The Havana Room

by Colin Harrison

  He breathed out heavily, gulped his drink.

  "Hey Dan," I said. "We're barely done with the soup."

  "Yeah, then he says, I want to make you an offer. I say okay, what? And he says if you don't make the deal now, you will never get this offer again. Ever."

  "And?"

  "He says, two million dollars and you promise you will never leave my daughter."

  "Two million?"

  "I can't even open my mouth. It's not a lot of money to him, remember. He says, I know you want to know what the catch is, what the conditions are. I say well, sure. I try to be relaxed saying it but it sort of squeaks out. He says, I'd never tell another man he couldn't sleep around. That's unrealistic. You have to let the big dog hunt, and all that. So here're my conditions, he says. Number one, you never leave Mindy. Never. Like that. A little scary. Number two, you get a vasectomy. So even though you do fuck around, you don't get anyone pregnant, and number three, you use the money in the exact way I tell you, don't just eat it up."

  "Don't buy a vineyard."

  "A vineyard, a castle in Scotland, whatever."

  "So?"

  "So he says, Think about it while I tee off. After I hit my ball, he says, I'm going to come back to the bench and get your answer. If you have no answer, he says, I'll assume no deal. If you say no, I'll never offer it to you again. Ever."

  "And you believe that."

  "Totally."

  "Is he going to tell you how you have to use the money before you agree to take it?"

  "I asked that. The answer was no."

  "Tough game."

  Dan nodded, though not without some appreciation for the old man. "Then he goes, If you say yes, I'll write you a check and assume that you'll be good to your word. Plus, you'll send me a copy of the vasectomy bill." Dan shot his hands in the air, fork above his head. "Bill! He wants documentation that they chopped up my nuts! Then he goes over and puts down his golf ball, takes out his driver."

  "He's forcing an answer."

  "Yeah, and I'm a little pissed off, plus a little shocked."

  "It's total guts-ball poker," I agreed.

  "Total."

  "Pretty emasculating to have the father-in-law insisting on the snip job."

  "You're telling me." Dan pushed his empty plate away. "So he lines up the ball and gets his grip right, then whacks the hell out of it. The ball disappears. Then he picks up his tee and comes back to me. I'm still sitting on the bench. I haven't moved."

  "You've decided to say yes."

  "I've decided to say no."

  "Really?" This didn't seem like the Dan Tuthill I remembered, always looking for the next cash-pipe to suck on.

  "Yeah. I mean, I can't be bought like that! Fuck him! Mindy's got an ass like a wrinkled beach ball! She tries to hide it but I see it anyway. Fucking lowers my testosterone, too! So I'm thinking, a few more years, let the kids get out of school, I can split up and go hunting for these cha-chas I see in the bars all the time." He leaned close again, his eyes sleepy-looking. "You have any idea of the fucking action that's out there, Bill? Even for a fat old shit like me? Their ovaries are calling to them, like trumpets from the mountains! Make us pregnant, make us pregnant, do something about all this es-tro-gen! They can't help themselves, Bill! It's wired in, it's biological. These apartment houses filled with unmarried women? Palaces of estrogen!" He pointed to his chest. "I'm perfect, see. I'm well off, physically unattractive, and in no way marriageable. It's totally counterintuitive, and most women would never admit it. I'm perfect for the woman who needs sex, some kind of sex, but doesn't want to get involved with somebody she might actually get involved with! Do you see that? It's a niche specialty. They all say they are looking for the good guys or the husband types, but those are the guys that freak them out! Guys like me, they know what to do with. See? A few laughs, a few drinks, fuckle you, fuckle me, see you later, I lost your business card, so what, no harm, no foul. Right?"

  "Wow." Somehow this sounded harsh, despite my disastrous exit from Allison's apartment that morning.

  "The girls are desperate, man! They hate to admit it, and they won't admit it, but it's a fact! So I'm figuring, I get to fifty, I'm single again, I drop eighty pounds, I got ten years of cha-cha to look forward to."

  "But your kids," I said, thinking of my son. "It'd kill them."

  He waved this away. "I'd let them grow up a bit. They know things aren't so great, anyway."

  I didn't want to hear any of this.

  He smiled. "So now Mindy's father comes over and says, Well? Like that— Well? I'm going to have some guy, some asshole who left his wife, chop up my testicles? I'm going to live with this woman who drives me nuts, the whole thing? Forget it! What am I, a monkey on a string? Forget the money! I make plenty of money! Fuck him, I can't be bought, right?"

  "Right," I said in solidarity.

