The Royal Family (9 page)

The following morning, when John arrived at the office (in the corner of his eye Irene’s car just beginning to pull away), a new doorman was there. They gazed at one another’s uniforms and passed without speaking; John had never even known the old doorman’s name. In the elevator beside him rode his plump secretary, Joy, whose spectacles goggled at the world from an unbeautiful but serene round face. She’d cut her hair short, and was wearing a blue dress. —Hi, Mr. Tyler, how are you? she began breathlessly; I’m a little harried but I did call him today . . .

Who are you talking about? said John. Say, is my tie straight?

Mr. Brady, she said.

What did he say, Joy?

He got the deposition, and he said to tell you that he’s very satisfied.

John smiled.

The elevator arrived. Pink-cheeked Joy scurried into her little cubicle, of which a cassette player and tapes took up a quarter, and John, passing by, glimpsed the baby seat for when she worked on weekends, the filing cabinet and the two desks crammed end to end. —Good morning, Mr. Rapp, he said.

Morning, John. Congratulations on getting Brady.

Oh, thanks, Mr. Rapp, laughed John, blushing with happiness.

Joy peeked out of her lair, her smile expressing full unity with Mr. Rapp’s
mazel tov.

The amber button buzzed on John’s desk phone. Lifting the receiver, he depressed that unnerving crystal of luminescence, and said: What is it now, Joy?

Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer would like to bring you to a private lunch, said Joy’s voice, a little arch at the knowledge that it bore imperious tidings.

When—today?

Mmm hmmm.

What time?

One-thirty.

Okay. Thank you, Joy, he said, hanging up. He made a note on his memo pad: Call Mom tonight. —He e-mailed a memo to Joy to do a search for Brady, Jonas A. on both the
LEXIS
and
NEXIS
databases and bring him hard copy. Returning to the Veblen brief he’d been preparing since yesterday, he pecked in three cunning additions to the boilerplate; he thought they’d lure an approving smile to Mr. Rapp’s face if he read them, which Mr. Singer certainly wouldn’t. At one-twenty-five his screen chimed. His stomach ached, and his fingers were feeling sweaty. He went to the men’s room, washed his face, and adjusted his tie.

Boccaccio’s, John? said Mr. Rapp, with a smile that was not the approving one; it was the smile that meant nothing. He had left his blazer in the inner office, as was his custom when not receiving clients, and his starched shirt was as white as the solid left behind after sodium has consummated its marriage with ethanol.

Sure, said John. I’m ready.

He felt that he could not eat anything. He did not know whether he was about to be rewarded or punished, and that uncertainty made him nauseous.

At Boccaccio’s, which was right across the street from a women’s shoe store swarming with golden high heels, black high heels, sandals with double or triple straps, sexy boots, silver snakeskin affairs that came up to the knee, they sat at one of those uncomfortably “intimate” tables so beloved by those office dictators whose hobby it is to gaze into one’s anxious face. He saw that the full partners were planning to order wine. John ordered a beer just to show them that he was his own man. They nodded indulgently.

What do we live for? declaimed old Mr. Singer in his best populist voice. Some fellows live for women. I live to eat. I’m not fat or anything, but I enjoy my food. Barton Rapp, now, there’s a man who lives for his operas and his wine rack.

(John had heard all this before.)

Mr. Singer leaned forward and fixed John with his eyes. —And what do
you
live for, John? he said.

I live for my work, replied John, trying not to be irritated.

Mr. Rapp frowned and waved a finger. —Not good enough! he said. Everybody works to live, but very few of us—not even full partners, John—can say the reverse. What about your wife? Don’t you live for her?

Let’s leave Irene out of this, said John as his wife’s unlovely face hung before him.

Have it your way, John, said Mr. Singer. Let’s put it like this:
What are you about?

John gulped at his beer and tried to smile.

Mr. Rapp tapped his wineglass with a musical sound. —When you ask who a person is, what he’s about, you’re really asking what his fetishes are.

I don’t have any fetishes, Mr. Rapp, just habits. Are you dissatisfied with my work?

A tough guy, purred Mr. Rapp with a loopy smile. We
like
that. On the contrary, John. You’re doing an excellent job.

I’ve got to take a leak, muttered Mr. Singer to himself. He got up and strode toward the back, his round bald dome accompanying him like something sacred—talk about the Music of the Spheres!

What are your fetishes, Mr. Rapp? said John in his most level voice.

