'What's in the bag?'
I opened it up. I shrugged. He shook his head. Each unto their own.
Upstairs, things were quiet. Eight or nine girls milled about in their bikinis and stilettos, looking bored and cold. Three of them homed in on me as soon as I appeared over the horizon and, momentarily taken aback, I withdrew again to the top of the stairs. I mumbled Lauren's name; a black girl pointed back down the hall behind them and I hesitantly moved forward. It was an odd feeling passing through them, for even though I knew that for ten dollars I could see inside any of their knickers, I felt that for no dollars at all each and any one of them could just as easily turn on me and savage me like a wolf tearing into an injured deer. A door opened ten yards up the hall and a young man came out, pulling hurriedly at his zipper. We passed. He kept his eyes to the ground. A few seconds later the next door along opened and Paula stepped out.
The fake smile was in place and she started into her greeting. Then she twigged and the smile faded slightly.
'Hi,' she said, and looked nervously over her shoulders at the other girls.
'Hello, Paula,' I said.
She hissed at me: 'Lauren.'
'Sorry. Of course.'
She didn't meet my eyes. 'I didn't expect to see you again.'
'No. Neither did I'
'You're not going to turn into one of those weirdos who gets attached to me, are you?'
I reddened. 'No. Of course not.' As if.
She nodded, then turned and opened one of the doors on her left. 'Do you have a token?'
I nodded. I entered the room. The air inside was so much more pungent in relative sobriety. I slotted the token. Up went the wall, like a drawbridge being raised on a castle where morals are for sale. Paula removed her top.
I watched her chest, perhaps for longer than I should if my intentions were purely editorial. But I shook my head. I reached for the telephone, she reached for hers.
'I'm not here for that,' I said.
She nodded.
'What are you here for?'
'Put your top on.' She nodded again and replaced the garment.
I cleared my throat. 'The other day you advised me to write a letter to my wife.'
'I know. We had a deal.'
'I wanted you to read it, tell me if you thought it was okay. I need a woman's perspective.'
'It's usual to give a girl a tip.'
'I'm sorry?'
'I need a tip. It's the only job I have. Time is money.'
'Yes. Of course. I'm sorry.' I fumbled in my pocket. I produced a twenty-dollar note. I added another twenty dollars. 'Will you come and get it, or will you trust me?'
'I'll come and get it.' Out. In. Out.
She was away before I had time to think of the bag. 'I still have some clothes of yours. I brought them with me.' I held the bag up for her to see.
'Thanks. Leave them there when you go.'
'Okay. You don't seem as friendly now as you did the other morning.' Maybe it came out like I was a little hurt. It wasn't meant to.
Her face softened. Slightly. 'I'm working.'
'Okay. Sorry.' I couldn't expect anything else. She had saved my bacon, she owed me nothing. 'Will I read this to you?'
'Sure.'
'And you'll give me an honest opinion?'
'Sure.'
'An honest opinion not coloured by the fact that I've just given you forty dollars?'
'Honest as I can make it.' The smile was back, almost entirely human.
'Okay.'
So I read her the letter.
The wall started to move down. Paula touched something on her side and it moved up again. Maybe it was some sort of quality control device to encourage clients on the verge of climax.
My letter hardly had much in the way of climax, but I could tell by the way her eyes moistened that at least some of what I'd written had gotten to her. I folded the letter, put it back in the envelope and replaced it in my jacket.
'Well?'
'You really do love her, don't you?'
I nodded. 'Do you think it'll do the trick?'
Paula pulled at her lower lip. 'It should. She'll either fall in love with you all over again, or she'll throw up.'
I shrugged. 'Yeah. I suppose it could work like that. What would you think if you received a letter like that?'
'I don't think I'd ever inspire anyone to that level of devotion.'
'Of course you would.'
'My man would never write like that. You don't know Chinese Elvis.'
'Excuse me?'
'Excuse you what?'
'Ahm. Chinese Elvis?'
'Chinese Elvis. My man.'
I nodded. 'This may seem like a silly question, but...'
'Because he's not Chinese and he doesn't look like Elvis. The perfect nickname. Everyone asks, and I never get tired of telling.'
I nodded some more. New York.
'I'm going to post it in the morning. It should only take two or three days.'
Paula smiled, a good, homely smile. 'You do that. I hope it all works out.'
I gave her a little wave. 'So long,' I said, 'and thanks for the ski pants.'
'No trouble.'
I left the cupboard. Paula's door remained closed. The other girls parted as I passed. I felt like I should stop and explain that I wasn't a customer, that I had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide, but I was a customer, I had paid for it like any other sad person even if the masturbation was mental rather than physical. I couldn't expect them to understand, because I didn't really understand.
The air was sharp, uncomfortable. In the old days I would have thought deeply, for a second, about where to get a decent hot whiskey to chase the chill from my bones, but I was a new man now. I'd had a few drinks earlier, parched by creation, but now I had excised those demons by reading the letter to Paula. The performance had purged me in a way actually writing it had not. I felt clean again now that I was out in the New York night and ready to challenge life. I would go back to the hotel and settle in front of the TV with a club sandwich and a bottle of Diet Coke and watch re-runs of Cheers until dawn. Then I'd sleep for a few hours and wake blessedly free of hangover and go and watch Bobby do some sparring. Then I'd get down to some serious work on the book.
I hadn't taken more than twenty steps when I bumped into someone. Or maybe it was the other way round. I said sorry anyway. With New York politeness the man said excuse me and then held a knife to my throat.
I took a step back, and the point of the knife went with me. Only a little further. I could feel the blood. Only a nick. But blood all the same.
'Gimme the wallet,' the man said. He wore a grimy black tracksuit, with the hood pulled up; his face looked ashen in the neon glow, his eyes hollow.
I tried to hold my head back, but the point stuck resolutely. 'I don't have a wallet,' I gasped. 'Someone stole it. I have some cash in my trouser pocket ... here... take it.'
I rustled. Produced some notes, about sixty dollars and a snarled-up paper tissue.
He took the lot with his left hand and stuffed them into his pocket without examining them.
'Gimme the wallet,' he said again.
'I don't...'
He stepped forward and moved his left hand to the back of my trousers and felt the empty pocket, then moved it to my jacket zipper and pulled it down. His hand slipped inside, feeling first right, then left. He pulled out Patricia's letter.
'Please,' I said, 'don't take that.'
He turned it over in his hand. 'What's inside?'
'Nothing. Nothing valuable. Just a letter.'
'But valuable to you.'
'Yes, valuable to me.'
'Maybe you pay to have it back.'
'You've just taken my money.'
'But I ain't taken your shoes.'
He'd a wicked gleam in his eyes and a scraggy ginger growth on his chin, a bad combination.
'You wouldn't take my shoes. It's freezing.'
'Watch me.'
He moved the knife slightly to one side. Not deeper. Longer. 'Okay,' I said.
'Just slip them off.'
I would have nodded, but it might have sliced my jugular. I pushed off my left shoe, then my right, then nudged them both towards him.
His mouth widened in a gummy approximation of a smile. 'I hope they're my size.' For the first time I looked at his feet. Or, indeed, his foot. His left foot was about the size of mine; five dirt-black toes pushed out of a trainer; his right foot was, well, somewhere else; missing in action. He had no wooden foot, just a stump that ended where his ankle should have been, in a streetsoiled bandage. Nor had he a crutch. I had been mugged by a man who hopped.
As if he could tell what I was thinking he said quickly: 'I'm not alone.'
He nodded to his side, into the doorways of two boarded shops, barely lit by 42nd Street's neon. Dark figures. Three or four. There was no way of telling how many feet they had between them, but it seemed pretty silly to try and find out.
'Beat it,' he said, and withdrew the knife. He bent down and picked up the shoes, balancing nicely.
I hesitated. 'The letter.'
'Fuck the letter,' he snapped and stuck it inside his tracksuit jacket. He turned and hopped into the shadows.
God had spoken. He didn't want Patricia and me ever to get back together. We were finished, and I had to accept it. I returned to the hotel. I returned to the hotel bar.
16
Fog.
Fog that lurks behind the eyes. You can't see it, obviously, but it's there. Hugging every thought. Censoring every sensory perception.
Sooner or later it goes, but you have to give it time. You have to lie there with your eyes shut so that it thinks it's trapped, it'll panic and your head will vibrate until you think it will come apart and then it'll slowly work its way out, warily easing out of your ears, leaving only a trace, the merest flavour of it ever having been there at all. Oddly, the flavour is very like that of old beer.
About 1 am I was finally able to shift out of bed. I stood in the shower and let the water boil me for ten minutes, then shaved, then let the shower boil me some more. I dried myself off, then pulled on some fresh underwear and socks, a pair of black jeans, a black sweatshirt and a denim jacket. I pulled on a pair of black leather gloves to guard against my valuable writing hands getting cold and hoped they didn't look too posy. Then I remembered a couple of important things. I called room service and ordered four bacon sandwiches and a pair of trainers to go. It was a good hotel. They arrived within twenty minutes. They were tough-looking, but surprisingly light. The trainers weren't bad either.
Laced up and feeling pretty damn good, considering the fact that I was now defiantly single, I strode out onto Broadway and made my way up towards Central Park. I'd, put Patricia out of my mind. There was nothing more I could achieve from this side of the Atlantic. I'd put my heart and soul into the letter and it was gone now, my heart and soul with it. There was nothing more to put down in writing. Now I'd concentrate on the job at hand. Maybe I'd been running around for too long looking for a reconciliation when what I really should have been doing was looking for a new woman. Maybe.
The previous night's snow had not hung around too long and there was a surprising warmth in the air. I took a detour down 42nd Street on the off-chance that I might encounter my friend with the one foot, but there was no sign of him. Too bright. Still, I would keep an eye out for him and even if it was too late to recover the cash, my shoes or the letter I would exact some revenge, even if it was just pushing him into the traffic.
I took my chances with the hell-for-leather yellow taxis racing round Columbus Circle, then stood for a moment patting the horses as they waited lazily with their traps for passengers at the edge of Central Park. They looked okay, but their manure smelt incongruous with the greater metropolitan stench.
I skirted the park's western side. The Dakota building, where Lennon had been shot, was surrounded by scaffolding. Yoko was probably in there somewhere, still wailing over his loss, or maybe she was just recording another record. Somewhere along this street Woody Allen lived as well. Maybe they got together sometimes and discussed persecution complexes. At any rate, neither of them did much training at the Westside Bodyshape Gym. And right then not too many other people were either.
I heard them before I saw them. Chanting.
I rounded a corner and found about forty people, some of them carrying placards, making a big noise outside Bodyshape. They weren't exactly choral, so I'd some difficulty in making out what they were singing about, but I heard McMaster's name and a clear reference to racism. It didn't take much in the way of brains to guess what they were on about. Banners bearing the slogans
MCMASTER IS THE VIPER and GO HOME WHITE RACIST were other pointers in the right direction which only a trained journalist like myself would pick up on. Eight cops formed a half-circle around the entrance to the gym; behind them, wedged in the doorway, was Stanley Matchitt. He looked tense, but in his element. Twenty yards further down the street four or five women in tracksuits stood chatting, nodding at the protest, debating whether or not to attempt entry.
A gap in the traffic presented itself and I crossed at a trot, then kept it up as I pressed through the gathering. The first few people made room for me, but then when they saw that I was actually heading for the gym, and that I was the wrong colour, they began to close ranks. They were mostly middle-aged women, but bulky with it; it was like trying to fight my way through a bag of animated marshmallows. They weren't too serious about hindering my progress. I got called a couple of names and someone slapped me round the back of the head, but I eventually emerged safe and sound by the doorway.
