The City When It Rains (5 page)

Corman dropped the coins in the slot, pressed the lever and watched as the coffee cascaded into the plain white mug. When it was full, he walked to a table by the window and sat down.

Outside, the rain had started again. The street looked dark and slick. Traffic moved slowly back and forth, while people darted through it, their umbrellas flapping in the wind off the river.

He turned from the window, took a quick sip of coffee, then riffled through his camera bag again and took out a stack of pictures, searching for one he could sell. Slowly, meticulously, he went through them one by one, staring closely, combing his mind for some way to place each one. He was still doing it when Eddie LaPlace came through the door a few minutes later.

“Yo, Corman,” Eddie called from across the room.

Corman waved to him.

Eddie bounced energetically up to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. “Been up to the City Room?”

“Yeah.”

“Sell anything?”

“No.”

Eddie shook his head. “Hey, it's a tough life, am I right?”

“For the last few weeks, anyway,” Corman admitted.

Eddie looked at the pictures Corman had spread haphazardly over the table.

“Some of this stuff looks pretty good,” he said.

“Only to you, Eddie.”

Eddie looked surprised. “Oh, yeah? Really?” He picked up a long shot of the old man on the balcony. “Holy shit,” he said with a chuckle. “Where'd this go down?”

“Brooklyn,” Corman said. “He'd just shot his wife.”

“No shit,” Eddie said. The photograph slipped from his fingers, fell back down on the table. “You don't sell pictures with dicks in them, my man. Pussy hair, that may get by, and tits and ass, they're just fine for everything but the dailies. But dicks? Forget it.” He smiled. “You know why?”

Corman shook his head.

“Because editors are usually men,” Eddie said, “and they feel embarrassed for the guy. For a fox, no problem. They'll spread woolly pink cover to cover. But for a guy, they're embarrassed.”

“You may be right,” Corman said dryly.

“I'm absolutely right,” Eddie said. “That's why I if I get a dick, I airbrush it right out. I cover it with leaves.”

Corman said nothing. It was good advice, and Eddie was no moron when it came to human motives, either. He was probably right about everything. And yet?

Eddie snapped up another photograph. It showed the body of a teenage boy lying faceup on the sidewalk. He was clothed in blue jeans, running shoes and a dark peacoat. “What's the story with this one?” he asked.

“Cops figure it for a drug burn.”

Eddie nodded thoughtfully. “Couldn't sell it?”

Corman shook his head. “It's a common sight, Eddie. Nobody needs a stringer for a shot like that.”

Eddie continued to stare at the picture. “Looks like the East Side.”

“That's right.”

Eddie's eyes peeped over the edge of the photograph. “Forty-ninth Street, right?

“Yeah.”

“Well, there it is then,” Eddie said with a sly smile. “The way you sell the picture.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For Christ's sake, man, that's Katharine Hepbum's block. This hit went down practically right in front of the old broad's window.”

“So what?”

“That's your angle, asshole,” Eddie said triumphantly.

Corman stared at him silently.

“You play that up,” Eddie said insistently. “You play the shit out of it.” He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table. “The editor looks at the picture, says nothing, unimpressed, you know?”

Corman nodded.

“He says no, right?” Eddie said. “You say, okay, fine, no hard feelings. You start to pick up the picture, then you say, ‘Nice block, huh? Hepburn lives on it.' You tap the print. ‘Right there,' you say. ‘Jesus,' you say, ‘imagine that. A drug hit right on Hepburn's block.' You slap your forehead. ‘What a city?' you say. ‘Drug burns even on Hepburn's block.' You shake your head at the thought of it. ‘My God,' you say like it's just hit you, ‘what if she'd been passing by,' you say. ‘She coulda caught some lead.' It doesn't change the picture, but it gives the editor an angle on the story. The angle goes with the picture. You give him both, but you act like you don't know it.” He leaned back again, his arms folding proudly over his chest. “You make the sale.”

Corman stared at him, wonderingly. “You actually make sales like that, Eddie?”

“Do I?” Eddie cried. “Do I? Jesus Christ, man, I got a map of the city tacked to my wall.” He spread his arms out wide. “Big fucking thing. Big as you can get. I got little numbered pins that tell me where every celebrity in this town lives.” Again, he smiled proudly. “So what do you think?”

“It's good, Eddie,” Corman said quietly, with a small, very slender smile. Anything seemed better.

CHAPTER
SIX

A
FTER A DAY
of chasing small fires and fender benders, Corman returned home just before sunset and found Trang staring at the bulletin board which the tenants had hung on the wall.

“Ah, Mr. Corman,” Trang said as he turned toward him, “I was hoping to have word with you.”

Corman stopped, stared at him expressionlessly, said nothing.

“You know you must make decision soon,” Trang said gravely. He was the new owner of the building, a South Vietnamese immigrant who had, according to his disgruntled tenants, accumulated large sums of money by shipping drugs out of his country before the fall of Saigon. He wore perfectly tailored blue suits, but in a 1940s style, three-piece double-breasted, with wide lapels and pleated, slightly baggy trousers, the style, as some residents liked to claim, of a French imperialist. His teeth had been capped somewhat oddly, too, so that almost all of them were the same length, like piano keys.

“I mean concerning apartment,” Trang explained.

“I made it a long time ago,” Corman told him flatly.

“What was decision?”

“I don't want to buy it.”

Trang looked mildly hurt. “But Mr. Corman, the insider price is very good,” he said, his eyes sweet, sorrowful, as if he were a good friend trying to prevent Corman from making a disastrous mistake. “And it is very good apartment, as you know.”

It was a dump with loud radiator pipes and rattling windows, but Corman didn't feel like going into it. “I just don't want it,” he said.

Trang's face tightened. “Perhaps you have specific problem?”

“No.”

