Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (65 page)

Andy had an eight-ounce glass of black rum in his hand. He shook hands with Watts and grinned with pleasure at the redhead.

“My name's Norma,” the redhead said. “You're my hero. Ian Fleming was my hero for a while but he's a lousy writer. You're the best writer in the world.”

“God bless you! You ever tasted black rum?”

“No,” the redhead said, licking her lips. “You pour it and I'll taste it. I don't mean that Ian Fleming couldn't tell a story. He's got something you can't knock, but no class. I mean he's gauche. You know what I mean?”

“I know one thing,” Andy said. “You and me, we're going to talk about literature—right?”

Lieutenant O'Brian, who was the head of the detective squad at the local precinct, came in then, and he was introduced and then two Hollywood male stars and their director turned up, and then a photographer who climbed onto the bar to get a few pictures. The crowd got thicker, but Norma Smith, the big belly dancer, held her place. Andy was telling Pete about the big black-maned lion, and the hubbub died down, because when Andy told a story that way, straight and clean and simple, you didn't compete or interrupt. He had laid down the background with a few plain strokes. He had been alone at the time, quite deliberately. He had wanted to do it alone. He was in a big meadow, much of it covered with waist-high grass, with here and there an open spot. He had watched the motion of the grass defining the lion's path. It was late afternoon, and the lion had not yet made its kill; and then the lion came out of the grass and the beast stood there facing Andy.

“I was in no danger from the lion,” Andy said. “There are very few animals that will go for man unprovoked. A man-eating lion has the habit, but he's old and cantankerous and incapable of running down game. This lion was young and vigorous. He was about thirty yards from me, and he regarded me with small interest and less concern, and I knew that in a moment he would step back into the grass and disappear. That was when I decided to make the kill, and everything I thought about I had to think through in a fraction of a second.”

He tasted his rum and then explained that the lion had been in the wrong position.

“Head on—all I could see was his face and that great mane and his front legs. Maybe a slice of shoulder, but that kind of shot is no good. The best shot is from a parallel position, with the lion a bit ahead of you. Then you can reach the heart, and then you have time for a second shot—or your bearer has. I was alone. Only one shot and that one had to be in the brain—through the eye or the skull, and the skull can be bad. I was scared as hell. If the first shot did not kill immediately, then even a mortal wound wouldn't save my life. The lion would come in like an express train—well, I did it. It was a good kill.”

“Son of a bitch,” Pete said.

“You're too much,” the belly dancer said. The crowd got bigger, and I recalled that it was like the old days in Pete's old place.

5

By six o'clock, Andy had put down over a pint of black rum, and he decided to throw a party at the suite at the Carlyle. I had no opinions on this subject, because I knew Andy a little. He had probably begun to drink when he boarded the plane in Africa; his capacity was enormous and his body's ability to deal with alcohol was little short of miraculous; and by now, underneath his controlled exterior, there was something wild and irresistible.

“All of you,” he said, including a crowd of about twenty people clustered around us and the belly dancer. “And I want the mayor,” he said to me. “I want the mayor and the mayor's wife and the governor and I want Monsignor Sheen—”

“You're out of your mind. And you're behind times. I think he's a bishop now, and he sure as hell doesn't go to parties.”

“Maybe he would,” Lieutenant O'Brian put in. “You don't know, Monte. You're not even a Catholic.”

“And this is not even a religious matter, you will forgive me.”

“And who the hell are you to say what is a religious matter?”

“Oh, wait one damn cotton-picking minute,” Andy said. “You know, I met him once maybe fifteen years ago, but we were like brothers. There was good blood between us. We knew each other. We broke bread and we drank wine. He said to me, ‘Andy, if you need me, call me and I'll come'.” He turned to Pete. “Look, Pete—am I stepping on anyone's toes? A man's religion is a piece of his gut. I don't have that gut. I'm one-quarter Presbyterian, one-quarter Methodist, one-quarter Episcopalian and I think one-quarter Jewish and one-quarter Mormon—”

“That's five quarters,” someone snorted.

