by Alon Preiss
“I’ve never met anyone,” Daniel said, “who could quote from Mein Kampf verbatim.”
Mr. Tierney smiled, then nodded gently off to sleep.
Daniel looked around the room, at the dancing partners, the dancing associates, listened to the music of the Artie Shaw orchestra, Artie long absent .... in this light, with the dimness of the candles, the Connecticut stars flickering behind the shoulder of the band leader, the dancing attorneys seemed different, transformed ... in the moonlight, the candlelight, pasty-pale, hollow-eyed ... what were they, if not dancing skeletons, smiling without mirth or will, urged to gaiety by some psychic, hypnotic force, dancing in circles, ‘round and ‘round, waiting sadly for the music to end, each song a dull, barely audible clamor from some happy place off in the far distance, almost completely lost in the fog of sullen, long-ago memory?
Mr. Tierney slept for an hour at his table in the middle of the dance floor, and other attorneys thanked Daniel with quiet tact, when no one else could hear. The story was always the same. The firm prospered when Mr. Tierney was happy. He still had a lot of power. He might not know your name, but he would fire you if you disagreed with him, especially in a public setting. Daniel might have toadied shamelessly in the face of evil, but he should not think of it that way: hadn’t he saved his own job, and made everyone else’s life easier? Don’t you think I knew that? Daniel finally said irritably, the fifth time he was enthusiastically complimented on his lack of backbone.
Daniel found Natalie in the corner, watching the band.
“That was a stupid, almost catastrophic thing you did,” he said curtly.
“My family was liquidated by the – ”
“90% of the goyim in America believe exactly what he believes,” Daniel said. “He just says it out-loud, because he’s senile and has no filter. That is the one and only difference – the only one – between the man who pays my salary and every non-Jew who has ever bought one of your paintings. Your clients spout anti-Semitic diatribes only after you’ve left the room. If you don’t want to do business with anti-Semites, Natalie, then don’t do business with non-Jews. Move to Tel Aviv.”
“Daniel ….”
“Can’t you ever listen to me?” He walked away without waiting for a response, ordered a double vodka at the bar and took it outside. Standing beneath a shady tree in the cool evening breezes, he looked out over the club’s acres of green, where retired partners came to golf, swim, play a bit of tennis, drink port and smoke cigars. Someday, my boy, Daniel told himself, all this shall be yours.
Daniel did not realize until that moment how much he had always dreamt of power and wealth, to clothe a woman in luxury, to live a life in which he could be contemptuously dismissive. To Daniel, power merely echoed in the void; in a neutral universe, he had nothing to fear. Emmett, on the other hand, had always shunned power and strong emotions and cravings, all embodied in the black swirling darkness he had seen so briefly as a young boy, the darkness that still threatened.
The day he finally met Irina, Emmett wrote the article about the Istanbul festival for the Wednesday New York Times, where it would be buried on page C-11, or thereabouts. He praised Irina’s performance, compared her to Garbo – especially in her secretiveness, mystery, and effortless screen presence – and suggested that a phenomenal career awaited her. It would be flattering but meaningless, sitting there, dead-on-arrival on page C-11, on a Wednesday, an article written by a nearly unknown if perhaps promising journalist. He narrated the story of her life with only hints of the international criminal network he felt certain lurked in her background; her slightly shady history added a great deal to her intrigue, but Peter had been able to confirm only small levels of mafia involvement, and, anyway, Emmett did not want to endanger her. He sympathetically discussed her life down and out in New York, her confusion, her beauty, her magnetic pull.
On Wednesday morning, after scouring the paper for his article, he was startled to discover that it apparently had been killed. More work than usual had gone into that story, a trip around the world, detective work in New York and an exhausting run through dangerous streets, but he fully expected to receive a 50% kill fee shortly. Once adequately reassured that the mob had forgotten her, Irina would return to Yaroslavl, dejected. Perhaps she would marry a local boy, have some children, eat potatoes and beets until she died.
Although his story was dead, Emmett was nevertheless determined to salvage the effort. And so he picked up the phone and flipped through his rolodex. Senator Solomon’s number was there, exactly where it should have been, written in Katherine’s tiny, neat script. At that moment, it seemed safe to assume that, confronted with the facts, the senator would admit everything. Surely he would recognize that the smoking gun was out there somewhere, that he could not hide the truth forever. Emmett would firmly explain what it was that Solomon had done, Solomon would admit everything and resign. As he stood there in his apartment, his mind racing as he listened to the electronic blip of the ringing telephone, this plan seemed perfectly reasonable, the logic of a rational man.
Someone answered the phone: Office of Senator Stephen Solomon. Emmett explained who he was, that he was an old, old friend, that the senator would be eager to speak with him. To his surprise, the next voice he heard was that of the esteemed senator from New York himself.
“Emmett,” Solomon said, and he sounded older now – as indeed he was – and somehow not as harmful. He lacked the energy of youth, when Emmett would see him on television, attacking his perceived political enemies, praising the war. For just a moment he remembered his father’s face filling with dismay as he watched his old pal ranting in front of the nation. Then the image vanished from Emmett’s mind.
