The City When It Rains

CHAPTER

SIX

AFTER A DAY of chasing small fires and fender benders, Corman returned home just before sunset and found Trang staring at the bulletin board which the tenants had hung on the wall.

“Ah, Mr. Corman,” Trang said as he turned toward him, “I was hoping to have word with you.”

Corman stopped, stared at him expressionlessly, said nothing.

“You know you must make decision soon,” Trang said gravely. He was the new owner of the building, a South Vietnamese immigrant who had, according to his disgruntled tenants, accumulated large sums of money by shipping drugs out of his country before the fall of Saigon. He wore perfectly tailored blue suits, but in a 1940s style, three-piece double-breasted, with wide lapels and pleated, slightly baggy trousers, the style, as some residents liked to claim, of a French imperialist. His teeth had been capped somewhat oddly, too, so that almost all of them were the same length, like piano keys.

“I mean concerning apartment,” Trang explained.

“I made it a long time ago,” Corman told him flatly.

“What was decision?”

“I don’t want to buy it.”

Trang looked mildly hurt. “But Mr. Corman, the insider price is very good,” he said, his eyes sweet, sorrowful, as if he were a good friend trying to prevent Corman from making a disastrous mistake. “And it is very good apartment, as you know.”

It was a dump with loud radiator pipes and rattling windows, but Corman didn’t feel like going into it. “I just don’t want it,” he said.

Trang’s face tightened. “Perhaps you have specific problem?”

“No.”

“If you do, it could be repaired,” Trang assured him. “It could all be part of purchasing agreement.”

“I’m not interested,” Corman repeated.

“But why?” Trang asked. “We could come to arrangement. I am willing to provide financing to insiders.”

“I don’t want to own an apartment,” Corman said firmly.

“And that is final?”

“Yes.”

Trang cleared his throat loudly. “Well then,” he said darkly. “I have to bring up other matter.”

“The rent.”

“I am afraid so.”

“I’ve been a little short recently.”

“Short, yes,” Trang said curtly.

“I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.”

Trang didn’t look convinced. “The people here, they think I am rich man, that rent does not really matter to me.” He shook his head. “But I have mortgage, you see. It is quite big one, too, as you know from prospectus. I have to pay it, just as you have to pay rent. Every month.”

Corman nodded, his eyes staring evenly into Trang’s face. It was not an evil face, just flat and faintly yellow with oval eyes and soft, almost purple lips. But there was something behind it, an edginess and brutality that added up to a capacity to do whatever the scheme of things demanded. He looked like the sort of person who was perfectly willing to accept the law of the jungle as the only one there was or ever would be. His body always looked tightly coiled, as if around a low-slung limb, poised to drop, entangle, squeeze.

“You very smart person,” Trang said. “I am sure you understand about mortgage.”

“I need a little more time.”

Trang looked at Corman as if he’d asked to sleep with his wife, daily with his twin daughters. “You make it difficult for me, Mr. Corman,” he said flatly. “I am not bad man. People, here, they think I am bad person.”

Corman said nothing, and his silence seemed to set Trang on edge, stiffen his resolve. His eyes shriveled into two small green dots. “At this point,” he said, “I believe that you are two months in arrears.”

“That sounds right,” Corman told him.

“Of course, this problem with rent could be figured into purchase price of apartment,” Trang added, now shifting again, becoming more conciliatory. “As discount, you see.”

Corman shook his head, his eyes still focused on Trang’s face. There was a small birthmark just above his right eyebrow. It was dark pink, and roughly in the shape of a fish. For a moment Corman thought it might be a tattoo, the mark of some murderous Oriental gang of drug runners and assassins to which Trang had once belonged. He wondered if Trang had ever killed a man, slit a throat or bashed in a skull. It was entirely possible, if the rumors were true, and the odd thing was that in America he would never think of such a thing. He would use the law instead, wielding it like a dagger, hurling it at you like a pointed throwing star.

“The figure is eight hundred and forty-two dollars and seventy-two cents, I believe,” Trang said.

“Yeah,” Corman told him, “I got your letter.”

“I wrote it with regret,” Trang said. “It is not personal matter.”

It was an interesting choice of words. For an instant Corman dealt with the hidden element within it. Nothing personal meant that they could do anything to you, but it wasn’t exactly to you they were doing it. They were just doing it in response to some phantom sense of the way things were. That’s what dictated their action, and you weren’t supposed to get mad about it.

“I’m working on a few things,” Corman said.

Trang’s eyes widened hungrily. “Things?”

“An angle on some pictures.”

“Angle?” Trang said uncomprehendingly. “Pictures?”

