The Man Who Cancelled Himself

by David Handler

  “It talks good,” he admitted. He shook his head. “But it doesn’t happen. Not in my experience. I mean, sure, the secretaries get together in the lunchroom all the time and plot some crazed Mongolian grudge-fuck for their boss. They fantasize about it. They dream about it. But they don’t do it. One person does it. Someone who is cold-blooded and mean and bent. We’re looking for one person. What about Marjorie Daw?”

  “What about her?”

  “Think she’s involved?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  Very grinned at me. “You want yourself some of that, don’t you, dude?”

  “What makes you say that, Lieutenant?”

  “Yo, I’m a detective, remember? I notice things.”

  “What things?”

  “Like how something happens to you when her name comes up. You get this dopey look on your face.”

  “Oh, that. It comes from working on a sitcom. I’ve noticed it myself in the mirror when I shave.”

  He was still grinning at me. “They say there’s no better way to help you forget.”

  “Who’s they?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. They.”

  “Well, I’m not interested in her.”

  “Whatever you say, dude.” He shifted in the booth. “Me, I’ve had trouble getting interested in women period since my surgery. It’s not the equipment. Hell, no. I can get vertical. It’s more like … why bother, y’know? Dig, when I got the news I was gonna have to get cut open, I fainted dead away—right there in the doctor’s office. You ever faint?”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “Well, not me. Not ever. I mean, I’m a guy who’s stared down the barrel of a loaded handgun and lived to tell about it. And there I am, out cold on the floor, being revived by a seventy-year-old internist named Bert Greenbaum. It was fucking humiliating. And, Christ, the shit that was running through my head. I could tell you stories—”

  “Now wouldn’t be a good time.”

  “Sure, sure.” He signaled for the check. “My treat, dude. You’ve brought a real dose of fresh.”

  “I am something of a vinegar-and-water douche.”

  Pete brought the tab. Very gave him his Visa card. He went off with it.

  “I also intend to live up to my end of the bargain,” the lieutenant added. “The one where you help me and I help you.”

  “With what?”

  “With who the da-da is.”

  “I told you I didn’t want to know, Lieutenant,” I growled.

  Pete returned. Very signed the check and we went outside. It was quiet on Commerce. The Cherry Lane Theater next door still hadn’t let out. The air was freshening a bit. It was almost breathable.

  Very inhaled it deeply. “Dude?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t shit me, okay? Shit somebody else—other people, your readers, anybody you like. But don’t shit me. Now I got the identity of Miss Nash’s Lamaze partner for you. This one the press doesn’t have. I had to pull some strings to get it. Do you want his name or don’t you?”

  My heart was beating faster as I stood there. Very was staring at my hands. I glanced down at them. My fists were clenched.

  “Well, do you?” he demanded, his knee jiggling impatiently.

  “Give it to me,” I said, between clenched teeth.

  “Whew.” He made an elaborate show of wiping his forehead. “Welcome to the human race. You better chill, though, on account of—”

  “I’m perfectly chill.”

  “You can’t take him. Dude’s got a neck as big around as your chest. His name’s Vic Early.”

  I felt my body uncoil. “Vic’s her bodyguard.”

  “Yo, Princess Stephanie and her bodyguard went and had—”

  “Vic’s just helping out—in lieu of the biological father.”

  Very frowned. “You sure?”

  “Positive. But it was a good try, Lieutenant.” I patted him on the back. Solid muscle. “I appreciate it.”

  Very knelt and tightened the laces of his hiking boots. “It’s not like I’m done yet. I got other avenues. Plenty of ’em. You’ll see.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “I’ll find out.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “Later, dude.”

  “Good night, Lieutenant.”

  We went our separate ways. Very headed east, street-hiking across Manhattan for home. Home being Brooklyn Heights. Me, I moseyed a hundred yards over to Hudson to hail a cab. While I waited for one, I had this strange feeling somebody was watching me. I looked around but saw no one. In fact, the street was rather deserted for ten o’clock. But I couldn’t shake off the feeling. Possibly my nerves were on edge.