Solomon noted that he had not heard from Emmett for a good many years, and said that he appreciated the Season’s Greetings card that Katherine sent each year. “I like Katherine very much,” he said, his voice bare of affection. He congratulated Emmett on fatherhood.
“Thank you,” Emmett said. But he should get straight to the point. His voice cold and businesslike, he explained to Solomon that he was now a reporter, that in addition to his regular job as a columnist for an international magazine, he’d been doing some writing for the New York Times.
Solomon made a number of exaggerated clucking noises, pretending to pretend to sound impressed by Emmett’s achievement.
“Anyway,” Emmett went on. “I have learned that a number of years ago, you traveled to Pattaya, a resort town in Thailand. There you met with a well-known Russian mobster, whom you knew from your Brighton Beach connections. You introduced a Khmer Rouge rebel doubling as a legitimate businessman to the Russian mobster; they then made a deal to distribute diamonds from Khmer Rouge mines throughout the world, circumventing the embargo and sneaking more money to the rebels.”
“Uh huh.” Solomon sounded bemused, nothing more. “You’ve ‘learned’ this, have you?”
“Do you have any comment?”
“Emmett,” said Solomon. “I’ve ‘learned’ you screw cows. I’ve ‘learned’ you rape your mother. You eat shit for breakfast. You set your dick on fire and take pictures. Have any comment?”
Emmett tried to hold his voice steady.
“Mr. Solomon,” he said, “I’m sorry to have to ask you about this, because of your friendship with my dad, but I think – ”
“How have you learned this, Emmett? What could possibly have given you such an idea? It sounds almost like ... I don’t know. James Bond. I’m flattered at the intrigue, you know. But how am I supposed to comment?”
“Do you deny it?”
Solomon sighed, tiring of the conversation, completely unthreatened.
“Of course,” he said. “Do you have any evidence at all of this story you’re wasting my time with?”
“Sure,” Emmett said. Did Senator Solomon think he would just pick up the phone and make an accusation like this if he hadn’t seen documents proving it? He had documents, of course. Reams of documents proving the
allegations.
“Well,” Solomon said calmly, “since the allegations are false, I doubt you have documents proving them. Why don’t you bring these documents by sometime when you’re back in New York? We can have a laugh.” He paused for a moment. “You know, why don’t I call Terry Hairston, the Washington bureau chief? He should be able to bring them by. You did say New York Times, didn’t you, Emmett?”
Quickly, Emmett stammered, “Well, I have been doing some writing for the Times – you know, movie stuff ... things like ... No need to call Mr. Hairston, ‘cuz this is just freelance, just a thing that I ....” His voice trailed off hopelessly.
“Oh, well good. Movie stuff. I thought you were covering the Hill or something like that, Emmett. I thought maybe you were their new regular Washington guy. Well, good for you. Just dabbling a little on the side with this foreign intrigue, right?”
Emmett said that was correct, and rather politely told the senator that he appreciated the time he’d taken out of his schedule to talk. Emmett promised that he would bring the documents over to his office as soon as he could.
“The documents proving my criminal activities?”
“Yeah,” Emmett muttered, sweating desperately in the middle of his apartment, phone clenched in his clammy fist. When he listened to the senator speak, all he could picture was the damp, icy blackness where the senator’s face should have been, the swirling blackness.
“Well, all right. I’d like to look at them and do my best to explain how you’ve managed to make this mistake. And I’ll look forward to seeing you, Emmett. Haven’t seen you in such a damn long ....” He breathed rather heavily on the phone, then added, “I’ll give you a scoop, though, to reward you for your perseverance. One week from today I’m going to announce that I’ve formed a committee to explore my options for the next presidential election. It’ll be rather historical. You’re free to run with that, Emmett.”
Emmett thanked him. When he hung up the phone, his entire body was weak and shaking. He went to his bedroom, shed his clothes, climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over his head.
Several days passed. Emmett stayed in bed, embarrassed by his utter defeat, once again, at the hands of Senator Solomon. Katherine took his temperature, insisted that he was normal. Emmett said he must have come down with Epstein-Barr, finally. “This is my dream,” he said. But on Sunday, his spirit soared: to his surprise, the Istanbul article appeared on the front page of the Sunday Arts & Leisure section, above the fold alongside a large photograph of Irina standing on 8th Street beside an abandoned apartment building. She looked angry, untouchable. A good picture.
One agent called Irina on Monday morning, then another one called at noon. She answered the calls with the coolest professionalism she could assert, but Linus, sitting in front of his television, saw the excited, irresistible grins. By the mid-afternoon, she sat in the office of a New York agent, who was speaking quickly about something she could barely understand.
