So fast it all happened that by the time the young woman’s inevitable scream leapt from her throat, more of the old man’s final repast had struck out and meshed itself brutally with her hair, leaving her looking like a cheap and bloodied medusa of the most vile kind. Her male friend, too, was not spared this last assault, a spray of masticated clams and doughy concretions of garlic bread peppering him from head to toe, stinging a thousand times at once and sending him reeling and retching to the fouled sidewalk where he’d stood. The young lady, though, did not lose the tasty pastry she and her boyfriend had so recently enjoyed. No, as he lay vomiting on the now slick and slimy pavement, she clutched her hands to her mouth, fingers folded down, and screamed at the wide puddle in the middle of the street that was all that remained of Horace J. Mitchell, the doer of doers.
Seventeen
Different Angels
He had come twice, and she three times. At least he believed so, but then who knew when it came to chicks? A moan, a groan, some shaking, and in her case a good dose of nails digging into the back of his head as though she feared both he and his tongue would up and run away before she reached her ‘moment of splendor’. But he hadn’t, and she had (or so it seemed), and now some minutes after their last go ‘round they lay in Jay’s bed, a sheen of sweat drying on their naked bodies and Christine Mellinger tracing little shapes on his bare stomach with her finger.
And Jay thinking. Thinking about Carrie. Wondering if she had ever faked. Wondering, yes, but somehow believing that she had not. Not because he was some master of the carnal arts, but because what they had shared in bed was...was different than what he had just done with the woman who lay next to him now. Deeper. More...right.
But that was over, and she was gone, and this was the way things were now. Real. Alive. Good. Yes, it had been good. Damn good. Felt good then, and still did now. Damn good. So forget Miss Carrie Stiles. Be gone with her. Good riddance.
“You want anything?”
Jay turned his face toward her, the Goddess of Eleven. Was Jude going to detest him for doing this? Was Bunker going to hate him for stealing his dream? Who knew? Who cared? Jude would have to live with it. And Bunker? Well, dreams came true for some...maybe other’s dreams as well. “No, I’m fine.”
“I have some more coke in my purse,” she told him.
“No, that’s okay,” he told her, sniffling right then as if on command. It had been his first time with the nose candy (he and Carrie had done some grass, which was okay, and once some mushrooms, which were not), snorted from her upturned pinkie nail soon after they’d come back to his place after dinner and drinks and dancing and, shit, a night that now seemed a blur. She’d hit, too, twice as much as him, and then they’d wrestled their way to the bedroom and out of their clothes.
“You have any wine?”
“Some Pinot. A nice swill from out Cali way.”
She scrunched her nose and shook her head against the pillow. “I’m in a white mood.”
“I’ll order a case of Chardonnay tomorrow,” Jay said, and she smiled.
“And Semillon?” she asked, pouting cutely, her glassy eyes sparkling manically.
“Anything you want...” And he left it at that, not knowing what to tag to the end of his words to her. Carrie had always been babe, or sweetie, or when they were feeling really cutesy, schweetie. But Christine Mellinger? What tag did she merit? Bunker would say Goddess. Jude would say slut. For now, Jay thought, he would just let what was said be said, with no endearments pasted to the end.
Her finger swirled up from his stomach and over his chest, playing through the curls of dark hair there. “I thought you’d be smooth.”
“You want me to shave my chest?” he asked, mostly jesting. Though she was no stranger to a razor he had learned. And the razor was no stranger to her, he thought with converse appropriateness.
“No.” She spread her fingers flat and combed through the modest amount of growth between his neck and navel. “I just remember looking at you at the club and thinking that you were...I don’t know...kind of
sleek
.” Her eyes gleamed as she said that, excitement and the fading coke buzz firing them. “Fast, you know. A mover.” She smiled and once more used just one finger on him, spinning a cyclone of curls midway between his nipples. “Smooth. I guess I thought you’d be smooth all over.”
God, she was good, Jay thought. Good talker, good lover, maybe good actress. But right then it just seemed good. So damn good.
He let her hand play with his chest hair a minute more before asking something. “When did you first notice me? I mean,
notice
me. Not just see me.”
