A City Dreaming (8 page)

“Fantastic! I'm heading to a charity gala, and I can sneak you as a plus one.”

“What misfortune! Having just moved back to the city, I fear my wardrobe is not up to the task.”

“Not any sort of a problem—I'd be more than happy to lend you anything you need.”

“I don't have a suit jacket.”

“Easily remedied.”

“Or pants, for that matter.”

“I have a pair that will go perfect on you. They match the jacket, incidentally.”

“It would not be possible for me to provide a dress shirt.”

“I have a cream one that I think would go best with the suit, which is black-striped, though perhaps blue would suit you better. We can try both on when you arrive.”

“The black-striped suit you describe sounds marvelous, though, alas, it would demand a black belt as well, which I'm afraid is also beyond my resources.”

“I always keep an extra belt around, in case anyone wants to asphyxiate themselves autoerotically.”

“Forward thinking, indisputably, and while I'm sure your belt is a very fine one, it would hardly be appropriate for me to show up at this event dressed to the nines above the ankles, and wearing flip-flops below. And as the only footwear I own at this point are sandals and work boots, I fear that we have reached a firm and impassable impediment to my attendance.”

“What size shoes do you wear?”

“Eleven and a half.”

“Truly, we are in the midst of a rare collusion of good fortune—for eleven and a half are the exact number of inches of my own feet, for which I own many shoes, every pair at your service.”

“A tie? Cumberbund? Cuff links?”

“Awaiting your arrival—which if you could make as rapidly as possible would be much appreciated.”

M wasn't happy, but he could tell when he was fairly beaten. Andre gave him an address, and M smoked a joint and took a taxi on over.

The last time M had seen him, Andre had been living in a penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side that Andre had described with practiced indifference as “cozy”—but that was before the Fall, or was it the Crash?—and now he was living in a large but decrepit efficiency above an Italian restaurant in Nolita. He opened the door by saying that he was just “watching it while Bill is in Hong Kong.” M wondered if Bill was aware of this fact.

Andre was not quite dressed, which was usually the case. He was as punctual as a very attractive woman. His apartment was full of things that were not furniture: crates of art and East Asian heirlooms, boxes of boutique vodka, a rack of fur coats, ermine and arctic fox and direwolf, the remnants and seeds of rooks, cons, and get-rich schemes. There was an IKEA sofa and a plasma-screen television. On a bar in the kitchen were three empty pizza boxes and an antique gold mirror with a few lines of coke laid out.

“Have a bump if you like,” Andre said, “but do not look inside or you will
see the face of your heart's true love.” Andre reappeared from the bedroom. “You do not want to see the face of your heart's true love, do you?”

“No.”

“No, of course not. Why ruin the surprise.”

Andre had laid M's suit out on the bed. Looking at himself in the mirror afterward (not the magic mirror, a regular mirror) he wasn't certain that he was pulling it off, but Andre was complimentary and also rather rushed, and so there was little time for self-doubt, which, anyway, had disappeared with the rest of Andre's cocaine.

Andre paid for the taxi, which was only right, proper, and fair. M spent most of the way over talking about Gram Parsons in overheated fashion, the blow proving the ideal conduit between brain and mouth. Somehow Andre had never heard of the man, which was a situation that M felt begged to be rectified.

When they got out they were high up on the West Side, and M was starting to think maybe this whole thing wouldn't turn out to be a disaster after all. That was the worst thing about cocaine: It was not the aftertaste or the cost or its long-term health effects; it was that it made an optimist out of a thinking man.

The building was steel and mirrored glass, and it extended up to the top of the world. Andre said a few words to the two men guarding the entrance, who were square-shouldered and square-jawed and velvet-glove polite, and then they were through the double doors and into the elevator, a vast, square, iron thing with a meter in the transom. It ran, M noticed after a moment with curiosity though not shock, from –1 to 300. Amid the slate of buttons Andre found, then pushed, the one that read
PH
. The box lurched upward. The seconds ticked by, and then the minutes with them. Andre was cheery and composed, checking his hair in the polished sheen of the doors.

