by Ritz, David
He dropped her. A week later, Betty was crying to me about how he had disappeared. She wanted her job back. In saying no, I was gentle but firm. The parade of women who came through our office—at any time, the Holly Windsor Agency handled twenty active escorts in New York alone—never failed to fascinate me. I had learned from Sugar not to sample the merchandise, and, oddly enough, I wasn’t tempted, not even by the more gorgeous women, maybe because none of them was Beauty. Even the smartest wasn’t as smart as Beauty. Even the prettiest wasn’t as pretty. I looked on these ladies with interest but not desire. Desire would mess me up. I also got to see what desire had done to many of the clients I met. They were addicted to escorts like junkies addicted to smack. Some guys had to have four different escorts in the same week. Others were risking financial ruin just to pay our crazy prices. These guys were out of control. I didn’t want to be out of control. I wanted to learn more about the human mind. I thought about Irv’s mind, Sugar’s mind, Slim’s mind, and the amazing mind of Holly Windsor.
A Quiet Place in the City
The months flew by. Life fell into a routine. And then it happened.
It happened in the one place where it never should have happened. It happened over the one weekend when I felt happy about getting off the grid. Professor Severina was going to a four-day conference in Boston and asked me if I could house-sit. Her regular house sitter had the flu and my teacher’s two dogs and cat needed care. I was happy to help. I was also happy when my cell phone went on the blink. I’d get it fixed, but I’d wait till Monday. That meant no one could reach me. It felt good to be unreachable, especially as I sat in the place that I called my refuge.
It was where I went practically every night and every morning, in between work and before and after classes. It was where I put my mind at ease, sat and drank a glass of wine or a caffe latte, or just kicked back and listened to a gifted brotha play gentle jazz on his acoustic guitar. It was a combination café/bar/coffee shop nestled in between an office building and an art gallery. I went in the first time because of its name—A Quiet Place in the City. I was looking for quiet. I loved how the walls were covered with cushiony fabrics and the floors covered with thick carpets. The noise of New York was never to my liking. New York restaurants and bars stuck with a policy of “the louder the better.” The racket of people talking was supposed to indicate that this was a hot spot for business deals and romantic hookups. After work, that was exactly what I wanted to get away from. So I loved A Quiet Place. I felt safe there. I felt centered. Fact is, two months before I had kept my twenty-first birthday quiet and spent it there alone. Never in a million years would I have guessed that A Quiet Place was where my life would change forever.
Funny how life deceives you. Life looks like it’s giving you a rhythm, a reason and a rhyme. Life seems to be making sense. Things seem to be settling down. I had a new sense of self-assurance and self-knowledge.
After a long day at the Holly Windsor Agency, I settled down at A Quiet Place in the City. It was beautiful sitting there by the window and looking out on lower Broadway. People rushing by. Traffic fierce. Cool fall weather. After living in the city nine months I was beginning to understand what Slim was wanting for me. Slim wanted me to see how Irv Wasserman operated. He operated subtly; in the end, he didn’t trust anyone. Slim wanted to see what I’d become under the influence of Sugar—a guy consumed by ego and deadly drugs. And finally Slim wanted me to see how a brilliant woman like Holly Windsor brought balance to business—by cutting out the emotions.
I thought I had cut out the emotions. I thought I was ready, after this time in New York, to go back to Atlanta and work with Slim. When I arrived in the city, I thought fate was bringing me closer to Beauty, but I soon realized that no one really knows what the fuck fate has in store. Then here comes Holly Windsor with her view on life. I knew that Holly Windsor was, in her own way, a psychologist herself. She read people right. She especially read women right. And she read me right. She knew I could be taught. She saw that I listened. She picked up on the fact that the girls could trust me—and so could the clients. She ran around the country setting up operations while I held down the fort in the most important city in the world. That made me feel important. It was a quiet feeling, though. I didn’t have to talk about it. Didn’t have to tell anyone. The escorts respected me because I didn’t hit on them and made sure that their clients were cool. The clients respected me because I made sure their escorts were cool. Holly was happy because the office was running smoothly. My life was running smoothly. I got A’s on my psych tests and wrote a paper on ego defenses that Professor Severina called “insightful.” The spelling and grammar could have been better, but she said that my ideas made sense. Everything was starting to make sense, especially sitting there in A Quiet Place in the City.
A Quiet Place had the right atmosphere to let me look back a little. I thought about Irv and Evelyn Meadows, the woman who shot him; I thought about Irv’s crazy daughter, Judy, and her boyfriend, Dwayne, who got murdered; I thought about John Mackey, the consigliere killed in a car wreck; I thought of Sugar and Yuko and Mi and how Mi got shot by Gigante and how I stabbed Gigante to death. All those thoughts were noise in my head. Here, though, the thoughts drifted away while the brotha played his soft jazz guitar. Several students in A Quiet Place were working on their laptops in easy chairs. Two women, sitting at the wine bar, spoke in a quiet whisper. I think they were Chinese. A tall Dominican dude who I recognized from my psych class sat across from me, took out his iPad, and disappeared into cyberspace. I was gonna check my e-mail but decided instead to lose myself in the chords of the quiet guitar. The world was at peace.
