Ghosts of Manhattan (17 page)

“It's premature.”

“Yeah. Me too. Very distinguished-looking. You're not getting too old for all this?”

I wonder if Jack can see through to me. He's in sales, he must have some knack for picking up on things in people. On the other hand, it may not require any special gift to notice I'm miserable. “Maybe I am.”

“You have any kids? That's when it really gets tough. I've got a kid with my ex-wife.”

“No kids. I'm almost too old to start having kids.”

“There are real advantages to starting at this age.”

“Such as?”

“When you divorce, you can date a gal twenty years younger and she's still plenty older than your kids.”

“I'll remember that.” I sip the last of my drink. My lips are numb from the cold air and I can't feel the liquid but only the sting of the liquor. “Are you getting too old for this?”

Jack heaves a sigh as though he's already thought about this, and I can see a long trail of his breath blow in the cold night over
the street. This is body language I've never seen from him before. Maybe he followed me out because he wanted this conversation. “I probably am. But I'll keep doing it until I'm such a pathetic hack that they force me out the door.” His eyes briefly betray a fear that he's already a hack. It's just a flash, as though he may have wanted to talk about it but decided it is best not to be found out. In this moment of hesitation, Jack seems human, like a person who can get sad or confused, not an emotionless runaway train. For the first time I get the sense that he could have been a boy once. Maybe he has always just held up a front. No one wants to go drinking with sad. They want fun and fearless and invincible. Maybe it's not so easy being Jack Wilson either. Not at this age.

Jack finishes his drink, taking my cue, though now I'm a little interested. “Why don't you just walk out the door? Under your own power. Go buy a strip joint and run it.”

He rattles the ice in the empty glass and answers me still looking at the ice cubes. “I used to think I would. I might still. Not the strip joint part.” He looks up to me and smiles. “I had a magic number of fifteen million. Once I saved up that much, I'd walk away. The problem is once you get to that point, you're making so much money every year that it's hard to walk away. You're also spending so much that there needs to be some lifestyle changes for fifteen million to be enough to last.”

I'm impressed he's cleared the fifteen-million mark. When you take out federal, state, and city tax, it takes a while to clear that much. Some people think brokers are second-class, but the good ones make more than most traders. I'm working the calculations. If Julia and I shed our expenses, could we make fifteen million last for the next forty years? With no kids and selling the Sag Harbor place it seems possible, with some belt tightening.

Jack pulls a cube from the glass and throws it like a dart across
the balcony and it skids against the door. “So I don't think five years down the road. There's no point, it's too far from today.” He seems to be slipping back into his carefree swagger and even his voice takes on a come-what-may tone.

“You don't love what we do?” I know the answer but there is a perversion that makes me need to hear it from him.

“Does anyone over thirty?”

“Right.”

“I just make a deal with myself to get to the next New Year's Eve. When I get there, I can either quit or make a resolution to make it to the next New Year's Eve. Those are bites I can handle. The same way you eat an elephant. One bite at a time.”

We're now both holding glasses with nothing but ice cubes in weather that is too cold to melt them without alcohol. “It's freezing out here. Let's get another drink.”

I step back inside and the dry heat of the room makes my face flush as it comes back from numbness. Jack and I wordlessly split up like two little kids who have been doing something wrong and shuffle away with averted eyes so as not to get caught.

There have been a few more arrivals of young Chappy brokers full of excitement and pride to be here. They will retell their stories about tonight to their young friends back in their hometowns and dangle them all on a string of awe.

Eminem is playing but at a civilized volume. Probably a request of the hookers. I step through the crowd and more than half the guys here are only a handful of years out of college. The girls are under twenty-five and all professionals. There are the youthful expulsions of energy of a fraternity party, but while college has a jubilant venting of steam, this has already acquired a more sophisticated corruption. I get the feeling I need to throw myself a lifeline to pull myself out of this if I'm ever to have a chance. How
can I find this to be an acceptable part of my life? I decide I need to force myself to imagine a different career. Even if it seems impossible, I need to go through the exercise. This weekend I'll get a pen and paper and draw it up. Maybe just by taking that step, I will make things start to feel more possible.

