Afterburn

Bar, Pierre Hotel Sixty-first Street and Fifth Avenue, Manhattan September 20, 1999

The night was still too warm and she heard piano music outside the hotel bar and the doorman in the maroon uniform and gray top hat smiled at her, and this seemed reason enough to drift in through the doorway, as she had drifted into two or three places already that evening, the Carlyle, the Mark, the Plaza, a bit of chat with whoever was there, accepting a drink and a cigarette and a business card but soon to move on, letting the cards flutter out of her hand, soon to slip into the next place, that place, this place, the Pierre. The men looked affable and distracted, the women appeared to be wives or trouble. A couple of tall blondes floated through, dressed rather too well. Several of the men studied her as if she might be someone they didn't yet know. She shimmied down into an overstuffed chair and asked the waiter to bring her a Campari, and while she sat listening to the piano, she overheard the dignified older businessman next to her talking into his phone.

"You just fucking point out," he was saying in a soft, graveled voice, "that we are contracted to pay one hundred and seventy thousand a month for the factory, sixty thousand a month for the dormitory and related structures, plus a municipal tax of eight dollars per employee per month, which at six thousand employees is forty-eight thousand a month. That's before I've pulled a dime of profit out of there. I'm already on the hook for ninety thousand a month in ferrite cores from Hong Kong." He was tall and rather slender for a man his age, face scissored narrow by time, his nose large and sharp. He shifted the phone to his left hand, which, she saw, was notable not just for its wedding ring but for the large navel-like scar stretched across it, as if it had been punctured by a spike. "When I was there a few weeks ago, everyone was very happy to see me, too, full of promises. Now this?" He sipped his drink while listening irritably, she saw, unhappy with the answer in his ear. "I know the municipal authority can speed this up. They just need to order the scaffolding company to put more men on-What? No? It's China! It's still a police state! They can do anything they want! This is just the kind of foreign plant the Chinese need right now. They need jobs, they need foreign currency… No, Mr. Anderson, you are the expediter here. Take them out to-set up the meeting so that… No, no, goddammit!" The man glanced up, ferocious blue eyes passing over her. He blinked in frustration. "The Hong Kong-Chinese will not get drunk with you but the Chinese-Chinese will… I am very upset about this. You need to hit this one out of the… I'll be there Friday afternoon. Yes, call me then. Fine. Right."

He hung up and signaled to the waiter for another. Then he noticed Christina. "Excuse me. I guess I was speaking rather loudly."

"Sounds like you've got a problem."

"Trying to get a factory built in China." He eased back into his chair. "And somebody is screwing things up."

"You know who?"

"It could be a lot of people." He thought a moment further. "It involves money. Somebody wants more."

He could be talking about Tony Verducci, she thought. "And in this case?"

"In this case, well-I might bore you."

She lit a cigarette, blew the first puff high. "Not a bit."

He looked at her, didn't smile. "I'm Charlie," he said, "Charlie Ravich." He gave her his right hand. It felt large and dry and strong.

"Melissa," Christina responded. "Melissa Williams." Don't ask about his hand, she thought. "You were going to tell me about this factory that is costing you three hundred and sixty-eight thousand a month."

His eyes widened. "Is that what it is? Adding it up?"

"I overheard your numbers," she explained.

"We're building it in Shanghai. Big project. Six thousand workers."

"What will it make?"

"Electrical components. Tiny, the size of a quarter. About four hundred thousand a day, once we get production rolling. We ship them directly to telecommunications manufacturers all over the world. AT amp;T, Lucent, Dallas Semiconductor, IBM."

"Do you use raw materials from China?"

"No. None. We'll ship in raw materials from all over the world. Ferrite cores, circuit boards, wire, solder, everything from outside. You have to do that to get good quality."

"Containerized loads?"

He looked puzzled. "How do you know about container shipping?"

"I don't, really." Well, yes, she knew quite a bit about container shipping, because much of what Rick used to steal from trucks arrived in containers being transshipped through the ports of Newark and Baltimore. Sometimes, if he was sure what was inside the sealed container, he took it right off the docks, using phony bills of lading. But she wasn't about to explain this to Charlie. "So do you use air freight?" she said.

He nodded. "We'll ship it to a freight consolidator in Hong Kong, where they'll send one load in a week and take one load of finished product out on the return trip." He sipped his fresh drink, clearly finished with the description. "What do you do, Melissa?"

"I work at a Web site design company," Christina answered, wishing she were not lying yet feeling unable to tell him the truth. "But I'm mostly interested in history."

"Oh?" Charlie said. "What period?"

"The turn of the century."

"The last turn of the century." His eyes were thoughtful. "The next one will be here any minute."

"Very disorienting, too."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Things keep changing." She shrugged at the self-apparent truth of this. "We don't live in the same country we think we live in."

