Brightness Falls

by Jay McInerney

  "The doctor said to let him maintain till we get him to the hospital," Wick reminded her.

  "Well, I'm not going to just stand here like an idiot." Bev knelt down and began picking up the clothes around the bed. Corrine joined in eagerly.

  "I think he's going to come with us," Zac said. He walked out to the front of the loft and raised the blinds.

  Jeff emerged from the bathroom, a towel around his waist. "You all right?"

  "Great. I love waking up this way." He seemed normal, looked no worse than Russell had two hours before.

  Hugging his fouled laundry, Bev sobbed, "Oh, Jeff."

  "I mean it. Really wonderful to see you all."

  "Are you going to come to the hospital, guy?"

  "Do I have a choice?"

  Half an hour later Jeff and Russell were walking east on 4th Street, deep into Alphabet City. At the corner of Avenue C, Jeff told Russell to wait while he ducked into a bodega. The doctor had advised them to let Jeff self-prescribe whatever he required for the drive to the hospital in Connecticut. The fact that he needed to score almost immediately after shooting up indicated to Russell a fairly remarkable habit.

  Two Hispanic men loitered enigmatically under the red plastic awning. A third sat on the sidewalk, his head lolling on his shoulders, a strand of saliva connecting his open mouth to one shoulder. The buildings on either side of the bodega were bombed out. A bedsheet that said squat now hung from one of the unboarded windows, stop gentrification was sprayed beside the chained door. A community of tepees, tents and shacks had sprung up in a nearby empty lot.

  Jeff emerged from the bodega shaking his head. "We'll have to go over to the reservation," Jeff said, indicating the Hooverville, an edge of panic in his voice. "The quality's not steady. It's crapshooting, you might be spiking up four percent pure, or ten."

  "Do you enjoy all... this?"

  "It's nice to have friends in low places." Jeff sighed. "Wait here," he said, leaving Russell at the curb to contemplate the corpse of a rat splayed on the spokes of a tireless bicycle wheel. A heavy septic stench hung in the air. Jeff was in conference with a man in camouflage pants whom Russell recognized as Paul Rostenkowski, the homeless activist whose picture was often in the paper. They disappeared inside a tepee. A group clustered around an open-pit cooking fire regarded Russell with unconcealed suspicion. Staring, a white man wrapped in a bedspread lifted a baseball bat from the ground and whacked it experimentally across his palm. A young black man detached himself from the group and picked his way across the lot toward Russell, who tensed for a confrontation and scanned the area for possible weapons.

  "Yo, Russell, what's happening? I was at your house once for a party. How's the wife?"

  "She's fine, she's good." Russell didn't recall having seen this man before in his life, but he was happy at this moment to pretend that he did. "So what are you up to?" he said.

  "Same ole same ole. I got some stuff in the works, some job possibilities..."

  "Yeah? Excellent."

  "Couple irons in the fire, so to speak."

  "All right."

  "So like tell Corrine Ace says hi," he said, shaking Russell's hand, as Jeff emerged from the tepee.

  Wick was waiting in his car outside Jeff's building. Russell and Jeff went upstairs, where Bev had cleaned up and packed some clothes and toiletries. Zac was gone. "One for the road," Jeff said, disappearing into the bathroom for five minutes.

  He allowed Corrine to hug him and limply shook hands with Russell. To Russell, he looked almost relieved finally to surrender his fate to others. Folded into the backseat of the Jaguar, he stared straight ahead as the car pulled away, taking his crisis with him, thereby depriving Russell and Corrine of one crucial layer of distraction from themselves.

  33

  It was still dark outside when Russell awoke, alert as a sentry. He rose at six and showered, spinning hot and cold water knobs in futile attempts to regulate the temperature of the water, scalding one hand, then numbing his lathered scalp as he rinsed out the shampoo under an icy torrent. This apparent divorce between cause and effect in the plumbing failed to stifle his brisk sense of well-being.

