The Blot

by Jonathan Lethem

  “Alexander.” Falk didn’t raise his head. His groan rose sepulchrally from within the cushioned doughnut concealing his face. Like putting your head in a toilet seat, it struck Bruno now.

  “Yes.”

  “I had coffee with Billy Lim. He apologized for last night. He said he’d been … unavoidably detained.” Falk’s tone savored this received unit of non-explanation as though it suited his own sense of decorum. No doubt Falk and Yik Tho Lim had been talking over their pet project, the fixed soccer match. But Falk wouldn’t mention that.

  “Elusive fellow.”

  “Worth indulging, I think. We’ve made an arrangement for Friday night. He’d like to hold a small party at a certain restaurant.”

  “Back room?”

  “I think he’s reserved the entire establishment.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “I hope so. He told me he once won a Bengal tiger in a poker game with the director of the Singapore Zoo.”

  “Travels everywhere with him now, this tiger?”

  “Billy ate him, for strength.” Falk murmured this enigma around a sigh, as if the massage had eased the words from him. The masseuse had slung Falk’s elbow over her shoulder, exposing his white-sprigged underarm as she mashed her thumbs deep into the sockets of his shoulder.

  Bruno, idling in the saffron gloom, was left no clue whether the eaten tiger was a garish boast or a witticism of Yik Tho Lim’s—or a witticism of Falk’s, at Lim’s expense. But, accustomed to Falk’s obscurantist passages, Bruno didn’t seek clarification. It was time, anyhow, to quit stalling. “Listen, Edgar, I’ve had no chance to tell you. Much to my own surprise, I’m actually in a game tonight with that American who wandered in—” It was for this that Bruno would be returning to Raffles. Keith Stolarsky had arranged a separate room for what he’d proposed, at parting, as “an epic all-night throwdown.”

  “Your ancestral friend. Yes, I know.”

  So Falk had heard. The butler? The masseuse? He likely knew it from a dozen sources. Stolarsky wouldn’t have taken any care to hide his preparations, nor would such an attempt have added up to much, not in this town.

  “It’s a good thing Billy Lim didn’t want to play tonight, isn’t it?”

  “I wasn’t concealing it from you.”

  “I know.”

  “It came as a surprise.” Bruno was repeating himself.

  “I’m sure it did. Action?”

  “I think there’ll be action. He doesn’t look it, but he’s a rich man, apparently.”

  “Retail, I gather.” Now the masseuse applied a dust or powder of some sort to Falk’s limbs. Sure enough, the towel was removed for full access. Could it possibly be curry, the smell now mixing with that of saffron? Was she preparing Falk for a tandoori oven? Everywhere lately, Bruno smelled meat.

  “Yes. He sells cell phones, I guess, or video games, to college kids.”

  “You’d rather I wasn’t there.”

  “It wouldn’t matter one way or another, to me, Edgar. But I don’t think it’s what Keith has in mind. You’re cut in, of course—”

  “Say nothing more.”

  Bruno had been dismissed. To underline it, Falk farted and exhaled wheezily, like a body slackening in death. Bruno felt Falk’s disappointment in him, a general condition and nothing new. Whatever bound them—it included affection—had long since outworn the illusions of pride. The old jackal faced the young one in a merciless mirror. And Bruno had fewer tricks at his disposal than he should have; he’d relied too long on Falk’s. If so much as a single member of the Raffles staff was present in the room Keith Stolarsky had arranged, Falk would know every word of what passed there. Perhaps Bruno would ask Stolarsky to banish any, for this reason. But then, Bruno might find himself the one to give a full report afterward—he’d always done so before. His resentments were those of a slave. Was it time to break away?

  When Bruno found himself eye to eye with the butler on his way to the door, neither spoke.

  •

  An hour later Bruno appeared at Raffles. He’d dressed informally, in a white suit appropriate to the hot night, and carried his backgammon set under his arm. The staff welcomed him now, their wheels greased. They directed him to the door of the Straits Settlement Suite.

