Paradise Man

by Jerome Charyn

  “My treat,” Holden sang across the tables. “How’s Bronshtein?”

  “Bronshtein misses you,” the bumper said.

  “I’m glad. I’m going to the Swisser. Want to come?”

  The bumper sipped his sour water and Holden left him in the cafe. He went up the rue du Four and landed on the Swisser’s boulevard. Holden was like an infant in his partner’s territories. But Holden didn’t care. It pained him that Andrushka was in Paris. His own little bride who’d married Bruno Schatz without divorcing Holden. Andrushka was a bigamist. Holden could have hired a lawyer to keep Andrushka out of the Swisser’s bed. But he didn’t have much contact with lawyers other than Robert Infante. And Infante worked with the Swisser cheek to cheek. Holden had rats and money and he knew a couple of kings, but there wasn’t any way he could buy Andrushka back.

  The Swisser was expecting him. That old man sat in his office overlooking the church and courtyard of St. Germain des Prés. He was dressed in silk, wore a pale suit that matched the color of his eyes. Holden was pissed off. Schatz seemed more energetic at eighty than Holden could ever hope to be.

  The Swisser came out from behind his desk like a short fat engine with the pinkest shirt cuffs in St. Germain des Prés.

  “Holden, it’s embarrassing. I can never tell if you’ve come to kiss me or kill me.”

  “I work for you,” Holden said.

  “Work for me? You’re my bloody partner. But no one’s safe with you around ... where’s the sketches? Let’s have a look.”

  Holden wore Nick Tiel’s designs in a special pouch that was tied to his ribs, like a money belt. He didn’t trust briefcases. Any band of pickpockets could have bumped into him at Charles De Gaulle and disappeared with Nick’s designs. Holden unbuttoned his shirt, removed the pouch, and then unrolled the pattern paper. The Swisser’s hands were trembling, but it had nothing to do with his age. He was excited. He read Nick Tiel’s designs like a musical score, but those scribblings were an act of genius Holden would never understand. The Swisser could imagine a coat in his head from pieces of paper that Nick had numbered and cut. Holden was left out. He couldn’t hum with the Swisser, who tacked Nick’s designs to the inside door of his closet and stared at all that paper as if he’d discovered the clockwork of a doll.

  “I’m in love,” the Swisser said.

  Holden felt a panic in his gut. “What’s that, Swiss?”

  “You heard me. I’m in love with Nick Tiel. I’d like to marry him.”

  You already married my wife, Holden wanted to say. But he’d go mad if they got on the subject of Andrushka. “Well, what’s stopping you, Swiss? Marry the man.”

  The Swisser smiled. “I’d have a permanent guest in the house. You know Nick. He can’t get along without you, Holden.”

  The Swisser removed the tacks from the closet door, rolled up Nick’s designs, and locked them inside his safe. It startled Holden how swift Schatz was on his feet. His own arms and legs ached all the time.

  “Do you think I look like Lord Weidenfeld?” the Swisser asked.

  Holden shrugged. “Who’s that?”

  “Don’t get slow on me now. Weidenfeld is one of the top dressers in the world. I’ll bet he’s on Goldie’s list.”

  “Could be,” Holden said. “But I’m not doing Weidenfeld this year.”

  “You ought to. He ducks into the closet with all the fancy ladies ... Holden, you’re as thick as your dad.”

  Holden Sr. had been Schatz’s bodyguard until he died. He’d met Swiss during the war. Schatz was a consultant with arts and archives, a temporary colonel or something like that. He’d taught Holden Sr. how to steal. And Holden Sr. had remained with Schatz half his life, a bodyguard and a chauffeur. He’d never graduated beyond that. He was like a truculent child on the Swisser’s payroll.

  “You shouldn’t knock a dead man, Swiss. My dad was devoted to you.”

  “And you’re not,” the Swisser said. “That’s why you’re my partner, and he never was.”

  “Don’t blame him, Swiss. He wasn’t into bumping people.”

  “That’s because he didn’t care enough. He wasn’t ambitious. Would he have gone into the Pinzolos’ den and faced up to Red Mike and his brothers?”

  “I’m not proud of that, Swiss. Red Mike was my friend.”

