Other people

Twelve Thomassy

When we walked into the restaurant, Michael waved from behind the bar and came around to show us to my place, a corner table away from the chatter up front.

Michael Diachropoulis moved like a younger Sydney Greenstreet without the menace. His corpulence, achieved through an insatiable affair with his own cooking, slowed him down, but his dark eyes had the frantic rhythm of a proprietor intent on fulfilling the wishes of his customers.

As he good-evening'd us, Michael's eyes inspected Francine. He would be noticing that she was a lot younger than the women I usually brought. "Welcome!" he said to her as if he had been waiting all evening for her appearance. He held her chair in readiness for her to sit, and when she did, he slipped it under her as if the chair were his hands.

"This is Miss Widmer, Michael, a client of mine."

"I am glad she is now a client of mine as well."

At that moment the attention of Michael's darting eyes was caught by a party of three couples coming in the door, and he was off, promising to return as soon as he attended to "his customers." We, of course, were guests.

I told Francine that Michael had named his place the Acropolis, he said, because he thought that even if Americans could never remember his name, they would remember the name of his restaurant. As it turned out, to Michael's dismay, most of his steadies called it the Annapolis.

I have always had curiosity about what draws people to certain occupations. Some restaurateurs, in private, will claim only an economic motivation; it is a depression-safe business, people have to eat. There is a fallacy there, of course, in that people do not have to eat in restaurants, and, in fact, when there is a downturn in the economy, restaurant business can fall off precipitously except for the fast-food chains that sell spicy garbage cheap. The real restaurateurs, the ones who develop a clientele, are like their cooks, comforted by the atmosphere of food, preparing it, serving it well, seeing that people enjoy it. These Greeks and Italians are the Jewish mothers of the food world: eat, eat, they remonstrate, I made it especially for you. Think what the Middle West would be if the immigrants had not descended upon it, a wasteland of slab steak, baked potato, and a crisp, sugared salad served as an appetizer!

When my attention returned from its ruminations, I observed Francine listening intently to the bouzouki music in the background. I studied her head, the grace of the way she held it.

After our waitress brought drinks, Michael's formidable roundness reappeared, his benign face beaming with a secret to be shared.

"All right, Michael," I asked, "what is today?"

"Today," said Michael, "is ambrosia of the sea."

"You sure it's not left over from last Friday?"

Mock-shocked, Michael said, "Would I ever offer the greatest lawyer in America five days leftover fish? Am I looking to go to jail, to lose my reputation?"

"Michael, has anyone ever sued you?"

"Never!"

"Has anyone ever complained that your food was not good?"

"They only complain that it is never enough!"

"Michael, tell us about your ambrosia."

"Yes, your honor."

"That is for a judge, Michael, not a lawyer."

"A great lawyer must become a great judge, right?"

"Wrong," I said, turning to Francine.

She looked past me and said, "Michael, isn't it better to be a baseball player than an umpire?"

"Aha!" said Michael.

"A judge," Francine continued, "never wins a game."

Our host, Michael Diachropoulis, sensed that there was more going on than even his dancing eyes could take in. He put his hands together as if in prayer. "I explain ambrosia of the sea. It is my own recipe pompano. The sauce is," he smacked his fingertips, "with little baby shrimp, abandoned by the sea, and given by Michael a proper home, next to king pompano."

Michael looked to Francine for her reaction. She nodded her assent to the ambrosia.

"One cannot refuse," Michael said. He scorned customers who ordered from the menu. "Tourists," he called them, even if he had served them a dozen times.

"Make that two," I said. "I hope your free chablis is good and cold."

"My chablis is six dollars fifty cents the full bottle, special tonight for all who have the good senses to order ambrosia. Would I spend hours preparing my special and not have some bottles of chablis on ice? What do you think I am, McDonald's?"

That remark was not without an edge of bitterness. Michael used to have a crowd of young people drop in early in the evening for cold draft beer and his blue cheese sirloinburgers ("You don't need me for hamburgers," he would say). He knew how to rap with the kids, and left them alone when they wanted to be. Then McDonald's opened down the block, and while it could not supply conversation like Michael's or food as good, the prices were unbeatable; two and three at a time, his regulars among the young people stopped coming except for special occasions. They ate less well in a poorer ambience for a lot less money, but there was a recession on. To Michael the defection of the young was a further notch in the unending decline of civilization since the first Acropolis.

