Authors: Jerome Charyn
“Robert, I’ll take your wife to lunch, I’ll sit with her in Mansions to get her out of your hair, but I don’t want you dumping people in my office. I’m not your private letter box.”
“It was innocent, Holden, I swear. The woman’s in trouble. She came home a little loony from Red Mike’s. She must have been scared shitless of Eddie and the Rat. Rex doesn’t know what to do with her. She’s been asking around for you, so I thought, why not? You’re her savior.”
“That’s not how she sees it. She was honeymooning with Mike.”
“It’s a fantasy, Holden. That week with the brothers wrecked her constitution.”
“You’re wrong. It was the hole I put in Mikey’s head.”
“What’s the difference? All her attention has gone to you. You don’t have to babysit. Just tolerate her for a while ... it’ll wear off. She’s a mother, for God’s sake. And a professional woman ... a sociologist.”
“Well, I don’t want to be studied by her, Robert.”
Holden left Infante’s office. The lawyer began to pick at his nails with a silver knife. And Holden returned to Fay. He noticed how curly her hair was, and the color of her eyes under the thick glass: gray like some goddess, he thought. But Oyá was black.
“I have important business,” Holden said. “A Cuban bandit is after me. He throws firebombs. He’s fucked an entire organization called La Familia ... forgive the bad language, but I’m irritable, Fay.”
She moved toward the door, and Holden couldn’t stop looking at all that curly hair. “You don’t have to go,” he said. “Sit ... we can have a conversation.”
He had no armchair in his office, or a sofa, and the most comfortable place was the pillow on his bed. He hadn’t mapped his office for seduction. Never even brought a woman here. He would sleep with Florinda Infante in some apartment she’d borrow from one of Mansions’ many kings. It troubled him that Robert didn’t seem to worry, as if Holden were a hired horse put out to service a mob lawyer’s wife. Shouldn’t the lawyer have been a little angry at Holden? And why did Infante have to find dates for Florinda? Couldn’t she have cuckolded him on her own? And now Holden was with another man’s wife. He sat cautiously on the bed with Fay, didn’t want to give her the idea that he was a permanent stud in Infante’s stable.
“Sidney, why are you sitting so far away? I wouldn’t dream of biting you ... I haven’t been well.”
He moved closer to her, and a strangeness fell off. She could have been part of the furniture, or an old friend.
“You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid ... am I awful?”
His skin was tingling, and Holden wondered if he had the flu. He followed the line of her long black stockings, from the kneecaps down. Why did the bitch feel familiar? He’d hardly ever been around a woman who wasn’t a model or a whore. He’d married a whore, really. Holden didn’t mind. He could chase clients off Andrushka’s back. She’d stuck to him in bed, like a twig. He couldn’t figure it out. Why should a mannequin from Green Bay have excited Holden and given him so much peace ... until she discovered Caravaggio and culture.
“Am I awful to bother you like this?”
“Not awful,” he said, wanting to touch her curly hair.
“I’ve changed, Sidney. I can’t bear Manhattan after the beach. I know it sounds weird. But I wasn’t naked all the time ... with Michael, I mean. He’d give me a raincoat to wear, and we’d explore the other bungalows.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes, in a way. But it wasn’t what you think. We were like children together. He’d grow serious and tell me, ‘I could never kiss a hostage, Miss Fay.’ It was all a game to Michael. And the game had its rules. My father-in-law hurt his people, and so he captured me. It was like a gambit in chess. And Michael was the black knight.”
“And what am I?”
She leaned into Holden’s arm, and it was as if a baby deer had bumped him with a horn. “Another black knight,” she said. “It’s because I was fond of Michael that I like you.”
“But I killed him.”
“That was only an accident.”
He pulled away from her. “It wasn’t an accident. I’d come to kill him. That was my job.”
“But you told me before that you might not have killed him if I hadn’t been naked.”
“It’s true. I loved Red Mike. And if we’d talked, if we’d argued it out, and you were in a dress, it’s conceivable I wouldn’t have killed him. But he’d have had to make me an offer. I wouldn’t have left the bungalow without you.”
She bumped him again. “Then it was like a game, with its own rules and regulations. Two black knights, and only one could win.”
“That’s the problem. I didn’t win. Mikey’s dead. And you were happier with him than you are now.”
“But I am happy ... with you.”
Holden laughed, and the stitching hurt his head. “Happy with me? Take a closer look. I got death on my face.”