M was still talking about Gram Parsons: “. . . but then they didn't do a decent job of building the fire, so he just kind of charred a little bit, until his friends realized it wasn't going to happen, and then they left him there.”

“That is quite a story,” Andre said, settling back the single twist of hair that had come askew.

“Ain't it though?”

“By the by, M, there is one aspect of tonight's evening that occurs to me I have not yet had occasion to mention.”

“Is it closed bar? Because I swear to God, Andre, if you made me put on this suit and come up here to pay twenty dollars for a gin and tonic—”

“The bar is open, of course—give me a little credit. No, the point I've thus far neglected is the possibility that there will be a man in attendance tonight who wants to see me dead.”

“You mean it's possible that he'll be here, or it's possible that he wants to see you dead?”

“It is possible that he'll be here. It is certain that he wants to see me dead.”

The hand on the altimeter had gone as right as it could go.

“Who is this man, apart from having good taste in enemies?”

“Alatar of the Upper West Side.”

The doors opened. Waves of merriment rolled off the waiting party.

“Fuck me,” M said.

“Quite possibly. The women at these things tend to drink heavily.”

They entered a spherical chamber slightly smaller than St. Peter's, composed of white marble and lovingly accented indigo. In the back of the room was a large stage that no one was looking at. In the center of the room was a vast ebony bar, and this was getting far more attention.

“You know that guy hates me,” M said.

“Does he?”

“For, like, decades.”

“Excellent!” Andre said, walking them toward the bar. “Then there should be no need to play soft with him.”

Curved tables running against the exterior wall held the merchandise that had been prepared for the silent auction, mint editions of
Action Comics
No. 1 and the last remaining copy of Nick Drake's undiscovered LP and the gun used to kill Franz Ferdinand and also the bullets used to kill him and also (though where would you put it?) the body of Franz Ferdinand. M caught a glimpse of something that might have been the head of John the Baptist, but he was not in a position to make sure, because before he could take a longer look, Andre grabbed him by the arm and hustled him off to the bar. As a rule, M disliked being manhandled, particularly as it was becoming clear that the reason he had been asked to this little soiree was to act as muscle in case things got rough. But he realized he could use a gimlet, and so he didn't protest.

The bartender was a handsome, silent Latino man who looked at M but didn't say anything. M ordered his drink and watched Andre watch the crowd nervously.

“You ever notice that you only call me when you need something?” M asked.

“You don't call me at all!” Andre said cheerily, handing M a glass.

“That's because you're the sort of person who only calls people when they need things.”

“Bottoms up!”

They soon were.

“What did you do to piss him off?” M asked.

“Nothing. It is—how you say—a misunderstanding.”

“That's how you say it. What does he think you did?”

“He thinks I slept with his girlfriend.”

The crowd was the usual mix of people at this sort of thing—rich men and beautiful women. Onstage was a short, dark, sad-looking fellow. His microphone didn't seem to be working, and most of what he said was lost to the static. “
Kinshassa . . . blood diamonds . . .
”

“Why would Alatar think that?” M asked.

“Who can say why anyone thinks anything?” Andre said, saddened, even wounded by the errancy of mankind.

“But he might not be here?”

“
Hundreds of thousands of children a year . . .
”

“Who can be certain of anything in an uncertain world? Though on the other hand, he is throwing the thing, so his absence would be a rather severe breach of etiquette.”

“What would possibly possess you to go to the party of a man trying to kill you?”

“Image is everything, M,” Andre said, scowling and stretching his hand out toward his friends and acquaintances. “These people are hyenas, quick to spot weakness and take advantage of it. Can't have them thinking I'm afraid of a man like Alatar.”

“But you are afraid of him—that's why you brought me along.”

“Of course, but they don't know that.”

The chubby African man finished his speech and walked offstage. At least he walked offstage.

