THE PRESIDENT IS COMING TO LUNCH

by Nan

  “Where the hell have you been? I left four messages.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I wanted to find out if you were all right.”

  “Nothing happened?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I was at Libby’s.”

  “What’s wrong with the suite? Goddamn it, I told them . . .”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the suite.”

  “You have a view?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re on a high floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “So everything’s all right?”

  “Everything’s all right,” Cal said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Everything is terrible.”

  “Of course everything is terrible,” Smitty said. “This is a terrible time. Terrible things are happening to you.”

  “I need a picture.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I put all my money into Hearsay Evidence.”

  “I know.”

  “I need a picture.”

  “I got you a picture.”

  “You got me The Desert Song.”

  “I got you a picture.”

  “Smitty, I am lying here naked in the middle of October and I am sweating.”

  “You told me you wanted a picture. I got you a picture.”

  “Smitty, the sweat is all over me like liquid neon.”

  “They’re ready to start anytime you are. You don’t have to pack. Nothing. All you have to do is get into the limo. I’ll meet you at the airport. I’ll take you to Morocco. Trust me. You’ll make enough money on this picture to comfortably declare bankruptcy.”

  “No stupid jokes, Smitty.”

  “You asked me to get you a picture.”

  “I know.”

  “I got you a picture.”

  “You got me a joke.”

  “I got you a picture.”

  “I don’t want to do it.”

  “What do you want to do? You want a guest shot on ‘Dynasty’?”

  “Smitty, I can’t stop sweating.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I feel like a failure.”

  “Listen to me. You are not a failure. Everybody goes through what you’re going through. The difference is when you get through going through whatever you’re going through, you wind up as Cal Dennis. I’m a fifty-three-year-old fat fallen Lutheran. I have two children somewhere in Seattle who are on drugs and have arrest records with more entries than my bank account. I have no talent. I have no education. I have no sex appeal. The only fucking I get is when I make a bad deal. However, I do not regard myself as a failure. But don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean I’m secure enough to keep company with failures. If I am talking to a failure, please hang up.” There was a long silence. “I need you, Cock of the West, to make my sun rise. If you are not strong, I am nothing. And I will not be nothing.”

  “I hate you, Smitty.”

  “You can tell me all about it in Morocco.”

  * * *

  Senior Inspector Irving Dubinsky shook his finger in Birnbaum’s face. “One roach means instant failure! One mouse, dead or alive, and it’s a $175 fine.” He started to laugh. “I only wish I had a deal like that with my landlord!”

  Like Romulus and Remus, Sidney and Irving were carving up the empire for themselves. They explained it all to Birnbaum.

  “While I’m checking the fire extinguishers in the dining room, and the exit doors, . . .” Sidney began.

  “. . . I’ll take my temperatures,” Irving continued. “The water in the dishwasher has to be 170 degrees. The cold food has to be 45 degrees or less. And the hot food has to be 140 degrees or more.” Irving smiled. “With the exception of roast beef. Because some people like it rare, we let them get away with 120.”

  “I hate rare roast beef,” Sidney said. “Irving, you feel like deli? You want to go to the Carnegie for lunch?”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like the Stage any more?”

  “I like it. But they know me better at the Carnegie. I walk in, I’m a person.”

  Irving shook his head and muttered to Birnbaum, “He’s such an old lady.” Then, getting back to work, “I also check the mixers and the slicers to make sure they don’t have filthy little pieces of food encrusted anywhere.”

  Sidney rolled his eyes. “How would you like to go to lunch with this guy?”

  Birnbaum was serious. “I expect you to check the stove for gas leaks, the wiring on the air conditioning, and the safeties around the fuel oil.”

  Meanwhile, Irving got down on his knees and opened the cabinets. “Good morning, roaches,” he said, turning on his flashlight.

  “No roaches here!” Louie shouted.

  “Do you see any roaches?” Irving asked Birnbaum.

