Foreign Exchange (The Tony Cassella Mysteries)

by Beinhart, Larry

  My mother announced that Guido was well enough to travel. He was on his way. I still don’t know what their relationship is. That is a euphemism meaning that I don’t know if they have sex. He’s a priest whose God has failed him and he’s an excellent cook. He would defrock himself, no doubt, but he knows no nonclerical way to make a living.

  Glenda called again. She was calling on Wayne’s behalf, she said. That made it okay, of course. She wanted to know how I was and, parenthetically, who I was with. Was it the same one? Which same one, since there had been several during my years with Glenda? The same one that I’d left her for, she said. I said I hadn’t left her for anyone. I had left America because they were going to put me in jail if I stayed. “I would have come with you,” she said, “if you had asked.” Who wanted to open that can of worms. The apartment, she said, was fine. The bubble of Manhattan real estate had not burst but it had deflated somewhat. Naturally we had bought at about the top of the market. Anyway, it was about Wayne. Who needed both adventure and direction and might benefit from a summer in Europe. I asked what was wrong. She said nothing was wrong. “Teach him about girls. I mean from a man’s point of view,” she said. I asked her what that meant, but she didn’t make it clear. I said that there were several problems. It was not that I had a new baby. “Oh,” she said as if she didn’t know, but she did because I had written Wayne about it. It was that things appeared to be coming apart, and I didn’t really know where I would be and if I would be in a situation where I could have guests. “You’re still not married, are you?” she asked. I admitted that I was not. “Wayne needs you,” she said. Sitting, sullen, in my bedroom, with more family than I ever wanted or needed or could use surrounding me, I said, “Yes. Wherever I am, which might be back in the States, he can come.” She said she would bring him to Austria herself. It would be nice to spend a day or two with me.

  Yeah, we were all going to enjoy that.

  Mike Hayakawa came to the house the day after I got home, while I was at the doctor’s. My mother, who enjoyed him very much, invited him to dinner. I thought that was a great idea in that everyone was much more civil when an outsider was around.

  Anna Geneviève remembered Mike Hayakawa. She cooed and gurgled for him. He adored her back.

  Geneviève had done the cooking. We had an onion soup for a starter. Good soup, not the kind with the wad of stretchy cheese on top.

  Once upon a time, I suppose, when someone from Japan came to dinner, an exotic after all, the conversation might have turned to Zen, haiku, flower symbology, Shinto. Now we spoke about money. Yen versus dollars. GM versus Toyota. Hitachi versus IBM.

  “Americans are very funny,” Mike Hayakawa said. “They apply a double standard. They describe us as economic predators. Not very long ago the United States had every advantage—capital, markets, skills, technology, research. Even with all those advantages, you used the CIA and your armed forces to make the world safe for American multinational corporations. If a country threatened to nationalize property, the United States of America overthrew that government. That’s a fact. In Iran, the Congo, Greece, Lebanon, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, all over Southeast Asia. It is not a secret that America was making the world safe for United Fruit, ITT, Exxon, Chase Manhattan.

  “Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not criticizing the United States for this in any way. This makes sense. This is admirable,” he said, and he meant it. “I am a capitalist, all the way, not a Communist. My point is that when all Japan does is sell well-made products for a good price, we are accused of bad conduct.”

  The main course was duck cooked into a pie, braised vegetables on the side. Hayakawa held my daughter while Marie Laure helped her mother serve. “You have a very nice granddaughter,” he said, nodding to both grandmothers. I had bought the wine. Geneviève found it unacceptable. When it was served she forced Marie Laure to announce that she had not selected it, that it was the only wine in the house, and that someone else was at fault. She was right. It did not live up to the cooking.

  Hayakawa said that one thing that separates the Japanese from the rest of the universe is the formation of groups as emotionally connected as a family. The company was such a group, as was the nation. All for one, one for all. He had enjoyed America, but he could not understand how Americans could endure their isolation and differences. The disconnectedness. Like many Japanese, and many Americans for that matter, it seemed self-evident to him—though he understood how impolitic it was to say so—that certain minorities were dragging America down. It was they who committed the crime, used the drugs, spread disease, and hurt our educational system.

