The Bonfire Of The Vanities Part 33

Social grin: "Did he happen to mention what it is?"

"As a matter of fact, he did. Reproduction."

Social grin: "Reproduction?"

"Yes. He said id'd taken him seventy years to realize that's the sole purpose of life: reproduction. Said, 'Nature is concerned with but one thing: reproduction for the sake of reproduction.' "

Social grin: "That's very interesting, coming from him. You know he's h.o.m.os.e.xual, don't you?"

"Aw, come on. Who told you that?"

"This one." He gestured toward the back of Mrs. Rawthrote. "Who is she, anyhow? Do you know her?"

"Yeah. Sally Rawthrote. She's a real-estate broker."

Social grin: "A real-estate broker!" Dear G.o.d. Who on earth would invite a real-estate broker real-estate broker to dinner! to dinner!

As if reading his mind, Maria said, "You're behind the times, Sherman. Real-estate brokers are very chic now. She goes everywhere with that old red-faced tub over there, Lord Gutt." She nodded toward the other table.

"The fat man with the British accent?"

"Yes."

"Who is he?"

"Some banker or other."

Social grin: "I've got something to tell you, Maria, but-I don't want you to get excited. My wife is at the next table and she's facing us. So please be cool."

"Well, well, well. Why, Mr. McCoy, honey."

Keeping the social grin clamped on his mug the whole time, Sherman gave her a quick account of his confrontation with the two policemen.

Just as he feared, Maria's composure broke. She shook her head and scowled. "Well, why didn't you let 'em see the G.o.dd.a.m.ned car, Sherman! You said it's clean!"

Social grin: "Hey! Calm down! My wife may be looking. I wasn't worried about the car. I just didn't want them to talk to the attendant. It may be the same one who was there that night, when I brought the car back."

"Jesus Christ, Sherman. You talk to me about being cool cool, and you're so uncool. You sure you didn't tell 'em anything?"

Social grin: "Yes, I'm sure."

"For Christ's sake, get that stupid smile off your face. You're allowed to have a serious conversation with a girl at the dinner table, even if your wife is looking. I don't know why you agreed to talk to the G.o.dd.a.m.ned police in the first place."

"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

"I told told you you weren't cut out for this." you you weren't cut out for this."

Clamping the social grin back on, Sherman glanced at Judy. She was busy grinning toward the Indian face of Baron Hochswald. He turned back to Maria, still grinning.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," said Maria.

He turned off the grin. "When can I talk to you? When can I see you?"

"Call me tomorrow night."

"Okay. Tomorrow night. Let me ask you something. Have you heard anybody talking about the story in The City Light The City Light? Anybody here, tonight?"

Maria started laughing. Sherman was glad. If Judy was watching, it would appear they were having an amusing conversation. "Are you serious?" said Maria. "The only thing these people read in The City Light The City Light is is her her column." She motioned toward a large woman across the table, a woman of a certain age with an outrageous mop of blond hair and false eyelashes so long and thick she could barely lift her upper lids. column." She motioned toward a large woman across the table, a woman of a certain age with an outrageous mop of blond hair and false eyelashes so long and thick she could barely lift her upper lids.

Social grin: "Who's that?"

"That's 'The Shadow.' "

Sherman's heart kicked up. "You're joking! They invite a newspaper columnist to dinner?"

"Sure. Don't worry. She id'n interested in you. And she id'n interested in automobile accidents in the Bronx, either. If I shot Arthur, she'd be interested in that. And I'd be glad to oblige her."

Maria launched into a denunciation of her husband. He was consumed with jealousies and resentments. He was making her life h.e.l.l. He kept calling her a wh.o.r.e. Her face was becoming more and more contorted. Sherman was alarmed-Judy might be looking! He wanted to put his social grin back on, but how could he, in the face of this lamentation? "I mean, he goes around the apartment calling me a wh.o.r.e wh.o.r.e. 'You wh.o.r.e! You wh.o.r.e!'-right in front of the servants! How do you think that feels? If he calls me that one more time, I'm gonna hit him over the head with something, I swear to G.o.d!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherman could see Judy's face turned toward the two of them. Oh Christ!-and him without his grin on! Quickly he retrieved it and clamped it on his face and said to Maria, "That's terrible! It sounds like he's senile."

Maria stared at his pleasant social visage for a moment, then shook her head. "Go to h.e.l.l, Sherman. You're as bad as he is."

