by Richard Vine
Paul stood three quarters of the way upright, nodding.
“And this is Jack,” Sammy said. “He’s a landlord, but don’t hold that against him. He hustles art, too. And shares our special interest in youth.”
I stood and gave Carlo my hand. His grip was friendly and firm. A tanned, professionally handsome man, he was wearing an open-collar shirt and an Italian sweater that retailed for about nine hundred bucks.
“Art?” he said. “Like statues and pictures on the wall?”
“Some of it.”
“Maybe we should put some in here,” Carlo said with a smile. “I like my customers to get something extra, something nice.”
“I’m afraid the art I sell wouldn’t match the décor,” I replied. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“You see?” Sammy reached over and patted my bad arm. “This Jack is smooth.”
Carlo showed me his bleached teeth again. “Next time you come, Jack, ask for me. I’ll make sure you’re treated like a prince.” He turned back to Sammy. “How is it with the doctors?”
Sammy shook his head. “Who the hell knows? They got me eating bowls of grass and walking for thirty minutes a day. Walking, what is that? It’s for contadini.”
“My grandfather was a contadino,” Carlo said. “He could teach you a thing or two, about more than your health.”
“Yeah, but your father was no peasant. Your father rode around in Packards and wore a fine suit every day, just like mine did. What a great country, no? Every generation gets a softer life. Now look at me—you’d think I was some dentist from Jersey.”
“No, paesano, you don’t have that much style.”
Carlo winked at me, nodded a farewell to Paul, and headed back to the bar.
“Everybody’s a goddamned comedian,” Sammy said.
I watched Carlo walk away, moving effortlessly through the maze of tables.
The waiter, eyes lowered, cleared the pasta remnants and delivered the thin slices of veal.
“So tell me something, Jack,” Sammy said. “What are you after here?”
Apparently the time to talk had arrived.
“Just a fair return. I’m not greedy.”
“What sort of return?”
“Girls and money. You know of anything better?”
“No. But I’ve already got plenty of both. So why should I bother with you?”
“You have some of both. I can get you a whole lot more.”
Sammy dropped his voice. “More? Right now I list about two hundred thousand paying members online, ready to pony up twelve dollars a pop whenever we get a party together, every six weeks or so. Then, twice a year, we do a highlights tape that sells a hundred thousand in Asia at ten bucks a throw. You think you can improve on that?”
“I think you’re missing out on huge markets in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.”
“You’d have to talk to Mr. Zhou about that. His people handle the overseas end of things.”
“The Chinese don’t have the right contacts outside Asia.”
“Don’t get me started on the goddamn chinks,” Sammy said. “They’ve taken over everything downtown except one stretch of Mulberry Street. Those tricky yellow bastards really know how to do business.”
“But they don’t go outside their own network.”
“And you do?”
“Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, Riyadh, Buenos Aires. And I can also bring you investors.”
“What makes you think we want investors?”
“With their money, your overhead effectively goes down to zero. You pay them back out of the increased sales abroad—just a minor portion of the additional revenue, minus shipping costs and bribes. The rest is pure gravy.”
“And what’s in it for you?”
“A small percentage. Of the new business only, of course. You tell me how much. I trust a man like you to be fair.”
Sammy leaned forward onto his elbows.
“Really?” he said. “Why is that?”
“Experience.”
“Doing business with guys like me?” Sammy smiled faintly. “You don’t seem like the type.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m sitting here in a nice SoHo restaurant and not in a cellblock.”
Sammy’s eyes hardened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He sat back and stared at me with a practiced blankness.
“Of course not. That’s exactly why we should work together. Half my clients are guys like you, Sammy. Except most of them aren’t as honest.”
He laughed, and looked over at Paul until he laughed too.
“Goddamn right,” Sammy said.
“Suppose I bargained for a fifteen percent cut of the new cash flow,” I said, “but afterwards you decided to pay me less. What could I do?”
“Not a thing.”
“There you have it, Sammy. See how simple this is?”
“OK. But now listen good, Jack. I keep my goddamn word. That’s how I keep my friends.”
“Of course. And friends are money. I understand that. Just like in the art trade.” I took another swallow of my wine. “Anyway, it’s not as though I could ask to examine the books.”
“You crack me up, Jack.”
I smiled. The alcohol—mixed with fear—was making me bold, maybe reckless.
“Who are these investors of yours?” Sammy asked.
“Some collectors I know. They belong to the Balthus Club. Don’t worry, they won’t ask the wrong questions. Not as long as the numbers are right.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’m familiar with their purchasing history. Sometimes they buy artworks that aren’t exactly for sale.”
Sammy arched an eyebrow.
“These gentlemen want premium stuff, whatever the price,” I explained. “I make a few inquiries on their behalf. About a month later, I meet with a certain lady broker I know, usually at a hotel in Zurich. She shows me some works and I authenticate them—the same works I asked about earlier. These are rare pieces, new to the market, since a few days before they were still sitting in some provincial museum or an old village church or a run-down palace somewhere.”
“They must pay you a nice commission, these collectors.”
“I make a decent living.”
Sammy put down his glass and smiled.
