“Oh well,” Kevin said. “What would really be the good of that? I mean, as long as you’re satisfied with your piece?”
Hard to believe. Even though I had expected it.
“Considering the magnitude and all,” I said, very slowly, “I think my end might go up a little.”
“Sure,” Kevin said quickly, though he looked definitely worried. Of course he’d have no idea I’d opened that briefcase. “We’ll work something out ...”
“Was this how you got so interested in drug rehab, Kevin?”
“Now, now. I’m sure you don’t really need to know about that end of it.”
“Just idle curiosity,” I said. “But you know, there hasn’t been a whole huge amount of freedom of information any-where on this deal. That can cause a person some problems, you know what I mean? It was a bit dicey at my end too.”
“Ah, but I knew you’d come through, Tracy. You always do.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I always come through.”
“I guess you didn’t bring it tonight, though?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I need … three more days.”
“Why so long?”
“Remember, dear. What you don’t know won’t hurt you?”
“All right, then. You’ll bring it here?”
“No. You’ll have to pick it up.”
“Where?”
“The bridge.”
“Bridge? What bridge?”
“The one to my place. Around the middle of the walkway up there. At one A.M., let’s say.”
“Jesus. It’s a little theatrical, don’t you think? Does it really have to be there?”
“If you want to get your package it does.”
“Okay, okay. You’re not mad at me or anything, are you? Did you really have such a tough time over there?”
“I’m not mad at you,” I said, surprised to find that this was true. I wasn’t angry, only cold. “It was interesting. I learned a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Voodoo.”
“Voodoo? Like sticking pins in dolls?”
Like reaping the whirlwind.
“All in due time,” I said. “There’s a time and a place for everything. “
Kevin yawned.
“You’re right about that,” he said. “I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ve been having trouble lately. But now you’re back ...”
We both stood up.
“What’s it all going toward?” I said. “By the way.”
“Oh, nothing particular. General expenses. Why?”
“There’s a rumor going around you’re starting a feature.”
“No. Completely false. It would be nice, of course. But I really don’t think I’m ready.”
Lauren would be thrilled to hear that, I thought.
“Oh yeah,” Kevin said, coming around the table to walk me toward the door. “Lauren.”
Like he’d read her name right off my mind.
“What about her?”
“I just wanted to ... to wish you good luck. Both of you. Together. I’d like to see things work out.”
“You would?”
“Well, maybe there’ve been some problems,” Kevin said, tapping his hand against my shoulder. “I won’t say I totally didn’t have anything to do with them if there were. But you know. Situations change.”
Suitably equivocal, that was. We’d reached the door.
“If you say so,” I said. I really didn’t know what to make of any of this. I pulled the door open and stepped into the hall.
“So,” Kevin said. “Best wishes always. That’s all I meant.”
“Was it?” I said. I could feel that I was gaping at him. “Well, thanks a lot.”
“Good night, then,” Kevin said. “See you in a couple of days.” And he smiled and shut the door in my face. I stood there for a moment, goggling at the keyhole, and then I went on down the stairs.
The lights on 19th Street hadn’t been repaired yet, but though I remembered the mugging attempt with perfect clarity, I didn’t hurry. I had Yonko to watch my back this time, after all, and there seemed to be something suitable about walking in the dark. Kevin had thrown me another loop with that parting line, though I didn’t think it really affected the basic paradigm. The machinery was in motion anyway and it would do what it would do.
It was out of my control. I had my own secret now, my own webwork of seduction. Necessity had brought me to it, or so I believed, and I believed also that the secret was wrapped up in love and not only in fear, though I couldn’t tell for sure, because the whole point was that it was secret from me too. The flower of love grows out of the deep fearful night, or that’s what S.K. says, anyway. I’d made the movements well enough that I honestly no longer knew exactly what I was doing, but there on the silent street I had a premonitory glimmer of just how fearful that night could turn out to be. Enough that I had to hope I wasn’t making a mistake. There was no way of knowing absolutely if the scales had fallen from my eyes or onto them. There was no light available to me now; I was on my own in the dark.
18
ON MY WAY BACK to the Earle I stopped by the late night liquor store on 14th Street and bought myself a pint of something to settle my stomach and quiet my nerves and help me get to sleep and everything. In my room I sat up for most of the rest of the night, drinking bourbon and tap water and watching a series of vampire movies on TV. I was getting TVed to death, and the bed was starting to look and feel like an ashtray. When the set finally collapsed into white noise, I just rolled over and went to sleep,
When I finally woke up the news was on, the six o’clock evening news, that is. I was becoming a real nightbird, but at least it did suit my situation. I had a shower and got dressed. Took a look at the bottle and decided I’d better let it alone. I went out. Grushko was on point downstairs. He trailed me to a bank of phone booths on Sixth Avenue. I didn’t think the Bulgarians really would have had the connections or ability to tap my line at the hotel, but they’d surprised me a time or two already and I didn’t want to take any chances.
I got lucky. Lauren was home and willing to stay there until I could come by, which I told her was going to depend on circumstances. These circumstances involved the evasive action I would need to devise to shake off Grushko, though naturally I didn’t tell her that.