In the meantime I walk to the self-service bar. More gin. There's not a single person I'm interested in talking to.

“Hey, Nick!” Woody again from across the room. “I just spoke to Ron. He and William and a few other guys are leaving Scores now and bringing the bachelor party here. They're bringing a few of the Scores strippers with them.” A few cheers and claps sprinkle the room at the news. I raise my glass in a silent toast. Woody does the same but with a yell and knocks back the rest of his drink. I feel like I need to get out of here and hope to make it through the hotel before Ron and William arrive. I don't want to seem like the old guy leaving early, but more than that I don't want to seem like the old guy sticking around not having any fun, and I can't be around all these kids and hookers.

I finish my drink and tap Jack on the shoulder for a quick thanks and make an excuse for the early night, and I'm out the door into the hallway. The heavy door closes behind me with a seal, and in an instant all the voices are gone like snapping off the radio. I wish things were good with Julia so I could have something I couldn't wait to get home to, but leaving here is good enough for now.

The elevator takes me all the way down without a single stop and I step past the two bronze Great Danes that line the elevator alcove. I'm almost to the door outside when I hear a collection of laughter and too many stories told at once in loud voices coming in from the other side. They're already here. Ron must have called Woody from a car close by.

They push through the door in a single mass, like an amoeba with forward body motion fueled by alcohol. Eight guys in designer jeans and untucked button-down shirts under navy trench coats. Like a uniform. I'm unavoidably in the path and I hear my name called in a chorus.

“William, congratulations on the big night out.”

“This is an unofficial one, but it has all the ingredients. Are you coming or going?”

“Going. I need to get home.” Less is more when trying to leave. Any information about why gives a foothold for counterargument.

“Nick, you can't. We have Scores dancers coming over.”

“I heard. Where are they?”

“Coming at the end of their shift. We gave a down payment, and what stripper in her right mind would turn down a night at the Soho Grand penthouse with limitless blow?” In my mind this is said loud enough for the entire lobby to hear.

“I've never heard of such a stripper.” William laughs at this. I need to go. “Damn, I can't believe I'm going to miss this one, guys.” I try hard to sound genuine. “Take pictures and don't leave out any details on Monday.”

“Okay. You sure?” I'm his boss. There's only so much complaining he can do.

“Yeah. Have fun. Stay out of trouble.”

I get outside and the bellman gets a cab for me. I notice there's a voicemail on my cell phone and I check it.

Nick, it's Rebecca James. I hope it's okay that I'm calling you. I know you can't talk about Freddie's work, but I thought we might get together and talk about other things. Some nonconfidential things. Anyway, call me when you can.

I don't know how she got my number. I guess reporters have their ways. It's been more than a month since I saw her and I'm craving to call her back, but I know if I call her, I'll have created something that will take on a life of its own. I decide that if I call her, I need to wait until I'm in a place where I can concentrate rather than in the back of a taxi. This way I can just decide about it all later.

January 21, 2006

THE RING OF MY CELL PHONE BEGINS TO CRACK
through my sleep and enter my consciousness.

“Hello.” I answer because it's the fastest way to make it stop.

“Nick, it's Ron.” I almost say Ron who, but another part of my brain narrowly wins the race and figures it out first. Why the hell would Ron be calling? I didn't know he even had my cell phone number. It feels like the beginning of a practical joke, but I'm only barely processing information.

“Ron. What time is it?”

“I guess it's about six a.m. We're in some trouble.” I have an image of him mugged and beaten, lying next to his car, which is stripped and up on cinder blocks.

“Who's we and what kind of trouble?”

“Me and William. A few other guys. We're still at the Soho Grand. Things got a little out of control last night and the manager is here and he's freaking out and he's going to call the cops. I think we need your help, Nick.”

