He wasn’t the actual star of the high school baseball team because he was too lazy to train. He was an outfielder, and when he was in position, the air grew brittle. Balls didn’t want to go through it. They would have dropped at Johnny’s feet if he hadn’t been there to hold out a mitt and catch them.
Johnny del Santos was the most accomplished scam artist Paul had ever come across. He could even con a baseball. So here he was, running an abbey a few miles outside of Sewickley. No monk would be said to “run” a monastery unless it were Johnny del Santos. “Run,” Paul supposed, was exactly what Johnny did.
Paul turned the car around, drove back the way he’d come. He had missed it when he’d driven by, and no wonder. It was up on the right—high up—the undulating building that Paul thought must be the abbey. Imagining Johnny as a man of the cloth made Paul want to weep with laughter.
Then he saw the sign that he had missed because the shaded light fixed to its top had burned out. The sign, creaking (he was sure) in the wind. Sitting on it was an owl.
Montagne Cassino
The Abbey
If there were Johnny del Santos, there had to be a casino.
And that damned owl had to be stuffed.
56
Montagne Cassino. Place your bets, folks.
The stone buildings were enclosed by walls of that sunburned-colored stucco that passed for adobe, with rounded corners and jutting arms and a church tower that resembled the famous church in Taos, New Mexico. Paul had seen pictures of it but couldn’t recall its name.
“I’ve always liked the Southwest,” said Johnny.
Paul paused. “What you’ve always liked doesn’t strike me as being the point. This is a ‘Benedictine monastery.’ Please note the tonal quote marks.”
“So? You don’t think they have monasteries in New Mexico? I visited one in Pecos.”
“Yes, but I’ll bet they don’t look like the Santa Fe Hilton.”
Johnny chortled. “The contractor was from Albuquerque. Hard to restrain.”
“You could restrain a mad bull with a red flag, Johnny.”
“But look.” Johnny pointed up to the church tower and the surrounding roofline. “At least I insisted the roof be tiled.”
“Those tiles look Spanish. We’re in Pennsylvania. Where in hell did you get the money for all this?”
“Folks like you, Paul.” Johnny’s smile was a shortstop away from divine.
Johnny del Santos. One great thing about Paul’s mission: There would be no hesitancy, no gasping wonder, no door slammed in his face at the idea of doing something off the charts. Would a monk do anything like this? Yes, if the monk were Johnny and the anything were money. There was nothing Johnny would rather do. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth being paid for—that was Johnny’s version of the old saying.
The other thing Paul could depend on was that no matter what amount Paul offered, Johnny would try to up it. As in their conversation when Paul had called him the day before:
“A million bucks for this one small gig, Paul? Must be important.” Brief pause. “How about a million two?”
Paul laughed. “I was expecting a million five.”
“Nah. We’re old friends. What do ya take me for? A two-bit chiseler? You think I’d fleece a buddy?”
“If you didn’t have anyone else around to fleece, you bet.”
Johnny liked old words like “fleece,” “two-bit,” and “chiseler.” A hustler, a scam artist, a swindler, a con man—Johnny del Santos was an old-time crook, if ever there was one.
Walking through the herb garden, the knot garden, and the rose garden, Paul and Johnny passed the occasional prayerful monk (or “monkish type”), moving with eyes downcast, hands knuckled before waist. Most of the people they walked by appeared to be civilians: i.e., tourists, or “guests,” for whom Montagne Cassino was a retreat, a sanctuary.
Paul commented on the number of civilians here in one capacity or another.
“Ah, yes. If you remember Saint Benedict—” said Johnny.
“No, actually, I’d forgotten him.”
Johnny smiled. “Saint Benedict believed a monastery should always have guests.”
“Are you going to reference the blessed monk for everything?”
“This by way of being a Benedictine monastery . . .”
“ ‘By way of being.’ I like that. Aren’t these men walking around in black with notched collars monks?”
