The Easy Chain
Page 6
Bottom of dark winter, and he’s warm! …
So the next evening he’s at Rumba for a reception, and the night after that in a rented suite with uniformed servants at the Silversmith, and he’s meeting lots of people and he’s just loving it. And it must have showed, because a couple of days later he’s in a row house on Alta Vista Terrace owned by guy named Allan who made a stack selling corn futures, and he’s talking to some people with REM on in the background and his connection to the University of Chicago comes up. And a guy named Will is there, and he’s a nice guy with a funny crinkly smile, and he asks Lincoln if he’d ever thought about joining a fraternity. Well, of course, Lincoln says he had …
And as it turns out, this Will handles admissions for the UC chapter of Theta Epsilon Chi, and he tells Lincoln that if he’s interested, the door is open. And he grabs Lincoln’s shoulder, and Lincoln just laughs.
—The irony. In fact, doubly so. By then, Lincoln doesn’t care about Theta Epsilon. Doesn’t want to join at all. So he clarifies: he’s on leave from school. Well, Will says, that doesn’t have to matter.
—Clarissa Halwedge’s Christmas bash was particularly uproarious that year – a live percussion ensemble trading with the DJs, gay hunks in short Santa pants decorating the dance floor – and her then-boyfriend Robert Cincotti had Aroma Workshop gift stockings for everyone on the way in. But Jules Connor’s traditional après-tree event was, as usual, laid-back and mellow. Just people warming up his triplex, and amazing food (I asked him: it was from Butterfield 8), and Diane Schuur singing it true. Nice. Really nice …
Lincoln nibbled duck-confit petit fours and Stilton cheese sticks. He added number forty to his collection of business cards.
—And at Ron Clayton’s reception Lincoln met Tommy Hawn, and at Linda Deesey’s rave he met Thor Felsenfeld—
—At first, it was a major kick for Lincoln just to be taking taxis around town; Amsterdam is so small, it’s practically never done. He thought about that with especial fondness when he began receiving rides in limousines.
—And at Gelsey London’s reception he met Mark Meyerson—
—Bill Tendlar had a reception in a loft he rented in Bucktown, and he brought in that banjo band he always has. It was a big, big space with poles coming down, and some shitty painter’s like unframed canvases of explosions tacked up all over the walls. Painter must of thought it’d be good publicity to let Bill use the loft – hoped he’d get a few nibbles. Hey, sure hope he wasn’t hoping on getting one from me …
But – I mean, I’m standing there over by the windows down to North Ashland Avenue, and I’m looking at this definite transaction going down, and it’s Robert Coleson – Robert Coleson, the guy I’ve been trying to buttonhole for like the last two years, and he’s like talking away, all secluded in a corner, to, like—
—Remarkably, Mode MaxAndra had hired a sales representative just before the holiday season, and Bob Coleson said he was pleased with the new man’s performance. But Coleson said he had an illumination of Lincoln on his shop’s sales floors – that was his word: an illumination – and was intent on implementing. He would tell the new employee he had been hired for the season only; he would offer severance pay. He would personally instruct Lincoln in the history of haute couture, from Rose Bertin’s Intricate Stitching to Charles Worth’s founding the Chambre Syndicale to all that followed, and would school Lincoln in MaxAndra’s specific traditions and excellences. He could, through no more than a phone call, obtain for Lincoln a work visa in as quick an interval as the legal system permitted. Perhaps within weeks …
Surely, that’s what lured Lincoln to sign on. He said he had no interest in dress, or in sales. But he had only to nod his head, and by the next Friday, delivered to his door, were five full ensembles of MaxAndra day-wear, and seven outfits for night. The fitting session had taken minutes; all Bob requested was for Lincoln to wear MaxAndra when he went out. Whenever he went out.
—Yeah, of course, Lincoln dug the clothes – who wouldn’t? But the thing, you know, the clincher, the real deal … The shoes. Mariani. Made in Lucca. Italy. Unbelievable, he said. Unbelievably comfortable. He never knew feet could be so happy. That toes would sing. Man.
—Essentially, during the Christmas to New Year’s break there was no break. I saw Lincoln at a reception given by the Chicago Visitors’ Association at the Hilton, then at Rod Chesselton’s two nights later.
