West 47th (19 page)

Now Andy turned his back to the street, told Mitch: “I've over a million in the Caymans. Doris will match that and you and Maddie can kick in whatever you think would be fair.”

“For what?”

“The only reason I ran Riccio's errands was so I'd have a large enough hunk to throw into the pot.”

“I'm also throwing in my jewelry,” Doris said. “Not all of it but a lot. I've got too much, just stashed away, pieces I was temporarily in love with but have been ignoring for ages. It's a crime. I bet I've at least enough to fill a whole showcase.”

“There's a location on Madison in the seventies that's coming available,” Andy said. “I've talked to the real estate agent about it.”

He and Doris went on about what the new Laughton establishment on Madison would be like, how successful it would be. They jumped right over asking Mitch if he was for it or not. Their enthusiasm assumed he was.

What was it with everyone trying to get him back into a store on Madison? Mitch thought. Did it ever occur to them—Andy, Doris, Maddie—that he didn't want to be a goddamn shopkeeper, that he hadn't been cut out for it in the first place, that it had been something he'd fit himself into but not without having to squeeze and force the shape of his true nature? In fact, since there'd not been a family store, not had to kissy-kissy ass all those spoiled, well-off women every day he'd felt better about himself.

That wasn't to say he liked what he was now doing for a living. It was, as he secretly thought of it, something that kept him from doing what he didn't want to do, which was shopkeep. Put the goods on display every morning, put the goods back in the vault every night. Set the alarm. Pay the insurance company on time and hope switchers and lifters didn't pick you clean or some lady looking as though she could buy the place out didn't have a .380 automatic up her sable sleeve. Fuck no. Maybe he didn't know what he wanted to do and maybe it was a little late to be undecided about that, but for sure he wasn't going to be a shopkeeper.

He did a smile along with some nods that made him appear interested. “You're way ahead of me,” he said. “Let me think about it some and catch up.”

To change direction he took a set of the Kalali photos from his folio. Tossed it on Andy's desk. “Some things I'm hoping to recover for a client,” he explained. “Take a look when you have a moment.”

His pager beeped.

Hurley wanted to be called.

Mitch reached him at the precinct.

“What you up to?” Hurley asked.

“Just shagging around.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“I got an okay from the Jersey guys to take a look at the Kalali house. Who knows? Want to go along?”

“I'm having lunch with Maddie and afterwards I promised her the museum.”

“Which museum?”

“The Met.” She preferred the Met over the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney. Whenever she'd sat aimed at the abstract paintings of either of the latter, she'd gotten low to medium grade anxiety attacks, sometimes even a bit nauseous; however the Fantin-Latours, Whistlers, Cassatts and Boudins at the Met had a mollifying effect.

“Bring Maddie along,” Hurley suggested. “We'll stop and have lunch at a place I know in Jersey City where the top mob guys used to go and there's still a lot of what they once were in the atmosphere. It's very Maddie.”

Chapter 13

Having had lunch they were again under way in the Lexus with Billy driving and Mitch up front with him, Maddie and Hurley in the back.

Billy sort of remembered the way they'd come. All through there was typical New Jersey waterfront and most of the ways weren't streets as much as cobbled or unpaved accesses from one unremarkable section to another. So Billy was to be forgiven for choosing a couple of turns that led to only the loading platforms of warehouses. He finally came onto Avenue E and a ramp that put them on the Turnpike Extension.

Bound for Far Hills.

“Anybody against some music?” Billy asked.

No one replied so he assumed, clicked the radio on and began scanning. He passed up some gloomy Mahler and a newscast that managed to get out the word
killed
. Some mellow jazz was what he hoped to find, some Oscar Peterson or John Coltrane. He went up and down the megacycles twice. The air was congested with the agony of heavy metal and the high school poetry and scratches of rap.

Shit, was what Billy thought of it and nearly said aloud. He gave up on the radio.

His patience this day was thin, stretched. He saw it as a sort of membrane with abnormal elasticity that ran sheet-like. Horizontally within his skull from his brow line to the stem of his brain. Impervious up to now.

