“Me and Tamara? Lay off. Me, I’m the desk clerk at the Brevoort. I do errands for her, like pick up booze.” He feels his cheeks get hot.
“You got a job for when the Brevoort comes down?”
“Yeah. I’m learning real estate.”
“So you do stuff for her? Did you do anything yesterday?”
“Yeah. She calls down when I’m almost finished my shift—she knows when—and asks me to get her a bottle of House of Lords from the liquor store on Sixth.”
“House of Lords?” Harry says.
Ray whistles. “Fancy gin.”
“It’s what she drinks. I say, ‘Okay.’ Then a coupla minutes later she calls down and says to tell her when Artie gets there.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t ask her. You want me to keep going?”
“Keep going.”
“I don’t see Artie and I tell Joseph, the night man, to tell her when Artie comes in, but Joseph is queer . . . so I don’t know if he tells her . . . so—” He trails off, looks at them.
Ray says, “Just spit it out, for Chrissakes.”
“So I knock on the door and she don’t answer, but I hear yelling. I knock again and Artie opens the door, yells, ‘Scram, punk,’ and slams the door in my face. And Tamara yells, ‘No, no,’ and he’s yelling, and he opens the door, and says, ‘Get lost or I’ll punch your lights out.’”
“Then what?” Harry says.
“I wait in the stairwell. They’ll stop soon. She’ll throw him out, or he’ll leave, and she’ll let me in. I got something to talk to her about.”
TAMARA
“YOU PUT ONE OF YOUR barbies into my gin.”
“So, didn’t you feel better?”
“No. I went on woozy, drunk.”
“Best you ever were.”
“Get outta here. Don’t come back.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Knocking on the door.
“It’s Herb.”
“You got that loser always sniffing around.”
“I sent him for a pint.”
Artie opens the door. “Get lost, punk.” Starts to close the door.
“No, no. Stop.” She goes for the door.
He pulls her away and slams it. Flings her across the room. She lies still, the carpet rough on her cheek.
He’s lifting her. “I’m sorry, babe. You know I love you.” He puts her on the bed. Goes to the door, grabs the paper bag with the bottle from Herb, slams the door in his face.
“Artie,” she says. She doesn’t recognize her own voice.
“I’ll make you a gin,” he says.
HERB
“So I’m waiting in the stairwell.”
“They still yelling?” Ray says.
“No. It gets real quiet. Then I see Artie leaving. He gets on the elevator.”
“What about Tamara?”
“I wait a little while to make sure he’s not coming back. I knock on the door.”
“She says, ‘That you, Herb?’”
“Yeah,” I say. “You decent?” Feels like he’s in a movie when he says it.
“‘Door’s open,’ she says. Like she don’t care.”
“‘You sore?’” I ask her. She’s wearing this black lacy thing and stockings. I try not to look.”
“‘Not sore at you.’” She moves stiff like she hurts.”
“Why’d you really hang around?” Harry says.
“I got something I want to talk to her about.”
“Oh, yeah? Spill it.”
“There’s a penthouse come up at 24 Fifth. The concierge is my chum. Two bedrooms, two terraces. A real beaut.”
“‘Herb, my hero,’ she says. ‘Tell your chum it’s a sure thing.’”
“What a good fella,” Harry says. “Don’t you think, Ray?”
“A real good fella. Always doing the right thing without asking for a handout.” Watches Herb’s freckles turn bright red.
“I gotta admit there’ll be some kickback dough for me in it.”
DOTTIE
“YOU LOOK AWFUL, TAMARA.” TAMARA has dried blood near her scalp. “He knock you around again?”
“Don’t worry. We’re done.” She tries to light a cig but can’t hold the match. Dottie gives her a light. “I’m taking a penthouse at 24 Fifth. I’ll be outta here before he knows it.”
Dottie knows better. “He’ll find you.”
“No, no,” Tamara says. “This time we’re finished.” She’s half dressed, black lace corset, stockings. “Go take a look at the place. Tell them I want it.”
LOU
“YOU WANNA KNOW HOW I come to Tamara?”
“Yeah,” Harry says.