  “But your dad, rest his soul, couldn’t have saved the Abruzzi girl. That’s why you’re vice president, and he was a chauffeur.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being a chauffeur, Swiss.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. You’re a celebrity now. You’re on the map. God, I wish I was in New York. I’d parade you everywhere.”

  “You’d parade me right into the can.”

  “Nonsense. The cops are crazy about you, Holden. You did their work.”

  “They’re fickle bastards,” Holden said. “They can squeeze me whenever they want.”

  “Not without squeezing themselves. You’re the prince, Holden. You’ll be solving capers for some district attorney for years to come.”

  “I’ve seen what happens to princes,” Holden said. “They die or become little decorative kings.”

  “You’ve been having too many lunches with Florinda. You’re spoiled, Holden. Take my advice. Stop banging aristocratic ladies. Find yourself a sweet little woman.”

  Like Andrushka, Swiss? He’d have tossed Schatz out the window, but he couldn’t get away with murder in the sixth arrondissement. He’d have to lure Schatz behind the Gare d’Austerlitz. He was fooling himself. His own bounty depended on Swiss. He was no better off than his dad. A bumper with a vice president’s ticket, and he was still Schatz’s slave.

  “Holden, come with me to lunch. I want to show you off. We’ll have duck with orange sauce. I’m meeting with a film producer and he owes me a lot of favors. You can start a career in pictures. You’ll be the next Bogart. We’ll cast you as a hood from Marseilles.”

  “Like Billetdoux.”

  “Has that imbecile been bothering you? One phone call, and he’s out of your life for good.”

  “Leave him, Swiss. I’d get lonely without Billetdoux.”

  “Lonely, here,” the Swisser said, “in. your bosom town? You could have a cup of chocolate any afternoon with Andrushka. She—”

  “Stop it, Swiss.” Holden’s ears started to whistle. He grabbed a corner of Schatz’s desk. He had a touch of vertigo. That’s what happened when you lost your wife.

  “Can I get you something? You look pale all of a sudden.”

  “Don’t talk to me about Andrushka, Swiss.”

  “Holden, you ought to give up mourning that marriage and find yourself another wife.”

  “That’s the trouble, Swiss. Andrushka is my wife.”

  The vertigo was gone. Holden didn’t have to grab Schatz’s desk.

  “Are you going to be technical about it? It’s not my fault. She’s a child. She’s frightened of divorces. But she’s fond of you, Holden. She misses your company.”

  “I told you to stop.”

  “Then don’t be a savage. Come to dinner if you can’t make it to lunch.”

  “I’m booked,” Holden said. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Billetdoux. He likes to have his dinner six tables down from me ... goodbye, Swiss.”

  “What if I need you? Where can I get in touch?”

  “Ring Billetdoux. He’s reliable. He’ll give me the message.”

  And Holden walked out on the Swiss. Billetdoux was waiting for him in the courtyard of the church. He had a ham sandwich that looked like a poor boy from New Orleans. Holden was partial to poor boys and croque madames and chicory coffee and blackened fish. He’d gone to New Orleans with his bride, visited Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Tucson and Phoenix, where Holden collected a couple of the Swisser’s debts. He was an enforcer, even on his honeymoon. Swiss had given him a fat book of traveler’s checks as a wedding present. He’d gambled, made love, stood on the levee in New Orleans, a married man who’d gotten into real estate. Swiss had helped him fin
ance a co-op on Fifth Avenue. He’d gone before the co-op board with Andrushka and Swiss. Swiss had rehearsed him, told him what to say about his job at Aladdin.

  He was vice president of a fur company, he dressed like a British lord, and he had the most beautiful wife in the building. The whole board was smitten with Andrushka. Couldn’t take their eyes off her. They loved the fact that Holden had a permit to carry a gun. They looked upon him as the building’s police chief. Holden moved in with a mess of furniture that Andrushka had selected with Swiss. She attended tea parties in the building. She went to museums while Holden conferred with his rats and bumped some son of a bitch. His network grew. He’d acquired his own secret service. Andrushka felt more and more comfortable on Fifth Avenue and Holden didn’t. He lost her somewhere between Aladdin and the Museum of Modern Art.

