The Good Neighbor (23 page)

“Naw, you go, Bood,” said Colt. “And send us a postcard when you get there.”

They fell silent, preoccupied by the action on their screens. Half an hour later, when the price of Dell had risen again, Colt dangled a few shares, but was disappointed to see that no one was inter ested. Traders all over the country were waiting to see what would happen next. He leaned back again and folded his arms, waiting for a strike.

“Buddha, you been playin’ any cards this week?” he asked. “Oh, Coltie, lemme tellya. I was in this all-nighter last weekend.” “Here we go,” said Joe, rolling his eyes. “The cannelloni story

again. I only heard this five times already.”

“Shut up, Joe. Listen, Colt. I was playing cards out in Brooklyn, a regular game I hit sometimes. Good buncha guys, usually the

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same ones.” Buddha was an excellent gambler; it was well known that he supplemented his already considerable income by playing poker, and if his own stories were to be believed, sometimes he made as much as ten thousand dollars on a good weekend. Bud dha didn’t discuss his bad weekends. “Lawyers and accountants and shit. A judge. Sometimes a congressman. Most of ’em I’ve known for years. Y’know?”

“Yeah,” said Colt.

“Which congressman?” asked Raoul.

“I ain’t sayin’, numbnuts. The Brooklyn game, I’m talkin’ about. So last time they’ve got this new guy, someone I never met before. Right away, I see I’m gonna have a problem with this guy. He’s bluffin’ all over the place and winning on dumb luck. Can’t read him at all. And he never shuts up. I mean never. His mouth is running the whole time. You get his whole life story—how he went to Bermuda and banged a movie star, how he’s got four Porsches, how his whole family is in prison.”

“His whole family’s in
prison
?”

“His last name is Buonarotti. He even showed me his driver ’s li cense.”

“Fuck me,” said Colt. “
Those
Buonarottis?” “Yeah,
and
,” said Joe. “Wait for it, Coltie.”

“So then he starts goin’ on and on about how his second great- uncle twice removed is the Mob boss and he’s all mobbed up him self, and if he ever wanted anybody whacked, all he had to do was ask. See what I mean? A real sweetheart.”

“Does this story never end?” asked Raoul.

“Fuck you, Raoul. So about two in the morning we order out for some food. An Italian place that delivers all night, if they know ya. The food comes, our little Mob buddy insists on paying himself, he’s calling the delivery guy ‘paisan’ and all that shit, he even tips him a hundred bucks just to make himself look good. Really doing it up. And he opens up one of the containers and he looks inside, and he says, What the hell is this?”

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“Tell ’im, Buddha,” said Joe. “What was it?” asked Colt.

“Cannelloni,” said Buddha. “Fuckin’ guy is supposed to be in the Mob and he doesn’t even know what fuckin’ cannelloni is? Yeah, right.”

“I love this story,” said Joe.

“Did
you
know what it was?” asked Colt.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ knew what it was,” said Buddha. “I’ve eaten so much Italian food in my life I got it comin’ outa my ears. Don’t let these slanty eyes fool ya. I’m practically half dago.”

“It was
stuffed
cannelloni,” said Raoul. “Tell the story right, Buddha.”

“Excuse me. It was
stuffed
cannelloni. I left out that very signifi cant piece of information. So I figure, this guy’s gotta be full of shit. I mean, how can you be in the Mob and not know what can nelloni is? It don’t figure.”

“Beats me,” said Colt.

“Anyway,” said Buddha, “once I realized what a liar he was, I took him for five grand.”

“Whoop! There it is!” said Raoul.

“I toleja, I love that story,” said Joe. “Buddha figured out his tell.

Dincha, Bood?”

“His tell was that he was breathin’,” said Buddha. “His tell was that he was a fuckin’ idiot. Every time he opened his mouth he was lyin’.
That
was his tell. He bluffed
every time
, Coltie. I was like a kid in a candy store.”

“You gotta love fools with money,” said Colt.

“I know,” Buddha chuckled gleefully. “What with them bein’ parted so soon, and all.”

❚ ❚ ❚

Later, after everyone else had gone home, Colt was still at his desk when Forszak came out of the gloom of his office.

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“Good,” Forszak said upon seeing him. “I said to myself, I said, ‘Self, if Coltie is still out here when I’m done for the day, I’m gonna invite him for a drink.’ And here you are.”

