by Dorsey, Tim
Off-camera voice: “Okay, that’s enough.”
“I’m not finished.”
“That was great. You’ll do fine.”
“But I have more to say. I have to present the whole picture.”
“Please get up. We have to start filming the next guy.”
“No!”
Two men appeared from behind the camera and approached. “Okay, buddy, on your feet.”
Serge pulled a pistol from his waist and coldcocked one over the head, dropping him to the ground in front of the stool. He pointed the pistol at the other one, who raised his hands.
“Get back there and keep filming until I say to stop.”
“You got it.”
Serge tucked the gun away and sat back down, an unconscious man at his feet. “…So if you’re searching for that special someone, if you’re tired of the bar scene, generously misleading personal ads and blind dates that turn into restraining orders, look no further….”
The limo beat a red light at Thirty-eighth Street, a tight cluster of people sprouting through the moon roof. “And there’s the Chrysler Building,” said Serge. “The spire contains the penthouse where Walter Chrysler once lived, lucky bastard, except he’s dead….”
Maria chugged a plastic glass of champagne and swayed. “Isn’t he the best tour guide ever?”
Teresa blew a paper noisemaker, which unrolled and hit Sam in the side of the head.
After a quick series of stops on Serge’s A-Tour of New York, the limo pulled up outside the GE Building. Serge jumped from the backseat. “To the Rainbow Room!”
They took the elevator to the exclusive bar on the sixty-fifth floor, facing the Empire State Building. “I saw them film Conan in this building. O’Brien, not the barbarian. And once I sat next to Katie Couric at the table right there. Scorcese opened his 1977 opus New York, New York in this room with Tommy Dorsey on the bandstand…. Let’s go!” Serge heading for the elevators.
“We just got here,” said Teresa.
“We just ordered,” said Maria, holding up a full beer.
But Serge was off to the races. The women chugged a few sips and ran after him.
“…And this is Sparks Steak House. Paul Castellano got whacked right there…. Back to the limo!”
They stopped at the corner of Broadway and Fifty-fourth; Serge ran down some stairs to a basement.
“And this is Flute, used to be a speakeasy. The acerbic writer Dorothy Parker came here all the time. Now that was a broad! Used to answer her phone: ‘What fresh hell is this?’”
“I was just about to say that,” said Sam. Teresa elbowed her.
“Back to the limo!”
“Slow down!” yelled Teresa. “Do you always move this fast?”
“No. When I’m alone, I move faster,” said Serge. “Like when I came to see Conan last year. I arrived four hours early and still almost missed it. As usual, I built in a vast cushion of time because I always have a lot of anxiety that I’ll be late. I didn’t plan on the museums.”
“The museums?”
“East side of Central Park, Museum Mile. You got the Met, the Frick Collection, National Academy of Design, the Museum of the City of New York, the Whitney, Cooper-Hewitt. I knew they were nearby. I just thought I had the willpower.”
“But you just couldn’t resist?” said Sam.
Serge nodded. “Which still wouldn’t have been a time problem until I remembered the Museum of Natural History was on the other side of Central Park. That’s where they have the Star of India, the world’s largest sapphire, stolen in 1964 by flamboyant Miami Beach playboy Jack Murphy, portrayed by Robert Conrad in the delightfully campy Murph the Surf. After the arrests and a lot of negotiation, an anonymous phone tip led detectives to an outdoor bus locker in Miami, where the sapphire was recovered and later put back on display. The caper is so carved into my brain that I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see the gem in person. I made good time crossing Central Park to the museum, but then more trouble. To get to the gem room, you have to go through the Hall of Biodiversity. I really got hung up in there. Thousands of species on display, bacteria to great blue whales, phylums and families, marsupials, nocturnals, a rainbow of butterflies, blind fish from cold depths with no light, eels with scraggly teeth, bugs the size of your head, birds that can’t fly, squirrels that can, some shit with webbed toes and all these eyes, something else with dangling prongs sticking out its forehead. Then the other rooms, ancient civilizations, Neanderthals, dinosaurs, geological forces, continental plates, the stars and the cosmos, and finally, the Big Bang Room. My time-management was shot; started looking bad for Conan. Then, complete panic. My consciousness was expanding, id shrinking, the exhibits making me feel utterly insignificant, that life was a mere flashbulb going off, and I had a sensation of falling, trouble breathing, and I realized what it was. All this knowledge and awareness—I was getting closer to God. Which can be stressful. Takes a lot of intellectual curiosity and courage, and also you’ll get a bunch of heat from religious types because it involves evolution and science, which actually only points all the more to the existence of a deity, unfortunately not the kind you can use to boss others around….”
