Mr. Apology Page 15

  “I want to.” George went towards a phone booth. Berger watched him, wondering who the boy needed to call quite so suddenly. A twinge of jealousy went through him—he’s making another date for himself, that’s what he’s doing, he’d rather make some other date than stay home alone, he’d rather go out and have some casual sex somewhere. Berger looked back into the oncoming traffic. Try to ignore the feeling, shove it aside, don’t think about it. But he couldn’t help imagining George with somebody else, lying in someone’s bed, the sight of George’s naked body alongside that of some faceless lover. He couldn’t stand the thought. Your train, Bryant. Remember your train. Remember Angela’s ultimatum. He could feel a light film of sweat under his shirt collar. The goddamn train, the house in Bedford Hills, go home and be the dutiful little husband, the good boy who does whatever he’s told to do, the scared kid who can’t stand the idea of his toy—the gallery—being taken away from him. Go home, Bryant. Leave George alone. He turned to look at the phone booth, George talking into the receiver. Animated, one hand going up and down in the air. I can’t. I can’t leave him for somebody else. I can’t step away from him. The jealousy is a pain.

  He moved towards the phone. George was silent, listening to whoever was on the other end of the line. A train sits at a platform. A woman waits in a large house in Bedford Hills. A young man stands in a phone booth. These things converged, as if they were different fuses leading to the same stick of dynamite. Berger looked at George.

  “I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m telling you.”

  Silence. Berger wondered who it was that George had to be so insistent with. He stared back at the traffic; a vacant cab went whizzing past. I’ll spend the night with George, he thought. No, it was madness, it was the end of things, the noise of a heavy curtain falling over the stupid drama of his life. Walk away, just walk away now.

  “I’m only telling you the facts,” George was saying.

  It didn’t sound like he was speaking to some sexual prospect. There wasn’t that kind of tone in George’s voice.

  “Believe what you like, then. I don’t care.”

  Berger shivered. No, George couldn’t be, George wouldn’t, George had promised—

  “I really don’t care what you think,” he heard George say.

  A falling apart. A noise of far-off thunder. Sweat running from the armpits and over the surface of the torso.

  George is capable of anything. Anything at all. Even something as malicious as this. Something as evil.

  Berger shut his eyes and the thunder rolled and rolled inside his head.

  “And you,” George was saying. “It’s been a lot of fun talking with you, Angela.”

  7.

  On Sixth Avenue Madeleine turned south. She paused at a DON’T WALK signal and rain slithered over the lids of her eyes. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, then crossed the street when the light changed. Somebody touched her on the elbow and she turned around. A sodden black beret, a plumply pleasant face, a wisp of a beard.

  “Is this sheer coincidence, Rube?” she asked.

  Reuben Levy inclined his face and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “What do you mean? You think I’ve been following you, Maddy?”

  “You never can tell,” she said.

  “Okay. Here’s the gospel truth. I was in the vicinity and I was going to drop into the gallery, then lo and behold I saw you leave the Berger emporium. Closing time. So where are you hurrying to, or do I need to ask that question?”

  She smiled at him. “I was going to see Harry,” she said.

  “Can I interest you in a quick drink?”

  “I don’t really have time.”

  “Five minutes?”

  “Well, five minutes.”

  “Excellent. I know a place. Used to be a speakeasy in the days when America was still romantic.” He put his hand on her elbow and steered her along the sidewalk for three blocks. “Here it is.” They went inside a long narrow bar; a sequence of pale lamps was lit along the counter. “I like it here. It’s never crowded. Let’s sit over there.” He drew her towards a table. “What will you have to drink?”

  “Scotch and water.”

  Levy went to the bar, then returned a moment later with two scotches. He sat down beside her at the small circular table. They clinked glasses and he said, “We should drink to Mr. Apology. Cheers.”

