Green Ice (4 page)

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s in her sworn statement.”

“Sodomy?”

“In this state sodomy includes every sex act except straight old-fashioned. She claims you wanted her to indulge orally.”

How twisted around, Wiley thought. “What does she want?”

She wanted the apartment on Central Park West, which was a five-room, $60,000 cooperative with $20,000 equity. He was to continue making the mortgage payments and paying the monthly maintenance charges for five years. She wanted all the furnishings. She wanted the car, which was only five months from being paid for. She wanted $25,000 cash. She wanted him to pay for any charges she had made as his wife up through October 1, rather than only to August 1, the date when he had notified the stores. She had hurried out to a grudgeful, greedy shopping binge an hour after he’d left. At Bendel’s, Bergdorf’s, Altman’s, all over. She also wanted him to pay for the weekly visit to her $60-per-session psychiatrist, for a year.

Wiley could have the dog.

He was short of breath, that angry.

“Settle,” the divorce lawyer advised. “It’ll be cheaper in the long run.”

One thing Wiley had never been impetuous about was women. A number of times over the years he’d been close to marriage, and often he looked back on a couple of those times with regret. Now what he’d been afraid would happen had happened. Nevertheless, as much as he had grown to despise Jennifer, he didn’t blame her as much as he blamed himself. His age had had something to do with it. And that good sex out in the open on Nantucket, combined almost immediately with the confederate battle of the rats.

“Okay,” he told the lawyer, “I agree to all but one thing—she keeps the dog.” Wiley had always disliked the dog, and she knew it. A slobbering Kerry Blue with a miserable disposition that was continually curling up at his feet and farting.

“I have the papers ready for you to sign. I’ll send them over.” Before clicking off, the lawyer remembered one more thing: Jennifer wanted Wiley to take care of all legal fees.

Within a half hour a messenger arrived with the papers, and Wiley thought about signing them “Nelson Rockefeller.” But then he reasoned that in another way he might actually be getting off easy, just in time, before he cashed in on his pinch-of-the-old-homeland gimmick and she wanted a million.

Good-bye, Jennifer.

Eleven o’clock.

The coffee wagon came around. Wiley bought a black in a styrofoam cup. And a French cruller that was sweet and greasy. He stood at the window blowing on the coffee. His view was west across Third Avenue. It had snowed two inches the night before, and the cloud ceiling was still low, gray. The fifty- and sixty-story office buildings over on Madison and Fifth were out of sight. There was mist being blown around the Waldorf Towers a few blocks away.

At that moment it seemed as if something passed before Wiley’s eyes, no more than a single flicker that interrupted his gaze for a fraction of a second. A reflection on the window glass, he decided. What else could it have been?

A few minutes later, Miss Kerby came in and told him, “Mr. Endicott jumped off the roof.”

Endicott. Chairman of the Board, the man that chauffeur and limousine waited for double-parked out front every afternoon. The man who made the important pitches, the crucial presentations, who pacified the restless clients. The man who made the most, who gave the Christmas bonuses. He couldn’t have been more than sixty-five, must have had everything to live for. How could he do it? Forty-seven floors. Jesus.

That was what Wiley had seen at the window. Endicott on his way down.

Sirens.

Why the rush?

Wiley heard someone out in the corridor say: “He didn’t leave a note or anything.” And someone else said, with some spite: “Maybe he was pushed.”

Wiley kept picturing Endicott going off the edge.

He closed the door. Tried to think of anything else. He even took back some of that work from the outgoing tray. He was supposed to meet Codd at The Four Seasons at twelve-thirty. He now had the suicide as a legitimate excuse. But he might as well go. Codd was a bore, one of the clients’ brand managers who could ruin a good marketing program with his improvements. Every day someone took Codd to a $50 lunch. A waste of $13,000 a year. Codd liked going to The Four Seasons. Last time Wiley had done the duty Codd had drunk so much before, during, and after, that on the way back to the office he’d thrown up all over some flowers on the sidewalk in front of a small florist shop on Lexington. It had cost an extra $50 that Wiley had difficulty explaining on his expense sheet.

