by Jim Harrison
The evening wore itself garishly thin. He noted that Laura and the waitress—dancer—Sarah by name—were making frequent trips to the toilet, he guessed for snorting cocaine. A number of couples left for a disco and the party closed in together but still lacked the ease and camaraderie of wine. They were in an anteroom and the Sephard had the waiter close a partition. Phillip lit a joint and passed it. Another couple left and now there was only Laura, Sarah, the Sephard, Phillip, Sonia, the close friend of Sonia who wanted desperately for Nordstrom to go to Katmandu, and Nordstrom. The party warmed as the Sephard told witty stories, so deft that Nordstrom laughed deeply and forgot himself. He saw Laura’s eyes motion to him and then over her shoulder to the rest rooms.
Nordstrom made his way to the rest room and stood mugging in the mirror for no reason. There was naturally a toilet in there which meant he was in control again. If one sat on the stool, he thought, that made one the king of a dubious country about six-by-eight feet, but only if you could lock the door and in this case you couldn’t. Even the lock on the stall was broken. It might be better to give up the idea of kingship before it went awry. The mirror revealed a man much stronger than the man felt. He knew it didn’t matter if the image was himself or not. jo-jo the Dogface Boy, Marvin, Farley Cudd—any name would do. The dog was there at suppertime without being called. Anyone knew that when you had to be called it was usually for something unpleasant. Before they cut a tree down the timber cruiser made a mark on the tree for the lackeys with chain saws to follow, and the mark had to be construed as the tree’s name. Nordstrom was grinning at the idea of names when Laura and Sarah entered. O these days. Women in men’s rooms. What next? he thought. Sarah poured a line of cocaine along her forearm and offered it up to him.
“Frankly, I’d rather fuck.”
Sarah widened her eyes mockingly and looked at Laura whose eyes glittered. Then she laughed.
“I heard you’ve become a lunatic,” Sarah said.
“I thought you didn’t like rich businessmen.”
“They have definite advantages over poor business· men.”
She lifted her arm closer to Nordstrom’s nose. He snorted it off as he imagined a crazed pig or dope fiend would. Laura laughed leaning against the urinal.
“Nobody addressed my first suggestion,” Nordstrom said.
The two women looked at each other and he was intrigued that they were taking him seriously. He had simply been trying to keep control of his country by mounting an offensive.
“Let’s flip.” Sarah drew a quarter out of her purse.
“Okay.” Laura drew closer and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course it’s adultery for me but there are extenuating circumstances. I’ll take heads.”
Nordstrom slid his hand down Laura’s buttocks feeling the cheeks clench a bit as they used to do. When the quarter was in the air Phillip blundered in.
“What’s happening in here?” he said with a drunken leer.
The ladies bustled out and Nordstrom wondered what the final penalty might be for strangling his future son-in-law. The quarter jangled against the wall but he did not look down as he walked out. The coke made him feel like he had been locked in some sort of hyperthyroid refrigerator.
Back at the table the ladies looked at him and laughed. He slowly concocted his most murderous stare that had been used to good effect against business opponents in the old days. They became nervously silent but Nordstrom persisted until everyone at the table was alarmed. He had won the round, as paltry as that might be, but it was somehow important. Phillip returned to the table mumbling about having found a quarter. The Sephard’s face stiffened as the partition abruptly opened. A tall black man looked in, elegantly dressed in a gray pin-striped suit. Behind him and staring over his shoulder was an Italian, a cutout from the movies of a gangster psychopath. The tall black man eased around the table and grabbed Sarah’s wrist squeezing it painfully. Then he walked away dragging her, a half ambulatory doll , the pain of her twisted arm bright in her face.
“See here . . .” Nordstrom said, moving away from his chair.
“Fuck off, dude,” the black man said.
Nordstrom hit the man rather too hard, low on the cheek, and the man spun around losing his grip on the girl. Then his knees buckled and he sat down hard before bouncing up still dazed. Laura and Sonia began screaming and Nordstrom turned to see the Italian very close with the muzzle of a pistol aimed at his stomach. The black man rubbed his jaw and stared at Nordstrom.
