by Nan
“Always have,” she said. “It’s my job to make people feel at home. Nurse them through their disappointments. Celebrate their victories.” She pushed away the glass of wine. “Not too shabby for a Thursday.”
He looked up. “José Ensesa? The South American sisal king?”
“Why not?”
“Fay Fox?”
“Fay’s one of my regulars.”
Horton shook his head. “I’m afraid we don’t consider her a consociate.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Birnbaum smiled. “If he were Judge Roy Bean, she’d hang.”
“Fay’s a friend!”
Birnbaum put up his hands. “Don’t tell me. Tell him.”
But Libby wanted to tell Birnbaum. “She’s here practically every day and she pays her rent on time.” The gall of the man. Where did he come off to think she could possibly be attracted to him? And with Cal in the room, too! Just across the aisle.
Horton leaned close. “The point is we haven’t even cleared our familiars in the press. This lunch is to be a nonmedia event.”
“Fay stays.” Why was Cal so far away? He was right there a moment ago. Why had he moved? He couldn’t have seen her in Birnbaum’s arms.
“I don’t see Mr. Dennis’s name on the list,” Horton said.
Libby stared at Birnbaum. Cut to Rick’s Place. Ilsa/Libby hesitates. Rick/Birnbaum stares at her. Major Strasser/Horton smiles enigmatically.
“I love my husband,” she says. “I always will.”
Ilsa turns away. She can’t bear the look in Rick’s eyes. But she knows that whatever she had with Rick, it didn’t amount to a hill of beans. After lunch and dinner and lunch, he would be gone and she would be safe.
The hell she would. Libby would never be safe again.
* * *
Donald’s office was in the Empire State Building. Not just because it was an old money address, but because Donald’s father had negotiated a ninety-nine-year lease on an entire floor for himself and his heirs. Donald’s father needn’t have bothered. Donald was the end of the line. Which was exactly where he felt he was while staring at Phyllis.
“You know why these things keep happening to us?” he asked, brushing a speck from the von Knobelsdorff library table. “We’re too damn nice, that’s why.”
Phyllis flicked her cigarette ash onto a Savonnerie carpet that once belonged to Frederick the Great. “Nice guys finish last.”
Donald opened a bureau originally made for the Palazzo Balbi-Durazzo. He took out a can of Diet Pepsi. “Exactly.”
“We’ve got to toughen up, Donald.”
He filled two etched Jacobite goblets with soda. “It’s us or them.”
“We expect too much of people.”
“We expect too much because we give too much.”
Phyllis sipped the Pepsi and then covered her eyes. “The checkroom girl! Oh, Donald!”
He sat down on the Corradini chair. “We’ve got to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, Phyllis.” He took a deep breath and drank his soda in a single gulp. “I should have given Steven the money months ago. He’d be out of my hair by now and I wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
“Nor I.”
Donald leaned forward. His voice was tight. “What does that mean?”
Phyllis got up from the Queen Hortense chaise. “It means that if you had given him the money, he would have left Libby’s and taken Bud with him before Hatcheck Hattie made her move.”
“So now it’s all my fault?”
“Donald, this is not the time to turn on one another. However, it might save a few bruises in the future if you accepted your role as an aging queen whose main attraction was his money.”
Donald sat frozen in the Corradini. Unable to speak. Abandoned in outer space. Cut loose from the mother ship without any support systems. Eternally alone.
“I, for one, have learned my lesson,” Phyllis said. “I’m going to stop fucking around with mindless young studs and find someone experienced enough to appreciate me.”
Donald moistened his lips and cleared his throat. “And just what the hell makes you so certain your fatal charm is between your legs and not in your wallet?”
“My check stubs,” she snarled. “I don’t know anyone named Cash!”
Donald moved in for the kill. “I suppose you think I haven’t paid anyone off for you?”
“You didn’t pay Bud,” she screamed, hurling the diet Pepsi at the Balmoral tapestry. Suddenly, her mood brightened. “But then that would explain it all, wouldn’t it?” She smiled at Donald. “You paid him off!”
