by Adam Connell
“Darling, what’s good here?” Rook said.
“The meat loaf I like.” She took a pen from her hair. “I’m told the burgers are best medium. And our fries, but you can’t make a dinner of fries.”
“Meat loaf and fries,” Rook said.
“Chicken-fried steak,” Calder said. “Mashed potatoes, no gravy. And a couple waters. Please.”
“Where’s your name tag?” Rook said.
“My sister and husband are calling my name all night, I don’t need it at work, too.”
“Council Member across the street,” Rook said to her, “he ever come in here?”
“Once a week I see him, no set days, though.” She looked like she wanted to go back into the kitchen, sit down.
“You like him?”
“He’s a good tipper, doesn’t make a lot of substitutions, make taking the orders a hassle. But he’s one of them guys don’t think waitresses are people. Why?”
“I seen him on TV,” Rook said.
“I see lots of people on the TV,” she said and left.
“Chicken-fried steak?” Rook said.
“Chicken-fried steak. If I see it on a menu I’m having it, unless there’s something special someplace. The one thing I’ve found is good no matter where you get it is chicken-fried steak.”
“We could get this meal free,” Rook said.
“You are getting it free.”
“You know what I mean.” He put his menu back in the metal ring next to Calder’s, then straightened them. “Convinced someone to give you something gratis. You’ve never done that?”
“It’s been done. I haven’t made a career of it.”
“Like hell you haven’t. It’s all we do. Bend someone with a snippet of personal trivia you shouldn’t know and they wouldn’t want shared?”
Calder said nothing to that.
“You mentioned the wife. You think she’s what?”
“The key to all this. Her I could get to. She seems like someone easily convin — Someone who’d see it our way if we wanted. Wives have a history of influencing political husbands. Eleanor, Mary Todd, Lady fucking Macbeth. We put her mind to our side, she harangues Adelard. She’s passionate enough about it — ”
“Won’t work.”
“I’ve thought this through,” Calder said.
“I’m sure you have. Too much security now. There was that break-in the other night.”
“I didn’t force my way. That was Briggs and Lundin.”
Rook stared out the window. “Don’t you read the papers?” he said.
“Papers?”
“Jesus Christ,” Rook said. “The Post? Daily News? The goddam papers. Lundin and Briggs scared our Council Speaker and the missus pretty severe. Now there’s police all over that house, trolling up and down the block. She’s not even coming out, this wife who’s your key. And Adelard’s put in all kinds of electronics. It was in all the papers. The papers you don’t read.”
“How well you know them, Lundin and Briggs?” Calder said.
“Well enough that we’re gonna have some decent competition here.”
“They’re both liars,” Calder said.
“So am I, that doesn’t mean anything in this.” He looked away from the window, back at Calder. “The problem with Lundin is he’s too smart. The problem with Briggs is there’s about nothing he won’t do. The problem with Lundin is he’s perceptive, doesn’t make one mistake twice. The problem with Briggs is, he’s, they’re a disgusting pair the two of them.”
“Briggs, he’s a priest?” Calder said.
“They run into trouble they could also bring in Kinkaid. Or Faraday.”
“We’ve got Sotto,” Calder said.
“I’ve got Sotto if I need him. He has to bail you out on your first job, why keep you around? And we don’t have the twins, and we don’t have Beryl.”
A limousine stopped illegally in front of Adelard’s office. A few seconds later Adelard left the building, got into the car. Alone. Calder and Rook watched it drive away.
“I never been in a limo before,” Rook said. “I’ve lived in the city since I’m ten, never left since. Actually, only cars I remember ever being in are taxis.”
“Never set foot outside the city since ten?”
“What for?”
“If not the wife, then how do we do this?”
“She’s seen you, too,” Rook said. “That rules her out again, would make it harder.”
“Hasn’t seen you,” Calder said and spread his hands in victory.
“Adelard’s got sons, two or three. Papers mentioned them. One’s in Washington trying to be like his father.”
“The rest are around here?” Calder said.
Rook shrugged.
“So how do we — ”
“We find out. Find out where they are. Can’t be too hard. Then we lean on them a little. A lot. Lean on them till they’re broken, they run to their Dad. It’ll work.”
“This is getting more complicated.”
“Is why you don’t do political jobs.”
“I had no choice,” Calder said.
“As a general rule. Going forward. Petty work, that’s the bread and butter. In for a penny, not a pound. Not jobs the twins would prefer, just petty. A little bread, a little butter. Because people are petty, Calder, I’m sure we can agree on that. They want restitution for slights, or a clean breakup. To be loved just a little. Or some sentimental trinket they may not have a right to, but no way of getting at it.”
“Notoriety where they live,” Calder said. “Someone they hate embarrassed.”
“Yeah, see, you’ve had experience with this.”
“Coma wards aren’t so bad either.”
“Too much emotion involved,” Rook said. “Plus the rest of us look down on that. I’ll tell you, I’m looking forward to the Winged Lady’s lap dance.”
“Does it get more petty than that?”
Rook grinned. “Oh I’m more petty than most, what makes me so good at this. Any headway there?”
“I’ve only had a few hours.”