  “I don’t have to see them to know there must be roaches.”

  Sidney was on a ladder, checking the nozzles on the ceiling. “The roaches he doesn’t have to see. The sprinkler he does.”

  “It’s not so unusual,” Irving said. “Every good restaurant has its own sanitation consultant. I come in once a year and I ask to see the records. I look around. Thirty percent have no roaches and no mice. They have no flies. But if I find one, I’m back in three months. If it’s still dirty, it costs them $275 and they go onto the ‘rat list’ in the Times. The third time I catch them, I close them down.” Irving slammed shut the last of the drawers. “You know how I check for rats?”

  “Yeah,” Sidney answered from the ladder. “You follow my brother-in-law.”

  Irving took a pencil from his pocket and waved it in front of Birnbaum’s face. “Droppings. You find a dropping and you test it with a pencil. If the dropping is hard, it could be from a long time ago. Maybe they didn’t clean up enough. But if it’s soft,” he said triumphantly, “it’s fresh! Then I know I got them!”

  “No soft rat shit here!” Louie shouted angrily. Suddenly he began to giggle. “Except Sonny.” He translated promptly for the rest of the staff.

  Sonny was in the dry storage room. Without taking his eyes from Libby, he sat down on the floor. He pulled a cellophane wrapper from his pocket and waved it in her face. “What the hell? I’m glad you found out.”

  Libby watched in horror. “Oh, God. Oh, my God.”

  “I’ve been averaging three, four hundred a week. Produce. Dry goods. Fish. It’s hard to make deals with the meat men. I tried but they’re such fucking prima donnas. I couldn’t take a chance with them anyway.” He smiled. “I had to get you good meat.”

  “I would have given you the money.” She kneeled down next to him. “I would have sent you to a clinic.”

  “A clinic? What the hell for? I’m no dopehead. I don’t have a drug problem. I got the same thing everybody’s got. I got a people problem. Listen, some asshole decides to pull your tooth, you want a little something for the pain. That’s all. It’s not my fault everybody’s a dentist.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “What’s all this help-me shit? Don’t you understand? I’ve been stealing from you.”

  “It’s not your fault, Sonny. It’s the drugs.”

  “The hell it is. I didn’t steal from you to support a habit. I stole from you because I wanted to steal from you. Then I had to look for a way to spend the money. And let me tell you, it wasn’t as easy to spend as it was to steal. I thought about the ponies. Fancy French furniture. I even thought about mutual funds.” He began to laugh. “The goddamn money just kept piling up. I was really getting worried. The pressure was terrible.”

  Libby sat down on the floor next to him. “We’ve been friends for years. I don’t care.”

  “Bullshit. You do care.”

  “Bullshit,” she said softly. “I do care.” After a long silence, Sonny asked, “So, who’s the VIP?”

  “The President.”

  He nodded approvingly. “I guess you’ve arrived.”

  Libby nodded slowly. �
��Yeah. Right on my ass.”

  Sonny reached over and took her hand. “I’m glad you know the truth.”

  “You’re glad?” she shouted. The room became still, bursting with negative sound. The sound in a mine shaft after the canary stops singing. Libby pulled her hand back as she whispered, “What the hell is it with people today? They hate you, they tell you they hate you. They steal from you, they tell you they steal from you.” She stood up. “It’s people like you who give lying and cheating a bad name. You think the truth is supposed to make you feel better?” She grabbed Sonny by the arm. “Didn’t you ever read the Bible? Don’t you know what God was trying to protect Adam and Eve from? What the hell do you think was growing on that goddamn tree?” Libby screamed loud enough to banish the demons inside her. “Truth! That’s what was growing on that goddamn tree!” She pushed back her bangs and took a deep breath, speaking quickly, afraid she might not finish all she wanted to say before bursting into tears. “And just in case you don’t believe me, only a few minutes ago I was speaking to someone very high up in the truth business. He confirmed exactly what I’ve known for years. Everybody lies!” Libby cleared her throat. “Why the hell else would the United States Government have a Secret Service?” Libby reached behind her and opened the door. There seemed to be no air. Not enough air. She began to cough.

