Kockroach (24 page)

But I’m done with the lying, I’m here to face it all head-on. It wasn’t just the last envelope what sent Champ scampering away, it was all them envelopes, taken together. He had seen
enough of what I had become in the land of money, the twisted creature you see before you now, without hope or reason, hating everything about his own self, without nothing to hold on to but nothing. Like I was when I set old Times Square on fire. Infected again.

I thought I had finally beaten him away in Chicago, I thought I was free of him for good. But this is what I didn’t yet know; in the land of money, Hubert prowls like a god. And in the service of the Boss, once again I was easy prey. But I’ve stopped fooling myself. There’s only one true prescription for the son of a bitch. And I just filled it.

See, the Boss won’t be letting me get away with it this time. This time he’s going to finish it once and for all. With the end of the story, it’s the end of me, too. But no weeping here, it’s also my last chance to save myself. I’m looking forward to the fireworks. They’ll burn away, finally, the leech on my soul.

So stop the tape and start to typing. Whatever’s coming to smite my soul when the story runs is a gift. I’ll open my arms to it like it’s a lover, tall and black with big teeth and raw scarred flesh and hands like soft leather mitts to wrap you up and keep you safe.

Goodbye, missy. So long.

Kaboom.

As Celia Singer
sewed the beads on the wedding dress, the delicate teardrops of crystal caught the morning light and sprinkled upon her a rainbow of promise.

Celia was arranging the beads in a pattern across the midriff, above the bunches of pleated silk at the top of the skirt and below the delicate sheet of lace designed to expose the swell of the breasts. It was an intricate and difficult job and Celia wore reading glasses low on her nose to be sure each stitch was exact. She could have had the seamstress do this part—these days she could have someone do everything for her and often did—but she was enjoying the task.

The wedding seemed to be happening around her as if conjured by a spell. It was being planned by planners, catered by caterers, the guest list was being compiled by high-priced political consultants. The ceremony and reception were being covered by the press as if it were the marriage of a prince instead of a politician, which was all part of a political strategy to turn candidate into celebrity. Jerry had hired hired-guns from the publicity departments of Hollywood studios, he had bought space in gossip columns coast to coast. The wedding was simply another leg of the marketing campaign. But it was more than that to Celia, this wedding,
and that was why she insisted on sewing the beads herself, stitch by careful stitch.

She couldn’t help but remember her mother in the same pose, glasses perched on her nose as she sewed in the parlor. In those days, Celia was always with a book, one Brontë or the other, Balzac, Flaubert, anything that made the librarian sniff. Sometimes, in the evenings, she would look up from the tumescent prose and see her mother sitting quietly, working slowly within the ambit of the lamp, and believe quite earnestly that her mother must be the most boring woman alive. For the whole of her life, she had felt as if she were fleeing the banal priorities her mother had tried to impose upon her. Yet now here she was, having made all her choices, in the same pose as her mother, peering through her reading glasses at the needle, the fabric, the thread.

Her feelings about her mother had changed markedly. Partly it was the conversion that happens to every daughter upon the death of her mother, the bleeding out of anger that accompanies the lowering of the coffin. But it was also a realization that came to her slowly in the past few years. Those long-ago nights in the parlor, her mother wasn’t simply sewing on sleeves, embroidering towels, darning socks, knitting scarves, her mother wasn’t simply manufacturing objects. She was knitting together the fabric of her family. And that’s what Celia felt she was doing now, as she fastened each bead in its proper place. Celia had shed the trappings of religion long ago, and no longer even pretended to the false piety that made life easier among polite folk, but still, this wedding had acquired for her a transcendent significance.

The familiar shuffle across the early morning hush, the familiar creak of the floorboards.

“It is Mr. Pimelia, mum.”

“Thank you, Chalmers,” said Celia without glancing up. “Send him in please.”

“Very good, mum.”

She lifted her face to him as he entered the wide formal living room and an unbidden smile brightened her countenance. The same jaunty stride, the same loud suit, the wiseacre’s half grin. He was unchanged since the first time she saw him in the Automat, except for the eyes. The desperate hope of the rain-soaked teenage hustler had been replaced by the weary sadness of a short, middle-aged man who had gotten more than he ever could have dreamed in this life and found it wasn’t enough. Poor Mite, she thought. It was part of all that desperate wanting, never to be satisfied.

“He’s not up yet,” said Celia.

“I figured as much,” said Mite as he picked an apple out of the bowl, tossed it, snatched it from the air, rubbed it on his sleeve. “But I thought it’d be better to get here early. Don’t want him waiting on me, not today.”

“I didn’t know you two had an appointment.”

“Not officially,” he said, falling into a chair and biting the apple all in one graceful movement, “but he’ll be wanting to see me, I knows that.”

