‘Champagne,’ says Kostya. ‘He loves champagne.’
‘What do you think, six bottles?’
‘Two cases. Cristal.’
Volandes smiles. ‘He’s got expensive tastes, that Monty. You want Cristal, I need to hear it from Uncle. That stuff is too—;’
Kostya rests his heavy hands on Volandes’s desk and studies the little man’s face. ‘My friend goes to Otisville tomorrow for seven years. You sit here—;’
‘All right,’ says Volandes.
‘Two cases.’
‘All right. What else?’ Volandes taps the side of his nose.
‘No,’ says Kostya. ‘None of that.’
A slender woman with copper skin and bleached-blond hair enters the room.
‘Oh, Christ, Roz,’ says Volandes. ‘What did you do to your head?’
‘I dye my hair yesterday.’
‘You dye your hair yesterday. That’s great. Who told you to do that? All right, forget it. You’re in luck tonight – you’re going to meet a friend of ours. Our friend, he looks like a movie star. What are you, Puerto Rican?’
‘Yemeni,’ she says.
‘Yemeni?’ Volandes raises his eyebrows. ‘All right whatever, tell him you’re Puerto Rican. Our friend loves Latinas.’
‘I’m not Puerto Rican.’
‘I know you’re not Puerto Rican. Let’s make it easy for you. Just keep your mouth shut when you’re with him, okay? No, hey, shut up. Start practicing now. No talkie, all right?’
‘Yemen,’ says Kostya. ‘Yemen borders Saudi Arabia and Oman. Yes?’
Roz smiles. ‘You are not American.’
‘I am from Ukraine.’
‘Americans,’ says Roz, ‘they know where nothing is.’
‘Yeah,’ says Volandes. ‘Yemen and Ukraine are so wonderful, how come you both came here?’
‘Education in America,’ says Kostya, ‘is very bad. You do not know your own history. Do you know even when was your civil war?’
‘It wasn’t my civil war,’ says Volandes. ‘My parents came here in 1959.’
‘This shirt,’ says Roz, rubbing the fabric of Kostya’s shirt between her thumb and forefinger, ‘very nice.’
‘You like? Silk.’
‘Very nice.’
‘This shirt I buy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, they make best shirts anywhere.’
‘They make pretty good shirts in Miami too,’ says Volandes.
‘Your friend,’ says Roz. ‘Is he a famous actor?’
Kostya nods. ‘Very famous. Many movies. You like movies?’
‘I like good movies.’
‘I think,’ says Kostya, ‘maybe you and me have fun tonight.’
‘You and me and friend?’ Roz looks at Volandes and shakes her head. ‘No, too much.’
‘No,’ says Kostya, ‘just you and me.’ He draws a stuffed money clip from his rear pocket and drops it on Volandes’s desk. ‘We have fun tonight. Let me show you this,’ he says, unbuttoning his shirt.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Volandes. ‘You want to drink all the champagne now, too?’
‘She’s not Puerto Rican. Montgomery hates Yemenis.’
Volandes shakes his head and picks up the phone again. ‘Hey, you found her yet? . . . Oh, Christ. Every week I got to deal with this. Would you find me a couple Puerto Rican girls, please? . . . What? What? We’re in fucking New York City, how hard can it be? Two Puerto Rican girls. And, hey, call Eddie, make sure we have six bottles of Cristal reserved for the VIP room.’ Volandes looks up and sees that Kostya is talking with Roz, pinching her waist. ‘Nonvintage.’
Kostya removes his shirt again, sucking his belly flat. ‘I was boxer,’ he tells Roz. ‘Here, touch my nose.’
Roz rubs Kostya’s flattened nose. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘The greatest boxer of all is Yemeni. Prince Naseem.’
‘You see this?’ he asks her, pointing to his long scar.
‘Yes, what do you say this? Cut?’
‘Scar,’ says Kostya. He leans down and whispers into her ear. ‘Scar.’
Roz smiles. She runs her fingertips along the length of the scar, from the navel to where it disappears below his belt-line. Kostya smiles at Volandes. ‘Big scar.’
‘Big man,’ says Roz, patting Kostya’s thick arm. ‘Very big man.’
‘Yes,’ says Kostya, making a muscle. ‘Big man.’
Twelve
Montgomery loves his city best when the snow is falling, when the sidewalks are tracked with overlapping footprints and the tops of tall buildings are swallowed by clouds. The cars on Houston spin their wheels when the light changes, swerving and sliding and sounding their horns. Monty forgot to wear proper boots for the weather; he can feel the wet seeping through the fine leather of his shoes. But his camel’s-hair overcoat keeps his body dry, and his knit watch cap keeps his head warm. Monty stares into the faces of every man and woman he passes. He wonders where they are going, what they have planned for the night. An Indian couple strolls by, arm in arm, the man holding a black umbrella over their heads with his free hand. Monty hears only the accent, English, and one word, irredeemable. The woman said it, emphasis on deem, a tone of accusation but not against her companion, against someone or something else, and Monty wants to know what stands accused, movie or boss or girlfriend.