Startled, Sherman kept the grin on and let the sound of the hive engulf him. Such ecstasy on all sides! Such radiant eyes and fireproof grins! So many boiling teeth! Hack hack hack hack hack hack hack Hack hack hack hack hack hack hack, Inez Bavardage's laugh rose in social triumph. Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw, the Golden Hillbilly's barnyard bray rose in response. Sherman gulped down another gla.s.s of wine.

The dessert was apricot souffle, prepared individually, for each diner, in a stout little crock of the Normandy sort, with borders au rustaud au rustaud painted by hand near the rim. Rich desserts were back in fashion this season. The sort of dessert that showed you were conscious of calories and cholesterol, all the berries and melon b.a.l.l.s with dollops of sherbet, had become just a bit Middle America. On top of that, to be able to serve twenty-four individual souffles was a painted by hand near the rim. Rich desserts were back in fashion this season. The sort of dessert that showed you were conscious of calories and cholesterol, all the berries and melon b.a.l.l.s with dollops of sherbet, had become just a bit Middle America. On top of that, to be able to serve twenty-four individual souffles was a tour de force tour de force. It required quite a kitchen and a staff and a half.

Once the tour de force tour de force had run its course, Leon Bavardage rose to his feet and tapped on his winegla.s.s-a gla.s.s of sauterne of a deep rosy golden hue-heavy dessert wines were also had run its course, Leon Bavardage rose to his feet and tapped on his winegla.s.s-a gla.s.s of sauterne of a deep rosy golden hue-heavy dessert wines were also comme il faut comme il faut this season-and was answered by the happy drunken percussion of people at both tables tapping their winegla.s.ses in a risory fashion. this season-and was answered by the happy drunken percussion of people at both tables tapping their winegla.s.ses in a risory fashion. Haw haw haw haw Haw haw haw haw, Bobby Shaflett's laugh rang out. He was banging his gla.s.s for all he was worth. Leon Bavardage's red lips spread across his face, and his eyes crinkled, as if the crystal percussion was a great tribute to the joy the a.s.sembled celebrities found in his home.

"You are all such dear and special friends of Inez's and mine that we don't need a spec special occasion to want to have you all around us in our home," he said in a bland, slightly feminine, Gulf Coast drawl. Then he turned toward the other table, where Bobby Shaflett sat. "I mean, sometimes we ask Bobby to come over just so we can listen to his laugh laugh. Bobby's laugh is music, far as I'm concerned-besides, we never can get him to sing for us, even when Inez plays the piano!"

Hack hack hack hack hack hack hack hack went Inez Bavardage. went Inez Bavardage. Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw, the Golden Hillbilly drowned her out with a laugh of his own. It was an amazing laugh, this one. Haw haw haww hawww hawwww hawwwww hawwwwww Haw haw haww hawww hawwww hawwwww hawwwwww, it rose and rose and rose, and then it began to fall in a curious, highly stylized way, and then it broke into a sob. The room froze-dead silence-for that instant it took the diners, or most of them, to realize they had just heard the famous laughing sob of the "Vesti la giubba" aria from Pagliacci Pagliacci.

Tremendous applause from both tables, beaming grins, laughter, and cries of "More! More! More!"

"Aw, naw!" said the great blond giant. "I only sing for my supper, an' at's enough for supper right'eh! My souffle wud'n big enough, Leon!" wud'n big enough, Leon!"

Storms of laughter, more applause. Leon Bavardage motioned languidly toward one of the Mexican waiters. "More souffle for Mr. Shaflett!" he said. "Make it in the bathtub!" The waiter stared back with a face of stone.

Grinning, eyes glistening, swept up by this duet of the great wits, Rale Brigham yelled out, "Bootleg souffle!" This was so lame, Sherman was pleased to note, that everyone ignored it, even the ray-eyed Mrs. Rawthrote.

