A Cool Breeze on the Underground

by Don Winslow

  “I like careful.”

  So they went to work on the closet door in Graham’s bedroom. First came a lecture from Graham, which Neal didn’t mind, as it gave him a chance to sit down and finish his Coke. Graham told him that if the closet was shut, it was no issue. But sometimes suspicious people will leave a closet door ajar deliberately, and then you had to be careful to leave it exactly the same way. There were two good ways to accomplish this.

  “You can mark the opening along the side of your shoe, or you can do what the subject probably did, which is to line the edge of the door up with something else in the room, usually something on the wall, and usually something very obvious.

  “Hinged doors like this one are trickier than sliding doors. Why?”

  “Because you have to check both the inside and outside edges of the door against possible marks on the wall, and also because it’s harder to match the exact perspective that the subject used to make the mark.”

  “You’re sharp today. This is why I prefer to make measurement from the doorsill to the door, because there’s no perspective to worry about. If it’s two inches, it’s two inches, as you know from bitter personal experience.”

  “You have to be careful about closed doors, too, don’t you? Don’t people sometimes leave tape or hair or something stretched across the door?”

  “They do in books and movies a lot, yeah. And sometimes in real life, but yes, son, you’re right. It doesn’t hurt to check.”

  “You said that already.”

  “I’ll say it about fifty thousand times.”

  They practiced being careful for a couple of hours, leaving marks on doorsills, medicine cabinets, windows, bedspreads, pillows, even flower arrangements. It was exacting work that demanded precision. Neal was bushed when they finished.

  “So,” Graham asked, “who’s your date with, tonight?”

  “Nice try.”

  “You should tell your old Dad these things.”

  “You’ll never know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’d never shut up about it. You’d want to know everything.”

  “Is she one of those rich Trinity babes?”

  “I dunno.”

  “You ‘dunno’? Have you met this girl?”

  “I don’t know if she’s rich.”

  She was. or her parents were, anyway. Their apartment occupied half a floor on Central Park West.

  Neal was nervous. This was the first time he had gone to Carol’s home, the first time he was to meet her parents. She’d been after him to do it for weeks.

  “You have to meet them,” she’d said, “if we’re going to go on a real date. You know, at night. Or they won’t let me.”

  Going to her home, meeting her parents, Saturday-night date: It was fraught with peril on several levels. It elevated their relationship from the safe status of friends just hanging out on weekend afternoons to boyfriend and girlfriend, and the news would be out all over school before classes started Monday morning. Neal wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Scary stuff on the one hand, but on the other it was great. Then there was the parent thing. Neal didn’t have a lot of experience with parents, his own or anybody else’s. He knew from Leave It to

  Beaver that parents tended to ask a bunch of questions, the answers to which would probably propel them to throw him out and lock Carol in her room—with armed guards.

  “Carol‘s not quite ready yet,” her father would say, lighting his pipe as he looked Neal over from head to toe. “Have a seat, young man. Take that chair there, the electric one.”

  Her mother would hover about nervously, smiling tightly while she contemplated changing the locks on all the doors.

  “What does your father do?” Carol’s father would ask, raising thick eyebrows.

  “He’s in travel, sir.”

  “And does your mother work?” Mrs. Metzger would ask.

  “Uh … yes, ma‘am.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Public relations … sales…”

  “We’d like to meet your parents sometime,” Mr. Metzger would say.

  “So would I, sir.”

  This was going to be a disaster.

  “What floor?”

  “Huh?”

  “What floor do you want?” the doorman asked.

  “The Metzgers’?”

  “That’s the penthouse.”

  “Swell.”

  “Are they expecting you?” the doorman asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The doorman gave him an ugly look and pointed to the elevator. The operator settled for a smirk as he took him up. Neal took a deep breath in the foyer and rang the bell. Here we go.

  Carol opened the door right away.

  “Hi!” she said. She looked flushed, nervous, and glad to see him. “Meet my parents.”

  Her parents were on their hands and knees on the floor.

  Mrs. Metzger looked up at him. Neal saw where Carol got her looks. Mrs. M. was wearing a sequined black evening gown and a lot of jewelry. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Neal, but don’t come in any farther, please.”

  Mr. Metzger, clad in a dinner jacket, said, “Likewise, Neal.”

  “Aren’t you all supposed to be facing East?” Neal asked.

  Oh God, why do I say these things?

  “Mrs. Metzger’s contact lens,” Carol’s father said.

  “And we’re already late,” Mrs. Metzger said.

  Carol looked at him and shrugged.

  “I can find it,” Neal said.

  “How’s that?” Mr. Metzger asked, his hand gently sweeping the thick gray carpet.

  “I can find it. If you’ll all stay still.”

  Carol looked at him strangely.

  Less than two minutes later, Neal held the lens gently on his index finger. He had found it on Mr. Metzger’s pant cuff.

  “Neal,” said Mrs. M., “thank you! How did you do that?”

  “Practice.”

  Carol’s mother looked at her and said, “I like this one.”

  “Hope to see you again, Neal. We have to go, Joan.”