  She sipped the scotch: it was hot against the back of her throat. She put her glass down and looked at Rube Levy for a moment. He was taking his pipe from the pocket of his overcoat and kneading the bowl, as if in some form of private ritual, with the tips of his fingers. He reminded her of a night watchman warming his hands around a brazier. A small, funny night watchman. He had the pipe between his lips now and was attacking the tobacco with a sequence of matches.

  “So, what did Harry hear from the notorious committee?”

  “I gather they’ve put him on hold,” Madeleine said.

  “Typical. You know about committees. When they sit down to design a horse they come up with a camel,” Levy said. He was silent for a moment. She realized he was going to say something, something that was transparently on his mind. She sipped her drink and waited. She watched him stroke the thin weblike beard that clung to his chin with the frailty of smoke. “Apology,” he added.

  “What about it?” Did she detect something disapproving in the way he said the word? She wasn’t altogether certain. She watched him cup his hands around his glass and remembered when they’d first met—a time when he’d come to Harry’s loft and Harry had introduced Levy as his oldest friend. They went back a long way together, a whole history interwoven, episodes shared, things she herself could never be a part of; yet she hadn’t felt left out in the cold, because Levy had been kind to her, welcoming, as if he were delighted she had entered Harry’s life.

  “Tell me, Maddy. Tell me what you really think about Harry’s project.”

  She hesitated a moment. Was he fishing for something? She tried to make out the expression in his eyes; he looked serious, intense. “I think it has great possibilities.”

  “Like how?”

  “I’m sure Harry’s explained all that to you far better than I ever could, Rube.” She swirled her drink around in the glass; little amber slicks clung to the inside like drops of some weird rain on a window.

  Levy nodded. “I love our boy dearly, Maddy. You know that.”

  She could hear a but coming. She raised her face and looked at him. “And?”

  “And I don’t know about this whole Apology deal at all. I don’t know if it makes any goddamn sense.” Madeleine started to say something but Levy went on: “I don’t know if he really understands what he’s getting into.”

  “I think he does.”

  “Let me finish, sweetheart. Sometimes when I think about all those weird calls he gets I experience what I can only describe as tiny shivers up my backbone. I know, I know, I’m a rotten little coward who just happens to be rich as shit, but I still wouldn’t do what our mutual friend is doing, that’s all. In his shoes, I’d put the whole notion out to pasture, write it off as a mistake, an honest mistake of the concerned, creative heart.”

  Madeleine smelled the smoke from Levy’s pipe, something like sweet vanilla. “Harry knows what he’s doing, Rube.”

  Levy sighed. His pipe went dead. He raised his glass and drained it. “We live in a city of odd types. We live in this great screaming metropolis that occasionally reminds me of bedlam. Today, for one example, I happened to pass this guy who was dressed in legwarmers, a plaid skirt, and a bra—and this poor, silly fucker was going down Broadway screaming nigger acid, nigger acid. What does that mean, Maddy? Nigger acid! A breakdown of the mind. Some bad trip he never quite returned from. The corruption of language. See, we’re not just discussing the crime rate on subways and muggings on dark streets, sweetheart. We’re talking about one mother of a conceptual breakdown, a disintegration, more than broken pavement on thoroughfares and subways that always run late an
d too many cockroaches in too many slums. We’re talking about the plunge, the downward plunge, of civilization. And our good friend Harry, your lover, has elected to plug himself into this madness.” Levy stopped; he was breathless. “Go home. Do him a favor. Yank the answering machine out of the wall. Love him, make him marry you, have babies.”

  Madeleine smiled. “He’s a big boy.”

  “He’s a naive big boy.”

  “What would you have him do, Rube? Fix him up with a job in that paper factory of yours where he would sit at a desk and design cardboard kazoos? You know Harry. You know how miserable he’d be.”

  Levy shrugged. “I could make him executive in charge of napkins.”

  Madeleine shook her head. “He cares about this project. I watch him get into it. I love to see him when he gets involved in something.”

  “And it doesn’t matter what it is he’s involved in?”