  “Yeah, I got Tira another room for the night. She doesn’t need three fucking TVs and a safe-deposit box just to sack out.” Stolarsky was in grotty black lounge shorts and a San Francisco 49ers jersey, its red-and-gold emblem laminated, not stitched. His white robe and slippers were presumably courtesy of Raffles. Despite the slick, fussy Victorian decor of Raffles, Bruno was startled by the degree to which Stolarsky’s presence reduced the suite to a bug’s lair, as if by opening the door Bruno had lifted a rock. The act of entering, which Bruno did now, became that of shrinking oneself to size, of joining the flea circus. The rooms had only superficially been neatened up, the lamps illuminating little piles of travel receipts, wadded-up currency, other detritus. The door to the bedroom was closed. “Figured we’d put it to better use,” Stolarsky was saying. “After all I paid for the goddamned thing.”

  “She’s sleeping already?”

  “Nah, she’s out trolling around with this bored Kansas City housewife she met at the bar, I guess it’s a Missouri thing. Told me to tell you she’d come by at some point, but I think she’s kinda pissed off I’m not dedicating our last night to showing her the nightlife, what there is to speak of. Cool, you brought your set, I asked the concierge if he could get one for me and he looked pretty dubious. We’ll see if one shows up. I been doing nothing but playing online, I feel like someone poured Drano in my eye sockets.”

  “Your last night?”

  “Yeah, we moved up our ticket. Got sick of this shit in a hurry. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  “It’s the same to me as any other place.”

  “Okay, Magister Ludi, I read you. You see nothing beyond the horizon of the board. Now I’m going to clamber into your minimalist Zen-master rock garden and we’ll see if I can muss your hair a little.”

  “I really have no idea what you’re talking about. May I fix myself a drink?”

  “Your secret garden, your enclosure of enigma. The arena in which you pilot your fickle finger of backgammon fate. I’m calling your bluff, old sport, old pip, old cock. Make me one of those while you’re at it.”

  Bruno splashed Macallan into two tumblers and said, “Backgammon isn’t a bluffing game.”

  “Hey, leave room for ice. What about the doubling cube? You’re just softening me up, you fucking hustler.”

  “I wouldn’t ice this. Doubling isn’t the same as bluffing—both players can see the entire board.”

  “Right, you wouldn’t ice good scotch, of course not. So probably you don’t want a splash of Dr Pepper either, huh? I’m kidding. Anyhow, I don’t mean bluffing about shit hidden on the board, Alexander. I mean bluffing about what’s in your mind.”

  Bruno just stared. He tested for any intrusion of Stolarsky’s thoughts. None came. He handed Stolarsky the tumbler of scotch. Had Bruno ever discussed telepathy with Keith Stolarsky in high school? It would have been a remarkable lapse. Stolarsky’s provocations were too scattershot, and inane, for Bruno to concern himself with.

  Stolarsky grinned and raised the scotch in a silent toast.

  “I’m an open book,” said Bruno, opting for the blasé. “If you find anything in my mind that can alter the facts on the board, you’re welcome to it. Shall we get started?”

  By the time of the first interruption, Bruno had concluded that Stolarsky’s game, cobbled though it might be from Internet research and contests with programs, or with players hidden behind their own screens who were themselves schooled in contests with programs, was not too shabby. Stolarsky displayed a spongy intelligence and wasn’t stuck on one or another principle of play at the expense of what the dice commanded. Still, Bruno won five of the seven games, and he amused himself by never touching the cube himself, to Stolarsky
’s bedevilment. It denied Stolarsky any cue as to when he ought to resign.

  “I don’t get it, why don’t you double me?” Stolarsky said during the eighth game, when put on the bar. Stolarsky had already doubled, as on two previous occasions. Bruno was resolved to accept any of Stolarsky’s doubles as a matter of policy, for the time being. It was a way to needle the new player, to learn what he was made of. Bruno had insisted they begin at stakes of one hundred per point, in direct contradiction of his claim to Tira Harpaz. They could build from there, or not. He was up eight hundred as it was.

  In answer now, Bruno just shrugged.

  “Are you saying I’ve still got a shot here? I don’t see it.”

  “One always has a shot.”

  “You’re toying with me again.”

  “Resign if you like.”

