Tick Tock

Chapter 16

A SILVER BENTLEY ARNAGE with a Union Jack bumper sticker pulled away from the hunter green awning as Berger came hobbling up 77th Street with the cane he kept in the Merc's trunk.

Did the Bentley belong to landed gentry? he thought. The Windsors visiting from Buckingham Palace? Of course not. It was Jonathan Brickman from 7A, the biggest WASP-aspiring Jew since Ralph "Lifshitz" Lauren.

Berger was only joking. He actually liked Brickman. He'd sat on the board when they reviewed the businessman's co-op application. He had the trifecta of impeccable creds, Jonathan did. Princeton, Harvard, Goldman Sachs. His financials were mind-boggling even for the Silk Stocking District.

Jonathan was a pleasant fellow, too. Amiable, self-deprecating, handsome, and crisp in his bespoke Savile Row pinstripe. The only thing the gentleman financier had left to do was get a Times wedding announcement for his debutante daughter so he could die and go to heaven, or maybe Greenwich.

Berger even liked Brickman's Anglophile Ralph Lauren yearnings. What wasn't to like about Ralph Lauren's Great Gatsby -like idealized aristocratic world, filled with beautiful homes and clothes and furnishings and people? Brickman was attempting to become brighter, happier, better. In a word, more. What could be more triumphant and life-affirming than that?

When Berger entered the bird's-eye maple-paneled lobby, he saw the Sunday doorman packed down with Brickman's Coach leather bags. His name was Tony. Or at least that was what he said it was. His real name was probably Artan or Besnik or Zug, he figured, given the Croatian twang in his voice.

Welcome to New York, Berger thought with a grin, where Albanians want to be Italians, Jews want to be WASPs, and the mayor wants to be emperor for life.

"Mr. Berger, yes, please," Tony said. "If you give me a moment, I'll press the elevator door button for you."

He was actually serious. Literally lifting a finger was considered quite gauche by some of the building's more obnoxious residents.

"I got this one, Tony," Berger said, actually pressing the button himself to open it. "Call it an early Christmas tip."

On the top floor, the mahogany-paneled elevator opened onto a high coffered-ceiling hallway. The single door at the end of it led to Berger's penthouse.

Brickman had actually made a discreet and quite handsome offer for it several years before. But some things, like seven thousand multilevel square feet overlooking Central Park, even a billionaire's money couldn't buy.

As he always did once inside the front door, Berger paused with reverence before the two items in the foyer. To the left on a built-in marble shelf sat a dark-lacquer jug of Vienna porcelain, a near flawless example of Loius XV-style chinoiserie. On the right was Salvador Dali's devastating Basket of Bread, the masterpiece that he painted just before being expelled from Madrid's Academia de San Fernando for truthfully telling the faculty that they lacked the authority to judge him.

Standing before them, Berger felt the beauty and sanctuary of his home descend upon him like a balm. Some would say the old, dark apartment could probably use a remod, but he wouldn't touch a thing. The veneer of the paneled dusty hallways made him feel like he was living inside an Old Master's painting.

This place had been built at a time when there was still a natural aristocracy, respect for rank and privilege and passion and talent. An urge to ascend. There were ghosts here. Ghosts of great men and women. Great ambitions. He felt them welcome him home.

He decided to draw himself a bath. And what a bath it was, he thought, entering his favorite room. Inside the four-hundred-square-foot vault of Tyrolean marble sat a small swimming pool of a sunken tub. On its right stood a baronial fireplace big enough to roast an ox on a spit. On its left, a wall of French doors opened onto the highest of the sprawling apartment's many balconies.

Berger particularly loved being in here in the wintertime. When there was snow on the balcony, he'd open the doors and have the fire roaring as he lay covered in bubbles, looking out at the lights.

He opened the doors before he disrobed and lowered himself slowly into the hot bath.

He floated on his back, resting while staring out at the city lights, yellow and white, across the dark sea of trees.

Tomorrow he would be "kickin' it up to levels unknown," to borrow the words of some obnoxious Food Network chef. This weekend was nothing compared with what people would wake up to tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a day.