“Why you askin’? Somethin’ happen I should know about?”
“We ask the questions.”
“Listen, boys, I been bookin’ vaudeville and variety for thirty years. Nobody I don’t know. I know Norman from when he was a straight in burlesque. Fanny, too, when she took it all off.” He laughs. “Hoo boy, she was somethin’.” He makes like he’s palming melons.
“Yeah,” says Harry.
“Move it along,” Ray says, giving Harry the eye.
“Fanny tells me Norman found a real talent for the Soir. She knows Norman. He’s mister somethin’ for nothin’. She’s been there. So she makes me swear and then spills about Tamara.”
“Go on.”
“That Artie makin’ trouble again?”
“You don’t like Artie?” Harry says.
“Waddaya think?”
HERB
“I ALREADY TOLD YOU.”
“Tell us again. Every time you tell us, it’s a little different.”
Herb groans. “Okay. She’s sitting at the piano when I get there with the gin. Artie’s pacing back and forth. He hates me. He says, ‘What you doing here, mutt?’”
“Tamara says, ‘Leave him alone, Artie. He takes care of stuff for me.’”
“Artie gets real mad. ‘What the f—do you think I do? Always collecting losers,’ he says, or something like that. He looks like he’s gonna kill me.”
Harry stubs out his butt. “Losers.”
“Tamara gets up quick and gives me a fiver. ‘Thanks,’ she says, ‘And thanks for my penthouse.’ Artie goes nuts, stamping around, yelling. ‘What’s this about a penthouse?’ I don’t wait around.”
ARTIE
“WE MADE UP. I WAS hungry, she was drinking, wanted to take a bath.”
“You waited?”
“No, I wanted to get something to eat. Said I’d be back.”
“What about the Soir?”
“She don’t do a show on Mondays. Lou took care of that.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Corner Bistro, for a burger.”
“You went back to the Brevoort?”
“No, met a punk and went to his place to do some . . .” He’s not telling about the hashish. “Got higher than a kite.”
“You got the punk’s name?” Ray says.
“Sam or Joe, maybe.”
“Maybe Kilroy?” Harry says.
HERB
RAY POPS THE CAP ON the Coke and hands it to Herb.
“Thanks.” He’s sweating. Takes a swig of Coke. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can. You’re her hero.”
He wipes his face with his handkerchief, which is damp and dirty from all the sweating he’s doing. “I’m at the end of my shift and I’m doing a second shift right after.”
“Yeah?”
“They’re starting to let people go, and I can use the dough.” He stops; he can’t keep his hands steady. He grips the Coke bottle.
The ceiling fan wheezes.
“Come on now, you’re doing great,” Harry says.
“I give a guest directions uptown to the Shubert, then it gets quiet. I’m sitting at the front desk, maybe catching forty when something drips on my head. I look up and there’s a patch of wet in the ceiling there.”
“So there’s a leak?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah. I know right way where it’s coming from.”
“How?”
“Tamara’s suite is right above the front desk, on three, and no one is in two.”
“You went up.”
“Yes. I told you already. Why you keep asking me?”
“Do we gotta shake it out of you? Be a man.”
“I don’t like to leave the desk but it’s an emergency. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and we’re not full up, so maybe it’s okay.”
“Step by step now, chum,” Ray says.
“I bang on her door. She don’t answer. I hear the water. See it spilling from under the door. Use my house keys.” He chokes up. “Almost done.”
“The rug is soaked, water’s everywhere, pouring from the bathroom. I yell. Jesus. The tub is so deep. So deep. I see her hair first, floating like seaweed. Tamara’s looking at me there on the bottom in her black lace underwear and the water’s coming over the side.”
“What did you do?”
“I shut off the water.”
ARTIE
“GOT BACK TO THE BREVOORT as the sun was coming up.”
“You saying you didn’t come back all night?” Harry says.
The lights flicker, go on, off. The fan squeals to a stop. The room is dark except for the dots of the cigs.
“Christ,” Ray says. He opens the door. “Hey!”
Someone yells, “Generator.”
The lights come on again. The fan harrumphs, harrumphs.
