The Havana Room

by Colin Harrison

  "Wants to undo the deal? He can't. Why? It's a beautiful piece."

  "No, there's something buried in the land and Marceno is anxious to know what it is."

  "And he wants to get the soil ready to plant?"

  "Exactly. He's putting in Merlot vines and won't be getting any usable yield for three years."

  "I know the game," she said.

  "And I suppose you know Marceno as well?"

  She casually retrieved the biography of the Duke of Windsor and turned a page. Her hair was rather thin on the top of her head.

  "I'm on the right team here, Martha, okay? Marceno said he talked with a broker from this agency saying another buyer had come forward and would buy the property if Marceno's deal fell through. I'm figuring he was talking to you."

  She flipped another page.

  I took a half step forward. "Was there another potential buyer?"

  "The world is full of potential buyers."

  "You were just pressuring him, then?"

  Now she looked up at me. "Yes."

  "Why? Why'd you do it?"

  "Why'd I do anything?" she cried. "Because it was Jay's chance to be free! All these wine companies are so big! They can pay to dig up a little sand and truck it away. There's been enough pain in that family. How is Jay, Mr. Wyeth?"

  "He seems—" She'd changed the topic, I realized. "He seems fine."

  "Oh, that's very good. I saw him a few months ago… he seemed a little tired… He was the most, most beautiful boy. A perfectly beautiful boy, very good at football and baseball as I remember… This was more than fifteen years ago." She closed her book. "His father farmed that piece. Didn't do too well. Not a nice man, not in any way. But Jay got his size from him. Mother was lovely, though, saved him from his father. She poured herself into him. Taught him everything. Jay was charming and did very well with the summer girls, you know. Never boastful. Yes, I knew his mother. Sweet. But sad, you know. Wanted more children. Nervous woman. Tired of terrible fights with her husband. But she had Jay, she was just so proud of him, he was her prize. Consolation for her husband."

  Mrs. Hallock uttered this last word as if she were unexpectedly tasting a small bitter object on her tongue. "The accident must have just unnerved her, see. That night… she lost her bearings. The husband"— that tone again—"was no good, didn't stand up, just drank himself away."

  "The accident—?"

  Martha looked at me hawkishly. "Known Jay long?" she asked.

  "No. Just a short time." Three days, I didn't say.

  "Oh, I see."

  "You mentioned an accident?"

  "I shouldn't have. I'm not the one to discuss that. It's his business." She dropped her hands to the arms of her chair and gripped them. "It was very nice of you to visit me, Mr. Wyeth. And I'm sure things will get resolved smoothly. That piece of land's got nothing but three feet of loam over who knows how many hundred feet of beautiful sand below that. It's perfect acreage and I'll give the new owner a call to remind him of that."

  But I wasn't quite ready to evaporate. "You seem to know Jay and his family pretty well, Martha," I said. "And it appears you were the agent on the sale of his property. As such, you have a responsibility to the buyer as well as to the seller. I think you know this even better than I do. The buyer has contacted me with the accusation that something was covered up out there, right before the sale went through. Hours before, Martha. As it turns out, there's good reason to think that. The buyer is a busy guy. Making frivolous complaints is not worth his time. He's going to pursue this until he has satisfaction. As it is, he's probably going to sue Jay to get compliance. Let's hope you're not named, either."

  "Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Wyeth."

  "I'm going to call you tomorrow to see if you have more insight into how this problem can get fixed."

  "Maybe I'll still be alive to take your call."

  I don't like getting mad at old women— generally they have enough problems— but she hadn't been much help. We glared at each other, and then I left.

  On the way out of the offices, I saw Pamela. "Thank you," I called behind me.

  She glanced over her shoulder. "I doubt you mean that."

  "A tough case."

  "Anyway, see any properties that interest you?" She pulled off her headset. "But I guess that's not why you're here."

  "No." I put my hand on the door to go. "Any advice?"

  "You could try finding her nephew, he usually knows what's going on."

  This didn't much interest me. But I'd be polite. "Who's that?"

  Pamela wrinkled her nose. "A nasty little man. Gives me the creeps. Everybody calls him Poppy."

  * * *

  Back in the city, I returned the van, and on my way to the steakhouse passed some guy hawking cell phone deals. I walked in the shop and signed up for the cheapest deal they had.

  "I heard these things give you brain cancer," I joked, fondling the little device.

  The clerk, a short black guy with sad eyes, considered the statement. "I believe that's true," he said. "I think they'll find that out, eventually."

  "You're probably not supposed to tell me that."

  "They want me to lie, they should pay me more."

  The steakhouse was slow, the lunch rush done, the staff vacuuming the carpeting. As ever, Table 17 stood empty.

  "Allison around?" I asked my waitress.

  "She left you a note in case you came."