Who knows where he’d been between? He was doing it, you know, maybe even doing it a bit too much, because he still had that little cough he had, but the guy was shining. I mean, Lilly Marston tucked her hand inside his arm and personally escorted him from the Sun-Times reception to John Donahue’s house, and even offered to take him to some kind of private reception after that. OK? Think about it: Lilly …
Didn’t work. Sometime in around then, Lincoln hooked up with this nice thing and went stepping off with her. I didn’t recognize her, but mm hmm. Only made Lilly Marston hungrier. No break for the breaking—
—I mean, he – he just puts you at ease. He—
—I mean, even when I get within—
—He’s a great listener, just a great—
—Always lets you put your two cents in—
—I mean, I don’t find him particularly funny, like extraordinarily clever, but he’s just, like, present, you know, he’s—
—You think, I mean, you’re talking with him and you’re the only person in the room, the only person on the continen—
—It’s like – it’s like he’s a deer that’s come looking for your beam—
—Like he arrived pre-convinced—
—Mr. Andrew Carver is no slouch – just look at that Jaguar and you’ll know what I mean – and look at what happened when he found himself playing poker with Lincoln at the slant end of one January night. Lincoln had been invited along by Robbie Meyer, who’d met him at a reception a few hours earlier, and about six guys ended up sitting down in a Lakeside picture window to seven card, four down. Now, these guys are no pikers, and Lincoln ends up losing what: about $1200? In two hours? The guy walks in with about a hundred-and-a-half and gets separated from that in about twenty minutes, and the other guys just keep fronting him stakes to keep him in the game. (OK, what was the risk, when they’d seen his level of skill. But still.) And Lincoln keeps hitting the dirt and hitting the dirt all night long, and what comes from it? Mr. Andrew Carver offers him a job.
—Quel gig! What our friends the euphemists call a handsome salary, plus commissions plus use of a Lexus IS 300 for skating around town plus a cell phone. Plus, because of Lincoln’s situation, transferring and finishing up the last bits towards his visa. And plus – if I have any plusses left – training for getting his license as an agent. And Lincoln knows nothing about real estate!
—Carver wanted him to come on as an agent’s assistant, which meant, essentially, that he could do most everything in sales except quote prices. Lincoln could show and salve and explain, but then, on account of the 1974 Zeidner laws, he had to hand prospects a flier or brochure to present the big number, or refer them to someone who has a license. He couldn’t, legally, make a single representation about costs. After, typically, six months of studies, Lincoln would become a full-fledged agent. It seemed a gamble. But Carver said he liked how Lincoln wore a blazer, how it fell across him, and Carver became intent. He took him to dinner at Brasserie Jo then to a Blackhawks game, in his private box …
He said that Lincoln was – and I quote – tremendously tickled by the team’s work on the ice.
—One dilemma: all the clothes he’d received from Robert Coleson, for his fashion position. Luxurious to a thread, and tailored in ways that couldn’t be reversed …
But Coleson, it turns out, says he’s far sadder to hear that Lincoln is leaving him …
His one consolation, he adds, after a pause, will be for Lincoln to continue wearing these fine things all over town …
And not be bashful in mentioning where th
ey come from.
—He jumped on. He jumped in. He reported to Drapper & Carver the next Monday, and was met with a smile-shake from office manager Carl Traymor. He was introduced to division heads, shown storeplaces for supplies, and steered to his chromium desk, already stocked with business cards. He surveyed color-coded laminated maps of D&C properties, dipped into richly-tabbed D&C manuals about attitude, bearing and client-care. He started prepping for his agents’ training that very afternoon, reading about escrow ledgers, ADA requirements, liens, land value units, direct versus indirect expenses – the subsoil of sales, what makes the deal grow …
He was told he would start going out with Carver himself, as early as the next day, schedules permitting. And he was introduced to one of D&C’s two outside publicists, who had stopped by for a meeting about a condo offering hitting the newspapers that Wednesday. D&C used a PR firm called The Academy of St. Paul, number one in Chicago, and the publicist, called Auran Beede, handled most of residential. Friendly, obviously a professional, she shook Lincoln’s hand and suggested that they meet for lunch, so he could be brought up to speed. Lincoln enjoyed all this. He felt himself stepping onto the D&C escalator, felt the gust of its forward/vertical potentials.