  The apartment felt empty and smaller without Lulu. It felt dead. Not that she’s the ideal roommate. She’s messy, moody, stubborn. She has deplorable eating habits. She snores. She drools. She smells like a hound. She’s allergic to twenty-seven different forms of airborne plant and tree effluvia. Did I mention she snores? But she’s also alive. Now nothing in the place was, unless you count me. And me I’m not so sure about. I flicked on the air conditioner and checked my phone machine. Three messages, all from Lyle. Demanding to know where I was and why I wasn’t home writing like I’d said I’d be. I washed out Lulu’s bowls and dried them and put them in the cupboard with her mackerel tins. I swept up the kitchen floor. I took off my shirt and tie and put on some old Lightnin’ Hopkins. I thought about getting out my mukluks, but I didn’t feel much like writing that night. When I was younger I worked whether I felt like it or not. That’s what it meant to be a professional, I told myself. I don’t think I know what a professional is anymore. I don’t think anyone else does either. And I’m positive they don’t care.

  I got all of my shoes out of the closet. Lined them up there in front of the sofa and went to work on them. I always polish my shoes when I get the blues. I don’t know why. Maybe because I have something to show for my effort when I’m done. I so seldom do otherwise. I never let anyone else touch my shoes. Because they don’t know what they’re doing, and because I get the blues pretty often. I brushed off the loose dirt first, and saddle-soaped the shoes that needed it. Most of them did. New York is hard and dirty on shoes. While the saddle soap dried, and Lightnin’ sang “Sometime She Will,” I did my suede balmorals and moccasins. I never use a suede brush—much too stiff. I use an old Oral B ultrasoft toothbrush, and a pencil eraser on grease smudges. When the saddle soap was dry I wiped it all off and applied a thin layer of Meltonian shoe cream, neutral, to each pair. Then I went to work on them with a horsehair brush until they glowed. It was past eleven by the time I was done. I undressed and got into bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling. I was dead tired but I couldn’t sleep. I missed Lulu too much. I tried putting a pillow over my face, but it didn’t smell like dead fish and it didn’t suffer from any upper respiratory problems. So I just lay there a while, feeling totally alone in the world. Before I finally turned on the light and picked up the phone and dialed it.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “About Harry Connick, Jr.,” I said. “I can sometimes be—’

  “I know exactly what you’re going to say, Hoagy.” As always, Marjorie Daw sounded crisp, calm, and prepared. “You don’t think it would be such a good idea for us to see each other socially. It’s not that you don’t like me. You do. You think I’m really nice, bright, attractive … But you’re absolutely, positively not looking to get involved right now. And, besides, you—”

  “I hate Harry Connick, Jr.”

  “You hate Harry Connick, Jr. It’s perfectly okay, Hoagy. I understand. Really, I do.”

  “What a relief,” I said. “Marjorie?”

  “Yes, Hoagy?”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

  “It wasn’t?” A tiny hint of eagerness crept into her voice. “What were you … ?”

  “I was going to say that I can sometimes be found at
the Café Carlyle after midnight when Bobby Short is in town, and when I’m not in the greatest of spirits.” I paused. “Sometimes.”

  She was silent a moment, sorting through this. “Is he in town?” she asked, very carefully.

  “It happens he is.”

  “Are you in the greatest of spirits?”

  “It happens I’m not.”

  She waited for me to say something more. Something a bit more definite. Something. Anything. When I didn’t she said, “Well, okay, Hoagy. Thank you for … for letting me know this.”

  “You’re welcome, Marjorie. Good-bye.”