Wherever you sleep tonight, woman, wherever you lay your head, that is where I want to be. Inside the walls is a tangle of faulty wiring, set to spark and flare when the time is right, and you will sleep through the stink of melted copper and burning plaster, you will sleep through the small grabbing hands of the first flames, until the curtains ignite and smoke begins rolling across the ceiling and you finally open your eyes. I will come for you then, when the wallpaper is bubbling on the walls. I will walk through the burning doorway, one step ahead of the collapsing ceiling. I will lift you from your bed and carry you to the window, hoist you over my shoulder, climb down the fire escape, and leave you with the medics. Because it’s true: I would have been a wonderful fireman.
Monty stops before the window of a bakery. He has passed this shop before, has seen Naturelle look sadly at the pastries and stomp away. He stares at the confections stacked on silver trays, a lush display of sweets beckoning to passersby: the puff pastries and peekaboo tarts, the chocolate e´clairs and pecan pies, the meringue cookies and madeleines, the strawberry tartlets and honey-spice cakes. Monty has never been less hungry, but he admires the artfulness, the order. He wonders who created this arrangement, who sat inside the window and positioned each dessert in its proper place, with an eye for the colors and forms. And he wonders where she is now, for Monty is sure it’s a woman. He imagines her standing in a high apartment, looking down at the city, still dressed in her baker’s white uniform, her fingertips dark with dried chocolate. Bake me a cake, lady.
He turns from the window and heads east. A young athlete in his varsity jacket sprints past, thick-necked and crew-cut, a bouquet of red roses in plastic wrap held close to his chest. I could take her from you, thinks Monty. I could follow you right now to wherever you’re meeting, to the red Naugahyde booth where she sits waiting, slide next to her, and steal her away. Monty knows she would come; he knows the words. Or maybe not, a girl dating Mr Crew-cut-and-red-roses is not exactly Montgomery-style; still, there’s always a chance. Their eyes would meet for one lingering moment and he would know the odds.
Monty cannot remember a time when women did not fuss over him. He has always been pretty. Growing up in Bensonhurst, Monty had to prove his toughness wherever he was unknown. His eyes were too green, his lashes too long, his nose too delicate. Boys did not trust him, not at first. When he was younger, Monty went out of his way to obscure his looks. He would wear baseball caps to hide his thick, dark hair. He never smiled because his teeth were perfect, absolutely straight without need for braces. But the disguises never worked; he still stood out, and kids went after him. So Monty fought, and he fought well. There is little art to an adolescent fist-fight. Monty swung fir
st, he swung hard, and he never let up. He shrugged off whatever blows he took in return. A black eye was a mark of courage; it let the other boys know he would not be pushed around.
Later, Monty realized his face could be useful. Girls he passed on the street would nudge each other and giggle. Older women, teachers and friends’ mothers, would fawn over him, listening to his every word, especially when they heard that his own mother was gone. Many of his classmates in high school resented his status as resident lady-killer, but they were quiet in their resentment. In Bensonhurst, Monty was considered a stand-up kid, willing to fight for respect but by no means an intimidator. At Campbell-Sawyer, where months went by without a punch being thrown, Monty became legendary for his ferocity.
In his sophomore year he was named starting point guard for the varsity basketball team. During one important league game an opposing forward hacked Monty constantly. Every time Monty drove to the basket, the forward clobbered him, using his elbows and his hips. The referees called a few fouls but missed several others, and Monty grew increasingly angry, until one play when he jumped for a rebound and felt his legs swept out from under him. He hit the floor hard, back first. He stood up swinging. The forward had been waiting for this all night and was ready. He outweighed Monty by forty pounds and stood several inches taller. By the time the coaches and referees pulled the combatants apart, it was clear that Monty was losing the fight. Both players were thrown out of the game, but first the coaches insisted that they shake hands. The forward offered his and Monty punched him hard in the mouth, knocking the larger boy to the floor.
He was kicked off the team and, without basketball, began to lose interest in school life. Classwork, which had come easily for him in his old schools, required intense study now, and Monty was only capable of bursts of intensity. In the spring of his sophomore year, eating pizza with seniors during lunch break, he listened to them discuss their plans to buy a bag of marijuana. One of the boys said they would need eighty dollars, and Monty, barely paying attention, said, ‘You’re getting ripped off.’
