sons. I was no older than Billy Danes. I put the photo down and picked up the one next to it.

It was black-and-white and brittle-looking under the glass. It was of a man and woman, and they were very young. They were outdoors, walking hand-in-hand down stone steps that I knew were not far from here. The woman was small and compactly built and wore a light-colored skirt and a white sleeveless blouse. Her thick fair hair was bound behind her with a scarf. The man was tall and trim, and he wore dark trousers and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He had black hair, combed straight back, and his widow’s peak was pronounced. The woman’s face was full and pretty and there was nothing cold or reproachful in it. The man’s face was pale and angular and not at all remote. In fact, they were both smiling and their eyes were lit with … I’ve never been sure what. Happiness? Anticipation? The thrill of having kicked over all the traces? Whatever it was, they made it look glamorous and sexy and somehow conspiratorial, like they’d just swiped the Hope Diamond and were making their getaway in broad daylight. Actually, they were heading for a friend’s car, a ride to the airport, and a plane to Rome. And the job they had just pulled wasn’t a jewel heist but a City Hall wedding that neither of their families would learn about for several days to come. Her name was Elaine, his was Philip. My parents.

I heard Ned say good-bye and hang up the phone.

“It’s a great picture, isn’t it?” he said. “Janine found it a couple of weeks ago, tucked away in a drawer somewhere. You remember it?”

“I remember.”

“I didn’t. They look happy there, don’t they?” I nodded and put the picture down. Ned came around the desk, gripped my shoulder, and looked me over. He had to look up a few inches to do it. “You finished with Tyne already?” he said. “That was quick.”

“He was very forthcoming,” I said.

Ned smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s great. Well, have a drink and give me your read.” He went to the wall of shelves and pushed on something and a wet bar was revealed. He fixed a cranberry and club soda for me and poured a ginger ale for himself. He carried the glasses over and looked at me expectantly.

“Mostly I think that all his other interviews were scheduled before lunch,” I said. Ned looked puzzled, and I told him my story. His expression went from disbelief, to alarm, to disgust and settled finally in astonished amusement. He shook his head.

“You think he’s still in there?” he asked.

“I’m sure Mrs. K has had him carted away by now.”

“To sleep it off with the fishes, no doubt.” Ned laughed, and looked ten years younger when he did. “You sure you won’t reconsider, Johnny? It’s really a pretty good job, you know.” I held up my hands and shook my head.

“Mrs. K would never approve,” I said. Ned smiled and nodded and rose to refill his glass. He started to say something, but his phone chimed and Mrs. K’s disembodied voice filled the room.

“Your three o’clock is early, Mr. March. They’re in the lobby.”

Ned grimaced. “Shit,” he said softly. The lines deepened around his small mouth and he looked ten years older again. “Sorry to waste your time with this Tyne guy. I’ll make sure the other two are vetted better than he was.” I nodded. “We appreciate your help with this, Johnny— it’s great working with you on it.” I nodded again. “See you Saturday, right?”

“Saturday,” I said, and left.

The conference room doors were open and I looked inside. It was empty and, but for the faint bouquet of an air freshener, you’d never know that Tyne had been there. I passed Mrs. K’s desk on my way out. She made another clicking noise and eyed me warily.

8

I took a window seat at the Manifesto Diner, looking out on Eleventh Avenue and the trucks that rumbled by, northbound and south. Directly across the street was a block of low brick tenements with an adult video store, a locksmith, and a plumbing supply shop at sidewalk level. Diagonally across, to the south, was a corner of DeWitt Clinton Park. I saw some flowerless rosebushes and a pair of shirtless handball players bounding around on a concrete court. I’d ditched my jacket and tie, but I was still overdressed for the Manifesto and for the neighborhood.

Eleventh Avenue between 53rd and 54th streets is the north end of Clinton— or Hell’s Kitchen, as it used to be known. The neighborhood has a sordid and much romanticized past, full of grog houses, luckless sailors, and ravening street gangs. Its present is more prosaic. These days, Clinton is in the later stages of a remorseless gentrification, its old tenement buildings and factories giving way to residential high-rises and dramatic eateries, its population of working-class immigrants and aspiring actors squeezed ever tighter or squeezed out altogether. But despite the assault, the area’s gritty industrial roots are stubborn and still plain to see.