  Alfero stepped out of the linen room where he had been counting napkins. “Señora? Are you sick?”

  Libby was hyperventilating. She held up her hand. “Oh, no. Not you!” She felt Alfero’s hands balancing her. “For God’s sake, not you!”

  “I take you inside.” Alfero brought her into the dining room. Libby gasped. Secret Service agents had moved the banquettes away from the walls. They had taken apart the ceiling fixtures. Tables and chairs lay upside down in the aisles. God knows how many thick-necked linebackers were rummaging through her restaurant as carelessly as they had rummaged through her life. And there were dogs barking.

  The moment Birnbaum saw her, he knew something was wrong. “Libby?”

  “Señora?”

  She pushed Alfero away and went back into the kitchen. But Sidney had just turned on the sprinklers. She looked up, opening her palms to the fine white spray of sodium bicarbonate that fell from the ceiling. It was as though she had stepped into another dimension. Libby stood in the center of the kitchen, watching the powder cover her. Birnbaum rushed her toward the linen room. Once inside, he put his arms around her.

  Libby began to cry. “You’re right. I haven’t told you everything.”

  “That is not exactly a late-breaking bulletin.”

  “It’s a lot worse than you think.”

  He smiled and gave her his handkerchief. “If it’s any consolation, there are very few things that are worse than I think they are.”

  “Trust me, Birnbaum. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

  He nodded. “Overheard on the Titanic.”

  But Libby had gone the Titanic one better. Torn apart and rapidly sinking, she still managed to stay afloat. Astonishingly, she had been saved by the iceberg. The moment Birnbaum took her in his arms, she felt a rush of emotion. It didn’t matter which emotion. It could have been despair or fear or lust. It was the affirmation of life that was important. The sudden realization that there was life before death.

  Libby blew her nose. “Oh, Birnbaum. You can’t imagine what’s going on.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “You don’t know how many problems I have.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t!”

  He put his arms around her. “Well, let’s say I know one of them.”

  She leaned against his shoulder. “Which one?”

  Birnbaum brushed the powder from her cheek. His hand lingered. “Me.”

  * * *

  The staff had gathered for the morning meeting as though it was a memorial service. No one spoke above a whisper. Maxie the waiter even offered Ursula a chair. The bartenders took seats instead of standing. Alfero, in the first row, sat bolt upright, determined to do honor to his new uniform. For the first time, not only Bud but all the cooks attended the meeting.

  Steven raced through his notes without any interruptions. He read Fay’s comments on Truffle Pot Pie and even the waiters applauded politely. The catalyst for this unusual behavior was the sight of Birnbaum in the seat usually occupied by Libby.

  Steven looked up from his papers. “In case someone here just arrived from Mars and hasn’t heard the rumor, the rumor is true. The President is coming to lunch.”

  There were cheers, some whistles and an immediate exchange of cash among the waiters. They had already made book on it. Simon, holding a fistful of cash, stood up. “Okay! Okay! Next. Whose table?”

  “We’re not going by tables,” Steven said. “There are a number of switches we have to make.”

  “Who?” Simon waved the cash impatiently. “Who gets his table?”

  “I have been advised that the team handling the President cannot work any other tables.”

  Simon looked around the room. “Could you die? Who is it?”

  “George.”

  “I picked George!”

  “Me, too!”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I told you I should have played George.”

  George, the only waiter to bet on himself, winked at Alfero. Alfero thought his heart would burst. It was his first day as a busboy and already he had been selected to serve El Presidente. What a country!

  Steven rapped his knuckles loudly. “All right, can we please get back to business? I’d like this over with as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s what Maxie’s wife says!”

