A Father's Kisses

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  I tried on the pink madras jacket and felt it fit decently enough, but she insisted that the sleeves would have to be altered.

  “I don’t have time for that,” I said. “And besides,” I added, stretching the truth a bit, “I have always worn my sleeves on the long side.”

  When she heard that, she gave me another one of her looks and flounced off to the cash register.

  In spite of her attitude, I picked out a few other items and brought them over to the sales desk. To see if I could get a rise out of her, I complimented her on her dimple.

  “It’s not authentic,” she said. “It was chiseled out of me by a mugger in Indianapolis.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, in response to what appeared to be a conversation stopper.

  But when I paid for my purchases in hundreds, she perked up a little—perhaps in response to the big bills. She said she had come to Miami Beach from Santa Cruz in order to pursue a modeling career, but thus far she had only landed one audition, which was for a toothpaste commercial. As yet, they had not called her back because of a division in the agency over whether to go with a bald person, no matter how good she looked otherwise. One side felt it would detract from her teeth while another faction—comprised of young guys—was willing to take its chances.

  In the meanwhile she had been dating an Arab who spit at her.

  “Just once,” I asked, “or all the time?”

  “When he’s annoyed,” she said. “Do you think I ought to stay with him?”

  I told her I didn’t see any basis there for a long-standing relationship, adding quickly that I was not anti-Arab. I wasn’t pro-Arab either. I just hadn’t given the Arabs much thought. Speaking in her friend’s defense, I suggested he might be from a tribe in which it’s a custom to spit at their loved ones when they get excited.

  “Mahmoud isn’t from a tribe,” she said. “He’s from Chicago.”

  Normally, I don’t like to give advice on personal affairs. There are usually two sides to any story, and for all I knew the Arab might have some serious complaints about her—not that I wanted to track him down and find out what they were. But this situation seemed clear-cut, so I made an exception.

  “I’d get out of it.”

  “My thinking, too,” she said with a sigh.

  Though the timing was awkward, I thought about asking her out for a drink and felt she would be receptive, particularly because of her difficulties with the Arab. But I had not dated anyone since my tragic loss and wasn’t sure I wanted to get off the ground with a bald salesperson. Also, I could not for the life of me figure out if she was attractive.

  What, for example, would you do about the bald head? Just lick it, I imagine, and hope for the best.

  Still, she was a basically aloof person, and I decided it would be a mistake to try to get something going with her. Not at that moment in time. I could just see myself being stopped in a getaway car and trying to explain away an aloof bald-headed person in the passenger seat.

  But I took her number—just to be on the safe side.

  To kill some time before the Moué cocktail party, I walked over to the Inter-Coastal for a look at the luxury boats, some of them as big as battleships; I half expected Peabody to stroll out on the deck of one, which, of course, was unlikely. Then I gave some thought to the people who owned these boats and wondered if they were happy all the time—or did they get tired of running down to the Dry Tortugas every twenty minutes.

  At one time, I would not have even permitted myself to even think about boats like that, but I was playing in a different league now where anything was possible. Look at how far I’d come already. If I did a great job, maybe Peabody’s organization would start me off with a little twenty-footer—as a bonus.

  I could just see Lettie’s face when I told her it was ours.

  It seems like everything I did was to see her face.

  Predictably, my old friends, the security guards, waved me right through to the Moué reception. There were about fifty or sixty people gathered together in the Abracadabra Room, and I saw quickly that the pink madras jacket was a mistake since most of the fellows were wearing dark suits and ties. Maybe I would have fit right in at one of the bald saleswoman’s parties, but not at this one.

  Since it was too late to go back and change into my all-purpose navy blue suit jacket, I decided to stay put and take my chances.

  As I passed through the rope, Ilyana gave me a suspicious look, no doubt because I had recently had my face in her butt. But she quickly became distracted by her guests who were crowded around her, telling her how fabulous she looked and, for that matter, how wonderful Dickie Moué looked, too.

  “Cover of Men’s Health,” he said waspishly, showing he was on to them.

  You had to admire him for that.

  The other guests were busy telling each other where they had just come back from—and where they were going—as if it was a sin to be where they actually were. They also made promises to get together soon, which struck me as being peculiar since they already were together. Some waiters twirled by holding trays of canapés, which I loaded up on, thinking I might as well save on money for dinner—and forgetting that money was not my problem at the moment.

  Since I saw no way at the moment to get Dickie off alone, I sat down at the bar area and listened to a piano player named Ralph play some old standards. He was remarkable in that no sooner had I thought of an old favorite, such as “Misty,” then he would break out into it, as if he had been reading my mind. If Ralph wasn’t famous, he should have been, and I planned to talk him up when I got home. I was so impressed with his piano playing that I folded up a five and stuck it in the little fishbowl he had next to him, after first holding it up and winking at him so that he could see that I was the one who had put it in there.

  Then I sat back down and was soon joined by a florid-faced man in his sixties. He was powerfully built and had a bald head with fringes on the side in the style of a wild symphony conductor. (Glo and I used to call it the “Shostakovich look.”)

