Fifth Avenue

by Christopher Smith

Louis sat at his desk and looked up when Judy arrived with the coffee. She was wearing a crisp white suit that accented her trim figure, and the new diamond bracelet he gave her that morning. As she poured, Louis could smell the faint, lingering scent of her perfume. It reminded him of the perfume Anne used to wear.

  When she left, Louis looked across the desk at Michael. The resemblance to his mother was uncanny. From the dark hair to the blue eyes to the square jaw line--it was all the same.

  “I telephoned Santiago earlier this morning,” he said to Michael. “We’ve worked out a deal.”

  Michael straightened. “What kind of deal? What did he say?”

  Louis gauged his words carefully. “Among other things, he said he had nothing to do with your dog.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “No,” Louis said. “I’m sure Santiago is responsible. I’m also sure it would have been you lying dead on that floor if you hadn’t been here talking with me. We can all be thankful for that.”

  Michael dismissed his father’s concern. “What’s the deal?”

  “In exchange for my word that he’ll get his money, he’s willing to let you live...for a while, at least.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I haven’t given him my word that he’ll get his money--at least not yet. Right now, you’re living on borrowed time. A little less than three weeks to be exact. But I wouldn’t count on even that much, Michael. After what happened to your dog, I think its safe to assume that Santiago can’t be trusted.”

  “Can you? If I do what you ask, will you give him the money?”

  “Of course.”

  “How come I doubt that?”

  “Probably for the same reason I doubt whether you’ll complete your end of the bargain. We’ve been apart too long, Michael. We don’t know each other.”

  “This is some way to get to know each other.”

  A shadow of anger crossed Louis’ face. “I never asked you to leave, Michael. Until your first novel came out, I didn’t know where you were living, how you were, or if you were even alive. You dropped me for sixteen years, you changed your name and now, after all this time, you come asking me for help. Don’t think you’re going to get it without helping me. It doesn’t work that way.”

  Of course, it doesn’t. “Tell me what you want from me.”

  “You already know what I expect you to do to George Redman.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “But before that happens, there’s something else I want you to do.”

  “And what is that?”

  Louis locked eyes with his son.

  “I want you to marry Leana Redman.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “If you won’t stay here permanently, then, for God’s sake, Leana, at least let me give you some money. You’ll never find a decent apartment in this city with what little you’ve managed to save over the years. Do you want to live in a dump?”

  “If I have to, yes.”

  Harold Baines made a face and turned away from the window at which he was standing. The early afternoon sun cast a warm glow against his graying hair, the checked shirt he wore, the khaki pants. He sighed. “This new-found pride and determination of yours is wearing me out. Do you want a drink?”

  “Too early for me.”

  “Not for me. I’m going to recreate one of your martinis. Sure you won’t join me?”

  Leana said she was sure and watched her father’s best friend cross to the bar at the opposite end of the library. He seemed thinner to her. At the opening of The Redman International Building, he looked exhausted one moment, vibrant the next. She wondered again if he was ill or if the strain of acquiring WestTex was just taking its toll on him. She was going to bring it up but then thought better of it and allowed her gaze to sweep the library. This was, by far, her favorite room in this house.

  Its great length of floor-to-ceiling windows looked out across Fifth to the entire Met, which was jammed with people on the wide expanse of steps, now golden in the sun. Turning, she noted the many photographs in silver frames that rested on the table beside her. Besides the pictures of his own family, two photographs were of her--one as a child, the other taken last summer at a Paris cafe. It had been just her and Harold on that trip, a long weekend in their favorite city.

  Next to the photo was the Degas sculpture she had purchased for him at auction in London. It was of a ballerina, her feet in the fifth position, her hands cupped behind her back, the original pink ribbon in her hair. A week before the auction, Harold remarked that he would love to own that particular sculpture because it reminded him of her when she studied ballet as a child. Now, as Harold took the seat opposite her, Leana realized again just how much he meant to her, and how she felt more at home here than in her own home.

