by Louis Begley
The following week, on Tuesday, I had lunch with Martin and Lee. Their engagement was at an end, and I wanted to thank them and exchange another round of war stories. I had already settled our financial accounts and pretty much forced Martin to accept an advance contribution to his daughter Nora’s college and graduate-school scholarship fund.
Jack, he protested, we were just kidding when we talked about that. I’ve earned good money with you, very good money. She’s just started high school! A couple more clients like you and by the time she goes to college I’ll be rich.
You may have been kidding, I told him. I wasn’t. All I ask is to meet Nora when she’s in Manhattan with time on her hands and to be kept up-to-date on her studies.
Instead of the neighborhood joint that was the venue of my previous meals with Martin, I took him and Lee to Harry’s favorite French restaurant, where he was still remembered with great affection, and talked them into trying braised oxtail, the restaurant’s signature meat dish. I had no secrets from these two honorable men. They knew we wouldn’t be at table together sipping the burgundy recommended by the headwaiter, to whom Harry had always left such matters, if Feng had not followed me unseen into the park. And if his aim had not been so deadly sure.
I owe him my life, I told them, and since I owe Feng to you guys, indirectly I owe my life to you.
He’s happy, said Martin. You don’t know it, but he calls me every few days to say he’s happy and hopes you’ll keep him on.
Do you know the Chinese expression “He has an iron rice bowl”? I asked. They mean by it that the person’s job is secure. No one’s going to break the bowl from which he eats. You can tell Feng that and much more.
That is happy news, Martin replied, and Lee and I have some news for you that we’ve been saving up. Do you remember Detective Rod “Tannenbaum” Walker? He’s off the force.
I can’t believe it, I said. It’s too good to be true. What happened? How did you guys find out?
This made them laugh. Lee, who habitually let Martin do their talking, spoke up.
It’s like Martin told you. When he and I were still with the Bureau, we worked on a joint task force with the NYPD for more years than I can or want to remember. Mostly on major drug investigations. It so happens that our contact at the Drug Enforcement Agency there now heads the department’s Internal Affairs. They’re the folks who are supposed to make sure everyone on the force stays on the straight and narrow. It also happens that we belong to the same social club in Maspeth. You know, we get together over the weekend, go bowling and stuff. Well, we talked to Gerry, that’s the name of our pal, strictly on the QT of course, about Walker’s peculiar behavior—like his knowing about the telephone call Jovan made to you when you met this guy Goran in Central Park—and the way he handled or didn’t handle the murders of Lena and Boris. Gerry thought this was pretty strange stuff. And wearing that little Tannenbaum on his lapel…So Gerry did some poking around, and he and Walker had a few talks, and Walker realized he had enough time in service to retire. Which was a good move. You know, before something could prejudice his pension. So that’s what he did, and you know what? Immediately he got another job. Of course, he had to relocate to Houston. A job with Abner Brown Enterprises security. What do you think of that?
I’ll be goddamned, I said. I just hope that in spite of the recent events he’s got job security!
An iron rice bowl! they both cried out. Guaranteed lifetime employment!
—
My book was waiting. To use one of my mother’s favorite expressions, the wounds, however inconsequential in the long run, had made me a lot less bushy tailed, and teaming up with the sequence of events that brought the nightmare that began with Harry’s murder to an end—the attempt to run Heidi off the road, the attack later that day directed at me, Abner’s suicide, and the bitter confrontation with Eric—had brought my work to a halt. I resorted to the one remedy that in my experience never fails: I slept. Three or four long nights’ sleep crowded with agitated and bizarre dreams followed by lazy mornings, lunch with wine, and dreamless naps in the afternoon. The record of success remained unbroken. I completed the draft, gave it what I call the first manicure, and sent it to my agent. Two days later, the beautiful Jane sent an email saying: Bull’s-eye. Keep revising if you wish, but I’ll submit the manuscript to Holly Gibson—the name of my editor—as is.
I wish, though, your manners were as good as your storytelling, Jane wrote to me. How many weeks have passed since you said you’d invite me to dinner?
What was I to do? I fired off a three-word message: Mea maxima culpa! But I didn’t propose a dinner date. How could I? I was having dinner with Heidi practically every evening.
Apparently Jane wasn’t too cross to recommend the draft with her usual vigor. A week later I got a letter advising me with real or feigned enthusiasm that the house would be honored to publish my new novel. A telephone call the next day from Holly Gibson advised me that the in-house lawyers were relieved. With the man I called Abner Brown dead, the chance of being sued for libel had been reduced to the neighborhood of zero. They’re so happy. My editor laughed. They keep telling me it’s all right, you can’t libel a dead man!