And then I felt my phone vibrate against my thigh. At first I was pissed that the thing was working again. There went my escape. I didn’t bother to answer the phone, but it kept buzzing until I got fed up, fished it out of my pocket, and glanced at the caller ID to see who was calling. It was a New York City exchange. I didn’t recognize the number. Something told me to ignore the call, but something else told me to answer. I remember feeling that something was really wrong. So I answered the call. That’s when I heard a voice I hadn’t heard in five years. My heart started hammering. My throat went dry.
“Power,” said Beauty, “Slim’s gone crazy. Last week he had Dre murdered. Today Wanda Washington is missing, and I think he’s killed her. He’s killing anyone close to him, just like he killed Moms.”
At first I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t process the information. It took me a while to say, “I don’t believe it. That’s not right. That can’t be right. Are you sure? How can you be sure?”
“Call anyone you know in Atlanta and they’ll tell you. Dre’s gone. Wanda’s gone, and you’re next, Power. You gotta start running.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m here in New York.”
“I gotta see you, Beauty.”
“I’m afraid, Power. I’m really afraid.”
HER
Anita Ward
Two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, Beauty was seated in the last row of the coach section of a Delta flight from Atlanta to New York’s LaGuardia Airport. She was leafing through Vogue magazine when the plane flew into an unexpected thunderstorm. The turbulence was so severe that the elderly white woman next to Beauty grabbed her hand.
“It’s going to be all right,” Beauty assured her.
“How do you know that?” asked the woman. “Have you flown a lot?”
“Actually this is my first flight.”
“Well, it’s not mine, and I’ve never been through anything like this. Something’s wrong. The plane shouldn’t be shaking this much. It’s gonna crash . . . I feel like it’s gonna crash.”
“It can’t crash,” Beauty stated calmly.
“What makes you say that?” asked the woman, her eyes closed as she squeezed Beauty’s hand even harder.
“Because
I won’t let it crash,” said Beauty.
“I want to believe you.”
“Believe me, it’s going to take a lot more than a little lightning and thunder to get in my way. My future’s in New York, and nothing can stop my future.”
Just then the plane took a sudden drop. The older woman let out a scream.
“It’s just like a roller coaster,” said Beauty. “It can be scary, but it always comes to a stop and lets you off safe and sound.”
“Roller coasters petrify me,” the woman confessed.
“Roller coasters are fun.”
“I think you’re a very nervy girl, but I hope you believe in a god that answers prayers, because only God is going to get us through this storm.”
At that moment a bolt of lightning struck the plane. The jolt was intense. Sparks flew. A flight attendant, going up the aisle to make certain seat belts were fastened, was thrown to the floor. The woman seated next to Beauty began to cry. But Beauty stayed centered. She closed her eyes and pictured the streets of New York that she had read about; she imagined herself walking through Barneys on Madison Avenue and Lord and Taylor on Thirty-Ninth Street; she thought about the fabulous hat collection at Henri Bendel on Fifth Avenue and the fashion district on Seventh Avenue, where so many of the designers and manufacturers had offices; she saw herself riding the crosstown bus and the uptown subway, exploring Greenwich Village and Central Park and the bright lights of Broadway. When Beauty opened her eyes, the flight attendant had picked herself up off the floor and the plane had flown out of the storm. An hour later it landed without incident.
In the baggage area Beauty noticed a handsome, distinctly Jewish-looking man in his twenties with dark hair, wide shoulders, a broad nose, brown eyes, and a serious look on his face. He held a sign that simply said BEAUTY.
She approached him and said, “I’m Beauty.”
“You sure are. Miss Ward sent me. She asked me to help you with your bags and take you to her place.”
“Thank you.”
“My privilege.”
“Do you work with Miss Ward?”
“Yes, I work in her department at Bloom’s department store. I run errands and do some modeling. By the way, my name is Solomon.”
“Like the king,” quipped Beauty, impressed with the man’s powerful physique.
“Actually more like a queen,” said Solomon, who gave her a little wink.
Even though Beauty knew that many gay men worked in the fashion world, Solomon was a surprise. He looked like an athlete.
On the way into the city, while Solomon drove the black Lincoln Town Car and Beauty sat in the back, they began chatting.
“Have you ever been here before?” he asked.
“No.”
“You’ve come to model?”
“Oh, no, I’m just a student.”
“College?”
“High school.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“To impress me with your youth.”
“I wish I were older.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Sixteen.”
“You look nineteen.”
“Thank you—I guess.”
“How do you know Miss Ward?”
“Long story.”
“That you’d rather not tell.”
“Actually, I’m so excited seeing that skyline, it’s hard for me to concentrate on talking.”
“So it’s okay if I do the talking?”
“Sure.”
“I was born in Israel. I’m guessing you were born in Japan.”
“I was born in Atlanta, Georgia.”
“But to a Japanese mother,” said Solomon.
“My mom was black.”
“Was? She’s gone?”
“You were going to do the talking.”
“Just trying to be polite and not dominate the conversation.”