“What is it with you superwealthy? You can't just rent out a ballroom and get drunk like everyone else, have to pretend there's some sort of moral purpose behind it, slap a few pictures of starving children on the walls? A party isn't a party unless it's got a garnish of human misery?”

“It's called noblesse oblige. Perhaps you've heard of it? A bit of giving back.”

“A very tiny bit,” M said. “An almost embarrassingly tiny bit. How much of the take do you think will make it to its destination, after you subtract for overhead?”

“I'm not entirely sure that these people are being paid,” Andre observed of the waitstaff, beautiful men and women, dressed in stark black tuxedos, none speaking or making eye contact.

“I hope the irony is not lost on you.”

Andre signaled for another drink. “Not entirely.”

M wanted a cigarette, and of course he couldn't smoke inside, and so they made their way out onto the balcony. Stars twinkled above them, and the city did the same below.

“So, five years,” Andre began.

“Something like it.”

“The last time we saw each other, then, would have been at Talbot's Lammas party?”

“Sounds about right.”

“I am sorry about that.”

“Don't let your guilt overwhelm you,” M said. “At least not while we're staring over the ledge.”

“Did the burn scars fade?”

“Eventually.”

“I'm happy to hear it!” Andre said. “And what have you been doing then, lo this half decade?”

“Wandering.”

“I would think you'd have about wandered yourself out of places to wander, long as you've been doing it.”

Which was the sort of thing that people who stayed in one place often think, though any traveler knows that seeing the world (and the worlds beyond) is a full-time job, because you can't see everything, and even if you could, by the time you got to the last place, the first place would have changed so much that you couldn't really say you'd seen it anymore. And also, what else is there to do?

“And what have you been up to?” M asked.

“Running in place.”

“Sounds productive.”

“Nice view at least,” Andre said, putting his back against the railing and gesturing toward the party.

“I'm not sure I'd agree.”

“Nothing to recommend it whatsoever?”

“The booze is free, I suppose,” M said. “Speaking of which.” He wiggled his glass, which was indeed empty or near so, then left Andre on the patio and went to fill it.

The new bartender was the same as the old except Asian, gorgeous, and ineffably quiet. The pockets of his tuxedo had been sewn shut, and his vest was buttonless.

“Thanks,” M said, and handed out a dollar that the man ignored.

“Silent type, huh? Committed to your job? I can understand. Can you do me a favor and bring me a shot glass full of salt?”

Indeed the man could not do anything but, shuffling languid-eyed over to the other end of the bar and coming back with M's order. M took the glass, nodded thanks, and followed one of the other servers—an ebony goddess, long-limbed and mute—into the kitchens.

You will find servants' quarters rarely keep pace with the elegance of their masters'. The kitchen looked like any other kitchen you could find—fires beneath saucepans, sharp knives chopping, servers whirring about swiftly. However, it did not sound like any other kitchen you could find, the usual chatter replaced with silence, broken only by the scuff of shoes and the occasional rattle of silverware.

Another difference between this kitchen and other kitchens was that no one seemed to pay any attention to M walking around inside it, the waiters
and the line cooks utterly engrossed in their respective tasks. There was no break room, but there was a sort of alcove with a tower of plastic cups standing next to a glass ewer. M took the top off and dropped the shot glass inside. No one noticed, or at least M did not notice anyone noticing. They were not the most fiercely observant group, the waitstaff.

M went back into the main room and drank his drink and sniffed around at the prizes for the silent auction and wondered if he should bother to try to steal one. That there was no visible security suggested he ought not, probably they were cursed, and touching them would rot off his hand or some such. On the other hand, M really wanted that Nick Drake LP.

After a while of weighing pro against con he remembered Andre, and his sort of nominal purpose in having been there, and he went back out on the balcony. But Andre had vacated the premises, left behind nothing but a half-empty glass on the balcony and a cigarette end stuffed into a planter. A further moment of observation and M noticed the security latch on the fire escape nearest to the balcony had been dismantled. He sighed, opened the door, and went to save the life of his sort-of, sometime friend.