  Madeleine was quiet for a moment. She finished her drink, suddenly conscious of Levy’s knee pressing against her own beneath the table. She edged her chair backwards and the pressure was gone. Is he doing that deliberately? she wondered. Jesus Christ, what am I thinking here? What’s gotten into me? It was nothing, an accident of geography, nothing at all. Levy wouldn’t play kneesies or footsies with her. She set her empty glass down.

  Levy said, “Look, my little southern pal. I care about both of you. I really do. I wish you both all the luck in the world. I wish you many years of singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ together. And if I have concerns, I express them as a friend, nothing more.”

  “I know,” she said softly. You could see it in his eyes—this tiny look of caring. She patted the back of his hand. “But I think you’re being alarmist, Rube.”

  “Alarmist?” Levy smiled. “It’s an occupational pastime of the rich, Maddy, my love. We perceive conspiracies intent on denuding us of our fortunes, you see. I come by my alarmist streak the hard way. I inherited it.”

  Madeleine laughed. She started to rise and glanced at her wristwatch. “I liked your message on the tape, by the way.”

  “A prank, I confess.” Levy held up his hands. “Wealth doesn’t exclude moments of tedium, does it?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” She looked at her watch again. “I’ve got to run along.”

  “I’ll walk out with you.” He rose, stuffing his pipe inside his coat pocket.

  Outside they moved together along the rainy sidewalk. The wind was harder now, blowing through the arteries of the city. Levy paused in front of a pawnshop. She turned to see what he was looking at. It hung on the iron grill set against the window, limp in the rain, drooping like a half-masted flag.

  “Ubiquitous Mr. Apology,” he said.

  Madeleine stared at the handbill a moment. Mr. Apology. Here in the Manhattan rain.

  “It depresses me,” Levy said. And he shook his head from side to side slowly.

  Madeleine didn’t say anything. Ink was running down the handbill in spidery streaks.

  “It’s like an invitation to every loony in this whole city. It’s like holding an open house to which only the insane are invited. And I genuinely don’t think Harry sees any danger or any menace in that at all. I only know I wouldn’t do what he’s trying to do—not for all the paper mills in New Jersey, Maddy.”

  Levy was still shaking his head, rain dripping from his glistening beret.

  8.

  They were in a restaurant in Chinatown, not the kind located on the central tourist drag, the kind in which the only faces you saw were Caucasian, but a small place tucked away, as if it were a profound secret, in a narrow sidestreet. They ate lobster with black bean sauce, hot and sour soup, duck. Harrison liked Chinatown: He imagined it to be filled with dark places, dim-lit stairways that rose upwards into cramped attics where men lay around in pursuit of the opium dream. It was a romantic notion, he knew—the cramped attics these days were more likely to be occupied by members of some young Chinese gang. But he enjoyed the streets, the exotic stores, the sight of Chinese newspapers and magazines and cigarettes, even the pagodalike phone booths that had been erected here and there as if in a moment of ethnic weakness by the Bell Telephone Company. He looked across the table at Madeleine and thought: It’s strange how after so short a time a face can begin to seem so completely familiar, like the person has been with you always. Her absence now would create a strange void. Maybe a void he wouldn’t know how to begin to fill. Harry, it’s a stunning realization to suspect you’re starting to fall into that condition people describe as love. He reached over the table and held her hand, conscious of the fact that his fingertips were greasy from the duck. He felt her thumb press against the back of his wrist. She was smiling at him. What did he see in that smile? Something sweet and good, a kindness, a generosity? Whatever, you could just fall right into it and lose yourself there.

  “So Berger’s promised to listen to a tape,” he said.

  She nodded. “One tape, that’s all.”

  “Which is what encyclopedia salesmen call a foot in the door.”

  “It’s a start, Harry.” She pushed some food across her plate. “By the way, I ran into Rube on my way here.”

  “How is he?”

  “You know Rube. He worries.”

  “About what?”

  “Mr. Apology.”

  “Why?”

  “He smells danger in the air, Harry. He thinks you could be headed for trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I can’t remember his exact words. He talked about all the madness around and wondered if you were wise to plug yourself into it, something like that.”

