Downtown

7

In Vietnam, one of the first things Sergeant Mendelsohnn told him was, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This did not mean going home. Or going back. It meant going forward. Advancing. Blowing apart the whole fucking jungle as you moved toward the enemy. Leaves flying, mounds of earth exploding, whole trees coming down as you trashed the countryside, rat-tat-tat, pow, zowie, boom, bang, Rambo for sure, only you didn’t have glistening muscles you bought in a Hollywood gym.

You were a lean, somewhat scruffy-looking eighteen-year-old kid from Boston, and you wore eyeglasses, and you just wished your glasses wouldn’t get shattered in all that noise and confusion while you were bringing down the countryside hoping you’d get some of the bad guys. But you never refused to advance. And you never pulled back unless you were ordered to. This had nothing to do with patriotism. It had to do with the fact that Mendelsohnn or somebody even higher up would shoot you in the back if you either refused to advance or turned tail and ran back to safety when the shit began flying.

As Michael got out of that red Buick on Greenwich Avenue, he knew that Frankie Zeppelin was sitting there behind him with a .38 Detective Special trained on his back, and he knew that if he did not advance into the Mazeltov All-Nite Deli as ordered, he would be shot in the back. Plus ça change, plus c’est la méme chose, as his mother had been fond of saying back in Boston each time winter howled in off the Common. His mother’s ancestry was French. His father’s was English. An odd match, considering that the English and the French had been traditional enemies even before Agincourt. Sometimes their house resembled a battlefield. Well, not really. Nothing but a battlefield even remotely resembled a battlefield. This empty, windblown, bitterly cold street was not a battlefield, either, even though Michael had one pistol in the pocket of his coat and another pistol trained on his back, and there was a man sitting inside whom he was expected to kill. Like fun.

This was not a battlefield, and Frankie Zeppelin was not a sergeant.

Michael opened the door to the deli. For a little past two o’clock on Christmas morning, the place was thronged. Men in suits or sports jackets or tuxedos; women in slacks or dresses or evening gowns.

Radiators clanging and steaming. Wooden tables, no tablecloths on them, paper-napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers. Waiters in black jackets and unmatching black trousers, white shirts, no ties, running frantically back and forth, to and from a counter behind which a steam table added yet more warmth to the place. The sudden aroma of food reminded Michael that he hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch with Jonah today—yesterday actually, although his mind-clock always considered it the same day until the sun came up in the morning, no matter what time it really was.

Jonah Hillerman of the Hillerman-Ruggiero Advertising Agency.

Who had proposed a scenario for the upcoming Golden Oranges television campaign.

Beautiful suntanned blonde girl doing the commercial, okay? Wearing nothing but a bikini. Sun shining. Eating an orange in the first scene, juice spilling onto her chin. “Eat ‘em,” she whispers, and wipes away the juice with the back of her hand. In the next scene, she’s squeezing an orange. Frothy, foaming juice bubbles up over the rim of the glass. “Squeeze ‘em,” she whispers. “Mmmm, good,” she whispers. “Mmmm, sweet. Mmmm, Golden. Mmmm, Oranges!”

“Subliminal sex,” Jonah said. “The viewer thinks we’re asking him to eat the blonde’s pussy and squeeze her tits. We’re telling him the blonde is good, she’s sweet, she’s golden. Eat her, squeeze her! What do you think?”

“What about women?” Michael asked.

“They’re the ones who go shopping for the oranges.”

“That’s a sexist attitude,” Jonah said.

Michael was almost faint with hunger. He went to the counter and ordered two hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard, a side of French fries, a Coca-Cola, and a slice of chocolate cake. Isadore Onions—wearing a dark suit, red socks, a Hitler moustache, and the worst hairpiece Michael had ever seen in his life—was sitting at a table with a blonde wearing a very tight fluffy white sweater and a narrow black leather mini-skirt. Michael figured she could make a fortune doing orange-juice commercials. Or even working for Frankie Zeppelin.