  “Chuck you, Farley.” Stolarsky rolled. As if the dice had conspired with Bruno, to educate Stolarsky in the caprice of their possibilities, Stolarsky reentered from the bar on his first try, and also hit Bruno’s sole uncovered checker.

  “There you go,” said Bruno.

  “Guess you saw that coming.” Stolarsky meant it sarcastically, but he was unable to hide his satisfaction at the turn of his luck, a loser’s hunger for the flavor denied him.

  “No, but I’ve seen it happen before.”

  It was then that the suite’s doorbell chimed. A member of the staff, chaperoning a delivery boy with a steaming bag of food. Was this Edgar Falk’s spy? Possibly, though Stolarsky took credit for placing the order. He tipped the kid and placed the unopened package on the countertop. Bruno and Stolarsky were left alone.

  “What is it?” asked Bruno.

  “A big pile of Omakase burgers. I heard they were the real deal around here, hope I wasn’t misinformed.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Dynamite. Fuel for the long haul. But I’m not letting you off the hook, Flashman. Roll.”

  Bruno managed to lose, though not before accepting a double from Stolarsky, which he beavered, pointlessly. The result brought them close to equilibrium, Bruno just four hundred up after an hour of play. A gentleman’s game, therefore a total snooze. Stolarsky’s monomaniacal focus on the checkers had drained off the chaotic intensity of his other behaviors. With them evaporated the flow of peculiar memories overtaking Bruno. He wondered if he could find an occasion to wander into the closed bedroom. Examining Tira Harpaz’s private belongings might give a further clue—but to what? Would Bruno even want to know? It diverted him, at least, that he felt the urge.

  Stolarsky arranged two of the takeout burgers on the table, between himself and the board. Bruno helped himself to one as well, barely a dent in the large supply, but he’d only eaten half before Stolarsky had devoured his own pair. Stolarsky burped, sighed, and smacked his lips, stretching in his chair to relieve the pressure at his waist, within a growing halo of crumpled wrappers and balled-up napkins.

  “All right, all right, you ready?”

  Bruno nodded his assent at the dice.

  “I’m not really interesting you, am I?” Stolarsky swirled a mouthful of Macallan as if it were mouthwash, then grimaced, and worked his bared teeth with the tip of his tongue.

  “Not enormously.”

  “Ah, most delicately put. What would float your boat, Mr. Enormously? What qualifies as enormous to a size queen like yourself? Just be warned, I plan to maneuver it up your rear passage.”

  “Five hundred a point might keep me from falling asleep.”

  “That’s the spirit, and if falling asleep is an issue, there’s more than one approach to that problem.” Stolarsky threw a die to open the game.

  “A pot of coffee?”

  “Fuck coffee. I got something better, which I need to use up before the plane anyhow.”

  They sniffed the cocaine off a marble side table, after moving lamp and telephone to the carpet below. The lowered lamp, its shade ajar, threw goonish shadows, revealing the room’s massing chaos—crumpled wrappers joined now by wrinkled foil and a spilled arc of white powder, Stolarsky’s shed robe flung across the sofa’s arm, spilled ice cubes melting on the countertop. Stolarsky, despite the Raffles’s mellow AC, seemed to face some kind of internal thermostatic crisis; crouching and grumbling over the dice and checkers, he mopped sweat from temples and brow with his sleeves. It might not have helped that he’d sprung himself at a third Omakase burger, wolfing deep into the thick center, leaving a peripheral crust behind as if it had been a slice of pizza. At five hundred a point the battle was properly joined. Stolarsky won twice before Bruno cracked him again, the sweating man playing at the very edge of his capacity, a capacity expanding before Bruno’s eyes. Bruno doubled Stolarsky out of the next few games, but not before Stolarsky miscalculated, doubling back foolishly, to a penalty of four thousand dollars.

  “All right all right all right,” Stolarsky incanted, shoving the checkers back to their starting points.

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “Oh, there’s a hurry. You keeping count of all the dough I’m losing to you?”

  “I won’t lose track.”

  “Thattaboy, Flash. I’m sure you’re just as diligent a counter when you’re losing.”

  “I suppose I might be, I wouldn’t know.”

  “Roll, fucker.”