Donald smiled back. “Yes. Of course, I did,” he lied.
“My darling!”
“My love!”
The phone rang. It was Donald’s private line. They turned to one another like two trapped rats. He picked up the phone. “Yes? Hello, Steven.” Donald put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “He’s calling from the lobby.” Phyllis gasped. She put on her shoes and picked up the Jacobite goblet.
“No, Steven. This isn’t a very good time for me.”
She rubbed her cigarette ashes into the carpet and took a can of room spray from the cabinet to remove the scent of smoke.
“But it’s always urgent,” Donald said.
Phyllis washed her ashtray in the wet bar.
“You’re such a Nellie. Yes. If you must.” Donald hung up and pressed the intercom for Bruce. “I’m expecting Mr. Dennis momentarily. Show him into the sauna. He likes it between 195 and 200. Then we’ll have tea in the music room. And Bruce, I do not want him to know that Mrs. Elgin was here.”
Phyllis laughed as she picked up her handbag. “What a switch! Hiding your wife from your lover.” She glanced around for telltale clues. “Sometimes I think we should have told him I know about the two of you.” She touched his cheek lightly. “If you want to keep the little wretch, give him the money. It’s all right with me.”
Donald kissed her. “Do you mind going out the back?”
“I’ve been thrown out of worse places.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Something terribly expensive. What about you?”
“I’m going to dump him.”
Phyllis squeezed his hand. “He’s not very strong, darling. Be gentle.”
Donald watched as she walked to the door. “When you say expensive, do you mean costly or daring?”
She turned to him and smiled. “Last one in bed is a rotten egg.”
Donald stared out the window. He was fifty years old and lonelier than he had been as a child. All the years that one normally spent/building relationships had been spent destroying them. Now he was about to destroy Steven.
There was a knock on the door. “Yes?”
Donald’s secretary, Bruce, came in. “Mr. Dennis doesn’t want a sauna. He wants to see you in here.”
“Even better.”
“Is there anything else?”
Donald nodded. “Yes. Before he comes in, take off your clothes.”
* * *
Phyllis rushed through the lobby of the Empire State Building. Elliot, the chauffeur, snapped to attention the moment he saw her. He nodded and opened the door to the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow sedan. Phyllis held onto his arm as she prepared to step inside. She hesitated and then let go quickly. No, not Elliot, she thought. He wasn’t nearly expensive enough.
As Phyllis sat back on the buttery beige leather, the flashing light on the phone caught her eye. She pressed PLAY. The message was from Cal.
“George the waiter thinks your new play is all wrong for Burt. Why don’t you get back to me within ten or twenty seconds and let’s talk about it. But don’t tell Libby. I want it to be a surprise. Oh, yeah, friend to friend, there’s one thing you better know before we begin. I’m very expensive.”
Phyllis sat back and began to cry. Thank you, God.
Donald opened the door and said casually, “I do hope it’s nothing serious.”
“
I’m at the end of my rope, Donny.” Steven waited for him to close and lock the door. Then he threw his arms around Donald. “You’ve got to help me.”
Donald looked into his eyes. He knew it would be the last time he would see anything in them but hate. “Poor bear. I’ll get you a drink and you can tell us all about it.”
Steven accepted Donald’s “us” as the royal “we” and followed him to the bar. “I’ve got such knots in my stomach. It’s so bad there are times I can’t even breathe.” And then Steven saw Bruce lying naked on the Queen Hortense chaise. “Oh, no,” he groaned.
“Isn’t he butch?” Donald asked. “I thought he’d cheer you up. You sounded like hell.”
Bruce smiled at Steven. “Mr. Dennis.”
“That’s not what I came here for!” Steven shouted. “I don’t want Bruce.”
“Of course you do. Look at him. Bruce is hung better than the Castelli Gallery.”
“You know why I’m here,” Steven said softly. “You know what I want.”
