Totally Killer

by Greg Olear

  “So I should pursue him, but at the same time play hard-to-get?”

  “Well put.”

  “And how do you propose I do that?”

  I felt like Jesus being forced to make his own cross. But I had to answer. My only hope now was that she’d tire of Asher and return to me.

  “That’s the easy part,” I said. “He helped you find a job, right? He deserves a formal acknowledgment of his efforts on your behalf. It’s the Emily Post move. So what you do is, you tell him that you’d like to thank him by taking him to lunch.”

  “You think that’ll work?”

  “Look, you got the vibe from him, right? That means he wants to see you again, so he’ll accept the invitation. And if he doesn’t, hey, it’s just lunch. People take people to lunch all the time, and most of the time, there’s no romantic pretense. He won’t really know if you’re asking because you’re interested or because you’re just being polite. So even if he turns you down, you save face.” I poured the remains of my brown rice into the bowl of soy sauce and stirred them together. “But I don’t think he’ll turn you down.”

  “I don’t know, Todd.”

  If I pressured her to pursue him, I risked losing her forever, if Asher Krug was even half as wonderful as her diary suggested. But if Taylor didn’t take action, she’d just daydream about him—and the Dream Asher would be perfect.

  “Trust me. I do.” I took a bite of soy-sauce-sodden rice. “And if you’re worrying about hurt pride or something, forget it. No one knows about Asher Krug except you and me.”

  Taylor considered this a moment. “Okay. Lunch it is.”

  That raised another problem: how to ask. Calling him on the telephone seemed too forward. Plus there was no way she could handle a verbal rejection. She might contrive to bump into him “accidentally” on the street, like in Hannah and Her Sisters, but how could she accomplish that? She didn’t even know where he lived. What was she supposed to do, hang around the Quid Pro Quo lobby at all hours?

  The best course of action, of course, would be to send him an e-mail—more casual than a letter, less intrusive than a phone call. Unfortunately for Taylor, this was 1991; years away from ubiquity, e-mail was the exclusive province of professors at technological universities, government operatives, and Rush fans.

  The only other recourse, we decided over coffee, was to write a thank-you note. It was good etiquette anyway—Asher did help her land a job—and he’d get it the next day. The New York postal service was, and remains, a paragon of reliability.

  So that’s what Taylor did. She spent her entire lunch hour the next day in a Hallmark store, agonizing over which card to buy, and finally decided, reluctantly, on a blank one with the Doisneau kiss on the front. When she returned to her office, she sat at the whirring computer and set about writing her note:

  Hi, Asher,

  I’d like to thank you again for helping me land such a swell job. And I’d like to thank you in person, by taking you to lunch. If you’re free in the next week or two, please give me a call.

  Talk to you soon,

  Taylor

  It took just two hours to compose. Drafting three sentences should not be such a laborious activity, but laborious it was—it felt as though each word had been pushed through the birth canal. Should it be Dear Asher or the more congenial Hi, Asher? Should she allow him to pointedly reject her (Would you like to have lunch?), or deny him that chance (Are you free this week?)? And which hackneyed sign-off to employ? Sincerely? Regards? Till then? Yours? Yours was the most intimate, and therefore to be avoided.

  At the exact moment she finally got it right, Angela appeared at her door and went into a lengthy lecture about Roger Gale, the author whose manuscript she was slated to edit. Taylor had to hit ALT-TAB fast, filling her screen with a rejection letter in WordPerfect. When she was left alone, she transposed the copy from computer screen to blank card, addressed it, stamped it, and brought it to the post office, so he’d get it as quickly as possible.

  Approximately twenty-four hours later, Asher phoned her at work.

  “Thanks so much for the note,” he said. “It’s a generous offer, but I’m afraid I have to decline. I have a strict policy never to lunch with clients.”

  “I see.” Stomach acid began to eat away her insides. This was Worst Case Scenario. Why had she listened to her idiot roommate? Why hadn’t she followed her gut instinct?

  “What I’d like to do instead,” he went on, “is take you to dinner. Are you by any chance free on Saturday?”

