intelligent. I can see Art growing anxious as one approaches. He thumbs a couple of breath mints off a roll and chews them hard to release the active ingredients.
Me, I’m not tempted. As a younger man I made the mistake of talking to a stripper, in depth and at length, about her finances. Her income shocked me. It was double mine. She claimed to be saving for college, but when I pressed her I learned that she didn’t even have a bank account and supported not one but two delinquent boyfriends. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I felt insulted. There I was, the sort of clean achiever this beautiful girl should consider marrying, but instead she was shaking me down for twenties to lavish on my Darwinian inferiors.
The girl settles onto Art’s lap and starts her act, gripping the back of his chair to brace herself and arching her lovely, articulated spine. On her shoulder a tattooed daisy spreads its petals. I look away, but Art wants to keep on talking.
“I have an idea if I get out of restaurants. It’s like a record or book club, but with power tools. April, you get a cordless drill. May, a reciprocal saw. If you don’t want it, you have to ship it back. You know how that works. People can’t be bothered. The stuff piles up. It’s automatic billing, so they’re screwed.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m leaving ISM, Art. I might not be available to help you.”
“Just give me hope. —Not so hard there, hon. I’ll rupture.”
I’m duty-bound to restore Art’s optimism, to point him toward new horizons. I have a thought. At GoalQuest on Thursday I’m meeting Tony Marlowe, one of the industry’s highest-earning motivators, who I knew through some friends before he got so huge. He’d come up through the speed-reading racket in California, where he played all the planned retirement communities, but left to build team skills in greater Silicon Valley. The man’s pure nitro, a self- made high school dropout whose private sessions turn CEOs to jelly. A few hours with Marlowe, on me—that’s what I’ll offer.
“I’m writing something on a card here, Art. Don’t lose it. This is a onetime-only deal.”
I wedge the card under an ashtray, and then I spot him: the TV financial advisor from the flight being worked over by a skinny redhead not twenty feet from my table. His hair is different, blow-dried into waves, but I recognize the noble forehead. I swallow and there’s a crackling in my ears as the girl wraps one leg around his crooked old back and bends him at the waist into her chest. His head flops like a corpse’s. His mouth drops open. There’s a flash of gray tongue, of fillings. I shut my eyes. When I open them, its worse. The girl’s fingers are buried in his wiry sideburns and she’s kissing his glossy bald spot, licking it. One of his hands hangs limp behind her ass, stuffed with enough cash to last the night.
I watch the old man being jostled and wrung dry. The sensation is gyroscopic, with spinning modules. There’s shock and disappointment, but that’s the least of it. It’s my confidence in Airworld that’s been undermined, my faith in the ethical bargain between passengers. If I hadn’t come to the Mustang Club tonight, my memory of our moment on the plane would have endured unchallenged and ever-golden. His mild, pious eyes. His pinstriped probity as he entertained my humble plea and sermonized on investing with a conscience. What a sham, and how demoralizing. The way I’ve lived, the way I’ve moved around, I’ve not had the luxury of double-checking what I see and hear. I have to trust. If a man who says he’s a doctor hears me cough and tells me I should go on antibiotics, I go on antibiotics. Of course I do. In Airworld honesty carries no penalty and deception has no upside. Or so I thought.
Chase Manhattan, solid as Gibraltar. Lutheran bishops. Evil NBC. This from a man who pays teenage runaways to do the watusi on his wizened johnson.
I turn to Art’s partner, who’s leaving with her money. “That old guy across the way—is he a regular?”
“I’ve seen him a couple of times. You want a show?”
I shake my head and she jiggles off into the crowd.
“You like that bird’s girl?” Art says. His nose is running. He’s fiddling with his trousers under the table. “She’s taken, it looks like.”
“That man she’s with,” I say. “Famous Wall Street bigwig, Mr. Dow. He gave me a stock idea on the plane today. I phoned it in when I landed. Six thousand bucks.”
Art watches him for a moment. “He’s hard core. His girl there’s a twisted sister. Toilet Terry. She uses guys as fire hydrants.”
“Stop.”
“She keeps an apartment over by the Hilton. She gets top dollar. Vinyl sheets, the works. If they leave through the side exit, he’s going home with her. I’ll bet he drinks it. I know a dancer here who’d tell you everything. Pay her enough and she’ll get you Polaroids.”
Art thinks I crave information about this fellow, but his secret life bores me. I’m not the bloodhound type. That’s why detective novels are lost on me. Somebody did it—that’s all I need to know. The who, the how, and the why are just details. To my mind, there’s nothing drearier than a labyrinth. It’s just a structure whose center takes time to find, but if you make an effort, you’ll find it. So? The only mysteries that interest me are, Will I land on time? Will the pilots strike? There’s enough uncertainty just moving through space.
I glance back at Wall Street, who’s sideways in his lounge chair, his head thrown back over one arm as the girl rides him. Soon, he’ll be looking right at me, upside down.
“What style of donuts?” Art asks me.
“I haven’t tasted them.”
“You up for the VIP room?”
“I have to sleep. Come to GoalQuest and meet this Marlowe. You’ll thank me, Art. And give me a nice reference if that guy calls.”
“I made that one up to get you to come out here. I was going to off myself tonight.”
“Sheer fabrication?”
“I’ve been drunk for days. I think it was.”
There—Wall Street sees me now. He seems to frown; it’s hard to read his features in reverse, with his lips where his eyebrows ought to be. Our eyes mix it up for a moment. Does he fear blackmail? I could bribe Art’s connection for all the dirt, but why? A mystery stated can be more powerful than a mystery solved, and no matter
