Time passed until it was time to go. I climbed into my big suit and brushed the hair back off my face. I took one more call that afternoon. It was a curious call, a strange call. I'll tell you about it later. Some whacko. No big deal.
Where is Selina Street? Where is she? She knows where I am. My number is up there on the kitchen wall. What is she doing? What is she doing for money? Punishment, that's what this is. Punishment is what I'm taking here.
I ask only one thing. I'm understanding. I'm mature. And it isn't much to ask. I want to get back to London, and track her down, and be alone with my Selina—or not even alone, damn it, merely close to her, close enough to smell her skin, to see the flecked webbing of her lemony eyes, the moulding of her artful lips. Just for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to put in one good, clean punch. That's all I ask.
——————
So now I must go uptown to meet with Fielding Goodney at the . Carraway Hotel — Fielding, my moneyman, my contact and my pal. He's the reason I'm here, I'm the reason he's here too. We're going to make lots of money together. Making lots of money — it's not that hard, you know. It's overestimated. Making lots of money is a breeze. You watch.
I came down the steps and into the street. Above, all was ocean brightness: against the flat blue sky the clouds had been sketched by an impressively swift and confident hand. What talent. I like the sky and often wonder where I'd be without it. I know: I'd be in England, where we don't have one. Through some physiological fluke — poison and body-chemistry doing a deal in their smoke-filled room — I felt fine, I felt good. Manhattan twanged in its spring ozone, girding itself for the fires of July and the riot heat of August. Let's walk it, I thought, and started off across town.
On masculine Madison (tightly buttoned, like a snooker waistcoat) I took my left and headed north into the infinite trap of air. Cars and cabs swore loudly at each other, looking for trouble, ready to fight, to confront. And here are the streets and their outlandish personnel. Here are the street artists. At the corner of Fifty-Fourth, a big black guy writhed within the glass and steel of a telephone kiosk. He was having a terrible time in there, that much was clear. Often as I approached he slapped the hot outer metal of the booth with his meaty pale palm. He was shouting — what, I didn't know. I bet money was involved. Money is always involved. Maybe drugs or women too. In the cabled tunnels beneath the street and in the abstract airpaths of the sky, how much violence was crackling through New York? How would it level out? Poorly, probably. Every line that linked two lovers would be flexed and snarled between a hundred more whose only terms were obscenity and threat... I've hit women. Yes, I know, 1 know: it isn't cool. Funnily enough, it's hard to do, in a sense. Have you ever done it? Girls, ladies, have you ever copped one? It's hard. It's quite a step, particularly the first time. After that, though, it just gets easier and easier. After a while, hitting women is like rolling off a log. But I suppose I'd better stop. 1 suppose I'd better kick it, one of these days ... As I passed by, the negro cracked the phone back into its frame and lurched out towards me. Then his head dropped and he slapped the metal once more, but feebly now. Time and temperature flashed above.
Fielding Goodney was already in attendance at the Dimmesdale Room when I strolled into the Carraway a little after six. Erect among the misangled high chairs, he stood with his back to me in the depths of this grotto of glass, two limp fingers raised in a gesture of warning or stipulation. I saw his talking face, bleached to steel by the frosted mirror. A low-browed barman listened responsibly to his orders.
'Just wash the ice with it,' I heard him say. 'None in the glass, all right? Just wash it.'
He turned, and I felt the rush of his health and colour — his Californian, peanut-butter body-tone.
'Hey there, Slick,' he said, and gave me his hand. 'When did you get in?'
'I don't know. Yesterday.'
He looked at me critically. 'You fly Coach?'
'Standby.'
'Pay more money, Slick. Fly in the sharp end, or supersonic. Coach kills. It's a false economy. Nat? Give my friend here a Rain King. And just wash that ice. Relax, Slick, you look fine. Nat, am 1 wrong?'
'That's right, Mr Goodney.'
Fielding leaned back against the rich wood, his weight satisfyingly disposed on two elbows and one long Yankee leg. He regarded me with his embarrassing eyes, supercandid cornflower blue, the kind made fashionable by the first wave of technicolor American film-Stars. His thick unlayered hair was swept back from the high droll forehead. He smiled ... Speaking as an Englishman, one of the pluses of New York is that it makes you feel surprisingly well-educated and upper-class. I mean, you're bound to feel a bit brainy and blueblooded, a bit of an exquisite, when you walk through Forty-Second Street or Union Square, or even Sixth Avenue — at noon, the office men, with lunchbox faces and truant eyes. I don't get that feeling with Fielding. I don't get that feeling at all.
