The Havana Room

by Colin Harrison

  Three

  NOW, I ASSUMED, the evening would taper painlessly into oblivion. I ordered another drink to go with my chocolate cake. The Havana Room was dark and comfortable, and the men moved to and from the bar or toilet slowly, enjoying, it seemed, their own gravity. The talk was measured. You could hear money in the murmur, you could hear problems being unbolted and taken apart. I listened hungrily, for of course I used to do these things, used to like being in the big messy heart of the action, shaving away complication, splicing in the fix, watching for the nod of group assent. In big law firms like my former one, there are basically two kinds of lawyers; the first is the glad-handing, business-grabbing opportunist, who accepts that men and women are fallen, wingless creatures, and is in it for the game and the money and the dense structures of connectivity that build up over a career; the second type, rarer, is the emotionally aloof scholar, more interested in the purity of the law than in the impurity of human beings. These same men (and they are usually men) could easily have been priests or research scientists, and might be disappointed not to be sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. They are paid to compose legal structures (trusts, corporate ownerships, mergers) that open like tulips in the sun for the right person or entity but remain otherwise hidden, impermeable, indestructible. Both types of lawyers can be dangerous politically, and both have their flaws. The back-slappers and group-grinners tend to drink too much, fuck around on out-of-town trips, attract marginal clients with the wrong kind of legal problems, and die suddenly on the tennis court. The legal priests abhor the messy, repetitive work that is the firm's bread and butter. They can't be counted on to chat amiably at social events or conceal their fringy political opinions. They don't let profits stand in the way of righteousness. They tend to fall out of touch with the younger partners and live forever. I'd been the first type of lawyer of course, and let me admit that when a client came to me with the words "Bill, I need a little advice," or the like, I felt happy— grateful to be wanted, eager to be of use. This is, in part, why men enjoy hunching over papers and agendas— it makes them feel useful, or at least not use less; it lets them bounce in the net over the void. I'd enjoyed my little skirmish with Gerzon, the tangle over large sums, the unexpected sprint down overgrown thoughtpaths. I'd tasted a little of the old professional meanness, the venom of cleverness— it had tasted good, too.

  In this better mood, I inspected the room, which had started to fill up, despite the late hour. A few men checked their watches, expecting something. But what? In the city of earthly delights, what could actually be new and unusual? And would it start without Allison?

  Ha, the Chinese handyman, now stepped into the room, moving with such stooped humility that the men barely glanced at him as he made his way behind the bar. I waited to see if the waiter or bartender paid him any attention. They didn't. Nor did Ha appear to care; his face was a serene mask of wrinkles. Allison had said something about him being ready, and so here he was, in the room, fussing behind the bar, apparently right on schedule.

  But I wasn't the only one watching Ha; he'd drawn the interest of a distinguished-looking man at the bar whom I recognized as one of the city's great literary figures of the past era. A youngish entourage accompanied the man, and each fame-licker had arranged himself in a posture he thought most advantageous to receiving the great one's attention. Had Allison invited them? I'd once admired the man; he'd been a brilliant skeptic and an energetic personality around town but widely dissolute in his personal habits, and with each year his original literary accomplishments became harder to remember.

  "You sir!" he called loudly to Ha. "I'm here to see if you are a fraud!"

  Ha made no response, not a blink.

  "Which I suspect you are!"

  The man had drawn the room's recognition, and he enjoyed it, nodding gravely at the others who saluted him from their seats. He was perhaps now most famously the author of his own self-destruction, known for his appearances at the city's watering holes, where, curled over his drink, he was to be seen telling forty-year-old tales to twenty-year-old wits. But he still looked good in a tailored suit, and spent heavily to maintain his teeth.

  "It's a complete fabrication," he announced wetly, "a parlor trick, a circus act." He swept his hand threateningly at the room. "Which one of you dupes are in on it? Which of you are the ringers?"

  The men in the booths, not unworldly themselves, heard hostility and saw alchoholism, and after they looked away, he directed his comments back to the smirking youngsters gathered around him, who no doubt delighted in their secret power over him, for he needed them far more than they did him. "Yes, yes, we will see!" came his voice in response to an unheard question. "We will witness the delusion of the human appetite!" He pounded his fist on the bar, as if to summon the hounds of inquisition, but in this action he was vigor mummified, he was satiation lost. And, in the deep and hideously thick coughing that resulted, he was also death, lingeringly foretold. But not yet. A fresh drink arrived into his hands and soon he was again waiting brightly, like the others.

  Then I heard a commotion coming down the stairs.

  "I invited myself!" came an angry voice. "Where is he?"

  The figures in the room glanced up expectantly. A little man in a wool jacket appeared in the doorway, squinting through the cigar smoke. Snow dusted his watchman's cap. The men turned away in disappointment. Whoever they expected wasn't this person, and he was already arguing with the waiter, who pointed at me.