  He wore a plaid jacket, which made him the only other fellow at the reception who didn’t fit in. That may have been why he joined me.

  We both sat there in silence and listened to Ralph play “The Way You Look Tonight,” which I had been about to request when he broke out into it.

  “Something, isn’t he,” said the fellow beside me.

  “I could listen to him all night,” I said, knowing full well that under the circumstances, I couldn’t.

  “Irv Gallagher,” he said, extending a huge friendly hand. “Half Yid, half Mick. Retired homicide.”

  I was not prepared for the ethnic slurs and must have flinched when I heard them. Nor did I feel there was any room for that kind of divisive talk in nineties’ America. We’ve come too far for that.

  He must have taken note of my reaction and chucked me lightly on the shoulder.

  “No offense,” he said. “It’s all right when it comes from one’s own.”

  Somewhat mollified, though not entirely, I shook his hand.

  “Matthew T. Morning. Retired poultry.”

  “As if guys like us ever retire,” he said with a wink.

  “I hear you,” I said, less than thrilled that he hadn’t entirely given up his old profession.

  “You know Dickie long?”

  “Long enough,” I said vaguely, as if to indicate that knowing Dickie at all was as good as knowing him for a lifetime.

  But I should have known better than to try that on a retired homicide dick.

  “Well, just how long have you known him?” he asked, squinting at me as if he had turned up a suspect, when to the best of my knowledge no crime had been committed as yet.

  “We’re recent friends.”

  “I see,” he said, mulling that over.

  But then his manner softened, possibly in response to Ralph’s rendition of “Moonlight in Vermont.”

  “Dickie and I go back a long way,” he said, a
s if he were doing a voice-over for the nostalgic melody “I used to ride him around in my squad … take him to P.J.’s, the Embers, the Stork, give the tootsies at the Latin Quarter a jiggle, both of us taking on a load—and then I’d pour him into the townhouse before the sun came up. I bodyguarded Dickie after I retired and then his wife died—the poet. He took it hard. I thought he’d never get over it—and then he had to go and meet the broad.”

  “Ilyana,” I said, indicating that I had some knowledge of Dickie’s history.

  “Can you believe it! Went all the way to Hungary to dig up that slut. A fuckin’ manicurist in an all-night nail clinic in Budapest. When he could have had the pick of the litter. And now she acts like the Queen Mother. Just look at the way she treats him. She’s starving the poor bastard.”

  I glanced across the room in time to see Ilyana snatch a sandwich out of Dickie’s hands, then wag her finger at him as if to say, “You naughty boy,” before placing the sandwich back on the buffet table.

  “This is incredible,” he said, pounding on the bar and throwing up his hands. “She wants to get him skinny! And let’s say he loses a few pounds. What’s he gonna do, jump out of the chair and do a foxtrot? The guy’s liable to croak any day now.”

  “He doesn’t look that great.”

  “He certainly doesn’t. And I for one can’t take it anymore.

  “Wait here,” he said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Hands clasped behind his back, whistling innocently like a cartoon cop on his beat, he strolled across the room toward the buffet table.

  After waiting for Ilyana to turn to her guests, he picked up half of what looked like a fat corned beef sandwich and slapped it into Dickie Moué’s mouth. Then he turned around, shielding Dickie with his big back, and began to bounce innocently on his toes. Raising a shaky hand to steady the half of a sandwich, Dickie took a huge bite out of it, chewed a couple of times and swallowed. At that point, he hesitated, cocking his head as if he had heard his name being paged. He swallowed again, and then his eyes almost came out of his head as he pitched forward and fell on the floor, the sandwich bite still stuck in his throat.

  Instinctively, I started across the room to help him, but by the time I reached the buffet table, Irv Gallagher was on his knees trying to get the taste treat out of his mouth. He succeeded, but not entirely; as the crowd gathered, he pounded on Dickie’s back, and then began to administer the celebrated Heimlich maneuver, an awkward procedure to pull off with Dickie stretched out on the floor.

  When Ilyana saw what had happened, she screamed and said: “I warned him about the corned beef.”

  Then she joined the other guests in looking on anxiously as Gallagher continued trying to revive his old pub-crawling friend, who was not moving.

  The first to break away from the crowd was the little old lady I’d hoisted out of the elevator.

  “It’s too late,” she said, gathering a shawl around her. “I saw his color.”

  She crossed herself solemnly, then broke into a bright smile.

  “No point in being gloomy. That won’t bring him back. What about joining me for a drink in my room?”

  “Not just now,” I said, amazed at her boldness.

  “I’ll be in Penthouse B, in case you change your mind. And don’t be frightened. I’m not going to jump on your bones. Unless, of course, you absolutely insist.”