“If you do, it could be repaired,” Trang assured him. “It could all be part of purchasing agreement.”

“I'm not interested,” Corman repeated.

“But why?” Trang asked. “We could come to arrangement. I am willing to provide financing to insiders.”

“I don't want to own an apartment,” Corman said firmly.

“And that is final?”

“Yes.”

Trang cleared his throat loudly. “Well then,” he said darkly. “I have to bring up other matter.”

“The rent.”

“I am afraid so.”

“I've been a little short recently.”

“Short, yes,” Trang said curtly.

“I'll get it to you as soon as I can.”

Trang didn't look convinced. “The people here, they think I am rich man, that rent does not really matter to me.” He shook his head. “But I have mortgage, you see. It is quite big one, too, as you know from prospectus. I have to pay it, just as you have to pay rent. Every month.”

Corman nodded, his eyes staring evenly into Trang's face. It was not an evil face, just flat and faintly yellow with oval eyes and soft, almost purple lips. But there was something behind it, an edginess and brutality that added up to a capacity to do whatever the scheme of things demanded. He looked like the sort of person who was perfectly willing to accept the law of the jungle as the only one there was or ever would be. His body always looked tightly coiled, as if around a low-slung limb, poised to drop, entangle, squeeze.

“You very smart person,” Trang said. “I am sure you understand about mortgage.”

“I need a little more time.”

Trang looked at Corman as if he'd asked to sleep with his wife, daily with his twin daughters. “You make it difficult for me, Mr. Corman,” he said flatly. “I am not bad man. People, here, they think I am bad person.”

Corman said nothing, and his silence seemed to set Trang on edge, stiffen his resolve. His eyes shriveled into two small green dots. “At this point,” he said, “I believe that you are two months in arrears.”

“That sounds right,” Corman told him.

“Of course, this problem with rent could be figured into purchase price of apartment,” Trang added, now shifting again, becoming more conciliatory. “As discount, you see.”

Corman shook his head, his eyes still focused on Trang's face. There was a small birthmark just above his right eyebrow. It was dark pink, and roughly in the shape of a fish. For a moment Corman thought it might be a tattoo, the mark of some murderous Oriental gang of drug runners and assassins to which Trang had once belonged. He wondered if Trang had ever killed a man, slit a throat or bashed in a skull. It was entirely possible, if the rumors were true, and the odd thing was that in America he would never think of such a thing. He would use the law instead, wielding it like a dagger, hurling it at you like a pointed throwing star.

“The figure is eight hundred and forty-two dollars and seventy-two cents, I believe,” Trang said.

“Yeah,” Corman told him, “I got your letter.”

“I wrote it with regret,” Trang said. “It is not personal matter.”

It was an interesting choice of words. For an instant Corman dealt with the hidden element within it. Nothing personal meant that they could do anything to you, but it wasn't exactly to you they were doing it. They were just doing it in response to some phantom sense of the way things were. That's what dictated their action, and you weren't supposed to get mad about it.

“I'm working on a few things,” Corman said.

Trang's eyes widened hungrily. “Things?”

“An angle on some pictures.”

“Angle?” Trang said uncomprehendingly. “Pictures?”

“I'm hoping to make some money.”

“I hope you do,” Trang told him. “Do you think it will be soon?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Trang said, his words now quite precise, lawyerly, emphatically stated. “If not, it is necessary I have to ask you to leave.”

“I understand.”

“Eviction proceeding very slow. I would like better to avoid.”

“So would I.”

Trang stepped back, edging himself against the bulletin board. Angry tenants had posted a newspaper article which had been written about Trang and other developers who were transforming the theater district, turning old Broadway hotels and rooming houses into state-of-the-art co-ops and condominiums. It showed Trang heatedly wagging his finger at an old man in a sleeveless undershirt and suspenders, and although Trang had never noticed it, the photo credit in the right-hand corner of the picture was Corman's.

Trang flashed an uneasy smile. “Well, good night, then, Mr. Corman,” he said. “I am glad we understand each other.”

“Me, too.”

The smile vanished, the eyes grew small again. “I am sure I will be hearing from you about rent.”

Corman nodded quickly, turned and walked to the elevator.

Mrs. Donaldson was playing Chinese Checkers with Lucy when Corman came into the apartment.

“He's going out with Joanna tonight,” Lucy told her matter-of-factly.

“Is that so now?” Mrs. Donaldson said, as she turned quickly and gave him a faintly disapproving glance, as if he'd once again failed to deliver on some vague promise of paternal responsibility.

“That's right,” Corman said. “And I was wondering …”

“If I could stay at your house,” Lucy blurted to Mrs. Donaldson.

“Yes,” Corman said. “Until around midnight, something like that.”

“So he can be with Joanna,” Lucy said.

Corman dropped his camera bag on the small metal chair he kept by the door, unstrapped his police radio and walked into the living room.

“Did you finish your homework?” he asked as he sank down in one of its chairs.

“The child did it all,” Mrs. Donaldson declared. She looked at Lucy and smiled sweetly. “Like the grand little girl she is.”

Corman continued to stare at Lucy doubtfully. “Did you?” he repeated.

Lucy shot him a withering glance. “I said I did,” she cried. “Jeez.”

“I just wanted to be sure,” Corman told her.

Lucy returned her attention to the checkerboard. “It's not due till Monday anyway,” she muttered.

Corman stood up again, walked into the bathroom and slapped some cold water onto his face. In the mirror above the sink, he could see that he was losing a little hair, and that small puffy patches had begun to form beneath his eyes. He'd noticed them in Joanna, too, and Lexie before her. Far out in space, he imagined, you could turn around and see puffy patches on the earth itself, wrinkles forming, gray wisps, the whole vast process slowing down. At times, it even seemed the best solution. And yet?