Paradise Man (22 page)

“Don’t exaggerate your bargaining position,” Schatz said. “You have the paper, but we still have Nick.”

“Try him,” Holden said. “See if he can sketch a cuff.”

“A temporary crisis,” Schatz said. “Nothing more.”

“How temporary is temporary?”

“We’d rather not get into that,” Schatz said. “We’ll give you half a million for all the paper you have on hand.”

“Half a million? When your empire is already rotting without Nick. You’re a cheapskate, Swiss.”

“All right, we won’t haggle,” Schatz said. “Five million for the sleeves and the cuffs. Is that fair?”

“Yes, Swiss. It’s a sweet price. But you can’t have the paper. You shouldn’t have gotten Mrs. Howard killed. A chauffeur is one thing. But she was family. And that I can’t forgive.”

“He’s suicidal,” Infante said.

“No, he’s like his dad,” Schatz said. “Spirited and dumb ... the paper’s useless to you, Holden. You can’t sell it. We’d murder whoever bought it from you. Everybody knows that.”

“I don’t intend to sell. I’m keeping it ... for sentimental reasons.”

“Then we have no choice,” Schatz said. “If we can’t have the paper, we’ll have you.”

“That’s pretty good logic, Swiss. But be careful ... you might get bumped instead.”

“Did you hear that?” Infante crowed. “Threatens the man who gave him his living.”

“And my name,” Holden said. “Tell me, Swiss, who was my dad before you turned him into Holden?”

“Does it matter that much? If I give you the name, do we get the paper?”

“No,” Holden said, staring at the twig, who sat in her silverfox coat, and he knew she’d have to come into the calculations somewhere. Schatz was a man who didn’t waste moves.

“What if we put Andrushka into the package?” Swiss said.

And Holden smiled. Now he knew they really meant to kill him, because Swiss wouldn’t have returned Andrushka for all the cuffs, sleeves, and yolks Nick Tiel had ever designed. But Holden had to enter into the Swisser’s little game. “How’d you get her to agree to that?”

“It was easy. She’s fond of you. She always wanted to go back to America. She gets lonely in Paris.”

“Lonely for what, Swiss?”

“Fifth Avenue. Bendel’s. The park.”

“And me.”

“Something like that,” Swiss said.

“Let me hear it from her.”

But the twig said nothing. And Holden liked her for that. Loved her, almost. She’d come here in the silverfox coat, sit at the bargaining table, but she wouldn’t lie for her old man.

Holden stood up with the
santita.
Andrushka was like a marble mask. He could see the small blue veins in her neck. He’d kissed those veins, felt them beat like a tiny heart.

“Wait,” Edmundo said. “You haven’t finished with me, Holden ... you’re my property now.”

“You have it wrong, ’Mundo. You’re the first sucker on my list.”

Holden picked up the leopard girl, held her under his arm, with the doll dragging against his stomach, and said to all the magi at the table, “Don’t count on Paul. He may have my shooter, but if he fucks me, Swiss, I’ll cross counties and sing to the other four D.A.s.”

“Hopeless,” Infante said. “The man is hopeless. He must enjoy signing his own death certificate.”

“Robert,” Holden said, reaching out across the table to grab Infante’s tie. “Don’t talk death certificates. Bump a couple of guys first, and then see how it feels.”

The Bandidos came out of the kitchen, looked at Edmundo and the little leopard girl, looked at Holden and the tie in his fist, looked at Andrushka, and returned to the kitchen.

Holden relinquished the tie and left the table. He had to pass a gallery of kings, kings who turned their eyes away from Holden. He walked out onto the street, still hugging the
santita.
And then he saw Billetdoux, the bumper from Marseilles with all the seams in his face, and Holden understood what the Swisser had in mind. Billet stood in front of the restaurant with a pair of twins, the Castiglione brothers, Jean-Paul and Jupe. Holden remembered their histories. The twins had carved up half a hotel in Avignon three years ago, looking for some pathetic local gangster. They were short and mean and wore tropical suits, as if the world only had one season, and all weather began inside the Old Port at Marseilles.

“Billet,” Holden said, “I’m disappointed. I figured the Swisser might send you ... but not with your two chums.”

“They’re tourists, Holden, that’s all. They’ve never been to America. It’s a big thing to them. And what harm can they do? They don’t understand a word of English.”

“They didn’t need English in Avignon.”

