“I’ve got juice everywhere.”
“Then why’d you tighten up the maitre d’? The joint’s deserted.”
“Yeah, tonight. What about tomorrow,” Arthur said, “or Friday? I get an oil guy in from Texas. His wife reads about Soho in
Harry lit a Marlboro, and he was looking for someplace to put the match. “Why did he seat us in nonsmoking? Don’t you wanna smoke?”
“I always want to smoke,” Arthur said. “Unfortunately, I can’t do it in the dining room. You’re going to have to turn that off.”
“You’re kidding,” Harry said.
“He’s not kidding,” their waitress said. In spite of the tattoo that marred the milky skin on her shoulder, she looked wholesome, with muscular thighs and a high, round ass. She pulled an ashtray out of her apron, and set it on the table. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Arthur said. “You didn’t vote for that ordinance, did you?”
“As a matter of fact, they didn’t consult me.”
Harry huffed a last drag and squelched his smoke.
“There’s all these, like, draconian social laws,” the waitress said. “Don’t smoke, don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t, don’t, don’t.”
Arthur said, “Draconian?”
“That’s right. I said draconian and I meant draconian. I’ve been to college. What are you guys drinking?”
Arthur asked for a vodka and soda and Harry ordered a beer. He studied his brother. His haircut was flawless. His clothes, immaculate. Personal demeanor, enviable. How could you lose if you were Arthur Healy?
“This is how you know you’re getting old,” Arthur said. “I’m probably her father’s age, but I’d love to bang her. Take a look at that walk.”
Harry watched the waitress switch her hips back to the bar.
“Just like a woman,” Arthur said.
“Speaking of women, how’s your wife?”
The waitress brought their drinks. Arthur ordered sushi and a salad. Harry looked through the menu, ordered the Szechuan sirloin. Szechuan. What kind of restaurant was this?
“The old man told me you ambushed him the other day. He seem okay to you?”
What was there to say? The old man was the old man. Harry said, “Fine,” and then to change the subject, “How’re the kids doing?”
“Teenagers,” Arthur said. “They’re a constant worry. Last week, Odette went on her first date where it was just her and the boy. I thought I was going to start crying.”
“What is she, sixteen? That’s old enough. What was the kid like?”
“Very tall. Captain of the basketball team.”
“He doesn’t sound too threatening.”
“He wasn’t. But when I pulled him aside to slip him a few bucks, I told him, with this big smile on my face, he doesn’t have my little girl back under my roof by midnight, I was gonna set his car on fire.”
“What time did he get her home?”
“You think I was watching the clock?” Arthur stopped chewing, arugula and a bit of onion impaled on his fork. “It was eleven twenty-four.”
Arthur handled his chopsticks like he’d never used a knife or fork, dislodging a fish chunk from its marble pedestal, dipping it into a shallow bowl of soy sauce clotted with atomic green mustard. Harry wondered where he picked up these Asian table manners. Certainly not at home. Arthur was pure self-invention, and this invented self was very pleasing to the world. Harry was more or less self-invented too, except it won him friends like Jimmy De Steffano.
“How’s that steak?”
“Very tasty,” Harry said. Which it was. Very tasty. It just didn’t taste very good.
“How about you?” Arthur said. “How’re you doing?”
Harry said, “To tell you the truth, Art, I’m in a lot of fucking trouble.”
The dining room had filled up around them. The waitress hustled to stay on top of her section, people asking for more water and more soy sauce and more cocktails, but when Arthur smiled at her, she stopped in her tracks.
He ordered a lichee mousse that came in a martini glass, a mint leaf sticking out of the top of it. Harry asked for a double Dewar’s, neat. Maybe he’d get drunk. Then maybe he’d go find Jimmy De Steffano, that shouldn’t be too hard, and give him a beating, just for fun.
“You understand now,” Arthur was saying, “your first mistake.” A smear of mousse had the nerve to settle on his top lip. He wiped it away, eyes narrowing at the stain on the napkin.
“Which mistake are you referring to?”
“The one you made by not calling me.”
“I thought about it,” Harry said. “I did.”
“Then why didn’t you do it?”
“Because I was ashamed.” And he was. Ashamed then, and even more ashamed now.
Arthur’s hand cut the air. “We retain legal counsel immediately,” he said, more to himself than to Harry. “First thing in the morning, you call me at the office. I get to work early.”
And that put the matter to rest. No questions regarding guilt or innocence. Arthur had all the details he needed. Decide. Act. Be in charge. Nothing could go wrong as long as he was pulling the strings. He straightened his tie and set his jaw, like asking for the check was the first step of this new challenge and there was no way Arthur Healy was going to fail.
If Arthur was going to hire an attorney, Connor Merrill was exactly the kind of brand-name mouthpiece he’d come up with. He made his bones in the ’80s, like Arthur, when he demolished a set of RICO beefs the Feds were hanging on two mob bosses. Crooked bureaucrats were fitted for halos under his counsel, and there was a judge still sitting on a bench somewhere in Texas thanks to Connor Merrill.
Whenever Merrill showed up on TV or in the papers, it was to issue a tight-lipped no comment. After a case was decided, Merrill would read from a single page, a paragraph or two that took thirty seconds, and he didn’t hang around to answer anybody’s questions. Connor Merrill was old school.
His corner office had views that looked north and east for miles. The 59th Street Bridge looked close enough for Harry to touch, Queens spreading out on the polluted horizon, the hills of Harlem visible up Lexington Avenue.
Harry was sitting on his leather couch. Merrill was sitting on the chair that made it a set, relaxed and confident in the way that people who have money are relaxed and confident.
“Do me a favor,” the attorney was saying, “lose the charming low-life routine.”
He was wearing a navy blue suit, serious and precise. A taut, trim man, Merrill’s eyes were slate grey, and his thin nose was perfectly aligned on his narrow face. His hair was going silver at the temples, but only there, and Harry wondered if the rest of his follicles weren’t receiving some sort of cosmetic assistance.
“Let’s get back to Leo,” Merrill said.
“It was like he was waiting for me.”
“Are you trying to tell me you were framed?”
“Framed seems too advanced for Leo. But yeah, he set me up.”
Merrill leaned in, his suit sleeves riding above his ruby cufflinks. “You understand I can’t help you if you’re lying.”
Harry was stung. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Merrill got up and walked to his desk. It was uncluttered with snapshots or books. He didn’t use an in-and-out box. The only items taking up space on it were an ink blotter and a telephone. He slid a yellow legal pad out of a drawer.
