Good King Sauerkraut (11 page)

“Nope. The same thing happened in college. It's too bad, in a way. I like basketball.” It was the only sport he did like.

“So do I,” the boy said, tugging at his tie and grimacing. “That's too bad, mister.”

“My name's King. What's yours?”

“Ricky.” He pulled at his tie again.

“Why are you so dressed up on a school day?”

“Aw, my mom always makes me wear a tie when we go see the lawyer. There are all these problems about settling my dad's estate and we have to keep goin' back alia time.”

His dad's
estate
. “I'm sorry, Ricky,” King said, meaning it. “Did your dad die recently?”

“November.”

“And there's trouble with the will?”

“Naw, something about the trust funds, I dunno. That's what Mr. Liebermann says.”

“Liebermann—that's the lawyer?”

“Howard J. M. Liebermann the Great.”

“Two middle initials?”

“Yeah, one's not enough for him, I guess. You know what I think? I don't think there's any legal problem at all. I think Liebermann's just gettin' it off with my mom.”

Mildly shocked, King asked, “What makes you think that?”

“You think I'm stupid or somethin'? I can tell.” Ricky squirmed in his seat. “He's married.”

King's first impulse was to tell Ricky he must be mistaken. But the kid looked so
sure
—and whether he was right or wrong, it wouldn't do to dismiss his fears as foolishness. King thought a few moments and said, “Your mom must be feeling pretty alone and frightened right now, and she knows your dad isn't ever coming back to make it right. Who knows why these things happen? Maybe Liebermann just said the right thing at the right time.”

“But what do I do?”

“Well, first of all you don't put pressure on her. Let her know you love her. Look for things you and your mom can do together—look hard, Ricky. It's got to be the two of you together from now on, you know.”

Just then Ricky's order arrived, an elaborate gooey dessert that only a thirteen-year-old could love. Eagerly he dug in.

King stood up. “Your mom will be all right, Ricky. Just be patient.”

Ricky grinned at him around a mouthful of whipped cream. “Thanks, Mr. King.”

King waved acknowledgment and left the restaurant. Resuming his eastward trek, he mused over the role-reversal going on between Ricky and his mom and wondered how common that was in families in which one of the parents died. Then it suddenly hit him: he, King-of-the-Fuck-Ups Sarcowicz, master of
gaucherie
and botcher of friendships, unintentional killer of his fellow man—
he
had been giving personal advice! King let loose a sharp, hysterical laugh and failed to notice the crowd parting around him. He carefully thought over the scene in O'Neals and finally concluded he hadn't said anything that could hurt the boy.

On he plodded toward the East River, past Marlborough Gallery, Tiffany, another art gallery. Victoria's Secret. A man carrying a cello and another struggling with an oversized painting did a funny little dance to avoid crashing into each other. King did crash into a high-punk male of indeterminate age, apologized, and got called a muh'fuh for his trouble.

He spotted the Mitsukoshi Restaurant on the northeast corner of Fifty-seventh and Park. King crossed over and mingled with the crowd at the sushi bar, frankly surprised to find that raw fish was still so popular. When he came out he decided he wanted some more fish, but cooked this time. Back across the street to Bruce Ho's Four Seas Restaurant, where he was served flounder stuffed with crabmeat and spicy little shrimp. A few doors farther down he came to Tommy Makem's Irish Pavilion; King went in and asked for cheesecake but declined the Irish coffee.

Though there was still some daylight left, the afternoon was easing into early evening. The first of the dinner crowd were beginning the hunt for their evening meal; King passed up Mr. Chow's because the place was already getting crowded. In the next block he went into Tony Roma's and ordered ribs. But then before he was finished, he paused with a rib halfway to his mouth: he couldn't eat another bite. Not even one; his ravenous appetite had at last been satisfied. He put the rib down.

With satisfaction came fatigue; his feet were beginning to hurt as well. King left Tony Roma's and automatically headed east, having nowhere else to go. Then suddenly there it was: the East River—his afternoon-long, pointless goal. King acknowledged wryly he'd no more be able to throw himself into those greasy waters than he'd been able to jump into the Hudson.