"Anything to start?" Michael asked.

"First we'll talk a little over our drinks."

"Signal when ready."

Michael went home behind the bar.

Looking at Francine the Unexpected, I thought of Jane. This evening had been designed with a different plan for a different woman. I had been prepared for Jane's conversation about what was wrong with the world, her world consisting of cars and clothes, and all of it prologue to bedding the animals, hers and mine. That woman could have gotten a Ph.D. in lovemaking. Most women, I have found, know only half of what there is to know about what to do with a man once they've turned him on, which is probably a higher percentage than most men know about women. Jane had a hooker's skills without the liabilities. She didn't put on an act, she wasn't a man hater. She didn't even dislike her husband. It's just that he had to be on the road a lot, and Jane was greedy, a consumer of sex who didn't want to do without. I served a purpose for her and she served a purpose for me, like two immigrant checker players who knew only a few words of English in common but who met in the park on a regular schedule.

Francine the Unexpected wanted me for my alleged ability to win what I then thought truthfully to be her hopeless case. What use was she to me?

She was ready to talk back in a high-risk way, a convenience women like Jane would never dare. In fact, wasn't I having dinner with Francine because she, not I, had wanted it?

"I'm sorry about goofing the appointment," I said.

"Conciliation accepted," she said. "I'm sorry for goofing your evening this evening."

"You haven't yet."

"I've been thinking. How come a fellow like you isn't rich?"

"I do okay," I said.

"I don't mean okay, I mean real rich like F. Lee Bailey, lawyers like that. Wouldn't you like to have a fancy pad with an indoor-outdoor swimming pool, a wine cellar, a game room, a mirrored bedroom with a revolving circular bed, you know?"

"Does crap like that turn you on?"

"No."

"Why'd you think I'd want things like that?"

"You're a bachelor. You don't have a mess of kids to support."

"I have all these women."

That stopped her only for a second. "You ever buy them presents?"

"Not often. Sometimes they buy me presents."

"In gratitude?"

"I think I'm a respectable lover." Quickly I added, "I'll tell you why I'm not rich like some criminal lawyers. I have a few rules."

"Scruples?"

"I said rules. Those lawyers are like cruising Cadillacs. Anybody with a lot of dough and a highly publicizable case can flag them down. I pick my cases. I never make a final judgment based on the client's ability to pay or to draw the newspapers."

"You're a socialist."

"Fuck that. I do what I like to do. No corporation tells me what to do with my work. I don't have to compromise with a lot of law partners. And I'm not for hire to a mobster with a hundred grand in his pocket. Unless, of course, his case intrigues me beyond my capacity to resist."

"What kind of case do you find irresistible?"

"This is going to sound egotistical."

"I'll bet you won't let that stop you."

"I like a case to depend more on me than on the evidence. The same way a specializing surgeon will take on even a charity case if it's the kind that scares off the other surgeons. Showing off."

"Not money?"

"I never knew an interesting professional who'd choose mere money over a chance to display his tail feathers."

"I'm not convinced. You know how men love to test out women — would you screw so-and-so for a thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars, a million? And when he finally names a number you say yes to, he says 'I knew you were a whore, I just wanted to establish the price.' What's your price, Mr. Thomassy? Would you take a six-week case in Las Vegas for six hundred thousand dollars?"

"You offering?"

"Just testing."

"I don't take tests."

"How about one week's work for a Howard Hughes or an Onassis for a million even?"

"What's the case?"

"Mr. Virtue. Would they pay a million if the case didn't stink?"

"I'll tell you something, Francine. Those guys didn't get rich overpaying lawyers or accountants. They know where to find footmen with accounting and law degrees. The world is full of ass kissers. I thought you'd have noticed in that zoo where you work."

"I am not an ass kisser."

"I didn't think you were. Neither am I. I take what I want. I make what I make."

She seemed embarrassed.

"Can you say the same?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"Take your time. You're still growing up."

"I'm twenty-seven."

"That's what I mean, a very bright kid. I'll give you a piece of nonlegal advice. Don't ask a middle-aged man why he's not rich. He's either rich by then or doing something different."

"F. Lee Bailey and Edward Bennett Williams are famous. Doesn't that attract you?"

"I've got enough clients."

"You don't want to be well known."

"To headwaiters? To people in the street? The judges know who I am. I know who I am."