  She brought him to openings of this show or that and he couldn’t find the right vocabulary. He was a keeper of rats. He could talk about the insides of a Beretta Minx, but he stumbled over the names of artists and their different schools. She talked of moving to Italy and Holden was forlorn. How could he concentrate on Caravaggio when he had to protect Aladdin’s books? His wife’s education worried Holden and amazed him. She’d started as a mannequin who could barely spell her name. She’d slept with buyer after buyer, and now he had to wheedle and woo to get her to sleep with him. He loved her eyes, her hands, the drone of her voice, the print of her body on their marriage bed, but she’d gone out of his life with Caravaggio.

  He returned to his hotel on the Place St. Sulpice. Holden was in a deep chill. He remembered his days of courtship, flowers, chocolate buns, and notes for Andrushka. Other men fell away from her and she only had him. He would have bumped all her suitors. That’s how their romance flourished—in a frozen field. She took his flowers and his chocolate buns and considered his notes.

  “Holden, you’re crazy. How can you marry a girl you haven’t gone to bed with? You might not enjoy my moves.”

  “What’s marriage got to do with moves? I’m not one of your tricks.”

  “Don’t you belittle my customers. They’re nice men.”

  “Andrushka, I wasn’t trying to slight anyone. I’m only saying love is love.”

  “Jesus, are you always this serious?”

  “Yes.”

  And their betrothal began. It troubled Holden that he had to chase a mannequin who’d slept with half the fur market. Greek furriers whispered around Holden and twisted their napkins into horns. Holden dropped his Beretta on the floor and stared at the Greeks until the Greeks ate their napkins. The whispering stopped. Furriers couldn’t poison Holden’s love. And now he had to sit in a hotel room, a couple of avenues away from Andrushka. He looked out his window and saw Billetdoux. His only friend in Paris was a bumper like himself who might shoot Holden in the head tomorrow.

  He went downstairs and walked along the rue de Vaugirard, with the bumper behind him. He stood outside the Luxembourg Gardens and stared up at Andrushka’s windows. Holden accomplished the same maneuver every time he got to Paris, a maneuver of misery, because he felt like a stone man outside the gates of the Luxembourg, a goddamn mute.

  His vertigo came back. It was the dizziness of love. Schatz had described him right. Holden was a mourner. Seven years since Andrushka, and he hadn’t come close to living with another woman. He’d had hookers, fantastic ladies, light and dark, but they couldn’t provide the pleasure of that twig he’d married. Andrushka was a heartless bitch, with a childhood as bleak as Holden’s. She’d come out of black smoke in Wisconsin, with a stepfather who’d fondled her when she was nine or ten, and a mother who performed tricks. The seventh grade was as far as she got. Some guy who ran a ghostly shuttle had delivered her from Green Bay before she was fifteen, sold her on the idea of modeling, and turned her into a mannequin. She wouldn’t declare who her savior was. Holden wondered if it was Schatz.

  He blew on his hands like some dumb medieval knight bound to a crazy, impossible love. Holden had to snap the string. He was doomed, a bumper who’d gotten famous. The Mariels had a grudge against him, the Pinzolos too. But he had to see Andrushka before he was hit in the head. He crossed the street and entered her building. The concierge didn’t question him. He could have been the duke of Paris. He marched up to Andrushka’s floor and rang the bell.

  “Qui est là?” he heard a woman call.

  Holden was petrified. The door opened. “Yes?”

  “I’m Schatz’s partner. I’d like to see madame.”

  The woman at the door was a beautiful nurse, he figured, a little too heavy for his liking. But she didn’t wear a uniform, and a nurse wouldn’t have gold in her ear. He was the biggest dumbbell in France. His bride had filled out in seven years. It was the twig. She started to laugh.

  “The mystery man. Likes to come unannounced.”

  “You’d have hung up if I called.”

  “So what?” she said. “That’s my privilege ... don’t stand there. People will think you’re a trick.”

  He followed her into the apartment, watching the girth of her shoulders and wondering if she played volleyball in the Luxembourg Gardens with Swiss. Andrushka was something of a giant. But he didn’t stop loving this strange person who’d once been a twig. She brought him into a living room that overlooked the palace in the park. Schatz and Andrushka were king and queen of the Luxembourg Gardens. The girl he remembered had become a woman in the fat man’s arms, big-boned all of a sudden, with an awful lot of hip under her dress.

  “Sit down,” she said. “You’re making me nervous.”

