Queen Takes King

by Gigi Levangie Grazer

  “Don’t worry,” said Adrian. “You can’t catch poor.”

  27

  THOUGHTS FROM A KNIGHT ON THE TOWN

  MEN ARE fools, Harry thought, and two of the biggest ones in this city are in the back of my car. He turned the radio down two notches. Elvis Satellite. If the conversation got interesting, he’d turn it down another two. He looked in the rearview mirror at the man Jacks had maneuvered into the back before Harry had a chance to open the door.

  The guy was over six feet but he looked like something you could break in two just by giving him the stink eye. His hair was unkempt and too long for Harry’s liking, but he was young, maybe that was his excuse. He wore a wrinkled white shirt with cuffs turned up on his forearms, which were crossed in front of his face, as though warding off a demon.

  Harry could feel unhappiness coming off his body like an odor. This guy, Harry thought, he’s heyaya—bad luck.

  Harry wasted no time sliding into traffic; he wanted to be rid of him as soon as possible.

  “Cipriani,” Jacks said.

  “It’s late,” Harry grunted.

  “Now,” Jacks said.

  Harry turned the car around the corner as though he were pushing it himself.

  “Adrian needs something to eat,” Jacks said, explaining. “And Harry, if there are any photographers…” Jacks caught Harry’s eye in the rearview mirror.

  “No worry,” Harry said, cheered. Jacks had given him license to do damage. He cracked his knuckles against the side of his face and sped toward Cipriani.

  Jacks and Adrian slipped in through the private entrance and were whisked to a covert side table by the host, though Adrian had to be tugged gently, like a puppy on a leash.

  “C’mon, Adrian,” Jacks said. “It’s okay, just sit, sit down. C’mon.” He patted the seat next to him, and held out his hand, as though coaxing a resistant lover into bed.

  Cipriani was quiet, unusual even at this late hour. The chandeliers, at home for over half a century, provided a crystal serenade.

  “Those fucking chandeliers will be here long after we’re gone, kid,” Jacks said. Adrian tilted his face up, and diamonds of light danced across his face. Jackson was struck by the effect; fuckin’ guy looked like a modern Adonis, a rock star without the guitar.

  Jacks signaled and glasses appeared, the waiter silent and expressionless. Jacks ordered linguini with clams; the choice would provide Adrian with the right amount of warmth and comfort. He waved the waiter off while he poured the Glenfiddich, then placed the glass in Adrian’s hand and molded his fingers around it. Jacks wondered if he’d have to swallow the drink for him as well.

  “Salud,” he said, with false cheer.

  Adrian tipped the glass back as Jackson knocked his own back and set up another, the thought of a meeting with his father in the morning flashing in his head like a red light.

  “Fuck it,” he said. The second one went in.

  “Tell me how I get this boulder off of me,” Adrian told Jackson, pouring his heart out as though all the receptacles in the world—thimbles, cups, bowls, pitchers, empty swimming pools, reservoirs, entire canyons—couldn’t hold his sorrow. “I’d rather die than live like this.”

  “You know what you need?” Jackson asked. “Distraction. That means new pussy, a new job, travel—”

  “I can’t even look at another woman,” Adrian said.

  “Maybe you can work for me,” Jackson said. Why did I just say that? Does this kid remind me of myself?

  “Doing what?” Adrian asked. “I’m an artist. What can I possibly do for you?”

  Jackson suddenly figured it out, how to help Adrian and at the same time, of course, help himself. He was a businessman, after all. Commerce would be everyone’s friend in this exchange. And that’s a fact!

  “Ever act?”

  “Act?” Adrian muttered, making a face.

  “In high school, college?” Jackson asked. He measured his words.

  “Nah. I’m no fucking actor, I’m barely a writer,” Adrian said. He could feel the words roll over one another and out of his mouth. When did I get drunk?

  “I think you’re missing a bet.”

  “Fuck that,” Adrian said. “I’m a playwright. I mean, I was a playwright.”

  “You want to hear a sad story?” Jackson said. “I got one for you. You ready for it?”

