Good King Sauerkraut

by Barbara Paul

  The Caddy was an old model, fins and whitewalls, and it served as a kind of canopy over the door to the Hard Rock Cafe. People were gathered outside more or less in a line, waiting to get in. One woman stood out from the crowd; she was over six feet tall, with heavily made-up eyes and a magnificent head of frizzy black hair. And prominently displayed on her neck was … a vampire bite?

  She was talking to some friends when she spotted King. “I don’t believe it—somebody taller’n me? Come here, man.”

  King went there.

  She looked him up and down with approval. “Well, well. Where have I been all your life?”

  “A meeting of the giants,” one of her friends laughed.

  “Watch your mouth, you,” she scolded. To King she said, “I’m Shawna. What’s your name?”

  “King.”

  “I meant your first name.”

  “King.”

  “King King?”

  “King Sarcowicz.”

  “Um, we’ll stick to King.” She noticed him staring at the two bite-sized black dots on her neck and tilted her head to give him a better view. “You like my tattoo?”

  “It’s … different.”

  “Naw, lotsa people gottum. Beats a butterfly on the ass any day.”

  “You’re advertising yourself as a victim,” one of her friends grumbled, a woman.

  “Shawna?” another friend scoffed, a man. “No sensible vampire would dare.”

  “Here we go,” Shawna growled. “Do I threaten you? I hope?”

  King stood listening to their banter and realized he was enjoying himself. He’d taken an instant liking to Shawna; he liked her height and her theatrical looks and her tough way of talking. He decided he even liked her Dracula-was-here tattoo.

  Somebody’s stomach growled. “Doesn’t that line ever move? What time is it?”

  Watches were consulted. “Two-thirty,” said three voices, one of them King’s.

  “Two-thirty!” he repeated, aghast. Warren Osterman had called a meeting at MechoTech for two o’clock. That meant that by now …

  “You’re supposed to be someplace,” Shawna said accusingly.

  “Uh, yes, I am.” The thought of what must be going on right then disconcerted him so much that all he could do was stutter. “I, uh, I c-can’t, I-I have to, uh—”

  “Hey, if it rattles you that much, maybe you’d better not go.”

  “I can’t stay here,” he blurted and turned to go—but found the tail of his jacket grasped firmly in Shawna’s hand.

  “Man, you don’t just walk away like that. Where’s your manners? Doncha have a card or a phone number or somethin’?”

  “Oh. Yes, yes I do.” He fumbled a Keystone Robotics business card out of his billfold and Shawna released his jacket to take it. King was afraid he was going to break down right there in front of them. “I’m sorry, Shawna.” He turned and darted into the traffic.

  There was a screech of brakes followed by the sound of a cab driver’s colorful profanity. Safely on the other side of the street, King heard Shawna call: “Pittsburgh?”

  King stumbled on for a block and crossed Seventh Avenue. He stopped in front of a playbill mounted in a glass case; he stared at it without seeing what it said, needing a moment to get a grip on himself. What was happening right then? When nobody showed up at the meeting, Warren Osterman must have—wait a minute, what about Mimi Hargrove? She’d spent the night at the airport hotel, and King didn’t know whether she’d been planning to come back to the apartment first or go straight to the meeting at MechoTech. If she’d gone back to the apartment, that meant she was the one who’d found Dennis and Gregory … Oh, god, Mimi, I’m sorry! It was the first time he’d thought of what it would be like to walk in and find a headless body in the living room and an electrocuted one in the bathtub.

  But if Mimi had not gone back to the apartment first … then maybe no one knew about it yet. They’d know soon enough, though, when only Mimi showed up for the meeting. And the only one of the four staying at the apartment who was missing was King Sarcowicz. If they weren’t looking for him already, it was only a matter of time until they were.