  Steven slammed his fist onto the table. Birnbaum turned quickly, a second away from reaching for his gun. It wasn’t that Steven had startled him, it was that Birnbaum had been trained to react to violence. He had a precognition for violence the way ballet dancers have elevation. Inexplicable talents. Imperative for success.

  Finally, the room was still. Steven, unaware that his lack of control rather than his authority had silenced them, cleared his throat. “We have with us this morning Special Agent Birnbaum of the Secret Service. I want you to give him your full attention.”

  Simon passed Maxie a note. It read, “12-2 Norm gets George’s tables. $10 min.”

  “If we lived in a dictatorship,” Birnbaum began, “it would be relatively easy to ensure the President’s security. But living in a free, open democracy makes our job a hell of a lot harder.” Birnbaum reached out and grabbed the note from Maxie. He put it in his pocket. “However, even in a democracy, there are things we cannot do. One of the things I cannot do is let this restaurant become another Dallas. Another Ambassador Hotel. Another Washington Hilton. My job is to die rather than let that happen.” He paused. “The problem is that I don’t want to die. So I need your help. Here is what you have to do to keep me alive.” Birnbaum paused. Purely for effect. “Don’t tell anyone that the President will be here tomorrow.” Birnbaum knew that was impossible. But it was part of the routine. “Should there be an incident of any kind tomorrow, should there be any disturbance, whether successful or unsuccessful, we know that you are the only people without security clearance who have foreknowledge of the President’s visit.” He tugged at his belt, a move contrived to expose his Smith & Wesson. “I am authorized to advise you that each and every one of you will be detained indefinitely for investigation. All civil rights, in such an event, will be terminated immediately. In short, ladies and gentlemen, you will wish you had been caught smuggling opium out of Istanbul.” He paused. “Is that clear?” Then he walked around the table and went to each person in the room. “Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  Louie poked Bud and whispered, “What he say, boss?”

  Steven asked Alfero to remain after the others had left. He motioned for him to sit down.

  Alfero’s mind was
racing. He had thought of the most wonderful plan. He was going to steal the plates and silverware that the President used and bring them home for his children. He wanted his sons to realize that in America anything was possible. One day you were no one, and the next day . . .

  Steven sat down opposite Alfero. “I have something serious to talk to you about.”

  Alfero smiled. “You don’t have to worry. I swear I do not tell Dolores about the President.”

  The phone rang. Steven picked it up and said, “Libby’s.” Without any expression, he motioned for Alfero to pass him the reservations book. Something caught Alfero’s eye as he glanced at the open page. Alfero stretched across the table and began reading upside down. By force of habit, Steven asked, “How many?” Then he put a hand to his forehead. He interrupted with, “I’m sorry. Tomorrow is fully booked. No. I’m sorry. Please call again.”

  Alfero pointed to a name on the reservations list. “Señor Ensesa?”

  Steven nodded. “Who is he?”

  Alfero could not believe that on the very day he was going to serve the President of the United States, José Ensesa would be in the same room! “He is the richest man in South America!” Alfero said. “My father, for many years, took the garbage for the Ensesa family. Every year, at fiesta, they send new shoes for my brothers and sisters. For new beginnings, they say.” He smiled and lifted his leg to show Steven that he was wearing a pair of new shoes. “Dolores and Tía buy me these. For new beginnings.”

  Jesus Christ, Steven thought, blaming it all on Libby. If she hadn’t made him fire Chickie. If she hadn’t made Alfero a bus-boy. But as usual, he was left with all her garbage. He was no better than Alfero’s father.

  Alfero stared at the reservations book, his eyes devouring the call-back number Ensesa had left. He could call Ensesa and tell him he was now a busboy. 599-2654. All he needed was a quarter. 599-2654.

  “Alfero, the Secret Service found out that you are an illegal alien. They don’t want you on the premises when the President is here. Furthermore, I have a responsibility to the restaurant. I cannot continue to employ an illegal alien.” That should do it, Steven thought. “You are fired. I want you out of here immediately.”