“I think you’re nosy,” said Beauty.
“I think you’re right. But my nosiness is harmless. Though to be honest, I wasn’t at all harmless when I fought in the Israeli army.”
“You were a soldier?”
“Highly decorated.”
“How come you have no accent?” Beauty said.
“I have American-born parents.”
“And when did you come here?”
“A year ago.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason you’re coming to New York,” said Solomon. “Fortune and fame in fashion.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
“Well, I’m driving you to the apartment of one of the shrewdest buyers in America. I aspire to be her protégé. Now it appears that you have that job sewed up. So if I can befriend you, I’ll still be on track to get closer to Miss Anita Ward.”
“She’s that good?” asked Beauty.
“Better than good. ‘Amazing’ is the word.”
As Solomon went on about Anita Ward’s genius, Beauty stopped listening. She had to savor the moment—they were driving over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. Last night’s rainstorm had washed away the smog and left the city sparkling. The energy was high, Beauty was high; Beauty stretched her neck to look up and out and around, Beauty rolled down the window to breathe it all in, to hear the honking cabs, the roar of the traffic, the sounds of a city more alive, more wonderful, more exciting than she had ever imagined.
“Miss Ward lives off Gramercy Park,” said Solomon. “Would you mind if we stopped by my apartment first? I need to make sure Amir is up. He has an appointment he can’t miss.”
“It’s nearly noon. Why wouldn’t he be up?”
“He’s a musician. Musicians work nights and sleep days.”
“This is your boyfriend?”
“My significant other.”
“Also an Israeli?”
“Actually a Jordanian.”
“An Israeli and an Arab living together?”
“In peace and love. Trying to set an example for the world to follow.”
“If you want to wake him up, why not just call him?”
“Because I want him to meet you. If he meets you, he will be crazy for you and you will be crazy for him and that will tighten the bond between the three of us. That way I will be in an even better position to become a part of Anita Ward’s inner circle.”
“How do you know he’ll be crazy for me?” Beauty asked.
“He loves beautiful women.”
“And Israeli soldiers.”
“I didn’t tell him I was a soldier until after our first date.”
“And how did he react?”
“He ran. But then I ran even faster—and caught him. Here’s our place. Come in for a sec. We’ll serve you coffee and sweets on a silver platter.”
Their apartment was in the basement of a Murray Hill town house. It was narrow and dark but filled with white lilies that gave off a delicious scent.
“Amir has a part-time job at a florist. He brings these home for free.”
Amir was still in bed. Beauty waited in their tiny living room/kitchen area while Solomon went to wake him up. The walls were covered with dozens of Polaroid photos of family members of every description. There was also a large calendar displaying the great mosques and synagogues of the world.
After a few minutes, Solomon walked out of the bedroom followed by Amir, who was dressed in a white terry-cloth robe with the words “Holiday Inn Amman Jordan” sewn across the front pocket. He had small sleepy eyes, dark olive skin, and long wavy jet-black hair. If Solomon was five-ten, Amir was five-eight. Solomon was stocky and muscular, Amir was wire-thin and graceful. He seemed to glide across the room.
“Is this Beauty or is this not Beauty?” Solomon asked Amir.
“I am happy to meet you,” said Amir, soft-spoken and a bit shy. “What can we offer you to eat?”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“Do you like sweets?” asked Amir.
“Say yes,
” said Solomon, urging her. “Amir takes offense if anyone doesn’t like his sweets.”
“Well, I do like sweets,” said Beauty.
“Last night I made kunafa. It is a kind of cheese pastry with honey on top. Please try it,” Amir beseeched in his softly accented English.
“It sounds delicious,” Beauty said.
“It is good with tea,” said Amir. “I will make you tea.”
A few minutes later, the three of them sat close together on wicker chairs surrounding a small kitchen table. They nibbled on kunafa and sipped sweet tea. Beauty loved the taste of the honey-covered cheese dessert. She asked Amir about his music.
“Difficult to explain well,” he said. “It is hip-hop but also jazz, and then we have a rapper who was born in Iran.”
“The jazz musicians are Israeli friends of mine,” said Solomon. “They are how I met Amir.”
“Are you the hip-hopper or the jazz guy?” Beauty asked.
“I do both from a synthesizer. As a boy, I learned classical piano and then fell in love with electronic music. That’s how I happened to come to America. And when I was here, well, I heard so many other sounds that fascinated me. I began trying a little bit of everything. I still don’t do it very well, but I am trying.”
“Amir is modest,” said Solomon. “He is a musical visionary. He put together this current group.”
“What’s it called?” asked Beauty.
“All,” said Amir. “That’s all I could think of.”
“You must hear them,” said Solomon. “You must come to the club where they play. All will blow your mind.”
“Please, Sol,” said Amir, “leave this Beauty alone. She is just arriving here and her heart must be filled with desires to go to lovely places and see lovely things that have nothing to do with my music.”
“Guess her age,” Solomon told Amir.
“It is not polite to guess the age of a lady.”
“She doesn’t mind,” said Solomon.
“If you are twenty-six and I am twenty-five, she must be twenty.”