He was in Sutton Place, one of the good places to live in New York. He walked into a pleasant little park distinguished by the unexpected presence of a bronze statue of a pig. A rather courtly-looking elderly man was sitting on a bench, leaning his weight on the cane he held in front of him. King sat down on the other end of the bench—and belched. “Whoops. Excuse me.”

The old man nodded agreeably in his direction. “Something you ate.”

“I wouldn't be at all surprised,” King laughed. “I just ate my way across Fifty-seventh Street.”

“A lot of good restaurants on Fifty-seventh,” the old man remarked, “and a nice choice of foods.”

It had been a day of restaurants and food. “Food is sustenance,” King muttered to himself, “and I have been sustaining myself. That's what I was doing.”

“Of course, Le Pavilion is gone now,” the old man went on. “But I hope you treated yourself to a feast at the Parker Meridien.”

“The what?”

“The dining room of the Hotel Parker Meridien—one of the best in the city, I've always thought. Do you know it? It's between Sixth and Seventh.”

Between O'Neals and the Russian Tea Room. “I missed it,” King said, disappointed.

“Well. The next time you're in town.”

King looked at him sharply. “How did you know I was from out of town?”

The old man lifted one frail shoulder, let it drop. “You don't walk like a New Yorker.”

Thinking that at this point he probably wasn't walking like a Pennsylvanian either, King stretched out his tired legs and aching feet and closed his eyes. The day was catching up with him. On the brink of nodding off, he jerked himself awake; he ought to be thinking about finding a place to hole up for the night. The trouble was, he was almost out of money. He'd used credit cards wherever he could in his omnivorous journey across Fifty-seventh, but he always liked to leave the tip in cash. He roused himself enough to ask his bench partner, “Do you know if there's a bank machine near here?”

To King's surprise, the old man leaned forward and spat angrily upon the ground. “Machines! No, I don't know where you can find a bank machine. I never use them.”

“Why not? It beats standing in line inside the bank.”

“So instead you stand in line
out
side the bank. And get wet when it rains. Besides, the blasted machines don't work half the time … none of them do, not any kind of machine.” The old man sniffed loudly. “Machines to do this, machines to do that. We even depend on machines to do our thinking for us now. Camus was right. Man's greatest desire is to be a stone in the road. He wouldn't have to think for himself, he wouldn't have to make intelligent choices—all he'd have to do is lie there, like the lump that he is.”

King was simply too tired to appreciate having Camus quoted at him just then. Besides, he'd run into technophobes before; there was no arguing with them. Wearily he hauled himself to his feet and said, “Nevertheless, I need some cash and the banks are closed. I have to find a machine.”

“Suit yourself,” the old man answered, and closed his face.

King automatically headed back the way he'd come—but then he stopped. Fifty-seventh Street had been a blessing, offering as it did a numbing, anaesthetic effect to help him through those first terrible hours after Dennis and Gregory had died. But now the anaesthesia was wearing off, and he didn't want to go back. Abruptly he turned right and headed uptown.

And found that the same thing happened in New York that happened in Pittsburgh: every time he needed a bank machine, somebody went out and hid them all. Up the short blocks, across the long blocks … King tramped back and forth for forty minutes before he found a machine willing to disgorge a little out-of-town money. After a slight delay, the machine reluctantly let him have two hundred of his own dollars. He let the bank receipt—which wasn't really a receipt—flutter down to the sidewalk where it joined thirty or forty others, all waiting to be swept up the following morning by a grumbling bank employee.

King's feet were really hurting now. Up ahead was Central Park; he'd sit down and try to figure out what to do next. He crossed Central Park South, glancing longingly over his shoulder at the hotels beckoning from the south side of the street; there was the St. Moritz, and Essex House. King wanted nothing more than a tub to soak his feet in and a comfortable bed to lie on—but wouldn't the police be checking the hotels for him? Not that he'd register under his own name, of course, but he'd still be easy to identify. People tended to remember a man who was nearly seven feet tall. This needed thinking out.