  My mother told him that this didn’t make the Japanese special. Ethnic exclusivity—us against the outsiders—was extremely common. She got the Herald Tribune and opened it right across Hayakawa’s duck. Romanians were fighting Hungarians. Russian troops were trying to prevent Azerbaijanis from killing Armenians, Iraqis were gassing Kurds. Geneviève, in silent fury over the insult to her food, slid the plate out from under the newspaper as my mother turned the pages. Italian thugs beat some African immigrants to death. Then there were Lebanese, Israelis, Palestinians; tribal conflicts in Africa; white against black in South Africa. The standard day’s news.

  “Ethnic purity is the source,” Anna said, “of misery, bloodshed, and pain. The Japanese should be ashamed of it. Not proud of it. Even if you think it helps you sell Nikon cameras and Hitachi cars.”

  “Hitachi does not make cars,” Hayakawa said. I thought he was furious under his polite face. He was a driven man with very good manners.

  “The diversity of America—even the blacks and Latins that you don’t think well of—is an advance for humanity,” my mother said.

  “Even in Brooklyn,” I said, as a joke. Nineteen ninety was not a great year for race relations in Brooklyn.

  “This business of racial purity,” my mother said, “is a step backward.”

  By golly, my mother makes me proud sometimes.

  If Hayakawa had been lectured as sharply about racial attitudes by anyone but an older person, and especially a grandmother, I think he would have reacted very strongly. As it was, he swallowed it. Perhaps he turned a slightly whiter shade of pale.

  Marie Laure and I—with my stunted “franglais” that I’d learned mostly in bed and on a few selected Alps—tried to keep up a rough-running translation for Geneviève. She now spoke up. French civilization, she said, was the unique civilization. Far more advanced than the Japanese. Look at the cooking. The Japanese ate everything raw. Now that the Japanese had money and wanted good things, where were they going? To France, for Luis Vuitton, Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, and for a decent glass of wine.

  Dessert was fresh fruit and sorbet.

  After dinner Hayakawa pulled me aside. “The disc?”

  “I don’t have it. Yet.”

  “What do you mean ‘yet?’ ” he said.

  “The cash. Do you have it?”

  “No, not yet,” he said. “But I can get it.”

  “That’s what I mean by yet,” I said. “Same thing you do.”

  “Then you do have it?”

  “How long will it take you to put together the money?” I asked him.

  “Four days,” he said.

  “Then in four days I will get it. I don’t want to sit with it. I don’t need that much exposure.”

  “You are positive you can get it?”

  “You know, I’ve been kidnapped, imprisoned, dislocated, and defenestrated looking for this disc for you. I haven’t seen deutsche mark number one, let alone a million deutsche marks. I haven’t seen your letter of credit, your checking account statement, your savings bank passbook. Nothing. I believe in the deutsche marks as much as you believe in the disc.”

  “Musashi Corporation always honors its contracts. Always,” he said. “See to it that you do too. I will not accept betrayal.”

  That night I had a dream. It was a rock-and-roll dream.

  St. John Belushi led a
Children’s Crusade. He was outfitted as a Blues Brother, in an ill-fitting suit, porkpie hat, and sunglasses. He had the blues in his left hand, cocaine in his right, the drumstick of a chicken sticking out of his pocket, and barbecue sauce on his mind. He was followed by generations of Eastern European immigrants—Ukrainians, Poles, Letts and Litvaks, Serbians, Dalmatians, Czechs, and Slovaks—all from Chicago in red, white, and blue. They boogied down the avenue. The cops were German and the firemen wore buttons that said KISS ME I’M IRISH. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was by his side in a Watusi outfit that embarrassed him no end because he is a gentleman of refinement and class. He had a bodyguard of genuine Italian hoodlums who had their shoes shined, their silk suits shiny, and their chrome gleaming. They rode in Cadillacs, MADE IN DETROIT stamped on their hoods, MADE IN CONNECTICUT stamped on their Colt firearms. Hassidim danced to the “Theme from Peter Gunn” while a team of Vietnamese played saxophones.