  “Sure,” Adrian said. He looked at Jackson.

  “I’m almost fifty years old, and finally, I’ve met the love of my life. It’s like I’ve been in training all my life to get ready for this girl, to love this girl, and this is my one shot at true happiness,” Jackson said. “And she’s going to leave me.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s restless,” Jackson said. Don’t let that thought land, he telegraphed. “It’s not another guy,” Jacks added.

  “So what’s the problem? You love her. Get divorced, and get married. Easy.”

  “You don’t understand. My wife won’t give me a divorce. It could take two, three years, if she wants to hold me up.”

  “That sucks, my friend,” Adrian said.

  “And that’s a fact,” Jackson sighed.

  “Who can stand in the way of true love?” Adrian asked the empty restaurant.

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” Jacks said, “because I want to make you a deal.”

  “A deal.” Adrian knew better than to be excited. A deal to a rich man meant squeezing the little guy. Hadn’t he just learned his lesson? He’d traded his girlfriend, the love of his futile, ridiculous life for a lousy ten grand. Adrian started hating Jackson, but still he poured himself another inch of that amber seduction. Why not.

  “Don’t you want to know what it is?” Jackson’s voice rattled.

  The only card Adrian could play was nonchalance.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “I’ll pay you a hundred grand to seduce my ex-wife.”

  “Are you fucking crazy?” Adrian asked. “Do I look like a whore?”

  “Who called you a whore?” Jacks said. “I’m trying to give you a purpose in life.”

  “I’m not fucking some dried-up ex-wife. Isn’t that how you describe her? Her pussy’s lined with sandpaper, right?”

  “Look, barkeep,” Jacks said, pissed, “or should I say ex-barkeep—I’m offering you a hundred thousand dollars to seduce a woman. And not a bad-looking woman at that.”

  “Why don’t I just stick my head in your car window and offer you a blow job?”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!” Jackson bellowed. “Who are you, the fucking Pope? What are we talking about here?”

  “I’m an artist,” Adrian said, his voice weakened. The explosion of self-righteousness had depleted his body of whatever mojo he had left.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I’m an idiot with standards. The People’s Billionaire,” Adrian scoffed. “You think you can buy anybody or anything, even love.” He stopped himself. Isn’t that what Wall Street did? Wall Street, who walked off with Miss Tracy Bing, his everything, in soft skin and a dress—

  Oh God, Adrian thought. My baby’s a whore.

  Jacks was determined to close. He decided to do what good businessmen do under the circumstances: up the ante. “If you get her to fall in love with you, that’s another hundred thou coming your way,” Jacks said.

  “I’m going home,” Adrian slurred as he shot forward, almost knocking over the table.

  Jackson shook his head, touched and amazed by the cojones of this kid. Turning down a deal from Jacks Power!

  “Lemme drive you, at least,” he said.

  “I got legs. I can walk.”

  “You couldn’t walk out of a fucking hat, you drunk bastard,” Jacks said.

  “Fine,” Adrian said. “Take me home, but that doesn’t mean I’m your bitch.”

  “What do you think,” Jacks said, “I’m going to take you home and fuck you?”

  The two men lurched onto the sidewalk and stumbled over each other into
the waiting limo. Harry pulled the car from the curb as though he was carrying the entire mess on his shoulders, alone.

  28

  ISOLATED PAWN

  OH GOD, Adrian thought as he lay across his bed and watched the ceiling pitch and yaw. His bed. Their bed. Here it comes, the relentless, cruel train of memory. Figures formed. Late afternoon, the light round and full. Tracy Bing wearing pink cotton panties. She had never worn a thong; she didn’t find them dignified. Everything she did was from another era, like a character from a Raymond Chandler novel. She was the girl who walked into your office and ruined your life, dismantling it in one fell swoop, one turn of the ankle.

  In his memory, Adrian rubbed the softness between the tiny pool of her belly button and the satin bow on her underwear. The bow, as though his girl were a gift. Which she was. Was she?

  Then Adrian started crying. Happiness, he’d read, can’t be found in contemplating the past or the future. It’s found in being fully in the present. The Now. Well, Adrian thought, this is idiocy. If he were to be merely of the Now, and he had a gun, he’d shoot himself.