“So did you see it?”
“See what?”
“The sapphire.”
“Oh, the sapphire! Yes, I saw it. It was an unbelievable experience, the way the light breaks into six points across the oblate, azure surface. I got goose bumps. I was shaking so much I could barely hold the glass cutter steady.”
“A glass cutter,” said Rebecca, laughing. “What a riot!”
“Yeah, it was pretty funny. The guards had never heard that alarm before, and they didn’t know what to do. Two ran head-on into each other. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t finish getting through the glass. It’s a lot thicker than you’d expect.”
Maria tapped her watch. “Eleven o’clock.”
“Right,” said Serge. “We better get moving.”
The chauffeur parked as close as he could to the blocked-off streets, and they all began walking west on Forty-sixth, working their way through the packed crowd to Times Square. They reached the corner of Seventh Avenue and looked up. In one direction, a twenty-foot cup of steaming ramen noodles. In the other, the lighted New Year’s Eve ball.
“I’m hungry,” said Maria.
“Me, too,” said Rebecca. They went in a Sbarro’s for pizza by the slice.
Except Sam. She withdrew. She stood outside the restaurant watching a sidewalk portrait artist with no customers working on a charcoal of Tina Turner.
Serge left the restaurant and stepped up beside her. She knew he would.
“You don’t like me, do you?” he said.
Sam turned and looked him strong in the eyes. “I want you to leave my friends alone. I want you to start walking right now and keep going.”
“What?”
“I know what you are. You’ve got a record somewhere, and if you stay I’ll find it and turn you in. So get going!”
“That settles it,” said Serge. “I’m in love with you.”
“What?”
“I know what you are, too,” said Serge. “Intelligence and confidence are always sexy in a woman.”
Sam grabbed the back of his head and kissed him hard, then stepped back. “I have no idea why I just did that.”
The other women came out of the restaurant with slices of pepperoni on paper plates, cheese stringing to their mouths.
“Where’d those two go?” asked Paige.
“Maybe we should go look for them,” said Rebecca.
Teresa shook her head. “We’ll lose our spot. We don’t want to miss the ball drop.”
Dick Clark was on TV, counting down.
Men’s and women’s clothes trailed across the carpet of the posh, dark room.
Serge was staying on the fifty-first floor of the Millennium Hotel. He was in bed, on top of Sam. Sam usually preferred the top, but Serge had flipped her with an illegal wrestling
move. He reached beside the bed and yanked a cord, opening the curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows. The night air was white with light, thousands of tiny people jamming Times Square far below.
Sam was a loud one.
“Oh yes! Oh no! Oh yes! Oh no!…”
“I like you, too,” said Serge.
Sam reached up and grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head. “Oh my God! What are you thinking about? Tell me now!”
“The blooming of the tulips on Park Avenue, those little lamps in the New York Public Library, the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center, the playful audacity of the Guggenheim, the Babe, the Mic, Earl ‘the Pearl,’ Yoko, Prometheus…”
“Faster! Faster!”
Serge talked faster: “…The new Times Square, the Stork Club, the old Times Square, the Sunday Times, Black Tuesday, Blue Man Group, the ‘21’ Club, the ’69 Mets, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, corned beef on rye, My Dinner with André, Restaurant Row, King Kong, Queen Latifah, Jack Lemmon, the Statue of Liberty, Son of Sam, the Sharks and the Jets, the Flatiron, ‘Ford to City,’ Do the Right Thing, ‘Don’t block the box’…”
“Oh my God!…”
“Here it comes,” Dick Clark said on TV.
