Foul Matter Part 15

They all thought that was screamingly funny.

Yet it was never crowded. People weren't stacked up around the bar on a Friday evening the way they were at Swill's (where they muscled one another out as if they were trying to put down a bet before the window slammed down).

They had tried, as had just about everybody, to get information about the Old Hotel. Each of them had at one time or another tried to talk to the owner-manager to get answers to these questions. But he always seemed to have "just stepped out" for a moment. They knew (or supposed they did) that there actually was a manager for he had once been pointed out by the bartender to them as he was walking through the Lobby. His name, the bartender had told them, was Duff. That'll be him, sir. I'm sure he'll be glad to answer your questions. I would do myself, but I haven't been here very long myself.

Duff fascinated Saul.

("He would," Jamie had said, inscrutably.) Duff was a question mark; he was unfinished; he was pure potential.

So they stopped trying to track down the manager because they apparently weren't supposed to know. Oedipus didn't, did he? Sally had said. There was something that smacked of fatalism in the whole encounter-or rather the lack of one.

"Pittsburgh's changed a lot," said Ned, as if they'd been discussing this since he brought it up. He finished off the silver bowl of cashews.

"Why're you going, anyway?" Whenever Ned left Manhattan Sally got anxious.

"Research," he lied.

Jamie sighed heavily to let him know her estimation of this move. "Just for f.u.c.k's sake don't go to McKees Rocks and come back and run things by me. Do I remember this? Do I remember that? I'm warning you."

"Remember Duquesne Incline? And the steps up the side of Duquesne Heights? You know how long a trail of steps that was? I went up them."

Jamie looked as if she could spit. "No, you didn't! You didn't because they were torn down sometime in the sixties. The early sixties. You wouldn't have been more than a day-old baby, for G.o.d's sakes."

"Maybe my father carried me up." Paying no attention to Jamie's pained look, he said, "Order me another drink, will you? I'm going to the gents." Which was what it was actually labeled here. GENTS and LADIES . They thought that fit in perfectly with the Old Hotel's diverse styles.

Sally watched him walk away and turned to Jamie. "You shouldn't ride Ned all the time about Pittsburgh."

"Why not?" Jamie seemed genuinely surprised at Sally's criticism. She was used to criticism, but only in her professional life, where she got three or four bad reviews to every good one. "He's so stunningly sentimental about the place." She saw Saul looking at her. "Why are you looking daggers at me?"

"Because Pittsburgh's what he is; it's what he has."

Jamie felt abashed far more by Saul's tone than she had by Sally's. With her, Saul really counted. This only served to stoke her irritation.

Sally said, "You can be really arrogant sometimes, Jamie."

Jamie ignored this as she could think of nothing to say in her own defense. "Ned remembers things that weren't there and things that never happened!"

"How do you know that?"

"Because I looked them up!" Too late did she think of the depths of animosity and even jealousy that might be ascribed to such a thing. Quickly, she added, "I lived in McKees Rocks, remember. That's right by Pittsburgh."

Sally gave a little wondering laugh. "So what? Are you saying Ned's memories have to mirror yours?"

Jamie stuck the olive from her martini in her mouth, glad that the two couples at the next table provided distraction. They were clearly first timers. They looked around the room a little too much for customers who'd seen it before. They were too loud; they wanted to attract attention, which the women were doing anyway, given the waist-deep cleavage of their black and red dresses. They rose rather elaborately, collected purses and cigarette lighters, and moved off toward the stairs.

Saul watched them for a minute and then spoke again. "It really makes you mad as h.e.l.l, doesn't it, Jamie?"

Jamie frowned. "What does?"

"Here you and Ned grew up in almost the same place and have many of the same memories-or should have, according to you-so why don't you have the same degree of talent? You feel you have to turn out two or three books a year, which you don't, to make up for your not having his talent, and even though you drown yourself in words, it still doesn't do it."

Jamie blushed. "Don't be ridiculous! I'm not jealous of Ned, for G.o.d's sakes!"

"You're not jealous of me. But you are jealous of Ned." Saul leaned closer to Jamie. "Let me ask you something: are your parents still there in McKees Rocks? Your brother and sisters? Aunts-no, you've got an aunt in Savannah, you said. But the rest? Are they in McKees Rocks?"

For a moment Jamie didn't answer; she wore the look of a person trying to stay clear of certain danger. "What if they are?"

"Ned's aren't. What he's got is Isaly's Ice Cream. His family are all gone."

Jamie looked around the room as if Saul weren't speaking at all. Saul said, "You're so compet.i.tive; you're so compet.i.tive you even have to compete with yourself-which also might account in part for all of those different hats you wear-"

"f.u.c.k you, Saul! You don't know what you're talking about. And I'm right about those steps. Ned couldn't have been more than a baby-"

"Then he remembers an image someone else supplied, his father or mother, maybe. Ned's a memoirist. Just because it's a memory, that doesn't mean it's sentimental."