‘Yeah? How much do you pay?’
Monty shrugged, as if he were used to haggling for the merchandise, though at that point he had never bought or sold drugs in his life, or even considered such a possibility. ‘I could get it to you for half that,’ he said. And so the seniors gave him forty dollars, and Monty, knowing his reputation as a street-smart kid was on the line, talked to some friends in Bensonhurst and delivered on time. He ended up spending an extra twenty dollars of his own money, but soon all of the seniors were coming to him, and Monty quickly began turning a profit.
Near the end of his junior year, the coaches at Campbell-Sawyer learned about Monty’s business from a few of the younger athletes. The administration was informed and one afternoon, after lunch, Monty’s locker was opened and a brown paper bag discovered, filled with prescription painkillers and ecstasy tablets. The next day he was officially ‘separated’ from the school, barred permanently from the grounds. A letter was sent to all parents, discreetly urging them to prevent their children from associating with Montgomery Brogan. Because the computer files had not yet been updated, one copy of the letter was accidentally sent to Mr Brogan, who drove into Manhattan and threatened the headmaster with a lawsuit or a beating or both, never believing his son might actually be a criminal.
Campbell-Sawyer had not seen so much excitement in years, not since the head of the History Department was caught fellating the editor of the yearbook in a bathroom stall, but if Monty was distraught he did not show it. He never tried to find out who had betrayed him – what would be the point? He cleared out his locker, said his goodbyes, and left.
By the time his friends were proceeding past the podium in their mortarboards and black gowns, Monty had rented his own Yorkville apartment, leased a Corvette, and saved enough money to throw the most lavish graduation party of the year, summoning all his ex-classmates to a grand club forty stories above the street. Waiters circulated bearing trays of champagne flutes. Belly dancers brushed by the tuxedoed boys. Monty sauntered from room to room, escorted by the most beautiful sixteen-year-old girl from all of Bensonhurst, a blue-eyed brunette; her father and brothers were police officers who believed that Monty was a freshman at Columbia.
Among the teenagers gathered there that night, preparing for a summer of beach parties and bong sessions before heading off to college, Montgomery was already a legend, an outlaw hipster. Everyone knew the stories: the time he ran across the subway tracks to kiss a girl on the opposite platform; the time he slugged an opponent on the basketball court (in the later versions, Monty broke the other boy’s jaw with a single punch); the time he seduced the French teacher, Mlle Cendrars, and left her sprawled naked and purring in the audiovisual room (a myth invented by Jakob Elinsky, who spent much of his senior year in the library bathroom masturbating to Mlle Cendrars but could not, even in his fantasies, conceive of himself and the Frenchwoman getting it on).
The party became legend. Whenever Monty runs into an alumnus from Campbell-Sawyer, the man will always mention that night, and the belly dancers . . . ‘and who was that girl you were with, the brunette? Jesus, whatever happened to her?’ What happened to her was her brothers checked Columbia’s student directory, found no listing for Montgomery Brogan, surmised Monty’s true profession, and told their sister she would no longer be seeing the Black Irish kid. She locked herself in her room and went on a hunger strike for three days, but Monty let it go, deciding it was best to dissociate himself from a family of angry cops.
Donatella Bruno. Where is she now? Monty wonders. He stops in his tracks and brushes snow from his collar. He pats the small of his back, feeling for the hard ridge of metal below the camel’s-hair, the holstered pistol strapped to his belt. Monty loves his .40; he thrills to its weight, the purity of its lines, its simplicity of purpose. Walking with a gun is walking with power. He taught himself to shoot at a Brooklyn firing range, blasting at targets alongside his father, who keeps an ancient Browning 9-millimeter under his bar. Monty’s black leather holster was hand-tooled by a gnomish Calabrian in Bensonhurst: a large B for Brogan, patterned after the old Brooklyn Dodgers insignia.
Monty stares through another plate-glass window, through letters spelled in gold script, into a restaurant of white-clothed tables in buttery light, the people inside warm and comfortable and well fed, bottles of red wine by their breadbaskets. The hostess is on the telephone, laughing, twirling a pen around her fingertips.
Where am I going? Monty asks himself. To meet my friends at a bar? What will we do, sit around drinking, telling old stories? What the hell are we going to do? And what could be more pathetic than the awkward silences, the pledges of solidarity, the earnest and pitiful companionship?
He opens the restaurant door and presents himself to the hostess, his watch cap in his hands. She murmurs bon soir into the telephone receiver and hangs up.
‘Good evening,’ she says.
She isn’t beautiful, thinks Monty, but she has presence: tall, elegant, gray-eyed, and European. The words bon soir linger like an exotic fragrance.