  “I want you to see a doctor,” Harold said.

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you don’t look well. I told you that the night of the party.”

  “And I remember telling you I was fine.”

  “Then explain your weight loss.”

  “I was getting fat,” he said. “And don’t tell me you didn’t notice. I’m cutting back on everything but martinis and olives. And then there’s the deal with WestTex, which has us all pushed against the wall. Who has time to eat?”

  She decided she could believe that and backed off. “I just worry,” she said.

  “And I’m glad you do, but now it’s my turn to worry about you. You’re my main concern right now. I want you to see a doctor.”

  “He didn't break anything--they’re just bruises. They’ll fade in a week or so.”

  He shook his head in frustration. “Are you a robot?” he asked. “Has somebody clipped the wires in your brain? I can’t believe how you’re taking this. The man beats the hell out of you with a belt and you sit there like Little Miss Sunshine telling me the bruises will fade in a week or so. It’s unbelievable. Aren’t you angry?”

  The question was ridiculous.

  “He tried raping you,” Harold persisted. “Probably would have killed you if you had given him the chance.”

  “He also threatened to have a contract put out on me. Do you need to be reminded of that?”

  Harold waved a hand. “Eric Parker doesn’t have the balls to do something like that.”

  “And what if he did? You weren’t there, Harold. I saw his face. He meant it.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “That little prick's a pussy.”

  “Okay,” she said. “You’ve mentioned balls, prick and pussy over the course of ten seconds. Could you pick more agreeable body parts?”

  He knew she was trying to lighten the mood, but Harold was having none of it. He stood and fixed himself another drink, even though he hadn’t finished his first.

  Leana looked out a window. Why couldn’t he understand? She was trying her best to deal with this. She was trying to do what she thought was right. Harold should be proud of her, not angry. “Eric will pay for what he did to me,” she said. “Celina will see to that. And if she doesn’t, one day I will. But you made a promise and I expect you to keep it. No one, especially my father, is to know what happened to me.”

  Harold sat back down. “Your father isn’t a fool, Leana--he saw you. He already knows. But if he asks me if I know anything, you have my word--I’ll play dumb.” He changed the subject. “Tell me about your financial situation.”

  “It’s taken care of,” Leana said. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to Mom’s jeweler on Park to sell what jewelry I’ve kept in a safe-deposit box. It’ll be enough.” She thought of her finest piece of jewelry, the diamond and Mogok ruby necklace, and smiled. “Actually, it’ll be plenty. One necklace alone should net a high six-figures.”

  Harold hadn’t known about this. “Do you have anything else you can sell?” If she did, it would put his mind at ease. The thought of the girl living someplace unsafe worried hi
m.

  “There’s some jewelry back at the house that’s mine--but it’s in Dad’s safe.”

  “Do you know the combination?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I suggest you take a cab there this afternoon and get what you can. The jewelry is yours, after all, and you won’t have to worry about a confrontation with your father. He called earlier. He’s meeting with Ted Frostman this afternoon and hopes to strike a deal with him over a game of skeet. He’ll never even see you.”

  “Mom might.”

  Harold hadn’t thought of that. When upset, Elizabeth could be more unreasonable than George. “That’s true,” he said. “Maybe you should wait. But not for too long. It would be just like George to put the jewelry in another safe, one you don’t know the combination to. And that, Leana, is something you can’t afford to let happen.”

  Later, after lunch, he followed Leana to the door. “Don’t sit in the park for too long,” he warned. “The sun’s at its strongest now. You’ll burn.”

  “I tan, Uncle Harold.”

  “Not in this heat, you won’t. Now, not another word. I’m your father while you’re staying with me and you’ll do as you’re told.” He winked at her and they stepped outside, oblivious to the photographs being taken of them from the van across the street. Sensitive microphones recorded their conversation.