“So did Michael.”
“And Eddie? And the Rat?”
“It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t have survived without Michael. Killing them was a kind of mercy.”
The bitch in the long black socks could have been a lawyer. She’d have danced around Infante in court, seduced judge and jury with all her clothes on. She was Oyá with a pale face.
He heard a funny, winding noise, a metallic shriek, and Holden jumped off the bed. He knew what that noise was all about. It was the factory’s supersonic smoke detectors. Aladdin had alarms and systems that were as sensitive and musical as the most fabulous violin. Because the company couldn’t afford a fire—Aladdin would lose the Paris show without Nick Tiel’s scribbles. Nick couldn’t recall the patterns that dropped out of his head. That’s why Holden guarded all his scribbles, and flew with the prelims to France.
He grabbed Fay and went to his closet, wrapped her in a cashmere coat. He could feel the waves of heat. The factory was burning. But it couldn’t have been an ordinary fire. The alarms would have located it, the sprinklers gone off, and half the company would have knocked on his door, standing in a pile of water. But the house wasn’t wet. Someone had sabotaged the sprinklers. Holden didn’t have to dig. He recognized the signature. A Cuban cocktail. Benzene and God knows what in a bottle. Huevo used the same recipe to destroy hundreds of betting parlors. There was never an explosion, nothing to warn Huevo’s victims. The artist would treat his bomb like a baby bottle, pack it in salt, bring it to a gentle boil, and you’d have a fire in your lap.
Holden shoved Fay under the coat and then he opened the door with his collar up to his eyes. The heat slapped his face. There was bedlam around him. Nick Tiel’s nailers ran like wild geese, clutching skins and dropping them.
“Forget the fucking minks,” Holden said. “The fire door, the fire door.”
Infante bumped into him. He wore a scarf around his ears. One end of it was on fire. Holden put his hands inside his coat, made himself a pair of mittens, and slapped at the fire. “Where’s Nick?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t see him.”
Holden left Fay with Infante and went into that storm. The nailing boards were on fire. The fixtures had begun to melt. Fluorescent bulbs popped over his head. Glass flew at him, but Holden had his hat. He could feel little bites in the turban.
He got to Nick’s door. It was locked from the inside.
“Nick, it’s me, Holden. Will you come out, or do I have to die waiting for you?”
The door opened. Nick Tiel was clutching his patterns and his clothing dummies. His eyes were terribly pale. He was in a fright. He couldn’t hold on to his entire inventory. Holden grabbed the dummies, with Nick’s designs pinned to them, said, “Come on,” and led Nick Tiel out of the fire.
Holden’s eyebrows had been seared. His face was a mask of smoke. He looked like a monkey in a Saville Row suit. But he got Nick to the far side of the fire door.
The fire chiefs had arrived. They wore coats down to their ankles. Holden had Infante handle them. He climbed down the stairs with Nick Tiel and Fay.
There was a crowd of Greeks on the sidewalk, like a bitter chorus. They stared at the dummies and enjoyed the prospect of Aladdin’s ruin. But Holden hadn’t lost a scribble in the fire. He found a telephone booth and called Harrington’s garage. The chauffeur arrived before the last fire truck. They delivered Nick Tiel to his penthouse on Sutton Place. Holden went upstairs with Nick, boiled a cup of soup for him, put the soup and soda crackers on a tray, and walked him out to the terrace.
“Holden, your head’s all black.”
“Drink the soup.”
He watched the tramway over Roosevelt Island, little cars in the sky, and stared out at the shores of Queens. “It’s fucking gorgeous ... I wouldn’t mind living here.”
“Holden, was it the Greeks? Did they set us on fire? But Infante was right there. And he owns those miserable bastards.”
“It wasn’t the Greeks.”
“Then I don’t get it.”
“Nobody was after your designs, Nick. Some Marielito’s been trying to kill me. The same guy who planted the chicken in my office. Huevo.”
“That maniac? What the hell did you do to Huevo?”
“I’m not sure. He thinks I stole a little girl from him.”
Nick had come out of his haze. He stared at Holden. “What little girl?”
“Remember the Parrot and his mistress? Well, I found a little girl under the table. I took her with me and lent her to Mrs. Howard.
“Just like that? Without telling me and the Swiss? You had instructions, Holden. You were supposed to mop up the Parrot and everything that belonged to him.”