Five minutes to twelve.

The mailroom boy knocked and came in. It was his second run for the day. His first had been interoffice correspondence, this was regular mail. He dropped several letters into Wiley’s incoming tray. Among the normal junk mail, one letter stood out. From the United States Treasury Department Customs Service.

Dear Sir:

In reference to your shipments via Transoceanic Service, bills of lading nos. 19753 through 19769. Please be advised that you are in violation of Section 76, Title 8, U.S. Code.

By order of the Imports Compliance Division you are hereby notified that this office has confiscated and disposed of the above-mentioned shipments. A penalty of $25.00 per container is due immediately. You may pay by certified check or money order. Personal checks are not acceptable. Unless the amount due, $425.00, is received by this office within 30 days of receipt of this letter, further penalties will be assessed.

Respectfully,

John W. Gallwise

Director

New York Seaport Area

Wiley couldn’t phone fast enough. He finally got someone at the Imports Compliance Division who knew what Section 76, Title 8 was. It had to do with preventing possibly contaminated material or substances from entering this country. The trouble with foreign soil was it might contain anthrax spores, among other things.

Wiley was so stunned he even said thank you before hanging up. He got up, and before he even realized he was standing, he had his topcoat on. He went out, down the corridor to the elevator, where he said hello in return to someone’s hello, although everyone, everything now seemed unfamiliar to him.

The elevator was packed. His toe got stepped on and his back got poked. When the doors parted, he didn’t react with typical city urgency, was pressed from behind, then shoved roughly out into the lobby. He stood there, got bumped like an obstacle, and then almost carried along by the stream of hurry to and through the doors to the outside. A crowd out there was spending part of their lunchtime getting a look at the spot on the sidewalk where Endicott had hit. The body had been taken away, but as yet no one had bothered to clean up the blood. After a couple hours of being walked on, it wouldn’t show. One woman was relating how Endicott had just missed her, by no more than a foot. Proved it with reddish splatters on her panty hose.

All this brought Wiley partially back to reality. At least, he thought, he wasn’t dead. He went south to the corner of Third and Fifty-fourth, stepped off the curb without looking, and went ankle-deep in slush with one foot and to the same depth with the other in slush mixed with dog turds. He crossed over. A fast taxi went by close behind, splashing slush up the back of his trouser legs and coat. Wiley just took it. He read store signs as he walked.

10,000 O
RIGINAL
O
IL
P
AINTINGS

from
$5.00 E
ACH

The
from
was so small it wasn’t readable more than a yard away.

L
EASE
E
XPIRED—

E
VERYTHING
M
UST
G
O
!

That clothing store had been expiring for two years.

Wiley continued walking south to Fifty-third. His head was clearing now, but everything around seemed accelerated.

What a morning. He’d been blackmailed by a crazy, greedy wife, witnessed the middle of a suicide, had millions taken practically right out of his hands by some tight-assed customs official, and had stepped in cold wet shit.

At the corner of Third and Fifty-second he was supposed to cross over. The Four Seasons was only a block and a half away, between Park and Lexington. But, at that point, his legs refused to cooperate. His mind said he should go have lunch with Codd, drink a lot of good wine and order Strasbourg
foie gras
at fifteen dollars for a starter. However, there he was, walking away in the opposite direction, headed for Second Avenue.

He let himself believe he didn’t really know where his legs were taking him. Up Second to Fifty-fifth, to where he’d been temporarily living for six months. Overpriced apartment 10-G, next door to the 10-F overpriced call girl.

Wiley unlocked the three different locks on his door and went in. The place hadn’t been cleaned or even straightened in four days. His maid’s back was bothering her, which probably really meant she’d hit the numbers.

He undressed, took everthing off. Turned on the lamp, drew the drapes, pushed a table and a chair aside, removed the lampshade. The bare two-hundred-watt bulb produced a shadow of the bare him on the wall. He went right into some footwork, sidestepping, shuffling, skipping, mixing it up. He added some weaving and bobbing, feints with his head and shoulders and hands. Then he started throwing lefts and rights. Jab with the left, jab, jab setting up the right hook. Combinations, left hook, right hook, left cross, uppercuts. He went full out for fifteen minutes, was sweating, gasping for breath. For nearly another fifteen he went on hitting at nothing.