“Two dogs,” the man behind the counter said. “Fries, a Coke, and a slice a chocolate. Pay the cashier.”

Michael picked up his tray and went to the cash register.

The cashier tallied the bill.

“Seven-forty,” she said.

Michael reached into his pocket for his wallet.

His wallet was gone.

Not again, he thought.

He patted down all his other pockets. No wallet. He wondered if Frankie Zeppelin had stolen his wallet. The cashier was looking at him.

“Seven-forty,” she said.

“Just a second,” Michael said.

He left the tray at the cash register, walked over to Isadore Onions’s table, pulled out a chair, sat, and said, “Mr. Onions?”

“Mr. Ornstein,” the man said. “No relation.”

“To who, honey?” the blonde asked.

“Nick Ornstein, the gangster who was Fanny Brice’s husband.”

“That was Nick Arn-stein,” the blonde said.

“Exactly,” Ornstein said. “So who are you?” he asked Michael.

“Mr. Ornstein,” Michael said, “there’s a contract out on you.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Ornstein said, “but what else is new?”

“What else is new is that I’m the one who’s supposed to shoot you,” Michael said.

“Don’t make me laugh,” Ornstein said.

“But you won’t have to worry about that if you give me seven dollars and forty cents to pay for my food over there.”

“Who is this person?” Ornstein asked the blonde.

“Michael Barnes, sir.”

“You look familiar,” the blonde said.

“You’ve probably seen me on television,” Michael said. “I’m already wanted for a murder I committed earlier tonight. So another one won’t matter at all to me. I work cheap, Mr. Ornstein. All I want is seven dollars and forty cents to forget the whole matter.”

“Get lost,” Ornstein said.

“Mr. Ornstein, I’m a desperate man.”

“Who isn’t?”

“I’m starving to death …”

“So starve.”

“If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’ll fall down on the floor here.”

“So fall.”

“I think it was nice of him to tell you,” the blonde said, and shrugged.

“Sure, very nice,” Ornstein said. “He comes in, he sits down, he tells me he’s supposed to shoot me, this is a nice thing to say to a person? And then ask him for a loan besides? This is nice by you?”

“He only asked for seven dollars,” the blonde said.

“And forty cents, don’t forget,” Ornstein said. “On my block, seven dollars and forty cents don’t grow on trees.”

“Come on, Izzie, it’s Christmas.”

“Too bad I’m Jewish.”

“If this man falls down on the floor …”

“Let him, who cares?”

“If there’s a commotion, there’ll be cops in here.”

“I hope not,” Michael said.

“Me, too,” Ornstein said. “Here,” he said, immediately taking out his wallet and reaching into it and handing Michael a ten-dollar bill. “Get lost.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ornstein,” Michael said, “thank you very much, sir,” and got up at once and went to the counter to pay for his order and to pick up his tray. He looked around the room. The only vacant chair was at Ornstein’s table. He went to it, said, “Hello, again,” sat, and began eating.

“I thought I told you to get lost,” Ornstein said.

“No, it’s better he came back,” the blonde said.

“Why?”

“Because now he can tell us who put out the contract on you.”

“Yeah, who?” Ornstein asked Michael.

Michael was busy eating.

“I never seen such a fresser in my life,” Ornstein said.

“He’s cute when he eats,” the blonde said, and smiled at him.

Michael had the distinct impression that she had just put her hand on his knee.

“Who sent you to kill me?” Ornstein asked.

In the army, they had told Michael that if he was ever captured by the enemy, he should tell them nothing but his name, rank, and serial number. He was not to tell them where the Fifth Division was, or the Twelfth, or the Ninth, he was not even to tell them where the nearest latrine was.

“Frankie Zeppelin,” he said.

“Of course,” Ornstein said, and nodded to the blonde.

“Of course,” she said, and her hand moved up onto Michael’s thigh.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Irene,” she said, and smiled.

“You know why he wants me killed?” Ornstein asked Michael.