“Where were we? Oh, yeah. You got back to the Brevoort for breakfast.”
“Can’t get near. The street’s swarming with cops.” He stops and stares at them. “What’re you playing at?”
“Playing? Who’s playing? You playing, Ray?”
“No, Harry, I’m not playing. You playing, Artie?”
“I’m tired. I wanna go home. Tamara’s waiting for me.”
“Heard she found an apartment, a penthouse.”
“Where’d you hear that? Oh, I get it, that mealy mouth mutt on the desk. Yeah, we’re taking the penthouse.”
“Correction. She’s taking the penthouse,” Ray says. “She’s dumping you.”
“We made up. We always do. She don’t always understand what she means to me.” He gets up. “So if you got nothing more to say, I’m blowing.”
“You wanna go home? He wants to go home, Harry.”
“We’re not finished yet, chum.”
HERB
“HER EYES ARE OPEN, LIKE bulging. I take holda her under her arms and pull her up. Get water all over me.”
“You shoulda left it for us, chum.”
“She’s got dark finger marks all over her neck.”
ARTIE
“WHY WERE THE COPS AT the Brevoort? Where’s Tamara?”
“Wise guy wants to see Tamara, Ray. Waddaya think?”
“Not very likely, punk.” Ray takes out his handcuffs. “Unless you got a connection with the ME.”
HERB
HARRY OPENS A COKE AND hands it to him. “You been a big help.”
“We done?”
“Yeah. You can scram now.” Harry stands. “We got your statement.”
“Uh—uh, Tamara. Is she dead?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?” Ray says.
Herb exhales. “So I guess she’s not taking the penthouse.”
—END—
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I CHOSE 1953, AND GREENWICH Village as the time and setting for “Wang Dang Doodle” because the Village was in transition. Folk singers and coffee houses were replacing jazz joints. Café Society and its star Billie Holiday were long gone. Old landmarks like the Brevoort were to be demolished, replaced by high rise apartments.
Willie Dixon’s “Wang Dang Doodle,” written around 1951, is a blues classic, recorded by KoKo Taylor, and later, the Pointer Sisters, and the Grateful Dead.
I was in college across the river, but I might as well have been in another country.
Annette Meyers, 2014
WEDNESDAY IS VIKTOR’S
BY BRIAN KOPPELMAN
WEDNESDAY IS VIKTOR’S FAVORITE. WEDNESDAY, Alik is off. It’s not Alik himself that Viktor does not like. Alik is Viktor’s cousin, his older cousin, by six years. He likes him. Respects him, too. Of course. But when Alik is in, which he is the other five days the shop is open, Alik pulls business from Viktor. That is what Viktor does not like.
Alik doesn’t think this way. After all, Alik opened the shop. Alik had the imagination to see that a shop could fit there, in what was once a news kiosk, then a locksmith, located in the cramped space between two buildings on the south side of West Eighty-sixth Street, almost exactly in the middle of West End Avenue and Broadway. There isn’t even a proper roof; the first few years, whenever the inspector came, Alik felt his heart try to accelerate, felt the need to fight the appearance of nerves, not yet sure how many hundred-dollar bills it would take to stop the inspector from closing him down. And, although he doesn’t tell it to Viktor over and over, as would be his right to, Alik remembers that he was the only one back then, in the shop, in New York City, in the entire United States of America.
Viktor and the rest were still in Kazakhstan, cutting and styling at the three shops Alik built in Almaty there, before that Major’s daughter began coming in three, four times a week for blowouts, always in Alik’s chair, always with makeup already applied to her cheeks and eyes, and lipstick to her thick young lips, and it was suggested that Alik consider either a different vocation or location. The words didn’t rhyme in Russian. And even if they had, Alik wouldn’t have cared. He noticed things like that here, appreciated them even, because he could allow himself to. Now. Before, back there, anything that might distract you from hearing the messages underneath the words people were using, anything taking your attention at all, could lead to the kind of mistake that’s very difficult to undo. Such as not packing up and leaving first the town, then the country itself, within hours of a subtle but direct conversation with the Major’s aide.