  There was an experimental play at P.S. 122 that Saturday, written by a chick I knew from acting class, that we had planned to attend. Two naked lesbians shining flashlights on their pudenda and chanting the c-word at the top of their lungs, all to protest of Hollywood’s exploitation of women. Or was it women’s exploitation of Hollywood? No matter. Performance art was no match for Asher Krug.

  “I’d love to.”

  CHAPTER 8

  O

  ur apartment opened on a narrow hallway, the walls pockmarked and badly spackled, the paint an unappealing canary yellow. On your left as you walked down the hall was the door to what used to be Laura’s home office but was now Taylor’s room. Past that door was a row of cheap appliances the real estate broker ridiculously called a European-style kitchen. The hallway terminated in the cramped living room, with just enough space for a table, two chairs, a torn red vinyl sofa, a footlocker with a tablecloth on top, and the TV. Above the sofa was my Jim Morrison poster—the one where he’s wearing the necklace and you can see his nips. On your left was the bathroom, all rust-colored tub water and leaky fixtures; straight ahead, my room. Taylor’s lone window overlooked the brick wall of the adjacent apartment building. As long as there was no traffic in the stairwell—never a given, even late at night—her room was quieter than mine. My two windows looked down on always-raucous East Ninth Street. Veselka, the twenty-four-hour Ukrainian eatery and Village landmark, was half a block away. My dreams were haunted by the sounds of screeching tires, beeping horns, shrieking car alarms, and the serenading of sentimental drunks.

  On the flip side, I had access to the fire escape, which I was pleased to call “the terrace.” On balmy nights I sat out there, reading Spy magazine, nursing a Rolling Rock, watching the crazies pass by. It was from this cozy perch that I caught my first glimpse of Asher Krug. He pulled up a few minutes before eight in a ’92 Jaguar XJ12 convertible—cream with tan leather interior—top down, music pouring from his state-of-the-art sound system. Passersby stopped to check him out as he parked in front of the fire hydrant out front and strode up our stoop. A guy like that had to be famous, right?

  “Bye, Todd,” Taylor called from the hallway. “Wish me luck!”

  “Have fun,” I told her, as if not having fun on a date with this guy was in the realm of the possible.

  I watched Asher lead her to the car, his left hand on the small of her back. He was a GQ insert: blue linen suit, formfitting V-neck dress-tee, loafers, no socks. She had on a cotton dress with a floral print, which clung to the contours of her body the way that XJ12 clung to the contours of the road, and cork-soled sandals. The two of them together, in his spiffy car, embodied the yin and yang of manliness and muliebrity.

  Once the Jaguar powered round the corner and the awestruck crowd dispersed, I left the terrace, thoroughly depressed, and helped myself to more old diaries.

  “That’s your car? Whoa.”

  “Yeah, that’s us. Not the most practical thing, I guess, but sometimes you’ve got to indulge a little, right?”

  Asher led Taylor around to the passenger side, opened the door, and helped her into the car. This was the sort of gesture the lesbians at P.S. 122 were protesting (or so my actress friend claimed; I never did make it to the show), but “old-fashioned” Taylor found it charming.

  She slid into the leather bucket seat and inhaled the intoxicating fragrance that is New Car Smell. She watched her date get in, fire up the ignition, and hit the
gas pedal a few times, for show. The sound system kicked in—I was still buying cassettes, but Asher had a six-CD changer in the trunk—to a song already in progress, a song Taylor knew well.

  ‘“The Reflex!’ I haven’t heard this in years!”

  “You approve?”

  This was a loaded question. Although it’s now clear that 1991 was the beginning of a new and distinct decade, at the time it seemed like the death throes of its lamentable predecessor. And the eighties, as conventional wisdom had it, sucked. Everything about the decade sucked—the music, the clothes, Ronald Reagan, cocaine, AIDS, Donald Trump. Not enough time had passed for us to evaluate the era objectively. We were still years away from the eighties retro movement: the VH1 I Love the Eighties specials; The Surreal Life, with its washed-up eighties celebrities; comebacks by eighties icons like Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, and Robert Downey, Jr.; the renascence of the Lacoste alligator and the word awesome. To admit that she liked Duran Duran of all things, in the summer of ’91, would be the quintessence of uncool.