Feng was surely laughing up his sleeve too, because Heidi told him the only reason for my having her company at dinner was his cuisine, which of late included Hunan tripe and sliced lamb in hot scallion sauce. She’d arrive promptly at eight every night, unless she was out of town on a case or was summoned by her parents to the opera or a family function that she couldn’t finesse without bringing down on herself what she called the ire of Jupiter. The wrath of Juno she could handle, her mother being, she said, a 24-7 nag. Her father, she explained, was something else. He’d stay mad. I didn’t care why she came, so long as I knew she’d be there. More than once it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that we were like one of those new couples, a working wife and a house husband. Only in our couple there was no sex. I never did tell her. I didn’t want to break the spell.
The Krohns would spend the Thanksgiving weekend in East Hampton, Heidi announced. Would I like to come to their Thanksgiving Day lunch? It’ll be great fun. All the families! When I looked blank, she explained, New York real estate families, you dummy, my brother and his new trophy wife my parents can’t stand, and the guy who built a replica of Palazzo Pitti on the Water Mill beach. He’s a peach. She laughed at the rhyme. And his wife’s a lapsed hairdresser. Excuse me, stylist!
The thing about Heidi was that everything amused her, and she saw each thing coming before it rounded the corner.
My thigh. I groaned. My arm. Both my arms. I can’t cut my meat. Or shake hands. The only thing I can do is type! And even that’s over. I won’t do revisions until Christmas.
At ease, Captain! I’ve told them that. But you’re going to have to come up with something new for the New Year. Credibility! You’re going to lose, if not your good name, then surely your credibility.
I’ve thought ahead, I assured her. It’s my anxiety attacks. Ever since that night in Anbar Province.
The upshot was that I agreed to go to the Krohn parents’ for tea, in return for which she volunteered to have her dinners with me in Sag Harbor over the holiday weekend and to come with me to White Plains to visit Jeanette and her sister the preceding Sunday afternoon. It was Jeanette’s first weekend out of the Burke facility and at her sister’s apartment. Harry had done well by Jeanette. The apartment was larger than I had imagined, and sunny. She was in the living room, in a wheelchair, slurring her words but intelligible and bright, with the old affectionate light in her eyes. Astonishingly, she remembered Heidi’s one visit to Fifth Avenue and the sauté of chicken that she, Jeanette, had cooked for dinner, and was able to talk about the assault that awaited her on the way to her sister’s. Did they ever catch that guy? she asked.
Not exactly, I told her, but he went after someone else a few weeks later; there was some shooting and he was killed. He was a very bad man.
> I’ll still feel sorry for him, replied Jeanette, and I’ll say a prayer for him.
According to Heidi, I sailed through the tea with Mr. and Mrs. Krohn, or Jon and Helen, as I now called them. My success was crowned by an on-the-spot invitation to a pre-Christmas party at their New York apartment. Pre-Christmas, Helen explained, because the day before Christmas Eve they would leave for Palm Beach. I accepted gratefully, a look from Heidi telling me that I had better keep my PTSD in reserve for another occasion. I tooled home happily. Heidi would be over at eight.
As Christmas and the Krohns’ pre-Christmas party approached, I invited Heidi to dinner at our usual Madison Avenue restaurant. I toyed with the thought of the French restaurant and decided against it. Better to stick to what I knew we both liked. There’s no longer a reason we can’t go out to dinner, I told her. We can give Feng a night off.
But not having Feng on hand to put the fear of God or of overcooked baby pork ribs into her pushed her right back into bad habits. We were to meet at eight-thirty. By the time she arrived thirty-seven minutes late, I had ordered my second martini and asked for a piece of bread to still my rumbling stomach. Was this to be again our theme song? I took a cab home from the office, she announced, took a bath, got dressed, and then decided I’d walk here. You don’t mind, do you.
How could I?
We drank a Refosco, which made her wrinkle her nose. I offered to have the waiter bring the Pinot Nero she liked, but she said, No, it’s not the wine, it’s me. Somewhere between the vitello tonnato and my new favorite, spaghetti neri, which she agreed to try, I asked her the question that had been waking me up at night. Was she going to Palm Beach with her parents for Christmas?
Is it possible that she guffawed?
No, she said, laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. Guess what? I’ve bought two pairs of silk pajamas, one black and one very red. Like this.
She pointed to the belt she wore over her black trousers.
And you know why? Because, if Feng will be around, I’m going to spend Christmas, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s, in Sag Harbor. Will your master chef and nanny be there?
He will, I said, and so will I.
Well, that’s good, she said, I was sort of counting on it. And will I get to have the master bedroom?
I nodded.
In that case, she told me, in that case, Captain, you will be able to share it with me. But remember, we’ll only cuddle!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again, the author wishes to express his profound gratitude for advice and comments of inestimable value proffered by his friends Matthew Blumenthal, Mark P. Goodman, Dr. Jonathan L. Jacobs, and Dr. Daniel I. Richman.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louis Begley’s previous novels are Killer, Come Hither; Memories of a Marriage; Schmidt Steps Back; Matters of Honor; Shipwreck; Schmidt Delivered; Mistler’s Exit; About Schmidt; As Max Saw It; The Man Who Was Late; and Wartime Lies, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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