—You know, I could go on about Lincoln adapting, like, seamlessly to D&C, and about how positive the reports were from the other agents, and about how D&C’s ratio of what they call Potential to Kinetic customers went, like, right through the roof. And I could go on about how the sale of a 2.2 mil Gold Coast condo was definitely planking until Lincoln was called in to speak with the Miami stiffies, or about the case of Bellavista that Andrew Carver sent to Lincoln’s apartment the next day, and about the two times I saw him at receptions around town as part of, like, small, very tight-knit circles, or about the first time I saw him on Page 6 of the Tribune, in a brief note that he had been seen arriving at the Ambassador East very late …
I could go on about that. But I want to go on about Shelly.
—Yeah, you know. Shelly Stade. Great gal. Lincoln got lucky. Not a poster girl, but smart and nice and class. Maybe five-nine, thin, great black mane, big and wavy, great smile. Northwestern, radio exec. Easy talker, kept the bean bag bouncing. First inclination was to smile, something I love. Made time shimmer …
Hell: Lincoln made his own luck. Went in separately to a reception at Kevin Haufmeier’s, went out, you know, not-separately. And stayed that way.
—Yeah, you know, Shel was really taken. Walking with that extra lift, smiling lots, the whole ride. When she described him, you know, how generous he was, how easy he was to talk to, how he loved to laugh, with a British accent, I mean I was like: where did you find him? And cute, too: she had a picture of the two of them at some reception. Great couple …
Shelly said he worked hard, you know, and was good at what he did, and that he was using his connections at the agency to find a new apartment, because he wanted to move. Mostly he came to her place after they went out at night, which they did lots, and within a week he had his own section in her closet. The first time she slid the closet open to show him, Shelly had tied a big burgundy ribbon around the vacated hanger bar …
And OK, you know, OK: He was good in bed. Shel dodged the question – then smiled. And if I know Shel, that means he was really good. Eventually – I had to push – she told me he knew how to give, and took his time. Or should I say: he let her take her time. Shelly!!
—By his third week at D&C, even before his stationery had arrived, Lincoln had had a hand in six sales that brought him part-commissions. These were three condos, a row house, and two private homes, including a stunner on Astor Street. By week two, Andrew Carver said he wanted Lincoln to handle all communications with his wife …
He began to be known around the shop as The Closer, as word spread of his ability to melt resistance. Further, he had begun to bring in leads from his, shall we say, abundant nocturnal activity. Understanding this new resource, Carver let Lincoln come in at 1 PM, and struck a deal whereby Lincoln touched the lion’s share of the commissions for any prospects he initiated. Just in time for Lincoln to walk away with the sweet part of the sale of a 4000-square-foot duplex overlooking Lake Shore Park …
At first, a few of the full agents objected to shaving their takes …
But not for long.
—So Lincoln’s out one evening, hanging at Bistro 110 with Caroline Quill and other plenipotentiaries of The One Hundred, and Shelly’s along, and there’s white wine and beige slacks and Tsar Imperial Beluga and sure they’re talking Nasdreq but not too long. These guys still can smile, and some ask for Lincoln’s card and who, walking by, sees this have knot but Auran Beede, a publicist for D&C. Who approaches and turns a nightlight smile and a Lincoln! Hey! into a docking portal into the refulgent group …
She knows some and some know her, but she turns down a glass of Chardonnay because she’s got someone waiting up front, though, stepping away, she angles a glance at Lincoln and says they’re overdue for that get-together. Great to see you all, she says, waving-leaving.