  Which I opened. It said, Meet me in Havana Room.

  I declined to order some food and instead got up and found the little door next to the foyer unlocked. The curved stairwell was dark.

  "Hello?" I called. "Allison?"

  The long room was dim, the smell of cigars lingering. No natural light fell upon the paintings, the black-and-white tile floor. A rack of dirty glasses stood on the bar. Allison sat in the farthest booth.

  "Hey Bill," came her voice.

  A stack of restaurant paperwork lay to one side of her, a shot glass and bottle of Maker's Mark to the other. Allison gave me an uneasy smile, embarrassed at her vulnerability. "You working or drinking?" I said.

  "Drinking."

  "And in private, too."

  "Didn't see you last night," she ventured.

  I thought about telling her about the previous evening, about Jay's appearance at the basketball game, about the lawsuit. "I was detained."

  Allison smiled. "Against your will?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact."

  But she didn't believe me. "Well, I think I've been stupid," she announced. "Silly and stupid."

  "Jay?"

  "Yes. I mean, I probably hoped too much, you know?" She pushed at her shot glass. "He came over last night— I said I'd make a late dinner, like ten-thirty— have a nice evening. So I left here about nine. And he showed up, just what you'd expect."

  This meant, I realized, that Jay had left the basketball game straight for Allison's apartment, and maybe not because he'd seen me or H.J.'s men looking for him.

  "He stayed in the living room while I made dinner and I saw he left his briefcase in the kitchen with me, and—" She shrugged. "It had papers in it, you know, interesting stuff."

  "You couldn't help yourself."

  "I know it was wrong. But I sort of saw his date book in there, his schedule, and I opened it." She lifted the shot glass and knocked back the last half inch of whiskey. "I was just curious, hoping to kind of know him better, that's all. He never tells me anything."

  "Unlike the other guys."

  Allison nodded. "They tell me too much."

  "Every human relationship has its power structure."

  "Well, Jay has too much power."

  "You like that?"

  "It bugs me."

  "And excites you."

  "How did you know?"

  "How could I not?"

  Allison nodded. "Well, it bugs me mostly. Now, I mean."

  "What does he want from you?"

  This stopped her. She looked up. "I have no
idea."

  "Does Jay ask you questions? Does he want to know things about you?"

  "Like what?"

  "Well, Allison, if I were romantically involved with you—"

  "Which would really not be in your best interests."

  "— I'd ask why is it that you work so hard when you don't have to, and why you actually live in the same place where your father lived, and why is it that you never mention your mother, or where you grew up, or if your father remarried, or why you are so loyal to Lipper even though you pretend to be annoyed by him, and let's see— those are just the ones off my head— and all right, why are you so chronically dissatisfied when actually it might be that it's yourself you are hardest on, and—"

  "Stop."

  "— and then I'd ask isn't it true that you want to be known and yet are afraid as to what will happen if you are, afraid someone will reject you when they see the truth, so you fill your head with the exhausting swirl of people and work so that you never—"

  "Stop! Please. Please, Bill!"

  "Okay."

  "That was a little bit cruel."

  I couldn't disagree.

  "But it shows something…" she mused, pouring another glass.

  "It shows I interrupted your story."

  "What was I— oh, the date book! I wasn't suspicious or anything. But okay, it was sneaky and wrong. He was watching the news, didn't notice at all. I spent five minutes looking at the thing. Shameless." Allison's eyes brightened wickedly. "Practically memorized it."

  "Was it busy?"

  "Well, it had all the usual stuff, like going to the dentist, take car to garage, that kind of thing, plus some other stuff…" Allison looked up, eyes brimming. "He's got another woman!"

  "Nah, I don't believe that."

  "He does! He's got dates with her, regular dates." She pressed a fingernail against her eyelashes. "Here I have to beg to see him and it's because— of course, hello!— he's got a regular girlfriend. He's got dates with her going back months! I flipped through every week, every single one this year!"

  "What's her name?"

  "I don't know! And that bothers me, too! It starts with O. He doesn't write her whole name down, just O to remind himself. Olivia or Olympia or Orgasmia or something, fuck."

  If Jay had a regular girlfriend, then his behavior at the basketball game, his interest in Sally Cowles, seemed even odder yet. A big, good-looking guy with a steady girlfriend plus a little action on the side with a woman like Allison didn't seem like the type of man who would then stalk a teenage girl. I couldn't put it together. "He sees her pretty often?"

  "All the time!" Her bitterness sharpened. "Like I'm not going to figure that out, if I just happen to accidentally see his calendar. Come on, nobody is fooled." But then Allison's voice softened, as if she wished she'd been fooled, would even have preferred it.

  "Any chance he left the briefcase there hoping you'd have a look?"