"But this is is a special occasion, all the same," said Leon Bavardage, "because we have a very special friend as our guest during his visit to the United States, Aubrey Buffing." He beamed toward the great man, who turned his gaunt face toward Leon Bavardage with a small tight wary smile. "Now, last year our friend Jacques Prudhomme"-he beamed toward the French Minister of Culture, who was to his right-"told Inez and me he had it on good authority-I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, Jacques-" a special occasion, all the same," said Leon Bavardage, "because we have a very special friend as our guest during his visit to the United States, Aubrey Buffing." He beamed toward the great man, who turned his gaunt face toward Leon Bavardage with a small tight wary smile. "Now, last year our friend Jacques Prudhomme"-he beamed toward the French Minister of Culture, who was to his right-"told Inez and me he had it on good authority-I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, Jacques-"

"I hope so, too," said the Minister of Culture in his grave voice, shrugging in an exaggerated fashion for humorous effect. Appreciative laughter.

"Well, you did tell did tell Inez and me you had it on good authority that Aubrey had won the n.o.bel Prize. I'm sorry, Jacques, but your intelligence operations are not so hot in Stockholm!" Inez and me you had it on good authority that Aubrey had won the n.o.bel Prize. I'm sorry, Jacques, but your intelligence operations are not so hot in Stockholm!"

Another grand shrug, more of the elegant sepulchral voice: "Fortunately, we do not contemplate hostilities with Sweden, Leon." Great laughter.

"But Aubrey was that close that close, anyway," said Leon, putting his forefinger and thumb close together, "and next year may be his year." The old Englishman's small tight smile didn't budge. "But of course, it really doesn't matter, because what Aubrey means to our...our cul culture...goes way beyond prizes, and I know that what Aubrey means to Inez and me as a friend... friend...well, it goes beyond prizes and culture...and-" He was stumped for a way to finish off his tricolon, and so he said: "-and everything else. Anyway, I want to propose a toast to Aubrey, with best wishes for his visit to America-"

"He just bought himself another month of house guest," Mrs. Rawthrote said to Rale Brigham in a stage whisper.

Leon lifted his gla.s.s of sauterne: "Lord Buffing!"

Raised gla.s.ses, applause, British-style hear-hears hear-hears.

The Englishman rose slowly to his feet. He was terribly haggard. His nose seemed a mile long. He was not tall, and yet somehow his great hairless skull made him seem imposing.

"You're much too kind, Leon," he said, looking at Leon and then casting his eyes down modestly. "As you may know...anyone who entertains the notion of the n.o.bel Prize is advised to act as if he is oblivious of its very existence, and in any case, I'm far too old to worry about it...And so I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." Light puzzled laughter. "But one can scarcely help being aware of the marvelous friendship and hospitality of you and Inez, and thank goodness I don't have to pretend for a moment to be otherwise." The litotes had now trebled so rapidly, the company was baffled. But they murmured their encouragement. "So much so," he went on, "that I, for one, should be happy to sing for my supper-"

"I should think so," whispered Mrs. Rawthrote.

"-but I don't see how anyone would dare do so after Mr. Shaflett's remarkable allusion to Canio's grief in Pagliacci Pagliacci."

As only the English can do it, he p.r.o.nounced "Mr. Shaflett" very archly, to bring out the ludicrous aspect of giving the dignified t.i.tle "Mister" to this rustic clown.

Suddenly he stopped and lifted his head and gazed straight ahead, as if looking through the walls of the building and out upon the metropolis beyond. He laughed dryly.

"Forgive me. All at once I was hearing the sound of my own voice, and it occurred to me that I now have the sort of British voice which, had I heard it half a century ago, when I was a young man-a delightfully hotheaded young man, as I recall-would have caused me to leave the room."

People cut glances at one another.

"But I know you won't leave," Buffing continued. "It has always been wonderful to be an Englishman in the United States. Lord Gutt Gutt may disagree with me"-he p.r.o.nounced may disagree with me"-he p.r.o.nounced Gutt Gutt with such a guttural bark, it was as if he were saying with such a guttural bark, it was as if he were saying Lord s.h.i.thead- Lord s.h.i.thead-"but I doubt that he will. When I first came to the United States, as a young man, before the Second Great War, and people heard my voice, they would say, 'Oh, you're English!' and I always got my way, because they were so impressed. Nowadays, when I come to the United States and people hear my voice, they say, 'Oh, you're English-you poor thing!'-and I still get my way, because your countrymen never fail to take pity on us."

Much appreciative laughter and relief. The old man was mining the lighter vein. He paused again, as if trying to decide whether he should go on or not. His conclusion, evidently, was yes.