—They met the following Thursday night, at River Shannon. Auran arrived a good moment late, curling around the two-person table in a smudgewood corner behind the Brunswick bar. A speakeasy-era chandelier glistened overhead. Anita O’Day pearled the juke …
She led with apologies. Plunking her document bag on the floor, she spoke of how a client at a radio station had had a meltdown, subtype screaming, when he saw that his picture had been flopped in a print ad. He was an announcer, a lumpy burly thing, and he was in a rage. But no one knows what you look like, Auran had said. That’s why it has to be right!, the bloke hollered. Took her twenty minutes to calm him down …
She’s 28, radiator-slim, long-humerus’ed, in short sleeves with a big smile and fine, coffee-brown hair tinted to brass at the up-front arch around her face. An acne tick nestled high on her left cheek, but otherwise her skin was a bristling, tanning-booth beige. She hailed a waiter and ordered a Bellini; Lincoln took San Pellegrino. The waiter put down cocktail napkins …
She smiled, unhunched her shoulders, spoke comfortably. So, cold enough for you?, she said. What was it today, three degrees? Listen, in the Netherlands – which always sounded to me like it would be a hot place, the hot place – you must get used to it. And listen, there are compensations: I once read that in cold weather you see better. It’s a little-known law of optics. Hey, maybe that’s why cooler heads prevail …
I’ve been to Holland, you know. Had a friend whose family came from a town called Monster. I must have laughed five minutes when I saw the sign at the train station. And I wondered, you know: what do they call bad guys there? Shreveports … ?
As for me, she said, well, I was born in Champaign, and went to school there, got married. Yeah, that’s when the Champagne ended. And maybe when the real pain began. So, whatever, it didn’t work, I moved for a while to San Francisco, and then I came here and started at The Academy of St. Paul four years ago. Wow. Already. But they’re good, you know, they’re good. Fifty-five of The Trib’s Big 70 firms use us, and even some Government divisions – invisible publicity, that kind of thing. So we’re good …
Personally, I’ve worked on accounts like The Goodman and Carson Pirie Scott, it’s been good. Nice sexy stuff for Volvo, that new apartment complex on Ashland Avenue in Bucktown, the Nero. But the one thing I don’t care for is the word flak. OK? – don’t you dare use that with me. I mean, flak sounds like something about destruction, like smoke-frags falling from the sky. I work with things on their way up, skybound, growing in strength, filling the firmament. OK? Isn’t that better? God bless you …
So what I suppose I’d like to offer is, you know, please let me know if I can help you on anything. I mean, I understand you’re still kind of new here, and Chicago is so spread-out and enormous … I live in River North, like it there, all the street zing, but please don’t hesitate if ever we, or I …
OK? So thank you, she said. I’m glad we got
a chance to do this. Really, thanks for coming out. Again, if – God bless you. God bless you. Oh. So what do you say to a cough? Well, there’s something that needs a good PR campaign … !
No. Please. On me. I insist. Really, it’s mine.
—Leaving, Lincoln saw Auran pick up her document bag, how it down-jolted her shoulder, and, leaving, saw the corner of some ruled D&C document peeking from it—
—Oh, it was … And I mean the food. Plattersful of Fines de Claires, flown in from France to perch on these little shaves of gleaming ice; porcini so beautiful they made you think you had taste buds in your eyes; fuzzy little blue and ruby berries that, forget about them, you didn’t even know the name of the country they came from; endive-boats transiting shrimp-pieces to paradise, and taking us along … Made you wish Lincoln would move more often!
—In fact, a good one. No more than about eighty people there, but they were the right people, at the right there. According to someone at D&C, Lincoln pounced on the apartment the second the signed lessor’s agreement came in. Three bedrooms, two-and-a-fraction baths, views of the sycamore-tops along Huron Street, just what he was hoping for. By which he meant a little bigger than what he needed, a little smaller than what he wanted …
Under Audrey Hann’s advisement, Lincoln got Zimmerman & Co. to do the design work, and their color scheme, lots of purples and ochres, was taken from an odalisque that Matisse made during one of his trips to Morocco. And, of course, on the living-room wall, the Blue Mao Lincoln had received from Tina Winterspoon …
But that night, Lincoln wasn’t pitching. When the invitations came around, there was a printed request: No gifts. None should be brought, none would be accepted. My presents are your presence, the dear boy wrote.
—But the reception. Great people, catering by Pierre Quatre, guy even rented a sound system by Claire Brothers. And Shelly smiling even louder and clearer than the DJ mix. Manny Bezarkis had set Lincoln up with Dan Chambers, who took care of the planning, and it really worked out. Hey, this wasn’t a house-warming, it was a house-incineration. And it just kept cooking ’til 4 AM—