I hung up and went farther west, heading for Seventh Avenue, with Grushko keeping a precise half block behind me. Whenever I glanced back at him I saw the Pink Pussycat shopping bag swinging at the full length of his arm, like the pendulum of a clock. I was just never going to get used to that part, but Lord willing it would all be over in a couple more days.
Grushko almost missed the light crossing Seventh. Almost, not quite. He got back in position as I went down Barrow Street. After a little way I turned onto Bedford and then went into Cholmondeley’s.
It was cocktail time in the West Village and I got the last free stool at the bar. Grushko had to take a table and he didn’t look very happy about it. Probably they were having cash flow problems, I thought, but I wasn’t going to feel guilty over it; I’d never asked them to follow me everywhere I went. I ordered a piña colada because I don’t like piña coladas. I wanted to stay perfectly straight for Lauren, who generally preferred me that way. The drink came and I looked at it until Grushko was served his beer. Then I got up and strolled in the direction of the bathrooms around the corner in the rear. Cholmondeley’s is one of the few New York bars I know of that has a back door, and after crossing a small courtyard I was back on Barrow Street. I jogged to the corner, made a right, jogged to the next one and made a left. A couple of people turned their heads as I went by but none of them was Grushko. I slowed to a walk. No pursuit. Back on Seventh Avenue, I caught the subway for deepest darkest Tribeca.
Christine’s place, a loft in a commercial building on Duane Street, had formerly been Lauren’s own place, back in the days of yore around the time she had her stroke. I hadn’t been there much sin
ce those times, and when she buzzed me in I was struck by how long and steep that staircase to her third floor landing really was. I went up slowly, and when I reached her floor I turned and looked back down. It was quite some rough-and-tumble distance down the metal stairs to the steel street door. Yeah, I thought to myself, it probably would have worked.
“What are you staring at?” Lauren said lightly. She’d opened the door behind me and I hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, nothing, dear, nothing at all.”
“Well, come in, then,” she said, and turned away from the door. I followed her, looking down at her heels moving along the floor; her feet were wet and were leaving damp prints behind them on the wood. She’d just come out of the shower, I gathered. She wore a full red robe and her hair was also damp.
In a corner at the front of the main space there were a couple of armchairs, a low coffee table and a couch, on which last I sat down. Lauren remained standing, one hand cocked on her hip.
“I’m having tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”
“Sure,” I said. “Gladly.”
“There’s whiskey too if you’d rather,” she said with a half smile.
“Tea,” I said. “I never take anything stronger than weak tea and dog biscuits.” But I didn’t get any laugh for that one, only a quizzical look.
“Just a minute,” Lauren said, and she walked around the white wallboard box that served as a bedroom and disappeared into the kitchen alcove on the other side of it. I looked around; the loft was remarkably bare. The carpets and the plants were gone and I could see pale patches on the walls where pictures had evidently been removed. I leaned back, resting my head on the plush roll of the back of the sofa. The windows in the place were high, too high to see out of from a sitting position, though they let in a lot of light in the daytime, I recalled. Now the windows were fading from blue to black and what light there was came from track fixtures on the ceiling.
After a minute I heard the kettle begin to whistle and soon after that Lauren came back, awkwardly clutching two mugs of tea, a pack of cigarettes, and a silver-backed hair brush. I got up to help her but she shrugged me away and carefully lowered the whole cluster to the table. Then she sat down on one of the armchairs, drawing her knees up. I tasted my tea. Hot.
“I must look like a wet rat,” Lauren said.
“You look lovely,” I said, meaning it. “You always do.” Lauren seemed to blush a little, to my considerable surprise.
“From the way you sounded on the phone I didn’t expect you quite so soon,” she said.
“Things cleared up a little faster than I thought they would,” I said.
“Mysterious, aren’t we?”
“If you say so.” I reached for Lauren’s box of Marlboros, took one out and lit it. Lauren leaned forward to pick up the hair brush and went to work with it. Her hair was long and very thick. She lifted cords of it away from her head and with a distant expression on her face began to brush them slowly smooth. I watched for a minute and then, balancing my cigarette on its filter on the table, I walked around behind her chair and took the brush from her hand. The silver backing was dented and worn and I remembered that Lauren’s mother had given the brush to her when she married. Precisely, when she married me. I lifted a tress of her hair, heavy with dampness now, and began to brush it out.
“Ah,” Lauren said. “That feels so nice.”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” It had always been something I used to do during the good times. Lauren sighed but said nothing more articulate, and I went on brushing her hair, from the roots to the ends, until it was completely soft and dry. I have no idea how long it took because I was half hypnotized. At length I set the brush down on the arm of the chair and sank my fingers into the muscles of her neck. Briefly, Lauren rested against me as I rubbed, then she leaned forward and broke my grip.
“Sit down,” she said. “I need you over there where I can see you.”
Reluctantly enough I lifted my hands from her shoulders and walked back to resume my place on the couch. My cigarette had burned itself out and I picked up the nub and dropped it in an ashtray.
