Up In The Air Part 5

"Who called you, Art?"

"He was checking references. Whoever it is you're looking to go to work for."

"And what did you tell him?"

"That my wife just left me, but I'll get back to you once I've blown my brains out. Does All-Star Steaks sound good? I booked a table. We can take your car or mine, it doesn't matter."

"Did this caller sound real or did you smell a prank? One of the guys I work with is a kidder."

"What would you say are my chances of reopening under a new name? Not Mexican-something more sanitary. Middle Eastern?"

"That's not as big a difference as you think. If you insist on staying in hospitality, people are having good luck with donuts now. There's a group from down south that's going national, but you have to co-advertise, and the buy-in's steep."

"No presence in Nevada yet?"

"I doubt it."

"I tried donuts back in '69. They petered out in the seventies. What changed?"

"These are the mysteries."

"No one knows? Come on."

"Maybe they know in Omaha. I'll see."

In science, an experiment is meaningless unless its outcome is repeatable. I feel the same way about restaurants and eating out. Unless a dish can be made to taste as good no matter where it's prepared, LA or Little Rock, it doesn't entice me. I like successful formulas. I like a meal that's been tested and perfected, allowing me to order and relax, knowing the chef won't use me as a guinea pig for his new fruit salsa or what have you. In fact, I prefer establishments that don't need chefs because their training programs are so deft that anyone off the street can run the kitchen. That's why I'm glad that Art chose All-Star Steaks. It's one of the five or six chains that I depend on, whose systematic comforts always satisfy. Gla.s.s-cased sports memorabilia line the walls and the waitresses flounce around in shorts and jerseys as though they've just risen from bed with athlete boyfriends. They'll have a lawsuit over that, eventually, but until that time, I'm theirs.

We choose a booth of orange textured vinyl stamped with various major league insignias. My challenge is to find a way to ditch Art without endangering my MythTech reference. Three hours from now there's a flight to Ontario, whose local Homestead is granting double miles due to a construction inconvenience. Two nights there will help me recapture some lost momentum.

We order two of All-Star's signature c.o.c.ktails: jumbo martinis garnished with cherry tomatoes. To slip away, I'll need to get Art tipsy without going sloppy myself. I'm good at this. One technique is to fill my cheek with alcohol, pretend to swallow, then spit into a napkin during a mock sneeze. Also, if the drinks are clear, I can secretly dump them in my water gla.s.s, then carelessly knock it over once it's full. I'm slightly ashamed that I'm not man enough to declare my limits as a drinker, but since no one has ever caught me at my tricks, it's a private shame, easy to deny, like the way I sometimes leave pairs of soiled boxer shorts in hotel room trash cans for the maid.

Art gnaws a breadstick. He's breaking my heart today. Men venture everything when they start a business, not just money. Take my father's case. Before he went into propane, he fixed machinery, making field calls for a John Deere dealer. Sometimes, during the harvest, he'd work all night, driving with his tools from farm to farm, rescuing fouled combines and frozen balers. He took caffeine pills to stay awake and lived on chocolate milk. Then one morning he told us he'd had enough and went to bed for a week. My mother sobbed. What finally brought him downstairs was a phone call informing him of a business loan approval. He put on a tie for the first time since his wedding and walked downtown to sign the doc.u.ments. When he got back, in a new GMC diesel whose doors and tailgate were stenciled with his name, he was a different person, more distinct. The effect lasted years. He walked in his own spotlight.

The steaks are taking longer than they should, considering that we both ordered them rare. While we wait, Art dissects my credit card difficulties, displaying a knowledge of fraud I'm not surprised by. What I'm up against, he theorizes, is not a lone criminal but a far-flung gang.

"The way they work, they steal your info and only have a day or two to use it, so they set up a rolling purchase schedule. Simultaneous charges in different towns would raise red flags, so they s.p.a.ce their buys apart, which makes the computers think you're on a trip. People spend more money when they're traveling, so when the charges start to pile up, the software that's supposed to catch the pattern doesn't kick in right away."

"You know all this . . . ?"

Art eats his cherry tomato, blocking his mouth with a napkin to catch the juice spurt. "There's things you never knew about my restaurants. They had a cash side that wasn't on the books. The standard shenanigans. Everybody does them."

"I guess I'm sorry to hear that. Cash corrupts, though."

"I wanted to make it honestly. I tried. I read all those books, the ones by guys like you. Overcoming No. Get Real, Get Rich Overcoming No. Get Real, Get Rich."

"Don't judge the good stuff by the trash," I say.