“Now you got two jobs, Adelard and her.”
The nameless waitress threw their plates on the table.
Rook actually fingered a napkin into his shirt collar.
“With few exceptions I don’t like talking when I eat,” Rook said. “This is no exception.”
TWENTY-FIVE
SUNDAY, Matins: 2nd Nocturne
Calder was waiting on the sidewalk in front of Tattletail. He figured there was less chance of seeing Briggs and Lundin if he was outside. Calder wasn’t afraid of them, just didn’t want to stir an already confused situation.
Town cars and limos unloaded fashionable clients. Calder hadn’t thought of Tattletail as high-class. A high-class strip club? Is there such a thing? Like an upscale yard sale? Maybe there is such a thing, Fish. This is a city of contradictions. Tattletail is high-class.
Calder was surprised — as he’d been the few times before — at the number of women going into the club. Unless they were lesbians, he didn’t understand the appeal. He’d seen one group the other night looked like a bachelorette party. Maybe their presence, it was a feminist show of support. Some cosmopolitan solidarity he’d never be able to decipher.
Some people thought he was a greeter, waited for him to open the doors for them, so he moved farther away. A car alarm was going off some blocks west. In the street the cars were honking at each other, this early after midnight. Swerving. During the half-hour he waited, Calder saw four near accidents.
“Handsome.”
Calder turned around, smiling. Tamm was wearing striped leggings — white and purple — and one of her Goth skirts from college. And a fuzzy purple sweater.
She said, “I almost didn’t expect — ”
“Did you not want me to come?”
She took his hand, and he was glad she did. “I wanted you here, that’s why I asked you yesterday morning. I say what I mean.”
He gave
her a kiss, a brief, hard one.
“Let’s move away before my customers get jealous,” she said.
They walked down Columbus Avenue, still hand in hand. There were a lot of people going in and out of bars, like shoppers going store to store in search of bargains. Only these shoppers were drunk, and in groups, and some looked too old to be welcome in the company that was keeping them.
“What would you like to do?” she said.
Calder almost said This isn’t my city but realized how it would come off, spoken. “I’m trying to think of maybe some activity you haven’t done, so you aren’t bored.”
“I’m not the tourist here,” she said and tugged down on his arm. “Tourist. Touristy. I wish there was something New York I could show you but all the sites are closed this late. You eat yet?”
“While ago. I’m getting hungry again.”
“I got another good place.”
“That could kill me.”
“No.” She hailed them a taxi, told the driver, “Bleecker and Sixth.”
“How come no subway?” Calder said.
“Only animals take the subway at night.”
She moved up to him, put her hand on his knee, kissed his chin, then his lips. He revolved towards her, returned the kiss with greater urgency, a hand gently cupping her neck. Getting the landscape of each other’s mouths once more, both of them relearning and teaching again their different styles and coming to a pleasant compromise that hopefully would last.
The cabbie watched them in the rearview at red lights.
Tamm was worried again that Calder would cop a feel, but he didn’t.
“Bleecker, Sixth,” the cabbie said.
Calder paid, and they got out on his side. Tamm led him down the street, a few paces ahead. There were a lot of couples out, mostly younger. Calder was amazed at how different the denizens down here were from their neighbors Uptown. The way they dressed, the loud music from their cars with windows open, the casual defiance.
“Here we are,” she said below an awning that read Joe’s Pizza. It was little more than an indoor hut with a few countertops and wobbly high tops crammed with sloppy eaters elbow to elbow.
“Wait here,” she said.
Calder watched the people again. He was becoming addicted to this.
She came out with four slices on paper plates, two bottled Cokes. “Help.”
He took his share and walked with Tamm across the way to Father Demo Square, which may have been square once but was currently a triangular park between Sixth, Bleecker, and Carmine. The park was lined with wood benches facing a tall, tiered fountain. Calder and Tamm sat together, paper plates on their laps.
“Pizza,” Calder said. “A tourist attraction.”
“Eat first, then tell me I’m wrong. I only come Downtown for very few things and this is top of the list.”
The pizza was thin and crunchy and wonderful. He didn’t know if it was the best he’d ever had because he rarely thought that way, comparing experiences by rating them. Especially when it came to food. Except those silly chicken-fried steaks. He didn’t care that much about what he ate. Except for those silly chicken-fried steaks.
He pretended to relish the slices because he thought it would make Tamm feel vindicated, and also proud at his enjoyment.
After they finished, after he threw away their trash, they sat together again, her left arm under his back with her other hand resting on his hip.
She thumbed a spot of sauce from his lip. “Wasn’t I right?”
“A tourist attraction, I’ll be damned,” he said. “A pizza shack.” He combed a drift of hair from her eyes. “They’re doing some business for two in the morning.”
“Even during the week it’s like this.”
They sat quietly, listening to the Village hum. Each of them had no desire to speak. Tamm felt she could easily fall asleep against him and didn’t think he’d mind. The traffic, foot and motor, grew lighter, as did its aqueous noise. Calder closed his eyes.
A while later Tamm stood up. Neither of them had any idea how long it had been.
“I’ll walk you home, it’s not far,” she said.