  Corrine was dozing strenuously between snooze alarms when he left the apartment at six-thirty. Lately she was showing less of her usual enthusiasm for rising and shining. As Russell had become increasingly involved in his work, she had grown less and less interested in her own. When he kissed her good-bye she mumbled something about a baby present for Casey.

  Outside, autumn had arrived on the city streets. The noxious gases of the summer had dissipated and the chilly morning air carried an olfactory hint of new leather. This was Russell's favorite season, the season of beginnings in New York, social springtime on the metropolitan calendar. Having nothing but time, he walked across the park to the West Side. A squirrel was hauling a slice of pizza up a maple tree. A band of schoolboys, commanding a rise above the bike path, lobbed stones at passing joggers.

  A sleepy guard nodded to him in the lobby of the Brill Building, where they were keeping offices until all the papers were signed. Which was not a bad thing, according to Trina: "You'll have an easier time figuring out who gets fired without having them standing next to you in the little boys' room. " The erstwhile editorial director and publisher had not proven to be good losers, but Russell was relieved to discover that most of his colleagues had come around to the idea of a fresh regime; there had been only a couple of immediate resignations. During his exile Russell had been barred from having anything further to do with the books he had in production; he was, after all, fired. Now he picked up his old duties while courting and rating the staff in concert with Washington and Whit-lock. He resurrected a few of his projects that Harold, whom he now referred to as "the lame owl," had seen fit to bury. At the same time, Russell and Trina were shopping the textbook division. Another plan under discussion was to sell the old building off for a quick twelve to fifteen million and lease back a few floors for office space. In the meantime Harold and Company could dream on in Corbin, Dern's ancestral home.

  Entering the barren sixth-floor suite of the Brill Building, Russell encountered two janitors emerging from his office. One looked sheepishly guilty, as if caught in the act of stealing; the other smirked defiantly.

  "Just finishing up here," said the former.

  "This your office," asked the latter, pointing his thumb at Russell's door. "I think you mighta left something in there by mistake," he said, barely able to contain his mirth.

  They slipped past him with their mops as he went to investigate. Inside his office, a body lay sprawled on the couch, as naked as the beige walls.

  She was lying facedown in a pool of blond hair, her face burrowed in the corner of the sofa. No major wounds were visible, although the broad expanse of her back was striated with fresh pink scratches. One leg sloped down from the couch and trailed off into a pile of clothes on the floor. The other tapered down toward a thin gold ankle bracelet. From the doorway Russell could see more than enough to make him doubt she was naturally blond.

  He crept forward, and stopped when he was close enough to touch her, then leaped into the air when a hand casually launched itself from the couch and attacked an itch in the vicinity of her ear. Russell's first impulse was to run and hide before his presence was registered. His second reminded him that this was his office and that this girl was the anomaly. But he felt guilty and convicted in the presence of this live, naked woman, who, on examination, was extremely well formed—for he recognized among his other emotions the incorrigible buzz of outlaw desire.

  The blond hair stirred and issued a moan. Suddenly she lifted her head, which had been buried in the crevice at the back of the couch. "Warren?"

  "Warren?" Russell repeated, now even more puzzled.

  She turned abruptly, cleared the hair from her face, took Russell in, then herself. She dove for the tangle of garments on the floor and pulled
them around herself as best she could. Her face looked much younger than the rest of her, the small upturned nose dusted with freckles, and the big smudged lips. "Who the fuck are you?"

  "I'm, uh, the person whose office this is."

  "Where's Warren?" She was angry and frightened.

  "I don't even know who he is." Despite his moral and tactical advantage, he felt much more embarrassed than he was trying to sound. His voice was shuttling between octaves. This made him angry. "Nice tan," he said maliciously.

  She lashed out with a kick that just grazed his retreating calf.

  "Tell me who Warren is."

  "This is his office," she hissed, "and you better get the hell out." And then, "He brought me here last night to ... he wanted to show me his ... I guess I fell asleep." Hearing her own failed account seemed to dispirit her and drain her of anger. Indeed, it was difficult to imagine a dignified explanation of the present circumstances. She buried her face in something white and crocheted.