  Taylor hedged: “Is this on the radio?”

  “No, it’s the CD. Decade, the greatest hits album. It has the radio edit of ‘Save a Prayer,’ which is disappointing, but the single versions of this and ‘View to a Kill,’ so it’s a must-have.”

  Once she learned that Asher owned the CD, Taylor decided to fess up. “I used to be obsessed with Duran Duran,” she said (I later confirmed this, in one of her oldest diaries). “I used to clip their pictures out of the teenybopper magazines and tape them all over my wall. My mom would get all pissed because I totally ruined the paint. When Simon got married, I didn’t eat for three days.”

  The thought of a teenaged Taylor, Aqua Net in her hair and Madonna bracelets on her wrists, ululating over a tearstained issue of Tiger Beat made Asher chuckle. “They’re one of my all-time favorites,” he said, “cheesy as that may sound. Listen to the bass, man. That guy can play.”

  Indeed he could. And still can.

  “So you’re a fan of the Duran,” he said. “What’s your favorite song?”

  “I don’t know. ‘Save a Prayer’ is up there. ‘The Seventh Stranger’ is totally rad. But my favorite? Probably ‘The Chauffeur’. You know that one? On Rio?”

  “Of course. Great song. The keyboard is hauntingly beautiful.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “This.”

  He pushed a button on the console, and a woman giggling, an electric guitar, and then Simon LeBon’s voice came through the eight speakers.

  Dark in the city, night is a wire…

  “ Hungry Like the Wolf.’ I might have known.”

  Asher Krug flashed a decidedly wolfish smile. “I wasn’t too forward, was I? Asking you to dinner? I’ve never gone out with one of our clients before, and…”

  Woman you want me, give me a sign…

  “No, no. Not at all.”

  “Good. I was concerned.” But he didn’t appear concerned. He appeared the epitome of chill, with his perfect teeth and luminous hair, manicured fingers drumming on the stained-wood steering wheel. “I’ve been asked to lunch before, but lunch, it can mean a lot of different things. Especially a thank-you lunch. Some of my clients, they come up with creative ways to express their gratitude. I’ve had people send me all kinds of things. One guy—Japanese cat named Takeshi—actually sent a call girl to the office.”

  “Really?”

  “I kid you not.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, it was awkward, being at work and everything, but what could I do, look a gift horse in the mouth?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did. It would have been rude to refuse.”

  Taylor didn’t know quite how to respond until he smiled and winked, and then she laughed and so did he.

  “One of the drawbacks of my line of work is that you achieve success vicariously. You meet these great people, you get to know them, you help them, and then, if you’re good at your job—and I’m good at my job—you never see them again. And I wanted to see you again. I really wanted to see you again.”

  I’m on the hunt, I’m after you.

  “I deliberated,” she said. “But then I figured, what the hell. Worse thing was you’d turn me down, right?”

  “Has anyone ever turned you down?”

  Asher sounded like he wasn’t expecting an answer, so she gave him one: “Plenty of times. Plenty of times.”

  “I bet.”

  They had gone a block south on Second Avenue, banged a left on St. Marks and another on First, and were heading uptown. At Fourteenth Street they stopped at the light. Taylor saw Oxana at the L-train stop, again in her red babushka, and layers of clothes despite the heat, walking her three-legged mutt. She waved, but the old lady was busy inspecting bodega apples and didn’t see her.

  The light changed, and Asher hit the gas. Fourteenth Street was the frontier, the outer edge of the East Village. Beyond was a marshland of hospitals and power plants and medical buildings, where there were fewer pedestrians and it was easier to catch a cab. Then the Jaguar passed the creepy ivy-lined brick walls of Bellevue, which looked exactly like the insane asylum it was. In the distance, the gleaming blue glass of the United Nations building winked at them. Diplomats lived around the UN, in ritzy neighborhoods like Turtle Bay and Beekman Place—enclaves of wealth that Taylor had never heard of. In fact, this was the first time she had driven up First Avenue. She rarely took cabs, and no one in New York has a car—not in my circle, anyway.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Chez Molineaux. The steak house. Near Rock Center.”