"Thomassy the Unshakable. Don't you ever get thrown by events?"

"Sure."

"Like what?"

"Like now."

"Meaning?"

"Catching myself fencing with a twenty-seven-year-old kid."

"Want to go?"

"No."

"That's the nicest compliment I've had in ages."

"I don't compliment people. Let's get this straight, Francine. I'm the only rank in my business. I do my thing my own way at my own pace."

"As if the rest of the world didn't exist."

"Bullshit. I know it's there. It can do what it wants. I just don't want it poking its finger in my eye. Most people would like to stay out of jail. All people would like to keep from being jammed into a concentration camp, yet they live their business lives part of the time as if they were being regulated by blackshirts."

"White shirts."

"Same thing," I said.

"What do you know about concentration camps?"

"A lot," I said.

"You're not Jewish, are you?" Francine asked.

"Would it matter?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

"My father's an Armenian. They're the ones the twentieth century practiced on before they got around to the main act on the Jews."

"You're more political than I thought."

"You operate out of a whole garbage bag full of prejudices. You think 'political' means the kind of cloakroom crap your U.N. is full of? I run my own life. That's political."

I could see the waitress coming out of the kitchen with a full tray, headed in our direction. "Want to go?" I asked.

"No," Francine said. "But I don't want to impose on your freedom."

I could face sending the food back. I could even face Michael. It was time to confess. "I'm electing to be here," I said.

Francine was blushing. Without thinking, I rested my hand on hers, just a second, but it was enough.

"What's the matter?" I said finally.

"I started the evening as an imposition. I guess I'm very pleased to have turned into an elective," she said.

My apologies, Michael, for not paying full attention to your ambrosia as I ate. I used your meal the way I use a distraction in the courtroom that doesn't involve me: to think of my next step.

I like to know where I'm going. I like to plan my moves. Great actors, it is said, plan their most extemporaneous-seeming bits of business most carefully. I wasn't an actor. I didn't know where this script was leading to.

Francine said something complimentary about the food. I smiled a shit-ass smile. I hadn't been paying attention.

"Francine," I said. "There's no point in starting anything — I mean your case — unless I can see my way clear to a successful conclusion."

"You don't wing it?"

"That's unprofessional."

"Do you play chess?"

"I used to. As a kid."

"You stopped?"

"Yes."

"Because you couldn't count on winning all the time?"

"You trying to goad me?"

"It was a real question."

"Okay, a real answer. There's not enough at stake in chess. In my game, losers go to jail."

"In that case, you don't go in for any sports?"

I had to confess I didn't.

"Neither do I," Francine said. "Maybe we can take tennis lessons together. On second thought, you'd probably spend your time trying to psyche me instead of learning to play well."

"Not true. I can't psyche anybody successfully in or out of the courtroom without ammunition, facts, background. For instance, I don't know half enough about you to handle anything as personal as a rape case always turns out to be. I'd like to get your permission for me to see your Dr. Koch."

"Oh?" She didn't seem to warm to the idea. Then she said, "When do I get to talk to your shrink?"

I laughed. "When you're handling my case."

"Have you ever seen a shrink?" she asked.

"No."

"It might help you see between the interstices."

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked.

"You go from point to point in a preplanned way. A little free association might help you see the way life is. The elusive thoughts are sometimes the most interesting."

"You don't like my style."

"I like winners."

"Well," I said, "do I get to see Koch?"

"I was just thinking that while you were talking to him, I'd be paying for your time and his time both."

"How else am I going to learn about the interstices?"

"Okay," she said.

Was I more curious about the woman or the case? What could Koch tell me? "You'll have to phone him. Does he see people after normal working hours?"

"His working hours aren't normal. Some people probably call him at three in the morning with a pill bottle in hand. When can you make it?"

"After hours, almost any time."

She got up. "Excuse me." She headed for the phone booths in the back.

The coffee was just being served when she returned, slid gracefully into her chair as I half stood.

"He was very pleased to hear my voice," she said, "until I told him I was calling to make an appointment for someone else. He's got you down for Friday at seven." She wrote the address down on the back of a pack of matches. "Allow yourself time to park. It's Manhattan, you know."

Michael reappeared to chastise me for not ordering the mandatory sweet.

"Too much," I said, patting my midriff.

"Perhaps the lady?" Michael said.

