The Biology of Luck (19 page)

“Fuck this!” retorts his hidden opponent.

Then all is quiet. Larry is suddenly alone in a homely woman's apartment and she has her hands nuzzled in his crotch. He pulls away. Then he slams the wall twice more for effect and slips into his shoes.

“What's wrong?” asks Rita.

“I'm late,” Larry lies. “I need to be at the pickup point twenty minutes early.”

Larry darts out into the corridor. He is relieved, but also angry. Angry at Rita for misreading his intentions; angry at himself if he has caused her any pain. But the greater part of his rage is reserved for the couple behind the plaster, for the assuredly good-looking creatures who have ruined his afternoon with their mewing and whimpering and spite. It is like hosting a private banquet before the victims of a famine. The sound of passion, much more so than its sight or scent, is the greatest of all torments.

A door further up the passageway opens and suddenly, unexpectedly, Larry stands face-to-face with one of his persecutors. The man is unkempt and his denim jacket exhibits the wear of overuse, but there is no mistaking the masculinity in his rugged features. He's a blue-collar Adonis. A shower and a shave would transform this derelict into an older replica of the matinee idol from the Maiden Lane McDonalds. In contrast, it would take extensive plastic surgery to work the same wonder on Larry. He glares at the man, then holds his head high and strides past him at a brisk pace. He keeps his gaze focused straight in front of him until he steps into the street. The last thing Larry desires is a confrontation. He already regrets his antics with the shoe. Although part of him condemns himself for begrudging
this middle-aged Don Juan his happiness, another part sees the hirsute ape as a living monument to injustice. As the enemy.

Larry takes a deep breath to curtail his anger. This man is not his enemy, he decides. He's just some ordinary stiff enjoying a roll in the sack. Maybe with a call girl. Probably with his old lady. And there's no harm in that. The truth of the matter is that Larry should feel for this poor fellow, pity him because he's past his prime and hopelessly grizzled and because his female accomplice is probably just as timeworn as he is. Larry suspects that he would never date the wasted woman behind the plaster. And after tonight, he reassures himself, he won't have any cause to envy the husband.

He clenches his fists.

He is Larry Bloom. He will have Starshine. His luck is imprinted in his genes.

Somewhere, anywhere, in a city of nine thousand thoroughfares and eight million people, she has lost her house keys. Starshine chains her Higgins on Fillmore Avenue, thankful that she has mastered the craft of misplaced property, that past visits to the locksmith have taught her to separate her latchkey from her bicycle key. The local locksmith is a feeler. He's a taciturn Afrikaner who leers at this customers through the mirror over his electronic buffing machine and then pets their fingers when handing them the merchandise. He is one of those infuriating men who believe that the more physical contact he has with women, even if only the nuzzling of palms or the brushing of shoulders, the more likely it is that they will open themselves to his advances. Thinking of his guttural accent and sable fingers makes Starshine shudder, but she will have to endure his gaping and fondling unless she recovers her keys. And the possibility seems unlikely. They could be almost anywhere. In Hannibal Tuck's spartan cubicle, on the floor of Jack Bascombs's grubby apartment. Or, most likely, neglected on some busy sidewalk, blending with heaps of household trash and discarded newspapers. An airline label with her address and phone number hangs from her keychain. This identification tag struck her as a clever precaution when she attached it, shortly after a previous visit to the locksmith, but now the merit of the safeguard appears doubtful. Nobody will bother to return a latchkey. It has neither sentimental appeal nor the significant monetary worth that might
attract a Good Samaritan—especially one hoping for a cash reward. Only the criminal element will see its value. How could she be so careless? She's practically rolled out a welcome mat for every burglar and rapist in the Tri-State area. She will have to change the locks. That will cost a small fortune. She will have to invite the locksmith into her home. That may cost her sanity. And even then there are no guarantees. A determined felon, having traveled all the way out to Greenpoint, won't be deterred by a new lock. He might even see it as a challenge. Starshine runs through a list of all the personal effects she might have lost: her mother's engagement ring, her heart-shaped locket containing photographs of Aunt Agatha and Uncle Luther, the cowery-and-coral bracelet that Jack Bascomb gave her for their anniversary. The latchkey, she decides, is the only one she can't make do without.