  I put down the phone and stared at it a moment. Then I went and showered. I stropped grandfather’s razor and shaved, doused myself in Floris, put a dab of something greasy in what was left of my hair. I dressed in my double-breasted ivory dinner jacket and pleated black evening trousers, my starched white broadcloth tuxedo shirt with the tenpleat bib front and wing collar, my black silk bow tie, and grandfather’s pearl cuff links and studs. Then I caught a cab across town to the Carlyle Hotel.

  I don’t exactly know what it is about the Café Carlyle, that living pastel monument to Manhattan’s elegant yesteryear, that last bastion of high-stepping sophistication. Maybe it’s the sharp brine of the caviar and the tart, cold, crispness of the Dom Pérignon. Maybe it’s Bobby, so refined and ageless there at his piano playing Porter and Gershwin like no one else can. Maybe I just like to get all dressed up. I don’t know. All I know is that when all else fails me, the Carlyle cures me. Bobby was singing “Just One of Those Things” when she came in, looking impossibly tall and slim and cool. She had on a strapless minidress of peach-colored silk with a paisley scarf thrown over one bare shoulder, white stockings, mules, a bit of lipstick, no jewelry. Heads turned as she made her way across the room toward me like a serene swan, her chin held high. She slid into the banquette beside me without so much as looking at me. Her scarf made an electric noise against her skin as she slipped it off of her uncommonly slim shoulder. I poured her some Dom Pérignon.

  She reached for it, gently stroking the champagne flute’s stem with her long, slender fingers. “I have to tell you something,” she said, leveling her gaze at me. “That was the strangest invitation I’ve ever gotten from a man.”

  “I told you—I’m not like other men.”

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.” She gave me an approving once-over. “You look awfully nice in evening clothes.”

  “You look awfully nice, period. Too bad you don’t have green eyes.”

  She frowned. “But I do have green eyes.”

  “That’s right, you do.” I smiled at her.

  She got busy with caviar and toast, reddening. “I wasn’t sure whether you really wanted me to come or not,” she said, after taking a delicate bite and swallowing it. “And if so, when? Tonight? Tomorrow night? I didn’t know.”

  “Why did you come tonight?”

  “It so happens I wasn’t in the greatest of spirits myself. And I thought your invitation might have something to do with Lyle.”

  “What about Lyle?”

  “Does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Good.” She smiled at me. “Actually, I thought I scared you off before with all of that talk about Wisconsin and cookies and soccer practice. That’s … not really what I’m after. Not right now, anyway.”

  “What are you after right now?”

  She didn’t answer that one. Just gazed at me steadily. I gazed back at her.

  And then Bobby took over. He’ll do that. Slammed into his untemp rendition of Gershwin’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You.” Then kept right on going with “Street of Dreams” and “Body and Soul.” He sounded especially good that night. Marjorie listened to him with intense concentration, her lips pursed, eyes half shut, hands folded neatly before her on the table. Her shoulders swayed slightly to the beat. I liked the way she listened.

  After he finished off with “As Time Goes By,” she took a sip of her champagne and said, “Okay, you win.”

  “In what way?” I asked, ordering us another bottle.

  “Harry Connick, Jr., is strictly pretend. Bobby Short is for real.” She looked around the room admiringly. “Actually, it’s not just him. This whole place—it’s like going back in time and finding it to be exactly how you imagined it would be. I like it here, Hoagy.”

  “Good. I was going to ditch you if you didn’t.”

  Her eyes searched my face over her glass. “You used to come here with her, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “It’s true. Lulu and I have spent many evenings here.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know it’s not.”

  She looked away. “I’m in the middle of reading Such Sweet Sorrow. …”

  My second one, about the poisoned marriage between a famous writer and a famous actress. Partly autobiographical. And totally a bust. “It’s a rich novel. There’s something in there for everyone to dislike.”

  “Well, I’m really enjoying it. I mean it. You’re a brilliant writer, Hoagy.”

  “Correction—I was.”

  “What happened?”

  “If I knew that, I’d still be brilliant.” I helped myself to some more caviar. “I’m surprised you were able to find a copy of it.”

  “My secretary called your publisher.”

