Monkey Suits (31 page)

“Huh? Oh, that. I don’t know. Lee wouldn’t tell me squat.”

“Oh well. No floorshow. Did you see who’s at my table? What’s his name, that

actor, with his beard,” Marcos munched discreetly on an hors d’oeuvre tray of endive and beluga caviar. Brian peeked out from behind a chintz fabric screen.

“Beard? She’s not even a goatee.”

Marcos nibbled some more. “Ooh, look at all those chins.”

“Yeah, there’s money in all those old pockets, too,” Brian surveyed the room.

“You thinkin’ ’bout snaggin’ a sugar daddy, Bri baby?” Marcos quizzed.

“I was,” he admitted, suddenly relieved to halfheartedly confess his previous career. “For a while.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of, babe.” Marcos finished chewing and swallowed, making a comic gesture to force the food down his throat. “Any pretty queer boy worth his grits tries it out in this town. I just didn’t like the hours.”

A pair of hands clamped down on each of their shoulders. “I trust you like zeez hours?” Philipe grinned, as if he’d caught two boys playing hooky. “Where are you supposed to be?”

“At the reception,” Marcos said.

“On the floor.”

“Fine. Then go out and serve ze food instead of eating it, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brian walked toward the main floor. Where the hell was his table?

“Oh, young man.”

A nasal New England voice called out behind Brian. The path in front of him was too crowded to avoid the request. He turned back to see the portly pockmarked face. He couldn’t place him, but the voice was oddly familiar.

“Yes, sir?” Although not assigned to drinks, he felt relieved to fulfill this man’s request while he tried to find the face of his B waiter.

“Could I possibly get a scotch and water?” The portly face grinned ever so slightly.

“Certainly, sir.” Brian turned and headed for the bar.

“Hey, Billy.” Brian sidled up to the service bar, crowded with guests requesting a dozen vodka tonics at once. He scooted up close to grin at Billy Heath, who once again took the job of bartending for the evening. Coincidentally, Heath’s recent birthday party had been unusually well stocked with liquor.

“Hi, Bri, how’s it goin’?”

“Okay. Gimme a scotch and water rocks for that stunning figure of decrepitude.” Brian nodded behind himself.

“Oh boy. You know who that is, doncha?” Billy said as he whipped the bottle over the glass. An amber stream of alcohol arced from the jigger pourer to the glass and over ice.

“No.”

“That’s our host for tonight, Winston Fuller.”

“So?”

Billy fingered Brian close to him. “He edits that conservative rag,
The
American Republic
.”

“So?”

“So, this month that old bastard called for a quarantine of all gays until there was a cure for AIDS. Didn’t you read the
Post
?”

“No.” Brian reached to put the drink on his tray.

“Wait a sec’.” Billy took the glass, then bent down behind the bar with the drink in his hand. In a brief moment, unseen by the guests standing within a few feet, he stood again, grabbed a stir stick, swizzled the drink, and wiped his lips.

“You didn’t.” Brian’s eyes bugged.

“I did.”

Brian peered into the glass for telltale signs of saliva.

“Take this, brother. May it serve you well.” Billy set the glass on Brian’s tray.

“But I can’t ...”

“Listen, babe, that corrupt sleaze bucket cornered me in a men’s room at a party a year ago. Offered me a hundred-dollar bill if I let him blow me. When I told him to fuck off, he said he’d have me fired, but I’m still working. So let me make my own personal form of payback.”

Brian backed away slowly, murmuring to Billy, “I hope you have a nasty cold.”

Billy saluted him. As he turned to approach, Fuller’s beady eyes spotted his tray, then him, and a thick, liver-spotted hand swiftly clutched the drink.

Something felt familiar.

“Thank you,” said Fuller, before turning back to discuss some topic of fascination to his small cluster of listening guests.

Brian tucked his empty tray under his arm and moved on behind Fuller. He silently took in a deep breath. Something smelled familiar.

32
The pressure in a corked champagne bottle is about ninety pounds,
three times that of an automobile tire. On the day of Trish Fuller’s party, the number of bottles aging in the cellars of Champagne, France was over seven hundred million.

In the back room of the Met, a mere one hundred bottles of Moet sat in fifteen white plastic tubs surrounded by three hundred pounds of ice. Fifteen waiters crouched over the bottles, unwrapping them in preparation for pouring with dessert.

“Are you okay?” Ed asked Brian, whose eyes seemed to be glazed over, at least more than usual.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I just met somebody that ... nothing.”

“What is it?” Ed unwrapped the foil from another bottle.

“We’ll talk at home, okay?” Brian grinned, patting Ed’s face. “Did you hear? There’s some protestors outside.”

“Protesting what?”

“The mayor, I think. Maybe they don’t like our host for the night.” He stood and walked away.

“Really?” Ed said. “I wonder why Kevin and Carissa aren’t outside with them.”