“You’ll carry my school books, too? They’re kinda heavy.”
She gave him an insane grin and grabbed him by the arm and half-hoisted him off the bench.
“I think you pulled it out of the joint.”
“Don’t be an ass,” she said, put herself next to him, slipped her hand into his back pocket.
“You remember where I’m living?”
“You told me, I remember. I remember just about everything.”
“And you know how to get there from here.”
“I do. You, I’d have to arm you with a map and compass.”
They went north up Sixth, east onto Washington Place.
“I haven’t a fucking clue what it is you do,” she said, “you never told me.”
“Tonsorial,” he said.
“The hell that means?”
“Barber.”
“A barber, I’m on a date with a barber.”
“Not in no salon,” he said.
“That’s better,” she said.
“Hospitals and hospices.”
“Don’t nurses do that?”
“Can’t be bothered. They appreciate me.”
“You need a degree for that?”
“Don’t know, don’t have one,” he said.
“I did notice the scars on your fingertips. At least it’s hospices and such. I’m not sure I could date a hairdresser. And you live above a bar.”
“For now.”
“You came to the city all the way from nowhere, to live above a bar and cut hair.”
“That’s concise,” he said. “I like spending time with families they’ve got a relative in comas. My presence, I think it helps somehow.”
“Let me know how this CV comes to a finish, then translate it for me cause it smells like evasions and I’m not getting a word of it.”
“Cause yours is so normal. Tell me about the women you work with.”
“Sexyish?” Tamm said.
“You can learn a lot about somebody who they work with.”
“You trying to learn more about me?” she said. “It’s nice, you wanting to know more.”
“In a twisty way. If I’m indirect, it makes me seem less desperate.”
“You’re not desperate at all, are you? There’s Nadezhda, she’s European. One of those republics splintered off the Soviet Union and they have very high foreheads. Belarus? She has this accent, makes me laugh and I shouldn’t. I have a hard time talking to her, I wanna giggle. Instead of saying nuts she’ll say it knots. Peaknots, walknots. It’s butchery. And don’t call her Naddy, but Dez is okay.”
“What’s she look like?”
“A tennis star. Freakishly long legs, she could cross this street in one stride. Hates shaving them, I have to keep reminding her. Small chest.”
“And she can take her clothes off for a living?”
“You saw Tress, Asian with the supernatural hair? I’m twice their size up there, and they’ve got more fans than I do. The going theory around the club is men like them cause they look younger than they are, and the ladies like them cause most have bigger tits so they don’t feel threatened. Not that you really get to see Tress’ tits.”
“This is some high sociology.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“You do get a lot of women there,” he said.
“Nadezhda loves that. Most of them are straight, though. Stuff that down your sociology bin. Dez, she isn’t.”
“Isn’t … ”
“Straight. She’s never even kissed a man. She’s a virgin at twenty-nine and she’ll remain that way till she’s murdered. She’s always on about, she’s, this feeling someone’s gonna kill her and that’s how she’ll die. Technically a virgin. Otherwise, though, she’s as slutty as they come.”
They walked into Washington Square Park whose entrances were barred with
portable steel fences that had been turned aside. Two soft-spoken drug dealers simultaneously offered them a laundry list of choices. Calder shook his head and the men kindly vanished.
“Polite,” Calder said.
“There’s Kitten,” Tamm said. “Five-ten. Straight blonde hair, straight as a razor. Solid D-cup, and hands bigger than yours.”
“A man?”
“Tranny, post-op. One way you can tell is they never get it to look right. She’s showed it to me up close. It’s pretty but, I don’t know, too symmetrical, doesn’t look used.”
“What about her Adam’s apple?”
“They laser it down.”
“Anyone know?”
“All of us, but few who pay to come in do. She’s gorgeous, has that slight touch of manliness to her beauty that gives her a peculiar appeal.”
They emerged on the northeast corner, refused another set of unobtrusive dealers, and headed up Waverly. They could see down University Place to one of the NYU dorms where students were smoking cheap cigarettes, huddled on the front steps like they were keeping each other warm in the Andes.
“I can’t believe you didn’t go to college,” Tamm said. “Or are you lying to me about that, too. So last I’ll tell you about is the Winged Lady. All you get is three.”
“I’ll take three,” Calder said.
“Truth is we don’t know much about her,” Tamm said and laughed. Calder liked the way the tip of her nose hooked down with her laugh, as if pulled from a string. “You’d have to ask Faraday. She’s his, sexist as it sounds. I mean, she doesn’t even dance, just stands there looking phenomenal. I can tell you, everyone falls in love with her once, anyone’s ever seen her. I used to be in love with her.”
“It go anywhere?”
“No, because there’s always Faraday.” There was a flavor of bitterness to her words, but Tamm didn’t know how to say it another way. “She’s not much besides splendor and grace anyhow.” Less bitter but, again, it was there for both of them to taste.
At Waverly’s eastern end they made a right onto Broadway.
“How long did it last?” Calder said.
“I pined for a few months. She never noticed, it’s at this point common to her.”
It was obvious to Calder that Tamm was one of those pixyish personalities that fall in love easily.