“You’ll die,” he said smiling.
Two waiters and the manager rushed in belatedly at the screaming. There was no point in taking a chance.
“It’s just a family quarrel,” Nordstrom said. The black man accompanied by the girl pushed past the waiters. The Italian followed and the manager shrugged.
* * *
Back at the hotel Nordstrom had thought of the event as the last nasty surprise of the day. But then a death threat was rather striking in its own unique way. He would have to deal with it. Things were bound to happen if you lived in the open, if you walked very far off your porch. He jotted down some contingency plans as they used to call it in the oil business. After he had deservedly punched the man it had taken a full hour, a magnum of Dom Ruinart and two of Phillip’s joints to calm down what was left of the dinner party. The Sephard had insisted on a frantic consultation in the toilet where he kept insisting, “Oh my god I told you.” But Nordstrom’s ho-hum self-assurance even calmed the Sephard. He simply resented the intrusion on the evening, very probably his last family gathering.
In the hotel suite there were a number of options though they lost a little of their clarity in the mixture of wine and cocaine, also the feel of Laura’s bottom in his left hand as some sort of electrical stigma. Perhaps after more than twenty years the hormonal confusion of love was gone, the lump in the throat and the void beneath the breastbone, but one could hardly negate the happy sexuality that had become hapless but still there for reasons no one understands. The first option was to call the security chief of his former company, at one time an FBI chief in Los Angeles. His advice would be clinically expert and friendly. The two men would be in jail by first light. Nordstrom rejected this because he hadn’t really liked the man. There was something unctuous and utterly crooked about him and he didn’t want to owe the man a favor. The second choice was a bit more sensible and he might have made a call had not Laura and Sonia been leaving at noon the next day. It was the former bodyguard and factotum of a Texas oilman. He now occasionally exchanged recipes with the man who lived near Corpus Christi and raised quarter horses. They had had a fine time quail hunting and Nordstrom had entertained the man and his wife when they came to Los Angeles. The man was sort of Texas A&M linebacker type from Del Rio. He now maintained his family by what he euphemistically referred to as his “specialties.” He was an intelligent character and collected editions of Dickens and Thackeray. Nordstrom had never minded that the man was a major league arbiter of the kind of extortion case that never hits the press and an occasional killer. But then the threat, direct as it was, didn’t seem important enough. Then the phone rang.
“Darling, did I wake you?”
“No, I was reading. My nose is still awake.”
“Well it’s just that I was worried about you. That girl Sarah called. She wanted to warn you to be careful. The man is very dangerous . . .”
“I already had him checked out. He’s a nickel ante dope pusher,” Nordstrom lied.
“You’re so smart, darling. Anyway I told her where to get in touch with you . . . ”
“That wasn’t smart,” he interrupted. “She’s married to the man. But it doesn’t matter. Get some sleep.”
“I’m sorry. Oh my god.” There was a longish pause. “Do you want me to come over?”
“Of course I do, but I’d have too much sense to open the door. You looked wonderful today.”
“So did you. It was a little crazy but I would have gone ahead with it at the restau
rant.”
“So would I but we didn’t. Good-bye darling.”
“Good-bye. Be careful.”
Nordstrom felt a little bleak over his strength in not letting Laura come over. His family was disappearing in a jet plane. It suddenly occurred to him that he could get Laura back if he so chose. During dinner Sonia had dropped an obviously planted hint that her mother was unhappy. After they had left the restaurant there were frantic inquiries by Laura over his plans. The cab stopped at one point so Phillip could retch in the gutter. He wasn’t a drinker and had gulped far too much wine. Nordstrom had said he’d probably cash in the tickets for his trip and go to a cooking school for a few months. Then he would get a job in a restaurant by the ocean. He got carried away by the wine and the coke and the speeding taxi: he would cook near the ocean, buy a small boat to fish from in the off hours. He hadn’t decided whether the Atlantic, Pacific or Caribbean. Probably the Caribbean since he had already bought the shirts. Laura and Sonia had eagerly interrupted, saying since he had given away his money they would buy him a restaurant but he said no, I don’t want to own a restaurant, just want to cook in one. They seemed a bit sad after that and he couldn’t help them.