Donald turned angrily. “What the hell ever happened to what I want? Who elected me Father Christmas? What about the knots in my stomach? The times I can’t breathe. Do you think I can make it all disappear by writing a check to myself?”
Steven’s voice was tight. “Please, Donny. You’re the only one who can help me.”
Donald sat behind the desk. “I know.” He unlocked the top drawer, feeling Steven’s eyes riveted to his every motion. Donald took out his checkbook. He opened it. He reached for a pen. And then he hesitated. “But first, I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
Donald pointed to Bruce.
“Please don’t put me through this,” Steven whispered.
Donald closed the checkbook. “I want to watch you fuck Bruce.”
Steven’s eyes filled with tears. He stared at Donald in disbelief.
“Don’t be an ingrate, Steven. There’s nothing I hate more than an ingrate.”
Bruce walked over to Steven. “Let me help you with your clothes, Mr. Dennis.”
Steven pushed forward against Bruce, knocking him off balance. Then he walked slowly backwards to the door. “I did love you, Donald. Maybe not as much as you thought I should, but as much as I was able.”
Donald pushed a button on his desk, unlocking the door. “If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t have given you the money even if you had fucked Bruce. You’re not enough of a man, Steven. Not for my love or my money.”
Steven felt the tears run down his cheek. “I can prove to you, Donald, just how much of a man I am.”
Donald sighed. “Oh, dear. You’re not going to try to kill yourself again?”
“No.” Steven wiped the tears from his face. “I’m going to try to kill you.”
Instinctively, Donald reached inside the drawer for his gun.
“You’re right about one thing, Donny. My fucking Bruce wouldn’t have proved anything. There’s only one person really worth fucking. The one person you can’t.” Steven took a deep breath and screamed at the top of his voice, “Phyllis!” He struggled to be heard above his own hysterical sobbing. “I’m going to fuck Phyllis!” Steven flung the door open and ran out.
Donald stood up. He held the gun in his hand, pointing it after Steven. He had never felt his heart beat as rapidly. Bruce sat wide-eyed and naked on the floor. “Put your balls away,” Donald said. “I’m going home.”
* * *
Cal walked through the Fifty-sixth Street entrance to Trump Tower. He was pleased by the double-take of recognition from the concierge behind the reception desk. “Good day, sir.”
“Mrs. Elgin?”
“Thank you, Mr. Dennis.” He dialed Phyllis’s penthouse, glancing up at Cal while waiting for her to answer. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” Then he raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Dennis is here. Thank you.” The concierge hung up the phone and stepped from behind the desk. “If you’ll follow me, Mr. Dennis,” he said leading the way.
“Thank you,” Cal said.
The concierge then nodded to the elevator operator and said, “Mr. Dennis to see Mrs. Elgin.”
“Mr. Dennis,” the elevator operator said. He nodded to the concierge. The concierge nodded to Cal. Cal nodded back. The operator pressed the button for the sixty-seventh floor. The door closed. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
Phyllis waited in the open doorway as Cal stepped off the elevator. She wore gray silk pajamas and a very serious look. “I have a ‘61 Margaux breathing in the kitchen.” She smiled. “Breathing very heavily.”
Cal knew he was in trouble. “Nice jammies,” he said. Phyllis turned and walked along a foyer lined with erotic Japanese woodblock prints of men and women with grotesquely enlarged genitalia in the midst of grotesquely enlarged sex. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” he said to himself.
The kitchen was black tile. Black appliances. A black marble counter on which the Margaux was breathing. Phyllis poured some wine into a Baccarat glass, swirled it around and, without once taking her eyes from Cal, tasted it. “Needs more air,” she said.
“I know just how it feels.”
“Have you ever been to Château Margaux?”
“Are you kidding?” Cal asked. “I haven’t even been to Coca-Cola.”