  Harrison glanced towards the kitchen, where he could see five or six Chinese cooks squabbling hysterically over something. Maybe they were arguing the merits of mono-sodium glutamate. Why couldn’t he feel this sense of danger himself? Why did it seem so remote from him?

  Madeleine said, “I see his point when I think of that creep who called last night. I see what he’s getting at when I remember that madman.”

  Harrison watched how Madeleine frowned. He wanted to change the subject.

  “Your friend Jamey came by asking her questions and scribbling in her little book.”

  “Did she try to seduce you?”

  “Oh, yeah. I had to beat her off with tubes of acrylic.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  Harrison shrugged. He wasn’t sure how to answer the question.

  “She’s got a funny straightforward manner,” Madeleine said. “But a heart of gold. Seriously.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “I knew she’d write something. I just knew she’d come through.”

  Harrison started to get up. “Let’s go for a walk. I like these streets. I can half imagine I’m in Hong Kong.” He helped her rise, helped her put her coat on, suddenly amazed by his own solicitous manner. Was this love? Was this kind of doting concern the thing called love? This weird urge to please? You’re falling, Harry, he thought. You’re actually beginning to take that tumble and you don’t know where it might end up or even if there was a place where it ended. He walked behind her towards the street; through the pale lamps outside the rain was drizzling softly. He put his arm around her shoulder. They moved slowly together. They went past the brightly lit stores that sold oriental foods, ducks roasting to a deep red in windows, strange fat sea creatures that looked like huge grubs of the deep, windows filled with rolls and rolls of delicate silks, kimonos, fanciful lanterns. He had a sudden feeling of peacefulness and realized it had its source in his contact with her, her physical presence, her nearness. On a street corner he paused, turned her towards him, kissed her on the lips under the faint glow of an overhead lamp.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “I felt like it. Something came over me.”

  “Can you define this something?”

  He shrugged, smiled. “It’s indefinable but it’s pretty damn good.” Pretty damn good—where were the w
ords? Where was the correct description of the feeling? He couldn’t find one. They walked on a little way, then paused to look in the window of a food store; inside were groups of customers milling around, poking this vegetable, prodding that piece of meat. Then, suddenly, the crowd split open, making a passageway for a kid who was running quickly towards the doorway, something clutched in his hand. Upraised voices, anger, a shopkeeper lunging after the kid and screaming in Chinese. Harrison saw the boy coming straight at him, the small sallow face filled with the concentration of the flight. A shoplifter, he thought. A tiny thief. He glanced past the kid’s head at the shopkeeper, a man in a bloodstained white apron. And even though he didn’t understand any Chinese whatsoever, the words coming from the guy’s lips were unmistakable. Stop that kid! Stop him! For a moment Harrison responded to the shopkeeper’s cry, putting his arm out to catch the running kid, but then he suddenly didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to stop the boy from getting away, didn’t want to come to the assistance of the guy in the store, who was still jabbering, his hands flung in the air, his bloodstained apron billowing as he came quickly forward. The kid ducked beneath Harrison’s outstretched arm and then was gone hurriedly along the sidewalk, little more than a quick shadow vanishing between streetlamps. The grocer came out onto the sidewalk, staring in the direction the kid had gone.

  “He was too nimble for me,” Harrison said.

  The shopkeeper looked uncomprehending. He made a gesture with his hand bunched, something that seemed rude. Does he intend that gesture for me or for the thief? Harrison wondered. Muttering, the man went back inside the store and the crowd, its momentary entertainment over, returned to sifting meat and vegetables and seafood. Harrison put his arm around Madeleine’s shoulder again and they walked a little way along the sidewalk.

  “Okay,” she said. “Why didn’t you just grab him?”

  “Like I said, he was too quick.”

  “Bull,” she said, smiling. “You could have caught him easily.”

  Harrison laughed. Madeleine said, “You deliberately let him go, didn’t you? You’re an accomplice, Harry Harrison. You’re just as guilty as that kid.”