Sarah called then and said though it was five A.M. she wanted to come over and explain certain things. He said he’d meet her for lunch at Melon’s at one the next day. She seemed startled but agreed. He was reasonably sure they thought they had a turkey and were setting him up. He knew he had a certain advantage contrary to appearances: he lacked the usual misapprehensions about people that are caused by preconceptions. Sarah, her husband and the Italian thug waltzed around New York like violent peacocks. People that tripped most often and fatally did so out of greed, not understanding that it was a limited though convoluted game. Nordstrom had learned this in the oil business if not before. Still sleepless he drank a cold beer and made a few notes in his diary.
June 15, 78: A new and interesting problem. I have been threatened by death. I saw this basically as an insult and will have to deal with it on those terms. Otherwise I would simply go away as there is certainly nothing to hold me here. But that is not the point. People diminish themselves so horribly by letting themselves get pushed around by nitwits, .whether by the government or the thousand varieties of criminals. Surprised I refused Laura, the first time ever, but then life is a matter of fine, hard lines. I remember tonight fishing for bluegills and perch with Mother, how I had to bait the hook as she couldn’t bear wigglers and earthworms, and also take off the fish. She didn’t mind cleaning fish, birds or rabbits. Also when we went blackberry picking and saw that bear she said get behind me and I said Mother I’m sixteen and bigger than you. Must call her tomorrow, maybe go see her, also Henry then go south in the fall. Dear Mother I’m in a pickle. Henry would probably wait until dark and shoot them. None of the young men ever dared tease him even when he was drunk as a hoot owl. Doubt if I really need cooking school though am weak on certain sauces and desserts. This random violence saddens the heart. Here I had arranged a wonderful dinner for my daughter. I could take the plane to Rio the day after tomorrow but the threat would follow me everywhere like a toothache. Of course it’s not limited to the City. Heard at Dad’s funeral that huge drunken pulp cutter that lived in shack near the sawmill got tired of his neighbor’s barking dog so one night tore the dog’s head off with his hands and beat the master senseless with the carcass. Served thirty days and moved to Duluth. Laura could be here now talking about random violence. What an astounding lover she was, probably still is. Once we read a modern sex book but found nothing we hadn’t already done. Long for my dancing. How biologically flimsy we are. We go along for forty-three years then someone pokes a knife in us or a .38 slug and it’s good-night. That deer-hunting accident when I was sixteen. Two Milwaukee factory workers out by Wells Lake. One shot the other thinking it was a deer. I was nearby and carried the doctor’s bag for him. I told the ambulance guys they didn’t need the oxygen but they carted it into the woods anyway. It was a 30.06 and the bullet entered below his belt, struck the hipbone and deflected upward scrambling along the way and coming out below a shoulder blade in an apple-sized hole. The air was cold, the wound smelled and his eyes were open. I can imagine Sonia strolling around the Uffizi with a notebook, so intense and lovely. What is that river in Florence? Must get some sleep. It’s first light and I need to be on my toes.
In the morning Nordstrom shaved with his straight razor, using his soft leather belt as a strop, as his father taught him to do insisting it was the only way to get a good shave. He stuck his head out the window while drinking his three-dollar pot of coffee to taste the late morning warmth. Far below a man in a dirty white apron was smoking a cigarette in an alley. A cook should smoke his cigarettes looking at the ocean he thought. He dressed in a grandiose Hawaiian shirt (surfer against a setting sun) and baggy chinos. Into an ankle-high pair of desert boots he slipped the razor, which would discomfort his walking but might prove handy in a pinch.
He reached the restaurant purposefully a half-hour early. He spotted the Italian down the street in a parked car and paid a waiter ten bucks to take out a note that read “Hi! Be careful.” Sarah was beautiful when she entered and many heads turned. They sat near the corner window and he noted the thug was gone. They talked about dancing while Nordstrom ate a double steak tartare for strength and she trifled with a salad. She had begun dancing at ten, studying with Andre Eglevsky who had only recently died. She hoped to go to Jacob’s Pillow for July and August. She was the daughter of a New York University law professor. She had been married to Slats for three years. He was an exciting man though a bit volatile. Nordstrom thought that she had given no indication thus far of actually being a human being. There was the quality of a photograph or mirror image about her. She said she needed to talk to him in the strictest privacy and perhaps his hotel room would be better than a restaurant.