"Visualization. Time a.n.a.lysis. Quality Cubes. I tried all kinds of c.r.a.p. That thing where you get all your workers in one room and sit completely quiet for eight hours, then write down your thoughts and put them in a box that you never open. All those tricks. And still I was losing money. Losing people. Getting certified letters from state commissions saying so-and-so filed a complaint because you fired her for being queer, when the truth was she had her fingers in the till. And all the inspections. Day and night inspections. Your handicapped toilet needs moving-a thousand bucks. That table's blocking an exit, pay this fine. Health cops, fire cops, tax cops. Total h.e.l.l. Everyone poking you with his little pitchfork."

"In management we call them 'psychic costs.' " I glare at the waitress to hurry her along.

"Ryan, you don't know. I'm sorry, you just don't. Why is our food late, you're wondering? I'll tell you. Because the lowlife overseeing the kitchen ducked out an hour ago to score some dope and got knifed in the arm behind the Stockman's Club, forcing the owner to call in some old wino he fired last week for coughing up green phlegm into the coleslaw. Human Resources? Try human refuse."

To calm Art, I confess to being a bystander who's never actually run a business himself. It's too late, though, Art's off, and even the arrival of a plate-filling T-bone smothered in onion nuggets and floating in au jus can't stem his bitterness. If this mood hangs on, I don't dare leave-he'll be on the line to MythTech first thing tomorrow, slandering me to the skies. My only hope is that he'll collapse in the next half hour or so. The water trick, due to Art's keen gaze, is out, though, and I've already used the napkin trick. I'll pay the bartender to pour a bomb and make mine a tonic water.

"Full bladder," I say.

"Me too."

I'm startled-joint toilet trips just don't happen with men. Art is even lonelier than I thought.

The side-by-side urinals are filled with ice cubes, a touch I've never had properly explained to me. Holding himself with one hand, Art tips his head back and shakes out his Samson locks. I clench. Can't pee.

"Let's. .h.i.t the Mustang. It's a rip-off joint, but they fly in their girls from the leading beach resorts. My steak's a joke. It's like chewing a catcher's glove."

"Mine's fine. Let's stay for another drink or two."

"Can't now. I've got a picture in my head."

Art covers the meal with two fifties from his money clip. There are money-clip men and there are wallet men. Money-clip men overtip for even poor service, carry only the freshest currency, and they don't end an evening until they've spent their roll. I'm stuck in Reno. The only way to make Ontario would be to fly to LAX and drive, but I don't feel up to freeway traffic.

The lights of the Strip rake our faces with bars of color. A cowboy in the doorway of a p.a.w.nshop flicks a lit cigar b.u.t.t at our feet that skips into the street beneath a limo with vanity license plates: LTHL DOS LTHL DOS. I step on a wet wad of chewing gum, remove it, then promptly step on another one that's stickier. A casino barker costumed as a leprechaun but far too stout for the outfit's emerald tights hands us coupons good for two free spins on something called the Wheel O' Dreams. We pa.s.s.

"An hour. That's all I have left in me this evening."

"That's fine," Art says. "I'll probably end up in the VIP room, tied to a water pipe with a sequined thong."

I venture a focus word I've had on file. Use them or lose them. "You old sybarite."

The club is set up as a lounge, no stage, no spotlights, just a maze of tables and leather sofas packed in so tight that the dancers and c.o.c.ktail girls have to step sideways, brushing hips and nipples, when they pa.s.s each other on their rounds. Art tunnels ahead of me through the blue smoke to a spot in the back screened off by potted trees with leaves the shape and size of human hands. We sit, and I feel like a hunter in a blind, hidden but with a full view of the field. The women are a cut above, Art's right; they look cool-to-the-touch, both healthy and intelligent. I can see Art growing anxious as one approaches. He thumbs a couple of breath mints off a roll and chews them hard to release the active ingredients.

Me, I'm not tempted. As a younger man I made the mistake of talking to a stripper, in depth and at length, about her finances. Her income shocked me. It was double mine. She claimed to be saving for college, but when I pressed her I learned that she didn't even have a bank account and supported not one but two delinquent boyfriends. I didn't feel sorry for her, I felt insulted. There I was, the sort of clean achiever this beautiful girl should consider marrying, but instead she was shaking me down for twenties to lavish on my Darwinian inferiors.

The girl settles onto Art's lap and starts her act, gripping the back of his chair to brace herself and arching her lovely, articulated spine. On her shoulder a tattooed daisy spreads its petals. I look away, but Art wants to keep on talking.

"I have an idea if I get out of restaurants. It's like a record or book club, but with power tools. April, you get a cordless drill. May, a reciprocal saw. If you don't want it, you have to ship it back. You know how that works. People can't be bothered. The stuff piles up. It's automatic billing, so they're screwed."