  Russell had an inspiration. "Is Warren a black guy?"

  She nodded without looking up.

  "Fresh bandage on his forehead?"

  She looked up at Russell with gratitude and hope, as if, having solved this mystery, he might also tell her who she was. Then her gaze slid across his shoulder and darted behind him as a new wave of panic seized her face. He looked around and saw Whitlock standing in the doorway. Rolling his eyes, the chief financial officer retreated down the hall.

  "So what's your name," Russell asked his guest.

  At eight a.m. Bernie Melman checked in with a phone call. Normally Russell would just be climbing out of bed at this hour, but today, as editor in chief elect and part owner of the company, he had already written three letters and disposed of a naked woman. "Please hold for Mr. Melman..." Russell picked up his own phone, since Donna, newly rehired, had yet to arrive for work.

  "Hey, is this the new boss? I've cornered four million shares of a company in London this morning. So how many books have you signed up today?"

  "I regret to inform you I am the only person in publishing who's awake yet."

  "That's the trouble with publishing. You gotta get in there and kick some ass."

  "I'm ashamed of my colleagues. But we'll do it."

  "So what about this what's-his-name thing?"

  "Washington Lee is his name, n'est-ce pas?"

  "I'm sorry about what happened, right? But I'll be goddamned if I'm going to let some ... let him blackmail me."

  "I think it would help if you fired the guy who roughed him up. In fact, I think that's all he wants."

  "It was an honest mistake, for Christ's sake. Guy pulled a fucking gun. "

  "A squirt gun, Bernie."

  "Chill him out, will you? I don't have time for this chickenshit."

  Victor Propp's daily call came in at ten-thirty. Now that the excitement of the deal had passed, he was having second thoughts about the outcome. "Did you see your stock lost a quarter-point yesterday? What's going on over there? They accepted a tender offer for twenty-one and a half and the stock is trading at twenty. "

  "Everything's golden, Victor."

  "I don't trust Melman. I have reason to believe he intends to use Corbin, Dern as a vehicle. All of these corporate pirates are moving into communications and media because that's where the power and the glory ultimately reside..."

  Holding the phone lightly to his ear, Russell rummaged among the packing boxes for his infantry helmet.

  "You're a midwestern Gentile, Russell. You don't understand these Jews.

  "Speaking of Gentiles," Russell said, "how's Camille?"

  "I'm too old for her," Victor said mournfully. "It's only a matter of time before she leaves me. I envy you your marriage. You have a soulmate and a helpmeet. I know, I know—what did I expect? But I once believed ..." His voice trailed off. "I think she's corresponding— secretly, of course—with Kundera..."

  As he sorted through a box on his desk, Russell was jolted back to consciousness when Victor announced that he was thinking of going to Simon & Schuster. "They've made an offer, pardon the cliché, that I can hardly refuse. You know I want to publish with you, Russell, but the new Corbin, Dern is something of an unproven commodity."

  Russell thought this a bit rich coming from the author of a largely hypothetical masterpiece, but he earnestly appealed to friendship and loyalty, asking Propp to wait until he had approval to match the offer.

  Feeling deflated and nervous, suddenly uncertain of this new order and his own place in it, Russell put in a call to Melman, who was tied up in a meeting. Russell was prepared to argue the case for keeping Propp at virtually any cost. Erring ever on the side of credulity, he had long believed in Propp's genius, won over as much by the force of the writer's personality as by the sporadic fragments of the work. In an era in which literary greatness was in short supply, Propp's novel seemed to him, as faith in the deity had to Pascal, worth the wager of belief. But as he sat alone in the empty office, he began to question his own judgment, to wonder if he might be wrong about Victor and about a hundred other things. This feeling was aggravated by a phone call from the author of the Nicaragua book, which had been published in the midst of the takeover and which disappeared without a trace. The embittered author blamed Russell. For the first time in his life Russell experienced severe doubt about his own tastes and abilities. He called Corrine at her office; her voice arrested the free-fall of his panic, locating him within a set of familiar coordinates. He asked her what time she'd gotten to work, what was happening with the market; when she asked, he said he was fine, not quite so punctured as to leak.