"Most young people don't know that yet. I certainly didn't when I was your age."

"I think there are four countries," she told him.

"I don't understand."

"You are born in one place and time, and then there's the place you think you live, the place you do live, and then the future place, the place we always sort of imagine."

"Always receding, the future."

She nodded, watching him sip his drink. His face was sharp yet elegant.

"When you get to be my age, Melissa, you think about the past at least as much as the future."

"When did the switch come?" she asked.

Charlie seemed puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what was the exact point-if there was one-that you began thinking more about the past than the future?"

She saw him look down, his face dark. He exhaled, inspected his drink as if it had tricked him, and said, "When I saw my son die." He bent his forehead into his big bony hand, and it was everything she could do not to reach out and put her arms around him. "Anyway," he said, recovering himself, "it's a rather good question."

"I'm sorry."

"No, no. It was a useful question, in fact."

They sat awkwardly a moment. Don't ask about the hand, she reminded herself.

"This is a nice place," she offered.

"I like it," Charlie said. "We keep a corporate account here."

"People come here for meetings?"

"It gives us a place that's more comfortable." But he glanced around uncomfortably, as if someone might be watching him talk with her.

"What happened?" she finally asked. She leaned over and touched his hand.

"That?" Charlie said, letting her hold his finger. "Old story."

"I love old stories."

He pressed the scar with his thumb. "I got shot by a guy with a machine gun. Went right through."

"Who?"

"A United States Marine."

"Was he trying to kill you?"

A laugh slipped from him, perhaps a long time coming. "He was trying to kill anyone he could find."

Don't ask anything more, she told herself. This man Charlie had secrets, but he didn't need to tell them to her. Ran smoothly, and at high speed. You could hear it in his voice. See it in his gold-and-onyx cuff links, the sexy wrinkles around his eyes. An executive. Crises and problems all the time. He dealt with things; he was functional and level-headed. He didn't blow hot and cold. Not a freak who took pictures of Q-tips. She liked him; she liked his scar and his thick gray hair and suit and blue eyes. And his nose like a knife. So what if he was married? Clearly he had a wife who did all the wife things. He hadn't mentioned her and he never would. A man like this is not reckless, she told herself. He can act quickly, seize a situation, but he is not reckless.

"Well, I've got a long day tomorrow, Melissa."

She held his eyes. "I've enjoyed talking with you, Charlie."

"My pleasure, too." He settled the bill.

"Do you come here sometimes?" she asked.

He shook his head, laughed. "About once a year."

"So I need to wait a year to talk to you again?"

He stared at her, then understood it. "Maybe you've got the wrong guy, Melissa."

She held his look. "Oh, I doubt it," she said softly.

"I'm"-he smiled-"old and married."

"I know," she said, disappointed that he had to say it. "I just hoped we could talk sometime. Chat about the weather, maybe, or who's in, who's out." She paused. "We could discuss the deep trends of the culture."

"The deep trends."

"I think it's an interesting topic, don't you?"

He pulled his wallet from the breast pocket of his jacket and slipped out a business card.

CHARLES RAVICH

Chief Executive Officer

TEKNETRIX

NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN DIEGO

SINGAPORE HONG KONG SHANGHAI PARIS

"I'm going out of the country in a few days," Charlie said.

"Away awhile?" she asked, rubbing her glass.

"Not long."

She examined the card. The reverse had several phone and fax numbers on it. She tucked the card in her purse. "China?"

"Yes." His blue eyes studied her, perhaps coldly.

"You're sizing me up."

"Yes."

She tilted her head, eyed him defiantly. "Well? How did I do?"

He smiled broadly now. Wrinkles on a boy's face. Handsome his whole life, she could see.

"Come on, Charlie, tell me," she teased. "I can take it."

He contemplated her, she saw, or maybe himself, blinking, pressing his lips tight, blinking again, an idea caught inside him. "Why don't we meet here tomorrow for another drink?" he finally said. "Seven?"

"You're sure?" she asked.

He nodded. "Sure."

"I'm not receiving charity — "

"No." He grinned.

"— not trying your patience, Mr. Charlie, or treading on your good graces or taking unfair advantage or-"

"No, no, and no."

Her head felt light. "You see I can be a sassy bitch."

"It's okay."

She chewed her drink straw. "You can handle it."

"Maybe I can't."

"Probably you can."

He stood for the first time next to her and she was surprised at how tall he was. She liked this. They moved toward the door. He walked more slowly than she'd have expected, favoring a leg perhaps. Out on Fifth Avenue, under the shadows of the trees, he turned to say good night and she could see that he was a little confused about what to do or say, which she also liked. She leaned forward on her toes and kissed his cheek. I'm going to have to be aggressive, she thought.