  King became aware that the placard in the glass case he was staring at wasn’t a playbill at all, technically; it was a listing of concerts scheduled to take place. To his surprise he found he was standing in front of Carnegie Hall. Well, not exactly the front. He walked around the corner to Seventh Avenue where the stage entrance was located …

  … and experienced an overwhelming sense of loss. King had never been to a concert at Carnegie Hall. It was one of those things he’d always assumed he’d get around to doing one of these days, sometime soon in a pleasantly vague future that stretched on forever. But now he might never have the chance. That started him thinking of all the other things he’d never get to do. He’d never ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad. He’d never go looking for the Loch Ness monster.

  More importantly, he’d never get a chance to realize the dreams he’d had for years—dreams about things that were no longer possible only in the distant future but coming closer every day. Such as insectlike robots that could climb vertical surfaces, that could clean and do maintenance work on the outsides of buildings. He’d never get to build one of those spiderbots. And he’d never design the first fully automated airplane … oh, why stop there? He’d never work on the first intelligent starship. All those opportunities that used to lie ahead of him—gone.

  King gave himself a little shake; this was no time to indulge in a sentimental longing for things he’d never know. He went back to Fifty-seventh, which he was beginning to think of as “his” street. Close to Carnegie Hall was the Verve Naturelle Restaurant; more to break his peculiar mood than for any other reason he went in and ordered something called a Powerhouse, which turned out to be orange juice, ice cream, and honey, with a little protein powder mixed in. Next he came to the Russian Tea Room. As if on automatic drive, he headed inside.

  In midafternoon the restaurant wasn’t too crowded. King was seated in a low central booth that made him feel terribly exposed. But he forgot about being conspicuous as soon as the chicken Kiev arrived. Delicious! He managed to spill his wine before he was through; a sad-eyed Polish waiter gave him a tragic look but said nothing. King left an extra-big tip.

  It wasn’t until he was pounding the sidewalk again that he began to wonder where this ravenous appetite of his had come from. He’d never eaten so much before at one time in his life. And he didn’t feel sick, or even bloated. Just one more strange thing on this strangest of days. It was the only time he’d killed, and it was the only time he’d stuffed himself like a pig. What was the connection?

  Speaking of eating … Why, look what’s here, King thought. An eatery named O’Neals—just what he needed. For the second time that afternoon he topped off a sumptuous meal with pie à la mode. Cherry pie, this time.

  King was getting up to leave when a boy of twelve or thirteen came in and sat down. Wide-eyed, the boy looked up at King’s six-foot-ten and said, “Wow, you must be a—”

  “No, I’m not,” King answered shortly and turned to go.

  “Why not?”

  That stopped him. In all his years of explaining that he was not now nor had never been a professional basketball player, no one had ever asked him why. He looked at the boy skeptically. “You really want to know, kid?”

  “Yeah, I wanna know.” Defiantly.

  “Okay.” King sat down next to him. “In the first place, I’m too old to play now. I’m forty-five.”

  “But when you were younger—”

  “When I was younger, I was nothing less than a mobile disaster-area on the court. I tried. I really did try. The basketball coach in high school saw me walking down a corridor one day and practically dragged me to the gym. But he couldn’t teach me to play. You see, I’ve always been poorly coordinated—it’s a physical problem. I kept tripping over my own feet, knocking down my teammates, fouling the other guys. Finally the coach
just positioned me under the basket and told me not to move at all—just wait for the other players to feed me the ball.”

  King paused while the boy ordered something to eat. “Did it work?” the youngster wanted to know.

  “No way. I couldn’t manage even that. I fouled out of every game I was in—usually in the first quarter. Finally the coach let me go. He said in time I’d grow out of it.”

  “Didja?”

  “Nope. The same thing happened in college. It’s too bad, in a way. I like basketball.” It was the only sport he did like.

  “So do I,” the boy said, tugging at his tie and grimacing. “That’s too bad, mister.”

  “My name’s King. What’s yours?”

  “Ricky.” He pulled at his tie again.

  “Why are you so dressed up on a school day?”

  “Aw, my mom always makes me wear a tie when we go see the lawyer. There are all these problems about settling my dad’s estate and we have to keep goin’ back alia time.”