‘Good evening,’ says Monty, staring at her. He has forgotten the words. This is his game and he has forgotten how to play. He stares at her and she smiles, casts her eyes down, and pencils a name onto the reservations chart.
This is it, Monty tells himself. He reviews the old tactics and settles on a classic.
‘I’ve got a theory,’ he tells the woman. First you hook them. Not aggressive, not pushy. Get them curious. ‘My theory – tell me if I’m wrong – I’ve got this theory that it doesn’t really matter what a guy says to a woman: the first line, I mean. It doesn’t matter, he could recite the Lord’s Prayer, whatever, she’s already made up her mind.’
The hostess cocks one eyebrow. ‘The Lord’s Prayer?’
‘She’s already decided. By the time he’s opened his mouth, she’s already decided, yes or no, thumbs up or down. Tell me if I’m wrong.’
&
nbsp; She shakes her head slowly. ‘She’s already decided if he has a chance. But she’s waiting to be convinced.’
‘Right, fair enough. Within reason. So if I said I wanted to see you again, if I said I wanted to take you out one night, what would you think?’
‘What would I think? Or what would I say?’
‘What would you say?’
‘I’d say I have a boyfriend.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are you here for dinner?’ she asks, smiling.
Monty kneads the cap in his hands, the clumps of snow melting on the wool. ‘I already ate.’ Now he feels stupid, a failed Romeo dripping on the carpet. ‘Could I use your bathroom for a minute?’
The hostess wasn’t expecting that question. ‘You came in here to use the bathroom?’
‘No. I came in here to ask you out. But now I have to pee.’
‘In the back,’ she says, pointing, and she watches him weave through the tables, touching a waiter’s shoulder when he needs to pass by.
Monty locks the door of the small bathroom and sits on the closed toilet seat. Someone has written Fuck you in silver marker above the roll of toilet paper. Sure, he thinks. And fuck you too. Fuck everyone. The French hostess, the diners drinking wine, the waiters taking orders. Fuck this city and everyone in it. The panhandlers, grinning on the street corners, begging for change. The turbaned Sikhs and unwashed Pakistanis racing their yellow cabs down the avenues. The Chelsea faggots with their waxed chests and pumped-up biceps. Fuck them all. The Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit, their plastic-wrapped tulips and roses. The white-robed Nigerians selling counterfeit Gucci on Fifth Avenue. The Russians in Brighton Beach, drinking their tea from glasses, sugar cubes clenched between their teeth. Fuck them. The black-hatted Hasidim in their dirty gabardine suits, selling diamonds on 47th Street, counting their money while they wait for Meshiach. The sidewalk gimps, bodies crooked and spastic. The Wall Street brokers, smug and cologned, reading their folded papers in subway cars. Fuck them all. The skateboard punks in Washington Square Park, wallet chains rattling as they leap the curb. The Puerto Ricans, flags flying and radios howling from the open windows of their cars. The Bensonhurst Italians pomading their hair, with their nylon warm-up suits and St Anthony medallions. The Upper East Side wives, with their pinched mouths and lifted faces, with their scarves from Hermès and their artichokes from Balducci’s. Fuck the uptown brothers, they never pass the ball, they don’t play defense, they take four steps on every drive to the hoop. Fuck the prep school junkies, smoking tar in Daddy’s kitchen while the old man jets to Tokyo. Fuck the police, the bullyboys in blue with their thick-necked swagger, zooming through red lights on their way to Krispy Kreme. Fuck the Knicks – Patrick Ewing and his blown finger roll against Indiana, Charles Smith and his failed layups against Chicago, John Starks and his thousand missed shots against Houston – fuck them, they’ll never beat Jordan, they will never beat Jordan. Fuck Jakob Elinsky, that whining runt. Fuck Frank Slattery, always staring at my girlfriend’s ass. Fuck Naturelle Rosario, set free tomorrow when I’m gone. Fuck Kostya Novotny; I trusted him and he dimed me out. Fuck my father, alone in his darkroom, hanging wet prints from a line. Fuck my mother, rotting below the snow. Fuck Jesus Christ, he got off easy, an afternoon on the cross, a weekend in hell, and then the hallelujahs of all the legioned angels. Fuck this city and everyone in it – from the row houses of Astoria to the duplexes of Park Avenue, from the projects in Brownsville to the lofts in Soho, from Bellevue Hospital to the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park Slope – let the Arabs bomb it all to rubble; let the waters rise and submerge the whole rat-crazed place; let an earthquake tumble the tall buildings; let the fires reign uncontested; let it burn, let it burn, let it burn. And fuck you, Montgomery Brogan, you blew it.