by Maggie Estep
Eventually, I get the big wicker basket and hold it out for the people to throw all their rings back in. When the ride’s stopped and the people have gotten off, Guillotine comes over and looks in the basket, counting the rings.
“There’s supposed to be eighteen,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“There’s only seventeen in here. One of those fucks stole one. You gotta watch those mothers,” he says.
For a Frenchman, Guillotine’s got a pretty good grasp on American swearing.
“Sorry,” I say.
Guillotine’s still frowning, but then I guess he remembers about my lady and her troubles and doesn’t say anything. He pulls a flask out of one of the pockets on his army jacket and offers me a hit of whiskey. I take it. The shit burns down my throat but then pretty soon it’s warming me and I feel a little better.
A nice Spanish family has come over to ride. I go collect their money, and before going to start up the organ, Guillotine gives me another hit out of the flask.
As the organ starts up with its crazy murder-movie-sounding song, I feel the whiskey’s warmth working through my body. Since Elsie doesn’t like drinking and I don’t do much of it, the two shots have really gone to my head. I’m a little dizzy as I climb up onto the platform and start feeding brass rings into the contraption. I’m okay, though.
Ruby Murphy
27 / Man Trouble
Stinky lets out a few low groans of protest from inside his carrying case as I get myself embroiled in a discussion with the car service driver, a beefy Russian newly emigrated to the United States.
“In United States I can do anything,” he tells me. “Already I have Internet business going, in five years I will be rich. I read. I listen,” he presses on, “you see?” He alarms me by turning around to fix his gaze on me, making sure I’m looking at the stack of cassette tapes atop his dashboard. Financial self-help books-on-tape. Seven Successful Ways of the Samurai, The Idiots Guide to Capitalism, etc. The man laughs when I confess to earning less than thirty thousand dollars a year.
“Ha. If you were from Russia, you would be rich. If you had struggle as baby, like me, now you would be rich,” he assures me.
He’s probably right. But I’m neither Russian nor rich, I am just fucked.
I rest my head on the back of the seat as I watch Brooklyn rolling by the car windows. I’m supposed to have a piano lesson just two hours from now. Since it’s too late to cancel, I’m planning to settle in at Ariel’s and then traipse up to Juilliard.
I pull sheet music out of my backpack and stare at the Handel piece I haven’t practiced enough. It stares back at me.
A half hour later the car pulls up in front of the Chelsea Hotel. I haul cats and backpack and a huge shopping bag of cat necessities out, hand the driver a handsome tip because I am a compulsive overtipper, and then lug my beasts up to Ariel’s place. I ring the golden nipple doorbell. Ariel’s small blond head pops out the door. Her face is pinched like a tight white glove.
“You okay?” I ask as she leads me inside her place.
“No. I am not okay at all,” she says in a hard voice. “Frank has disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Didn’t you just spend two days with him?” I ask. During our earlier phone conversation, she told me she’d been shacked up with him and that was why I was unable to reach her.
“Yes, but he was supposed to call an hour ago. We had a plan we had to work out. He hasn’t called. He doesn’t answer his phone. No,” she says vehemently, “I’m not okay. Would you be okay if you were, in spite of all your best efforts, living under the effects of a ridiculous hex passed on to you by your mother? Would you?”
I have an urge to slap her. Instead, I just let loose: “Try nearly getting murdered by a guy you go out on a date with. And then come home to find your apartment vandalized. It’s not a lot of fun being with all these lunatics you put me together with. I’m just an ordinary woman, you know. It’s taken me years to come to terms with that, and now, when I’ve finally learned to settle into myself and honor what’s important to me, when things were finally okay you know, I mean not great, but okay, then you came along, making these crazy demands on me for reasons I just can’t understand.”
Ariel takes a half step away from me.
“The world is full of people cut out for this sort of thing,” I press on, “and I’m not one of them. I don’t know why you insisted on roping me into your little drama,” I say, and then abruptly run out of words.
There’s a wounded, mortified, look in Ariel’s eyes, and I start feeling crummy about my outburst.
“Oh listen, don’t look like that, I’m sorry, I … Look …” I say putting my hand on her arm in a conciliatory gesture.
She pulls away. “I didn’t realize I was disturbing you,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
I look at her. I have no idea what’s going on behind that pale mask of a face, its only color the violet of the scar. I suddenly find myself asking what I’ve wanted to know since the first moment I laid eyes on her.
“How’d you get that scar?”
Her eyes get huge and she self-consciously puts one pale elegant hand over the scar. I seem to have rendered her speechless. After a long moment, she opens her mouth, but no words come out. Then, simply: “My father.”
I cringe and feel like a total piece of shit for asking.
“Indirectly,” she elaborates. “He never raised a hand to me, but it was his fault this happened.”
Her skin is greenish now.
“Look, I’m sorry. I was out of line.”
“Yes,” she says quietly, “you were.”
We stare at each other. Stinky wails.