  “When will you be back?” he asked.

  Leana shrugged. “A couple of hours? I just need to be alone and get my head on straight.” She lifted the book he gave her. “If this is as good as you say it is, I might be longer.”

  “Not too long, though.” He reached into his pocket and put some money in her hand. "Don't start," he said. "You can pay me back later."

  Leana thanked him and kissed him on the forehead. His skin seemed unusually warm to her and yet the house was air-conditioned. “You can reach me on my cell. I’ll be fine.” She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. “Are you sure you’re okay? You feel warm.”

  Harold sighed. “I’m perfect.”

  * * *

  Leana had no intention of reading in the park or anywhere else. She had an appointment to keep and she was determined to be on time.

  The man she was meeting would have it no other way.

  When she was far enough down the avenue and certain Harold could no longer see her, she slipped the book he gave her into the straw handbag that hung at her side, hailed a cab and asked the driver to take her to the meat-packing district.

  Traffic was heavy. It seemed an eternity before they reached 14th Street. Leana looked out the cab’s open window and saw sleek stores and restaurants where condemned tenement buildings and old warehouses used to be.

  Gone were the groups of people in various stages of undress looking for the best deal on heroin, coke, meth and crack. In their place was the hip set. Years ago, when she was still underage, she used to steal down here and go to the gay nightclubs with her friends. It was one of the best times of her life--the clubs were epic in the music they played and the sexual mood they struck. She could go there and dance with some of the hottest men in the city knowing they wanted nothing more from her than to turn it out on the dance floor with a fun girl. And now the bars were mostly gone.

  Fucking Guiliani.

  She paid the cabbie and walked to the end of the block, where there was a group of smartly dressed women moving in her direction and likely going for lunch. A van was parked at the street corner. A woman with a screaming child was doing her best to ignore the tantrum. Leana did as she was told and waited at the corner for five minutes before she hailed another cab and asked the driver to take her to a location on Avenue A. She wasn’t sure why this was necessary, but she knew he had his reasons and so she just went with it.

  When she arrived at the agreed upon spot, it was one-thirty and she was in a different world, one far away from Fifth. She stepped out of the cab and couldn’t help feeling uneasy. The air seemed heavier here and it smelled of the rot coming from the deep piles of trash stacked high along the sidewalk.

  She looked at the children playing in the street and wondered what kind of life they lived? With their parents living on welfare and spending their money on drugs and alcohol instead of food and clothing, how would they ever get ahead?

  And there it was, right in front of her, the reason he asked her to meet him here. It was so she would be reminded again of the other side of Manhattan--the side he always accused her of turning her back on.

  She thought back to the last day they’d seen each other. It was two years ago, they were walking up Fifth and he shouted that all this was an illusion. The expensive shops, the well-dressed men and women bustling past them on the sidewalk, the horse-drawn carriages parked alongside The Plaza.

  This wasn’t the life most people knew, certainly not his own. This was about as far from that as she was from reality.

  “You want to know what reality is for my people, Leana?” he asked. “Reality is wondering where your next meal is going to come from. Or how you’re going to pay next month’s rent. Or whether your mother or father will wake drunk the next morning and drag your sorry ass into the same fight they’ve been having for years--the one that always deal with money.” He saw the disinterest on her face and reached for her hand. “Let me show you what I mean.”

  They crossed over to Madison and took a cab uptown--toward Harlem. Leana didn’t want to be doing any of this. She looked out a window and saw the expensive boutiques giving way to decrepit tenement buildings; the expensively dressed people to homeless men and women.

  She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been this far north. When they passed 135th Street, Mario asked the driver to cross over to Fifth Avenue. “We’ll get off there,” he said. “Where she’s comfortable."

  Leana turned away from the window as the cab slowed to a stop. “I’m not getting out here.”

  Mario paid the driver and opened her door. “Yes, you are,” he said. “It’s Fifth Avenue. Remember? Now, move.”