They walked the six or seven blocks to the hotel with Nordstrom hobbling a bit from the razor in his shoe. He decided he liked New York very much and if things cooled off a bit and after a visit to Wisconsin, New York would be the place to go to cooking school. Even the nasty air was good, somehow addictive in its mix of ozone and oxygen, the smells coming out of restaurant and subway vents, looking at Rodin’s bust of Balzac with the indigestion of a big lunch, and up here on the East Side, the most striking ladies in the world. If you couldn’t live in the woods for reasons of unrest this had to be a good place. Suburbs everywhere were murderous with torpor. Nothing vivid and all the trees looked planted. He paused in a shop to buy Normandy goat cheese; wrapped in straw, its odor seeping out of the package. He was amused at her impatience and accurately predicted what would happen: she would seduce him and then afterward in a parody of concern she would make an extortionary offer. She wasn’t a very good actress. He was lighthearted and bouncy despite the razor, doubting that anything bad could happen before dark.
And that was how things did happen. In the room she snorted some coke and Nordstrom refused. She was girlish, turned on the radio and demonstrated some dance moves. She shed all but her underthings and pranced around. She talked about how much she liked Laura and Sonia and it was too bad that terrible thing had happened. They made love and for a half hour or so she broke through her bad acting into simply making love in silence. While she was in the bathroom Nordstrom removed the .32 from her purse with his handkerchief and slid it under the mattress while whistling the old tavern song “Heart of My Heart.” When she had done her toilet she came out affecting a troubled mien and had two more lines of cocaine.
“I don’t know if I can help you . . . ”
“Help me what? I doubt I can get it up again. You are one crazed little windmill. My god.” He yawned deeply.
“I mean protect you from Slats. He’s really pissed. In fact no one ever hit him and lived.”
“Not even his mama? Didn’t he ever get spanked? I bet you spanked him before.”
“You better get serious. He cou
ld have offed you last night but I said, no Slats. He didn’t mean it. But I can only do so much.” She was getting angry.
“But I did mean it. He fucked up my daughter’s graduation dinner. I’d sort of like an apology. Tell him that. He has bad manners . . .”
“That’s not the way it works, you hick fuck. If it wasn’t for me you’d be dead. I pleaded with him and he finally said this morning he’d accept ten grand not to kill you. That’s a final offer. You got until tomorrow at midnight. And don’t run. He’ll find you. He’s got connections everywhere.”
“Tell him that’s my offer, too.”
“What the fuck you talking about?” she spit out.
“I won’t kill him by tomorrow night. That makes us even. No one kills anyone. No one has to go to the bank. Everyone saves his money.”
She left in a snit after writing out a number and saying she hoped he’d come to his senses. Nordstrom turned off the radio and fixed on the idea of coming to his senses. He had never felt more within his senses, as a matter of fact. He had fixed his point on earth as dead center in New York while at the same time his family diminished high above the Atlantic. His mother and his dad’s best friend Henry were in northern Wisconsin. He had already had lunch and made love. Next came a much-needed nap, a long stroll and a late dinner. Perhaps a movie. But there was the slight aftertaste of asking the Sephard about Sarah the summer before, the increased curiosity after the warning. He toyed with the idea of the airport, or simply renting a car. Or calling Corpus Christi, imagining alternatives without interest. Then he made up his mind for good and called the desk to arrange to have the room next to his bedroom added to the suite. Then the Sephard called in a state of concern adding that he had a psychopathic second cousin over in Brooklyn that might be of help. Nordstrom assured him that everything was “lovey-dovey,” and that he’d call if there were problems. The bellhop appeared with the new key, and Nordstrom prepared for his nap. He discarded the idea that this whole thing wasn’t fair and that the extortion attempt was too clumsy to take very seriously, even with the threat. Later in the evening would be the test; if there was no move to freshen things up he would let it go.