“Here I am, sir,” said Colt. “So, let’s go.”

Colt sprang to his feet. He’d been watching the action on the screen in Hong Kong—part of his never-ending scheme of trying to figure out when would be a good time to jump into the whole mess in Japan—but you didn’t turn down an offer from Forszak for anything, because you might not get another one.

They took the elevator to the prefabricated Irish pub in the lobby and sat on a vinyl banquette, Colt sipping a Guinness, Forszak a bitters-and-soda. To the unspoken relief of everyone in the office, Forszak had recently stopped wearing a toupee that hadn’t entirely covered the expanse of mottled toad-skin on top of his head; no one had the guts to say anything about it, but no one could bring themselves to look him in the eye during the agoniz ing weeks he wore it, either. Forszak was the one man in the office whom no one teased, for obvious reasons. His dome gleamed dully now in the twilight of the bar as he stared ahead, thinking. Colt sipped his drink and waited, geishalike, for his master to speak first.

“Normally I like a little Scotch in my soda, but I’m in training,” Forszak said after a while.

“Right. How’s that going?”

Forszak smiled ruefully. “I run five miles a day, I’m on a diet, I’m in hell,” he said. “I have to drop ten pounds before I can even fit into the suit. But the docs gave my heart the okay last week. I never smoked, see. And it’s gonna be worth it. You know what I’m doing next Tuesday?”

“No, sir.”

“Next Tuesday, I am going to take a flight in a zero-g simulator.

You know what that is?” “Nope.”

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“It’s a plane,” Forszak said. “It’s a plane that flies straight up to the goddamn edge of the atmosphere, and then it goes straight down again, and you take off your seat belt and for about thirty seconds you’re weightless. Because you’re in free fall, see? You can float around and everything. Just like they do in outer space. It’s practice for the real thing.”

“Sounds fun,” Colt said.

“Fun? More likely I’m gonna shit my pants. I tellya, Coltrane, I’m so excited I can hardly sleep at night. Me, going to the moon! They’re almost done with building that ship, did I tell you?”

“No, sir, you didn’t.”

“It’s called the
Komet
,” Forszak said. “The irony of it all is just fuckin’ killin’ me. First I have to run from the Nazis, then from the Russians, and here I am going to the moon in a goddam com mie spacecraft that was built with Nazi technology. Did you know that the Yoo Nited States practickly got its whole space pro gram from captured Nazi scientists? From the V-two program, to be exact?”

“No, sir. I didn’t know that.”

“Well, that’s irony for you. If it wasn’t for Adolf Hitler, I wouldn’t be goin’ to the moon. Ha. That’s true in more ways than one. Think about it.”

Colt nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

“Well, things are different now, anyway,” said Forszak. “Rus sians aren’t even commies anymore. I don’t even know what the fuck they are. Ah, well. If my parents could only see me now. They’d never believe it.”

“It is pretty amazing, when you think about it,” said Colt. “You’re going to be famous.”

“Yeah. Or dead.” Forszak shuddered and reached out for a piece of wood, but there was none to be found, only laminated plastic that had been painted an “authentic” smoky black-brown. “Oh, shit,” he said, falling back against the banquette. “Remind me to touch a tree or something, next time I see one.”

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“Yes, sir.”

“So. How’s your new place?”

“It’s great, thanks. Needs a little work.” Forszak grunted. “Don’t they all. How old?” “Hundred fifty years.”

Forszak whistled softly. “That’s almost as old as me. Still in good shape?”

“Seems like it.”

“I thought you were gonna take some time off.”

“I, uh . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t gonna come in today but . . . I changed my mind.” He looked down at his drink. “I sit around too long, I start to go crazy.”

“That’s why I like you, Colt,” said Forszak. “You love to work.

You got a great work ethic.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Colt. He paused, choosing his words care fully. “Matter of fact, I was going to ask if you and Mrs. Forszak would like to come out for a weekend sometime, maybe when the weather gets warmer. I’m going to put in a putting green in the back. Tons of room out there. Peace and quiet. I think you’d like it.” “Well, why not?” said Forszak grandly. “When one of my top performers asks me out to his country place, who am I to say no?” Gratified, Colt smiled. “There’s lots to do in winter, too, of course,” he said. “Cross-country skiing and stuff like that. I might

get a snowmobile or two. “

“Sounds like a great place for kids,” Forszak said absently. “Speaking of which, you and the missus have any plans along those lines?”