“Shh,” Billet said. “You mustn’t anger them. They have no conscience and they have no shame. And they’re not booked, Holden. They have an open agenda. They might harm the little girl.”

“You shouldn’t have said that, Billet. I like you. You saved my ass in Paris.”

“I like you too. But I had to bring the Castigliones. Swiss wants his paper back.”

“If you touch the girl, you’ll have the Bandidos on your back. They consider her a goddess, Billet, a very sacred being.”

“I’m used to goddesses,” Billet said. “Besides, we’ll be in and out. Today it’s New York, and tomorrow we’re gone. Holden, you can’t win. Help yourself. Negotiate with the Swiss.”

“Come on. You’d bump me anyway. With or without the paper. That’s why those two homicidals are here.”

“I have some pull with the old man,” Billet said. “He listens to me. Give me the paper, and I’ll drive Jupe and Jean-Paul to the airport.”

“And then you’d come after me. I know the Swiss. I was valuable to him as long as I didn’t hit on a vulnerable spot. Now he’ll always have to worry about his Holden ... I’d hate to bump you, Billet.”

“Bump me, kid?” And Billetdoux started to laugh. The seams swelled along his face. “We have you three to one.”

“But this is my city. And I have the
santita
on my side.”

“I told you. She doesn’t belong to our church. She can’t melt guns and grenades.”

“She doesn’t have to melt anything,” Holden said, and he shoved around the three men, clutching the
santita.
He would waltz across town, get rid of them one by one, with his fist, his mouth, or his Beretta Minx. He’d deal with the butchers of Marseilles, lead them on a lovely chase in Manhattan. It was like the merry-go-round he remembered from his boyhood on the plains of Queens. He’d ride the same wooden horse with his dad. It was one of Holden Sr.’s rare pleasures. His dad would take him to the amusement park that assembled once a year on an empty lot across the street from Holden’s house. He’d climb up on the horse with his dad, turn with the music, and escape the other riders. Women in gaudy gowns. Men in toupees, holding the sides of their heads in that wind the horses made. Kids like Holden, laughing, crying, clutching their moms and dads. And the young dukes of the block, with their hands under a sweetheart’s skirt. Holden recalled the length of a thigh, skin so pale against red, red underpants. The girls always seemed to swoon while the horses rocked along their circular path. And Holden had the deep wish that his dad could take the wooden horse out of this narrowing path and into some other merry-go-round, where he and his dad would be the only riders.

He didn’t know the Castigliones very well, and he hadn’t counted on their lunacies in the middle of Lexington Avenue. Jean-Paul shot him in the side with a little Spanish beauty, an automatic with its own blue muffler. A .22 short. It was as if the bullet had never torn through the cloth of his coat, but simply entered Holden and started to travel. He could feel it twist under his shoulder blade. His knees dropped a little and he felt a band of pain, like a taunt ribbon inside his body.

Jupe got closer to him. But Holden wasn’t in some kindergarten class. He swerved away, bumping that mean little man in tropical clothes against the window of a lingerie store. Holden discovered a pair of lace pants that he would have liked to see on his darling. But he couldn’t imagine too much. He had a bullet inside him and two homicidals at his back.

He led the
santita
into an atrium that was swollen with plants. The plants were much more spectacular than any tree. He’d entered a jungle between glass cuttings and walls. And those bumpers from Marseilles followed behind him. Billetdoux held back a bit. He was fond of Holden, Holden could tell with that .22 short sitting under his ribs. There was hardly any blood. And Holden didn’t have to grab his side. He held the
santita,
because he wouldn’t allow Billet’s two homicidals to touch the child.

Jupe approached him again, crooning with delight about the hole his brother had made in the paradise man. “
Mon vieux
,” he called Holden. “
Mon vieux
.” He had sweat on his lip. His face was square as a box. He could smell the kill. And Holden turned like some extraordinary dancer and punched Jupe between the eyes. It wasn’t with his customary force. He was carrying a bullet. But Jupe was stunned. He stood under the glass sky, with his hands in his face, and Holden started to strangle him. Men and women stared at Holden, as if he were part of some mime troupe, performing in the atrium.

“Jupe,” Holden whispered, “
je t’aime
.”

