“Oho,” she said. “Is that what I think it is? Or are you just glad to see me?”
“Both.”
She reached to unbutton the jacket. “It’s less obvious that way,” she said.
“Until it opens up and becomes a lot more obvious.”
“Oh, right. I didn’t think of that.”
“TJ was pushing hard for a Kangaroo.”
“Just your style.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“This is a nice surprise,” she said. “I was just getting ready to close up.”
“And I was, hoping to take you out to dinner.”
“Hmmm. I want to go home and wash up first.”
“I figured you might.”
“And change clothes.”
“That too.”
Heading up Ninth, she said, “Since we’re going home anyway, why don’t I cook something?”
“In this heat?”
“It’s not that hot, and it’ll be a cool evening. In fact it might rain.”
“It doesn’t feel like rain.”
“The radio said it might. Anyway, it’s not hot in our apartment. I kind of feel like pasta and a salad.”
“You’d be surprised how many restaurants can fix that for you.”
“No better than I can fix it myself.”
“Well, if you insist,” I said. “But I was leaning toward Armstrong’s or Paris Green, and afterward we could go down to the Village and hear some music.”
“Oh.”
“Now there’s enthusiasm.”
“Well, what I was thinking,” she said, “was pasta and a salad at home, to be followed by a double feature on the VCR.” She patted her handbag. “Michael Collins and The English Patient. Romance and violence, in whichever order we decide.”
“A quiet evening at home,” I said.
“He said, barely able to contain his excitement. What’s wrong with a quiet evening at home?”
“Nothing.”
“And we missed both of these movies, and we’ve been promising ourselves we’d see them.”
“True enough,” I said.
We left it at that until we hit the lobby of our building. Then I said, “We’re both overreacting, aren’t we? You don’t want me to leave the house.”
“And you want to prove the bastards can’t keep you from doing anything you want to do.”
“Whether or not I really want to do it. One thing you forgot to mention is it’s Saturday night, and anyplace we go is likely to be crowded and noisy. If I weren’t such a stubborn son of a bitch, a quiet evening at home would probably strike me as a terrific idea.”
“You don’t sound like such a stubborn son of a bitch.”
“I did a few minutes ago.”
“But you’re starting to come around,” she said. “Will this tip the balance? I stocked up on Scotch bonnet peppers the other day. The sauce for the pasta will loosen your scalp, and that’s a promise.”
“Dinner first,” I said, “and then Michael Collins. That way if I fall asleep in front of the set all I’ll miss is The English Patient.”
“You drive a hard bargain, mister.”
“Well, I married a Jewish girl,” I said. “She taught me well.”
Sunday morning I looked at my middle and half the colors in the rainbow looked back at me. It felt a little better even though it looked a good deal worse, and it seemed to me my other aches and pains had receded some.
I got dressed and went into the kitchen for a bagel and a cup of coffee. Elaine asked how I felt and I told her. “A few years ago,” I said, “I’d have come back a lot faster from a punch like that. I wouldn’t have had to check every morning to see how I felt.”
“And maintenance keeps taking more time and effort,” she said. “Who the hell had to bother with exercise? Speaking of which, I think I’ll get over to the gym for an hour.”
“I’m almost desperate enough to join you.”
“Why don’t you? There’s every machine you could possibly want, and plenty of free weights if you want to be a Luddite about it. And tons of women in Spandex to look at, and the whirlpool afterward for your aching muscles. And the look on your face tells me you’re not coming.”
“Not today,” I said. “I used up too much energy just hearing about the machines. You know what I really feel like? Nothing so energetic as a gym workout, but a nice long walk. Down to the Village and back, or up to Ninety-sixth Street and back.”
“Well, you could do that if you want to.”
“But you don’t think I should.”
“Just dress warm, huh? Wear your vest and your shoulder holster.”
“Maybe I’ll hang around the house today.”
“Why don’t you, sweetie? You can do some very gentle partial sit-ups if you want to mend quicker. But why not give those jerks another day to lose interest in you?”
“It makes sense.”
“Plus you’ve got the Sunday Times to read, and just lifting it is more exercise than people in the rest of the country get in a month. And there must be plenty of sports on television.”
“I think I’ll have another bagel,” I said. “It sounds as though I’m going to need the energy.”
I read the paper and watched the Giants game. When it ended I switched back and forth between the Jets and Bills on NBC and a seniors golf tournament. I didn’t much care who won the football game—they didn’t either, from the way they were playing—and the golf wasn’t even interesting, although there was something curiously hypnotic about it.
It had the same effect on Elaine, who brought me a cup of coffee and wound up staring transfixed at the set until they broke the spell with a Midas Muffler commercial. “Why was I watching that?” she demanded. “What do I care about golf?”
“I know.”
“And what do I care about Midas Mufflers? When I buy a muffler it’ll be the brand George Foreman advertises.”
“Meineke.”
“Whatever.”
“Since we don’t have a car . . .”
“You’re right. When I buy a muffler it’ll be cashmere.”