“No, why?”

“Because of her,” Ornstein said.

“Really?” Michael said.

“He’s insanely jealous,” Ornstein said.

“So am I.”

“I think I’d better go,” Michael said.

“If you’ll let me have your name and address, I’ll …”

“Finish your meal,” Irene said, and smiled again.

Her hand was still on his thigh.

“What I was going to say …”

“Yes?” Irene said.

“… was I’ll send Mr. Ornstein a check. When I get home.”

“Frankie Zeppelin will kill anyone so much as looks at this girl,” Ornstein said.

“That’s true,” Irene said, and smiled again at Michael.

Michael was very careful not to look at her.

“So you can imagine how he feels about us sleeping together,” Ornstein said.

“I can imagine,” Michael said.

“But who can blame him?”

“Not me,” Irene said.

“Not me, neither,” Ornstein said, and belched.

His hairpiece almost fell off his head. He adjusted it with both hands, looked across the table at Michael as if wondering if he’d noticed either the belch or the adventurous wig, and then said, “I myself would kill anyone got funny with her.”

“Oh my,” Irene said.

“I would,” Ornstein said.

Michael kept eating. He wondered if Ornstein knew he had a terrible wig. He wondered if Ornstein knew that Irene’s hand was on his thigh. He wondered if Frankie Zeppelin was still outside in the Buick, counting the money in Michael’s wallet and waiting to shoot him. He was beginning to think he had a better chance of getting killed here in this city than he’d ever had in Vietnam.

“So, Michael,” Ornstein said, “this is what I … it is Michael, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Is what I thought it was, what a dumb name. Michael, I want you to go back to that goniff …”

“Which means thief,” Irene said, and smiled. “… and tell him if he ever sends anybody else around here to shoot me …”

“Oh my,” Irene said.

“… I’ll send him back in a box,” Ornstein said. “You think you can remember that, Michael?”

“I think I can remember it,” Michael said.

“So go tell him,” Ornstein said. Michael stood up, pulling his coat around him like a cloak.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” Irene said.

“For the loan,” he said.

“Of course for the loan,” Ornstein said.

“What else?”

He almost started for the front door, and then remembered that Frankie Zeppelin was sitting out there in the red Buick with a .38 caliber Detective Special in his fist. He turned abruptly, almost knocking over a woman carrying a tray of what appeared to be four bowls of soup, incurring her wrath and a question he assumed to be strictly New York: “Whattsamatter you’re cock-eyed?”

The men’s room was at the rear of the deli, in a corridor that dead-ended at a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. A sign warned that this was to be used only in an emergency, and advised that a bell would sound if anyone opened the door. Michael went into the men’s room, washed his hands at one of the sinks, tried the window over the toilet bowl, discovered it was painted shut, and then went out into the corridor again.

The sign was still there on the door.

A push bar was set on the door about waist-high.

Michael read the sign yet another time.

Then he shoved out at the bar.

The door flew open.

Sergeant Mendelsohnn had told him that the war in Vietnam was merely a piss-ant war compared to the one in Korea, in which noble war he had been proud to serve because it had been a true test of manhood. In Nam, the way Charlie scared you shitless was he crept around the jungle in his black pajamas and you never saw him. It was a phantom army out there. That’s what was so terrifying. You imagined Charlie to be something worse than he really was. But in Korea … ah, Korea. Mendelsohnn waxed entirely ecstatic about Korea. In Korea, the Chinese lit up the whole battlefield at night! Could you imagine that? You were advancing in the dark and whappo, all of a sudden these floodlights would light up the whole place, it was like having your ass hanging on the washline in broad daylight.

And also in Korea—man, what a war that had been—there were Chinese cavalry charges! Could you imagine that? Cavalry charges! With bugles and gongs! Unlike the gooks in Nam, the ones in Korea made all the noise they possibly could. They terrified you with their noise. You were ready to die just from the noise alone.

Like now.