'And how old are you?' I asked him.
'I'll be twenty-six in January.'
'Jesus Christ.'
'Don't let that spook you, John. Here's your drink.'
Frowning Nat expectantly slid the glass towards me. The liquid looked as heavy as quicksilver.
'What's in this?'
'Nothing but summer skies, Slick ... You're still a little lagged, no?' He placed a warm brown hand on my shoulder. 'Let's sit down. Nat: keep them coming.'
I followed him to the table, steadied by that human touch. Fielding adjusted his cuffs and said, 'Any thoughts on the wife?'
'I just spoke to Caduta Massi.'
'No kidding? She called you herself?'
I shrugged and said, 'Yeah, this afternoon.'
'So she's hungry. I love it. What did she say?'
'She said she wanted lots more kids.'
'Uh?'
'In the film. She wants this bunch of kids.'
'That figures,' said Fielding. 'Word was she had herself snipped. Sometime in her late twenties. She was a devout Catholic, also a hot lay. You know — no more abortions.'
'Hey look,' I said. 'I don't know, Fielding. She's a bit old for us, isn't she?'
'Have you seen The Weird Sister?'
'Yeah. It was terrible.'
'Sure, the film crapped, but Caduta looked great.'
'That's just it. She looked like a pampered movie star. I don't want that. I want one of those .. .' I wanted one of those new-deal actresses, the sort that look like averagely scuffed-up housewives. Critics were forever saying how sexy and real these actresses looked.
I didn't think they looked sexy but I thought they looked real. At least this was my instinct, and my instinct was all I had to go on. 'Who else is there? How about Happy Jonson?'
'No good. She's in the Hermitage.'
'What's up?'
'Depression, deep, practically catatonic. That girl is real blue, Slick.'
'Okay, what about Sunny Wand?'
'Ditto. Fat farm. Two hundred and twenty pounds.'
'Wow ... Okay, Day Lightbowne.'
'Forget it. She just came out of a two-year analysis. Then she was date-raped in Bridgehampton by her weekend therapist.'
'Date-raped, huh. What kind of deal is that? What, sort of with bananas and stuff?'
'Date-raped, Slick. Out on a date, you know? Remember. In fact it's an interesting distinction. With a regular rape, lust plays no part in it. It's all about power, self-assertion, violence — normally these losers can't even perform. But with a date-rape, lust features.' He paused, then went on briskly. 'Anyhow Day Lightbowne was screwed to shreds by her shrink and she's right out of business. I say Caduta, Slick. She's perfect for us. Think about it. Just think about it. Have you spoken with Lorne?'
'Yeah.'
'This is a very difficult time for Lorne.'
'You're not fucking kidding.'
'His career's in turnaround and he just had eighty grand's worth of dental work. He's low right now.'
'Low? What's he like when he's high? Two hours I h
ad him on the line. Look, Fielding, he's going to roast me. I won't be able to handle him.'
'Stay icy calm, Slick. The truth is, Lorne Guyland will do anything to be in this picture. Have you seen The Cyborg Sanction?'
'No.'
'Pookie Hits the Trail? Dynamite Dick?'
'Of course not.'
'He'll do anything now. Space opera, road movies, good-ole-boy stuff, TV specials. His agent straps him on the horse and out he rides. This is the first real part that's come his way for four—five years. He's crazy for it.'
'Then why do we want him?'
Trust me, Slick. With Guyland in, it respectabilizes the whole package. The bottom line is, no Lorne Guyland movie ever lost money. It ups the TV and cable and video sale by 50 per cent, means we clean up in Taiwan and Guadeloupe. I have a bunch of old farts with five hundred grand under the cot. They won't haul it out for Christopher Meadowbrook or Spunk Davis or Butch Beausoleil. Never heard of them. But they'll haul it out for Guyland. Lorne's our man, Slick. Face it.'
'He's a maniac. How do I deal with him?'