  Dan settled back, rested his hands on his stomach, the matter seemingly as settled as his soup. "So I look up at him, and I say, 'You said two million?' "

  "And he says, 'Yes.' "

  "And I say, 'Make it three.' "

  "What?"

  "And he says yes! It's a deal!"

  "Wait— what?"

  "It's a deal! Three mil! We shook hands! I looked him in the eye! Fact, we both got a little moist about it. He hugged me, even. And it is a deal. I'm good for it. Felt good, in fact, it felt very good, Bill! I know I'm safe now. I'm sort of dead, in fact. The gate closed, the train left the station, whatever. It feels good, too. I can't fuck things up now, because I took the money! I know this, I accept this, okay? And now I feel really, really good."

  "So you had the vasectomy?"

  "Piece of cake. Sore for a few days, nothing more."

  "What about the cha-chas?"

  He shrugged. "Whatever. I don't seem as interested."

  "Psychological?"

  "Probably. Whatever."

  I stared at him. Dan's mood was bouncing around so much that I dared not push the conversation much further. "So you asked me to lunch so that you could tell me someone handed you three million dollars on the golf course to get your balls disconnected?"

  "No, Bill," he said. "I asked you to lunch because I want to offer you a job, you jerk-weed."

  I didn't understand.

  "Remember, I had to use the money exactly as he specified. And he specified I take it and open my own firm, a boutique firm. He gave me a whole speech, how I was talented and had great energy and the reason I was fucking around was I'd lost my way, I was swallowed up in a large firm and my talents couldn't shine. I was wasting my time with the cha-chas when I could be building something, something big. He said I would use the three million for seed money, that he knew plenty of bankers who would help me out. It was beautiful. He's a beautiful man, I'm telling you. Wise. Deeply wise. So I'm taking my snip-job money, the partnership buyout, and some other stuff. I've got space on Fifty-third Street, bought out what was left of a dot-com lease. Company crashed and burned, place was empty for a year. The agent practically gave it away, said the original leaseholder was panicked, living off leaves and twigs. So, basically, I stole it. Eight of my long-term clients are coming with me, plus some smaller new ones. I've got some young guys from the firm who want to come with me. All of them can make rain. Plus me." He paused, watching me absorb this scenario. "What I need is a guy who'll look at everything coming in and going out. The young guys don't have the overall background. They can't sit tight, they need action. Which is fine. I'm going to run them like dogs. But I need a guy in the center."

  "Someone cheap, too."

  "Okay, I admit that. I can't pay big-league money. But it'll be decent. We'll be making the big gravy in a couple of years. I mean, how much are you making now?"

  I almost smiled. The salesman in Brooks Brothers that morning had frowned when I discarded my dirty shirt in a trash can on the way out. "Not enough," I said.

  Dan knocked his tongue around his mouth. "So, listen, this is a step up, a step back
. You can help me, I can help you."

  "You have staff, secretaries, fax machines, stuff like that?"

  "We're good to go."

  "When're you starting up?"

  "Tuesday. I should have contacted you earlier, I admit."

  A few years back I'd have received this information as an insult. But no longer. He knew I was unemployed. "First choice fell through?" I said.

  Dan looked into my eyes.

  "Just tell me," I said. "I can take it."

  "I had a guy, a great guy, and he said yes, but he got another offer last week. I'd sent him the contract but he hadn't signed it. He totally screwed me. Then I saw you at the game."

  "Right."

  "You're not offended?"

  "Nah."

  "Good."

  "What are you going to pay me, Dan?"

  He told me. Considering my experience, it was nickels and dimes. Considering I was a homeless, unemployed drifter trying not to get arrested for moving a dead body, or worse, it was pretty good.

  "You've got to do better than that," I said.

  "I'll knock it up twenty-five percent in nine months once we get some cash flow."

  "Knock it up twenty now, twenty in nine months, or take your chances with the next guy you meet at a basketball game."

  He looked at me. "That's a little rich."

  "You're the guy getting three million clams on the sixth tee."

  "Fifteen percent now, twenty more in nine."

  "Twenty now, fifteen in nine," I said.

  "Deal."

  "Deal."

  We shook hands. He went into the further particulars of the job, the setup, the address, everything, but I only half listened, so happy was I to be back in the world. "This'll get you started," he said, reaching into his briefcase.

  "You brought paperwork? You knew I'd say yes?"

  He only smiled. I glanced at the materials, eager to familiarize myself with the cases and clients he was bringing with him. I remembered several— in the torpor of litigation they hadn't progressed far in the intervening years— but most were new and reminded me again of the basic conflict built into all human activity; in front of me were torts for nonpayment, breach of contract, nonperformance, illegal competition, copyright infringement, patent infringement, and product failure. The legal language did not really disguise the bile and greed and hatred accumulating in each case, but at least the entities and individuals were fighting through civilized means, not kidnapping and intimidation.