  "Maybe. He seemed more distracted than anything else. Whatever. It's that O that bothers me, Bill. O is a very sexy letter, if you think about it, right?" She looked at me for commiseration. "It stands for orifice. It opens up and lets stuff in. It means she opens up and lets his stuff in."

  "Guys do things like this," I said.

  "I know they do, Bill! They just don't do it to me. So then I thought I'm going to ask him, I'm going to just be brave and go in there and turn off the TV and straight out ask him. I was making this nice paella. I wanted to throw it in his face!" She smiled now. "I got the hot pad and actually lifted up the dish to see how heavy it was, but then I realized it'd stain the rug."

  "He didn't figure out you were mad?"

  "No… I just took the dinner into the dining room. He wasn't even watching the television, just standing at the window, thinking about Ophelia or whatever her name is."

  "You don't know that."

  Allison didn't answer, and instead took another sizable sip of whiskey, and when she put down the glass something had changed in her face, her bitter disappointment replaced by the desire beneath it. I was struck by how quiet the room was; all the normal sounds of the restaurant, the vacuuming and chatter, were gone. "Oh, Bill," she whispered, pushing away her hair from her face. "I just don't know." She was, I saw, one of those women whose sexuality didn't embarrass her. That she had discussed one man with another didn't mean she preferred either, or anyone in particular. The man— whoever he was— was temporary, the desire permanent, the emptiness intolerable. The man was something that fit into things for a while— a night, a month, a changeable self-perception. This is a dangerous, attractive thing in a woman. As a man, you see that she is capable of forgetting the last guy quickly. Which is encouraging. She's able to launch into an obliterating passion, a passion capable of forgetting its own depthless nature. Of course this means that you yourself will be forgotten easily too, but that is later, and afterward. I wish I could say that in that moment I held all these things clearly in my head. But I didn't. Instead I watched as Allison cut her eyes back at me, almost daringly, her diffused desire turning to a kind of angry want, which itself might change into anything, her mouth twisted, a little cruel, a little ugly even, but then she closed her eyes and sighed. She opened her lips and breathed heavily. "Bill?" she whispered. Her eyebrows lifted in expectation. "Come here."

  I went to her and she lifted a hand, which I took. She squeezed it softly, a smile on her lips. She rolled her head forward, her hair curtaining her face, and this was an invitation for me to touch her, which I did, with one hand, caressing her smooth, firm neck. I let my fingers slip behind her ear. She sighed, then looked up at me, and it was the same gaze she'd given Jay Rainey a few nights earlier, not a copy but the original, wanton and soft and wishing, and in her breath I smelled the whiskey, the sweetness of her intoxication. She did not want me particularly, I knew, she did not want anyone, not Jay, not even necessarily a man, she just wanted. Like all of us. She wanted and needed and I just happened to be there. She was willing to give in to whatever or whoever wanted her. The requirement was mutual oblivion. She had arrived at that moment of possibility. She had been there before and would certainly be there again, many times, and the true arc of her life was constructed of these points. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, waiting, and despite myself, despite all that I knew and now worried about, I myself had been lonely a very long time, yes, it had been a sorrowfully long time since a woman had wanted my affection, and so I bent slowly and pressed my mouth to hers.

  It was a long and good kiss, wet and whiskey-fumed, but I ended it, gently. Allison smiled and mouthed Thank you and then dropped her head and I could see that the moment was done.

  "So, do you happen to remember what was on Jay's schedule for today?" I said as casually as possible.

  "Yes, I do. He goes to a place called Red Hook cages, like once or twice a week."

  "Red Hook cages—?"

  "Doesn't that sound terrible? Like he hangs from a bloody hook or something? I think he's going there this afternoon. Red Hook cages. Which is fine, just so long as he isn't going to see O. Miss O, whoever she is, the bitch. Red Hook. There are a lot of bars in that part of Brooklyn, whatever, maybe it's some kind of construction business thing."

  She was wrong. I knew what the Red Hook cages were, for I'd been there with my son, in fact, on a rainy Saturday. Allison was falling softly back into herself and the right thing to do was to leave her alone. The right thing to do was to leave for Red Hook immediately.

  "Wait a minute, Mr. Wyeth."

  "What?"

  She grabbed my hand, rubbed the knuckles. "I got something to tell you."

  If we'd been near a bed, we'd have been in it now, estranged boyfriend or not. "Yeah?"

  "But there's a price."

  "What?"

  "You have to promise not to be judgmental."

  "Of what?"

  "Of something we do."

  "Who is we?"

  "Don't you want to know the what?"

  "Who,
what— I'll take either."

  "You'll find out."

  "When?"

  "Tonight." She kept her eyes on mine. "In the Havana Room."

  "Tonight?"

  "Ha says he's ready again."