“Well. Monkish.”
Paul rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I love the name, Johnny.”
“Montagne Cassino? Monte Cassino was Benedict’s first abbey. It’s in Italy.”
“No, it’s in Vegas.”
Johnny stopped. He smiled. “Hey. You came to see me, man. Why’re you being an asshole?”
“Oh, I’m just jealous. You were always cleverer than me.”
“Paul, nobody is cleverer than you.”
They were back in Johnny’s office. Paul would have said “study” or “den,” as it lacked the Spartan simplicity one might have expected in a monastery or abbey. Paul didn’t know the difference between the two, but it hardly mattered, given that the place seemed to be neither.
“Just what do you call this place?”
“Call it? It’s an abbey, like the sign says.”
“That makes you an abbot, right?”
Johnny gave a protracted “umm,” a sound that called into question the appellation “abbot,” and rocked his hand, a gesture that sent the word even further south.
Paul looked around the office. He saw a lot of zebra wood, oxblood leather, and Oriental carpet. “You’ve done well for yourself, I’m not surprised to see.”
Johnny leaned back in what looked like a task chair designed by Mies van der Rohe, his hands locked behind his head. “Saint Benedict believed in simplicity, not necessarily austerity.”
“You’re living up to that standard. That liquor cabinet is simplicity itself; you can see right through the etched glass doors.” They were drinking Scotch as smooth as the stuff in Bobby Mackenzie’s office.
“Explain what you want me to do for this million-plus.”
Paul told him the story of Cindy Sella and L. Bass Hess.
“My God, what a creep.”
“What I want, obviously, is to get rid of Bass Hess.”
Johnny shrugged. “I know some people, but—”
Paul held up his hand, palm out, and shook his head. “I’ll bet you do. If that’s what I wanted, I wouldn’t have left New York. No, what I want is for our friend Bass to—you could say—recuse himself from the New York literary scene permanently.”
Johnny met Paul’s smile with a slow smile of his own. “So you want him to . . .”
Paul nodded, smile in place. “Right. You do have rules here, don’t you? I mean, such as what a monk—or monkish person—has to do, and so forth? ” Paul didn’t really know what he meant.
“Oh, certainly.” Johnny laughed. “What an experiment. How are you going to manage it?”
“Hess has already had one or two, you could say, spiritual experiences.” Paul recounted the events in Central Park and the junkyard. “We’ve got him kind of softened up.”
Johnny laughed and shook his head. “Sweet Christ, Paul.”
“He’s due for another—spiritual experience, I mean—on the way here.”
“When will the way here come?”
“In a couple of days. It won’t be hard to convince him. The guy’s from Sewickley, not that he ever visits.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Johnny raised his glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” Paul lifted his and tilted it in Johnny’s direction. “Another thing: There must be stables around here.”
“Stables? Racing, you mean? I know a couple of jockeys.”
“No, Johnny. Not everything in life involves a bet. Just ordinary horses that people ride.”
Johnny looked disappointed. “Sure. About a half mile up the road.” He wrote o
n a slip of paper, handed it to Paul. “Tell them I sent you. You’ll get a deal.”
“You bet I will. Thanks.” Paul laughed, pocketed the notepaper, and said good-bye.
57
The Duquesne Incline, an inclined railroad similar to a funicular, ferried passengers from the bottom of Mount Washington to the top. Before such inclines—of which only two remained—residents who lived on the top of Coal Hill, as it was called, had been forced to walk.
Paul, who was at the moment walking up the long flight of wooden stairs to the building at the incline’s end where passengers boarded, couldn’t believe people had walked up to their homes at the top. He remembered how he used to beg his father to take him on this little trip, but he won him over only twice, and probably because Jenny had helped with the begging. Paul had really loved Jenny, who’d been ill for most of her childhood with some form of lymphoma and had lived far beyond the doctors’ expectations to the age of fifteen.