  “They’re still in business?”

  “How much of it is reality and how much is fiction?”

  “You make it sound like there’s a difference.”

  “Are you always so sarcastic?”

  “Only when I’m in a bad mood.”

  “And when you’re in a good mood?”

  “I’m still not a very good deal. For one thing, there’s this whopping excess baggage allowance to consider.”

  She stared at me some more. “You’re not over her, are you.” It wasn’t a question.

  I sipped my champagne. “I’d like to be.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “I’d like to be.”

  “Why did you call me tonight, Hoagy?” she asked gravely.

  “I’ve never had a woman bake me a pie before. It did something strange to me. What did you put in it, anyway?”

  She was having none of that. She wanted a serious answer. And she was willing to sit there gazing at me, until I gave her one.

  “I called you tonight because I was alone. And I didn’t want to be.”

  She gave me a knowing nod. “And right away you thought of good old Marjorie.” A bitter edge crept into her voice. “Because she happens to live right around the corner, and because she happens to be so excruciatingly available. Decent figure. Good legs—”

  “Great legs.”

  “So you figured—go for it. Maybe you’ll get lucky. Does that about cover it?”

  I tugged at my ear. “I’m just trying to get back to basics, Marjorie.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m looking for someone I can trust.”

  “No, you’re not,” she argued. “You’re looking for someone you can lay.” She shook her head at me angrily. “I was wrong about you. You’re exactly like other men.” She reached for her scarf, slid out of the banquette, and stalked out.

  I sat there for a moment, staring at my glass and thinking about how Lulu was starting to look better and better as a late-night companion. Then I threw down some money and went after her.

  She was two blocks down Madison by the time I caught up with her, her stride long and purposeful. She wouldn’t stop when I called to her.

  “Will you please hold up a second?” I asked, grabbing her by the arm.

  She yanked free from my grasp. “Why should I?” She sniffled. She’d been crying.

  I handed her a fresh linen handkerchief. She used it, shivering slightly. The breeze had picked up, turning the night air blessedly clear and crisp.

  “There’s something I wanted to ask you.” I g
lanced skyward. It was so clear I could see stars. You rarely can in Manhattan during the summer. “Would this be an Alberta Clipper?”

  She let out a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t want to talk about the weather.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t want to talk at all.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to say anything. Not the way she was looking at me.

  We hurled ourselves at each other. There was nothing tender or sweet about it. No violins. No cherubs. Just two lonely, love-whipped people clamped hungrily together there on Madison Avenue, trying to devour one another. Some kids passing us in a Saab convertible broke out in applause.

  She came up for air first. “I—I don’t know what I’m doing,” she gasped, holding my face between her hands.

  “That’s okay,” I panted. “I’m a grown man—I don’t know what I’m doing either.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense,” she protested, halfheartedly.

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  We kissed some more. A tiny bit gentler, though not a whole lot. Before she took my hand and said, “Let’s go back to my place. I want to make love to you.” She got quite specific about how she intended to do it, too. A blow by blow description, as it were. Things I couldn’t imagine her learning about in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Or in network programming. Maybe she picked them up from Lyle.

  Now there was a horrifying thought.

  It was past one, and there were no cabs in sight. We walked down to Seventy-second Street in hopes of catching one speeding crosstown. We waited in the street across from Castle Ralph, the retail monument Sir Ralph Lauren built to himself. I didn’t mind the wait. Her lips were on my neck. “One of those big new Chevy Caprices, the ones that look like baby whales, finally came cruising by us from the park, heading east. I hailed him. He blinked on his brights in response, then turned around and started back toward us. I extended my right arm. Quaint old custom. An old-time cabbie once taught me that a true pro will pull up so that his fare doesn’t have to move that arm an inch to open the passenger door handle. You don’t find many drivers that good anymore. These days they overshoot you, or stop short of you. These days they make you come to them. Our baby whale driver didn’t even slow down at all.