“I like this guy,” he said to Paul. “He’s funny.”
“I told you. Jack’s really OK.”
“He’s a funny goddamn guy.” Sammy reached across the table and cuffed me softly on one cheek, then the other. “He’s smart, he dresses good, he don’t take things too serious—I like that.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m flattered.”
Sammy watched me for a moment, then spoke over his shoulder. “Get these plates out of here. Bring us some espresso.” And to me: “You want something dolce?”
“Not dessert, if that’s what you mean.”
Sammy smiled broadly. “All right, Jack. We understand each other. It’s good that we shared this meal. I always like things to be social, so you know who you’re working with. Deals come out better that way, face to face. Everybody gets friendly, nobody feels cheated.”
The waiter, returning with a tray, dipped in, his eyes fixed on the tablecloth. He placed the coffees in front of us and stepped back.
Sammy emptied two packets of artificial sweetener into his cup.
“So what’s next?” I asked him.
“That depends.”
I waited.
“Thing is, Jack. You got to prove yourself.”
“Prove myself how?”
Sammy fixed his eyes on my face. “Paulie tells me you’re real friendly with a little hottie he likes.”
“Oh? Who’s that?”
“Melissa Oliver.”
I didn’t respond.
“Age twelve,” Paul said, “going on thirty.”
I didn’t respond.
“Kind of young for us,” Sammy observed, “but Paulie says she
’s got great potential. He even tried to turn her out himself.”
“Did he?” I said finally. “What happened?”
“No go, dude,” Paul replied miserably. “She’s a big tease. Besides, I couldn’t get her away from her damned mother long enough to make any headway.” He bit his lip. “The girl’s prime, though. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Sammy turned his attention to the bottom of his empty cup, tiny as a thimble in his thick fingers.
“Paulie’s our best recruiter,” he said. “If he says she’s star material, I want her.”
“The girls always give off little signals when they’re ready,” Paul said, more confidently than before. “Glances, little jokes, hair tosses, long stretches, tight clothes.” He was sounding like an eager expert now. “Signs as plain as billboards—if you’re not afraid to read them.”
“So, Jack buddy,” Sammy said, watching my eyes, “are you game? Do you want to come to our next taping session?”
“I’d be glad to.”
“Good.” He kept his gaze on me. “Just bring the kid with you.”
My mouth went a little dry. I wished to hell that Hogan were with me.
“Sure,” I said.
“You see,” Sammy explained quietly, “we have to be sure you’re really one of us. A lot of guys dream, a lot of guys talk. But not everybody plays.”
I nodded.
“So how about it? Do you play, Jack? Are you in on the action?”
“If the price is right.”
Sammy grunted. Without hesitation, he went item by item down a menu of lewd acts, citing the rates. Each item upped my financial take substantially, if Melissa performed well. Double if she did it on camera.
“Seems fair,” I said.
“If you come, you come to play.”
“That’s right.”
“Awesome,” Paul interjected.
“Just one thing. When it’s Melissa’s time,” I told them, “I don’t want her hurt.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sammy said. “We’ll treat her like a peach.”
“All right. When do we tape?”
“When we’re good and ready. First Paulie will take you to meet Mr. Zhou. If the chink says you’re OK, Paulie will tell you when and where to go.”
With that, Sammy stood up. Paul and I rose, too, hesitating beside the table. No one brought us a check.
Lagging, we followed Sammy to the bar near the door.
“I’m stopping here,” he said. “I got to discuss a few things with Carlo.”
Sammy extended his hand to me. He stood very close. I could sense the broad swell of his chest and belly, even guess at the brand of imported cigar he smoked. For one dreadful moment, I imagined what it would be like—for me, for Melissa—to be pinned and mauled under that reeking weight.
“You know, my daughter wanted to go to that fancy Bradford School,” he said.
“Can’t blame her. It’s the best.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t work out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They asked too many questions.”
I tried my best to appear sympathetic.
“Now, look at this, Jack.” Sammy slowly took a photograph out of his pocket. When he held it up, I saw that it was not, as I had expected, an image of his daughter. It was Melissa in her Bradford School outfit—the newly purchased blazer, plaid skirt, and knee socks—standing hips cocked in Central Park, giving the V sign. One of Paul’s adoring Sunday-outing snapshots, no doubt.
“Do me a favor.” Sammy’s eyes were slightly red from the wine.
“Sure.”
“Let’s have some fun.”
“Whatever you say.”
“An extra grand if the Oliver brat wears her uniform.”
43
A moral change is like aging. The alterations are subtle and deep, the damages cumulative. There is no way to perceive them, except by looking away and looking again, as one must to see the passage of time on the face of a clock.
So it had been for Paul Morse. One moment, he was an MFA kid, enraptured by the flowers of evil—in pictures and books, in late-night brag sessions and grad-school seminars. Unlike most middle-class renegades, however, he had begun to follow through on his bad-boy fantasies in a serious way, outside the rhetorical bubble of academe, beyond art crits, beyond small dope deals in the East Village on weekend nights. Video had given him entrée into a darker world, and he found there a vice he could love. Now, a few years later, here he was—leading me through the streets of SoHo toward the Virgin Sacrifice studio and, beyond, to Chinatown and Mr. Zhou.