"Why I've never written a poem about the States I really don't know. Well, I take that back. I do do know, of course. I have lived in a century in which poets are not supposed to write poems know, of course. I have lived in a century in which poets are not supposed to write poems about about anything, at least not anything you can put a geographical name to. But the United States deserve an epic poem. At various times in my career I considered writing an epic, but I didn't do that, either. Poets are also not supposed to write epics any longer, despite the fact that the only poets who have endured and will endure are poets who have written epics. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser-where will Mr. Eliot or Mr. Rimbaud"-p.r.o.nounced like Mr. Shaflett-"be in their light, even twenty-five years from now? In the shadows, I'm afraid, in the footnotes, deep in the anything, at least not anything you can put a geographical name to. But the United States deserve an epic poem. At various times in my career I considered writing an epic, but I didn't do that, either. Poets are also not supposed to write epics any longer, despite the fact that the only poets who have endured and will endure are poets who have written epics. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser-where will Mr. Eliot or Mr. Rimbaud"-p.r.o.nounced like Mr. Shaflett-"be in their light, even twenty-five years from now? In the shadows, I'm afraid, in the footnotes, deep in the ibid ibid. thickets...along with Aubrey Buffing and a lot of other poets I have thought very highly of from time to time. No, we poets no longer even have the vitality to write epics. We don't even have the courage to make rhymes, and the American epic should have rhymes, rhyme on top of rhyme in a shameless cascade, rhymes of the sort that Edgar Allan Poe gave us...Yes...Poe, who lived his last years just north of here, I believe, in a part of New York called the Bronx...in a little cottage with lilacs and a cherry tree...and a wife dying of tuberculosis. A drunk he was, of course, perhaps a psychotic-but with the madness of prophetic vision. He wrote a story that tells all we need to know about the moment we live in now...'The Masque of the Red Death'...A mysterious plague, the Red Death, is ravaging the land. Prince Prospero-Prince Prospero- Prospero-even the name is perfect-Prince Prospero a.s.sembles all the best people in his castle and lays in two years' provision of food and drink, and shuts the gates against the outside world, against the virulence of all lesser souls, and commences a masked ball that is to last until the plague has burnt itself out beyond the walls. The party is endless and seamless, and it takes place in seven grand salons, and in each the revel becomes more intense than in the one before, and the revelers are drawn on, on, on toward the seventh room, which is appointed entirely in black. One night, in this last room, appears a guest shrouded in the most clever and most hideously beautiful costume this company of luminous masqueraders has ever seen. This guest is dressed as Death, but so convincingly that Prospero is offended and orders him ejected. But none dares touch him, so that the task is left to the Prince himself, and the moment he touches the ghastly shroud, he falls down dead, for the Red Death has entered the house of Prospero...Prospero, my friends...Now, the exquisite part of the story is that somehow the guests have known all along what awaits them in this room, and yet they are drawn irresistibly toward it, because the excitement is so intense and the pleasure is so unbridled and the gowns and the food and the drink and the flesh are so sumptuous-and that is all they have. Families, homes, children, the great chain of being, the eternal tide of chromosomes mean nothing to them any longer. They are bound together, and they whirl about one another, endlessly, particles in a doomed atom-and what else could the Red Death be but some sort of final stimulation, the ne plus ultra ne plus ultra? So Poe was kind enough to write the ending for us more than a hundred years ago. Knowing that, who can possibly write all the sunnier pa.s.sages that should come before? Not I, not I. The sickness-the nausea-the pitiless pain-have ceased with the fever that maddened my brain-with the fever called 'Living' that burned in my brain. The fever called 'Living'-those were among the last words he wrote...No...I cannot be the epic poet you deserve. I am too old and far too tired, too weary of the fever called 'Living,' and I value your company too much, your company and the whirl, the whirl, the whirl. Thank you, Leon. Thank you, Inez."

And with that the spectral Englishman slowly took his seat.

The intruder the Bavardages dreaded most, silence, now commanded the room. The diners looked at one another in embarra.s.sment, three kinds of it. They were embarra.s.sed for this old man, who had committed the gaffe of injecting a somber note into an evening at the Bavardages'. They were embarra.s.sed because they felt the need to express their cynical superiority to his solemnity, but they didn't know how to go about it. Dared they sn.i.g.g.e.r? After all, he was Lord Buffing of the n.o.bel Short List and their hosts' house guest. And they were embarra.s.sed because there was always the possibility that the old man had said something profound and they had failed to get it. Sally Rawthrote rolled her eyes and pulled a mock long face and looked about to see if anyone was following her lead. Lord Gutt put a downcast smile on his great fat face and glanced at Bobby Shaflett, who was himself looking at Inez Bavardage for a clue. She offered none. She stared, dumstruck. Judy was smiling an entirely foolish smile, it seemed to Sherman, as if she thought something very pleasant had just been expressed by the distinguished gentleman from Great Britain.