The ball began dropping outside, just over Serge’s bouncing derrière, the mob down on the street counting down. “…Ten, nine, eight…” Teresa leaned over to Paige as they watched the ball from the street. “Those two sure are going to be disappointed they missed this.”
“…Three, two, one…!”
“I’m there!” screamed Sam, back arched and quivering.
Serge raised up and exploded: “I did it my way!”
“Happy New Year!” said Dick Clark.
33
The first day of the new year in Manhattan.
Everyone hungover.
New York slowed to a crawl. The steam trays of oriental food in the corner convenience stores went untouched. Nothing selling except aspirin and stomach remedies. Others swore by ginseng. They sat on benches, trying to conserve movement, walking only when they had to, shuffling slowly through Times Square with the street sweepers.
Serge and Sam stepped over two people on the sidewalk in front of McHale’s Café and continued up Forty-sixth to the Edison Hotel. They walked into the 1930s lobby, deco murals wrapping around the tops of the walls, Rockettes, Twentieth Century Limited, Bronx Bombers, Cotton Club.
“They said they’d meet us in the restaurant after they checked out of their rooms,” said Sam. “Café Edison.”
“I know the place well,” said Serge. “Affectionately nicknamed the Polish Tearoom, a simple yet culturally rich coffee shop for Broadway people in the know. Neil Simon’s setting a play…Hey, there they are.”
Four women waved from a table up front. Serge and Sam walked over. A waiter arrived with pancakes and eggs.
“Where did you two disappear to last night?” Teresa asked with a grin. They were all grinning.
“Knock it off,” said Sam.
“We were beginning to worry you might not make it back in time for the train.”
“Never a problem,” said Serge. “I was keeping track of time.”
“I thought you didn’t want him along,” said Paige.
“Yeah,” added Rebecca. “We really don’t know anything about him.”
“Don’t think I won’t hit you,” said Sam.
They poured syrup and sipped tomato juice.
“I’m impressed,” said Serge. “You picked The Table.”
“What table?” asked Teresa.
Serge looked around the group. “You don’t know?”
They shook their heads.
“This is the table where Al Pacino shot those two guys in The Godfather. Remember when they taped the gun behind the toilet tank?”
“No way!” said Maria.
“Way!” said Serge. “Ask anyone.” He waved at the waiter. “Didn’t Pacino shoot those guys right here?” The waiter nodded.
The next thing the women knew, Serge was clutching an imaginary bullet wound in his neck with one hand, grabbing the tablecloth with the other, falling to the floor with all the dishes.
They were quiet for a time as they stood on the curb with their luggage, waiting for cabs.
“I’ve never been kicked out of a place before,” said Teresa. “Taxi!”
Half the group got in the first one that stopped and headed for Penn Station. Serge flagged down a second and the rest got in. “Follow that cab! I’ve always wanted to say that.”
The two taxis quickly covered the dozen blocks to Thirty-fourth.
“Here we are!” said Serge, helping the women out. The book club rolled luggage inside the building.
“You should have seen the original station, the historic one—they tore it down in 1963,” said Serge, hand over his heart. “But there’s a little silver lining. It produced a preservationist outcry. It’s been said that Penn Station had to die so that Grand Central could live.”
Their luggage wheels squeaked on the concourse. Serge rolled an overnight case and carried a box in his other arm.
“What have you got there?” asked Maria.
“This?” said Serge. “My trains.”
“Your what?”
Serge stopped and opened the box.
“See? There’s the engine, The City of Miami. They didn’t actually have a model one, so I had to buy a Union Pacific and repaint it by hand. Took hours. And this is the Rambler. I’m really proud of that one. Built it from scratch, balsa wood and dowels and Dremel tools. Got the plans from historic collections in the Palm Beach Library. As long as you know the gauge conversion, which happens to be three-point-five millimeters to the foot, the rest is easy. These silver babies are the train we’re walking toward. And you’ve got a hopper over here, a tanker, an old caboose, and a logging car that really tips sideways to dump its load. See the plastic logs?”