You’ve got guts, John. There’s a fine line between guts and impertinence, and you’ve never crossed that line.

Thanks, Mr. Rapp, said John.

Are you ready to order, gentlemen? said the waiter.

I’m going to have the warm spinach salad with
chevre,
said Mr. Rapp. And I believe that’s all I’ll have. John?

I’ll take the same, said John. And another beer.

John, John, go ahead and eat! Don’t let me stop you! I’m an old man.

All right, said John. How’s the salmon today?

Excellent, sir, said the waiter. It’s probably the best thing on the menu. That garlic aioli is to die for.

Fine, said John. I’ll take the salmon.

I’d like the terra cotta chicken, please, said Mr. Singer, now returned. And a small green salad. Do you understand that concept? A
small
green salad.

Very good, sir, said the waiter. More wine?

I understand you’re going to be a father, said Mr. Rapp, blinking sentimentally. Congratulations, John. No, thank you. We have enough for now.

Thanks for the congratulations, said John, wondering who had told him about Irene’s
mistake. —It may be another false alarm. By the way, Mr. Budrys hasn’t gotten back to me yet with the amended tobacco brief.

Oh, he hasn’t? Well, you know we’re getting pretty close to deadline on that one, John.

I’ll lean on him, said John.

Well said! cried Mr. Rapp, clapping his hands. John, you’ll go far.

But you never did tell us what you’re about, said Mr. Singer. Or did I miss something when I peed?

I’m about nothing, said John. Exactly nothing.

Spoken like a full partner, chortled Mr. Singer.

We think you have the makings of a full partner, echoed Mr. Rapp.

Well, thanks, said John awkwardly.

That afternoon there had been no message from Brady and no other work, so Tyler went back to Larkin Street to observe yellow RX-7s and white Chevys emerge from the Queen’s parking garage, fouling the air. He watched them for a long time, writing their license plate numbers in the lines of his youngest surveillance report, emptily perceiving rather than learning, of which he was tired. The grin of light between a car’s belly and the shiny concrete floor widened as the little wheeled monster rolled closer. The buzzer sounded twice. Across the street, a dirty foot hung out of a dirty sleeping bag; a longbearded man sat upon the sidewalk, gazing pupillessly at another sleeper whose red underwear made his buttocks one with the square tail-lit backsides of cars. The buzzer sounded again. The car came out, its brilliant yellow eyes suddenly impoverished by the day. After that, a shaveskulled guy strung chain across the darkest tunnel. Watching the car go, Tyler spied a black-and-white crawling lazily by, bearing to the police station a silent young man with his chin on two fingers which hid behind the goatish beard; Tyler had seen him selling drugs sometimes on Jones Street. The police car went around the corner and out of the life of Tyler, who continued to sit in the yellow zone, dreaming of nothing with an almost Leninist confidence. Finally he cruised up to Union Square, rolled down his window, inched along in traffic (which, unlike most people, he loved; it gave him time to see things), and studied the giant palenesses of black and white glamor girls in the store windows. He counted the stripes on the awnings of hotdog stands. If he could simply get a name for the Queen, he’d be able to run an extended trace; then he’d surely snatch her social security number, her statewide criminal record, and some address, however worthless. He loved extended traces. It was a white, foggy afternoon crawling with obsequious light, which must have been why the darkness between buildings refused to be worshiped, let alone lovingly touched. He took a spin across the Bay Bridge. Behind him, the trunks of skyscrapers faded into fog regularly notched with greyness where the windows were. Irene had mentioned seeing plum blossoms in Berkeley or Oakland. He drove around for an hour or two, but didn’t spy any. At dusk he returned to San Francisco. The line at the toll booth wasn’t too bad; he struck the Mission in twenty minutes. He wondered what Brady was doing. Under what pretext could he call the man up? No news was not good news in Tyler’s occupation. Thanks to credit card debt, his savings account now trembled not far above zero—absolute zero, when
every last financial molecule falls still and silent—but he didn’t want to check his answering machine, which surely bore no offerings of work. Feeling blue, he parked in an alley just off Sixteenth and Valencia, zipped his jacket over the bulge in his left armpit, and wandered into one of those little cafés with excellent coffee and bad art on the walls. A name, a name, and then she’d become real. Maybe the bail bondsmen would know her—but he had to get a name first. There being no reason not to finish this wasted day as he’d begun it, he ordered a bottle of mineral water and sat himself down at a corner table to read the
Guardian
ads:
Women Egg Donors Needed!
—Redundant gender description, thought Tyler. The other patrons hunched at their own tables, reading.