He'd never allowed the tension of his patience to show. Wouldn't today. He'd be as expected, in the part of amenable Billy the driver, wait-here guy, on call and carry guy, a kind of satellite person the way his time revolved around that of others.

Before, when he'd driven Mr. Strawbridge, he'd done whatever was required to make himself indispensable, and there'd been no letup in that endeavor since he'd been driving Mitch and Maddie. Not once had there been a mention, not even a veiled hint of his being let go, nor had he implied that he might quit. By now the indispensability was mutual he believed. Wasn't he bound to them?

Admitted, he had himself a steady, soft spot. The salary was generous and the treatment liberal.

Those, however, weren't his reason for staying on. Not his way down inside reasons.

Years ago, over a series of lengthy waits for Mr. Strawbridge, particularly one of six hours at Kennedy because Mr. Strawbridge had missed his return flight from London, Billy had done what he considered to be some deep introspection. Opened himself up beyond his layers of ordinary motives and came up with why, despite the frequent urge to make a change, he should remain where he was.

The need to resent.

That was it. His need to resent.

Not devotion nor security, but the advantage of being able to resent with ease, confident that his resentment wasn't about to spill over (desert the Lexus and Maddie mid-traffic on 50th) or gather into a temperamental tornado and havoc everything in his vicinity to such an extent he'd have no recourse other than to hang head and remove himself to another vicinity.

It was a matter of counterpoise.

Mr. Strawbridge's genuine good nature and other personal merits, the various likabilities of Mitch and Maddie. Attributes that adequately outweighed (but not by much) his resentments, that kept the umbrageous side of him contained.

Where, he often asked himself remindfully, would he ever again find such suitability, such an accommodating ratio—never less than fifty-one percent honest-to-goodness consideration to offset his rarely more than forty-nine percent grudge?

He imagined having to endure employers who behaved less agreeably. He wouldn't put up with it. It wasn't in him to put up with it. He'd be forever deserting, escaping, quitting and being let go. There'd be too many trial periods, the begging for letters of reference.

Couldn't have that.

Couldn't risk having to have that, Billy thought.

So, what about this four-way pull on his patience today? What had brought it on?

Had to be the proposition.

Made to him Wednesday night when he was having his usual slice of pound cake at the narrow coffee shop around the corner on Columbus Avenue, when that guy came in and helped himself to the same booth. No introduction, no preamble, just the proposition straight out.

The guy was well-dressed. In gray. Had on a hundred-dollar tie. Seemed real enough, serious eyes, serious mouth. Talked like he had sense until the number came out of him. Twenty-five million.

From that point on Billy was sure what he had was another city crazy.

Still, as the guy had stipulated, he'd kept the proposition to himself, hadn't spoken about it to Mitch.

“What was it called, what I had to eat?” Maddie asked.

“Orecchio d' Elefante,” Hurley told her.

“Which is what?”

“The literal translation is ear of elephant. Actually a loin veal chop pounded so thin it's floppy.”

“The clams were delicious,” she said. For a starter she'd ordered a dozen littlenecks on the half shell. Slurped them down without the disguise of Tabasco, Worcestershire or lemon. Mitch, a bit impressed, had visualized her stomach a pink resting place, albeit temporary, for all those homeless clams.

“Most women can't even stomach the idea of eating raw clams,” he said now.

“It's a carnal thing,” Maddie said and allowed that to hang in the air. “With me, of course, it's purely tactile, and I can accept the resemblance but why be so nasty nice? You know, Elise adores raw clams, oysters as well, always has. She fed me my first when I was three or so.” Then, without a half beat or breath: “Did you happen to overhear those three men at the next table, I thought they were mob guys planning arson and a hit but it soon became apparent that two of them were trying to sell the third some fire and life insurance. Most disappointing.”

“Used to be a guy couldn't get a waiter's job there unless he'd done a hitch in some joint.”

“I'd have appreciated it more then,” Maddie said.

“That's for sure,” Mitch commented to the windshield.