"I don't know. Maybe. I'm leaving ISM, Art. I might not be available to help you."

"Just give me hope. -Not so hard there, hon. I'll rupture."

I'm duty-bound to restore Art's optimism, to point him toward new horizons. I have a thought. At GoalQuest on Thursday I'm meeting Tony Marlowe, one of the industry's highest-earning motivators, who I knew through some friends before he got so huge. He'd come up through the speed-reading racket in California, where he played all the planned retirement communities, but left to build team skills in greater Silicon Valley. The man's pure nitro, a self-made high school dropout whose private sessions turn CEOs to jelly. A few hours with Marlowe, on me-that's what I'll offer.

"I'm writing something on a card here, Art. Don't lose it. This is a onetime-only deal."

I wedge the card under an ashtray, and then I spot him: the TV financial advisor from the flight being worked over by a skinny redhead not twenty feet from my table. His hair is different, blow-dried into waves, but I recognize the n.o.ble forehead. I swallow and there's a crackling in my ears as the girl wraps one leg around his crooked old back and bends him at the waist into her chest. His head flops like a corpse's. His mouth drops open. There's a flash of gray tongue, of fillings. I shut my eyes. When I open them, its worse. The girl's fingers are buried in his wiry sideburns and she's kissing his glossy bald spot, licking it. One of his hands hangs limp behind her a.s.s, stuffed with enough cash to last the night.

I watch the old man being jostled and wrung dry. The sensation is gyroscopic, with spinning modules. There's shock and disappointment, but that's the least of it. It's my confidence in Airworld that's been undermined, my faith in the ethical bargain between pa.s.sengers. If I hadn't come to the Mustang Club tonight, my memory of our moment on the plane would have endured unchallenged and ever-golden. His mild, pious eyes. His pinstriped probity as he entertained my humble plea and sermonized on investing with a conscience. What a sham, and how demoralizing. The way I've lived, the way I've moved around, I've not had the luxury of double-checking what I see and hear. I have to trust. If a man who says he's a doctor hears me cough and tells me I should go on antibiotics, I go on antibiotics. Of course I do. In Airworld honesty carries no penalty and deception has no upside. Or so I thought.

Chase Manhattan, solid as Gibraltar. Lutheran bishops. Evil NBC. This from a man who pays teenage runaways to do the watusi on his wizened johnson.

I turn to Art's partner, who's leaving with her money. "That old guy across the way-is he a regular?"

"I've seen him a couple of times. You want a show?"

I shake my head and she jiggles off into the crowd.

"You like that bird's girl?" Art says. His nose is running. He's fiddling with his trousers under the table. "She's taken, it looks like."

"That man she's with," I say. "Famous Wall Street bigwig, Mr. Dow. He gave me a stock idea on the plane today. I phoned it in when I landed. Six thousand bucks."

Art watches him for a moment. "He's hard core. His girl there's a twisted sister. Toilet Terry. She uses guys as fire hydrants."

"Stop."

"She keeps an apartment over by the Hilton. She gets top dollar. Vinyl sheets, the works. If they leave through the side exit, he's going home with her. I'll bet he drinks it. I know a dancer here who'd tell you everything. Pay her enough and she'll get you Polaroids."

Art thinks I crave information about this fellow, but his secret life bores me. I'm not the bloodhound type. That's why detective novels are lost on me. Somebody did it-that's all I need to know. The who, the how, and the why are just details. To my mind, there's nothing drearier than a labyrinth. It's just a structure whose center takes time to find, but if you make an effort, you'll find it. So? The only mysteries that interest me are, Will I land on time? Will the pilots strike? There's enough uncertainty just moving through s.p.a.ce.

I glance back at Wall Street, who's sideways in his lounge chair, his head thrown back over one arm as the girl rides him. Soon, he'll be looking right at me, upside down.

"What style of donuts?" Art asks me.

"I haven't tasted them."

"You up for the VIP room?"

"I have to sleep. Come to GoalQuest and meet this Marlowe. You'll thank me, Art. And give me a nice reference if that guy calls."

"I made that one up to get you to come out here. I was going to off myself tonight."

"Sheer fabrication?"

"I've been drunk for days. I think it was."

There-Wall Street sees me now. He seems to frown; it's hard to read his features in reverse, with his lips where his eyebrows ought to be. Our eyes mix it up for a moment. Does he fear blackmail? I could bribe Art's connection for all the dirt, but why? A mystery stated can be more powerful than a mystery solved, and no matter what she might tell me about this fake, he'll never again be this vividly corrupt to me. And Art lied, too. At least he had a need.