She left the room and I went back to watching the golf, and, while some fellow in too-bright clothing lined up his birdie putt, I found myself thinking of Lisa Holtzmann. What I was thinking was that it was just the right sort of lazy afternoon to spend at her apartment.
Just a passing thought, even as I’ll still have the thought of a drink, even in the absence of any real desire for one. I’d smelled all that bourbon the other night, and the bouquet had gone straight to the memory banks, but it hadn’t made me want a drink. I’d smelled it again the next day, along with smells of blood and death and gunfire, fainter a day later but still very much there to be noted. I hadn’t wanted a drink then, either.
And I didn’t want Lisa now, but evidently I wanted to be out of the space I was in, not the physical space of our apartment but the mental space, the chamber of self I occupied. That’s what she’d always been, more than a source of pleasure, more than a conquest, more than good company. She was a way to get out, and I was a person who would always want to get out. No matter how comfortable my life was, no matter how well suited I was to it and it to me, I would always want to slip away and hide for a while.
Part of who I am.
Just seeing her there, just catching her eye, just watching her holding hands with Florian, had served to put her in mind. I wasn’t going to see her. I wasn’t even going to call her. But it was something I could talk about later with Jim, and something I wasn’t going to bother thinking about anymore for now.
Meanwhile, I’d watch the fellows play golf.
“You look nice,” Elaine said. She reached to touch the front of my windbreaker and felt the gun through it. “Very nice. The way it billows out, the holster’s completely hidden. And if you keep it zipped halfway like that, you can get it in a hurry, can’t you?”
I demonstrated, drawing the gun, putting it back.
??
?And your red polo shirt,” she said, and reached to undo a button. “Oh, I see, you had it buttoned so the vest wouldn’t show. But it looks better open, and so what if the vest shows? You can’t tell what it is. It could be an undershirt.”
“Under a polo shirt?”
“Or a tattoo,” she said. “You look good. There’s just enough contrast between the windbreaker and your khakis so it doesn’t look like a uniform.”
“I’m glad,” I said, “because I was really concerned about that.”
“Well, you should be. Suppose some dame pulls up and asks you to check her oil? How would you feel?”
“I don’t think I’m going to answer that.”
“You’re a wise man,” she said. “Gimme a kiss. Mmmm. Have fun. Be careful. Give my love to Jim.”
I went outside. It felt like rain, and we could use it. The air was thick and heavy, and needed the rinsing a good downpour would provide. But my guess was it was going to hold off awhile longer, as it had been holding off for several days now.
I walked the long crosstown block to Eighth Avenue and a few blocks downtown to the restaurant, which turned out to be the Lucky Panda. There was a panda depicted on the sign, conventionally black and white, and smiling as if he’d just won the lottery.
Jim Faber was already there, and he was easy to spot in a restaurant that was mostly empty. The table he’d chosen was one I’d have picked myself, against a side wall in the rear. He was reading the magazine section of the Times, and he put it aside at my approach and got to his feet.
“Ike and Mike,” he said.
We shook hands, and I said, “Come again?”
He pointed at me, then at himself. “’Ike and Mike, they look alike.’ You never heard that expression?”
“Not recently.”
“I had twin cousins three years older than myself. I ever mention them?”
“I don’t think so. Their names were Ike and Mike?”
“No, of course not. Their names were Paul and Philip, but everybody called Philip Buzzy. God knows why. But I had this uncle, not the twins’ father but another uncle, and every time he saw them he said the same thing.”
“’Hello, boys.’”
“’Ike and Mike, they look alike.’ Every goddamn time, which meant every family event, and there were plenty of those. For a family full of people who didn’t much like one another, we got together a lot. ‘Ike and Mike, they look alike.’ Must have driven them up the fucking wall, but they never complained. But then you didn’t complain in my family. You learned not to.”
“’Quit your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.’”
“Jesus, yes. Your father used to say that?”
“No, never. But I had an uncle who was always saying that to his kids. And I gather it wasn’t just talk.”
“I heard it a lot myself growing up, and it wasn’t just talk in our house, either. Anyway, that’s the sorrowful saga of Ike and Mike.”
We were both wearing tan windbreakers over red polo shirts and khaki slacks. “We’re not quite twins,” I said. “I’m wearing a bulletproof vest.”
“Thanks for telling me. Now I’ll know to duck behind you when the lead starts flying.”
“When you do,” I said, “I’ll be blazing away at the bastards.”
“Oh? You’re packing heat?”
“In a shoulder rig,” I said, and slid the zipper down far enough to show it, then zipped it up again.
“I’ll sleep better,” he said, “knowing my dinner companion is armed and dangerous. Change seats with me.”
“Huh?”
“C’mon,” he said. “Change seats with me. That way you can have a view of the entrance.”
“If anybody tries anything,” I said, “it’ll be on the street. The only thing I have to worry about in here is the mu shu pork.”
He laughed at that, but all the same he came around the table, and I shrugged and took the seat he’d vacated. “There,” he said. “I’ve done my part. I suppose you have to keep your jacket on, unless you want the whole world to see that you’re strapped. What’s the matter?”