"Well, it's sentimental to hang out on memory lane."

Saul laughed. "We all hang out there."

"Not me. I don't; I don't look back. I don't believe you do, either."

"I don't? Jamie, I live in a houseful of artifacts. It's drenched in the past. I never change anything, beyond turning a desk around so that it faces a window. I want it to stay the same."

"That's not the same thing. History is provenance when it comes to antiques; provenance belongs to them." Here she gave a self-satisfied little smile and polished off her martini. She tapped her gla.s.s. "Anyone want another?"

Sally said, "Are we having dinner here or what?" She felt vaguely dissatisfied and depressed and not able to pinpoint the cause of it. Then she thought: Am I afraid he'll go to Pittsburgh and just-disappear?

"What a stupid question," she answered herself.

"What if he never comes back?"

"Oh, for G.o.d's sakes . . ."

"But what-"

The other voice turned away in disgust. Murmuring.

Sally spied Ned making his way back through the tables-the Lobby was crowded, even more than usual-and watched him as he crossed the room as if he might go up in a puff of smoke if she looked away.

"What's wrong?" asked Saul Jamie had left the table to go to the bar and sulk for a while. This section of the Lobby was smoky. Saul always asked Sally and Ned if they minded sitting in the smoking section (which, oddly enough, seemed to hold the smoke to it, a phenomenon no one had been able to explain. But that was the Old Hotel). Saul always made a point of saying he didn't have to smoke. To which Jamie always retorted, "Well, I do." Saul just stomped all over her.

"Nothing," said Sally, answering his concern. "I just think maybe I'll go to-" She stopped.

Ned was there, taking his seat again. "Are we leaving or having dinner?"

"Sorry, I forgot your drink," said Sally. "Yes, we're having dinner."

Saul was watching two couples going up the staircase to the rarefied air of the mezzanine.

"Saul?"

"What?"

"You ready to eat?" said Ned.

"Sure." Saul took out his money clip, tossed a couple of bills on the table, all the while watching the two pick their way past the tables up there.

The two in the park, later in Swill's. And their female counterparts, right here in the Old Hotel. Saul laughed.

"What?" asked Jamie.

"Those guys." Saul nodded upward. "In the park and in Swill's."

They all looked toward the mezzanine.

"The suits with books."

TWENTY-TWO.

Clive arrived some ten minutes early, knowing Mort loved to keep people waiting and Clive was set to humor him tonight. Even so, Mort was already there, bellying up to the magnificent mahogany, marble, and jade bar when Clive walked into the Lobby. Mort was flanked by a black couple and two women, a redhead and a blonde. Flashy. Whatever Duff's criteria were, one's trade didn't enter into it. At a nearby table sat four scruffy-looking men, dark skinned, mustachioed like Zapata, and one turbaned like Lawrence of Arabia. This party was acceptable, apparently, but not on the mezzanine level. They kept raising their eyes and casting lovelorn looks at the balcony.

Clive was surprised Mort had gotten past the front door.

Mort cleared that up. "I gave them my name and for some reason that didn't get me to first base, so I gave them yours." Mort shrugged, witness to the Old Hotel's arbitrary standards. "What's your poison?"

Clive smiled at this arcane mode of expression. "Same as yours, martini, but on the rocks with two olives." He finished the description for the bartender, who said it would be there in half a minute. Clive took the half to look the place over. He knew he was a rubbernecker straight from the sticks. There was the usual people watching going on, though no one wanted to be caught doing it, so there were a lot of darting glances and head turnings on the pretext of lighting cigarettes. The Old Hotel had knuckled under to the non-smoking movement to take in most of the Lobby and the rooms off the mezzanine, which was sensible since those were small, enclosed places.

The food here was very good, if not great; the prices were incredibly low for Manhattan; the service was impeccable. It was one reason its customers didn't merely like the place, but loved it. Nothing in Manhattan could beat it for service and surroundings and, of course, cachet. There was no other restaurant that gave its customers the kick of having been there when even their good friends hadn't.

Clive had his martini and downed half of it while Mort asked for another. Clive wondered what he was so edgy about.

A hostess came to take them to their table upstairs. They made their way up the beautiful staircase, which served as a focus for those left behind. Clive had often thought it was like watching a solemn procession, several men and women making their way up as if the diners were gathering for a state occasion.

They sat in armchairs so comfortable Clive thought he might never get up, ordered wine, ordered the Hotel's speciality, Chicken Paprikash with Spaetzle. It had been rumored that Duff was born in Budapest. It had been rumored he'd been born in at least a dozen other places, too.

All that taken care of, Mort drank the last of his martini and asked, "Okay, so what about Paul? And when are you going to sign the contract?"