There was still enough light that King wasn't worried about getting caught in the park after dark. He was tempted just to stretch out on the grass instead of looking for a place to sit down; but nobody else in sight was recumbent and King was afraid of calling attention to himself. Finally he spotted a park bench, the old-fashioned kind with iron armrests, and it was empty. He hurried his step.

He almost made it. Just before he reached the bench, four boys suddenly stepped out of nowhere to block his path. “Hoo-ee, looka the basketball player!” one of them hooted.

“I'm not a basketball player,” King said and tried to pass.

The boys closed ranks. “Where you think you goin', Shorty?”

King looked at them more carefully. They were Hispanic kids, the youngest not much older than the boy Ricky, fourteen or fifteen at the most. All four were dressed in jeans and sneakers and identical green windbreakers. King felt a little flutter in his stomach as he said, “I'm going to that bench. I'm tired and my feet hurt and I want to sit down.”
Mistake!
his mind shrieked as soon as he'd said it.
Don't show them your weak spots!

The one who seemed to be the leader laughed unpleasantly. “But that's our bench. Dincha know that was our bench? And nobody sits on our bench without payin' for the pri-vi-lege.” He stretched the last word out insolently. “
No-bod-y
. Got that, Shorty? Ya wanna sit, ya gotta pay.”

If King hadn't been so tired, he would have turned and walked away right then. As it was, he thought it better just to pay up and be done with this nonsense. “How much?”

“A
thousssand
dollars an hour,” the leader hissed.

“A thousand—” King broke off his protest when he saw the boys circling him. How could young boys be so menacing? Without saying a word they backed him up toward the bench. A knife had appeared in the leader's hand, and one of the others was swinging a sock filled with … coins? Lead pellets? “But it's still daylight!” King cried out stupidly, outraged by this breach of mugging decorum.

Suddenly his legs buckled; one of the boys had kicked him behind the knees. As his head bobbed down to their level, he saw the weighed sock swinging toward his face. Too late, he tried to throw up his arms to protect himself. Pain like he'd never felt before shot through his cheek, his eye, his upper lip—and down he went, striking his head against the iron armrest of the park bench as he fell.

And King Sarcowicz felt nothing more at all for a long, long time.

6

The next time King opened his eyes, it was to see a Hispanic face peering closely at him. But this one was a woman's face, middle-aged; and it looked concerned. She was a nurse, and King was in a hospital.

“Ah, you're coming round,” the nurse said in a tone of satisfaction. “Can you talk? How do you feel?”

“Lousy,” King said through a mouth that felt stuffed full of cotton. “Uh can't talk.”

She nodded. “You have a mild concussion, and,” she made a face, “you're going to have one hell of a shiner. Here—take some ice water. It'll clear out your mouth.

King sucked greedily at the tube in the glass she held out to him. It did make his mouth feel better. Carefully, he eased himself up to a sitting position. “Whoo. I don't remember coming here.”

“You were still unconscious when you were brought in. Whatever hit you, it loosened a couple of your teeth—you'll have to see a dentist after you're discharged. But Dr. Fabrizio will explain all that to you. He'll be in later.”

He reached up and touched a bandage on his left cheek.

“Minor lacerations,” the nurse explained. “No stitches were required. And no bones were broken—you were lucky.”

Oh, really?
“Why don't I feel lucky?” King grumbled.

“It could have been a lot worse,” she said briskly. “How's your memory? Do you know who you are?”

He blinked at her. “Of course I know who I am.”

“Good. A lot of concussed patients experience confusion and disorientation when they first regain consciousness. See, I told you you were lucky! Now, I need your name and address for our records. You didn't have any identification on you.”

King told her his name and where he was staying in New York. “No billfold?”

She shook her head. “The mugger must have taken it.”

“More than one. Four of them.”

“Four! No wonder you didn't have a chance. Mr. Sarcowicz, a couple of police officers are waiting to talk to you. Are you up to seeing them?”

Police! God, there was no running and hiding now. But surely they were here about the mugging? “I'll see them.”