  “My parents like you,” Carol said much later as they were walking back from a Chinese dinner after the movie. “They have good taste, my parents.”

  The elevator ride lasted about eighty thousand years. Her parents weren’t home yet, and Carol and Neal sat down on the sofa next to each other. Her kisses were delicious and kisses were enough, more than enough, for this night. They were sitting at a proper distance when her parents discreetly rattled their keys at the door.

  11

  “I really don’t want to be doing this,” Neal said to Graham. Neal was seventeen and there were a whole lot of things he really didn’t want to be doing. Lacing on boxing gloves in a stinking old gym off Times Square headed the list at the moment, however.

  “I don’t blame you,” Graham answered, “but it’s either this or that kung fooey crap Levine does.”

  The gym was on the second floor of a decrepit building off Forty-fourth Street and smelled like the inside of a jockstrap that had been left in the laundry bag about a month. Neal took another look around the room, where a dozen or so honest-to-God boxers banged on speed bags, heavy bags, and each other. Another guy was jumping rope, an activity that looked a little more appealing.

  “Why,” Neal asked, “do I have to learn to fight at all?”

  “Company rule.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  The guy lacing up his gloves looked as if he had stepped out of a casting call for Darby O‘Gill and the Little People. He kneeled in front of Neal’s stool and blew cigarette smoke in the kid’s face.

  “It’s the manly art,” Mick croaked, pulling the laces a little tighter for emphasis.

  “I never been in a fight yet they stopped to put gloves on,” Graham responded.

  “You hang around a scummy class of people. Okay, kid, on your feet.”

  Neal stood up. He banged his gloves together
as he’d seen them do on television. The hollow thwump was reassuring.

  “Take a poke,” Mick offered.

  “You don’t have gloves on.”

  This amused Mick. He snorted and it sounded like an old steam engine going to its last reward. “You ain’t gonna hit me.”

  “He’s probably right,” Graham said.

  Neal launched a tentative right that looked like it had all the lethal menace of a kitten swatting at a Christmas-tree bulb.

  Mick leaned away from the punch and shot a center-right jab that ended a quarter inch from Neal’s nose. “Keep your left up,” he said with a measure of disgust. “Ain’t you never fought nobody?”

  “I run away.”

  “Yeah, I knew fighters like that. But the old squared circle gets smaller in the late rounds.”

  “Squared circle?”

  “Can’t stay on the bicycle all night.”

  “That’s why I take the subway,” Neal said.

  “We’re gonna have to start from scratch.” Mick sighed.

  So they started from scratch. Three times a week, after school, Neal reported to the gym to study boxing under the tutelage of Mick, pugilist. He learned to keep his left up, to pop his jab, to counter hooks with straight rights, and to keep his mouth shut and his chin tucked in. He learned to do push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. He hated all of it.

  After three months of this, Mick decided he was ready to spar with a live boxer.

  The great event took place on a Saturday morning and Joe Graham and Ed Levine came to watch. Levine wanted to check on Neal’s progress. Graham averred that anytime there was a chance of Neal getting punched, he was going to be there to enjoy it.

  The sparring partner was a young man named Terry McCorkandale. He was from Oklahoma, had a red crew cut, and looked like his mother had conceived him with her first cousin. He was a sparring partner of another pro, who was a sparring partner of a ranked contender.

  This record gave Neal some comfort. True, the guy was a pro, but just barely, judging by his record. Besides which, Neal was feeling pretty good about his training. He was no boxer, he knew, but he could hold his own. He stepped into the ring, shook hands with McCorkandale, and flashed a quick smile at Levine and Graham. Then he assumed his defensive stance and shot out a crisp left jab.

  He woke up hearing McCorkandale pleading defensively, “I just tapped him. Honest.”

  “Glass jaw?” Mick asked Graham.

  “Glass brain,” Graham answered.

  “What day is it?” Mick asked Neal.

  “January.”

  “Close enough,” Levine said. “Let’s try it again.”

  Neal was on his feet but not quite sure how he had gotten there. He knew he had been humiliated, but he didn’t mind that as much as he did the physical pain. McCorkandale was smiling at him apologetically.

  Mick whispered in his ear, “Lucky punch, kid. Go get him.”

  Neal had an album of the 1812 Overture at home, and the next three minutes were like living inside the drum section, The Tulsa Terror rattled on him like a snare drum, beat a few timpani shots, and thumped a couple of bass drumbeats before Neal could move his hands. He could not have been more helpless if he had been tied up in telephone wire. He was only grateful this guy wasn’t really trying.

  “Interesting strategy,” Levine observed to Graham, “wearing the guy out like that.”

  “That Neal’s a terror.”

  Neal the Terror did what he could. He started to laugh. It was funny to him now that every time he attempted a punch or a parry, he got hit with three shots, so he covered up the best he could and got pounded on. And giggled.

  “I gotta stop this,” Mick said.

  “He’s not hurting him,” Ed said.

  “This kid’s gotta fight tonight. He won’t be able to lift his arms.”