  Adrian realized two things, as he settled in the Now:

  He didn’t have the guts to kill himself.

  He was going to take Jackson up on his offer.

  “SO. YOU haven’t died.” Goldie was peering at Cynthia, his eyes dancing above the black-framed glasses sliding down his nose.

  “I haven’t died,” Cynthia agreed.

  “You don’t even appear overly traumatized,” Goldie said. “Although still too thin. But then, I always did like a full-figured gal. You should have seen my first wife—”

  “You were saying,” Cynthia prompted.

  Goldie leaned forward, not easy to do with the belly. “You are in the heat of battle, my dear, and you appear to be enjoying it.”

  “Ah. I’m not enjoying it, but it hasn’t killed me.”

  “Not even a flesh wound.”

  “There’ve been a lot of dirty tricks.” Cynthia counted on her fingers. “Fred got a donor’s kid into the Ninety-second Street Y, impossible without letters of recommendation from Nobel Prize winners and a million cash. He got Bill Clinton to speak at another donor’s company retreat, and, this is the worst, he got a third one’s daughter-in-law’s parents into Chez L’Ami Louis during Fashion Week in Paris.”

  “Oh.” Goldie pondered this. “He’s good.”

  “Yes, he’s good,” she agreed. “He’s good at being bad.”

  “So, what’s the damage? I don’t see you backing into a corner and curling up in the fetal position.”

  “Well, I appear to be in control of the board.”

  “And how can that be?” Goldie sat back, waiting for the answer. His answer.

  Cynthia paused. “I’m being honest, straightforward. I have a good reputation. I have good ideas. I’m not making promises I can’t keep. And I have finely tuned hosting abilities under the most dire of circumstances—”

  “So…you don’t have to buy anyone off. Because people actually…”

  “Like me?”

  “And?” Goldie asked. “Come on. Think. This shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Trust me?…Respect me!”

  Goldie stood and clapped. Then sat down again. “This therapy thing is exhausting, saving lives left and right!”

  “You know what?” Cynthia said. “These skirmishes with Fred and the board, this is saving my life. I’m distracted. Let’s face it, Goldie, I was left, publicly, for a younger woman. I shouldn’t even be able to get out of—”

  Beat. Oh boy.

  “Cynthia.” Goldie leaned forward.

  Cynthia started to cry. Damn it.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. Let it out.” He held a box of tissues out to her.

  Cynthia took one and dabbed at her eyes, then worried the damp ball of tissue. “How could he like her?” she asked, in a little girl voice, “when he liked me? We’re so different.”

  “I’m sorry.” Goldie reached over and touched her hand. Traffic sounds from outside played backup to her muffled sobs. “It will get better,” he said softly.

  “Goldie, I think he loves her,” she said.

  Goldie leaned back. “When everything goes wrong,” he said, “what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage.”

  “Zorba, I presume,” Cynthia said.

  “The greatest philosopher of all,” Goldie said. He stood. Their fifty minutes was up.

  “JUST WHEN do I pass this ‘test’?” Cynthia asked.

  “There’s no passing,” Goldie said as he walked her out, his hand gently touching her side. “There’s only experience. The more fully you live the experience, the more healthy you will be. I promise. And maybe you’ll gain a little weight in the tuches.”

  Cynthia stood in the hallway after their session and gave her nonexistent rump a squeeze. “Have a frikkin’ milkshake, Cynthia,” she told herself.

  Minutes later, she was sitting at the dusty bar at J.G. Melon. The bartender sized her up. “Chicken salad?” he guessed.

  “Cheeseburger,” Cynthia replied. “And fries. Fast as you can make ’em.”

  “Hungry much?” he asked, amused.

  “Starving,” Cynthia said. “I’ve gone hungry long enough.”

  Zorba!

  29

  YOU-BOOB: PATZER MOVE

  YOU KNOW how you like being famous?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Who is this? Penn?” Jacks followed the glow of the digital clock. 5:20 A.M.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Penn continued. Toneless as ever. “You know how much you enjoy people recognizing you on the street?”