The minute Michael shoved open the door, the instant the door opened just the tiniest little crack, the bells went off. Not a bell, as had been promised on the warning sign, A Bell Will Sound. These were bells. Bells in the plural, bells in the multiple, bells that would have deafened the hunchback of Notre Dame, bells that would have sent the entire American Army in Korea fleeing in terror with or without bugles or horses or floodlights, bells that if Hitler had mounted them instead of whistles on his Stuka dive-bombers, there would now be his picture on American hundred-dollar bills.

Michael reeled back as if he’d been struck in the face with a hammer.

And then he remembered that when the going got tough the tough got going, and he pushed the door open wider and hurled himself out into the night, the cold air joining with the bells to assault his ears in fierce combination as he stepped onto and into the unshoveled snow behind the diner. The bells would not stop. Or perhaps they had stopped and he was now hearing only their echo. Perhaps—

And suddenly there were lights!

And horns!

The goddamn Chinese were coming!

This was Korea, and this was the test of his manhood!

Standing there trapped in the glaring lights, with the gongs still echoing in his ears and the horns blowing, Michael knew they would come riding out of the night on their Mongolian ponies and slash him to ribbons with their sabers. And then …

Oh Jesus …

The first Chinese soldier came out of the glare of the lights and moved toward him slowly as if in a dream, white snow underfoot, white covering the world, white and green and long black hair and …

“Michael!” she shouted.

“Connie!” he shouted back.

“This way! Quick!”

She grabbed his hand in hers, and together they crashed through the fans of brilliant illumination coming from the limo’s headlights. Snow thick underfoot.

Shoes sodden. Socks wet. They reached the car. She ran around to the driver’s side. He opened the door on the passenger side. No bells went off. The bells were still ringing in his head, though. He got in.

“You okay?” she asked. “I’ve been searching all over for you.”

“Yes,” he said.

Her voice reverberated inside his head.

He pulled the door shut. The good solid sound of a luxury car’s door settling snugly and securely into its frame. And then a small, expensive electric-lock click that miraculously cleared his ringing ears. Behind them, he heard someone shouting. He didn’t know who and he didn’t care why.

“Where to now?” Connie asked, and eased the limo into the night again.

St. Luke’s Place was a tree-shaded street with a public park on one side of it, and a row of brownstones on the other. It was exactly one block long, a narrow oasis between the wider thoroughfares that flanked it. At three in the morning, the only house with lights showing was in the middle of the block. Michael looked up at the third-floor window, located the name Wales in the directory set in a panel beside the door, rang the bell, identified himself as the man who’d telephoned not five minutes ago, and was immediately buzzed in.

The woman who answered the door to the third-floor apartment was perhaps thirty-three years old, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike with a Carly Simon mouth. She had short blonde hair (“The same color hair all bimbos have”) and wide brown eyes, and she was wearing high-heeled silver slippers and a long silver robe belted at the waist. Michael did not think either the robe or the slippers were real silver, but they certainly did look authentic.

Like the gun in Detective O’Brien’s hand had looked authentic. All those many years ago, it seemed. Was it still only Christmas morning? Had it been only three hours since he’d first learned from Albetha Crandall on the telephone that there was a bimbo with red silk panties in her husband’s life? He wondered if Jessica Wales was wearing red silk panties now.

“Please come in,” she said.

Little tiny breathless Marilyn Monroe voice.

Carly Simon smile.

She stepped back and away from the door, the robe parting over very long, very shapely Cher legs. It suddenly occurred to Michael that Jessica Wales was not wearing red silk panties or anything else under that robe. There was nothing and nobody but Jessica Wales under there. Here I am with a famous movie star who’s wearing nothing under her robe, he thought.

A Christmas tree was in one corner of the large living room, festively decorated with ornaments that looked expensively German in origin, and minuscule white lights and angel’s hair spun into tunnels that seemed to recede into a distant childhood where sugarplum fairies danced in everyone’s head. Wrapped Christmas packages in different sizes and colors were spread under the tree and a pair of bulging red stockings with white cuffs were hanging over a fireplace in which cannel coal was burning. The record player, or the radio, Michael couldn’t tell which, was playing what sounded like Old English carols. He stepped past Jessica, the scent of Poison wafting up from her, and heard the door clicking shut behind him. She turned the lock, put on the safety chain.