  “So?” Levine asked Mick while Neal was in the shower.

  “He’s hopeless,” Mick wheezed. “The worst I ever seen.”

  “Yeah, okay. No more lessons.”

  “Aw, thank God, Ed. I ain’t got the heart. What that kid does to the Sweet Science shouldn’t be done.”

  “You want a milk shake?”

  “I can eat solid food. I want a cheeseburger.”

  Neal and Graham were at the Burger Joint, of course, after the big match. Neal’s jaw was a little puffy and he had a black eye.

  “That was fun, Neal. I enjoyed that. Thanks for the afternoon.”

  “That makes it all worth it, Graham.”

  “You did pretty good. I think your ribs bruised his hand once.”

  “I had him right where I wanted him. Another ten minutes, he would have dropped,” Neal checked his face in the mirror on the side wall. “Carol’s not going to like this.”

  “Are you kidding? Women love that stuff. If you had a broken nose, she’d propose to you.”

  “I need an iced coffee.”

  “For your face?”

  “It does kind of hurt.”

  Neal took small bites of his burger. The iced coffee came and Neal alternately sipped at it and held it against his jaw. He felt really tired all of a sudden.

  “Forget about it. Guy was a pro.”

  Neal shook his head. “That’s not it. I don’t know what to tell Carol. Her parents.”

  “She doesn’t know what you do?”

  “Get real.”

  “We’re not the what-do-you-call-it, the CIA, son. You can tell her.”

  “If I tell what I do, I’d have to tell her how I got doing what I do.”

  “So?”

  “So she’ll split. And if she doesn’t, her parents will make her split.”

  “You got quite a problem there, son—”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “With your head.”

  Graham tossed a five on the table, chucked Neal under the chin, and left. Neal sat there for a while and then went home to get ready for his date.

  So a couple of dates later, Neal told Carol all about himself. About never knowing who his father was, about his junkie mom and what she did for a living. About how she’d disappeared and he lived on his own. And he told her he did some work on the side for sort of a detective agency, but how that wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be a professor.

  And she hugged him and kissed him and he took her back to his place and they made love and it was all wonderful and they talked about going to college together and always being there for each other.

  A week later, Carol’s dad took him aside when he went to pick her up. Mr. Metzger led him into the study. Carol had told them about Neal’s life and both he and Carol’s mother didn’t think that she was ready for quite such an exposure to the real world just yet. Certainly Neal could understand, and they could still be friends in school.

  Neal and Carol snuck around for a while. She would tell her parents lies and get a friend to cover for her, and sometimes she would even spend the night at Neal’s. At first, it was exciting and romantic, but then it got to be just tiring and sad, and Neal figured that he did enough sneaking around in his life. He should be able to love in the open. So after a while, they became just friends, and then not even that.

  One night over a late dinner, Neal told Graham the story and capped it off with his mature judgment.

  “You can’t trust anyone, Dad.”

  “That’s not true, son. You can trust me.”

  12

  Neal came back from Connecticut to an empty apartment. It didn’t surprise him, even though Diane had been sleeping there more nights than not lately.

  They’d had one of those quick but wicked fights the morning he’d left to meet Graham at the train. She couldn’t understand that anything could be so urgent that he had to miss an exam, or that anything could be so confidential that he couldn’t tell her where he was going or what he was doing. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t understand it, either, but the rules told him to keep his mouth shut.

  “Am I all
owed to know how long you’ll be gone?” she’d asked.

  “I’d tell you if I knew.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “How’s the studying going?”

  “Great.”

  He didn’t doubt it. He knew Diane was smarter than he was and worked harder to boot. She was the star of every class and seminar, and so insecure, she was the only one who didn’t see that.

  They’d met in Boskin’s Eighteenth-Century Comparative Lit seminar just a few weeks after the Halperin job. He’d been reading and drinking, more drinking than reading, when they managed to contrive a conversation in the hall. He took her to coffee and she took him to bed, explaining somewhere in there that she had time for a relationship but not for a courtship. He found that the pageboy cut of her dark brown hair and the hats and vests and baggy clothes she wore disguised a quite feminine body. She made love like she studied, with a fierce concentration and attention to detail, and she slept right through the nightmares he was having in those days.

  So now, he called her room at Barnard. She answered on the fourth ring.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hi.”

  “You missed a hell of an exam.”

  Might as well get this over with.

  “I have to go away for a while.”

  He could feel her anger over the phone.

  “More secret guy-type stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I sleep with you, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “So when do I get to know you? When do I see the other half? What’s so bad? What’s so special about your secrets?” she asked, then added with a small chuckle, “Hey, Neal, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

  His chest felt tight. It hurt. “If I show you that stuff, you’ll leave me.”

  “If you don’t show me that stuff, I’ll leave you.” It hurt a lot more. He didn’t have anything to say. “Besides,” said Diane, “I’m not leaving you, you’re leaving me.”

  “Can I come over?”

  “All of you or part of you?”

  Part of me, and fuck you.

  “I guess I’ll see you when I get back,” he said.