"Next time," she said to Michael. Grateful for the promise, Michael waddled off, returning in a moment with an inch of marzipan on a small plate. "On the house," he said, "for a lovely lady."

I signed the check. Francine broke the marzipan in two, put a half between my lips, then nibbled at the second half. The bouzouki music seemed wild now, a dervish of sound.

Outside, in the car, I opened the door for her. She looked as if she hadn't expected me to do that. The truth is that I usually don't for Jane. Or the others.

I got in on the driver's side, strapped myself in, shoulder harness and seat belt. Francine, who hadn't used the seat belt on the way to the restaurant, followed my example.

"The car makers call it a restraining harness," I said.

She laughed.

I put my hand out and found hers, just for a second. She didn't pull it away, just disengaged it gently, and said, "We sitting here or going somewhere?"

I put the key into the ignition, but didn't turn it. From our darkened car we could see a middle-aged couple come out of the restaurant, walking in the same direction as if they didn't know each other.

"I'll bet they're married," I said.

The woman got into the driver's seat. The man slid in from the passenger side.

"I wonder why she's driving," said Francine.

"He's lost his hcense. Accident. Drunken driving."

"Maybe she's the better driver."

"He'd still drive if he had the license."

"Maybe he never learned," said Francine.

"If he's American, he learned," I said.

"You're very sure of yourself."

"On some things."

"On what not?"

"You," I said.

I turned the ignition key back a notch and switched the radio on to WQXR.

"Brandenburg," she said.

"Which?"

"I don't know," she said.

"I don't either," I admitted.

"That was a very nice meal, thank you."

"Michael's a nice man," I said. "I enjoyed your company."

Encapsuled in the car, we listened to Bach. And to our separate thoughts. I wish I knew hers.

Finally she said, "Feels funny strapped in like this and going nowhere."

"Shall I drive you back to your car?"

"It'll keep overnight. It's silly to go all the way back there now. I'm staying with my parents. My mother can drive me there after she drops my father off at the station."

"Which means you want a ride to your parents' house now?"

"I'd stay at the apartment if I had an armed guard."

"I have no arms."

"Not true."

"You like to play with words."

"I do. You do."

"Sounds like a marriage ceremony."

"See," she said. "You do." Then, "Have you ever been close to getting married?"

"Only in the very old days once, when abortions were hard to come by and dangerous."

"What happened?"

"She met another guy and they went off somewhere and got married."

"Does that mean you may have a child somewhere?"

"I don't know what happened."

"Don't you care?"

I started the engine.

"You've built a lot of insulation around yourself," she said.

"It doesn't keep me warm on cold nights."

She held her left hand in the air for a moment as if she were going to touch me with it.

"That lawyer you wear," she said, "may be hiding a nice man."

"I doubt it." I snapped the radio off.

"Please leave it on."

I turned it back on a bit too loud. Which I suppose was childish.

"Do you know where my parents' house is?"

"You'll have to direct me."

"When we get there, will you come in?" This time her hand touched my hand, just for a second.

"It'd be awkward," I said. "You wouldn't care to come up to my place first. For a drink?"

"I'm not a prude," she said. "But that thing was much too recent."

"What thing?"

She seemed suddenly angry. "The thing I came to you about."

"Koslak," I said.

"Yes."

"And you're angry at all men?"

"In a way."

"Is that fair?"

"It isn't a question of being fair."

"You mean that if it wasn't for what happened, you might come up tonight?"

"I might."

Brandenburg seemed loud against the silence of the parking lot. "You're very hard to figure, Francine. You seem very smart-ass at times."

"And?"

"And at times very vulnerable."

"That's right. That's me. Smart-ass and vulnerable. Don't you think they go together?"

"I know they do."

"Are you ever vulnerable, counselor?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Right now," I said, turning the engine on, backing out of the parking space, zipping out of the lot too fast, tires squealing, heading for the parkway.

"You seem in an awful hurry," she said.

I didn't answer.

After a while she said, "You're afraid of your feelings, aren't you?"

"Aren't you?"

"You sound angry."

"I didn't mean to sound angry."

I slowed down some. I followed her directions. When we pulled up in her parents' driveway, I felt an exhaustion in my chest. I saw the foyer light go on.

"You want to get away fast, don't you?" she said.

I kept both hands tight on the wheel.

She got out of the car. Before the door of the house was opened for her, I was pulling away.

I felt as if we'd had a lovers' quarrel and we weren't even lovers.