Corman offered him a quick smile. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
Clayton looked pleased. “All right,” he said. “But if we’re going to work together from time to time, I want to make a few things clear.” He turned and began to stroll out of the room, waving Corman up beside him. “You know what they call this beat?” he asked.
Corman shook his head.
“The snoot patrol,” Clayton told him. “That’s what they call it, all the so-called ‘real’ reporters.” He stopped, studying Corman’s eyes. “Real reporters,” he scoffed. “What bullshit. The editorial writers, the critics, the political reporters with their noses stuck two feet up some Congressman’s ass.” He laughed. “And they have the balls to turn up their noses at this beat?” The laugh thinned into a derisive chuckle, then trailed off entirely. “They’re lost, Corman. Take it from me, they’re completely lost.” He continued on, sailing gracefully over the littered carpet. “Because what they don’t understand is that in this city, what the rich do is the only real news there is.” He looked at Corman earnestly. “I’m talking about
They moved out of the room, down the stairs. At the side of the Palm Court, Clayton stopped again, his eyes lingering on the wide dining room. The band was playing softly, the piano in the lead, the accompaniment no more than a swaying presence in the background. “The people in editorial, international, all those people,” he said, “they think they’ve got the inside track on how things work, on what people are really like.” He shook his head. “But I’m a student of psychology just as much as they are, and let me tell you something, if you want to know what people are like, you have to study the ones who have everything. You don’t study the hustlers, the scroungers, the ones who have nothing. They’re lost in bullshit. You can’t learn anything from them.”
Corman nodded.
“But if you study the rich,” Clayton went on, “I mean study them very closely, if you do that, you can really find out what people need, what people miss.” He looked at Corman and pointed to his chest. “I’m talking about in here. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
Clayton began walking again, strolling quietly among the potted palms, a lean white skiff cruising over tranquil waters. “That’s what makes this beat worthwhile,” he added in conclusion. “The insight.”
Clayton picked up his pace suddenly. Corman trailed after him, just a single step behind, his eyes following the smooth gait and uplifted shoulders, the high, straight back. He wondered where Clayton had gotten all that style, whether he’d been born with it, or just soaked it in over time, like a tan.
Once outside, Clayton stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Several limousines were lined up in front of the hotel. One by one they came forward and people got out of them, then either rushed under the great awning or ducked beneath the doormen’s large black umbrellas.
“Very elegant,” Clayton said musingly as he watched. “The way they keep out of the rain. And very, very serious.” He glanced toward Corman. “You want to see something different?” he asked, as if it had just occurred to him.
“Different?”
“I always go to a certain place after one of these assignments,” Clayton told him. “I usually go by myself. But I was thinking that you might want to come along.”
Corman thought of Lucy, of keeping her, of giving Lexie some bit of encouraging news about his work, of how important Clayton had suddenly become to all of that. “Yeah, okay,” he said.
“Good,” Clayton said happily. “Follow me.”
They walked east to Lexington Avenue, then north into the Sixties, finally stopping at a noisy bar, crowded with people who were gathered in tight circles around tiny marble tables.
“A lot of the ‘real’ reporters hang out in this place,” Clayton said after the two of them had found a table. “This is their real beat, Corman. Not the ‘corridors of power’ they’re always talking. No way. This is their real beat. You know why? Because it determines the way they see things, the way they report things. It determines what they are.” He looked at Corman piercingly. “You understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so.”
“Good,” Clayton said. He ordered a fancy brandy for both of them, sniffed it when it came, then lifted his glass toward Corman. “Fuck ’em all,” he said with a smile.
Corman smiled back, drank, rolled his glass a little nervously between his hands and smiled again.
Clayton watched him for a moment, then nodded toward a man in a tan jacket who stood at the end of the bar. “He’s probably carrying three thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine in his left coat pocket.” He smiled. “Not exactly a Colombian with a buzz-saw, is he?”
“No.”
“Customers look different, too,” Clayton added.
Corman nodded.
“But they’re customers, all right,” Clayton said. “Do you know why? Because they need an up, a thrill.” He gave Corman a long, penetrating glance. “But why they need it, that’s a separate question.”
Corman felt obligated to bite the hook. “Why do they need it?”
“Because the deepest thing any of them have ever experienced is a dose of aggravation,” Clayton answered matter-of-factly.
Corman laughed.
“I’m serious,” Clayton insisted. “Listen, aggravation is the only really safe form of excitement left on the Upper East Side.”
Corman glanced about. Everywhere around him, people were laughing, talking, showing off their clothes. They looked no different than most people of means, and long ago Corman had come up with the simple nightmare truth that if a camera followed anyone around for twenty-four hours, that person would look ridiculous, no matter who he was. Pope. General. Average guy. All in the same boat. Ridiculous because no one ever fully appreciated how small he was. Only the camera appreciated that.
Clayton leaned over toward him. “Take it from someone who knows, Corman, these are the only really worthless people in the world. They don’t have power like the rich. They don’t run things. And they don’t have any purpose, like the working people do. They don’t make anything. Their whole lives, not so much as a goddamn doorknob.” He laughed. “You know what they produce, Corman? Self-esteem. It’s the basic goal of their whole productive process.”
Corman nodded silently.
Clayton turned away from him, watched the bar for a moment, then returned to him. “Were you in the war?”
“No.”
“Too young for it?” Clayton asked.
“I’m thirty-five.”
“Yeah,” Clayton said. “You just missed it.” He shook his head. “I did two tours as a combat reporter. What I saw every day, you can’t even imagine. Not in your worst nightmare. A real shit-storm.” He looked at the crowd and laughed under his breath. “Sometimes, I feel like calling down some NVA fire on a place like this. Just a little strafing run down Third Avenue on a Saturday night, give these people a taste of how little they’re made of.”
Corman allowed himself a quick, nervous little laugh.
Clayton’s eyes shot over to him. “Don’t suck up to me,” he snapped.
“Was I doing that?”
“You’ve been doing it all afternoon.”
Corman shook his head wearily. “Christ.”
Clayton smiled. “That’s what we all hate, right?” he said. “How much we have to swallow, just to get by.”
Corman said nothing.
Clayton eyed him intently. “What do you want from me?”
“I was hoping to do a good job.”
“Why?” Clayton said. “And hey, don’t tell me it’s because you love your goddamn craft.”
Corman looked at him squarely. “But I do.”
“Maybe the streets,” Clayton said. “But wedding receptions? Bullshit. It’s something else. What?”