“Anyway,” she says, abruptly shifting gears, “I’m going to Long Island. There are things I have to take care of. Make yourself at home,” she adds, motioning at the blanched expanse of her apartment.
“Are you sure this is okay? I do have friends I could impose on.”
“No, don’t impose. Stay here. And, as far as our financial arrangements are concerned, I will take care of you when I return.”
“Uh, when are you returning?”
“Three days at most.”
“Well, I don’t imagine I’m going to stay here three days. I mean, I’m not sure what I’m going to do but probably I’ll go home once I’ve thought things through for a day or so.”
“Yes. Well.”
“So, uh, how about you give me a check?”
“I would be glad to, but my checkbook is in Long Island. Since you’re in my apartment, you can trust that I am going to pay you.”
For some reason, none of this is particularly reassuring. But I just shrug.
“Well, I’m all ready to go.” Ariel indicates two overnight bags sitting near the huge white couch. “Here are keys,” she says, handing me a set of keys on a horseshoe key ring.
“You like horses?” I ask, surprised.
“What?” She looks taken aback.
“The key ring,” I say, dangling the good luck charm.
“Oh, someone gave me that,” she says, suddenly curt. She turns her back to me, picks up her bags, and walks to the door.
And with that, Ariel DiCello is gone.
For a moment I just stand there, confused. Stinky wails. I bend over to open both carrying cases. I watch them emerge, bellies low to the ground, eyes big and round. Displaced for the second time in twelve hours.
I unpack the miniature litter box I have stuffed in a shopping bag. I scout out a spot in Ariel’s immaculate bathroom where I put the box on the floor and fill it with the gallon freezer bag of litter I brought from home. Both cats come in to stare at this, neither one looking particularly approving. I leave them to it and go back to the living room, where I organize myself for my lesson.
I put out water for the cats, then, tucking Ariel’s horseshoe key ring in my pocket, head out into the hall, carefully locking the place, then going downstairs and out onto Twenty-third Street.
X
MARK BAXTER is late and I’m left standing in the Juilliard lobby a good fifteen minutes. Packs of students roam. A bunch of wind instrument guys are lounging on the couches near me, occasionally looking over because, I suppose, I don’t quite look like I belong. I’m too old to be a student but not sufficiently classical-looking to be a professor. I am about to give up and go back downtown when Mark Baxter appears. At his side is a tall blond woman. Mark storms over to where I’m standing.
“You’re here,” he says.
“Yes, Mark, I’ve been here for twenty minutes.”
“Ah,” he says. The blond woman is still standing there, at his side. She reminds me of Ariel—elegant, blond, willowy—but she’s got life in her eyes.
“I’m Julia, Mark’s friend,” she says. “He doesn’t believe in introducing me to people. Or perhaps it’s just that he can’t ever remember my name,” she adds with a laugh.
I shake hands with her and introduce myself.
“Yes,” Julia says, “he mentions you frequently.”
This startles me a little. I think of what Oliver said about Mark Baxter wanting to get down my pants, but to be honest, I just can’t see it.
“I’ll leave you two now,” Julia says. “Mark, I will see you later.”
“That’s entirely possible,” Mark says.
The woman laughs again and walks away.
“Who’s that?” I ask my cantankerous teacher as we head to the elevator.
“A friend.”
“She’s pretty.”
“What difference does that make?” he asks indignantly, jabbing the Close Door button in the elevator.
“I see you’re in a fine mood,” I say, frowning at him.
“I am indeed in a fine mood,” he says haughtily. “I certainly hope you’ve practiced.”
I make no comment. The fact is, I haven’t practiced much and I don’t want him harassing me about it.
But harass he does.
I’ve gone all of two bars into the Handel when he starts yelling. “I thought you said you practiced!” he shouts, jumping up from his chair.
“I have, Mark—not enough, but some.”
“What do you expect me to do?” he demands, pacing the short length of the room. “I’m not a magician. And you’re not a gifted child. You can’t improve without a tremendous amount of work.”
“I realize that,” I say, “and it would be nice if you could calm down and listen to my excuse. It’s a good one.”
“I do not want excuses,” he thunders, still pacing, then abruptly coming to a stop, contemplating some sort of plastic container that’s sitting on top of the piano’s closed lid. Suddenly, he picks up the plastic container and flings it into the trash.
“What was that?” I ask him.
“Tofu salad. I loathe tofu.”
“Oh,” I say, staring at my insane teacher.
Finally, after a thumbnail explanation of what I’ve been going through these last few days, I get Mark to calm down and actually become somewhat sympathetic. Our lesson proceeds without further outbursts for an hour, at the end of which Mark makes furious notes in my music book, scribbling down scale fingerings before sending me on my way.
It takes me a half hour to get back downtown, but the music lesson has improved my outlook and I barely notice the trip.
As I stand in front of Ariel’s door, fussing with the complicated locks, I hear someone coming up the stairs. A tight-faced woman appears. She’s clutching an alligator purse under one arm and a diminutive white dog under the other. She stops before the door next to Ariel’s and gives me the hairy eyeball.