In the beginning, those hundred-dollar bills (two of them, it turned out), every three months from Alik’s back pocket to the inspector’s, were a week’s profit. But Alik had lived on little for much of his life. In some way, he—well, if he didn’t enjoy it, it did feed something in him, did stoke some deep knowledge that he could make do without whining, without even considering giving up. So he paid. You don’t get to open three shops, nine chairs in each, in a competitive market like Almaty without knowing who to take care of. And Alik understood that the same applied in New York.
Which is why Alik owns the shop and Viktor works there. Viktor could no sooner do the negotiation/payoff dance with the inspector then he could sprout a third arm from his belly and spin around on it ’til he launched himself to the moon. Not here. Not at home. He isn’t too stupid to do it, he’s not stupid at all, just cold, with sharp-edges, visible in the set of his jaw, the far off, uncaring look in his eyes which narrowed when angered and seemed to go black. A real Kazakh. Even his father said it, in the way only one Kazakh could say it to another, and then, only to one with blood ties.
What would happen if Viktor were left to deal with an inspector or regulator or any bureaucrat? Alik knows: Viktor would pay the money, but he would make the officials feel dirty for taking it, so that without even being aware of their true motive, they’d be rooting against him, and would not offer support when a rival salon would show up and want to open around the corner. And before he could stop it, and without ever knowing why himself, Viktor would be out of business.
But Alik makes people feel good when they are doing something bad together, makes them believe they are conspirators in a great, joyful ruse, like they are the only honest ones in a game everyone else is too ashamed to admit they are playing. So everyone likes Alik. And most feel just a little uncomfortable around Viktor.
There are two barber chairs inside the shop—the first, two feet from the front door, the second two feet from the back wall. Five days a
week, Alik cuts at the first chair, Viktor at the second. Each man hugs his own chair while cutting and has become so adroit at avoiding the other barber, there’s never even a moment they come close to touching.
The chairs, the barbers, the heads. Those are the only things that fit, besides razors, scissors, combs, and the blue disinfectant in which these tools soak. There’s no room even to put down a coffee. Or if there is, in a tiny nook next to the wall, it’s a risky thing to do, and you have to keep half an eye on the head’s leg, so you can spin the chair if he kicks unexpectedly, before he sends the scalding liquid flying. There is no back door. No emergency exit.
THERE ARE ALSO TWO CHAIRS outside the shop. Viktor unfolds and clunks them down on the sidewalk every morning when he arrives, after lifting the heavy iron security grate and before turning on the lights and sweeping. Heads wait in these outside folding chairs, and others stand beside them, also waiting, all year round, for one of the barber chairs to free up.
To Viktor, the way it’s supposed to work, the way Alik told him it would work, is that whenever a head got out of a barber’s chair, that chair would be filled by one of the heads in an outside chair. Simple. Fair.
But sometimes, too often as far as Viktor is concerned, the head will wait even after a barber’s chair has opened up. Viktor’s chair. These heads don’t seem to care about the way Alik told Viktor it was going to work. They decide Alik is their special barber. Their friend. And that’s that. They smile at him, and look sheepishly in Viktor’s direction, with maybe a shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, “It’s not you. It’s me.”
VIKTOR IS EVERY BIT THE cutter Alik is. Alik would admit this even. Viktor knows that. But Viktor also knows, because he is not stupid and puts those merciless eyes to good use, that Alik has a way of making heads think that he is their friend, cares about them, about their lives, about more than hair he is removing from their scalps.
Viktor sees that this matters, but cannot understand why it should. It’s a transaction. Business. You sit in his chair. Tell what you want. He gives you exactly that, to the eighth of an inch. You get up eleven minutes later and pay, in cash, fourteen dollars. Nineteen if, by your request, he uses scissors instead of the razor. If you tip, you tip. Thank you. That’s all.
Sometimes a customer will ask Viktor for his opinion—longer, shorter, part on this side or that. How should he know which your wife will like better? Which way is more handsome? He’s a man. Not a woman. Who has time for that kind of conversation anyway? There are more heads to cut, five an hour, fifty bucks after Alik takes his share. So Viktor shuts them down, demands that they choose.
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