Starshine searches the sidewalk for Bone. The one-armed super usually suns himself through the afternoon, his presence as fixed as that of a lawn ornament, but today his aluminum chair rests folded against a mailbox. The Jesus freak and his sister have also abandoned their customary perch. The stoop is untended. On any other day, this desolation would send Starshine's spirits soaring, but this afternoon, it only feeds her escalating panic. The outside buzzers don't work. She has no way to gain access to the building. She also has no guarantee that Eucalyptus is home, although she can't imagine where else her roommate might be, and the super holds the only spare key to the apartment. Her entire kingdom is crumbling for want of a metal sliver. All is hopeless. Starshine sits down on the concrete steps and rests her face in her hands. She is too drained to think straight, too exasperated to go on. What's the goddamned point of fighting off Colby and Jack and Hannibal Tuck if she can't even get into her own home? So much for freedom, she thinks. So much for a life without men. Then the building door crashes open and Frederico Lazar glowers at Starshine. She catches the door as he storms out into the street.

Lazar is Eucalyptus's sometime lover and supplier of ivory. Although his primary enterprise is the distribution of sheet metal
throughout the Third World, he also dabbles in small arms and petrochemicals. The arrogant boor fancies himself a modern-day Theodore Roosevelt. He can talk for hours at a stretch about horse breeding and the game of the Serengeti. Starshine once made the mistake of going on a double date with Eucalyptus, Lazar, and Colby Parker. She assumed the two wealthy men would admire each other. Instead, Lazar lectured Colby on the depravity of the welfare state and the dangers of environmental regulation, concluding by accusing “corporate socialists” and “the pansies of industry” of undermining free enterprise and subverting American individualism. Jack Bascomb would have decked the oaf. Colby merely poured ice water into his lap and walked out. Frederico Lazar is at the bottom of Starshine's list of human beings, leagues below even Bone and her downstairs neighbor, and still Eucalyptus tolerates him. Not that she likes him any more than Starshine does. But he provides her with free tusks and he's allegedly great in bed. Some days, Starshine wants to impale Lazar on one of his own horns. Today, now that he has given her access to her own apartment, she'd willingly kiss him.

She races up the steps. Ragged stuffed animals and decapitated action figurines clutter the stairwell. The hallways are an unconscionable mess. Their disarray is trivial compared to the post-apocalyptic nightmare she finds beyond the open door of her apartment.

“What the hell happened?” Starshine demands.

Splintered wood and shattered ivory covers the floor of the common room. The chairs have been overturned, the refrigerator lies on its side. One of the drapes dangles precariously from a fractured curtain rod. The collage of newsprint, torn from the walls of Eucalyptus's bedroom, lies crumpled in the center of her mattress. Even the kitchen drawers have been emptied of cutlery and stacked on the gas range. The devastation is total. But in the center of the battleground, unshaken like a mighty oak after a squall, sits Eucalyptus. She is etching rigging onto her miniature schooner when Starshine enters.

“What the hell happened?” Starshine asks again.

Eucalyptus looks up indifferently.

“I had a fight with Frederico,” she says. “But it's over now.”

“I should say it's over,” snaps Starshine. “There's nothing left to break.”

“He's cheating on me,” says Eucalyptus. “He denies it, but I can tell he is.”

Starshine set the fruit basket on the table and slumps into a kitchen chair. A Bosc pear slips from under the cellophane and topples to the floor with a dull thud. She brushes off the ivory dust and examines its damaged flesh. It cannot be helped, she thinks, tucking the wounded fruit back into the basket.

“He claimed he's been away all month, that he just returned today, but when I told him that two presidents of General Motors died this week, he said he already knew. Tell me, darling, how a man who has been on business in rural Bangladesh since the first of May could possibly get hold of information like that? The bastard's lying through his teeth. He's a two-timing monster. “

Starshine ignores the holes in her roommates reasoning. “And he's a vandal,” she says. “You can do better.”

“Oh, this,” says Eucalyptus, waving her arm to encompass the destruction. “Frederico didn't do this. I did. I'm really sorry. “

Starshine glares at her roommate. She has already primed herself for an attack against Frederico Lazar, but Eucalyptus's confession leaves her speechless. She does not want to have an argument with her roommate. Certainly not in her current state of mind, not on a day like this, but she can't fathom letting the bitch get away with this. Her own roommate, her best female friend, has destroyed her apartment. It is too fucking much. Maybe she should take her to task. Things couldn't get much worse.

A heavy rap on the door breaks her train of thought.

“Who the hell could that be?” asks Starshine.

“It might be Frederico, darling,” says Eucalyptus. “You'd better answer it. “

“And why on earth do
I
want to see Fredrico? Get the goddamn door.”

Eucalyptus reluctantly deposits the schooner in her workbox and walks to the entryway. She peers through the peephole.

“It's the nut from downstairs,” she says. “He knocked before too.”