  The man lurched stiffly forward, and then I was looking up into a red face of about sixty, but a tough sixty— battered and doggish.

  "Good evening," I said in a mood of full-bellied indulgence, the night having provided already far more entertainment than expected.

  "Where's Jay?" the man asked.

  I put down my fork. "Not here."

  The man stared accusingly at the plates on the table, the empty glasses. "Was he here?"

  I told him yes.

  "When? Just now?"

  "Maybe half an hour ago," I said.

  "Who're you?" he demanded.

  "I come here a lot, I just met him tonight."

  The man winced. "Come on, guy!" he said. "I got to find him!"

  "I don't know where he is. He went out on the town."

  The man examined my face, apparently concluded I was truthful, and, to my surprise, dropped down across from me in the booth.

  "I'm just going to sit here a minute, need to rest. I was on the road for two hours." He pulled off his gloves, revealing enormous hands, their fingers crooked and swollen, almost painful to look at, nails packed with grime. "Jesum, I'm tired. Had to park on the sidewalk. Snow's coming out of the northeast, be bad soon." He pushed the dishes to the side, although not without eyeing a few soggy fries. "You got any idea where he is?"

  "Not really."

  He pulled off his cap. His hair appeared to be styled with motor oil. "How about where he's gonna be later tonight—" His face puckered to a leer. "You know what I mean?"

  Probably Allison's apartment. "I might see him tomorrow, downtown."

  "No, that's too late." He thumbed one of his teeth, as if it might be loose.

  "You a friend of his?"

  "Friend?" He shook his head. "Everybody calls me Poppy." He didn't offer me his hand, but instead glanced around the Havana Room. "Pretty swank, this place, full of assholes. Wouldn't let me in at first."

  "You try to call him?" I asked, assuming Jay didn't want to be contacted.

  " 'Course I did." Poppy noticed my uneaten cake. "You want that?"

  I waved it toward him. He pulled the plate close and chewed diligently for a minute, then drained one of the water glasses.

  At that moment, the barman approached. He nodded at me apologetically and addressed Poppy.

  "Sir, this is a private room."

  "The door was unlocked."

  "The door was closed, sir."

  "I opened it."

  "Sir, they're telling me that there's a big
truck full of potatoes parked on our sidewalk."

  Poppy nodded. "That's mine."

  "Sir, they're asking you to move it."

  "I will." He smiled at me, teeth smeared with dark cake. "When I'm ready."

  "Sir, it's very inconvenient for—"

  Poppy swiveled. "It'll be very inconvenient if I dump those potatoes in front of this place, don't you think?"

  "Sir, I expect that we'll need to call the police."

  "Fine, call them."

  "Sir?"

  "But don't expect them to pick up something like nine thousand frozen potatoes."

  The barman eased away.

  "You got a pen?"

  I did. He slid an embossed HAVANA ROOM napkin in front of himself and tried to write. "All right, I'll—" The napkin tore.

  I handed him another. He tried again.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Circulation's gone. This one"— he held up his right hand, wiggled the fingers stiffly—"got run over by a loader sixteen years ago, which lemme tell you hurt like the devil." He lifted the left. "And this one— I got the repeating motion thing. Tendons all gummed up. Got no power, no grip."

  With the second napkin, Poppy was successful, moving the pen slowly, like a boy carving his initials into a tree. His eyebrows lifted with each finished letter. "Here. Give this to him."

  "Can I read it?" I asked.

  "I ain't stopping you."

  The napkin said:

  JAY— We got a probelm w/Hershul & the cat. Its not my faullt. Get out there quick. I cant do nothing. I'll wate all night.

  Poppy

  He pulled his cap back on, stood up. "I can trust you to get it to him?" he asked.

  I slipped the note into my pocket. "I'll see what I can do."

  He swiped a handful of cold french fries and slipped them into his coat pocket. "You'll try, right?"

  It was then that I noticed the beautiful black woman I'd seen before in a blue evening gown at the other end of the room. The men looked alert now. Was she the one they'd been waiting for?

  "You'll try, right?" Poppy repeated.

  I looked back at him. "Sure."

  "I mean tonight, fella," he coughed. "As soon as goddamn possible."

  "Yes, sure," I mumbled. The black woman, so tall and elegant, was greeting each patron with a handshake and warm smile. The literary man had slipped forward off his stool in anticipation.

  "Hey, hey, I'm talking to you!" said Poppy. "I got this feeling you can find him, see, like you know his girl, where she can be found. They told me she ran this place." He pointed at the napkin. "Jay'll understand that, he's got to."

  I nodded. "Okay."

  He was wary. "I can't explain it all to you. It's one hundred percent confidential."

  "I get that, yes."

  "Tell him I had to go back."