“How’d it go yesterday? We were expecting you back.”

“It went a little long,” said Mite.

She lowered her chin, peered over her glasses. “Everything go as planned?”

“What could go wrong? A piece of birthday cake, it was. Except for the missy, who to tell you the truth wasn’t so bright. I had to spell out some things. What, was the Boss asking after me?”

She noticed the worry in his face. Mite never could hide his emotions. It was the one thing she found most annoying in him.

“No,” said Celia. “He was busy meeting with the former governor.”

“That stuck-up sumbitch?”

“He’s been very helpful.”

“You gots to watch out for a guy you can’t buy, Celia. You can’t never trust them. The boy up yet?”

“Already scrubbed and fed and off to school.”

Mite glanced at his apple. “Surprised there’s still a piece of fruit left. Glenda take care of him?”

“Hardly. She’s still in bed.”

“With all she’s putting away each night, that’s no surprise. But that dress is looking jimmy.”

“Thank you.” She pushed herself out of the chair, held the dress high so that the hem of the skirt barely brushed the floor. “Almost ready.”

“Smashing,” he said. “The hit of the evening, you ask me. I’d love to see it sashaying down the aisle, I would.”

“You will.”

“Maybe not, Celia. I might be busy that day.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you’ll be there. The governor’s going to be the best man.”

“Rockefeller?”

“Isn’t that thrilling?”

“He sure has come up in the world,” said Mite. “Rockefeller, I means.”

She sat down again, bunched the dress on her lap, looked carefully at Mite. That same worry in his face, and something else too. Bitterness? Yes, and also fear. Fear of whom? Whom else?

“Papers arrive?” he said.

“Not yet. Cassandra went out to get them. Can’t wait to see the headlines.”

“Oh, they’ll be something, they will.”

“I never much cared for Harrington,” said Celia, leaning back in her chair, turning her attention back to the beads. “He doesn’t know how to smile. That should be a fundamental requirement for being considered human, don’t you think?”

“The Boss gots no problem there.”

“I guess our friend Mr. Harrington will be smiling even less after this morning.”

“He won’t be the only one with an itch.”

She let out an exaggerated sigh of resignation as she continued to work. “What did you do, Mickey?”

“Only what I should have done afore all this started.”

“And what is that?”

“I told the missy everything.”

“About what?”

“About the Boss. From the beginning. From when I found him, to the times on Times Square, to the money he was shoveling to the president.”

She tried to hide her dismay. Still staring at the dress, she
said as calmly as she could manage, “Mickey, you shouldn’t have.”

“Sures I should. Isn’t that what I’ve become? Isn’t that what he’s made of me? A teller of tales? And who’s got a richer tale to tell, let me ask you, than the Boss?”

She leaned close to the fabric, positioned a bead exactly atop the mark on the pattern. She felt the fear rise in her, unsteadying her hand. There’s always something upsetting the balance, turning everything on its head. Just when you make your peace with all you’ve given up and think all is settled, it starts breaking apart. One more thing to take care of. She took a deep breath before plunging the needle.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be here when he finds out,” she said.

“Where else would I be?”

“While you’re away, I could talk to him. Calm him down.”

“I don’t wants him calm. If you’re gonna sing, you gots to face the music.”

She looked up, smiled at him. “You always do, don’t you? I’ll give you that. This is just like before.”

“Before what?”

“Big Johnny Callas. Remember how you stayed around even after you stiffed him his two hundred dollars?”

“That Greek meatball? Yeah, I remembers.”

“And then when you came back to Jerry after the explosion. It’s the same thing over again.”

Mite turned his head away. “Maybe so.”

“You know what it was that brought you back? You couldn’t leave him. None of us can. But you beat yourself up
about it when you should embrace it. You love him. You always have. You love him, we all do, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Celia, don’t be cracked. He’s just the Boss is all he is to me, a meal ticket.”

“You were true to your heart. You knew where you belonged. Right here with us.”

“But not no more, Celia. Not after what I done to his run for the Senate. I thought it was a crap idea from the start. There was no percentage in it, no profit. What was we going to do in a place like Washington, nobbing with the hobs?”

“It will be fabulous,” said Celia. “The balls, the intrigue.”

“It ain’t for me. And now it’s done.”

“Oh, Mickey, how long have you been with him? And you still don’t understand?”

“He won’t take it lying down.”

“Maybe not,” she said. She glanced up at him to be sure he was listening. “Why don’t you take a small vacation? Maybe even leave the country. I’ll have Cassandra make the arrangements. You can fly to San Diego, catch a bus to Ensenada.”

“Ensenada? Why would I go to Ensenada? With the water they got, I’ll be crapping out my brains.”