On the bulletin board it said
Lesbian Housemate Wanted
and
SELF-DEFENSE FOR WOMEN
and
Piano Lessons
and
Hookers, Watch Out for These Men!
Tyler read this last. It was a warning about the Capp Street murders. Two prostitutes from that business district had wound up in dumpsters down by China Basin. A third had gotten away and given a description of the killers.

Well, he thought to himself, let’s go take a stroll down Capp Street.

It was a cool spring night in the Mission. Beyond his coffeehouse, where two girls were snuggling as their fingers pecked out destinations on the electronic highway, two men chatted yawning like sentinels, their hands on their heads, and past
them
an old lady was panhandling. The old lady had tears in her eyes, and she kept shifting her aching feet. Tyler suddenly thought to himself: She knows as I will never know how hard a sidewalk can be. —She asked Tyler for fifty cents, so on principle he gave her a quarter. A minute later she wandered into the coffeeshop, then back out again as he stood irresolute on that corner, wondering how he could drum up more business; and with no recognition she asked him for fifty cents. He’d asked her name, which was Diane, so he knew to say: Why,
hello,
Diane! and she jerked awake for a moment, then stumbled away.

His friend Roberta the stripper just happened to be passing with her shiny new bike, and cried out: Hi, Henry! I saw that! That old woman must be in Nirvana.

He knew that this was a sarcastic and even hateful remark because Roberta hated Buddhism. —No, he said earnestly. She’s desperate, so she can’t have reached Nirvana yet.

Hey, I’ve gotta go meet my friend Mollie up on Haight Street, said Roberta. You wanna come have coffee with us?

Oh, that’s really nice of you, Roberta. I just don’t have any energy tonight. —He was longing for Irene.

Are you depressed? I’m depressed. My boyfriend really used me. I fucked him because he was in a rock band but after that I fell in love. I would have married him. But then he turned out to be quite the sonofabitch.

I’m sorry to hear that, Roberta, he said.

You want to buy me coffee? Actually you don’t have to buy me anything. I have money.

You’re a nice person, Roberta, he said. I’m sorry you’re having a rough time.

So, how’s the job? You track down any interesting people? Hey, you can stay at my place if you want. You can sleep on the living room couch. My roommates are pretty cool about it.

Roberta, do you know anything about the Queen of the Whores?

I’m just a stripper, not a whore, remember? I mean, I believe in the sacred Whore-Goddess. Maybe that’s what the Queen is. You sure you don’t want to stay over?

I wish I could, but I have scabies, he lied.

Oh. Oh! And I’ve been holding your hand! Let me go wash my hands! Nothing personal, but I don’t want to get that again.

After Roberta left him he entered a clean and pleasant secondhand bookshop which played music from the time when he was young. He browsed through
The Patriarchy at Work
and
Difficult Women
and
Sisterhood Is Global.
There was a cat on the sofa. The pretty Asian girl who was shelving books smiled at him. He wanted to sit down and read for a while. Instead he bought a used Steinbeck paperback and strode out, past the singing panhandlers, the bright lavender hotel doorways that said
VACANCY
. He saw a tattoo parlor that he didn’t remember from before. —Of course he didn’t get down to the Mission that much. The Tenderloin was more his area. —At a phone booth he called his answering machine, discovering no message from Brady, who perhaps was busy enjoying the carnal knowledge of some cottonwood tree. Down on Mission Street the tall hooded bullies were yelling and the hard girls were bending over the sidewalk, saying: You dropped a rock. Where’s my rock, bitch?—Gonna fix that motherfucker up, save me a little bit, he heard a pimp say. He returned to the subway station’s cold night sun of radiating tiles, stood by the pay phone trying not to call Irene, picked up the phone, put it down, took a quarter out of his pocket, thought some more, and then walked away with the quarter in his hand. Capp Street was empty—strange, since the beginning of the month was long past, and the whores’ welfare checks long spent; maybe they were scared of the Capp Street killers. On the other hand, this evening had hardly progressed to lateness. Maybe it wasn’t strange at all. He strolled to Seventeenth and Eighteenth; still not seeing any oral or vaginal workers, he turned around and at once somebody began to follow him from the darkness just beyond Eighteenth, dodging between the mountainously laden garbage cans. He felt a prickle of fear. —I know the Queen, Tyler called over his shoulder. —The footsteps stopped. —Well, he thought to himself, what’s in a name?