“Sammy was pretty tough on you last week,” I said as we walked south on Crosby Street.
“It’s just his way. You can’t judge Sammy or Mr. Zhou like regular people. They’re way past all that.”
Paul paused midblock opposite a dirty white building that stretched the rest of the way to the corner. It had half a dozen floors with rows of large windows, most of them obscured by stacked boxes. Paul nodded toward a graffiti-marked steel door on street level. “That’s where you’ll go for the taping, fourth floor. Just ring.”
We crossed over to Mulberry, its lampposts strung with red and green tinsel, its shops and restaurants oozing recorded atmosphere music for tourists—the one last stretch of Little Italy not yet engulfed by Chinatown. Our progress slowed once we hit the shopping throngs on Canal Street, jostling for street food and knockoff designer handbags with equal vigor.
At Mott, we turned south again, onto a sidewalk overrun by fish stands, vegetable stalls, jade trinket stores and cheap dim sum restaurants. Paul strode on relentlessly, twisting through eddies of dark-clothed, dark-haired shoppers whose heads bobbed at the height of his shoulders. His own golden hair seemed to float steadily south like a lantern launched on a slow-moving stream. All the eateries were jammed and too brightly lit. We passed the Happy Road novelty emporium with its video games and its sad dancing chicken, whose wandering movements, within the confines of a tabletop vitrine, foretold fates.
Finally, Paul stopped in front of a shop window cluttered with Asian skin magazines and CD posters depicting passionate crooners, male and female—all young and beautiful with black liquid eyes, all famous for singing about lovelorn sorrows in languages I could not understand.
“This is the place,” Paul said. “Just look friendly and don’t say anything until we actually get to Mr. Zhou.”
Inside, two sales clerks in their twenties seemed to be doing not much of anything while a video monitor played a tape of a Hong Kong game show.
“Ni hao,” Paul said. “Zhou Dong invited us to the game upstairs. Two o’clock.”
The clerks looked at each other, and one glanced at his fake Rolex watch.
“OK, mister,” he said. “We go up.”
I followed Paul around the counter and through a door to a small landing half buried in bundles of magazines. The narrow stairs were as steep as a ladder.
The clerk led us up two flights. Each landing was fenced off with cyclone mesh. As we passed the second level, a door stood open with a large upright fan oscillating at the threshold. The room’s interior was ablaze with fluorescent ceiling lights and crowded with women cutting and sewing rapidly at long tables.
The clerk pushed a buzzer at the third landing, and a baggy-eyed man opened for us.
“I make videos,” Paul said. “The Virgin show. For my friend Big Sammy.”
The man jerked his head toward the door, and the clerk led us into a huge room with an ornate chandelier and massive red Chinese characters emblazoned on the walls. About twenty round tables were scattered throughout the space, each with six or eight men playing a game that involved stacks of small tiles and large mounds of cash. They fell silent, staring at us through clouds of cigarette smoke. I became intensely aware that Paul and I were the only white ghosts in the place.
The hubbub resumed when a good-looking guy, maybe forty years old, ambled across the room to greet us. We
aring an oxford Polo shirt and khakis, he stuck out his hand like a post-Mao Rotarian.
“Paul, baby. How’s it hanging, man?”
The exotic Mr. Zhou, I later learned, had spent six years at City College.
He led us briskly to a little office set in one corner of the room. A young man brought in a bottle of baijiu and silently retreated. Mr. Zhou poured.
“Sammy, told me to expect you,” he said. “Welcome.” We drank the shots of the clear pine-tasting liquor in unison. “You’re new to the business?” he asked me.
“To the video business, yes. Not to dealing in general, and not to your product.”
“Yeah, well, all businesses are about the same really. After my MBA, I went to work on Wall Street. It wasn’t so different from my grandfather’s noodle shop.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I decided to make faster money as an entrepreneur. It’s the Cantonese Dream.”
He laughed heartily at his own remark, a joke he’d probably made once a week for the last ten years.
“What’s your main business now?” I asked.
“Import-export.”
“I know what you export,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.” I fingered the shot glass. “But what do you bring into the States?”
“What would you like?” Mr. Zhou stared at me evenly, his mouth tight. Then, suddenly, he broke into a wide smile. His teeth were bad in the usual Mainland way, darkened by tea and nicotine, starting to gap.
“My goal is to merge business with pleasure. Like you,” I said.
“Not like me. Pleasure is my business, big difference.”
“We’re not all so fortunate.”
“You don’t like your work?”
“Compared to what—life on an assembly line?”
Mr. Zhou grinned and poured again, and I toasted him silently with the baijiu.
“Actually,” I said, “it’s pretty sweet, my racket. And not so different from yours.”
“Are you sure?”
“Every spring I go to graduate thesis shows at a handful of top art schools. I pick one or two artists, and buy out their stuff. A year or two later, I give them a show. If it works, I get fifty percent of the take, plus all the increased value on my stockpile when their prices go up.”