When a person makes a habit of asking for help and abusing it,
it becomes easier to say no, that I've already done my part. You've come to this well before and the well is dry. If a person has never abused it and sends out a distress call, the minimum human response is that I'll see what I can do. William and Ron have never asked for my help before.

“All right. I'll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

I turn back to Julia. Her face is angled slightly up from the pillow and her eyes are still closed. She never lets the pillow against her face. Her breathing is soft and slow. “Are you awake?”

“I was just wondering that very thing. What was that about?”

“Ron. A kid from the office. He and some other guys got into trouble last night.”

“Are they in jail?”

“No, but they're about to be. They called to see if I can help.”

“What can you do about it?”

“I have no idea, but I'll go see what I can do. They're at the Soho Grand now.”

“Sounds like high-class trouble.”

Her eyes have stayed closed for the conversation. I lean over and kiss her forehead. “I'll call you later. Maybe we can meet somewhere for breakfast.”

I pull on jeans, loafers, and a long winter coat and put on a wool hat, which will flatten my bed hair. At 6 a.m. on a winter Saturday, the streets are strangely deserted like the setting of a Stephen King novel. The only movements are the few taxis roaming like fishermen on an unstocked stream. I hail one. I close the car door and lean forward to direct him to the Soho Grand as the smell of burnt lamb climbs up my nose. Some sort of god-awful gyro at 6 a.m. I crack the window for relief and start counting streets downtown.

Except for a skeleton overnight crew, the Soho Grand lobby is empty. I wave off a good morning from the bellhop and make directly for the elevator bay, retracing my steps from last night. I round the hallway corner outside the suite and see a cop straddling the doorframe where a closed door should be. One foot in the hall, one foot in the room, with his thumbs in his belt and leaning back against the frame and the hinges of the door to hold it open. He has the winter version of the NYPD coat, which is dark blue and leathery and thick enough to pass for ice hockey padding. He's big and burly and his mustache doesn't hide the fact that he's enjoying himself.

“You their boss?”

I don't stop but take smaller steps to slow my pace and give a single nod. His smile gets a little broader and he tilts his head to say go right in.

I squeeze past him through the doorframe and into the aroma of champagne spilled into carpet, like sweet mold. What must be the hotel manager is sitting at a writing table rifling through papers, making a show of looking furious but not looking up. No other bodies are moving and I see William, Ron, and Woody and three others that I recognize as Chappy brokers all sitting in a group. Eyes are shifting around the room but none meets mine.

I start out in a wide circular path to survey the room. Three sofas are upside down with legs in the air like upended, helpless turtles and bunched together as though a child had tried to build a fort. Shards of glass are crunching underfoot. I see the necks of what used to be whole bottles scattered across the room, and a shattered plasma TV that has been ripped from its mount on the wall. That must have been big fun, because the other two TVs are in the same condition. A coffee table is broken in two pieces with splinters the size of flatware hanging from the uneven break
and all four legs ripped off. Glass still crunches with every step as though a uniform design of the carpet. I come to the open doorway of the master bedroom. The king-sized mattress is pulled from the box spring to the floor and a girl is asleep under the flat sheet. The dresser is turned upside down with all the drawers pulled out and stacked next to it. On the bedside table are four pairs of fake eyelashes neatly laid out. Classy. Probably the girls from Scores. An odd detail to notice, and I realize it is the only upright piece of furniture in the entire suite and so it stands apart like steel construction in a jungle. Soaked towels are balled up in a few places. Maybe early in the night there had been an effort to repair, like the finger in a dam.

I turn back to the main room and my foot lands in six inches of soil. A small tree in a huge ceramic pot had been brought in from the balcony and dropped like a bomb from a plane. The tree on its side looks like a bush against the wall. I stop to take in the whole room. There must have been a campaign to break each thing. Everything from the walls had been pulled off and thrown. Every piece of furniture, book, vase, phone, and pencil broken.