  Then she sashayed off, leaving me to wonder if there was any limit to her shameful, or shall I say, shameless flirtatiousness. Still, I had to applaud her for feeling and acting like some kind of irresistible temptress, which had the effect of almost turning her into one, though not quite. I marveled at how much more appealing she was than most of the younger women I’d run across, even if, given the choice (and to my everlasting shame) I probably would have picked one of the younger ones. (And that is definitely something we have to correct in America. How long can we continue to ignore the needs of our hot little biddies!)

  A team of paramedics arrived soon after and began to work on Dickie, but with no apparent result. They had a whispered conversation, consoled Ilyana and then lifted Dickie on to a stretcher.

  “I’d go along,” said Ilyana to one of them, “but it wouldn’t do any good, right?”

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  And then they carted Dickie out of the hotel.

  Frankly, I did not know how to feel. On the one hand, there had been a loss of life, which is never pleasant. And I marveled at the irony of Dickie meeting his end as the result of a delicious corned beef sandwich getting stuck in his throat—the very treat he had coveted and that had been denied to him. I believe one of our novelists has observed that you have to be careful what you wish for—or you may get it. No doubt this is an ancient wisdom, but I feel he should be given credit for shaping it up to fit our own troubled times.

  And I had other feelings as well—chief among them relief that my goal had been accomplished despite my not having lifted a finger to help things along.

  I returned to the bar in time to hear Ralph announce that he was going to play a medley of Dickie’s favorite songs. He began with “Tea for Two,” putting a great deal of feeling into it, despite its being on the peppy side.

  I was soon joined by Gallagher who mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief and ordered a double bourbon.

  “Jesus,” he said. “I never saw anything like that in my life. And I’ll probably get called up on charges, too. But you saw what happened, Matthew. I was only trying to help out.”

  “It looked that way to me.”

  “Thank you. But just you watch! The broad will get everything and Dickie’s true friends won’t see a dime.”

  “That’s life,” I said, a comment I’d found that fit almost any situation.

  “It certainly is,” said Gallagher.

  “Well, my friend,” he said, after downing his drink. “I’d better take my leave now and make a voluntary appearance at the station.

  “Not to worry,” he added with a wink. “I know the guys.

  “And here’s my card,” he said, reaching into his wallet and handing me one. “In case you get caught being naughty.”

  “Thanks, Irv,” I said, glancing at the card, which said:

  IRVING GALLAGHER ASSOCIATES

  Personal Protection and Industrial Security

  “Zei gesint, fella,” he said. “And don’t take any wooden kreplach.”

  “Zei gesint,” I repeated, taking pleasure in learning an exotic new toast.

  My spirits lifted considerably as I left the Bancroft and returned to my condo. A case could be made, all things considered, that Dickie was better off where he was—and who was I not to make it.

  With some excitement, I called Peabody in Karachi and was somewhat disappointed to learn that he’d already gotten the news.

  “You know about it?” I said, agog, if that was the correct term, at the speed at which information was passed along to him.

  “Oh, yes,” he said wearily. “I was informed shortly after it happened.”

  I picked up a somber note in his voice that troubled me.

  “You don’t seem too happy about it.”

  “No, no, I’m delighted. But I’ve had a bit of a personal setback. Millie was wonderful as Nathan Detroit, incidentally. But after the matinee, I took my wife on a canoeing trip along the Muari River, and it doesn’t appear we’ll be getting back together.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “So am I. We fucked, of course, but she’s recently buried an aunt and feels that among my five hundred other liabilities that I don’t know enough about death.”

  “I could straighten her out on that.”

  “What do you mean?” he snapped.

  But then he drew back and said: “Oh, I see. You’re having me on. Do forgive me—I’m not terribly good at satire. But you mustn’t let me spoil your good mood. You’ve accomplished something very special—perhaps not in the expected manner—but it’s a success nonethele
ss, and it’s going to put you in an excellent position for the future. I suppose we should celebrate, don’t you feel?”

  “Why not.”

  “Well, good. Let me have a look at my calendar. How does your schedule look for the eighteenth?”

  “One day is the same as another for me.”

  “Let’s make it Otis. Ed will no doubt shit when he hears that we’ve tried another place, but he’ll get over it. And I’ve heard magnificent things about Otis’s barbecue. Hot, hot, hot, which is an excellent substitute for all the drinking I’ve been doing.

  “And one more thing, Binny …”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m enormously proud of you.”

  Chapter Eight

  I called Lettie and told her my job had turned out nicely and that I would be home the following day. Though she could be as lively as a firecracker when she was there in front of you, her phone style was generally detached, bordering on sad. But she was a little more animated than usual on this occasion. She said she had given up her pursuit of an acting career and decided to become a movie producer.

  “Will you help me?” she asked. “My friends are not being very supportive.”

  “I’ll do what I can, although I’m not sure I know how to help someone become one.”

  “Just knowing you’re behind me is enough.”

  After I hung up, I walked over to the shopping area and found a jewelry store that was still open and bought Lettie a diamond choker. I had always wanted to get one for Glo to see it on her pretty neck, but I had never come close to having the funds. And besides, she was dead. So I thought I’d buy one for Lettie that she could hold on to until she got to the age when she was required to attend functions.