for the long run. For his retirement—if he survived to enjoy it.
'I think I have something you'll really like,' Monte was saying. 'One of the finest Barber Halves I've seen.'
'What year?'
'It's a 1901S.'
There followed the obligatory haggling over the quality of the strike, bag marks, and the like. When Jack left the store he had the Barber Half and a 1909-proof Barber Quarter carefully wrapped and tucked in his left front pocket with a cylinder of Krugerrands. A hundred or so in cash was in the other front pocket. He felt far more relaxed heading back uptown than he’d been coming down.
Now he could turn his mind to Gia. He wondered if she'd have Vicky with her. Most likely. He didn't want to arrive empty-handed. He stopped at a card shop and found what he was looking for: a pile of furry little spheres, somewhat smaller than golf balls, each with two slender antennae, flat little feet and big rolling eyes: Rascals. Vicky loved Rascals almost as much as she loved oranges. He loved the look on her face when she reached into a pocket and found a present.
He picked out an orange Rascal and headed for home.
7
Lunch was a can of Red Hook Lager and a cylinder of Country Style Pringles in the cool of his apartment. He knew he should be on the roof doing his daily exercises, but he also knew what the temperature would be like up there.
Later.
Jack loathed his exercise routine and embraced any excuse to postpone it. He never missed a day, but never passed up an opportunity to put it off.
While nursing a second Red Hook, he went to the cedar closet next to the bathroom to stash his new acquisitions. The air within was heavy with the scent of the wood. He pulled a piece of molding loose from the base of a sidewall, then slipped free one of the cedar planks above it. Behind the plank lay the bathroom water pipes, each wrapped in insulation. Taped to the insulation like ornaments on a Christmas tree were dozens of rare coins. Jack found empty spots for the latest.
He tapped the board and molding back into place, then stepped back to survey the work. A good hidey-hole. More accessible than a safe deposit box. Better than a wall safe. With burglars using metal detectors these days, they could find a safe in minutes and either crack it or carry it off. But a metal detector here would only confirm that there were pipes behind the bathroom wall.
The only thing Jack had to worry about was fire.
He realized a psychiatrist would have a field day with him, labeling him a paranoid of one sort or another. But Jack had worked out a better explanation: When you lived in a city with a high robbery rate and you worked in a field that tended to get people violently angry with you, and you had no FDIC to protect your savings, extreme caution as a daily routine was not a symptom of mental illness; it was necessary for survival.
He was polishing off the second beer when the phone rang. Gia again? He listened to the Pinocchio Productions intro, then heard his father's voice begin to leave a message. He picked up and cut in.
'Hi, dad.'
'Don't you ever turn that thing off, Jack?'
'The answering machine? I just got in. What's up?'
'Just wanted to remind you about Sunday.'
Sunday? What the hell was—
'You mean about the tennis match? How could I forget?'
'Wouldn't be the first time.'
Jack winced. 'I told you, dad. I got tied up with something and couldn't get away.'
'Well, I hope it won't happen again.' Dad's tone said he couldn't imagine what could be so important in the appliance repair business that could tie up a man for a whole day. 'I've got us down for the father-and-son match.'
'I'll be there bright and early Sunday morning.'
'Good. See you then.'
'Looking forward to it.'
What a lie, he thought as he hung up.
Jack dreaded seeing his father, even for something so simple as a father-and-son tennis match. Yet he still accepted an occasional invitation to go back to New Jersey and bask in parental disapproval. It wasn't masochism that kept him coming back, it was duty. And love—love that had lain unexpressed for years. After all, it wasn't Dad's fault that he thought his directionless son had squandered an education and was going nowhere. Dad didn't know what his son really did.
Jack reset the answering machine and changed into a pair of lightweight tan slacks. He wouldn't feel right wearing Levi's on Sutton Square.
He decided to walk. He took Columbus Avenue down to the circle, then walked along Central Park South past the St. Moritz and under the ornate iron awning of the Plaza's park-side entrance, amusing himself by counting Arabs and watching the rich tourists stroll in and out of the status hotels. He continued due east along Fifty-ninth toward the stratospheric rent district.
He was working up a sweat but barely noticed. The prospect of seeing Gia again made him almost giddy.
Images, pieces of the past, flashed through his brain as he walked. Gia's big smile, her azure eyes, the way her whole face crinkled up when she laughed, the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin...all denied him for the past two months.