Trish decided on another glass of wine.
What the hell, enjoy it,
she thought. It would all be over in a few hours, anyway. She’d be society carrion. Might as well move to the Hamptons permanently.

Her assistant hadn’t returned from finding out whether those annoying people had left their picket out front. She’d warned Winston, but would he ever listen to her when it came to his precious magazine? Perhaps it was just about the Mayor. That sort of people seemed to follow him like flies. She realized she never should have invited him. What small ounce of official cachet his presence brought was quickly diminished by the perpetual cloud of protestors that followed him through the city.

Ritchie, her waiter, poured more wine into her glass.

“Well, of course, if we have to expand the City Council, we expand the City Council, provided we get the right people on it!” The Mayor’s whining voice boomed over the head table. His imposing frame swayed in his seat. Several other guests muttered laughter.

Winston Fuller turned away in mild distaste. He scanned the crowd to catch a waiter’s eye, hoping to get another scotch. He avoided Trish’s glance.

“So, what do you want to do in your third term?” prodded Monica Goldman, a dour woman in a Bill Blass that made her look much younger than her years.

“
If
I get re-elected,” the Mayor blared.

“Yes, if,” she repeated.

“What the papers and the critics don’t see is that we have to nurture new businesses and keep the ones we have going.”

“Hear, hear,” toasted Joseph Flor, chairman of the city’s major insurance corporation, who had made more than his share of deals with the Mayor.

“What about the demonstrators we have outside?” asked another guest.

The Mayor grinned. “They follow me everywhere. They’re my fan club.” The table erupted in light smatterings of laughter.

Neil Pynchon, Richie’s captain, silently strode to the head table and whispered into Trish’s ear.

“It’s time for your speech, dear,” she gestured to the Mayor as she stood. “I’ll come up with you.”

“Okay. Wish me luck, all.”

“Let me just go retrieve Ida.” Trish scanned the crowd.

“Break a leg, “ Joseph Flor mused.

“
Merde
,” Winston muttered.

Lee sensed something was off. Did the staff know what they were planning? Were they waiting to catch them, arrest them? He felt in his pockets for his wallet and keys. It seemed strange not to have a bag full of street clothes nestled away in a back room. He felt truly alone, waiting to be told when to bungee jump.

The usually swift clearing of tables was marred by the mysterious absence of Philipe, who had ducked out for a moment, saying it was merely a dizzy spell. Lee overheard Neil Pynchon talking with Lenny.

“He’s alright. Just go ahead and clear. He’ll be out in a minute.”

“Should we call someone?” Neil’s eyes seemed to bulge with the prospect of monitoring such a maneuver.

“Just get out there and do it!” Lenny blasted.

Neil had no idea the Mayor was about to step up to the microphone and begin speaking. He had just signaled the waiters to clear the tables.

Brian dropped silver, twice. He miscounted his plates and ended up walking back to his table again. One of his guests asked for seconds. Seconds? Now? He wanted to growl.

He’d gone back and found a tray, taking it back to the table. Hadn’t Fuller recognized him? He felt suddenly exposed and disoriented. He walked toward the floor entrance, which led to the side stairs.

The Mayor and Trish Fuller had stepped up to the podium, only a few feet away.

Trish chatted a few feet behind the Mayor with Ida Pomerantz, whom she’d asked to speak on behalf of St. Paul’s Hospital.

“Well, Claudia was going to be here tonight, but she has this respiratory problem.” Ida feigned a cough.

“Oh. The cigarette. I’d forgotten I even had it. Sorry. ”

Trish waved her hand back quickly.

Her burning cigarette landed squarely in the middle of Brian’s face. He jumped back, but Lee, who ended up directly behind him, since he had jumped the gun on that order, smashed directly behind Brian, causing him to fall forward. Brian’s tray of beouf au jus with gravy and vegetables flew off his tray and hit the floor in a runny stream.

Ida grabbed Trish Fuller for support, in the back of the neck. Trish, too, fell, losing her emerald necklace, which plopped with a clank onto Brian’s silver tray. He impulsively grabbed it.

Then a busty woman in a canary yellow Diane von Furstenburg wrap-around fell on Brian.

Around the tables, the chanting had begun.

“Eight years and you’ve done nothing! No more business as usual! No more business as usual!”

The noise of the crash behind the Mayor had made one of the Davids jump the gun. He and the other five protestors had originally decided to wait until the Mayor spoke the word AIDS before launching their infiltrating verbal assault. However, David had started too soon.

Kevin looked nervously across the dining room to Carissa. The two joined the Davids in their chanting while their three other conspirators began handing out flyers to each table of horrified guests. They chanted along, accompanying them as they drew closer to the Mayor, whose face turned a beet red. Most of the guests refused to take the flyers, so the protestors quickly raced from table to table, the flyers strewn across plates and glasses.