“’Packing heat,’” I said. “’Strapped.’”
“Hey, I stay current on the lingo. I watch TV.” He grinned. “I’m keeping my jacket on, too, but not out of solidarity. I swear the last time I was in here it was in the middle of a heat wave and it was hotter in here than it was outside. Today’s a nice autumn day and they’ve got the air conditioner going full blast. Did you have air conditioning at home when you were a kid?”
“Are you kidding? We were lucky we had air.”
“Same here,” he said. “We had a fan, and everybody would huddle together in front of it, and it would blow hot air on us.”
“But you didn’t complain.”
“No, heat was different,” he said. “Heat you could complain about. Here’s our guy. You want to order?”
“I haven’t even looked at the menu,” I said. “And I want to wash up first. If you want you can go ahead and order for both of us.”
He shook his head. “No hurry,” he said, and told the waiter we’d need a few minutes.
I found the men’s room and used it. The usual sign advised me that employees were required to wash their hands, and I washed mine, even though I was unemployed at the moment. They had one of those hot-air dryers instead of paper towels, and if I’d noticed it ahead of time I might not have been so quick to wash my hands. I hate the damned things, they take forever and my hands never feel dry when I’m done. But I’d washed them, and now I stood there and dried them, and while it took its time I thought how I’d report all this to Jim in a few minutes.
I looked at myself in the mirror and fussed with my shirt collar, trying to hide the vest without buttoning the top button. Not that anyone could really see it, or know what they were seeing. Not that it mattered. Still, if I took hold of it and tugged it down a little in front—
That’s what I was doing when I heard the shots.
I could have failed to notice them. They weren’t that loud. Or I could have taken them for something else. A truck backfiring, a waiter dropping a tray. Anything at all.
But for some reason I knew instantly what I was hearing and realized just what it meant. I burst out of the men’s room and raced the length of the hallway and into the dining room. I took in the scene there at a glance—Jim, an openmouthed waiter, a pair of customers trying to shrink into the woodwork, a thin blond woman on the verge of hysteria, another woman trying to calm her. I ran past all of them and out the door, but the shooter was nowhere to be seen. He’d vanished around a corner or jumped into a waiting car. Or disappeared in a puff of smoke, but whatever he’d done he was gone.
I went back inside. Nothing had changed. No one had moved. Jim was at our table, his back to the entrance. He had resumed reading while I was in the men’s room, and the magazine section was on the table, open to an article about parents who kept their children out of school and educated them at home. I’d known a few people over the years who’d talked about wanting to do that, but nobody who’d actually done it.
He must have been reading when the killer approached, and he probably never saw it coming. He’d been shot twice in the side of the head with a small-caliber pistol, a .22, as it turned out. There was a time when such weapons were ridiculed as toys or ladies’ guns, but they’d since become the ordnance of choice for professional killers. I’m not entirely sure why. I’m told that a lighter bullet tends to carom around inside the skull, greatly increasing the likelihood that a head shot will prove fatal. Maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s an ego thing. If you’re really good at your trade you don’t need a cannon, you can do fine with a scalpel.
He’d been shot twice, as I said, once in the temple, once in the ear. Not much more than an inch separated the two bullet holes. The killer got in close—I could see the powder burns, I could smell scorched hair and flesh—and he’d dropped the gun when he was done using it, leaving it behind along with
the ejected casings.
I didn’t touch the gun or move to examine it. I didn’t know then that it was in fact a .22, I didn’t recognize the maker or model, but that’s what it looked like, and that’s what the wounds looked like.
He’d slumped forward, the unwounded side of his face pressed against the magazine open on the table in front of him. Blood had trickled down his cheek and some of it had pooled on the magazine. Not a lot of blood, though. You pretty much stop bleeding once you’re dead, and he must have been dead before the killer cleared the threshold, perhaps even before the gun hit the floor.
How old was he? Sixty-one, sixty-two? Something like that. A middle-aged man in a red polo shirt and khakis, wearing an unzipped tan windbreaker He still had most of his hair, though it had crept back some from his forehead and was thinning at the crown. He’d shaved that morning, nicking himself lightly on the chin. I couldn’t see the place now but I’d noticed it earlier, before I went to the men’s room. He did that a lot, cut himself shaving Used to do that a lot.
Ike, of Ike and Mike.
I stood there. People were saying things and they may have been saying some of them to me, but nothing was registering. My eyes were focused on a sentence from the article on home schooling, but that wasn’t registering either. I just stood there, and eventually I heard a siren, and eventually the cops showed up.
If only.
If only I’d canceled dinner. We’d seen a lot of each other in the past several weeks. Let’s skip a week, I could have suggested. He wouldn’t have objected. Odds are he’d have been secretly relieved.
If only we’d gone down to Chinatown. The vegetarian place down there was on Pell Street, up a long flight of narrow stairs. A pro would never hit anybody in a place like that, leaving himself with a tricky escape route.