  “Penn, what’s going on?” Jacks swung his feet onto the floor. He could have used those extra ten minutes of sleep.

  “You’re about to be more famous than ever,” Penn said.

  Jacks’s ears perked up. “What do you mean? What’d I get? Charlie Rose? Bastard has never asked me on his show, you believe that—”

  “No. Not Charlie Rose. Your publicist called me this morning. She was too afraid to make the call herself,” Penn said. “Ever hear of something called YouTube?”

  Jackson rubbed his eyes, looked around for his robe.

  “Yeah. It’s the Internet, right?”

  Penn cleared his throat, his equivalent of manic hysteria. “You might want to get to a computer.”

  “Okay, YouTube?”

  “Y-O-U-T-U-B-E. Dot com. Type in your name. I’m at my home number.”

  A minute later, Jackson was in his home office, looking at a computer screen, wearing his reading glasses. He tapped his name into the YouTube website.

  “JACKSON POWER LOSING HIS SHIRT…AND SHORTS,” submitted by InServitude, was the latest video on Jackson, sent in earlier in the morning. Jackson noted, with satisfaction, that there were more than fifty others: press conferences, TV interviews, news clips. He clicked on the tiny video screen and it whirred to life.

  The picture was a little blurry, but it appeared to be Jackson, seated next to Margaret Lord Foster.

  Cynthia’s dinner party.

  Jackson’s mind flipped to cell phone technology—they all had video capability—

  Jacks hated this new world. Was nothing sacred?

  “Does it feel hot in here?” he heard Video Jackson ask.

  “No,” bleary-eyed Jacks replied, “no!”

  Seconds later, Video Jackson was naked.

  Jacks grabbed the phone and punched at numbers.

  “Penn!” he yelled. “Start firing! Start suing! Start now!”

  30

  PROMOTED POISONED PAWN

  TO GET ready for her lunch with Scott, the unknown, unqualified quantity who decided her fate, Lara dressed in a Gucci pin skirt and silk wrap blouse (with requisite cleavage) from the blessed Ford era and had Kevan reapply her makeup and futz with her hair until it relinquished its wave and settled into an anchor-worthy helmet. She assessed her “look.” Too much gray? Would the spike heels survive the wa
lk to the restaurant? Her wish was to look professional yet alluring when she asked for a demotion. She’d called Yasmeen’s producer immediately; the smell of Yasmeen’s cigarette smoke was still lingering in the air when she’d dialed. But he hadn’t called back. She’d called again, two days later.

  Nothing. And then again. No response. Lara had no choice but to plead her case with Scott (first name or last?).

  She and Scott the Producer were having lunch at a place on East Fiftieth, a favorite retro spot. The waiters—career waiters, not waiter/ actor/whatevers—wore white aprons and served ice-cold martinis at lunchtime. The menu included lobster thermidor, creamed spinach, and baked Alaska. You could imagine Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra “canoodling” in a corner booth, the spectators relishing the view, knowing that something so beautiful could never last.

  Lara and Scott sat in one of those padded booths. She studied him as he perused the menu, and noted the faint thinning of hair at his crown, the intense, deep-set eyes. Tennis was probably his game as a kid, she thought. She imagined his boyhood room, untouched, like a mausoleum, a testament to his success and his mother’s.

  Scott was still in his early thirties. He jogged, a lot, except he didn’t call it “jogging,” he called it “running” and he had “run” marathons. He had a girlfriend whose job, it seemed, was to “run” with him. She was a small thing with large, waxy calves that looked like apples, her hair always in a ponytail, ready to sprint off with her Scott at a moment’s notice.

  Scott had come over from sports, no surprise there. Was he a “phenom,” as the press crowed?

  Scott looked up, caught her eye, and smiled.

  “You eat here a lot?” he asked.

  Before Lara could answer, a waiter appeared, Lara’s favorite. Angel was Puerto Rican, his wavy black hair with its thick white streak combed back and gleaming from pomade. His smile was like a welcome-home banner.