It didn’t work. Not this time.

While he was cooling off with a beer and having two consecutive cigarettes, he thought about what he might do. While in the shower, he decided definitely.

He packed quickly, but had more clothes than he had luggage for. Left out all the business suits, ties, and shoes. He felt lighter when he closed the closet door on them.

By the time he was dressed it was two-forty.

He went out and hailed a cab to the bank, got there just before three. He withdrew everything from both his checking and savings. Twelve thousand four hundred and some he’d intended to use as a cushion while he was getting his dirt-in-a-disk gimmick under way.

Now it was his fuck-you money.

Fuck you, Jennifer.

He took it in brand-new hundreds. Didn’t have the patience to buy traveler’s checks. For precaution he noted the serial number of the first bill was F20011812E. Easy to remember—2001, the Kubrick film; 1812, War of; and the F and the E for Fuck Everything. He riffled the bills, saw they were in a series; the last bill was F20011936E.

Another cab.

“What time’s your flight?”

He told the cabby five o’clock.

“What airline?”

He had no idea.

“Overseas or domestic?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You have to check in an hour ahead when you’re going overseas.”

“Just get me there.”

Thirty minutes later he was nearing Kennedy. There were the cargo areas and the service hangars and the signs in sequence over the parkway that gave the turnoffs to various airlines designated by color and number. Green 1, Blue 2, Red 3, Orange 4.

“What airline you want?” The cabby was irritated.

Wiley almost said he didn’t know, but told him, “Keep going.”

He let Green 1 and its list of airlines go by.

Blue 2 coming up, offering Japan Air Lines, Iberia, Alitalia, Air India, Lufthansa, Aeromexico.

“Turn here!” Wiley shouted.

The cabby just made it.

Wiley had taken two years of Spanish to get into college and two years of it to get out. Besides, although he didn’t believe anyone could live anywhere on five dollars a day, maybe he could on ten dollars a day in Mexico. At that rate he’d have nearly four years coming.

3

Wiley was in First Class.

It wasn’t worth fifty dollars more, but there were no seats available in Economy. The next flight wasn’t till the next morning. He didn’t want to wait, retreat, even for that long.

So First Class it was. Champagne and plenty of leg room. Since takeoff he’d been trying to get used to the idea of his new direction. He was displaced, but also liberated. Perhaps it was the champagne on a lunchless stomach, but every once in a while he felt somewhat giddy, close to laughing.

Another long sip of Piper-Heidseick. He held it in his mouth, swished it, and let it fizzle and burn his gums. He was being offered an assortment of canapés. He chose the caviar, several. Might as well get his money’s worth. He remembered an article he’d read a while back in
The New York Times
—an interview with a man celebrating his hundredth birthday, who attributed his longevity to sloth. The oldster claimed ambition was a killer; he had never done more than just enough to get by. One hundred years.

For once in your life you’re really going to enjoy life, Wiley promised himself.

He was being asked about dinner by the stewardess: broiled squab or filet mignon or double lamb chops
noisette
?

“Some of each,” Wiley said.

Fine with her, she kept right on smiling.

Just before dinner the woman seated next to Wiley struck up a conversation. They had exchanged perfunctory fellow-passenger smiles on first sight, but since then Wiley had taken little notice of her.

She was a time-fighter, losing the battle, of course, but prolonging it at any price. There was that sort of self-pampered expensiveness about her. Ten years ago she had been thirty-eight trying to appear twenty-nine. Now she would settle for thirty-eight.

“Do you spend much time in Mexico?” was her opener.

“Acapulco,” Wiley said. He’d been there once.

“We used to like it there. My husband calls it Alcohol-puka.” She laughed, showing perfect caps and gold crowns. “That’s my husband.” She indicated with her chin a man across the aisle two seats forward, having a Scotch on the rocks and looking his age.