“I’m hoping to make some money.”

“I hope you do,” Trang told him. “Do you think it will be soon?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Trang said, his words now quite precise, lawyerly, emphatically stated. “If not, it is necessary I have to ask you to leave.”

“I understand.”

“Eviction proceeding very slow. I would like better to avoid.”

“So would I.”

Trang stepped back, edging himself against the bulletin board. Angry tenants had posted a newspaper article which had been written about Trang and other developers who were transforming the theater district, turning old Broadway hotels and rooming houses into state-of-the-art co-ops and condominiums. It showed Trang heatedly wagging his finger at an old man in a sleeveless undershirt and suspenders, and although Trang had never noticed it, the photo credit in the right-hand corner of the picture was Corman’s.

Trang flashed an uneasy smile. “Well, good night, then, Mr. Corman,” he said. “I am glad we understand each other.”

“Me, too.”

The smile vanished, the eyes grew small again. “I am sure I will be hearing from you about rent.”

Corman nodded quickly, turned and walked to the elevator.

Mrs. Donaldson was playing Chinese Checkers with Lucy when Corman came into the apartment.

“He’s going out with Joanna tonight,” Lucy told her matter-of-factly.

“Is that so now?” Mrs. Donaldson said, as she turned quickly and gave him a faintly disapproving glance, as if he’d once again failed to deliver on some vague promise of paternal responsibility.

“That’s right,” Corman said. “And I was wondering …”

“If I could stay at your house,” Lucy blurted to Mrs. Donaldson.

“Yes,” Corman said. “Until around midnight, something like that.”

“So he can be with Joanna,” Lucy said.

Corman dropped his camera bag on the small metal chair he kept by the door, unstrapped his police radio and walked into the living room.

“Did you finish your homework?” he asked as he sank down in one of its chairs.

“The child did it all,” Mrs. Donaldson declared. She looked at Lucy and smiled sweetly. “Like the grand little girl she is.”

Corman continued to stare at Lucy doubtfully. “Did you?” he repeated.

Lucy shot him a withering glance. “I said I did,” she cried. “Jeez.”

“I just wanted to be sure,” Corman told her.

Lucy returned her attention to the checkerboard. “It’s not due till Monday anyway,” she muttered.

Corman stood up again, walked into the bathroom and slapped some cold water onto his face. In the mirror above the sink, he could see that he was losing a little hair, and that small puffy patches had begun to form beneath his eyes. He’d noticed them in Joanna, too, and Lexie before her. Far out in space, he imagined, you could turn around and see puffy patches on the earth itself, wrinkles forming, gray wisps, the whole vast process slowing down. At times, it even seemed the best solution. And yet?

Joanna ordered a margarita. When it came, Corman watched her move her finger around the salted edge of the glass just as she always did. He had known her for almost two years, and little things had become predictable—the way she lit a cigarette, always with the tip held slightly upward, or the way she rubbed her eyes, never with her fist, her palm, her little finger, but always with the side of her index finger. It was as if there was a code which dictated these movements precisely, locked all history in a helpless chain reaction.

“Have any luck today?” Joanna asked.

“In what?”

“Money.”

Corman shook his head. “I pitched a few things,” he said, “but nobody moved on them.”

He added nothing else and instead let his eyes rove the restaurant, taking in its ocher walls, dotted with huge red sombreros and cowboy gear, bridles, stirrups, a pair of leather riding chaps, the tools of someone else’s trade.

Joanna smiled sympathetically. “It’s been a long dry spell,” she said.

Corman glanced up from his own drink. “It’s been raining for two days.”

“I mean as far as money’s concerned,” Joanna explained.

“Trang’s threatening eviction,” Corman told her.

Joanna looked alarmed. “Really? Is it that bad?”

“Bad enough.”

“Well, I’m good for …”

“No, thanks.”

“It happens to a lot of people,” Joanna said gently. She remained silent for a moment, then added hesitantly, “There’s an alternative.”

“A steady job, I know. I’m looking into something.”

“What?”

“With one of the dailies,” Corman said. “Light stuff.”

Joanna smiled. “That seems promising.”

“It’s society stuff,” Corman added. He elbowed away a bowl of taco chips. “Trivial stuff. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes, it does,” Joanna told him flatly. “It means money. Survival. That’s what it means.”

Corman nodded resignedly and took a sip from the beer. “So, how’s Larry?”

Joanna’s face darkened slightly. “You really shouldn’t ask me about him.”

“Why not? He’s your husband.”

Joanna’s eyes darted away. “Well, what can you say? Kids make strange bedfellows.” Her finger circled the rim of the glass again,dislodging small granules of salt. “Does Lucy know about him?”

