The Best Revenge (26 page)

I could be grateful for one thing. Bert wasn't talking anymore. What I was thinking was that Nick sought Barone like a gypsy moth goes after the lure, he's found the excitement he's looking for: death.

“I know you must be upset,” Bert said, turning his head away from the traffic toward me. “This is just temporary, Mary. Nick's got a plan for cooling Barone off.”

I know Nick better than you do, Bert. He wants to win and so does Barone. They can't both win.

“Mary, all we need to remember is that we need to be seen in public for a while.”

“We?”

“I meant you and Nick.”

These lawyers move us around like actors on a stage. I won't need lawyers in Minnesota. Two years ago, when I took the kids to Minnesota for a week, my mother talked to me like a mother and I broke down and cried. She said to me I was rich in money, poor in heart.

“Mary is unhappy,” she told my father.

My father's response was simple. “Leave him, Mary. People get divorces all the time now, even Catholics.”

“He'd kill me,” I said.

“Don't be silly, Mary,” my father said. “This is the twentieth century.”

I remembered Mr. Milford, whose lectures were always jammed with kids from other classes. He said the twentieth century could be explained through place names, the Somme, Guernica, Lubyanka, Auschwitz, Babi Yar, Hiroshima. We students, with our lives before us, took him on, said he was too one-sided, cynical, too old. “What about Freud and Einstein, what about Picasso, what about computers?” we said, sure of ourselves. And Mr. Milford, with that marvelous, lost voice would say, “You judge a century not by its knowledge but by its acts.”

A good teacher leaves a tattoo on your brain. Long after I saw Mr. Milford for the last time, the place names continued their march of definition. My Lai, Budapest, Munich, Lod, Belfast.

I would take the children back to Minnesota. Away from the twentieth century.

25

Mary

Nick had
taken me to the Four Seasons only once, on our tenth anniversary. I tried to keep from looking around the enormous, high-ceilinged room like a tourist. But I was one, wasn't I, in places like this?

Nick introduced me to Benjamin Riller, impresario.

“How do you do?” he said.

I do, I do.

His face had what my father called character. He was holding his hand out to shake mine. It was just a hand, firm, warm, but it was as if I could feel it between my legs. I should have married a man like that.

I had to pull my hand away from his or I would have left it there. I had to take my eyes away from his, too, so I could say hello to his wife and defuse.

“My name is Mary,” I said to her.

“Jane,” she said. I tried to keep my eyes on her eyes. How could a person look so intelligent without talking? I had to look at her clothes. At her body. I wished I could see it all, naked, right now, next to mine, both of us looking in the mirror.

“What a charming dress,” she said.

Drop dead. I smiled and slipped into my place on the banquette.

The captain, preparing the way for his tip, introduced the waiter and waitress as if we had just hired them. Those two did their number, lifted unused plates and replaced them with other plates we wouldn't use. Mr. Milford would have said what makes the buying of excess delicious is the knowledge that most other people can't afford it.

“Hey, where are you?” Nick said to me nicely, not loud.

“Do they know about the house?” I asked.

“Ben was with me when the police chief called,” Nick said.

Mrs. Riller said to Mr. Riller, “What about the house?”

I could see he wished the subject hadn't come up.

“They had a fire,” he said to his wife. “A bad one.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said.

I guess I was realizing that for me that house had gone down a long time ago except, maybe, for the garden. I wondered if the firemen had ruined the garden.

“Take a sip of your drink,” Nick said. “You'll feel better.”

Once I was back in Minnesota, settled, I could meet somebody else. Someone who doesn't cut his toenails in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. Someone who works at something I can respect. Work defines a person. Ben Riller did exciting things in the theater. You weren't likely to meet someone like him in Minnesota.

I suddenly thought: Mr. Milford, how do I define myself to myself?

They were talking about the house, commiserating with me. Pay attention, I told myself, but what I saw was Jane Riller putting her drink away. Was she nervous? If I were married to this Riller, I wouldn't be nervous. I wouldn't want anything interfering with anything. I guess Nick would say she was a lady compared to me. He's always comparing, like kids do about batting averages.
A yellower yellow.

Just then the flashbulb went off, blinding me. Everything was white. Then gray. The photographer retreated.

It must be that racket where they bring out proofs. If you say no, they tear up the pictures of you right in front of your face.

“They're not going to sell us pictures at the Four Seasons?” I asked.

“They're not,” Mrs. Riller said.

We were busy with these miniature scallops in butter-and-herb sauce, the smallest bay scallops I'd ever seen, when Mr. Riller spotted
this older gentleman sitting at a nearby table, a man with nearly white hair and a trimmed mustache who looked like he'd been secretary of state. Before I knew it Riller was table-hopping and bringing this really fine gentleman over to us and saying, “This is Harrison Stimson, Mary Manucci, Nick Manucci, you know my wife Jane, of course?”

“Of course,” Harrison Stimson said. Mr. Stimson shook hands all around as if he wished he were wearing gloves.

“Harrison,” Ben Riller said to no one in particular, “has been one of my staunchest investors over the years.”

“Oh,” said Nick, “you in this new one, too?”

Mr. Stimson's eyes shifted in Ben's direction. “I'm afraid not,” he said without looking at Nick.

That's when Mr. Riller said, “My friend Harrison missed out on
The Best Revenge.
It will interest you to know, Harrison, that Nick here has picked up the balance of the units.”