  Sprawling across the recently vacated couch across from Russell, Washington fingered the bandage on his pistol-whipped forehead as he listened with less than perfect attention to Russell's speech.

  "I come in here on the morning of my official first day—you know, we could've ended up without jobs, Washington—and what do I—"

  "Hey, I said I was sorry. You want it in writing?"

  Two painters were unfurling a noisy tarp on the floor under one wall.

  Washington stretched out familiarly on the couch. "Want her phone number?" He sucked the last inch of tobacco from his cigarette, examined the filter critically, took his plastic Walther from his pocket and fired at the glowing tip till it sizzled and blackened.

  "I want to know when you're going to get with the program and act like a fucking responsible adult."

  "How about a responsible fucking adult. What are you, celibate? This is me you're talking to, Russell. Don't pull this 'mature' shit on me. I used to scrape you off the floor and carry the remains home to your hot little wife, Crash. And I always had the decency not to slip her the old forked tongue when I kissed her good night. Understand what I'm saying? Get in touch with yourself, Jack." He tossed his cigarette butt into the basket at Russell's feet and moistened his lips with the tip of the squirt gun.

  Russell was looking out the window at the giant yellow cat's eyes across the street, a billboard hovering above the Winter Garden Theatre, wondering if T. S. Eliot was perhaps spinning in his grave. "This is a whole new game, Wash, except it's not a game anymore."

  "And what is this jive biz-school talk? Just 'cause you got a title now, it don't make you a book."

  The painters rattled and stomped around as if they were paid specifically to make noise. Sitting still for a scolding in front of the help was definitely not Washington's idea of a good time.

  "We have this company, and even if we don't feel like actual adults we've got to pretend our asses off. We can't stay out all night anymore and drag preteens up to our corporate offices for a few more lines and a hot beef injection."

  "Then let's give the company back to the old farts. I guess I didn't read the fucking fine print, chief."

  "Excuse me, but we gotta move this desk back," one of the painters said to Russell, who stood up and walked ov
er to a window looking out on a porno marquee on Broadway.

  Washington sighed. "You know what this is about, man? This is about you and it's about Jeff. This nigger ain't even in the fucking foreground of this picture. It's about you being pissed off that you're married and can't have a little taste of the stuff you see walking down the street and leaning against the bar and winking at you in the subway. It's about you wanting to poke your investment banker. "

  The painters had suddenly become very quiet and dainty in their work.

  Washington lit up another cigarette. "Well, sorry, Jack, but you took out the marriage license, not me. And it's not my fault Jeff's a junkie. Going to church for somebody else's sins isn't my thing. So get off my case. Lighten up. Lighten up on Jeff, for Christ's sake. So he went all the way down that nasty road—what fucking skin is that off your ass? Let him fuck up on his own and forgive him your own self. Let me fuck who I want. It isn't about you, asshole. It basically doesn't have shit to do with you."

  Russell was looking out the window. "Okay, Warren."

  Washington shrugged. "So hey, I'm sorry. My nom d'amour. Girl passed out and this boy had to get home for his beauty rest. "

  "Why'd you come here? I'm just curious. You don't have a room with a bed in it?"

  "It was close, man. I didn't want to lose the moment. I needed to visit that oval office."

  "Times have changed, Wash. We have to be more righteous than the righteous. I don't need this shit anymore. I can't use it."

  Washington stood up and stretched. "You just tell me what kind you do want, and that's just the kind I'll give you."

  "Tell me what you want from Melman."

  "You his messenger boy now?"

  "I just want this over with."

  "I asked him to fire the storm troopers who pistol-whipped me, and so far I can't get no satisfaction. From now on he can talk to my lawyer."

  "This could make things very awkward, Wash. I mean, Bernie's our finance."

  "Bernie's our asshole. Tell Bernie he can paint my fucking house."