“If there’s a wasp in the room you want to see it?” I said.
“That isn’t it. That isn’t it at all.”
“So how do I look?”
“Tracy. Did you get my letter?”
“I got it,” I said. “I carried it around for a while. It wasn’t till a couple of days ago that I opened it.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid to.”
It was a novelty, and not an entirely unpleasant one, to find myself telling so much of the truth like that.
“Afraid of what?”
“Of some kind of elegant brush-off.”
“Then I hope it was a nice surprise for you.”
“Yes,” I said. “It was.”
“Would it have made a difference? If you’d read the letter earlier. Would you have come straight back?”
“Lauren,” I said. “I might as well tell you, I’m fairly deep in the mascara with Kevin at this point, in case you haven’t figured that out already. I mean, it’s turned out even more unpleasant than it looked when we were in Rome. And —”
“And that was when you told me to walk away from it all.”
“Kevin was using you as a cat’s paw and you could have gotten yourself killed.”
“And you? You’re immortal nowadays?”
“So far,” I said, and gave her a weak sort of smile.
“It’s not funny,” Lauren said, looking truly unamused. “Not if things are as serious as you say. “
“It’s pretty serious. Very serious, in fact. But you don’t have to be in it at all. It’s me and Kevin, basically.”
“Oh, basically,” Lauren said. Her face drew in for a second in white lines around her mouth. “Basically, it’s just you and Kevin, like it always has been.”
“Well, it’s a nasty little piece of business after all,” I said. Now I was confused enough to start to be angry too. “I don’t quite understand why you feel such a compelling desire to get involved in it, or get me uninvolved in it, or whatever it is that you want.”
“Because I’m your wife.”
Oh, that.
“Technically speaking,” I said. “If you assume rights you assume obligations too.” We were on familiar debating ground now and that was a line that had usually shut her up in the past.
“Exactly,” Lauren said. “I’m assuming my obligation to help you get out of this bloody mess.”
Startling, that was. But the habit of being abandoned to my own devices whenever the going got tense was too old to be broken so quickly, and I was already shaking my head no.
“It’s too late. It’s too late for that now, I’m afraid.”
“You’re both of you so stubborn. Can’t you make up your minds to get along or else stay away from each other?”
“We’ve tried it, you know. Tried both of those things. And anyway, don’t you and I sort of have the same problem? And maybe you and Kevin too?”
Lauren took a cigarette from the pack on the table and held it unlit between her fingers.
“You’ve been seeing a lot of him lately, haven’t you,” I said, following my hunch.
“Well. There was Florence, first, in April.”
“Florence?”
I see the chicken!
“Yes. I didn’t ... I wasn’t ... I suppose I let you think I’d come from New York when I showed up in Rome. I hadn’t. I’d been in Florence with Kevin and he went to Paris with me because I was doing a show and then I flew to Rome from there.”
“Oh, Christ. You did carry that bag across a few borders, then.”
“I didn’t know what was in it. I was telling the truth about that. And I suppose you won’t tell me, if you know now.”
“You’re right about that.”
“And I have been seeing him some, a lot really, since I came back here. Oh, I know I shouldn’t have, with whatev
er you’re into with him going on, I know that. But I didn’t get any answer to my letter, and I thought he might drop something about you — oh, don’t worry, I didn’t ask. And I had my own questions besides.”
“Get any answers?”
“Tracy, I do want to tell you the whole truth about this now. If there is any whole truth … I never left you for Kevin, I think you know that, but he was very sweet to me when I first got back to New York, before Italy I mean, and I don’t know, you know how nice he can be —”
“Sure I do.” I did, too.
“And I needed it, then. That was important. That was why I felt like … I owed him the favor with the bag. More than the part in the picture or anything like that. And before I came to Rome I was still very angry at you.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But after Rome I wasn’t angry anymore and when I was seeing Kevin again here, I ... I don’t agree with you about him. But in a way there’s nothing there. At least he doesn’t have the things I need. I think I’ve really known that for a long time now. “
Lauren struck a match to her cigarette, finally, and drew on it deeply.
“Then why do you keep going back to him?”
“Because he’s easier to be with than you are.”
“Easy,” I said carefully, “is not what it’s all about.”
“I know that,” Lauren said. “And I’m not going to see him anymore. “
I took a cigarette from the pack myself and lit it.
“You know, there’s a funny thing about Kevin,” I said. “I remember something that happened a long time ago when we were just out of school, kids practically, just beginning to learn the business. We were gofers on some cheapo flick and all of a sudden Kevin got a chance to boom. Hands on the equipment, man, that was a big deal to both of us then. Kevin had to hold a Sennhauser shotgun mike out at arm’s length without moving it any. And he couldn’t do it. He kept wobbling so the mike made noise, so then they gave it to me.”
“What’s funny about that?”
“Well, after about thirty seconds I thought my arm was going to fall off. And I knew my arm couldn’t hold the mike out there any longer. That’s when I learned something. It wasn’t ever my arm that was going to do it anyway. My arm didn’t even really need to exist. It was my will that was going to do everything. I don’t think Kevin ever really learned that.”
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