Inez Bavardage rose up and said, "We'll have coffee in the other room." Gradually, without conviction, the hive began to buzz again.

On the ride back home, the six-block ride, costing $123.25, which is to say, one half of $246.50, with Mayfair Town Car Inc.'s white-haired driver at the wheel, Judy chattered away. She was bubbling over. Sherman hadn't seen her this animated for more than two weeks, since the night she caught him in flagrante telephone in flagrante telephone with Maria. Tonight, obviously, she had not detected a thing concerning Maria, didn't even know the pretty girl sitting next to her husband at dinner had been with Maria. Tonight, obviously, she had not detected a thing concerning Maria, didn't even know the pretty girl sitting next to her husband at dinner had been named named Maria. No, she was in great spirits. She was intoxicated, not by alcohol-alcohol was fattening-but by Society. Maria. No, she was in great spirits. She was intoxicated, not by alcohol-alcohol was fattening-but by Society.

With a pretense of amused detachment she burbled about the shrewdness with which Inez had chosen her celebrity all-stars: three t.i.tles (Baron Hochswald, Lord Gutt, and Lord Buffing), one ranking politician with a cosmopolitan cachet (Jacques Prudhomme), four giants of arts and letters (Bobby Shaflett, Nunnally Voyd, Boris Korolev, and Lord Buffing), two designers (Ronald Vine and Barbara Cornagglia), three V.I.F.'s-"V.I.F.'s?" asked Sherman-"Very Important f.a.gs," said Judy, "that's what everybody calls them" (The only name Sherman caught was that of the Englishman who had sat to her right, St. John Thomas), and three business t.i.tans (Hochswald, Rale Brigham, and Arthur Ruskin). Then she went on about Ruskin. The woman on his left, Madame Prudhomme, wouldn't talk to him, and the woman on his right, Rale Brigham's wife, wasn't interested, and so Ruskin had leaned over and started telling Baron Hochswald about his air charter service in the Middle East. "Sherman, have you any idea how that man makes his money? He takes Arabs to Mecca on airplanes-747s!-by the tens of thousands!-and he's Jewish!"

It was the first time she had pa.s.sed on a piece of chitchat to him, in the sunny vein of yore, since he couldn't remember when. But he was past caring about the life and times of Arthur Ruskin. He could think only of the gaunt and haunted Englishman, Aubrey Buffing.

And then Judy said, "What on earth do you suppose got into Lord Buffing? The whole thing was so...so mortifying."

Mortifying, indeed, thought Sherman. He started to tell her that Buffing was dying of AIDS, but he was long past the joys of gossip also.

"I have no idea," he said.

But of course he did. He knew precisely. That mannered, ghostly English voice had been the voice of an oracle. Aubrey Buffing had been speaking straight to him, as if he were a medium dispatched by G.o.d Himself. Edgar Allan Poe!-Poe!-the ruin of the dissolute!-in the Bronx-the Bronx! The meaningless whirl, the unbridled flesh, the obliteration of home and hearth!-and, waiting in the last room, the Red Death. The meaningless whirl, the unbridled flesh, the obliteration of home and hearth!-and, waiting in the last room, the Red Death.

Eddie had the door open for them by the time they walked from the Mayfair Town Car sedan to the entrance. Judy sang out, "h.e.l.lo, Eddie!" Sherman barely looked at him and said nothing at all. He felt dizzy. In addition to being consumed by fear, he was drunk. His eyes darted about the lobby...The Street of Dreams...He half expected to see the shroud.

16. Tawkin Irish

Martin's Irish Machismo was so Icy Kramer couldn't conceive of him as high-spirited, except possibly while drunk. Even then, he figured, he would be a mean and irritable drunk. But this morning he was in high spirits. His sinister Doberman eyes had become big and bright. He was happy as a child.