  Harry Lime was there. He pushed Larry Flynt, publisher and creator of Hustler, in his wheelchair. He carried a sign that said I REPRESENT THE RACIST SALACIOUS SUBCONSCIOUS OF AMERICA—AND I’M PROUD OF IT. They were with a contingent of Cosmopolitan girls from Queens and Brooklyn who had all taken off from their secretarial jobs, at great personal expense, to be at the parade. Bengali vendors sold rice, hawked newspapers, and figured out how to become merchant bankers. A Chinese kid stepped up to the microphone and said, “This is just my high school science project.” Ronald Reagan said, “Have a good time, kids,” and, smiling genially: “You don’t mind if I work for the Japanese. They like me.” Nancy Reagan said, “I like the Beach Boys.” Shirley Temple Black sucked on Frank Zappa’s reefer. Vaclav Havel did a duet with Milos Forman, singing “Dancing in the Street.”

  Marie Laure clung to my arm and said, “Is this America or am I in Hillbilly Heaven?”

  “The party’s over—it’s time to call it a day,” the policeman said.

  “We’re so glad to see so many of you here tonight,” St. Belushi cried. “I’m here to preach a sermon. I’m here to say that ‘everybody needs somebody to love.’”

  A bunch of Japanese police were sent in. They attacked in riot-control formation wearing helmets by Hitachi, plastic shields by Toshiba, and swinging batons by Musashi.

  Then Ray Charles came out with a mariachi band and we all danced to “Let the Good Times Roll.”

  When I awoke Harry Lime and Chip Sheen were at my front door.

  “Eat shit and die,” I said.

  “Won’t we please come in,” Lime said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, son,” Lime said, “I sure am glad you got out of old Czecho. Did Jaroslav help you out like I instructed him?”

  I tried to close the door. Chip stepped in to block it. What a nice thing to do. I was, after all, only incapacitated on my left side. I hit him with a short right as hard as I could. I got some snap in the punch and weight behind it. I caught him flush in the face. It hurt both of us. He went flying across the hall. I went to my knees as the shock wave traveled back up my other arm. He came up and clawed for his gun. That created enough anger that I practically stopped hurting.

  “Go ahead, shoot me, you stupid motherfucker,” I said. Actually I snarled and spittle spewed from my mouth.

  The baby was awake and crying. Marie Laure called out to ask what was going on. My mother, whose room was down the hall, came padding out in slippers and a housecoat.

  “Now, now, boys, calm down,” Lime said, as if he were the neutral and the spat was between Chip and me.

  “What’s going on?” my mother said.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” I said, but not to my mother.

  “I’m going to get you,” Chip Sheen said. “Man to man, one on one. You’ll see. Don’t underestimate me because I’m small and a Mormon.”

  “Lime, if you and your dog aren’t out of here in ten seconds, I’m going to get my shotgun and blow you out of here.”

  “Just do me one favor,” he said. “Look in your wife’s makeup bag. Think about what you find.”

  “She’s not even his wife,” Chip Sheen said.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” Lime said.

  I closed the door on them. There was a knock almost immediately. It was my mother. I let her in and closed the door behind her. “What was that about?” she said.

  There was a knock on the door. I opened it. Geneviève came in.

  Marie Laure came out of the bathroom with her makeup kit. “What is this?” she said, and held up a Baggie of white powder.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Marie Laure looked at me with disapproval. “My mother,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “What is that?” my mother said. “Why did they want you to look in there?”

  “To tell me that I am vulnerable,” I said. “I assume it’s drugs. I’m going to kill him.”

  Geneviève started speaking in very rapid, intense French. It was something about using drugs—an international word—and her daughter and her granddaughter and me, the bum that hadn’t married Marie. Marie told her mother to please be quiet.

  “What is this?” Marie Laure said to me.

  “It’s a message. First, they’re telling me that they know I’m back. Then, they’re saying they can get in and out of our apartment at will. Finally, they’re making a threat. Instead of telling us about the drugs, they could have gone to the police.”

