The Singer's Gun (10 page)

6.

Anton received his diploma from Harvard and had it framed in a neighborhood far from where he lived. He was half-afraid he’d be laughed out of the frame shop, but the man behind the counter only nodded and told him to come back the next day to pick it up. Anton took his résumé to an employment agency with the full expectation of being thrown out of the office, but they placed him immediately in a low-level clerical position at Water Incorporated and he was promoted twice within the first six months. The transferability of his skills was truly startling; the confidence required to sell illegal documents was the same confidence required to sit in an office beneath a framed Harvard diploma and pretend he knew what he was doing until he learned the job.

“Con
sult
ing,” Anton’s father said, with what struck Anton as an entirely unnecessary emphasis on the part of the word that rhymed with
insult.
“What do you consult?”

“Well, we’re water system design specialists,” Anton said. He was having dinner at his parents’ apartment.

“Are
you
a water system design specialist?”

“No, I’m in a support division. I do research, produce reports for the sales teams, help prepare presentations, that kind of thing.”

“What qualifies you to do that?”

“Well, the same thing that qualified me to sell Social Security cards to illegal aliens, actually. A certain veneer of confidence combined with sheer recklessness.”

His father smiled. “Also, let’s not forget, I graduated Harvard,” Anton said, and his father laughed and raised his wineglass.

Anton met a cellist at a party that year, a spectacularly talented girl who didn’t know he’d never been to Harvard, and he proposed to her eight months later. Sophie and the job together formed the foundation of his new life; between the straight clean lines of a Midtown tower he rose up through the ranks, from junior researcher to senior researcher to VP of a research division. His dedication to the company was mentioned in his performance reviews. He directed his team and came home every night to a woman he loved in an apartment filled with music in his favorite neighborhood, until it all came apart at once and he found himself in Dead File Storage Four lying naked on the floor next to his former secretary in the summer heat.

“Do you know what’s strange?” Elena asked. Anton had turned the lights off in the room, and her skin was pale in the dim light through the windows.

“What’s that?”

“The building thinks I still work here.”

Anton propped himself up on one elbow to look at her face. “
I
thought you still worked here.”

“I quit a week ago,” Elena said. She was gazing up at the ceiling. “That night I didn’t come to you.”

“Ah,” he said. “I wondered what’d become of you.”
Wondered
wasn’t exactly the right word. He had lain on his back on the floor till seven
P.M
. watching the door that didn’t open and thinking about the complete dissolution of the life he’d been building, and when he’d gone home that night he hadn’t even the energy to lie. “I just stayed late in the office,” he’d said when Sophie asked if he’d had another staff meeting.

“And my swipe card still works,” Elena said. “It’s been seven or eight days, but I can still get into the building at five o’clock to see you. I thought it would be deactivated, but the turnstile gates still open for me in the lobby.”

He was quiet.

“I thought I’d be locked out of the system,” she said, “but no one’s told the building I don’t work here anymore.”

“You haven’t worked here in a week, but you still come to see me at five?”

“Of course,” Elena said.

Anton lay down beside her again and held her close. She let her head fall against his chest. The breeze through the broken window was warm on his skin.

“That first time you came to me,” he said after a while. “That first afternoon.”

“What about it?”

“Why were you crying?”

She sat up and began reaching for her clothes. “Anton, has Aria spoken to you?”

“About . . .?”

“Nothing,” she said. “What time is it?” She was standing up and getting dressed again, smoothing her hair. She turned on the floor lamp and its yellow light filled the room. He stood up, blinking.

“Ellie?” He touched her shoulder, but she still didn’t look at him. “About what? Has Aria spoken to me about what?” But she shook her head again and made a small but final motion with her hand, leaned over awkwardly to put on her shoes.

“Ellie, please.”

“I ran into her on the street a few days back. She asked how you were and said she needed to tell you something. That’s all. It’s none of my business.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “That’s all,” she repeated.