  Bruno had gone back for another line. The cocaine stretched the parameters of the room, and also Bruno’s skull. A chasm had revealed itself, between his eyes and the board, and between his brain and eyes. Bruno felt the desire to shovel more of the amazing clean powder into the new available spaces. Stolarsky had unveiled what seemed at first a stunning amount. Now Bruno wondered if it would be enough.

  “Why … the … fuck … would … you … hit … me … there?”

  Either Stolarsky’s voice had slowed or Bruno’s attentions were revving. Stolarsky’s inquiry wasn’t totally naïve: Bruno had hit a lone back checker on the one-point, with nothing but his five-point covered. Only double sixes would keep Stolarsky out—on any other number he’d either hit Bruno in return, or gain ground.

  “I’m not your tutor, I’m you’re opponent—”

  “Uuuup … youuurs …”

  “—but, as I was about to say, has no one in your online support group mentioned ‘tempo play’?”

  “See, now that’s a question I wanted to ask you: Why does all backgammon nomenclature sound like The Kama Sutra? ‘A stripped and cramped position on your inner beaver,’ all that shit.”

  “What you just said makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “Yeah, but you know what I’m saying, it’s like sex code.”

  “The explanation is obvious. Intercourse was invented one day by a couple of bored backgammon players. They simply used the language that was available to them.”

  “You got a weird sense of humor, Flashman. Goddamn it, I’m going to lose this race, aren’t I?”

  Bruno shrugged. “Roll your dice and see.” He did wonder a little, at the strange expansion his personality underwent in Stolarsky’s presence. Bruno would credit it to the drugs, except he’d felt it the evening before, something new in the foreground of his attentions—a block or diversion, an obstinacy—that he needed to go around, to ignore. Yet so long as he kept winning games, Bruno remained himself. Little matter what idiotic banter Stolarsky drew from him. Bruno bore off the first of his checkers and Stolarsky threw up his hands in disgust.

  “You should double me so I can resign.”

  “I choose not to.”

  “I resign anyway.”

  “Why not race?”

  “Because I fucking lost.”

  The women came through the door. Tira Harpaz and Cynthia Jalter, that was the name she gave, the couples therapist from Kansas City who’d attended not the same high school as Tira, no, but whose school had played field hockey against hers and the women were pretty certain they remembered each other from one of the always surprisingly ruthless and bloody extramural battles, all these well-bred suburban
girls elbowing and strangling one another into Ace bandages and flexible casts and weeks of physical therapy, and wasn’t it funny, here they were, the four of them not exactly but almost two pairs of high-school friends, in a palatial hotel in Singapore, while Cynthia Jalter’s husband, Richard, a probate lawyer and a cold fish—Cynthia Jalter could use some couples therapy herself!—snoozed downstairs. Tira and Cynthia enjoyed some cocaine—Bruno was of two minds, seeing so much of it disappear up these new noses—and all this information came tumbling out.

  “So have you fleeced Keith for, like, six months of your usual salary? Do you own one of his stores already?” Tira seemed to make the men equally the target of her jocular scorn, but her mood was lightened in contrast to when Bruno had seen her last.

  “I don’t draw a salary.”

  “You just split the take with your parole officer, or whatever he was, huh?”

  “Sure.”

  “So how bad is it going to get? Keith gonna have to sell the Jag?” The women snorted and giggled together, rolling on the couch in hilarity. Maybe Cynthia’s presence brought out the garrulous Midwesterner in Tira, or Tira was drunk—well, she was—or drunk on the conviviality with a woman. Bruno didn’t know Tira so well that he could say, never mind how he’d been consorting with her in his thoughts.

  Stolarsky awaited Bruno’s verdict without comment. Was Stolarsky cowed by the last loss? It couldn’t be the money. He crouched over the glass table to lay out more lines of the drug and do some himself, before the women sucked it all up, but not before pushing the checkers back into position for another game.

  “He’s a decent player,” Bruno said. “We’re still just feeling each other out.” He opted for a dignified tone, reeling himself in, somewhat, now that Tira and her newfound long-lost friend had filled the suite with hilarity. Weary dignity might be the first impression Bruno needed to make, anywhere.