"So we're standing there in this lobby with these two doormen," he was saying, "and there's a buzz, and this b.u.t.ton lights up, and Jesus Christ, one a these guys, he's running out the door like he's got a wire up his a.s.s, and he's blowing a whistle and waving his arms for a cab."

He looked straight at Bernie Fitzgibbon as he told this tale. The four of them, Martin, Fitzgibbon, Goldberg, and himself, were in Fitzgibbon's office. Fitzgibbon, as befitted a Homicide Bureau chief in the District Attorney's Office, was a slender athletic Irishman of the Black Irish stripe with a square jaw, thick black hair, dark eyes, and what Kramer called a Locker Room Grin. A Locker Room Grin was quick but never ingratiating. Fitzgibbon no doubt smiled readily at Martin's story and its boorish details because Martin was a particular type of tough little Harp, and Fitzgibbon understood and valued the breed.

There were two Irishmen in the room, Martin and Fitzgibbon, and two Jews, Goldberg and himself, but to all intents and purposes there were four Irishmen. I'm still Jewish, thought Kramer, but not in this room. All the cops turned Irish, the Jewish cops, like Goldberg, but also the Italian cops, the Latin cops, and the black cops. The black cops even; n.o.body understood the police commissioners, who were usually black, because their skin hid the fact that they had turned Irish. The same was true of a.s.sistant district attorneys in the Homicide Bureau. You were supposed to turn Irish. The Irish were disappearing from New York, so far as the general population was concerned. In politics, the Irish, who twenty years ago still ran the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and much of Manhattan, were down to one seedy little district over on the West Side of Manhattan, over where all the unused piers rusted in the Hudson River. Every Irish policeman Kramer met, including Martin, lived out on Long Island or some place like Dobbs Ferry and commuted to the city. Bernie Fitzgibbon and Jimmy Caughey were dinosaurs. Everybody moving up in the Bronx District Attorney's Office was Jewish or Italian. And yet the Irish stamp was on the Police Department and on the Homicide Bureau of the D.A.'s Office, and it would probably be there forever. Irish machismo-that was the dour madness that gripped them all. They called themselves Harps and Donkeys, the Irish did. Donkeys! They used the word themselves, in pride but also as an admission. They understood the word. Irish bravery was not the bravery of the lion but the bravery of the donkey. As a cop, or as an a.s.sistant district attorney in Homicide, no matter what kind of stupid fix you got yourself into, you never backed off. You held your ground. That was what was scary about even the smallest and most insignificant of the breed. Once they took a position, they were ready to fight. To deal with them you had to be willing to fight also, and not that many people on this poor globe were willing to fight. The other side of it was loyalty. When one of them got in a jam, the others never broke ranks. Well, that wasn't completely true, but the game had to be pretty far gone before the Irish started looking out for Number One. The cops were like that, and a.s.sistant D.A.s in Homicide were supposed to be like that. Loyalty was loyalty, and Irish loyalty was a monolith, indivisible. The code of the Donkey! And every Jew, every Italian, every black, every Puerto Rican, internalized that code and became a stone Donkey himself. The Irish liked to entertain one another with Irish war stories, so that when Donkey Fitzgibbon and Donkey Goldberg listened to Donkey Martin, all they lacked was booze so they could complete the picture by getting drunk and sentimental or drunk and in a brutal rage. No, thought Kramer, they don't need alcohol. They're high on what tough, undeluded motherf.u.c.kers they are.

"I asked one a the doormen about it," said Martin. "I mean, we had lotsa time. This f.u.c.king McCoy makes us wait down in the lobby for fifteen minutes. Anyway, on every floor, beside the elevator, they got two b.u.t.tons. One is for the elevator, and the other is for cabs. You push the b.u.t.ton, and this little s.h.i.tball runs out in the street blowing his whistle and waving his arms. So anyway, we finally get in the elevator, and it dawns on me I don't know what floor the f.u.c.king guy lives on. So I stick my head out the door, and I says to the doorman, 'What b.u.t.ton do I push?' And he says, 'We'll send you up there.' We'll send you up there We'll send you up there. You can push all the b.u.t.tons you want inside the elevator and it don't mean s.h.i.t. One a the doormen has to push the b.u.t.ton on his panel out by the door. Even if you live in the f.u.c.king place and you want to go visit somebody else, you can't just get on the elevator and push somebody else's floor. Not that the place strikes me as the kinda place where they just drop by to shoot the s.h.i.t. Anyway, this guy McCoy's on the tenth floor. The door opens, and you step out into this little room. It don't open up on a hall, it opens up on this little room, and there's only one door. On that floor the elevator is just for his f.u.c.king apartment."