  His dad’s estate. “I’m sorry, Ricky,” King said, meaning it. “Did your dad die recently?”

  “November.”

  “And there’s trouble with the will?”

  “Naw, something about the trust funds, I dunno. That’s what Mr. Liebermann says.”

  “Liebermann—that’s the lawyer?”

  “Howard J. M. Liebermann the Great.”

  “Two middle initials?”

  “Yeah, one’s not enough for him, I guess. You know what I think? I don’t think there’s any legal problem at all. I think Liebermann’s just gettin’ it off with my mom.”

  Mildly shocked, King asked, “What makes you think that?”

  “You think I’m stupid or somethin’? I can tell.” Ricky squirmed in his seat. “He’s married.”

  King’s first impulse was to tell Ricky he must be mistaken. But the kid looked so sure—and whether he was right or wrong, it wouldn’t do to dismiss his fears as foolishness. King thought a few moments and said, “Your mom must be feeling pretty alone and frightened right now, and she knows your dad isn’t ever coming back to make it right. Who knows why these things happen? Maybe Liebermann just said the right thing at the right time.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “Well, first of all you don’t put pressure on her. Let her know you love her. Look for things you and your mom can do together—look hard, Ricky. It’s got to be the two of you together from now on, you know.”

  Just then Ricky’s order arrived, an elaborate gooey dessert that only a thirteen-year-old could love. Eagerly he dug in.

  King stood up. “Your mom will be all right, Ricky. Just be patient.”

  Ricky grinned at him around a mouthful of whipped cream. “Thanks, Mr. King.”

  King waved acknowledgment and left the restaurant. Resuming his eastward trek, he mused over the role-reversal going on between Ricky and his mom and wondered how common that was in families in which one of the parents died. Then it suddenly hit him: he, King-of-the-Fuck-Ups Sarcowicz, master of gaucherie and botcher of friendships, unintentional killer of his fellow man—he had been giving personal advice! King let loose a sharp, hysterical laugh and failed to notice the crowd parting around him. He carefully thought over the scene in O’Neals and finally concluded he hadn’t said anything that could hurt the boy.

  On he plodded toward the East River, past Marlborough Gallery, Tiffany, another art gallery. Victoria’s Secret. A man carrying a cello and another struggling with an oversized painting did a funny little dance to avoid crashing into each other. King did crash into a high-punk male of indeterminate age, apologized, and got called a muh’fuh for his trouble.

  He spotted the Mitsukoshi Restaurant on the northeast corner of Fifty-seventh and Park. King crossed over and mingled with the crowd at the sushi bar, frankly surprised to find that raw fish was still so popular. When he came out he decided he wanted some more fish, but cooked this time. Back across the street to Bruce Ho’s Four Seas Restaurant, where he was served flounder stuffed with crabmeat and spicy little shrimp. A few doors farther down he came to Tommy Makem’s Irish Pavilion; King went in and asked for cheesecake but declined the Irish coffee.

  Though there was still some daylight left, the afternoon was easing into early evening. The first of the dinner crowd were beginning the hunt for their evening meal; King passed up Mr. Chow’s because the place was already getting crowded. In the next block he went into Tony Roma’s and ordered ribs. But then before he was finished, he paused with a rib halfway to his mouth: he couldn’t eat another bite. Not even one; his ravenous appetite had at last been satisfied. He put the rib down.

  With satisfaction came fatigue; his feet were beginning to hurt as well. King left Tony Roma’s and automatically headed east, having nowhere else to go. Then suddenly there it was: the East River—his afternoon-long, pointless goal. King acknowledged wryly he’d no more be able to throw himself into those greasy waters than he’d been able to jump into the Hudson.

  He was in Sutton Place, one of the good places to live in New York. He walked into a pleasant little park distinguished by the unexpected presence of a bronze statue of a pig. A rather courtly-looking elderly man was sitting on a bench, leaning his weight on the cane he held in front of him. King sat down on the other end of the bench—and belched. “Whoops. Excuse me.”