  "Wait, I got something else," Dan said, reaching into his briefcase again.

  "What?"

  "This. I had the guy do it in one day." He handed me a box of business cards. They had my name and new number on them, the address of the firm, everything.

  I fanned the cards. Their stiff newness was satisfying. "You know I love this."

  "Figured," said Dan. "Makes it feel official." He watched a boat of ice cream float down in front of his place. "Bill, one more thing."

  "Sure."

  "Just reassure me that— that you're coming to me with no problems."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean with no situations, no bad clients. No problems."

  "Everybody has problems."

  "Sure, sure," he said. "I mean real problems. Like funny clients you might be working with, whatever…"

  "Not to worry," I said, starting to worry.

  * * *

  Sixty minutes later I stood in the doorway of the batting cages building in Brooklyn and spotted Helmo. He saw me right away and gave me that chin-up recognition guys use when they don't want to call out. I followed him across the street under the shadows of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He smelled like Chinese food, but I didn't bring it up.

  "So I was thinking," he said.

  "About what?"

  "I was thinking about your teeth."

  "My teeth?"

  "Yeah. They're good."

  "So?"

  "So I think three hundred is too low."

  "Why?"

  "Your teeth're too good. So're your clothes. Guy that's got good teeth, he can pay more."

  I shook my head. Everyone was a chiseler, working the extra percentage, biting off the last dime. Including me.

  "You want it or not?"

  "How much?" I grumbled.

  "Five hundred."

  I dug it out of my wallet. Helmo handed me a slip of paper with Jay's address written in block letters. "You gotta go in the back. It's over the garage, up the side. I watched him go in there myself."

  "How do you know it's not a friend's house or something?" I thought of Allison's anxiety about another woman. "Maybe a girlfriend?"

  Helmo nodded slyly. "You check that place out, you'll see nobody else lives there."

  "Which means—?"

  "Just check it out. Trust in your common man, dude."

  I stared at the address in my hand, it was near Fifth Avenue and Seventeenth Street. "It's only about ten blocks away."

  "Deal's a deal, bro."

  I was eager to get going.

  "What you looking for him for, anyway?" Helmo asked. "He do something bad?"

  If Jay came back to the cages, Helmo could tell him of my inquiry, maybe get a round-trip payday.

  "No, no, it's not like that," I said. "I'm trying to help the guy."

  "Trying-a save his ass, like?"

  "Something like that."

  I set off then, on foot. Along Third Avenue under the BQE, then up the hill on Seventeenth Street. Once an Italian, maybe Irish neighborhood, now drifting Latino and urban mix. That's what everything is now, urban mix. If you're a white guy wearing a great suit in these places, you might as well have a blue-and-white NYPD chopper hovering over your head, announcing your appearance. I bought a Giants cap and a quart of milk at the corner deli, and yanked up my coat collar, hiding my jacket and tie. Cap low, carrying the plastic bag, shuffling along, trying to blend into the neighborhood. You could be somebody else. You aren't necessarily this thing or that. Just some guy. You don't look at people, because you're not interested, and if you're not interested, then it's no problem, we got no problem here.

  I reached Seventeenth Street and found the address. Behind the house stood a garage with what looked like an illegal, owner-built addition on top, its shingles crooked, windows off-plumb, the roofing job patched and repatched. Here was the home of a man buying a three-million-dollar commercial building in downtown Manhattan? The idea was absurd. Behind the garage rose a twenty-foot-high chain-link fence grown over with ivy and ribboned with trash. A burglar could climb over it, but it wouldn't be much fun, and if you fell down on the garage side, you landed on a disassembled powerboat and a pile of cement blocks. Thus the apartment over the garage was well protected; the only way in was the exterior wooden staircase up the side. I looked behind me— no one watched. I pushed through the gate. Someone had abandoned a repainting job on the side of the house: Ladder, bucket, and brushes all fallen to the ground. In the weeds lay a rotting pile of freebie newspapers, phone books, shopping fliers, a leaking car battery, and whatever else someone didn't have the time for. I climbed the stairs and peered inside the one small window. The shade was down, nothing. I tried the door— locked. I knocked softly. Nothing. Maybe it was the wrong place; maybe Helmo had ripped me off. Nothing I'd seen proved Jay lived here. Going down the stairs I noticed that the treads were battered and worn. Even the risers were scraped, vertically. And there was a streaked pattern to the wear, suggesting repetition, something heavy going up or down on a regular basis.