  They walked down a street that was not swept clean, but littered with garbage. They passed groups of men and women who didn’t have an air of affluence, but poverty. They passed gang members and drug dens, pregnant children and their young boyfriends. And then Leana became aware that she and Mario were the only Caucasian people in sight.

  The area was a melting pot of Haitians, Chinese, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Thais, Cubans, Koreans and Albanians. It was the Third World up here. She reached for Mario’s hand and held it tightly in her own. They were approaching a huddle of women. All were middle-aged, poor and angry at a system that had failed them. Their eyes seemed to devour her as she drew closer.

  Leana wondered why she felt so threatened. She had done nothing to these women. Their hardships weren’t her fault. She should be able to look them straight in the eye.

  But she could only glance at them as she passed.

  “Seen enough?”

  Leana saw the sarcastic smile on his lips, the hint of mocking in his eyes and dropped his hand. “I’ve seen enough,” she said. “But let me ask you something, Mario--where do you get off judging me when your Family with a capital fucking F is known to kill people for a living?”

  Mario’s face flushed. “What my family does has nothing to do with me.”

  “Exactly,” Leana said. “What my father does has nothing to do with me. So you can shove your condescending attitude up your ass, because I’m sick and tired of you telling me how spoiled and shallow I am when you’re no better than me.”

  “I’ve never said you were spoiled or shallow.”

  “Maybe not in words, but your actions sure as hell have. Why else are we here?” She stepped away from him, flagged a cab and was gone before he could say another word. They hadn’t spoken since.

  Now, looking at these children and knowing what the future held for them, Leana regretted all of it. There was a time when she could have just drawn from the bank account her father kept full for her and writte
n a check to alleviate a good deal of this. And yet she hadn’t. Why hadn’t she? And what will Mario think of me now?

  He was on time, of course. In the distance, she saw his car coming down the street and wasn’t surprised to find that it was the same car he had two years ago. Here was a man who could own a fleet of Ferraris--and yet he drove a simple black Ford Taurus.

  He pulled alongside her. Leana adjusted her sunglasses, hoping the bruises didn’t show around her eyes. She knew they did--but just barely--on her face. She didn’t want him to see them. At least not yet.

  He stepped out of the car, looked at her with that sideways grin of his, and she felt the same thrill she had felt years ago, when they met at a mutual friend’s dinner parry. He looked the same. His hair was as thick, dark and as curly as hers. It was just a tad too long, but it helped to softened the squareness of his jaw. His body--that body--seemed more athletic than ever. Mario De Cicco, son of Antonio Gionelli De Cicco, capo di capi of the New York Syndicate, was just as hot as she remembered.

  He came around the car and embraced her tightly, kissing her once on each cheek. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “It’s been...what? A year?”

  “Two years,” she said. “And a lot’s happened.”

  “Then let’s go and catch up over lunch. I want you to tell me everything--especially why there are bruises on your face.”

  As they were leaving, Mario looked around him. “Isn’t this place great?” he said. “I chose it just for you.”

  “What a surprise.”

  He pointed to one of the tenements across the street. “That’s a crack house,” he said. “Condemned. Last week, a woman smothered her nine-week-old child there because she was hiding from the cops and didn’t want the baby’s crying to tip them off. When the cops left, she smoked what crack she had left and dropped the baby into a trash can. It was an elderly woman searching for food who found it alive.”

  He looked at Leana. “So, how are things on Fifth?”

  Leana fastened her safety-belt. She wouldn’t take this lying down. “Everything’s shit,” she said. “The recession has buried Barney’s below Filene’s basement. People are reduced to renting the latest Louis instead of buying it. Real estate is in the can--a $30 million penthouse now goes for $20 million. Can you imagine? It’s a horror show. The only good news is that now you have no trouble getting a table wherever, whenever.” She smiled at him. “Speaking of food, I’m famished. How about that lunch?”