“So it's five quarters,” Pete said. “And if he isn't entitled to five quarters, who the hell is? No, you're not out of line, Andy. You were never out of line.”

“You're too much,” the belly dancer said. “I'm a Catholic. I'm a rotten Catholic, but I am a Catholic and you're not stepping on anyone's toes.”

“And I want Marc Connolly and Bette Davis there, and Eva Gabor and what's-his-name, that marvelous kid who conducts the Philharmonic?”

“Bernstein, and he's not a kid anymore.”

“Well, I want him to come with his wife and all his friends—”

“Andy, people like that have unlisted numbers and I don't have them.”

“Pete has them. Pete here has the phone number of everyone on earth who matters. Even what's-his-name in the Soviet Union. You got a number for the Kremlin, Pete?”

“I got,” Pete grinned, and everyone else was grinning now because they knew that the party was in the making; and that it would be a great, fabulous party that the town would remember and talk about for years to come.

“And I want the mayor and his wife.”

“Andy, it's not like the old times. This is a different kind of a mayor, and he's a Republican—”

“I don't care if he's a Single-Taxer,” Andy said. “Invite him. All he can do is say no.” And then, to show that even if he had been away, he was as cool as any of the snotty young kids around town, Andy said to O'Brian, “Who's the lieutenant of the Nineteenth Squad? Is it still Rothschild?”

“It is.”

“And how are his ulcers?”

“Rotten.”

“Will you call him, Lieutenant, and tell him that we will be having a drink or two with friends at the Carlyle, and that Andy Bell begs him to exhibit the quality of mercy if there is a complaint?”

“Pete brought me the phone then, and I got City Hall. Everyone lapsed into a careful silence as I worked my way up to the mayor; and finally I got him and told him that Andy Bell was in town. Which he knew. And then I told him that Andy was giving a party at the Carlyle tonight and it was short notice, but would he come and bring his wife?”

“I'd be delighted to come,” he said. “I can't promise because it is short notice—but I'll try.”

Andy and Pete hugged each other.

6

There are all kinds of parties around town. There are wild parties and lush parties, and sometimes people plan all year for a party they are going to give, and with some of the rich ones I know, a party is to be put together only by a professional party manager, like the late Elsa Maxwell. There are other parties that bear the stamp of a personality, and when Andy Bell threw a party, it grew around him, like a vine around a tree. There are parties where the host sets out to corner a few personalities and to build a certain amount of status; but if people in New York were in and important, it was up to them to know that Andy Bell was giving a party and to turn up there. It was a good thing that the suite Jane Pierce had rented at the Carlyle was a big one, because most of them turned up there.

Jane was waiting for us at the Carlyle, and she said to me, “I heard that Andy was giving a party. Was that your idea, Monte?”

“My idea? Anyway, how did you hear?”

“Because the President's kid telephoned from Texas. She wants to come. I told her to come. The hell with it. I'm going to tell the hotel to set up a bar and a table with sandwiches and junk. You know what this will cost Andy? At least two grand. And he's damn near broke.”

“Why don't we get that Max what's-his-name to pick up the tab?”

“Because Andy would blow his stack.”

“How can he be broke? I heard that
Life
is paying fifty thousand dollars for the story of how he shot that lion.”

“He spent the fifty grand before he ever hit Africa. Take my word for it.”

Andy had gone on into the suite, and now we followed him inside. Jose Peretz was explaining how he had unpacked. He had put the guns into a bedroom closet. Diva was in one corner of the big couch in the living room. She watched us silently. It was funny how no one ever asked Andy about her, who she was or what she was to any of them. Maybe she was Jose's girl, although I was inclined to think that Jose was some kind of faggot, not the ordinary kind but something esoteric; and since Diva had that lean, dry, meticulous look of a certain type of dyke about her, perhaps they matched. But no one asked about Diva, not even myself. In a way, Andy was very fond of Jane Pierce; he would embrace her and kiss her in front of Diva, and there was no reaction in the dark-haired woman that I could see. But then there was no reaction on her part to any of the play between Andy and other women—maybe because she knew that it never went beyond the opening of the game.

Andy wondered about the guns, and whether there were any laws to make things difficult.