“Larry?”

“Yeah.”

Corman shook his head. “No. Why should she?”

“Honesty.”

“Bullshit,” Corman said.

“Travis knows about you,” Joanna said.

“Travis is in college.”

“What are you afraid of, Corman?” Joanna asked him, her face turning very serious. “That your kid will hate you because you slept with a married woman?”

“It would complicate things a little,” Corman said dismissively. “She’s nine years old.”

Joanna smiled weakly. “And you want to protect her?”

Corman ducked behind his drink, took a quick sip.

Joanna’s finger made a third circle, as she eyed him carefully. “I’m not sure I love you, you know,” she told him bluntly. “I never have been.”

Corman smiled softly as he lowered the glass. “Same here,” he said.

They made love late in the evening, slow, already somewhat tired, Friday night love. When it was over, Joanna walked to the window, her body wrapped in a sheet, and stared out at the city.

She’d come from the Midwest, and her body had a lean, prairie emptiness to it, a sense of something which lived openly and needed very little tending. The urban crouch Corman often noticed in other women was completely absent in Joanna. She walked the streets almost heedlessly, as her mother must have walked the limitless fields of Illinois.

“Larry’s in Florida,” she said, without turning toward him.

Corman said nothing. He lay on his back and watched her. He could see how the folds of the sheet nuzzled her softly, rested smoothly on her hips and clung with a kind of ghostly affection to her shoulders.

“He’ll be back on Monday,” she added.

Corman sat up, pressing his back against the back of the sofa bed. “What’s the matter, Joanna?”

She didn’t answer, and Corman slid back down beneath the cov-ers, thought of the old city, wondered if love had been simpler there. If it had been, he was reasonably sure it was oppression that had done the trick, made everything look harmonious. “Want a drink?” he asked after a moment.

She shook her head, still watching out the window.

His eyes drifted away from her, and he could see the small red light of his closet darkroom. On the small shelf just inside the door, the woman still lay sprawled across the rain-swept street, her doll nestled in a soggy blue blanket. To the extent that history would remember her, it would be like that, just as it remembered all victims in their darkest moment. The old shooters had known exactly how to capture the dead in their muddy fields, the stricken in their frozen grief, the bony faces gathered behind the rusting wire. He wondered if, in a moment of irony, they’d ever been tempted to call out some brief instruction: Okay, now, say cheese.

“I’d better get home now,” Joanna said as she suddenly turned from the window.

Corman nodded softly. “Okay.”

She gathered her clothes and walked into the bathroom. When she came out again, she looked exactly as she had in the restaurant, hair neatly combed, not so much as a loose strand to betray the night.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she came up to him. “I’m a little down.”

“I’ll walk you to the train,” Corman said.

She decided on the bus instead, the 104, which lumbered up Eighth Avenue, then crossed over to Broadway at Lincoln Center.

“I’ll call you in a couple of days,” she told him.

They were standing near the northeast corner of 47th Street, shielded from the rain by one of the small porno theater marquees that stretched out over the sidewalk.

“Larry’s due back on Monday,” Joanna said.

“Yeah, I know.”

She drew in a deep breath, her face oddly strained. “He found a lump,” she said.

Corman looked at her. “Where?”

“Groin.”

“Did he go to the doctor?”

“On Monday,” Joanna said. “He’s scared. I’ve never seen him scared.”

“I’m sorry, Joanna.”

She turned away from him, her eyes following the quickly moving traffic. “People grow on you, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

She faced him again, squarely, like someone laying it on the line. “We’d have to …”

“Of course.”

She smiled slightly. “I’ll let you know.”

The bus arrived, leaning heavily, its long black wipers gliding rhythmically across the windshield. An old woman sat at the front of it, fingering the top of her red-tipped cane.

“See you, Corman,” Joanna said as the hydraulic doors wheezed open.

He kissed her quickly, affectionately, without desire. “If there’s anything I can do,” he told her.

She stepped onto the bus, glanced back at him as the doors closed. “Just answer the phone,” she said.

Corman nodded as the bus pulled away, then stood for a moment, watching it move more deeply into the heavy night-bound traffic.

“How much to get in?” someone asked suddenly from behind him.

Corman turned, saw a stocky little man standing at the ticket window of the theater. The woman behind the glass looked up, her eyes sharp, animal-like, a wolf nudged from sleep.

The little man lurched slightly, dragging a huge elevated shoe beneath him. “How much?” he repeated.

Corman couldn’t hear what the answer was, only saw the woman’s lips twitch crisply behind the glass, then the little man shake his head disappointedly as he walked away.