tearooms and Thai noodle shops, absolutely every possible taste catered to, not to mention the Oyster Bar, where businessmen have been knocking them back for decades before taking the train home-and be sure you try their New England clam chowder. Yet not to be forgotten and in fact to be specifically remembered is the Primeburger, on the north side of Fifty-first Street off Fifth Avenue. Not a high-class joint, but not a low-class joint, either, rather a real old-time Manhattan luncheonette. Hamburgers have been served there since 1938. Last remodeled in 1965. You enter to a long counter on the right, single seats with once-futuristic swing-trays on the left, a few crowded tables in the back. Tuna melt, Boston cream pie. Jell-O with whipped cream. Prune juice, if you want it, heh. All the waiters are older guys in white jackets and neckties, with their names embroidered on the jacket. The menu is not expensive. Your basic burger is $4.50. You heard right: $4.50 in midtown Manhattan. Gray-haired businessmen like the place, some of them rich guys who the world forgot twenty or thirty years ago. But they stayed on, oblivious to being disremembered, getting to their little offices by eight a.m. each day, making a few phone calls, watching the price of something on a screen: pork bellies, spot oil, the Brazilian crop report. Not retired, just working an easy schedule. Don't run anything anymore, no titles, no pressure. Take the early train home, money made. Men of habit, not only do they eat at the same time each day but generally eat the same thing, and thus the Primeburger waiters grunt intimately at them as they arrive, mouthing again the order that never changes. 'Ham chee, Swiss'n'rye, Co- no-ice.'
Sometimes these old men meet each other at the Primeburger, and if you pretend to be deaf and never look at them, you can hear their conversations. He got a great price on that lot on 56th Street… They were once a very fine firm… I heard the painting might be available for a private buyer… The margins are way too tight, he needs to unload…
Like that, millions being rearranged among the tuna salad sandwich, the coleslaw, the baked apple.
This was where Martz was headed. Far chair at the counter. He eased down on a rotating stool. An old black waiter drifted over, eyes unblinking. 'Menu?'
Martz waved it away. 'Turkey club, orange juice, apple pie.'
The sandwich appeared in less than two minutes.
'You remember me?' Martz asked.
'Depends who's asking,' said the waiter.
'I'm asking.'
'Then yes, I do remember you.'
'Thought so. You seen Elliot around?'
'Expect he'll be here for lunch in about half an hour.'
Martz nodded. He knew this, of course, though it had been years since he'd seen Elliot. One of the consolations of age: your friends didn't change their habits. They died but they didn't change.
When he was done eating, he picked up a packet of sweetener, tore off the corner, emptied the white powder onto his plate, and then took out a pencil and underlined five letters in the word NUTRASWEET: the T, R, S, and double E, then drew an arrow from the S to the end of the word. What did you get? TREES. He handed the empty packet to the waiter. 'I would take it as a great favor if you would give that to Elliot.'
'Yes, sir.' The waiter betrayed no reaction at the oddity of the item and instead tucked the packet into his breast pocket.
'Appreciate it,' said Martz. He finished his apple pie, then slipped a fifty-dollar bill beneath his empty plate. He checked the waiter's face. But he was writing up the tab, which he set down on the counter, the big bill and the plate already gone.
As, a moment later, was Martz, toothpick in his mouth, shambling along Fifty-first Street, teeth set, hating everyone, especially himself.
Colin Harrison
The Finder: A Novel
20
Get your money fast. Across the street from the sewerage yard sat a check-cashing operation that was always busy on Friday nights. Because the place received two armored truck deliveries each week, and because workers walked out with wads of cash, the building had three security cameras trained on the outside. The windows were full of advertisements for cash-wiring services specializing in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. For all the immigrants sending money back home. This afternoon's customers, most Latino men in work clothes and baseball caps, stood in a neat line, responsive to the quasi-governmental spareness of the room, which was festooned with official notices about fees, currency rates, and identity theft-not to mention the threatening signs announcing that the premises were under twenty-four-hour surveillance and that all deliveries were made by armored truck drivers licensed to carry 'and use' firearms. Victor pushed his way in, a paper bag from the liquor store under his arm. The Nigerian man behind the glass nodded at him in familiarity; half of Victor's laborers used the place.
'Violet in?'
'Upstairs.'
'Tell her.'
The man picked up his phone, spoke a minute, nodded at Victor. 'She says five minutes.'
He nodded. Sat back and waited, and by habit inspected the line of men and women waiting to cash their checks. You could tell a lot about them, especially the men, he thought. Male human beings, he'd come to learn, more or less fell into four categories by the time they had reached forty. There were the guys who had it made (done, game over) because they were professionals of one sort or another or worked for big companies or owned something so big and fabulous that made so much money that they could call whatever shots they wanted. They had money packed away in places most people never heard of. They had wives and children or maybe second wives. They didn't worry when they needed a new car; they just bought it. At very most 5 percent of men fell into this category, by Victor's reckoning. You saw them on the subway with their laptop computers, their good office shoes, their soft hands. Almost all had gone to college. No doubt this small group of men could be separated further in smaller categories, but for his purposes, the 5 percent was enough. Victor hated these guys. Then there were the guys who were industrious and smart and who were working every angle they could think of, guys with roofing companies that employed thirty men and who flipped a little real estate on the side, bada-boom, guys who maybe cut a few corners but were good with people, kept things moving along. This group included the local lawyers who took every piece of business that came their way, neighborhood accountants who did a little keep-it-vague bookkeeping as necessary, and so on. Lots of guys running restaurants fell into this category. Victor himself fell into this category, although once he had his gas station, got the money rolling, things would be different for him. Guys in this group worked too hard, considering. They might make it into the 5 percent category, except ten years later, and never with any peace of mind. Some of these second-tier guys were happily married, many were not. Many of them fucked around and hurt their momentum that way. Dissipated themselves. Drank or smoked too much, lost a lot of mornings. Victor, yeah you could say that about him, although he had that natural resilience and stamina most men could only dream about, weak motherfuckers. Then the third group was the guys who weren't going to make it. Instead of running roofing companies, they were still working on roofs, which by the time you hit forty was a very bad idea-the cold and heat and heavy work wore you down, busted your joints. These were the guys who had missed out, or restarted their lives so many times already that nothing was ever going to take. Too many women, jobs, apartments, nights that went bad. They lost stuff-they lost money, friends, jobs, car keys, their cell phones, anything they needed they lost. They were slowly sinking and maybe they knew it but probably they didn't, not yet, anyway. Richie had been one of these guys, two paychecks away from being flat busted. Tried to pick up work on the side, didn't much. Never got any momentum. Women were good at identifying these guys. Men with old pickup trucks, men who bought cheap beer by the case, men who couldn't remember who the vice president of the United States was. Often they had muscles from the work but had started to waste away from the smoking. Got those cigarette bodies, lanky, almost diseased looking. Fingertips always stained. Jacks-of-too-many-trades. Credit bad, prospects slim. One fall off a roof, one cracked-up car, one bad fight in a bar, and they were hanging on by their teeth.