'Like this. Say you'll do everything he wants and then when the time comes don't do any of it. If he goes bananas, you shoot the scene then lose the take. You'll have the final cut, John. That I swear.'
Well, this made pretty good sense to me. I said, 'How's the money?'
'The money,' said Fielding, 'the money is beautiful. Ever take any exercise, Slick?'
'Why? Yeah.'
'What kind of stuff?'
'Oh, you know. I swim sometimes. I play tennis.'
'No kidding.' He called for the check. I reached for the squashed notes I kept in my trouser pocket. With a strong left hand Fielding seized my wrist. As I stood up I saw him take a fifty, one of many, from his glowing clip.
——————
Fielding had the car waiting outside — a six-door Autocrat, half a block long, complete with zooty chauffeur and black bodyguard riding shotgun. He took me to an old gangster steakhouse in the Heights. It was brilliant. We talked money. Everything looked cool with Fielding's quorum of investors. Fuck it, I thought: worst case, his dad will end up tabbing the whole deal. Fielding's father is called Beryl Goodney and owns half of Virginia. Maybe his mum is called Beryl, too, and owns the other half. Fielding never talks about his own dough, but I've yet to meet a more spectacular have: he's got a lot already and he wants a lot more... 'In general terms, Slick, how much do you know about money?' I said — very little. 'Let me tell you about it,' he began. And he was away, his voice full of passionate connoisseurship, with many parallels and precedents, Italian banking, liquidity preference, composition fallacy, hyperinflation, business confidence syndrome, booms and panics, US corporations, the sobriety of financial architecture, the Bust of '29, the suicides on La Salle and Wall Street... And I found myself wondering whether Alec has seen the single dead flower in the jamjar beside Selina's bed, or heard her peeing and humming in the quiet bathroom, the black pants like a wire connecting her calves. There seems to be a thing about girls and best friends. I always fancy their best friends too; come to think of it. I certainly fancy Debby and Mandy, and that Helle from the boutique whom Selina hobnobs with. Perhaps you fancy your girl's best friends because your girl and her best friends have a lot in common. They're very alike, except in one particular. You don't go to bed with the best friends all the time. In the sack she can give you one thing your girl can't give you: a change from your girl. Not even Selina can give you that. Is Alec fucking her? Well, what do you think ? Is she doing him all those nice favours ? Could be, no? Here's my theory. I don't think she is. I don't think Selina Street is fucking Alec Llewellyn. Why? Because he hasn't got any money. I have. Come on, why do you reckon Selina had soldiered it out with me? For my pot belly, my bad rug, my personality? She's not in this for her health, now is she? ... I tell you, these reflections really cheered me up. You know where you are with economic necessity. When I make all this money I'm going to make, my position will be even stronger. Then I can kick Selina out and get someone even better.
Fielding signed the check. I signed some contracts, directing more and more money my way.
He dropped me off on Broadway. Eleven o'clock. What can a grown male do alone at night in Manhattan, except go in search of trouble or pornography?
Me, I spent an improving four hours on Forty-Second Street, dividing my time between a space-game arcade and the basement gogo bar next door. In the arcade the proletarian ghosts of the New York night, these darkness-worshippers, their terrified faces reflected in the screens, stand hunched over their controls. They look like human forms of mutant moles and bats, hooked on the radar, rumble and wow of these stocky new robots who play with you if you give them money. They'll talk too, for a price. Launch Mission, Circuit Completed, Firestorm, Flashpoint, Timewarp, Crackup, Blackout! The kids, tramps and loners in here, they are the mineshaft spirits of the new age. Their grandparents must have worked underground. I know mine did. In the gogo bar men and women are eternally ranged against each other, kept apart by a wall of drink, a moat of poison, along which mad matrons and bad bouncers stroll.
At eleven-thirty or thereabouts the old barmaid said to me, 'See? She's talking to you, Cheryl's talking to you. You want to buy Cheryl a drink?'
I paid the ten and said nothing. The old barmaid in her brown condom, she might have been last night's sister. That's my life: repetition, repetition. True, the chicks on the ramp provided some variety. None of them wore any pants. At first I assumed that they got paid a lot more for this. Looking at the state of the place, though, and at the state of the chicks, I ended up deciding that they got paid a lot less.
Two hours later I was wheeling around Times Square, looking for damage. I found some too. A very young prostitute approached me. We caught a cab and rode thirty blocks, downtown, west, Chelsea way. I glanced at her only once in the bucking car. She was dark, with lips the colour of blood and Spanish hair too tangled to shine. I consoled myself with the thought that, along with a bottle of Je Rêve, a carton of Executive Lights, and a punch in the tits, I'd be taking back a real wowser of a VD for Selina—Herpes I, Herpes II, Herpes: The Motion Picture. I can recall the rudimentary foyer of some thriving flophouse. I paid for the room, up front. She led me there. The figure of forty dollars was mentioned by her and approved by me. She started getting undressed and so did I. Then I stopped.'... But you're pregnant,' I remember saying in childish, open-ended surprise. 'It's all right,' she said. I stared at the strong gleaming belly. You expect it to be so soft but it looks so strong. 'It's not all right,' I said. I made her get dressed and sit on the bed. I held her hand and listened to myself talking crap for an hour and a half. She did a lot of nodding. I had paid her the money. She even listened to some of it: this was easy work, really. Towards the end I thought I might even try and wangle a handjob out of her. She would have obliged readily enough, no doubt. She was like me, myself. She knew she shouldn't do it, she knew she shouldn't go on doing it. But she went on doing it anyway. Me, I couldn't even blame money. What is this state, seeing the difference between good and bad and choosing bad — or consenting to bad, okaying bad?
Nothing happened. I gave her a further ten for carfare. She went off to find more men and money. I returned to the hotel, and lay down fully clothed, and backed off into sleep for the second night running in this town where the locks and lightswitches all go the wrong way, and where the sirens say 'you' and whoop! and ow, ow, ow.
——————
My head is a city, and various pains have now taken up residence in various parts of my face. A gum-and-bone ache has launched a cooperative on my upper west side. Across the park, neuralgia has rented a duplex in my fashionable east seventies. Downtown, my chin throbs with lofts of jaw-loss. As for my brain, my hundreds, it's Harlem up there, expanding in the summer fires. It boils and swells. One day soon it is going to burst.
Memory's a funny thing, isn't it. You don't agree? I don't agree either. Memory has never
amused me much, and I find its tricks more and more wearisome as 1 grow older. Perhaps memory simply stays the same but has less work to do as the days fill out. My memory's in good shape, 1 think. It's just that my life is getting less memorable all the time. Can you remember where you left those keys? Why should you? Lying in the tub some slow afternoon, can you remember if you've washed your toes? (Taking a leak is boring, isn't it, after the first few thousand times? Whew, isn't that a drag?) I can't remember half the stuff I do any more. But then I don't want to much.
Waking now at noon, for example, I have a strong sense that I spoke to Selina in the night. It would be just like her to haunt me during the black hours, when I am weak and scared. Selina knows something that everyone ought to know by now. She knows that people are easy to frighten and haunt. People are easy to terrify. Me too, and I'm braver than most. Or drunker, anyway. I got into a fight last night. Put it this way: I'm a lovely boy when I'm asleep. It began in the bar and ended on the street. I started the fight. I finished it too, fortunately—but only just. The guy was much better at fighting than he looked ... No, Selina didn't call, it didn't happen. I would have remembered. I have this heart condition and it hurts all the time anyway, but this is a new pain, a new squeeze right in the ticker. I didn't know Selina had such power of pain over me. It is that feeling of helplessness, far from home. I've heard it said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. It's true, I think. I certainly miss being promiscuous. I keep trying to remember my last words to her, or hers to me, the night before I left. They can't have been that interesting, that memorable. And when I woke the next day to ready myself for travel, she was gone.
Twelve-fifteen and Felix arrived, bearing a cocktail or two on his shoulder-high tray. I drink too much coffee as it is.
'Thanks, pal,' I said, and slipped him a ten.
Oh yeah, and while I remember— I haven't briefed you about that mystery caller of mine yet, have I? Or have I? Oh that's_nght, I filled you in on the whole thing. That's right. Some whacko. No big deal ... Wait a minute, I tell a lie. I haven't briefed you about it. I would have remembered.