“Fine, Nick. Then you strangle the little girl.”
“That’s not the issue. You put us in danger, Holden.”
“Could be, but I wouldn’t let the Swiss know about it, because you’ll have a civil war on your hands. The girl stays with me until I give her back.”
“Since when do you set our policies?”
“It’s not a policy, Nick. It’s just something I have to do ... I’m sorry. Take care of yourself.”
Holden went down to Harrington’s car. Fay shivered next to him. He sucked his teeth. She’d entered his life with that curly hair and those three killings in the bungalow. He knew he wouldn’t be taking her back to Rex.
H
E BROUGHT HER TO
his mattress pad in Chelsea. It was a risk. Because each person who came to his pad compromised him a little. Of course, he could lock it up and sneak into the storefront he had on White Street. But he’d begun to leave a trail.
She didn’t collapse on his couch. She changed his blackened bandages, and Holden had one more turban. She looked into cupboards, found his survival food. There was wine under the sink and seltzer in the fridge. She prepared a tuna casserole, and they sat on the couch together, nibbling with plates on their knees. The twig had never prepared a casserole in her life. She didn’t know how to cook. And Holden thought, this must be how it is to have an ordinary wife.
They hardly talked. Holden listened to her chew. He touched her hair. She smiled. He didn’t ask her about her children, or the climate at the Central Park Zoo. She could have left the mattress pad, put down her plate and disappeared. Holden wouldn’t have stopped her. But she’d crept inside his guts with her curly hair, and he didn’t want her to go.
He couldn’t remember how they’d started kissing. He hadn’t reached for her. But suddenly they were lying on the floor and Fay was undressed, like she’d been at the bungalow. And he said without thinking, “Are you comfortable, dear?” It wasn’t crazy of him, because she was his dear. He had to put a hole in Mikey’s head to find his proper darling. He’d met all his other women in Aladdin’s showroom, or at Muriel’s place. He’d looked at them, liked them, gone to bed—even married one of them, the twig, because her fragile toughness moved him, and how could he not love a seventeen-year-old named Andrushka? But his years of mourning her, missing Andrushka with a terrible grief, while she lived on the rue de Vaugirard, had dropped off Holden with the help of a .22 long. How could he explain it otherwise? He didn’t love Andrushka anymore.
He spent five days with his darling in the house. She cooked from Holden’s cans. They watched whatever Holden had on the VCR. She lived inside one of his bathrobes. He made love to her in the bathroom, while she braced her arms against the toilet seat. He watched the ripples in her back.
On the sixth day they ran out of spices, and she went down to the grocer in Holden’s overcoat and returned with pies, meat, and gallons of ice cream. And it was then that she declared: “Sidney, I’ll need some clothes.”
“We could buy them. I’ll get Harrington to drive us to Macy’s ...”
“Not new things. I’d like my clothes. I’ll take a cab uptown.”
“But Harrington could—”
“I’d rather not arrive in a limo. It’s simpler, darling. You’ll see.”
His hand was shaking. “When will you be back?”
“Oh, an hour or two, if I don’t have complications ...”
“What if the children start to cry?”
She laughed. “You’re worse than a husband. Tina’s at boarding school. And Adrianne’s in Arizona, visiting with a friend.”
She said goodbye, and he felt broken. He called Mrs. Howard. There was a scratch in his voice he couldn’t hide.
“Mrs. H., have people been asking for me?”
“They don’t have to ask. They know you’re with Abruzzi’s daughter-in-law. You and her are the sensation of the month.”
“You heard about the firebomb?”
“That’s all been fixed. Infante’s had Cuban carpenters around most of the week. Nick is back in the designing room.”
“And the skins? We must have lost a fortune in sables.”
“They’re insured. The company stands to make half a million on the fire. We’d love to see you, Holden. Barbara’s been asking about her dada. I didn’t have the heart to tell her there’s another woman in the case.”
“I’m not her dada. Anything new on Huevo?”
“Not a bump.”
“Well, I can’t let him go around dropping benzene torches outside my office. I’ll lose my reputation.”
“Edmundo has an army looking for his ass, and that hasn’t bothered Huevo at all.”
“You’re supposed to encourage me.”
“I am.”
He put down the phone, and he was still trembling. Fay’s absence felt like a bullet cruising around in his head, a .22 short that dug into his ear and started to chip against his skull. Holden sat like a wounded boy and waited.