  “Steak house?”

  “Yeah. Why, are you a vegetarian or something?”

  “I don’t usually eat meat.”

  “Really?” He seemed stunned than anyone would forego such sybaritic pleasure. “We can go someplace else, if you like. It’s tricky without a reservation, but I know a great Japanese place across town.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.”

  “You’ll love it,” he said, over the stereo blare—now it was “Union of the Snake” playing. “I promise.”

  Chez Molineaux was on West Fifty-second Street, and distinguishable from the rest of the high-towered block by a black awning, a red carpet, and potted plants flanking the door. Asher pulled the Jag right up front, alit, and tossed the keys to a muscle-bound dreadlocked guy.

  “Keep it close, Kareem.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Krug.”

  Before Taylor could open the door herself, Asher did it for her. He helped her out, offered his arm, which she took, and led her into the restaurant. The inside was old New Orleans splendor: damask wallpaper, oil paintings, candlelight, and more silverware on the starched white tablecloth than she knew what to do with.

  The hostess, a dim-looking woman with eyes too close together, greeted Asher by name as they walked in. They followed her into the labyrinth of the dining room and to a table tucked away in the dimly lit corner. Ever the gentleman, Asher held her chair, pushing it in as she sat down. Then he took his own seat, the one facing the restaurant proper.

  “Is this where you take all your dates?”

  “I eat here a lot,” he said, “but with clients. I haven’t been on a date in a long time, to tell you the truth.” His voice got faraway. “A long time.”

  She doubted this, but decided not to press. “It’s pretty swanky, Asher. And certainly an improvement over Burger Heaven. That’s where I would have taken you for lunch.”

  “But you don’t eat meat. Isn’t Burger Heaven vegetarian hell?”

  Taylor grinned at his joke. “Their veggie burgers totally rock, in fact.”

  “Truly,” he said. “I love that place.”

  She doubted that, too. Not that Burger Heaven was a dump or anything, but she simply couldn’t imagine the dashing Asher Krug being rushed in and out of the upstairs dining room, with its giant clock on the far wall.

  “I always order the same th
ing,” he said, “so you should look over the menu.”

  “I’ll have whatever you have.”

  “You sure?”

  “I trust you.”

  The waitress appeared, a busty brunette with a Southern accent. More likely an aspiring actress from White Plains getting set to workshop Streetcar than a bona fide Biloxi belle. Whoever she was, she deposited a basket of bread on the table.

  “Can I get y’all something to drink?”

  “We’d like the La Dominique, ’82.”

  “That what?”

  Coolly Asher indicated his choice on the wine list.

  “Oh. Let me fetch the sommelier, honey. Be right back.”

  Taylor had never heard of a sommelier (and neither had I; her diary was my first encounter with the term), but deduced soon enough that this was the gentleman in charge of the restaurant’s extensive wine cellar. He was lithe and dancerly, with a moustache and a monocle, and she could tell from clear across the room that he was gay.

  “Mr. Krug,” he said as he drew near. “I might have known.”

  “Hello, Marcel. This is Taylor Schmidt.”

  Marcel bowed gallantly. “My dear.”

  Asher repeated his request.

  “Excellent choice. Coming right up, sir.”

  Marcel pirouetted about, vanished.

  “Are you, like, a connoisseur?”

  “Hardly. All I know is, if it isn’t French, it’s turpentine.”

  In a flash, Marcel returned. With a somber bow, he presented the bottle of wine with the pomp and circumstance usually reserved for visiting heads of state. With one deft movement he removed the cork and gave it to Asher to sniff. Then he splashed a finger of the stuff into a glass he’d brought just for that purpose.

  Asher slid it across the table. “Taste.”

  Taylor took a careful sip, swished it around her mouth like it was Listerine, and swallowed. However much it cost, La Dominique ’82, to her untutored lips, tasted like grape juice. Good grape juice, but still. She shrugged.