Colt blanched.
Yeah, Coltie
, said his father ’s voice.
What about those kids
?

“Ah,” he said too loudly. “No. Not really. Not yet, I mean.

How—how are
your
kids doing?”

Forszak sighed. “Wish I knew,” he said. “I don’t hear much from ’em. Son lives a mile away and I never see him. Too busy. My daughter ’s in San Francisco now, did I tell you?”

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“No, sir.”

“Yeah,” said the older man. “Well, I didn’t know myself until last month. Can you imagine that? A daughter moves across the country and she doesn’t even tell her own father?” He brooded silently. “She and I don’t talk much, obviously,” he explained. “She’s got some... resentments. What was her phrase? Oh, yeah. I was ‘emotionally absent.’ ” He shook his head in mock wonder. “Some goddam pop psychology bullshit she picked up somewhere. Lemme tellya something. Those kids have no idea what I went through. No idea.”

Colt remained silent. Sneaking a glance at his boss, he saw that his face had grown dark and empty. Hurriedly he looked away again. But out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Forszak was nodding to himself, as if in agreement with whatever he was hearing inside his own head. Maybe the whole world is hearing voices, Colt thought. Maybe the entire planet isn’t actually run by people, but by the voices in their heads. Wouldn’t that be a scream?

“I ever tell you I didn’t even learn English until I was thirteen years old?” Forszak asked.

“No, sir,” Colt said, though he had, several times—and though the guttural hints of some other tongue still lurked in the back of Forszak’s throat, emerging only when he was excited.

“I came to this country with nothing. I lived in a fuckin’ or phanage in France for two years. Not even in a building—in a tent. There was hundreds of us. All our parents gone. It was like being in a prison. It wasn’t near as bad as the camps, but it wasn’t good, either. Finally I just snuck out, and lied about my age to get a job. And then I lied again to get over here. Said I had family in New York. I didn’t have no family. I didn’t have no money, either, Coltie. Nothing. I wasn’t even old enough to shave.”

Colt tried to imagine the world that was being conjured up, and failed. He sipped his drink again.

“I lived on the street,” Forszak said. “I spoke three languages,

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and none of them English.” He managed a woeful smile. “All I knew was, ‘Hey, Joe, got chocolate?’ ‘Hey, Joe, you buy ciga rette?’ That don’t get you too far in this town, I can tell you.”

“No, sir,” said Colt.

“And now all she can say is ’emotionally absent.’ As if I wasn’t busy working my ass off so my kids wouldn’t have to end up in a tent, too. So they could enjoy the best of things, instead of living covered in mud and shit every day of their lives, like I did.” Forszak reached his right hand up under his left jacket sleeve, ab sently rubbing his forearm. In the gloom Colt could just make out a series of digits in blue ink, tattooed into his skin. Again he looked away, feeling as if he had just seen the man naked.

Forszak smacked the table with his open hand and straightened up. “Listen to me,” he said. “I sound like an old man.”

“No, sir, you don’t,” said Colt. “It’s very inspiring to hear you talk, as a matter of fact. I always love to hear stories about people who made it with nothing.”

“Yeah, right. You’re sitting here wondering when the hell I’m gonna shut up so you can get on with your life.”

“Not at all.”

“Bullshit. Anyway. Let’s get onto other things. Your country place.”

“Anytime you wanna come out,” said Colt. “Just let me know.” “Yeah. How about next weekend?”

Colt froze.

“Next weekend?” he croaked.

“Not this coming, but the next one. Okay? Thing is, I’m gonna be busy all through December, and I’m going to Russia in Janu ary,” Forszak said. “For more training. And I do wanna come. I like old houses. Besides, I wanna see what old Coltie has done for him self. It’s good for me to see my guys happy and successful. Makes me feel like it’s all worth something. Know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“You guys are like my family,” Forszak said. “My own family

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won’t even call me on my birthday. Waddaya think of that?” He patted Colt on the shoulder. “Seriously. You’re like a son to me, Coltie. You and all the other younger guys that started out here. I love to see you succeed. It does my heart good. I hope your old man knows how lucky he is to have a son like you.”