  The old man nodded agreeably in his direction. “Something you ate.”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” King laughed. “I just ate my way across Fifty-seventh Street.”

  “A lot of good restaurants on Fifty-seventh,” the old man remarked, “and a nice choice of foods.”

  It had been a day of restaurants and food. “Food is sustenance,” King muttered to himself, “and I have been sustaining myself. That’s what I was doing.”

  “Of course, Le Pavilion is gone now,” the old man went on. “But I hope you treated yourself to a feast at the Parker Meridien.”

  “The what?”

  “The dining room of the Hotel Parker Meridien—one of the best in the city, I’ve always thought. Do you know it? It’s between Sixth and Seventh.”

  Between O’Neals and the Russian Tea Room. “I missed it,” King said, disappointed.

  “Well. The next time you’re in town.”

  King looked at him sharply. “How did you know I was from out of town?”

  The old man lifted one frail shoulder, let it drop. “You don’t walk like a New Yorker.”

  Thinking that at this point he probably wasn’t walking like a Pennsylvanian either, King stretched out his tired legs and aching feet and closed his eyes. The day was catching up with him. On the brink of nodding off, he jerked himself awake; he ought to be thinking about finding a place to hole up for the night. The trouble was, he was almost out of money. He’d used credit cards wherever he could in his omnivorous journey across Fifty-seventh, but he always liked to leave the tip in cash. He roused himself enough to ask his bench partner, “Do you know if there’s a bank machine near here?”

  To King’s surprise, the old man leaned forward and spat angrily upon the ground. “Machines! No, I don’t know where you can find a bank machine. I never use them.”

  “Why not? It beats standing in line inside the bank.”

  “So instead you stand in line outside the bank. And get wet when it rains. Besides, the blasted machines don’t work half the time … none of them do, not any kind of machine.” The old man sniffed loudly. “Machines to do this, machines to do that. We even depend on machines to do our thinking for us now. Camus was right. Man’s greatest desire is to be a stone in the road. He wouldn’t have to think for himself, he wouldn’t have to make intelligent choices—all he’d have to do is lie there, like the lump that he is.”

  King was simply too tired to appreciate having Camus quoted at him just then. Besides, he’d run into technophobes before; there was no arguing with them. Wearily he hauled himself to his feet and said, “Nevertheless, I need some cash and the banks a
re closed. I have to find a machine.”

  “Suit yourself,” the old man answered, and closed his face.

  King automatically headed back the way he’d come—but then he stopped. Fifty-seventh Street had been a blessing, offering as it did a numbing, anaesthetic effect to help him through those first terrible hours after Dennis and Gregory had died. But now the anaesthesia was wearing off, and he didn’t want to go back. Abruptly he turned right and headed uptown.

  And found that the same thing happened in New York that happened in Pittsburgh: every time he needed a bank machine, somebody went out and hid them all. Up the short blocks, across the long blocks … King tramped back and forth for forty minutes before he found a machine willing to disgorge a little out-of-town money. After a slight delay, the machine reluctantly let him have two hundred of his own dollars. He let the bank receipt—which wasn’t really a receipt—flutter down to the sidewalk where it joined thirty or forty others, all waiting to be swept up the following morning by a grumbling bank employee.

  King’s feet were really hurting now. Up ahead was Central Park; he’d sit down and try to figure out what to do next. He crossed Central Park South, glancing longingly over his shoulder at the hotels beckoning from the south side of the street; there was the St. Moritz, and Essex House. King wanted nothing more than a tub to soak his feet in and a comfortable bed to lie on—but wouldn’t the police be checking the hotels for him? Not that he’d register under his own name, of course, but he’d still be easy to identify. People tended to remember a man who was nearly seven feet tall. This needed thinking out.

  There was still enough light that King wasn’t worried about getting caught in the park after dark. He was tempted just to stretch out on the grass instead of looking for a place to sit down; but nobody else in sight was recumbent and King was afraid of calling attention to himself. Finally he spotted a park bench, the old-fashioned kind with iron armrests, and it was empty. He hurried his step.