“So,” she said, “how can I help you?”

“Well, as I told you on the phone …”

“Yes. But I don’t know where he is.”

“I thought he might be here.”

“No. In fact, until you called, I still thought he was dead.”

“No, he’s alive.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I saw him on television.”

“I’m so happy to hear that,” she said, “would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you. Miss Wales, it’s urgent that I find Mr. Crandall.”

“Yes, so you told me. Are you sure? A little cognac?”

“Well, just a little, thank you.”

Jessica moved like molten silver to a built-in bar on the wall alongside a unit containing a television set, a VCR, a turntable, a tuner, a tape deck, and a compact disc player. Michael still didn’t know whether he was listening to a recording or to the radio. He looked around as Jessica began pouring the cognac. The living room adjoined the dining room, an open swinging door between them. Beyond the dining room, he could see only a portion of a kitchen with sand-colored cabinets. On the other side of the room there was an open door with a small library beyond it, and a closed door leading to what Michael guessed was the bedroom. The place was luxuriously furnished. He wondered how long Jessica had been a famous movie star he’d never heard of.

On the radio—it was the radio, he now discovered—an announcer was telling the world or at least the tri-state area that this was WQXR and that an uninterrupted program of Christmas music would continue immediately after the three A.M. news.

Michael moved closer to one of the speakers.

Jessica handed him a snifter half full of cognac.

“Roll it around in your hands,” she said. “Like this.”

She was holding her own snifter in both hands, close to her abundant breasts, rolling it gently between her palms. Michael was suddenly reminded of the commercial Jonah Hillerman had pitched at lunch yesterday. Eat ‘em. Squeeze ‘em. Mmmm, good. Mmmm, sweet.

“To bring out the bouquet,” Jessica said.

On the radio, a newscaster was giving the latest on the continuing conflict in the Middle East.

Jessica kept rolling the snifter between the palms of her hands.

The newscaster said that a large American corporation had sold one of its divisions to the Japanese for a billion dollars.

“Mmmm, good,” Jessica said, and brought the snifter to her nose.

The newscaster said that a United States senator had been indicted for violating the law against …

Jessica was sniffing the bouquet.

… said in a televised news conference that he would be exonerated once the true and complete story was …

“Mmmm, sweet,” Jessica said.

The newscaster said that the dollar had fallen against most major currencies in U.S. trading.

“Taste it,” Jessica said.

The newscaster said that a new cold front was moving in from the Canadian Rockies.

It seemed to Michael that he might have been listening to this very same newscast yesterday or two weeks ago or two months ago. Some American corporation was always selling off something to the Japanese, elected senators were always being indicted for breaking one law or another and then assuring the public that they would be proven innocent once the true facts were known, the American dollar was always weaker against most major currencies, there was always a cold front moving in from the Canadian Rockies, even in the summertime, and there was always and forever a continuing conflict in the Middle East. Even at Christmastime. Peace on earth, the man had said, but where was it? Meanwhile, Jessica was sipping her cognac.

The newscaster started giving the weather forecast for New York City and vicinity. Continued cold …

“Mmmm,” Jessica said.

… temperatures in the single digits …

“This is sooo good,” she said.

… possibility of more snow before morning.

“Terrific,” Michael said.

“But you haven’t tasted it yet,” she said.

“I meant the weather.”

The newscaster was now telling everyone to stay tuned for an uninterrupted program of Christmas music. No mention of the dead body found in the rented automobile. No mention of Michael Barnes, the wanted desperado.

Another voice came on, saying there would now be uninterrupted music until the next news report at four A.M. Something medieval flooded from the speakers.

Michael took a sip of the cognac.