A few steps ahead were an elderly woman and a little girl, probably her granddaughter. The woman was dressed in a well-cut suit of gray silk or gabardine that had a sheen to it, something very fine, like the dust on a butterfly’s wing. Her white blouse was a frothy material. Her hair was the same gray as her suit and also had a sheen to it. She was quite small, a wisp of a woman, a moth grandmother. She leaned down and said something to the little girl, who was no older than six and probably four. The child shook her head and held up the bear she was carrying, worn but silky, like the old woman.
Paul stayed behind them, moving slowly until they reached the room where tickets were sold. There were a dozen or so customers in the small cramped room from which people boarded the vintage funicular cars. Five of them, including Paul and the old lady and child, lined up to buy tickets.
The ticket seller was a man with a loud voice who was admonishing the couple at the front for not having the correct change; they had to go through pockets and tote bag as if searching for documents to prove their right of passage to border patrol.
Eight or nine passengers were sitting on narrow benches around the room, two middle-aged couples and a young pair who looked left over from London’s Goth days, she with a headful of streaked hair, red locks and blue; he with the blackest hair Paul had ever seen and various nose and ear piercings. They sat chewing gum in a desultory way.
After the couple with no change had been shamed into using the change machine on the wall, the old lady and her granddaughter stepped up to the ticket seller. She said in a clear voice that, as she was a senior and her granddaughter only five, they didn’t need to pay admission.
That was indeed what the sign said, Paul remembered.
Almost like a carnival barker, the ticket seller said, “Are you a U.S. citizen?”
The woman was taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
“Are you a U.S. citizen?” he barked.
“What? I don’t see what that—”
Paul was—as he’d been informed by Molly—a man of a mercurial temper, to put it nicely. He could gun himself up from zero to sixty in five seconds. Molly had told him (often enough) he should enter himself in the Le Mans Classic. He wouldn’t need a car.
As the ticket man stood there looking as if he’d staged a brilliant coup, Paul stepped up and said loudly, “Que voulez-vous dire? Quelle insulte! Le . . . Le cheval est . . . ah . . . sortie par le porte!”
The ticket seller took several quick steps back. “What? What? Who are you?” He stepped farther back as Paul got so close, there was barely daylight between them.
“Je suis le consult français!” Paul whirled around to face the astonished but clearly delighted passengers. “Quel qu’un qui parle français?” He held out his arms, invitation extended to all French speakers present. “Parle français?”
To his surprise, the black-haired fellow got up and came over, grinning. “Oui?”
Now there were two of them. The ticket seller looked frantic enough to race for the vintage car, moored at the door.
“Je suis le consult français!” Paul clapped his hand to his chest, then pointed wildly at the ticket seller. “Dire, dire!” He got out his cell phone and started tapping in a number.
The fellow said to the ticket seller, “Listen, man, you better just forget askin’ folks if they’re U.S. citizens. This guy’s the new French consul—”
“Oui! Oui! ” said Paul.
His black-haired interpreter added (seemingly for good measure), “And he’s a good friend of the mayor of Pittsburgh. That’s who he’s calling.”
“What? No! Tell him no no no,” said the desperate ticket seller.
The kid turned to Paul and grinned. “No no no.”
Paul laughed artificially and spoke into his cell phone to dead air. “Allo, allo . . . oui . . .”
The ticket man was waving his arms frantically toward the car at the door. “Everybody can board, go on, board.”
The passengers rose with obvious reluctance. They hated to leave the scene. The short-of-change couple wore huge smiles. The grandmother, her hand to her face, was thrilled with this unexpected ally.
Paul continued to spout into his cell phone. “Que esque ce, ah, Duquesne Incline.” His English pronunciation was remarkably good for one who’d been such a short time in the country.
They all got into the car, the black-haired kid and his girl facing Paul, the old lady and her granddaughter taking seats next to him. The grandmother said, “Thank you.”