"You've lived a sheltered life, Marty," said Bernie Fitzgibbon.

"Not f.u.c.king sheltered enough, if you ask me," said Martin. "We ring the bell, and a maid in a uniform opens the door. She's Puerto Rican or South American or something. This hall you walk into, there's all this marble and wood paneling and one a those big staircases that goes up like this, like something in a f.u.c.king movie. So we cool our heels on the marble floor for a while, until the guy figures he's made us wait the proper length a time, and then he comes down the stairs, very slowly, with his f.u.c.king chin-I swear to Christ-with his f.u.c.king chin up in the air. You catch that, Davey?"

"Yeah," said Goldberg. He snorted with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"What's he look like?" asked Fitzgibbon.

"He's tall, got the gray suit, got this chin up in the air-your Wall Street a.s.shole. Not a bad-looking guy. About forty."

"How did he react to you guys being there?"

"He was pretty cool about the whole thing at first," said Martin. "He invited us into this library, I guess it was. It wasn't very big, but you shoulda seen this f.u.c.king s.h.i.t up around the ceiling." He waved his hand in a sweeping motion. "There's all these f.u.c.king people, carved outta wood, like crowds a people on the sidewalk, and these shops and s.h.i.t in the background. You never seen anything like it. So we're sitting there, and I'm telling him how this is a routine check of cars of this make with this license plate and so on, and he's saying yeah, he heard something about the case on television and yeah, he has a Mercedes with a license number that begins with R, and it sure is a f.u.c.king coincidence, all right-and I mean, I figure, well, this is just another j.e.r.k.-.o.f.f. name on this f.u.c.king j.e.r.k.-.o.f.f. list they handed us. I mean, if you wanna figure out the least likely character you can think of who would be driving up f.u.c.king Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx at night, this is the guy. I mean, I'm practically apolog apologizing to the guy for wasting his f.u.c.king time. And then I ask him if we can take a look at it, and he says, 'When?' And I says, 'Now,' and that was all it took. I mean, if he said, 'It's in the shop' or 'My wife's got it' or any G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing, I don't know if I'da even come back to check it out, it all looked so f.u.c.king unlikely. But he gets this look on his face, and his lips start trembling, and he starts talking this double-talk about how he don't know... don't know...and what's the routine... the routine...but it's mainly the look on his face. I looked at Davey, and he looked at me, and we both saw the same G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing. Ain't that the truth, Davey?"

"Yeah. Suddenly the b.i.t.c.h comes out in him. You could see it coming out."

"I seen people like this before," said Martin. "He don't like this s.h.i.t at all. He's not a bad guy. Looks a little stuck-up, but he's probably a nice enough guy. He's got a wife and a kid. He's got this f.u.c.king apartment. He ain't got the heart for this s.h.i.t. He ain't got the heart for being on the wrong side a the law. I don't care who you are, sometime in your life you're gonna be on the wrong side a the law, and some people got the heart for it and some don't."

"He don't have the heart for you sitting on his f.u.c.king desk," said Goldberg, laughing.

"His desk?" said Fitzgibbon.

"Oh yeah," said Martin, chuckling at the recollection. "Well, the thing is, I see the guy starting to come apart, and I say to myself, 'Well, s.h.i.t, I ain't read him his f.u.c.king rights yet, so I better do that.' So I'm trying to be real casual about it, and I'm telling him how much we appreciate his cooperation and all, but he don't have to say anything if he don't want to, and he's ent.i.tled to a lawyer, and so forth, and now I'm thinking ahead. How'm I gonna say, 'If you can't afford an attorney, the state will provide you with one free a charge,' and make that sound casual, when the f.u.c.king carvings on the wall cost more than a f.u.c.king 18b lawyer makes in a year. So I figure I'll throw in the old 'move over' maneuver for good measure, and I stand right over him-he's sitting down at this big desk-and I look at him like, 'You're not gonna do a chickens.h.i.t thing like keeping your mouth shut, just because I'm reading you your rights, are you?' "

"It was worse than that," said Goldberg. "Marty starts sitting on the edge of the guy's f.u.c.king desk!"