“You don't have any pistols?” I asked him.

“Just an old Sante automatic that I use for target practice.”

“Well, don't take it out on the street, and I'll call my lawyer later and see if you need any kind of a license or whether you check it downtown or what. I suppose the rest are rifles and shotguns?”

“That's right.”

“I don't think it makes any difference, as long as you keep them here.”

The big red-headed belly dancer came in then. She had changed clothes, from a daytime dress to a long, shimmery gown, and she told Andy that while it was a little early for the party to start, she was hungry, and she did not want to make a date with anyone else because she was going to lap on his ass like a hound dog all night.

“Don't you ever eat alone?” Jane asked her nastily.

“Honey, take a second look at me. Do you think I have to?”

The hotel waiters began to move in and set up, and I went into Andy's bedroom to call my wife. Andy came in while I was waiting for my number, and then Jose came in with Andy's tuxedo.

“I had it pressed,” Jose said.

He helped Andy dress. Liz, my wife, informed me that she had heard about the party.

“How could you hear?”

“The six o'clock news. Evidently, Grand Duke Alexis is flying in from Paris as some sort of publicity stunt. He expects to make the party. Am I invited?”

“You know you are.”

“Not that earnestly, but it's nice to hear it from God's right-hand man.”

“Will you come?”

“I wouldn't miss it for the world—if I can fight my way in. What do you expect, a thousand people?”

When I put down the phone, I told Andy about the Grand Duke Alexis.

“Who the hell is the Grand Duke Alexis?”

“Don't you remember? He used to have a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Now he has a place on the Left Bank.”

“Did I ever eat there, Monte?”

“I guess you must have, because he's flying in tonight. That's a big tab for a party. You should be flattered. Look, do you want me to go home and change?”

“What for?”

“I don't know what for. I just don't want to drag the affair down. Look, Andy, are you short of cash?”

“What?” He was provoked now. I had hit a soft spot. “What in hell ever gave you that notion?”

“All I am thinking about is this damn party. It's going to take a bundle to pay for it.”

“Are you serious, Monte? You're like the oldest friend I got. Otherwise, I
could get real nasty.”

I let the subject drop, and Andy and I went into the living room. Two tall, distinguished, white-haired Italians greeted him with pleasure. Afterwards, I learned that they were two of the top wheels in the Mafia; Andy had met them some years before when they had helped him to arrange a wolf hunt in Sicily.

The party had started early, and now, long before post time, there were already two dozen people in the room. The buffet table had been set up, and Norma Smith, the redhead, was stuffing herself with good, nourishing food, namely toast and imported caviar.

Jane Pierce whispered to her, icily, “That, darling, is thirty-six dollars a pound.”

“Then it's hardly the best, is it?” the belly dancer replied.

Max Golden arrived, with two small, blond go-go girls, one hanging on each of his arms. Their party dresses were six inches above the knee. “They're a present to you,” Max said to Andy.

“What are their names?”

“Damned if I know.”

Then Max saw Norma Smith, and he dropped the little go-go girls and made a beeline for the big redhead. The two kids gravitated to Jose—they thought he was “darling”; and I steered Andy over to meet the senator. You couldn't have a party like this without the senator's wife, and she had to have him with her as a door opener. The senator read books and he was really excited to meet Andy, but when he tried to talk about African politics, Andy broke away.

“He won't talk politics,” I explained to the senator. “That's because he won't think politics.”

“Tears ago—”

“Well, that was all years ago. Things have changed.”

The ambassador to the U.N. came in then, and the senator had someone to talk politics to. The management had finally produced a record player, and I had them put it out on the terrace. It was getting hot in the living room anyway, so we folded back the big double doors to the terrace and eased the increasing congestion in the living room. Jock Lewis, the radio disk jockey, was persuaded to run the phonograph, and Jose tried to teach the go-go girls some flamenco steps to the beat of rock and roll. Then I saw my wife, Liz, and I had to push people aside to reach her. She was with two pugs, one an ex-lightweight and the other an ex-heavyweight, both of them Negroes, and she yelled across to me: