Dark City Lights

by Lawrence Block

  “You all know each other a long time.”

  “Since he met her. I was with him when he met her. She was walking out of the Up-to-Date Luncheonette. That was a place we used to go—a kind of candy store, you know, where you bought a newspaper, had a soda. Those places don’t exist anymore.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s a damn shame,” Al said, taking a slow breath. “Anyway, I’m godfather to their kids, you know, I stood up for him when they got married. And she’s a good girl, Cheryl, a really good girl, but there are things . . . little things about her that always annoyed me . . .”

  “The perfume,” Stan said, interrupting.

  Al stopped, the last forkful of steak midway to his mouth. “That’s right. The perfume. The goddamn perfume. There you go.”

  “Cotton Candy,” Stan said, “terrible.”

  “Could make you gag. Especially in an enclosed area. Like my car.” Al ate the last piece of steak, placed his knife and fork in a perfect diagonal across the top of the plate, and gently pushed the plate maybe an inch forward.

  Stan lifted his chin. “You don’t like spinach?”

  “I’m not so big on vegetables.”

  Stan laughed. “That’s all I’m supposed to eat.”

  “You weren’t supposed to have the steak, right?”

  “No way.”

  “You lost a lot of weight. A hell of a lot of weight.”

  “They made me.”

  “The docs, huh?”

  “Yeah, but mostly Deb. She turned into Stalin.”

  Al laughed. It was a big fat laugh. A baritone laugh. And, it was infectious. He probably hadn’t laughed that hard for a long time and if you heard it you had to laugh too. Stan laughed until his eyes welled up. He wiped his face with his napkin. “I’m cryin’ here,” he said.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t visit you at the hospital,” Al said.

  Stan gave a little wave with the napkin. “It’s fine. Really. Fine.”

  The waiter set down the double scotches.

  “You’re probably not supposed to have this either,” Al said, raising his glass. “Does scotch have cholesterol?”

  Stan laughed again. “Who the fuck cares?”

  The busboy stood in front of the table. He nodded at Al’s plate. “Finished, Mr. Ruban?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Al said. “You done, Stan?”

  “Sure.”

  The busboy stuck his hand back and forth between them, lifting plates, clattering silverware onto a tray. He slid the crumbs off the tablecloth with what looked like a letter opener.

  “Good steak, huh?” Al said to Stan.

  “Terrific.”

  The busboy smiled like he owned the place. He was a squat man, about fifty, dark, Puerto Rican.

  “How you doin’, José?” Al said to the busboy.

  “Fine, Mr. Ruban. We are okay.”

  “Your family?”

  “Mucho bueno, sir.”

  “Mucho bueno,” Al said, “well, that’s good to know.” He gave the busboy a nod. The bus boy nodded back and took off for the kitchen with his tray.

  “So, did you eat at the Saxony?” Stan said, taking a swig of scotch.

  “We were going to. We’d already had drinks at our house. Lil made appetizers. Cheese, salami, stuff like that.”

  “Sure.”

  “So we’d already had a little something when we got there. And a couple.” He shook his head. “Lil was drinking gin and tonics. With cherries. Can you imagine? Somebody drinking gin and tonics when it isn’t summer?”

  “Deb likes martinis.”

  “Well, that I can understand,” Al said. “Oh, and Lil made this thing with sardines . . . you wouldn’t know it was sardines if I didn’t tell you . . . all mashed up . . . really good.”

  “Sardines, huh?”

  “Yeah. And, that’s another thing about Cheryl. You can’t ever eat there, at their house.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. She’s got a thing about cleanliness. You can’t touch anything. She’s got the can of Pledge out before you even make prints. And the pillows on the couch are all puffed up and you can see it upsets her when you sit. You know, when you dent them. I don’t wipe my hands on the towels if I have to go to the can there.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding.”

  “So, the four of you never eat there?”

  “Not for years. We eat at my house. We don’t even go there. The kitchen is probably boarded up and painted black.”

  They were quiet for maybe a minute. “So, you were gonna eat at the Saxony,” Stan said, “after the cheese and crackers.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s fancy, huh?”

  Al gave Stan a look. “Twenty-two bucks for a gin and tonic.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Wow. Was it crowded?”

  “Oh, yeah. Packed. Big time. The lobby, the elevator . . . that’s after the mob scene at the valet.”

  “People clamoring to pay twenty-two bucks for a gin and tonic?”

  “Young people. They’re all over the city. They’re all in black. The city is packed with young people wearing black. Hipsters, they call them. On the street, in front of the hotel. Not a suit in sight.”

  “They probably don’t own suits.”

  “Right,” Al said. “And after you get out of the elevator you gotta wait in a line. You get off at the Rooftop floor and there’s a line. “

  “Even with a reservation?”

  “Oh, yeah. And a list. You gotta be on the list, or they send you away.”

  “Where do they send you? Back to New Jersey?” Stan said, chuckling.

  Al laughed. “Right. Good one.” He nodded. “Back to Jersey.”

  “So, you were on the list?”

  “Sure,” Al said, “Ciccolini fixed it. You know him?”

  “I know who he is, I never met him.”

  “Oh, yeah, we know each other from the beginning. Me and Jimmy and Chick. He lived down the street from Jimmy. We did some things, the three of us.”

  “He’s a big attorney, right?”

  “Makes nine hundred fifty bucks an hour.”

  “You’re kidding,” Stan said.

  “No.” Al polished off his double.

  “He can pay twenty-two bucks for a gin and tonic.”

  “You bet.” Al moved his empty glass around the tablecloth. “If they only knew.”

  “Who?”

  “His clients. If they only knew some of the stuff we did. In the day.”

  “You were a team?”

  “We were a team, alright. Jimmy was the team leader.” Al shook his head. “My ma used to call him the instigator. I mean, like it was his name. Like it was a title. You hungry, Instigator? she’d say. I made gravy, Instigator, you want some? She was really upset when he went away. Well, everybody was. A little bit of fraud, Jimmy called it. Like a little bit pregnant, you know? He was only gone ten months.”

  “Wow,” Stan said.

  “That’s ’cause Chick was his lawyer. That’s why he was only gone ten months.”

  “Where’d they send him? Allentown?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Better than Dix.”

  “Oh yeah, Dix can be a heartache.”

  “A white-collar crime is not treated like a white-collar crime anymore,” Al said.

  Stan nodded. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Dessert, sir?” the waiter said.

  “You got the bread pudding?” Al said.

  “Yes, sir. That’s our specialty.”

  “I know that. I’ve been eating here maybe fifteen years.”

  The waiter blinked.

  “Two bread puddings,” Al said.

  “I probably shouldn’t,” Stan said.

  “It’s got a brandy sauce,” Al said, “very tasty.”

  “Okay.”

  “After all,” Al said. He looked up at the wa
iter. “And two Rémys.”

  “Yes, sir.” The waiter took off.

  “He’s probably a hipster when he isn’t a waiter,” Al said.

  “When he’s out of uniform,” Stan said.

  They both laughed.

  “So did you have to wait a long time?” Stan said.

  “Not for the table,” Al said. “We got a table pretty quick. It was the size of a fucking coaster but you could see everything.” He shook his head. “Amazing place. Amazing . . . there you are, outside . . . with a 360 right in front of you.” He held one meaty arm high in front of them and moved his fat hand to the left and to the right. “New York, New Jersey, all of it lit up, like a movie.” He brought his hand down and folded it into his other hand. “It was warm, you know, for October. That’s why it was still open; they close it when it gets cold.” He looked across the room and then back at Stan. “Gorgeous view.”

  “Well, you can’t beat the city when you’re up above the noise and the smell and the squalor. Nothin’ like it,” Stan said.

  “I don’t go into the city unless I have to,” Al said.

  “Oh.”

  The waiter set a glass dish of bread pudding topped with whipped cream in front of each of them. “I’ll be back, sir, with your Rémys.”

  Al didn’t look up. The waiter took off. “This guy should get a job at the Saxony. They need waiters over there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You couldn’t get a drink, you couldn’t even flag a waiter down, and you couldn’t tell who was a waiter and who wasn’t.”

  “They’re wearing black?” Stan said.

  “You got it,” Al said. He lifted his spoon and attacked the bread pudding. “So, Jimmy and I went to the bar. We left Lil and Cheryl to hold onto this teensy table and we went to the bar. They got a bar on either side of the band.”

  “They got a band?”

  “Oh yeah, playin’ all kinds of stuff. Seven guys. Very slick. Lucent Fields.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the name of the band.”

  “Lucent?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Of course not.”

  Stan took a small bite of the whipped cream on top of his pudding.

  “You make your way around the dance floor to get to the bar, or through the dance floor to get to the bar and then you gotta wedge yourself in between whoever else is standing there trying to get a drink. You gotta position yourself so the bartender sees you. And he’s on a quest to see nobody. They probably got a bartender school where they go to learn that,” Al said.

  The waiter placed a cut-glass snifter of Rémy Martin before each of them. Neither looked up.

  Al picked up his snifter and swirled the amber liquid around the inside of the glass. “That’s when the girl showed up.” He gave Stan a look. “I’d already banged my hand on the bar a couple of times to get the bartender’s attention. Nothing. He was a skinny guy, looked like the guy who used to drive for Greenspan.”

  “With the pop-out eyes?”

  “Yeah. He’s a real pig.”

  “I knew his brother. He was okay.”

  “Yeah? He musta took after the mother.” Al lifted the glass of cognac. “So, I said to Jimmy, Maybe we should split up and I’ll go to the other bar and you stay here. And Jimmy says, Maybe we should jump over the bar and give this guy a shot . . . and we’re laughin’ . . .” Al shook his head. “And, there she is.”

  “The girl?”

  “Yeah, the girl,” Al said, his big voice rising. “Who the hell did you think I meant?”

  “Sorry,” Stan said.

  “She steps right in between us, like she knows us . . . like she’s with us.” He took a big swig of the cognac. He lips pulled into a narrow line. “Like a float in the Easter Parade,” Al said.

  Stan put his spoon down, lifted his glass.

  “And Jimmy and I give each other the eye.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Good looking girl. Dark hair. Cut all short. Like she did it herself. She’s wearing a dress. Not black.” He gives Stan a look. “Burgundy.” He takes another drink of the cognac. “Plain. Very nice. Classy.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So, she slides in, she doesn’t say anything, just stands there, staring straight ahead. I smack my hand on the bar another time, not that that skinny fuck of a bartender pays any attention. I hate this guy, I say to Jimmy. Jimmy grins. The girl does nothin’.” Al frowned. Three deep lines across his forehead from end to end. “That’s when it started,” he said, “you can tell Maury that.”

  “Okay.”

  “Jimmy started it. He talked to her; she didn’t say anything. You tell Maury that for me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘You got an evening gown back,’ he said to her.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding. He’s lookin’ right at her. They’re practically touching. And he says it quiet, but I hear him and I know she hears him.”

  “Just like that,” Stan repeated.

  “Just like that,” Al said. “You know Jimmy, with that low voice—he can sound like the guy in the middle of the night who plays jazz on WNEW. That’s how he says it to her. Like it’s a secret.”

  “Wow,” Stan said.

  “In a million years I could never say a thing like that to Lil. I might say, hey, that’s a nice dress you got on, or your hair looks good, but an evening gown back is out of my range. Not Jimmy’s—he probably threw his ma a line when he slid out of the womb.”

  “Ha,” Stan said.

  “He was always that way with girls. From the beginning.” Al gave a sharp laugh. “He used to take girls to my Uncle Lawrence’s furniture store and try out the bedroom sets.” He shook his head. “We were fourteen.”

  “Your uncle let him?”

  “No. What are you—crazy? He broke in.”

  “I’ll be . . .”

  “Yeah. Jimmy and the ladies. From the beginning. No big surprise.”

  “I guess not.”

  Al polished off the Rémy. “And then because she didn’t react I thought maybe he didn’t say it—maybe it’s the music and the ice cubes hitting the glasses or everybody crowding around because she doesn’t move, and he doesn’t move, and I think, hell, maybe he didn’t say it, maybe I’m hearing shit, maybe I better slow down on the Dewar’s, and right as I’m about to say to him Did you say something, she pushes her hair out of her eyes. It wasn’t in her eyes, but you know that gesture?”

  “Sure,” Stan said.

  “And she looks at him.” Al puts down his glass. “So I can’t see her face because she’s looking at him, but I can see his face and he says to her, ‘You want to dance?’ And he slips his arm around her waist and he dances her away from the bar.”

  “He dances her away from the bar.”

  “Yep,” Al said. “Like they’ve been dancing together forever.”

  “Just like that?” Stan said.

  “Just like that. Into the crowd.”

  “And where was Cheryl?”

  “At the table with Lil. Where we left them.”

  “Wow.”

  Al rubbed his hand across his face. “He gave me a little lift of the chin as he went by me. Just a little lift of the chin,” Al said. He looked hard at Stan. “That was it.”

  “I’ll be . . .” Stan said.

  “Did you want the check, sir?” the waiter said.

  Al lifted his eyes to the waiter. “Did I give you that impression?”

  “Oh, no, sir . . .”

  “Did I gesture that I wanted the check?”

  “No, sir. Not at all.”

  Al’s eyes had narrowed, his back was straight, and the fingers of his left hand had curled slightly into a fist.

  “It’s okay,” Stan said.

  “It’s not okay,” Al said.

  “It’s okay,” Stan said. “Take it easy.”

  “It’s not okay,” Al said agai
n.

  Stan looked up at the waiter. “Bring us two coffees,” Stan said.

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter said and took off like a rocket.

  The two men sat in silence. Finally Stan spoke. “Did you see it happen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, man.”

  “I was trying to figure out how I was going to get four drinks to the table since the fucking bartender was not interested in giving me a tray—he gave me a look like he thought I was going to steal it—so I had two drinks in my hands and I thought I’d take those two and then I’d come back for the other two and they danced out of the crowd for a minute. Jimmy didn’t see me, he had his back to me but then he spun her out, and he was facing me going backwards. Dancing backwards,” Al said louder. “Let me emphasize. Dancing backwards.” Al said in his baritone.

  Stan nodded.

  “He was smiling.”

  “Jesus,” Stan said.

  Al’s lips pulled up against his teeth.

  They were both quiet for maybe a minute.

  “Chick is handling the lawsuit,” Al said.

  “Against the Saxony?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Stan said.

  “Negligence,” Al said. “I guess that’s what they call it. The barrier, the wall, whatever the fuck it was, behind the plants, you know, where it gave way.”

  “Right,” Stan said.

  “Did you see the fucking Post?” Al said.

  “No. I missed that.”

  Al lifted his big hands and held them about a foot apart in front of him, cupped as if he were enclosing a caption. “Jersey man dances off rooftop. That’s what they said. Jersey—man—dances—off—rooftop,” he said it again—each word slowly and separately and distinctly, as if he were talking to someone Chinese. “As if Jimmy couldn’t dance. As if Jimmy was some jerk who couldn’t dance, who didn’t know his way around because he was from Jersey. That was the headline. Do you fucking believe that?”

  “Terrible.”

  “They should sue the fucking Post,” Al said.

  “They should.” Stan shook his head again. “Jesus.”

  They sat quietly. Al picked up his glass of Rémy, realized it was empty and set it down again.

  Stan leaned forward. “Well, he was a man who lived on the edge.”

  Al straightened his big shoulders against the red leather booth, looked at Stan hard, “Is that supposed to be funny?”