“Yes,” he said, “delicious. Who’s Mama?”

“Mama?”

“In Crandall’s appointment calendar, it said `Call Mama.` And he was also supposed to meet her at eight o’clock last night. So who’s Mama?”

“Arthur’s mama is dead.”

“I know. So whose mama was he calling and meeting?”

“Maybe Albetha’s.”

“No, they don’t get along.”

“Well, certainly not my mama. She’s on vacation in London, England.”

“Then whose?”

“I have no idea. How’d you see Arthur’s calen …?”

“Do you know why he went to the bank on Monday?”

“I think he goes to the bank every day,” Jessica said, and shrugged.

“He wouldn’t have gone there to cash a check, would he?”

“How would I know?”

“For nine thousand dollars?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Which is exactly a thousand dollars less than has to be reported to the IRS.”

“Really? Gee.”

“Who else was at that Christmas party?”

“What Christmas party? How do you know about the Christmas party?”

“I was in Crandall’s office earlier tonight. Do you know anyone who lost a pair of red silk panties?”

“Gee,” she said, “no.”

“Okay, who’s Charlie?”

“Which Charlie? There are a lot of Charlies in this city, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Which Charlie did Crandall know?”

“Well, there’s Charlie Nichols, no relation to Jack Nichols the big movie star.”

“You mean Jack Nicholson, don’t you?”

“Exactly. Charlie Nichols used to be on Mister Ed years ago. Arthur used him in Winter’s Chill. To do one of the voices.”

“A horse’s voice?”

“No, a ghost’s voice. There are a lot of ghosts in the picture. Or at least I’m supposed to think they’re ghosts. The character I play. She thinks they’re ghosts. They’re trying to drive her crazy, you see. The character I play.”

“Like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight?”

“No!” she said sharply. “Not at all like Gaslight. Don’t even breathe the word Gaslight. This is a very scary picture.”

“So was Gaslight.”

“Will you please stop with Gaslight? This is a much better picture than Gaslight, you’ll see when it opens.”

“When will that be?”

“On the second. That’s a Thursday. So we’ll catch the Weekend section of the Times. When they review all the new movies. The Friday paper.”

“What does Charlie Nichols look like?”

“What difference does it make? He’s only a voice.”

“Yes, but what does he look like?”

“I never met him. I just told you, he’s a voice.”

“Have you met any Charlies who are more than voices?”

“Everybody has met a Charlie who is more than a voice.”

“I mean, who is also a Charlie that Crandall knows.”

“I can’t think of any other Charlies he knows.”

“You said he knows a lot of Charlies.”

“No, I said there are a lot of Charlies in this city is what I said.”

“But Charlie Nichols is the only Charlie that Crandall knows.”

“He’s the only Charlie that I know Arthur knows. For all I know, Arthur may know a hundred Charlies, maybe even a thousand Charlies, there are probably millions of Charlies in this city. All I’m saying is that Charles R. Nichols is the only Charlie …”

“Okay, I’ve got it. Do you know where he lives?”

“No.”

“But I do.”

The voice came from behind him.

A man’s voice.

He turned at once.

Arthur Crandall was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Fat and short and bald and wearing the same three-piece suit he’d worn on television, a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging on a gold chain across the front of his vest.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Barnes,” he said.

“Who’s the dead man?” Michael asked. “And why are you running around town telling people I killed him?”

“Which of course you didn’t do,” Crandall said, and looked at his watch.

“And why are you looking at your watch?” Michael asked.

“I was wondering when the police would get here,” Crandall said. “I called them the moment you arrived. They should be …”

“Thank you for the warning,” Michael said, and started for the door. “It was nice meeting you both, there certainly are some charming and delightful people here in downtown New …”

“No,” Crandall said, and reached into his pocket.

His hand came out with a gun in it.

Everybody in this city has a gun, Michael thought.

And took a step toward him.

“No, please don’t,” Crandall said. “This is a gun, you know.”

“So is this,” Michael said.