There was a ripple of applause all around the car.
The boy said, “That was cool, man. Especially that shit about the horse.”
“Horse?” said Paul, mystified.
When they left the car and walked out to the street, Paul was surprised to see that it was just a street. What had he expected? Trees and tangled undergrowth? Deer? Bear? A horse? He was even more surprised to see a limousine at the curb, waiting, apparently, for the old lady and the little girl.
She stopped on the pavement ten feet from the car and said to the chauffeur, who had the rear door open, “I’ll just be a moment, George.” She turned to Paul and put out her gloved hand. “My name is Vera Hudson, and this is Virginia.”
“Ginny,” said the girl, holding her grandmother’s free hand, with her other hand clutching her bear.
“Paul Giverney.” He shook the woman’s hand.
Vera said, “We want to thank you for the rescue. I was feeling really humiliated. I can’t imagine what that man was thinking. I’d say Ginny and I look quite American, don’t we?”
The girl tugged at the grandmother’s hand. Vera Hudson bent down, and Ginny whispered something in her ear. “Oh. All right.” She turned to Paul. “Ginny wishes to tell you something.”
Ginny beckoned him down to her level with a small wave. Paul knelt. Quickly, she kissed him on the cheek and then turned just as quickly away before embarrassed giggles overwhelmed her.
“Believe me, that rarely happens.”
“Thank you, Ginny.” He smiled.
Ginny, having rushed so eagerly toward him, now had to disdain him, lest she be swallowed up. She would not look at him.
“Well, we must go. Thank you again, Mr. Giverney.” She paused. “What a lovely name. It’s familiar.”
“Monet’s garden. My name is spelled with an extra E, though.”
George held the limousine door, and Ginny climbed in.
Vera Hudson was about to follow, when she stopped and turned, not looking at him as much as the pavement. “Paul Giverney,” she said, looked at him briefly, doubted herself, and shook her head. “Très impossible.” She murmured this more to herself than to him, then got in the car.
George shut the door, went around to the driver’s seat, and got in.
Paul watched the limousine pull away with Ginny’s face at the rear window and wondered how well Vera Hudson knew French. And him.
It was eight o’clock. They had parted just before dusk; now it was dark as Paul finished his dinner. All of the r
estaurants at the top of the mountain were positioned to take advantage of the view of the city below.
He was not old enough to remember the Smoky City, though his parents had talked about it often enough, streetlights being on all day because “the smog was so thick, you’d’ve thought it was bloody London!” East Liberty, where they lived for so long, they had left because it became little better than a slum. That was when they moved to Shadyside.
What the city had given up in industry, it had taken back in beauty. In the early-evening light, it had glowed dimly. In the dark, it was as if that moth in the Lunesta commercial had trailed its silver sweepings along the banks, across the three rivers, outlined the tall buildings and the bowl of PNC Park. The city looked mysteriously, sleepily alight.
About to leave, Paul stood and looked at the scene and bent his forehead toward the glass. He thought of the old Leigh Hunt poem:
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Time, you thief.
That was another Pittsburgh.
58
Bunny Fogg knew just what to do.
Jackson Sprague always left his office at twelve-thirty for lunch at the Four Seasons. His glorified secretary, whose title was “associate” and whom they called the Duchess, left at the same time as her boss, though not for the Four Seasons. She went to Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s to shop or to get a manicure.
Bunny couldn’t understand leaving an office with such reckless abandon, important files that could be plundered so easily, drawers that could be opened, a safe that could (she bet) be cracked, artifacts stolen, computers hacked. (She had a taste for the dramatic.)
Since the job of feeding Jack Sprague’s aquarium fish usually fell to Bunny, there would be no reason to question her presence in Jack Sprague’s overwrought office. Did he really need to have the hide of a wildebeest layered over a zebra hide, both striking poses over the skin of a cheetah? All on an Oriental rug?
The Way of All Fish Page 27