A young cop put out his hand, palm up. 'Do you have business here, sir?' he asked.
I nodded and pointed behind him to Stanley. 'Ask him.' Stanley nodded at the cop and he let me through. Hissing came from the crowd.
'Hi, Stanley,' I said. 'Shot anyone yet?'
Stanley shook his head. 'Nice gloves,' he said, then suddenly he moved to one side. I felt something warm brush my ear and then the door behind him shattered. The policemen ducked as one, their hands moving to their guns in one smooth movement, like a better version of Pan's People, then as an approving cheer rippled through the protesters, the cops relaxed and raised themselves. It was only a rock.
Stanley stepped back into the foyer and ushered me in.
'The natives are a bit restless,' he said.
I nodded. I touched my ear. 'They been here long?'
'About the same time as us. They just appeared out of the park. We didn't know what the fuck was going on. Bobby had his pen out ready to sign autographs when someone whacked him round the head with a placard. We had to hold them out of the gym ourselves till the cops arrived.'
I shrugged. 'Still, it's good publicity.'
'Yeah. Sure.'
'Bobby okay?'
'Take a look.'
There were three gyms in the club. Bobby had one on the top floor for himself and his sparring partners, two of whom were draped over the ropes on the far side of a makeshift ring. They looked like they'd been hung out to dry. They were big, bigger than Bobby, more muscular. Their headguards lay discarded on the floor behind them. They'd been beaten up. Geordie McClean and some fat guy I didn't recognize stood chatting further down the room. McClean smiled across. The other guy nodded. I nodded at McMaster. He ignored me, or probably couldn't see me. Jackie Campbell, wearing an Aran pompom cap, watched intently from McMaster's corner. The third sparring partner, another black guy, stood in the opposite corner. He moved hesitantly forward. His eyes darted to his two colleagues on the side of the ring, then centred on McMaster again. The contender strode purposefully towards him: there was no art to it, no stalking like Chavez or dancing like Leonard, he just walked right up to the guy and popped him on the nose. And the guy fell. Just like that. One punch and a dead weight. It wasn't the McMaster I knew and feared for.
I skirted the ring and sto
od beside Jackie Campbell while the other two sparring partners ducked wearily under the ropes to retrieve their fallen comrade.
'What's come over him?' I whispered. McMaster leant against the ropes on the far side of the ring and spoke quietly to McClean and the fat bloke.
Campbell shook his head slightly. 'Ask him,' he said and moved off the corner to tend to the sparring partner; his friends were having some difficulty rousing him.
As I moved round the ring McClean and his friend turned and walked to a door at the far end of the gym and disappeared.
'Nice punch, Bobby.'
I expected him to smile and say something bright. He just nodded sullenly.
'Repeat that against . . .'
'Fuck up, Starkey.'
'Sure.'
The door opened again and McClean's head popped out. 'Starkey,' he called, 'you wouldn't join us for a second, would you?'
I nodded. I walked. McMaster wasn't much company and the other side of the ring looked like a battlefield dressing station. Maybe I'd misjudged the man. Maybe he wasn't the big hunk of useless lard I'd thought. Of course it might just have been that his sparring partners were particularly crap, but they certainly looked the part.
McClean ushered me into the room. It was used to store weights and other gym equipment. The fat bloke had perched himself on an exercise bike and was slowly turning the pedals. He nodded as I came in; McClean put his arm round me in a fatherly way and squeezed, which was a bit unsettling.
I smiled as best I could and freed myself. 'So what's up?'
I didn't like the set of his face. Mock confident. 'We have a wee problem, people man.'
I nodded and looked at the fat bloke. Remembering his manners, McClean stepped over to the exercise bike and put his palm out towards him. 'I'm sorry. Dan Starkey, this ...'
The fat bloke put his hand out. '. . . Peter Smith.' Sweaty hand, firm shake. He looked fifty. Very black skin. His hair was flecked with white. It made him look like a baker.
'Pete's a private detective.'
Of wee sweetie mice and men Page 11