Why was his tone so wary? Were there unexploded mines around Giverney's feet? He said, "What do you mean? It's your client who won't sign it until his demands are met." Mort, Clive now suspected, was in the dark as to what those demands were.

"Are you telling me the deal's changed or what?"

"Nothing's changed except in a small way." Clive was angry with himself for not having thought this through; he knew Mort would ask about the contract.

"Small? Ha! Where a contract's concerned there's no small, Clive."

Oh, for Christ's sake, take out the money and the delivery date and hardback/paperback split and everything left is small. "Come on, Mort, you go over contracts like you're picking out chiggers."

"I am. So tell me the small."

Clive lit on and discarded several possibilities, then settled on one. "Bobby'd like joint accounting."

"So would the elves; I don't see Santa giving it."

"You're not Santa Claus, Mort." The waiter had set before them their chicken and now Clive spent a few moments tasting the wine and nodding to the waiter, who poured it into both gla.s.ses. He had expected the subject of Paul Giverney, given that this was his agent, would arise in a perfectly easy, natural way. It was his fault, Clive's, for telling Mort that Giverney was what he wanted to talk about.

He drank his wine, ate his dinner, and listened to Mort talk about joint accounting and its implications for the writer (and the agent, obviously) and felt his attention wandering to the Lobby below them. Clive's eyes traveled over the tables and then back again. "I'll be d.a.m.ned. Hey, look: half the great writers in Manhattan are sitting down there."

Mort looked. "Isn't that Saul Prouil? Jesus, it's like a sighting of Elvis. The man's practically invisible."

"No, he isn't. Tom Kidd's a.s.sistant sees him all the time." Clive liked being in on things when Mort was out. "And Ned Isaly. You know him?"

"Jimmy McKinney just signed him," Mort said, unhappily. "Ned's got a book coming out soon and he didn't have an agent. Tom Kidd recommended Jimmy. Tom really likes Jimmy, who knows why? Jimmy's just too laconic to make a really top-drawer agent."

Unlike you, you charlatan, thought Clive, as the plates were cleared away. "But he's one of yours."

"Yeah, yeah. Well, people like Jimmy. Say he's soothing. Should an agent be soothing, I ask you?" Mort laughed. Then he went on. "Isaly's a good writer, no question. Do you think Prouil's going to have a book coming out? He's unagented. I would certainly like a piece of that. . . . Isn't that one of your girls there?" asked Mort.

"Sally. She's Tom's a.s.sistant."

"Cute kid."

"Where's Paul from?" Clive asked, casually. He wanted to get Mort to continue to talk about Giverney.

"Ummm." Mort seemed to be thinking, trying to remember, his eyes moving upward, following the trail of smoke from his cigarette. "Pittsburgh, I think."

Clive looked down at his place, now empty, waiting to be filled by the Chocolate Dome. He was also trying to remember a conversation with Tom Kidd about Ned. Pittsburgh? Wasn't Ned from Pittsburgh?

"Born there or went to school there or something, I dunno." Mort went on, still talking about Paul Giverney, his arm c.o.c.ked atop the fancy bal.u.s.trade, his eyes looking down at the Lobby. Mort lifted his chin and blew a strand of smoke upward that eddied away to fuse with the dappled light of the chandelier.

Clive smiled as their waiter set down the Chocolate Dome and poured the last of the wine. This dinner (which would set him back-set Mackenzie back, rather-two hundred or so) wasn't paying off. His fork came down on the dome, cracking the chocolate sh.e.l.l and revealing layers of chocolate mousse and sabayon, a paean to calories and cholesterol and worth every artery-clogging, waist-spreading bit. He decided the h.e.l.l with it, and jumped right in: "What's this I hear about a feud between Ned and Paul?"

Mort frowned. "Feud? Don't know what you're talking about." It was clear he disliked not knowing about something as gossip-worthy as this about one of his own clients. "What?"

"Oh, just a rumor. Maybe Giverney just doesn't like Ned Isaly for some reason. Something I heard in pa.s.sing, that's all."

"Well, it beats me. Never heard Paul mention him one way or the other. I can believe Paul would be feuding with just about anybody, though, he's such an arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Clive laughed. "Arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d" was the sobriquet by which Paul Giverney was best known. And it occurred to Clive, then, that of course Paul wouldn't talk to Mort about it. Indeed, he was surprised with himself that he hadn't realized this earlier. Paul had little use for agents, including Mortimer Durban, even though Paul was a client. He wouldn't get into anything personal with Mort.

As the layers turned to a heavenly mixture in his mouth, Clive looked down at the Lobby, where he saw that the redhead and the platinum blonde who'd graced the bar beside Mort Durban earlier had found their dates, or had just made them, for now they sat with two men at a table near the writers'. He watched, frowning slightly, as they rose in concert and, drinks in hand, headed for the marble staircase, which they ascended, laughing.

My G.o.d, those two.