“When did you first get interested in trains?” asked Rebecca.
“Watching Captain Kangaroo. My favorite part of the show was a commercial. They had a train set on the soundstage, and the steam engine would come puffing out of a mountain, past Mr. Moose and Green Jeans and Bunny Rabbit, and stop and pour out a load of Rice Krispies from one of the cars.”
“Those models are all quite nice,” said Teresa. “But why bring them? Isn’t actually riding on a real train enough?”
“No.”
They resumed rolling luggage.
“They’re going to build a new one,” said Serge.
“New what?” asked Teresa.
“Penn Station. It’s supposed to be an unbelievable piece of modern architecture—I’ve seen the models, and I can hardly wait! I saw the president’s speech on C-SPAN during the dedication and took notes and committed it to memory: ‘Whether you are a wealthy industrialist or just a person with a few dollars to your name, you can feel ennobled, as people did, in the old glass-and-steel cathedral that was Penn Station. People without tickets could come in the afternoon just to dream about what it would be like to get on the train.’”
The women noticed Serge wasn’t walking with them anymore and looked back. Serge held up a hand as he composed himself. “I’ll be okay.”
Public announcements echoed through the station. Waves of people poured in from subway connectors. Overcoats and newspapers. Serge and the women continued until they got to the big train board and looked up. The letters and numbers clattered as they flipped over, updating arrivals. Three down from the top: “Miami…Silver Stingray…On Time…Track 12W.”
“This way,” said Serge. They took the escalator down to the departure platform. Ahead was a gleaming metal rocket, the pride of the Amtrak Corporation. They rolled luggage past the diesel and several silver cars until they came to the steps of their sleeper. The women climbed aboard; Serge stood in the doorway passing up luggage.
The BBB found their sleeping compartments, and Serge found his. He cranked down the upper bunk, cranked it up, flipped the sink
open from the wall, flipped it back up, then down again just to be sure, flushed the toilet, hit the button for porter assistance, changed channels on the flat-screen TV, angled the vents up and down, left and right, adjusted the thermostat, cycled the reading and wall lights, turned on the radio, climbed into the overhead luggage compartment, let himself down, and finally clipped all his spy travel bags to the various handrails with spring-action mountain-climber D rings.
The porter showed up in the doorway. He had never seen a fully activated sleeping cabin before, TV and radio, lights, air, sink, toilet, Serge giving the upper bunk another quick up-and-down on the pulleys.
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” said Serge. “Just a shakedown cruise.”
“You hit the porter button?”
“It was a test. I’m happy to report your response time is excellent.” Serge tucked a five in the porter’s shirt pocket, then began unloading his box of trains on the floor. “That will be all.”
When the porter was out of sight, Serge reached in his overnight bag and removed an egglike metal object wrapped in orange silk. “My ace in the hole.” He stuffed the grenade in another cool storage nook.
More people headed for Track 12W. Tanner Lebos smiled and spread his arms wide when he spotted his old friend coming down the escalators.
“If it isn’t that good-for-nothing Ralph Krunkleton!”
“Tan!” yelled Ralph. “There you are!”
They met in the middle of the platform and hugged and headed for The Silver Stingray.
“How you been?” asked Tanner.
“Never better.”
“How’d the book signing go in Miami?”
“Raided by police.”
“That’s just Florida,” said Tanner. “Some people exchanged fire at a Tom Clancy deal last month.”
Out on Thirty-fourth, more cabs arrived. A woman in a floral dress got out, followed by a bunch of guys in blue velvet tuxedos. They stopped and looked up at the train station in befuddlement. The Pickpocket Comedian scratched his head. “But I thought you said we were going to play—”
“I know what I said!” snapped Spider. “There’s been a big fuck-up, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it! C’mon!”