Phyllis poured the wine into her black Cuisinart, careful to stop before she reached the sediment. “Contessa Labarde taught me this trick.” She locked the bowl in place and, dramatically poising her finger, pressed down on the lever. “Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.” Phyllis took off the cover, put her finger into the wine and licked it. “Yum.” She reached for a crystal decanter. “They say in Médoc that if you can see the river and feel pebbles under your feet, you can make good wine.”
“What do they say if you feel like you’re standing on hot coals?”
“They say get the glasses and follow me.”
“I figured they might.”
The late afternoon sun streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the living room like a myopic mural. The tops of Manhattan’s tallest skyscrapers were startlingly close, out of perspective against a cloudless, colorless sky.
Cal followed Phyllis to the window. She leaned against a pillar, framed by a view down Fifth Avenue to the Empire State Building. Opening her arms dramatically, Phyllis said with crystal clear ambiguity, “All this can be yours.”
The sun hit her at a perfect angle. It was a pose she must have struck often, he thought, admiring how professionally Phyllis had found her key light. He smiled. “Where do I sign?”
“I have a wonderful little office right above the Drury Lane Theatre in London.”
“London?”
Phyllis clinked glasses quickly and sipped the wine. “I’ve got it all figured out. You’ll open Kingdom of God in the West End just before Christmas and play it through June. A week or two at our place in the Caymans and off you go to Broadway with the new play.”
“London?” he repeated.
She kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, darling. You’ll pick up the language in no time.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to go to London. I said Broadway.”
“Sweetie, you get to Broadway the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.”
“Christ, Phyllis, this is me you’re talking to! You think I don’t know that a nice big fat American movie star will get you off the hook in London and on the boards in New York? And unless everyone and his brother knows that I’m locked into the movie version, the studios won’t put up the money to produce the play in the first place. You and I are old army buddies, Phyllis. Lunch is over for today. If we’re going to fuck one another, let’s do it out in the open.”
Phyllis stared at Cal. She shrugged her shoulders, threw her arms up in the air, and walked into the bedroom. The door slammed behind her.
“Phyllis?” Cal walked to the door. Not a sound. “Phyllis! I want to do a play in New York so that I can be near Libby.” He knocked on the door. “It makes no sense for me to go three thousand
miles in the other direction.”
From behind the closed door, Phyllis said, “You could Concorde back and forth every weekend. No jet lag. It’s only three hours to London.”
“Phyllis, I love Libby. I don’t want any more long distance relationships. I want to marry her.”
“May The Force be with you.”
Cal knocked on the door again. “Phyllis, can I come in?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He hesitated and then opened the door. Phyllis was lying on the bed. Quite naked.
Donald rushed through the lobby, not stopping to acknowledge any of the concierges. The elevator man smiled and stood aside.
“Mr. Elgin.”
Donald said nothing. All he could think about was the gun in his pocket.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” the operator said, pressing the button for the sixty-seventh floor.
Donald had never fired the gun. Never even taken it out of the office. In all the years he had the gun, Donald never considered himself capable of actually using it. He kept it in his desk to discourage hustlers from becoming too greedy or too uncooperative. But it was always empty. It was only a threat. Until Steven Dennis threatened him back.
The elevator operator turned around. He was smiling. “Mr. Dennis is upstairs.”
Donald’s hand reached for the trigger.
Cal stood in the doorway to Phyllis’s bedroom. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Following instructions. You said, ‘If we’re going to fuck one another, let’s do it out in the open’.”
“Jesus.”
“Surely you’ve had women throw themselves at you before, pleading to be ravaged between your famous loins.”
“Phyllis, put your clothes on.”
“I’m in the mood for loins.”
“Goddamn it, you’re ruining the one chance I have to stay in New York. Don’t do this to me! I need you, Phyllis.”
She stretched her arms toward Cal. “And I need you, my darling.” Phyllis suddenly gasped and covered her mouth as though in pain.
“What is it? Phyllis?” Cal heard a loud noise from behind him. Then Phyllis screamed. He tried to turn around. But he couldn’t move. He felt very cold. He fell to the floor.