Gotham (7 page)

Smokey touches my sleeve with his phone hand. ‘You got kids, right?'

I have a wedding ring, I'm forty and look it. I don't know if he's guessing or if I've told him. He doesn't wait for an answer. He has an ultrasound image on his phone and he's angling it my way. It's a foetus, the bright outlines of one in its dark uterine world, a finely etched nose and mouth and perfect tiny fingers stretching to the limits of their span.

‘My lady's in labour,' he says. ‘Just the early part, but I want to get over there.'

The best minders are conjurers, guiding the eye to the other hand, away from tantrums, embarrassment, slander, hubris.

‘I think we might pick this up later.' I turn off my recorder and put it in my pocket. ‘When it's just the three of us.'

‘Yeah. Perfect.' He flicks to another image, spreads his fingertips and enlarges his tiny child.

‘I have a four-year-old daughter,' I tell him. ‘She's asleep at the Beacon Hotel right now, on Broadway and 75th. At least, I hope she's asleep.'

‘My son is four. How about that?' He seems genuinely pleased to say it, to make this connection, but it might just be shrewd preparation for a protracted pout from Na
ti Boi.

The transaction isn't over and Na
ti is looking glumly down into his drink, coaching himself through this diversion from his Bloomingdale's dream. Andie is standing mannequin-style at the counter, perhaps wondering how to turn grey.
Somewhere in the distance, there's a one-sided conversation I can just work out is in Spanish, a cleaner talking on his phone.

‘There's some good shit in this city for kids,' Smokey says, warming to the possibility of an entirely non-contentious topic. ‘People don't always get that. You taken her to the granite slide they got in Central Park? Billy Johnson Playground, East 67th. My boy digs that. Polished by the asses of ten million kids.'

‘It's on my list.' It's true. I have a list, and it's on it. ‘I'm actually writing a separate article—a travel article—on New York with an under-five.'

‘No shit? Well, you gotta go.' He looks towards Na
ti, as Na
ti finally relents and sits down again on the chaise lounge. ‘Take cardboard. You go faster with cardboard. If you got none you can prolly pick a piece up there. You tell Australia that. It's a good tip.'

Na
ti arranges himself with his elbows on his knees, his half-full glass held in both hands in front of him. His face has settled for a vague, less angry look. He could be a boy waiting for a bus he knows is still some time away.

Smokey flicks to another image on his phone. It's his son—a close-up of his face, all bright eyes and gleaming teeth.

‘That's my boy,' he says. ‘Any time I put this thing down, I come back and it's got new selfies on it. It's a game we play now. Apparently.'

I get my phone from my pocket. Ariel's my wallpaper. The picture's a few months old, but it's a good one. She's a dragonfly, with face paint and glistening wings and an emerald body. She looks happy, in the complete way that children can be.

‘Delightful,' he says. Not a word I expected, but a good one. ‘She could do with a little more meat on those bones.'

‘She could.' It's there in the picture, if you look for it, if you aren't distracted by the gaudy, glittery dragonfly trickery, as you're supposed to be. ‘We're working on that.'

For a second I feel far away from her, here on this job while she's sleeping in the fold-out bed at the foot of ours at the Beacon, jammed in there with her best monkey, Claude, sheets already kicked aside. Lindsey may be in bed by now, too, or watching TV in the living room with the volume down.

‘Beautiful though,' Smokey says. ‘Looks like a real sweet kid. Like a little baby angel in one of them renaissance paintings. What's her name?'

‘Ariel.'

‘Sounds like you got that right. Sweet name for a sweet kid.' He holds his phone next to mine. ‘My boy's Eugene.'

Eugene has cheeks like apricots when he grins, balls of bunched tissue with dimples
under them, and perfect teeth. I'm working on something to say about him when a message alert lands on the screen. It's Aaron.

‘Okay…' Smokey moves away from me, reads it, processes it.

Na
ti looks up.

‘How 'bout we just buy some shit another day,' Smokey says, meeting Na
ti's gaze with a look crafted to resemble nonchalance. ‘You can't wear it all at once, LyDell.'

Na
ti's jaw muscles tighten. So does his grip on his glass. His head is full of ugly thoughts warring with better ones, and there is no room left for the guile that would let him hide it.

‘Yeah,' he says, with a sigh at the end of it, a valve releasing some pressure. He pushes himself into a position intended to look more relaxed, casual. ‘I'll sign that form some day, come back and buy the whole place. But let's get it under ten for now. Ladies?'

‘No problem, sir,' Andie says. She already has a printout of the items in her hand. ‘The purse would get you there right away or…' She runs her glossy fingernail down the list. ‘You got four pairs of Alexander Wang cargo pants. Two of those would do it.'

‘Well,' he says, in a softer, smaller voice, ‘I'm keeping the purse.'

Smokey steps across to the counter, and maybe it's his momentum that brings Na
ti to his feet. As he rises, he puts his glass next to the ice bucket with the frozen yoghurt in it and wipes his damp hands on his pants. He watches Smokey, as if his manager's next act will reveal the perfect answer we've been waiting for. Smokey notices none of that, none of the anticipation.