“Well.” He was watching her closely. She retrieved a tube of lipstick from her handbag and applied it quickly, pressed her lips together once. “I’ll see her tonight,” he said. “There’s a dinner thing uptown.”

“A dinner thing?”

“It’s my parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary.”

“Thirty years of marriage.” There were tears in her eyes. “Did they ever cheat on each other?”

“Elena . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll see you on Monday, if my swipe card still works.”

“Please call me if it doesn’t work. I’ll be here.”

“Goodnight,” she said, and left very quickly without kissing him goodbye.

His parents’ thirtieth anniversary dinner was at Malvolio’s Ristorante on the Upper East Side. He’d been there once some years ago for an event gone hazy in memory—Gary’s birthday?—and had forgotten exactly where it was but nonetheless arrived early. Anton didn’t feel like sitting at the table alone. He was waiting on the sidewalk out front when Aria pulled up in a silver Jaguar and gave her keys to the valet. He whistled softly.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” She was dressed expensively, wearing a silk neck scarf that made him think of flight attendants.

“Is it new?”

“This year’s model.” They watched the Jaguar recede.

“Whoever said crime doesn’t pay doesn’t know you very well.”

Aria laughed as she led him into the cool of the restaurant. “I want to talk to you about something,” she said when they’d been seated. Their table was in a back corner of the room, far from other customers.

“I thought you might.”

She glanced at him strangely, but continued. “I know this is forward of me,” she said, “but are you certain . . . is the wedding going through this time?”

“It is,” he said.

“And you’re definitely going to Italy afterward?”

“That’s the plan.”

“In that case, I have a proposition,” she said. “I think you’ll find the terms attractive.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“I’ve been working on a major deal. It involves multiple clients, and they’re willing to pay me a lot of money. The catch is,” she said, “the deal has to be done in Europe. They’re unwilling to risk coming to the United States in the present political climate without the benefit of my product, if you know what I mean.”

“So they have the wrong passports.”

“Are you trying to get me arrested? Speak a little louder, I don’t think they heard you in the kitchen. Anton,” she said, “I could really use your help with this. You’re going to Europe on your honeymoon.”

“True, but I’m also out of the business. I’m a respected junior manager at a major consulting firm.” Anton couldn’t help but think about Dead File Storage Four as he said this, and tried to focus on the old eleventh-floor office instead. The details of his old office were already slipping away from him. He was no longer absolutely sure, for example, what color the carpet had been. In his memories it shifted unsteadily between gray and blue.

“There would be a substantial commission,” Aria murmured. “Ten thousand dollars.”

He whistled softly. “What are you doing for them?”

“Plausible deniability, Anton. You don’t really want to know.”

“You’re right, I really don’t. Why can’t you go to Europe yourself?”

“I’ve got some things I need to do here,” she said. “I can’t leave just now.”

“I appreciate the offer,” he said, “but—”

“There’s practically no exposure, Anton. We can set it up so that you’re plausibly innocent throughout the whole transaction. You go to a hotel in Europe, you receive a package from me addressed to a third party care of your name and room number, that third party approaches you that evening and introduces himself as a friend of mine, you hand it over to him without opening it, and a short time later a wedding gift gets wired to your bank account. It’s that easy. You couldn’t possibly be having your wedding at a better time, incidentally.”

“Glad it’s convenient for you. But seriously, Ari, you call that no exposure?”

“It’s ten grand,” she said. “For accepting a FedEx package and then handing it to someone. You’re a respectable corporate drone on his honeymoon. You have no criminal record whatsoever. You’ve been out of the business for long enough that no one’s paying any attention to you, and you never even have to know what’s in the package.”

“Aria,” he said after a moment, “I don’t want to do it. I’m sorry. I’m out of the business.”

“I’m
family
,” she said.

“And I’m not judging you. It’s a hell of a business you’ve built for yourself, I mean, I sure as hell don’t drive a Jaguar.” She didn’t smile. “I just don’t want to be a part of it anymore. That’s all.”

She was quiet; she sipped her water; she rested her chin on her hand for a moment and stared into space.

