Small Vices

Chapter 46

I had dinner with Paul Giacomon that night in one of those SoHo restaurants where the wait staff all look like members of a yuppie motorcycle gang.

“What do you think?” Paul said as we studied the menu which the head biker had slapped down in front of us before returning to her real job, intimidating tourists.

“Interesting,” I said.

“Does that mean it really is interesting, or is it the kind of interesting like when you see a Jackson Pollock painting and you haven’t got a clue and somebody says how do you like it?”

“The latter,” I said.

Paul grinned.

“But it’s very downtown,” he said.

“I think maybe I’m more a midtown guy,” I said.

“Food’s good,” Paul said.

And it was. We had a bottle of wine with it. And we talked. It was fascinating to me to see how at home in this environment Paul was.

“You look good,” he said. “Susan told me after you got shot you were down to like 170 pounds.”

“I was slim,” I said, “but I was slow and clumsy.”

“You okay now?”

“Good as new,” I said.

“Susan says you and Hawk worked like slaves for almost a year.”

“If I’m to pursue my chosen profession,” I said, “I can’t be slim, slow, and clumsy.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t pursue it for very long,” Paul said, “if you were.”

“How’s your love life?” I said.

“More like a sex life at the moment,” Paul said.

“Nothing wrong with a sex life,” I said.

Paul grinned at me again.

“Nothing at all,” I said. “Though finally it seems to me that a love life is better.”

“If you find a Susan,” Paul said.

“True,” I said.

“And the Susan finds you.”

“Meaning?”

“Her first marriage, for instance, didn’t work,” Paul said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Susan is not a simple woman.”

“Not hardly,” I said.

“Not everyone could be happy with her,” Paul said.

“Maybe not,” I said.

“But you can.”

I nodded.

“You dating anyone regularly?” I said.

“Three people,” he said.

“They know about each other?”

“Of course they do,” he said. “Who brought me up?”

“Mostly me, I guess.”

“All you,” Paul said. “And the psychiatrist you got me. My first fifteen years were without upbringing.”

“Well,” I said. “We did a hell of a job.”

“Me too,” he said. “You in town on business?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. Paul never asked about business.

“You okay?” I said.

“Me? Yeah.”

“Enough money?”

“Yeah. I still get a check every month from my father. I’m getting a lot of bookings for my choreography, and I’ve started acting a little. Got a part in a thing called Sky Lark about ten off-offs.”

I nodded. Paul looked at me carefully.

“Why do you ask? You never ask questions like that.”

“Just wondering.”

Paul didn’t say anything. He drank some wine, poured some into my glass and some more into his.

“You’re all right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Healthy as a horse, and damned near as smart.”

Paul chimed in on the damn near as smart so that we spoke it simultaneously. We both laughed.

“Okay,” I said, “so maybe you’ve heard my act.”

“And maybe I know it pretty well,” Paul said. “You’re worried about something.”

“Not worried exactly, just alert to all possibilities. If something happened to me, you could count on Hawk to help you in any way you needed.”

“I know.”

“And Susan.”

“I know that, too.”

“And if she were alone you could be very helpful to her.”

“And would be. You and she are the closest thing I ever had to real parents.”

“Good,” I said. “Can we come down and see you in this play?”

“You don’t want to talk about all the possibilities you’re alert to,” Paul said.

“No.”

“Okay.”

Paul drank some wine and cut a piece off his sushi-quality tuna steak and ate it. Then he looked at me for a minute and nodded silently.

“Whatever it is,” he said, “my money is on you.”

“Smart bet,” I said.