Mr. Stimson said, “I'm sure Mr. Manucci will profit from his investment with you.” Bang, the damn photographer let loose another flash. I hadn't even noticed him coming up to the table. Mr. Stimson looked like someone had belched. He whispered to Ben Riller, who called the captain over. The captain danced off on whatever errand Mr. Riller had sent him on.

“So nice to meet you,” Mr. Stimson said to no one in particular, certainly not to me, and then he got walked back to his table by Mr. Riller.

We were busy talking about nothing when Mr. Riller and the captain returned to the table from different directions and you could see the captain would have preferred to talk to Mr. Riller privately, and finally had to say in a way we could all hear, “I told the photographer not to bother you, sir, but he says he was hired by Mr. Rivers, who works for Mr. Manucci.”

Comment by Nick Manucci

When I was a kid in the street, the first thing I learned was control the face. Don't let anyone ever see you're bothered.

I did a deal with a Japanese businessman once. He was in New York for a few weeks. Rich as he was, he got himself into some kind of money jam, very temporary, and there must have been a little dirt connected with it because he got steered to the Seagram Building. I'll
never forget the control on his face, he needed ten thousand yesterday, he was nowhere near Tokyo, he couldn't get at his own money without questions being asked, but when he showed up you'd think he'd come on a social visit.

I looked for a bead of sweat just below the hairline or over the lip. Nothing, just the frozen face. I asked him what kind of security he could provide, and this Oriental cucumber takes a small purple pouch the size of a half dollar out of the watch pocket of his vest and tumbles out into his palm five diamonds that must have been thirty, forty karats. I'm not a pawn shop, but if a guy who isn't an American walks into a New York pawn shop, he isn't going to get ten thousand for one week for anything. I don't want to disturb his cool so I was very careful when I said, “May I see your airline ticket, please?”

He took the ticket out of his breast pocket and it checked out okay, Japan Air Lines, first class back to Tokyo in ten days.

“May I see your passport please?”

He hesitated.

“Please,” I repeated.

He handed it over. I put the passport and the ticket in my safe along with the diamonds because I wouldn't appreciate his going anywhere without my knowing it, and he didn't twitch a muscle in his face as he said, “Very well, Mr. Manucci. I will return the money in one week, as promised.” What cool! I wish I had a lot of customers like that.

All right, if I need Riller for camouflage, it's just for a while. Meantime I wanted it understood I was running this show, so I played head man over the dinner, motioning the captain, things like that. Riller was keeping his end up, telling some story about a theater critic who realized he was in the wrong theater when the curtain went up. It was funny, but Mary was laughing too fucking loud.

Riller, his wife, and Mary were all looking at me. I realized the captain was hovering on my left like a penguin, waiting for the joke to be over. Then he handed me this envelope and said it was left with the doorman just a few minutes ago. MR. NICK MANUCCI, CONFIDENTIAL. I know Bert Rivers's handwriting. “Excuse me,” I said, and tore it open.

Dear Nick,

Sudden circumstances have made it necessary for me to suggest that one of the lawyers on the enclosed list would have experience with
theatrical deals and might be able to represent you on your investment in
The Best Revenge
and perhaps in your other affairs as well.

I'm sorry to do this on such short notice but I have no alternative. I'm sure you will understand.

Sincerely,

Bert Rivers

I wanted to throw the table over with all those fancy plates, the food, everything.

I looked at the list of lawyers. I never heard any of those names. I wanted a gun, not a list.

Bert was fucking involved in everything I did, he can't quit just like that.

Somebody got to him.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to make a phone call.”

You can imagine what shot through my head as I sidestepped people through that long lobby, and took the fancy staircase down to where the phones were. At least I didn't have to do this from a wall phone, there was an empty booth with an accordion door. I sat down, closed the door, glanced at my watch, remembered that Bert's private line rang in his home as well as his office. I plunked my coin in, and dialed.

Would you know a recording machine answers?

“This is Bert Rivers. There is no one in at the moment, but if you'll leave your name and number…”

“Bert,” I yelled into the phone, “don't fuck around, I know you can hear me, pick up the goddamn phone.”

“Hello, Nick,” he said. Just like that.

“Don't give me hello Nick, I just got your note, you can't quit like that, you never said anything, I got you on retainer. Everything seemed jake when you brought Mary down. What happened?”

“Nick,” Rivers said, “it's extremely important that you remain calm. We'll settle all our financial matters when this blows over. I just can't represent you now.”

“They got to you, Bert, didn't they. How much?”

“It isn't money, Nick, I swear it. You shouldn't be in a phone booth. It's a bad place to get trapped in.”

“This is the Four Seasons, Bert.”

“Nick, this is my last favor to you. It'll cost me if they find out I said anything. They've got someone there right now from out of town.”

“Here?”

Suddenly the phone booth was no place to be in.

Rivers said, “Don't phone me again, Nick. Don't come to my office. Try to stay away from me as if your life depended on it.”

26

Ben

I watched
Nick's anger fan across his face when he got the note. I thought he was going to throw the table over as he pushed it away from him before the captain could help.

The minute he was out of earshot Mary said, “It's probably one of his girlfriends.” She was half smiling. Half a joke.

Jane got up before the captain could restore the table to its rightful position. “Back in a minute.”

When she went off to the ladies' room, I felt Mary Manucci's knee touch mine under the table.

“Excuse me,” I said, thinking I had bumped her knee by accident. She smiled. What I felt on my thigh was unmistakably her hand. A touch. Just for a second.