She smiled. “And that’s a problem how?”

“There ain’t nothing for me in Mexico.”

“Now who’s not facing the music? You can’t keep blaming Jerry for what happened, Mickey.”

“I’ll blame who the hell I want to blame.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you pay him a call?”

“Nope.”

“He owns a fishing boat. He takes the tourists out to catch tuna and sea bass.”

“I don’t care.”

“McGreevy set it up for him without him knowing it was set up.”

Mite looked up. “You think he doesn’t know?”

“I don’t know, Mickey. Maybe he does.”

“It don’t make no difference even so. I ain’t going down to Mexico and what’s in Mexico ain’t got nothing to do with what I done.”

“You know what it’s called? The boat?”

Before she could tell him, Cassandra entered the living room, striding forward in her heels, clutching a stack of newspapers. “Shocked is what I am,” she said in her Bronx screech. “Shocked.”

Celia couldn’t help but admire the woman who stood before her. Her hair had thinned over the years, but it was still high, her legs were still sturdy. She was older than Celia, and it showed on her face, but she had kept her figure with all its luxuriant curves, and her waist hadn’t yet thickened with age as had Celia’s.

“Something in the papers?” said Celia calmly.

Mite shrank back into his chair, readying himself for the inevitable.

“Who would have thought,” said Cassandra, a sly smile breaking out on her face, “that our nice Mr. Harrington was such a rotten tomato?”

Mite sat up. “Let me see them things,” he said, reaching out and snapping his fingers.

“I’m aghast is what I am, aghast,” said Cassandra as she tossed the papers in front of him, one by one, their headlines spinning in the air until each landed splat on the floor.

HARRINGTON CAUGHT
WITH PARK AVENUE LOVE NEST

SENATE SWINDLE,
HARRINGTON’S SORDID ROAD TO RICHES

HARRINGTON UNDER INVESTIGATION BY SEC

HARRINGTON DENIES BEATING WIFE

Mite picked through the papers, staring dumbly at the headlines, before grabbing one and opening it. He paged quickly through, looking for something specific. Finally, he looked up at Celia with an expression of disbelief on his face.

“There ain’t nothing in the missy’s rag about the Boss,” said Mite.

“Of course not,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“What did you think, M-M-Mite?” said the pale-faced McGreevy from the doorway. He was in his black-vested suit, he was leaning against the doorframe. “That we’d let you ruin everything?”

“The missy,” said Mite with a bite of anger in his voice. “I knowed there was something I didn’t like about her.”

“Bought and p-p-paid for, before ever we let you get close to her.”

“I should have seen it right off,” said Mite. “What with all the shrimp. What kind of reporter’s got shrimp in her suite?”

“Ours,” said McGreevy.

“You bastards set me up.”

“They were protecting you,” said Celia, her attention back on the dress. She tightened a thread, another bead slipped into place.

“They were protecting the Boss,” said Mite.

“Oh, sweetheart,” said Celia, “you still don’t understand. He doesn’t need our protection.”

“I’ll just tells someone else,” said Mite, standing.

“No you won’t,” said Jerry, now passing McGreevy as he strode into the room.

Behind him, the dour-faced Albert Gladden slunk beside McGreevy, forming a sort of wall of business, barring the door.

Jerry wore his sunglasses, a white silk ascot, a brown silk robe belted tight around his waist. He reached out and patted Cassandra’s neck. She bent her head toward his hand like a cat. He leaned over the chair where Celia sat with the wedding dress on her lap and kissed her on the lips. Celia’s hands gripped tightly the silk as she felt the rasp of his tongue in her mouth. Like someone was reaching inside and gently squeezing the breath out of her. It was always like that, even after all these years.

“I betrayed you,” said Mite. “I told her everything.”

“She thought you were insane,” said Jerry, still smiling at Celia.

“There was a tape.”

“I ate it,” said Jerry.

“I owes you, you bastard.”

“We owe each other, Mite.”

“I’m through.”

“No you’re not,” said Jerry, rising up again and turning toward Mite. “The two of us, we’ll never be through.”

Celia stared at her men as they went back and forth, Mite and Jerry, and still suffused as she was with the emotions of the kiss, she saw something she had never seen before. But it was now so clear, she didn’t understand how she could have missed it. It was in the connection, the rebellion, the unbreakable bond. Their relationship wasn’t just boss to employee, or like brother to brother, it was stronger. Jerry had become to Mite like a father. And that explained Mite’s twin needs to both please and destroy. And Jerry seemed to understand it too. It was why he always allowed Mite to stray, and why he always took him back. And it was part of what Jerry felt for Istvan too, and McGreevy, and Cassandra, and Norman, and even for herself, in a way that both appalled and thrilled her. He had become as a father to them all.