“This is the deal of my career, Anton,” she said softly. “It would launch me into a whole new sector.”

“What’s wrong with your old sector?”

“I think it’s almost time to get out of it,” she said. “These people are in the import-export business. It’s an area I’m interested in.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” Aria smiled, seemingly at nothing and no one in particular, and toyed with a corner of the tablecloth as she spoke. “I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be for you,” she said, “if Sophie were to find out that you didn’t actually go to Harvard.”

“What?”

“Do this one last thing for me,” she said. “Do this one last thing, and then you’re finished. I’ll consider you retired. You’ll never have anything to do with my business again.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“I’m helping you to avoid a supremely awkward explanation. Didn’t Sophie work nights as a waitress to put herself through Juilliard? And here you just cheated your way into your career. Do you think she’ll be very understanding?”

He was staring at her, wordless.

“Because I’m not at all sure that she will,” said Aria. “Poor motherless Sophie, playing the cello at nine in her trailer park in California while her father worked two jobs to support his kids. Sophie, who’s had a job since she was what, eleven? Twelve? I have enormous respect for her for that reason alone, Anton, but don’t you sense a certain, well, a certain lack of open-mindedness when it comes to, shall we say, alternative means of securing an income? She’s—”

“Shut up,” he murmured, “just shut the fuck up. Sam and Miriam are here.”

His parents had entered the restaurant. His mother was wearing the vintage yellow dress she wore only on special occasions in the summertime, an enormous amber brooch resplendent on the front. His father beamed under his summer fedora. They were laughing as they crossed the room. “It’s so lovely to see you both,” his mother said. They were kissing Anton and Aria and sitting down at the table; his mother was rummaging in her beaded purse for a tissue and blotting sweat from her forehead; they were talking about a restored garden fountain they’d just sold that morning, the white marble one they’d had for so long. They’d had a good week.

“I can picture it,” Anton said. “I remember it exactly. Stone birds all around the edges. Beautiful piece.” He felt like throwing up but kept his voice as bright as possible. I’d just like to thank the Academy. “How long have you had it?”

“Ten years,” said Aria. “I remember when we got it in. You remember how much Sophie liked it when she first came into the store?”

Anton smiled painfully. His father had intercepted a passing waiter and was ordering wine.

“How
is
Sophie?” his mother asked.

“Excellent,” Anton said. “She’s doing well these days. She sends her regards, by the way, and her regrets and her congratulations.”

“Quite a combination,” his mother said. “Regrets, congratulations, regards.”

“She couldn’t get out of rehearsal tonight, otherwise she’d be here.”

“Ah, is that it. Sir, may we have some menus? Thank you,” his mother said. “She feeling a little calmer these days?”

“Miriam,”
his father said. The two canceled wedding dates had been difficult to explain to Anton’s mother, who had some trouble understanding why anyone would hesitate even momentarily to marry her only child. The wine was being poured, and a basket of bread had appeared on the table. His father raised his glass of wine, so everyone else raised their glasses too. “To marriage,” he said. He reached across the table to hold Miriam’s hand.

“Thirty years,” said Aria. “Congratulations.”

“Congratulations,” Anton repeated. “Happy anniversary.”

“Thank you,” his mother whispered. She was smiling, radiant. There were tears in her eyes.

“And to Anton and Sophie,” his father said.

“To Anton and Sophie.” Aria looked Anton in the eye and smiled as she spoke. “August 28th?”

“The 29th,” Anton said. “The wedding’s August 29th.” His throat was dry. He put down the wine and drank half a glass of water without stopping for breath. It was already August 3rd.

The appetizers were arriving. Aria, utterly at ease beside him, speared a white circle of mozzarella and ate it in pieces from the fork, talking about something—he was having trouble hearing, and also he wanted to kill her and his head was light—and his father said, “And then the next thing I know—” and Aria was laughing but he’d missed the joke. Anton couldn’t concentrate. Things were difficult to grasp.