  Holden collapsed into a soft chair next to the window and watched the palace roofs. The giantess frightened him a bit. He didn’t know what to tell her.

  “Would you like a cake or some French seltzer?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  The giantess sat down and seemed to gobble up all of her chair.

  “Holden, how come I get the honor? You happened to be in the neighborhood, or what?”

  “Swiss,” he muttered. “He said it was okay to visit.”

  “I wouldn’t trust his okays. He doesn’t like you very much. He’s been trying to get you killed, or are you too dumb to notice?”

  “I’m his insurance policy. I collect for the man. What could he gain from getting me killed?”

  “Pleasure,” she told him. “It irritates Bruno that I was once in love with you.”

  “If it irritates him so much, why didn’t he hire a boom-boom man?”

  “That’s vulgar,” she said, like some matron of the arts, and he wondered where she kept her Caravaggios. Museums had ruined their marriage. Holden swore never to visit a museum again, though he’d hired a graduate student after Andrushka left, a kid from Yale, to teach him the fundamentals of modern art. He looked at his bride again. She wasn’t really a giantess. The twig had gained twenty pounds.

  “You listening to me, Holden? Swiss doesn’t need a boom-boom man. He sends you out on exercises because he wouldn’t cancel your career without a profit to himself. It’s not his fault you run into hellholes and come out alive.”

  “He pays me for all the risks,” Holden said. “I have bank accounts in sixteen cities. I could go to London and buy a house.”

  “Dead men don’t need houses.”

  “I’m not so dead I can’t see you have a terrific appetite in Paris.”

  “That’s just normal eating, Holden, and being away from you ... how could I finish a steak when I couldn’t tell if I’d have a corpse on my hands from one day to another.”

  “I never caught you crying,” he said, feeling more and more at Andrushka’s mercy.

  “I cried, all right.”

  “Where? In the museums?”

  “Shut up about museums,” she said. “You didn’t want a wife with culture. You wanted me to wait at home while you were beating up on people. You would have been happy if I didn’t say a word.”

  “That’s not true. I loved it when you talk
ed.”

  “Talked about what? Hats and shoes. You shivered, Holden, when I mentioned Cézanne.”

  “I wouldn’t shiver now.”

  “Is that why you came around? To impress me with your progress? How could I breathe inside a coffin? That’s what it was like living with you.”

  “You call eight rooms over Central Park a coffin?”

  “Imbecile,” she said. “I’m not talking about a view.”

  “And Swiss has culture, I suppose. He was nothing but a crook with arts and archives. He sucked eggs for a lot of generals, just like my dad.”

  “You’re so dumb you can’t see the difference. Swiss used your father to blind those generals and bleed them dry ... Holden, did you come here to save me from the Swiss? He appreciates a woman. You didn’t even know what wine to serve. And who was going to teach us? Holden, we never had a chance.”

  “What’s so hot about a millionaire who swallows prune juice for lunch?”

  “Prune juice keeps him regular. He makes love to me morning and night.”

  “I didn’t ask for the details,” Holden said.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t.” And she leapt out of her chair with lines of fury in her forehead. “Were you counting on a kinky afternoon, huh, Frog?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “But that’s what you are, Holden. A nasty little frog. I have a husband, thank you. I don’t need your gifts.”

  She left him in the living room, shutting doors between Holden and herself. And he was stranded with a palace in front of his eyes. He turned from the windows and began to notice paintings on the walls. Schatz had built a fucking museum for Andrushka. Holden tried to remember all the art tricks that kid had taught him. Apples and oranges. Cézanne and Miró. But he couldn’t recognize a single painting.

  He walked down into the rue de Vaugirard. He couldn’t find his shadow. That bumper must have gone for a ham sandwich. Billetdoux. And Holden was caught in the dream of Andrushka. A man with yellow hair stepped in front of him, and Holden, who could always sniff trouble out on the street, in Marseilles, Milan, or the two Berlins, was unprepared. The man fell into Holden’s arms. His body twisted around. He had a bullet in his neck. He coughed and the bullet came out. He fell deeper into Holden. Billetdoux was behind him, holding a popgun with a muffler that was half the length of his arm. The bullet must have sounded like a sparrow’s cry. Holden hadn’t heard a thing.