  Marie Laure translated for her mother. Her mother said that since Marie Laure wasn’t married it was all right if she left me. Even though her father was upset about the baby, she could come home. Marie Laure told her mother to stop it, that she was not going to leave me.

  “Let’s go to the police, now,” my mother said. “We can show them the drugs. Tell them that someone is trying to plant them on you. This horrible Lime man. Let the police deal with it.”

  “Sometimes you’re very American,” I said.

  “I am an American,” my mother said.

  There was an exchange between Marie Laure and her mother.

  “What did she say?” my mother said.

  “She said she will make the coffee,” Marie Laure said, “and wants Tony to go get croissants. How can one think before breakfast?”

  “I’ll have decaf,” my mother said. “Instant will do.”

  “Oh, no, no, we will brew it,” Marie Laure said.

  “Actually, I prefer the instant,” my mother replied, as she did each morning. And went into the kitchen.

  “There’s no point in going to the police, even to Franz, the gendarme,” I said. “It doesn’t solve the basic problem. Which is my legal status. We have to figure out what we really want.”

  “Are you willing to deal with these people?” Marie Laure said.

  “You want me to fix things so I have a real passport, don’t you? No more running and hiding. You know it’s a big world and there’s more to it than skiing. We could switch to windsurfing and sailing. That way we could live in the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Brazil.”

  She didn’t think that was funny, but all she said was, “I don’t want you to do anything that you can’t live with. You have to do what is right for you.”

  “I have to know what you really want,” I said.

  “I would like you to be Anthony Michael Cassella of New York again. An American. Free to go anywhere. But I do not want you to be in prison or hurt or hurt inside from doing what is not right.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “Say it in French,” she said.

  “Je t’aime,” I said.

  “I think you’re cute,” she said, and kissed me. The kiss got very open and wet and involved tongues, the pressing of body parts, and an erection. “Come into the bedroom, quick,” she said.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.

  “You won’t,” she said, “I’m going to suck you and drink you. But you better not make a sound. If our mothers hear I will die.”

  It sounded far too good to ruin
it by telling her the apartment was wired. It had to be. That’s how Lime knew I was back. He’d heard me reconfirm my deal with Hayakawa. That’s why he had gone to the trouble of proving he could frame me. Perhaps I should have been even angry about him listening to my private life, but it seemed like a small detail compared to the stress of having two mothers-in-law in the house when you’re not even married.

  When Lime returned I was in a much better frame of mind.

  “Can you get the disc?” he asked just as urgently as Hayakawa had.

  “Did you get that letter to my lawyer?” I asked.

  “I knew we could work together,” he said.

  “As soon as it’s in writing.”

  “Well, I don’t know how quickly I can get it done. Channels are channels and New York is far away.”

  “Fuck you, Lime,” I said, genially.

  “Can I at least see the disc before I get the whole agency in an uproar?”

  “No,” I said.

  “How do I know I can trust you?” he said.

  “I know that I can’t trust you,” I said. “Isn’t that sufficient?”

  “You’re pretty friendly with Mike Hayakawa,” he said. “Are you sure you know what side you’re on?”

  “Same side I’ve always been on. Mine, Marie Laure’s, Anna Geneviève’s. I know what you can do to me. Don’t bother with the drug thing, or threatening my daughter.”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the full subtlety of the setup. We get you,” he said, “because your passport is a fake and you’re wanted for obstruction of justice and tax evasion in the States. Then we get the French girl on drugs. I wanted you to actually see that we could plant the stuff on her. What’s nice about that is she gets labeled an unfit mother and they take the kid away. Don’t cross me.”

  “Something happens to them,” I said, just as quietly, “I’ll kneecap you.” I picked up his cane. I tapped his good knee with it. “A lot of punks when they’re getting sent up, they make threats, ‘I’m gonna get you.’ Shit like that. To the judge, the prosecutor. Nobody worries about it. But you have to worry about me. If you need me to show you that I’ll hurt you, I’ll hurt you right now.”