“Can I help you?” asks a squeaky voice. For a moment I stare from the woman’s strange pulled-back face to the small dog, because it really sounded like the dog was talking.
“I’m Ariel’s guest,” I say, still looking from dog to woman and back.
“I see,” she sniffs, and, keeping one eye on me, quickly opens her door and scoots inside. I wonder what she thought of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen when they roamed these halls.
I finally get Ariel’s door open and slip into the long front hall. The cats don’t come to greet me and there’s a deep silence inside the place. I go down the dark corridor into the living room, where the afternoon sun is slanting in, bathing the many vases in ethereal yellow light.
I hear a faint rustling sound coming from the bedroom.
“Cats?” I call out, heading for the bedroom. Just then I spot both cats in the far corner of the living room, sitting side by side, staring at me with huge eyes.
I hear another sound from the bedroom and a blade of fear shoots through me.
“Ariel?” I call out tentatively, hoping against hope that she’s come back for something.
“Ariel isn’t here,” a voice says calmly.
If there’s one thing I have a bizarre aptitude for, it’s recognizing voices. And this one, I know, belongs to Ned Ward. I freeze in my tracks, then slowly start backing up toward the door.
Ned comes ambling out of the bedroom, leans casually against the door frame and looks at me over the tops of his glasses. “So,” he says, like we’re in a thoroughly normal situation, “how’s it going, Ruby?”
“How did you get in here?”
“I let myself in,” Ned says, shrugging, producing a ring of picklocks from his pocket and dangling them in front of me.
“Oh,” I say, flat-line calm.
“So. That’s who you’re working for? This Ariel?”
“How’d you know that?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“You think I’m a jerk?”
I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.
“What are you doing here, Ned?”
“Playing with firearms,” he says, lifting his pant leg and gently pulling a gun out from an ankle holster there. Probably the same one from the motel—though I’m no expert.
I stand rooted to my spot, staring at him.
Lulu sees fit to suddenly wander over and wantonly rub herself against Ned’s leg. Though she is deathly afraid of most people, she occasionally warms to men. Apparently, dangerous men.
“Cute cat,” Ned says. “She’s a little nutty though, huh? I went to pet her last night and she hissed at me.”
“Last night?”
“At your place. On Stillwell Avenue,” Ned says. “What, you didn’t know that was me?”
I feel myself getting light-headed. I think, ridiculously, of Balzac novels, of fainting ladies being revived with smelling salts.
“Are you all right?” I hear Ned ask.
I see boiling silver spots in front of my eyes. I blindly grope for the wall.
“You look bad, maybe you should sit down,” Ned says.
“What were you looking for last night? What are you doing here now? I don’t know anything, Ned, so I don’t know why you’re hounding me,” I say, clutching the wall.
“What?” Ned squints at me and looks genuinely puzzled.
“I don’t know anything. I don’t have any proof of anything.”
“Proof of what?” Ned asks.
“Whatever the hell Gaines is doing.”
“Gaines? What’s he got to do with anything?”
“What do you mean? You mean you were gonna kill me the other night just for your own amusement?”
“Kill you?”
“At the motel, Ned, I saw your gun.”
“So?”
“Come on, be straight with me. Just tell me what’s what. I assume you’ve been sent here to shut me up. Just tell me,” I say.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Ruby.” He shakes his head slowly.
“What are you doing here? Who sent you?” I press on.
“Nobody sent me. I’m here to see what the hell you’re up to. You split the other night. I thought that was rude and a bit suspicious.”
“Ned,” I say working to keep my voice calm, “I woke up in the middle of the night and you were standing there holding a gun. That w
orried me.”
“What’s a gun have to do with you?”
“You always carry a gun?”
“What if I do?”
“I don’t make a practice of sleeping with armed men. I thought you were after me because of my suspicions about the death of Little Molly.”
“What?” He squints.
“Molly. The apprentice jockey. Dead. Remember?”
He seems unsure about something now. Frowns. His glasses slide down his nose. Beyond him I notice that one of Ariel’s discreet wall closets is open. Ned has evidently rifled through it. There are papers on the floor.
“What were you looking for?” I say, getting increasingly confused.
“Looking?”
“Why’d you go through Ariel’s stuff?”
Ned says nothing. Reaches in his pocket and takes out his little memo pad. Reads something there. Looks at me again.
“How long have you known Ariel?” he asks me.
“Why?”
He stares down at the memo pad, says nothing.
“Ned, are you in on this horse-killing thing?” I ask, insanely because I don’t know what good it’s going to do if he confesses to me. Then he probably will have to kill me. But it’s all I can think of.
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you kill that horse of Gaines’s last month?”
Now Ned looks completely dumbfounded.
And then the doorbell rings.
Ned points the gun at me.
“What are you doing, Ned?” I say, keeping my voice steady.
“Pointing a gun at you so you’ll keep your very attractive mouth shut,” he says, smiling. “Who do you suppose that is at the door there?” he asks mildly.