  The woman listened to the literary man's banter. He felt himself to be very drunkenly clever, I could see, but he fumbled his cigarette onto her shoes and she glided away, ready to greet others.

  "I have to get back, I said."

  "Right."

  "Because of the snow." Poppy zippered his coat, eyeing me, and seemed already hunched against the cold outside. "If you don't tell him, it's all on you. He'll know. He'll find out."

  I didn't like the sound of this.

  "And tell him I don't know how it happened."

  "Okay." Ha, I noticed, had set a rolled white cloth on the bar. He unrolled the bundle and lifted a flap. Something gleamed from within the folded cloth.

  "I still got coffee in my truck."

  "Okay, Poppy," I said.

  "You got to get the message to him."

  Now Ha was filling a plastic bucket with water in the sink behind the bar. "I will."

  "You tell him it involves Herschel."

  The elegant black woman knew almost every man in the room, I realized. "I said I would."

  Poppy saw my distraction. "I had to go back, he has to understand that. When he sees what happened, he'll understand."

  "Right."

  "He's probably going to need to bring someone to help. My hands are no good. It's a big problem, you got to say that, too."

  "Okay."

  "You look like a decent guy. I'm trusting you."

  Poppy stood and left, but not before noticing the bowl of nuts on the bar, which he sampled liberally. I read the subliterate napkin message again, unable to make sense of it. How could I get it to Jay? If he and Allison had gone out to celebrate, they could be anywhere. Both probably had cell phones, but I had neither number. But I could call information. She'd said her home number was listed. She had to be, when you thought about it, needed to be reachable if the restaurant burned down in the middle of the night.

  "Listen," I said to the waiter, "I'll be right back. I need to use the pay phone upstairs. Hold my table here, okay?"

  He shrugged. "I'd make it real quick, pal."

  The comment seemed unnecessarily rude, but I ignored it and hurried toward the Havana Room's hunched doorway, past the literary man, who had just been forcibly presented with his check by the bartender. I climbed the worn marble stairs, my shadow rising in front of me. In the foyer, while calling information, I noticed Tom Brokaw arrive for a late bite. Impressive man, Brokaw. Smooth, articulate, reassuring, deeply American in his persona. Bet he never killed anybody with a glass of milk, either. Allison was listed, and I left a perfunctory message about Poppy and hung up. The phone rang back almost instantly.

  "Oh hell-o-ho, Bill," came Allison's voice— amused, silky, relaxed.

  "That was fast. You know the pay phone number?"

  "Of course. Got it on speed-dial, too."

  "You're at home?"

  "No. I have this fancy phone thing that rings me wherever I am."

  "I called your apartment."

  "I know."

  "But you're not there?"

  "Oh, no. I'm with Jay. In his big, masculine SUV. You can pronounce that suv, which is provocative, don't you think?"

  "I need to tell Jay—"

  "Like, let's suv. Or maybe you'd like to come up for a quick suv. Or, like this, all they did was suv, just constantly."

  "You a bit inebriated, Allison?"

  "Sort of. We're headed back there right now. I'm running late. But the men will wait. We just went for a spin."

  "Things seem about ready to start."

  "Not without me," she said. "We'll be there in three minutes. Here's Jay."

  He came on the line. "Hey guy," he breathed. "I want you to come to my office tomorrow so I can settle up, show you—"

  "That's not why I'm calling."

  I told him about Poppy, and the potatoes as well. He asked me to read him the message.

  "Oh, shit," he muttered, then muffled the phone. I thought I heard a tone of female argumentation. Then the open static returned, the sound of traffic. As I listened I noticed an elderly woman in a long fur waiting to use the phone.

  "I don't own a cell phone," she told the maître d'. "My sister had one, gave her brain cancer."

  The maître d' nodded at her good sense.

  I kept listening. "Thanks a lot," came Allison's voice away from Jay's phone.

  "Bill?"

  "Jay, I think I should have a look at some of that paperwork tomorrow. At the deed history in particular."

  "Sure." He wasn't listening.

  "Good night, Jay." I wanted to get back into the Havana Room. "Congratulations again."

  "Bill, you got plans tonight?" Jay said.

  "I plan to sleep, eventually."

  "I've got some kind of a problem. I need a hand."

  "I'm a tired guy, Jay. Really. It's almost one."

  "Wait, wait, hold on—"

  I heard muffled noises, Allison saying something, arguing perhaps, rushing static. Around me people were still arriving at the steakhouse, despite the hour. The great old literary man, however, was being escorted with his entourage from the Havana Room by the waiter. "But the night is still y
oung!" His knees buckled with each step. "Everything's about to begin! I saw the knives!"

  "Bill," came Jay's watery cellular voice in my ear again, "I really need a guy to go out to Long Island with me and help with something. It's like three or four hours… I might need a guy to help hold stuff, a pair of hands, is what it is."