“A front page story about an unknown Russian actress would not ordinarily prompt any attention at all,” the agent said, “even in the Times.” But, he explained, a few days earlier, the casting office for a major studio had sent a breakdown around town, begging for the appropriate actress to play a Russian femme fatale in a big budget thriller entitled Death’s Whisper. The stars were already in Switzerland, shooting had already begun. The last-minute casting call was a Gone With the Wind story. There would be no time to teach the actress how to speak with a Russian accent. Filming was scheduled to begin shortly, and a major role remained uncast. Perhaps a real Russian! agents thought over their morning orange juice upon flipping open the Times, which seemed to them a novel idea. And so they called New York information, made contact with an unknown journalist who sent them to Irina’s doorstep.
“Why so hard to find an actress?” Irina asked.
The agent smiled, took a breath.
“Believe me, they wanted a real ‘movie star’ for this role,” he said. For reasons that would become obvious to Irina half a year later, every major young actress in Hollywood had turned the role down. He tried to explain this away. “Big stars are always afraid to take chances. They’ve built an image based on a particular image, they have too much to lose.”
Irina nodded. “I am not afraid of chances,” she said. “I have nothing to lose.”
Five hours later, Irina was relaxing in a first class seat on a flight to California, drinking champagne, eating crackers and caviar. Far below her, only vaguely aware of the airplane’s roar, Emmett sat on the roof of his building in the cool blackness, the U.S. Bank Tower glowing through the smoggy night.
The next day was a whirl of activity. She arrived in Los Angeles, met quickly with the casting director, an aggressively fashionable woman in her early forties, with whom she watched ten minutes of Chernyy Glaz. Irina preferred to show her a few scenes near the end, in which she recited poetry with Mahtumkuly and slaughtered dastardly villains with controlled intensity. “Impressive,” the casting director said, then, with a laugh, “Didn’t look like you needed lessons. Ever kill a guy?” Irina said, “Yes,” and everyone had a good chuckle. The casting director then explained the plot of the new film, which Irina couldn’t understand at all. She knew only that she would portray the villain, that her character was a decoy sent by the Russian military, or the mafia (she couldn’t quite follow the story), and that in the end she would fall aflame from the top of a cliff, or from a helicopter, or both. “We need a woman between five eight and five ten,” the casting director said, “because they built a robot to double for her as she falls off the cliff. They didn’t want to use a dummy, because they wanted her legs to kick about and her arms to wave in agony.” She laughed hollowly. “They’ve already filmed the fall. It’s very gruesome and realistic.”
The casting office made its recommendation, and Irina flew off to Switzerland to audition for the director right on the set. She was frightened to meet him, since his commercial success was world-famous, even in Moscow. He was now forty-five years old, though he had once been Hollywood’s enfant terrible. He was famously homely, child-like and self-involved. At his request, the studio had built a detailed little city nestled in the frozen snow between two mountain peaks. “It’s beautiful,” she told him with sincere awe. It’s my castle in the snow. He ignored her comment without a smile and handed her a prop machine gun. He gave her instructions while staring down at his fingertips. “Pretend you’re killing a man,” he said, then looked up impassively. She complied, squeezing the trigger, picturing with numbed horror the man with the Stalin mustache just an instant before his head exploded like a grenade. The director nodded. “Now, imagine that you love me, but that you have to kill me this afternoon. We have only two hours together. Perhaps I know that you are going to kill me ... you suspect as much, but you are not sure.” He spoke very quickly and impatiently. “You want me to know how you feel, that you love me, that is, not that you must kill me, but if I do know – as, indeed, you suspect – that you must kill me, you want me to know how much it hurts you and how much you wish you didn’t have to, and that you do in fact love me. Whether you do love me, in spite of your having to kill me, or whether your declarations of love are just another ploy .... That’s up to you. Tell me you love me.” Irina tried to catch up with his line of thinking, but she didn’t want to seem stupid. She imagined Viktor sitting before her, Viktor, the young man who had first exposed her to the world of murderers, and who had forced her to kill to defend herself. Was he alive or dead? She did not know. Years ago, for one tense minute she had been prepared either to kill him or return willingly with him to his apartment. She looked into the director’s eyes. I hate you, Viktor, she thought, and she said, “I love you,” with restrained hostility. Almost absently he gave her the job, and by the afternoon she was in front of the camera, locked in the embrace of a famous, plastic-handsome young Hollywood leading man and speaking lines that, to her, made no sense at all. The snow blew about her, the wi
nd howled, and she felt like a princess.
*
For Daniel, Thursday should have been exactly the same as Tuesday. But something felt different this morning – there was something different about this day, about the way the air-conditioning in the office felt. Then, his secretary, Janet, marched into his office with a flourish, triumphantly placed a small package onto his desk. The wrapping paper showed ducks in fireman hats. The Birthday Boy! was printed all over the paper.
“How could you have known!” Daniel exclaimed, not mentioning that his birthday had come a month earlier, in June, not July.
Janet smiled. She was twenty-two, and she lived in Queens. Her accent was thick as spaghetti sauce, and she was just becoming a little overweight. Her face round and happy, her eyes beaming, she would one day be a little girl’s favorite grandmother.
“A few months ago,” she said, “when your wife called the office, and you weren’t in, I said you wouldn’t tell anyone your birthday, and she told me when it was.” She smiled more deeply, and he did too. “How old, could I ask?”
“I’m not sure.”