She shrugged against the bedding. “I don’t know. That first night.”
“Which first night?” Jay asked, curious whether it had been before he’d started making a name for himself, or after. Though he had to admit that there was no way to know whether she’d be snowing him. If it could happen in bed with his head between her legs, why not in less intimate circumstances?
“The first night I went to Buffalo Kabuki’s,” she told him.
“You mean your first time there?” he probed, puzzled, thinking
That night?
The night the coins had danced. That had been her first time there, hadn’t it? None of them had seen her in there before then. Jeez, what a coincidence that would be.
Only, were there any coincidences any more?
“I didn’t even think you noticed me,” Jay said.
“I’m not quite as obvious checking people out as your friends are,” she explained. “But I noticed you.”
Why though? Why him? Why then? That night?
And then the possibility struck him, and he had learned not to ignore the possibilities. “Tell me, why did you come to BK’s that night? You’d never been there before, right?”
“No.”
“So why that night?”
“I don’t know. I was just leaving work, and walking to the subway, and you know that homeless guy down by the church? The one with the signs?”
Jay nodded, and managed to smile only a little. “Sure. I’ve seen him.”
“Well that day he must have been making a few bucks, because instead of the regular kind of things on his sign—you know, those weird things—well, that day he had an advertisement on there.”
“An advertisement,” Jay repeated, knowing two things: that she was wrong (that day his sign had said
Take Meat Out To The Ballgame
—this he remembered because it was the day after the Donzerly Light sign, and he had looked, and had thought how funny it was that for two days in a row the bum had made plays on baseball related things), and that she was probably right, as well.
Because
It means what it means
.
“Yeah,” she said, then giggled. “It said See Nips on Nips, and I thought that was, you know, kind of funny. And it said where, and I thought, what the heck.”
‘Nips on Nips’, Jay thought. Cute? Maybe. But not a chance in hell that would be on any billboard or bum’s sign anywhere in the city for more than a minute before someone from the ADL would be on the scene with a court order. Free speech? Yeah, right, sell that to the Japanese banks up the Street. It had not said that at all.
And it most certainly had. To her it had.
And to him? Some days later it had suggested in the most mild of ways that he should choose between his dream and his girl, and then that he should outright dump his girl, but really it had never said that at all. Cash ‘N Carry was all it said. But...
...it meant what it meant.
And now Carrie was gone. And Christine was here.
And the latter’s foot was rubbing slowly up and down his left leg.
“Do you believe in guardian angels?” Jay asked suddenly, a wisp of a grin tweaking his lips.
“I believe in the Blue Angels,” she replied. “Dated one of them once.”
“No,” he said, sliding right by her little joke. “Like someone watching over you? Making good things happen to you?”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Do you?”
He looked at her, admired her up and down. “I’m thinking maybe yes.”
She slid closer and kissed him, and the hand she had had on his chest slipped lower now, down to his stomach and south of that still, until she had him stirring in her luscious grip. “Ready for another go around, babe?”
He drew back from her. “Don’t call me that.”
She seemed perplexed. “Call you what? Babe?”
“Call me something else,” he told her, no want of discussion on the matter. “Okay?”
“Sure, sugar,” she said, acquiescing, gripping him firmer still as their bodies pressed to one another once more and their lips touched.
And there it stopped. Right there, with passion flaring once more and the phone on Jay’s side of the bed ringing.
“Let the machine get it,” she urged him as he pulled back. “Please.”
“One minute,” he promised her, but empty that assurance would be. He picked up the handset and put its chill form to his face. “Hello.”
“Jay? You awake?”
It was Steve, he could tell. And, yes, he was awake, but why in the hell was Steve? It was two in the goddamn morning, a Wednesday morning, and his buddy sounded as wound up as he had been right after that first suck of powder. “Yeah. What’s up? It’s almost—”
“Do you know where Jude is? I can’t get a hold of him. He’s not at home and...oh, man, he’s got to hear this.”
Jesus. Steve was wired over something. “Hear what?”
“Mitchell’s dead.”