“We're not home.”

“He probably wants to talk about the bed.”

“We're not home,” Starshine says again. “He'll go away.”

The Dominican knocks several more times.

“He's not giving up,” says Eucalyptus. “Are you sure it wouldn't be easier to talk to him?”

“If you open that door,” threatens Starshine. “I'll strangle him.”

“It's your apartment. You're the boss. “

The knocking eventually stops and Eucalyptus returns to the table. The missing latchkey and the ravaged apartment have already oiled Starshine's tear ducts. The Jesus freak's house call releases the sluice gates. She snatches a miniature ivory harp off the tabletop and hurls it against the radiator. Shards of tusk scatter across the floorboards. Starshine bursts into tears.

“Are you all right, darling?” asks Eucalyptus.

Starshine shakes her head.

“No, I'm not all right,” she sobs. “I'm as far from all right as I could possibly be. First, this girl starts throwing her clothes off a window ledge, and then Colby tries to coerce me into visiting Italy, and now Jack tries to guilt me into fleeing to Holland forever. I just can't take it anymore. All I wanted was a little peace and quiet, but I come home to a war zone. And to top it all off, I can't find my goddam latchkey. How the hell can I be all right?”

Eucalyptus retrieves a dustpan from under the sink. She sweeps the scrimshaw fragments into piles that resemble Indian mounds. Several minutes pass before she speaks.

“I forgot to tell you,” she finally says. “I have good news for you.”

“It would have to be good news,” says Starshine. “Nothing worse could happen.”

“A man named Snipe called from some tour company. He found your key. “

“My latchkey?”

“The one and only. He said you dropped it in Chinatown. He tried to chase you down, but you ran off. He said to phone him. “

“The man on Mulberry Street,” reflects Starshine. “Of course!”

“Oh, and more excitement, darling. Your friend Parker called three times. He didn't sound like a happy camper.”

“His father died.”

“Garfield Lloyd Parker died?”

“It's national news,” says Starshine. “You'll get a front-page obituary for your wall.”

Starshine stands up and stretches her arms over her head. She would like to be upset at her roommate for forgetting about the latchkey, for destroying the apartment, but her anger has already faded. She will not need to change the locks. She will not need to visit the Afrikaner. The kindness of strangers has salvaged her day. If she ever sees a discarded key on the sidewalk, she vows, she will make every effort to return it to its rightful owner. That is the least she can do. But right now she needs time to recover from her harrowing morning. She will not cover the office from three to five. The crazies will get over it; they'll find someone to pester in another office. Marsha Riley will never know the difference. And besides, the fund director would certainly understand. How couldn't she? Anybody who has endured a morning as taxing and traumatic as Starshine's is more than entitled to take the remainder of the day off.

Big Louise lights into the accelerator with all the brimming energy of the dying workday, mustering her accumulated rage and boredom and the weight of her three-Quarter-Pounders lunch for one final onslaught against the forces of inertia. At midmorning, her motoring is brash; at half past four, it is outright hazardous. The faster she speeds, the sooner she leaves. If she catches every green light on Madison Avenue, which she never fails to do, she can be ensconced on her sofa, watching syndicated television with her cat, while the rest of the drivers are still dropping off their coaches at the compound. Her objective irks Larry to no end. He has no gripes with Big Louise in principle, doesn't blame her for wanting to punch her time clock and clear out at the earliest viable opportunity, but his already compressed and thoroughly inadequate survey of midtown history is designed to last twenty-five minutes. Big Louise can make Rockefeller Center from Union Square in ten. So Larry has no choice but to keep pace with his pilot, charging through a century of development at sixty seconds per decade, raising Edwardian mansions and the United Nations in the course of one breath. As they approach the Flatiron Building, he is clearing sheep pastures and laying out the street grid; by the breakneck turn at Greeley Square, he has gentrified shantytowns with Morgans and Astors and Vanderbilts. The Empire State Building warrants two blocks; the public library only a passing mention. Not even Carnegie Hall, to which maestros devote lifetimes of practice,
is spared the abridger's scalpel; Larry can get his Dutch burghers in and out again in two short sentences. A guided tour, like virtually all other speaking engagements, has no intrinsic length. Its duration reflects the exigencies of the occasion, the stamina of the orator, and occasionally the patience of the audience. This is the first critical difference between art and life. Architects and masons may labor for generations to build Rome out of brick and mortar, but a fast-talking tour guide can shape Manhattan with words in a matter of minutes. Larry is pointedly aware of the second critical difference between art and life: Rome endures.