I push back my chair and stand to leave, still watching Wall Street hang there like a possum. I used to think there was a code up there. Not true. Well, let them all feast on each other; I'll be out soon. I'll look up at their contrails and I won't miss it. Ever. Though it might be nice if some of them missed me.

five.

homestead Suites has three cla.s.ses of rooms, their specifications the same from Maine to Texas. I like to stay in the mid-range L-shaped rooms. You could fill me with morphine and pluck out both my eyes and I'd still be able to dim the lights, place calls, and locate an outlet for my noise machine.

Not in Reno, though. This room is different. When I go to hang my jacket in the closet, feeling bloated and slow from too much beef and booze, I open the door on a shrunken, substandard bathroom lacking the usual double toilet-roll holder and equipped with a shower but no tub. Even worse, instead of a lamp beside the desk and twin swing-out sconces flanking the king bed, there's a bare, fluorescent ceiling strip bright enough to interrogate a gang lord. And just one bar of soap: deodorant soap. Deodorant soap for the face! They're kidding me.

I call downstairs from bed but no one answers. I'm not so much angry as out of sorts, confused. Even the mattress seems tilted and out of true, while the blanket is one of those foamy nylon jobs that offer a trace of warmth but no security. I consider stripping the curtains off their rods for added insulation, but I need them to block out Reno's all-night glare. It's a madhouse out there, and louder by the minute as America's seniors seek out cheap prime rib and six-figure jackpots on the nickel slots. I turn on the air conditioner to "high fan" and tuck myself in like a b.u.m under a newspaper.

At the end of the bed the TV screen pulses blue. Still hungry for punishment, I click around and manage to catch the last few minutes of Wall Street's daily show. Though he must have taped it in Reno this afternoon, the set features a lit-up New York skyline. It's the little deceptions that no one catches that are going to dissolve it all someday. We'll look at clocks and we won't believe the hands. They'll forecast sun but we'll pack our slickers anyway.

Feeling a need to halt the swirl, to stabilize, I dial Great West's toll-free mileage hotline to check the running tally on my HandStar. I'm wading through the lengthy options menu when my mobile rings on the nightstand.

It's my mother.

"Where am I reaching you, Ryan?"

She feels this matters. My mother has a developed sense of place; her mental map of the country is zoned and shaded according to her ideas about each region's moral tenor and general demographics. If I'm in Arizona, she a.s.sumes that I've spent my day among pensioners and ranch hands and driven past the Grand Canyon at least once. If I'm in lowa, sensible, pleasant lowa, I'm eating well, thinking clearly, and making friends. Though my mother gets around in her RV and ought to be more sophisticated by now about our American psychedelic rainbow, her talent for turning new experiences into supporting evidence for her prejudices overrides all else. Once, while ga.s.sing up in Alabama, a state she considers brutal, poor, and racist, she got to talking with a black attorney driving a convertible Mercedes. The man paid for his gas with a hundred-dollar bill and was forced to accept, in change, a roll of quarters and stacks of ones and fives. Instead of noting the man's prosperity, my mother seized on the pile of coins and bills-an act of humiliation, she decided, by the station's white clerk.

"I'm in Portland," I say. Nevada would worry her. "It's awfully late. Is everything okay?"

If it's not, she won't tell me-not at first. The worse the news, the harder she'll work to counter it with cheerful tidings from the Busy Bee Cafe.

"Did you hear about Burt's medal?" The Lovely Man. "Our congressman finally cut through the red tape and it looks like the Navy sees things our way now. They might do a ceremony at Fort Snelling."

"Great." I cross to the mini-bar for a pick-me-up, set the down the receiver, grab a beer, twist off the cap, and get back on the line, confident that I haven't missed a thing.

"It only took thirty years," my mother is saying. "It all came down to the definition of 'combat.' "

"How's the wedding coming along? Excited?"

Throat clearing, nose blowing. I've hit on it.

"We spent all day stripping thorns off yellow roses. My hands are all scratched. I'll need gloves for the reception. Julie's gone missing. They're cabbage roses-beautiful."

It's out, and she'd hang up now if she could. Now it's my job to press her for details. So she can feel the pain all over again and I can fear I caused it.

"How long's she been gone?"

"Ten, eleven hours."

"Are she and Keith fighting?"

"No."

"You have to talk, Mom. This isn't a cross-examination. Talk."

"Keith is here. Should I put Keith on?"

"Please."

"What time are you getting here Friday? I need a flight number. There's a special line that I can call to find out if you're on time. I need that number, though. Our weather's been crazy, hail and thunderstorms, so there might be delays."

"I'll find it. Give me Keith."