Jay sat straight in bed, dragging his body abruptly away from Christine. “Dead?”
She sat up behind him. “Dead? Who’s dead?”
“Quiet,” he told her, then into the phone he said, “When?”
“Tonight. This morning. A while ago. I don’t...oh, man, can you believe this?”
“What happened?” Had that heart that was mostly lard by now finally given out, or had some clot in the knotted veins of his tree trunk legs broken loose and popped a vessel in his big fat head?
“He offed himself,” Steve said, and there was three breaths of silence on Jay’s end. “Did you hear me? You there, Jay?”
“How?”
“He jumped off his balcony! Man, can you believe that?!”
No, he couldn’t. And...
The V, a wink, and a nod.
...and yes he could.
But he did not want to. Did not want to because...because...
The fat bastard can ruin us
, Jude had said, standing right there. Right next to the bum. Close enough to be heard—but then that wasn’t a requirement, was it?
...weren’t there any coincidences anymore?
“I mean, I wished the Old Man dead,” Steve said, sounding ashamed over the inanimate wires that carried such emotions. “I mean, suing us and all, I wished some awful things. But this? Man, I didn’t want
this
.”
No, you didn’t
, Jay believed. But had someone else? Some different kind of angel?
“How did you find out, Steve?”
There was sniffling on the other end for a few seconds. “Jake Schurr called me. Remember him? He was in the next cubicle to me at S&M. He was burning the midnight oil at work with his account broker and one of the execs, going over something that Mitchell wanted done, I don’t know exactly what. He didn’t say. All he said was the Alonzo called the office in a panic saying that the Old Man had just jumped off his balcony. Jake said he was crying and saying that he was in the kitchen and the Old Man just walked right by him with this big grin on his face and went onto his balcony and jumped. God, can you believe this?”
After a moment Jay asked, “Grinning?”
“Yeah, grinning,” Steve confirmed, sounding somewhat spent now. “Can you believe it?”
“No,” Jay lied calmly. He could believe it, as much as he believed no longer in coincidences. Or certain angels.
“Oh, man,” Steve said, and Jay could practically see his friend’s head hanging and shaking.
“Keep trying to get hold of Jude,” Jay said, and he was already reaching for his pants where they lay on the floor next to the bed.
“I will. I will. Man, can you believe this?”
“Find Jude,” Jay told his somewhat shocky friend, then put the phone gently in the cradle as he stood and stepped into his pants.
“What is it?” Christine asked, having held her tongue as so instructed.
“Mitchell’s dead.”
“What?” She pulled her knees to her chest and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
Jay grabbed his shirt from the chair, and found his socks near his shoes.
“Jay...are you going somewhere?”
He pulled his socks on and stepped into his shoes, tucked his shirt in and decided to hell with the belt. He looked at her. “There’s a spare key on top of the fridge. If I’m not back by the time you’ve got to go to work, lock up.”
She watched him gather his own keys and his wallet, and take a coat from the closet. “Where are you going?”
“Angel hunting,” he told her, and then he was gone.
Eighteen
The Bridge
The taxi let Jay out in front of Trinity Church, and from where he alighted on the sidewalk he could see that the bum had left his spot. The upturned olive bucket was still there, as was his sign, leaning against the lamppost, whitewashed and ready for the next day’s message. But the Yuban can was gone. Gone into the night with—
There! Jay saw it. Saw him. Sign Guy, walking up Broadway, almost to Pine and heading north. Strolling casually along with something under his arm. The Yuban can. His take from the day—take being such an appropriate word, Jay thought (a thought he might have smiled in concert with not long ago, but not now, not this night, not ever again). Yes, it had to be the can under his arm, but where was he taking it? Home? Did the bum have a home? Jay wondered, the question never having struck him before. He certainly could afford one, considering his aforementioned take. And if he was heading for that place now, wouldn’t it be nice to catch him there? To be one up on him and know where it was he went home to at night? To confront him
there
?
Yes. Yes it would, and for that reason and in pursuit of that small triumph, Jay started off after the bum, crossing Broadway and hanging back in the shadows.