But that other lout of a brother was nearly upon him, and Holden shoved Jupe into Jean-Paul, and continued down the promenade with the
santita.
His strength was gone. And Holden started to suffer. It wasn’t his own death that bothered him. He was lucky he’d survived as long as he did. His bumper’s intuition had carried him in and out of dark rooms. He could have been whacked in the head years ago. Some lost, forgotten saint from Avignon, the mistress of a pope, had nourished Holden, watched over his life, blessed him once or twice. But there were limits to what a saint could do. And as he drifted with the bullet, he could no longer protect the leopard girl.

“Barbara,” he said. “Run ... come on,” he told her. “Go find Dolores.”

But the
santita
wouldn’t release his hand. It was all simple to Holden. He’d shoot Jean-Paul with the Beretta Minx, and Billet would have to disappear. Because Billet couldn’t afford a wedding with the New York police. And how many more times would Holden have to be shot before he gave Jupe a permanent sore throat? But he had to save the
santita.
He couldn’t fall down until he sent her away to that
madrina
in El Norte, the
madrina
who must have raised her.

His eyes darted in his head. He saw Jean-Paul again with that little Spanish shooter. “
Vaya
,” he told the leopard girl. Because he intended to blow out Jean-Paul’s brains along a promenade that was like an indoor jungle, and he wanted to give her the chance to run. Holden didn’t know a thing about the little girl. But he loved her with that crazy animal love of a man who’d been wild all his life.

“Go on,” he said. “Do I have to give you a slap?”

She took Holden’s fingers and led him through that jungle and back out onto the street. Holden was lost. The bullet in his lining had ruined his sense of direction. The
santita
was his compass. She started to wail in her Creole tongue just as Jupe and Jean-Paul arrived from the atrium. It was a ferocious song. And Holden realized that Oyá, the African goddess, had possessed an ordinary little girl from Queens. The
santita
swayed her hips. And Holden was still alarmed. Because a goddess could go in and out of a girl’s body and abandon her to some kind of orphanhood.

They were on Vanderbilt Avenue. Jupe and Jean-Paul were a couple of noses away. The
santita
danced and sang. But she couldn’t sing up an army. And Holden would have to find his own dark river in Manhattan. He took out his Beretta Minx and aimed it at Jean-Paul. The twins were furious. They hadn’t expected an American bumper to behave like that. Jupe and Jean-Paul stood across the street. And Holden entered the Yale Club with the
santita.
He’d fleeced a couple of businessmen inside that club. The businessmen had gone to law school with Robert Infante. They’d borrowed money from Aladdin and were hoping that a couple of Yalies didn’t have to repay an old debt. But they hadn’t counted on Holden. Holden trapped them in the toilet. They scribbled checks on the toilet wall. But he hadn’t come to collect markers today. He sat on one of the couches near the reception desk. He looked like a Yalie. But his college was Bernard Baruch. His side started to sting.

The doormen were dressed like admirals. Goldie would have admired their blue coats. And Holden had a touch of nostalgia for the Yale Club. He remembered the marble sink in the men’s toilet. There were combs on the sink in a jar of pungent blue water. The stalls had doors with wooden slats. There had been nothing like this at Bernard Baruch.

Jupe and Jean-Paul entered the club like a couple of kids from Provence, but they had a problem with the doormen. They couldn’t seem to grasp the Yalies’ dress code. The twins weren’t wearing neckties. They would have shot their way past the doormen if Billet-doux hadn’t been behind them. Billet understood the consequences of killing doormen at the Yale Club. So he counseled the twins and also calmed them. But Holden knew it was a question of time. Billet would wait outside the club while the twins went around the block to the nearest haberdashery store.

Holden wondered what species of necktie the twins would wear when they returned to the club. He’d have to give them both a bumper’s special between the eyes. But there were too many Yalies in the room. How would Barbara escape if Holden started whacking people?

Barbara grabbed his hand and led him to the telephone booths. She couldn’t reach the phone. Holden had to lift her and look for quarters in his pants. Barbara talked into the telephone in that Creole tongue of hers. She didn’t say much. A word or two and she stared at Holden. “Dada, what’s the name of this palace?”

“It’s not a palace. It’s the Yale Club. On Vanderbilt Avenue. Used to be a golden address.”

“Yale Club,” the little girl repeated into the telephone, and then they returned to the couch. Holden’s side was killing him. Should he sneak the girl into the men’s toilet and ambush the twins from one of the stalls? He wouldn’t have felt right taking the
santita
into a toilet. “Go on,” he said. “Hide. Can’t you see. The bad boys are coming.”