At that moment they were passing over Newark Bay. It occurred to Mitch that once its water had been clean enough to drink. Black-hulled freighters were tied up like animals on short leash. The beaks of cranes picking their bellies empty. Then came Newark Airport on the left. A 747 on its glide path. Mitch imagined the collective quickening of the passengers' heartbeats.

He wished Billy would hurry the Lexus, get them to Far Hills sooner. He opened the glove compartment. It was stuffed with traffic citations, crumpled up malevolently and shoved in there. So many that some, as though relieved, flew out. A couple of years ago Mitch had paid off just as much of an accumulation, hoping a clean slate would inspire Billy to be more conscientious. All it did was set a precedent.

“I'm not going to put out for your goddamn tickets again,” Mitch said. “You expect me to but I won't.” He retrieved those that were on the floor.

Billy did a shrug.

“You'll get your license taken away.”

Billy agreed with some nods that unmistakably conveyed it would be Mitch's loss.

Mitch noticed the black butt of a revolver in the compartment, no holster, just the weapon in among the cram of traffic tickets. He took it out. A Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. A hefty piece.

“I recall you having a thirty-two automatic,” Mitch said.

“A plinker. I traded it.”

“This loaded?”

“Of course.”

“You ought to keep it on safety.”

“No one ever gets in there but me.”

“I'm in there now.”

“So you are,” Billy said intractably.

Mitch put the revolver on safety and placed it back in among the tickets. He closed the glove sharply, closing the subject.

Maddie was back on the clams. “I'll bet I don't get hepatitis from them,” she was saying. “Not in that restaurant. It's probably the safest place north of Miami to eat clams.”

“Why?”

“If a mob boss ever got hepatitis the place would get bombed. Don't you think?”

They were on 78 now, headed west. New Jersey was sliding by, nothing pleasant. The city of Newark, off on the right, was aided by distance.

A wave of depression invaded Mitch. Not the deep sort, just a minor concavity, enough to be felt. It wasn't because of Billy's shaded insubordination or because Maddie was in the back with Hurley, Mitch told himself. Sure, Hurley had it for Maddie. That had been obvious for a long while but it was a long way from being active.

She used Hurley. Like right now, she was pumping the Kalali case out of him. Maybe Hurley thought it was conversation, but listening to it Mitch recognized it as pure Maddie, one-sided pump. By the time they got to Far Hills she'd know more about the Kalali case than he did.

He read, as though interested, what was displayed on the rear and side of an eighteen-wheeler that Billy passed doing a good twenty over the limit. He thought the wish they'd get stopped for speeding. By a hard-mouthed state cop. That would change the climate.

A green highway sign announced Irvington importantly.

Named after some guy Irving, Mitch thought. Never forget Irving what's-his-name. Irving Toplitz, that was it. A 47th guy who used to sell pique goods out of his pocket. Dirty little diamonds in dirty overhandled briefkes. Got hold of an eighty-pointer (four-fifths of a carat) that was loupe clean, first quality. A held-back piece of swag popped out of an engagement ring. Irving showed the stone up and down the street. Turned down better than fair offers for it because once he sold it all he'd have to show was money. In his own way in love with that eighty-pointer, like an unfortunate-looking guy who'd come by a beautiful girl. One afternoon at curb-side he was showing his prize possession to someone when he was accidentally jostled by a tourist. The eighty-pointer was flipped out of its open briefke. It bounced twice and found the sewer drain. Irv Toplitz felt victimized. He gave up on the street, was never seen upon it again.

Mitch thought a plaque should have been installed marking the spot, saying, for one and all to see forever,
here is where Irv Toplitz lost his spirit
. But then, if that was the criterion there'd be plaques all over the place.

“What time you want to get started tomorrow?” Billy asked.

“Early,” Mitch told him.

“Not too early.”

“Say seven, seven-thirty.”

“Let's make it nine or ten.”

“I want to be up there by then.”

Billy didn't promise seven, seven-thirty.

Hurley now had out a set of the Kalali photos, was describing them to Maddie piece by piece.