by Amy Gray
“Can we help you?”
“Sorry.” He seemed nervous. “I work across the street from you guys and we've always wondered what you do for a living.”
“Really?” she bit back, totally uninterested. “Why is that?”
“Because you're always out here having cigarettes.” Renora and I traded amused glances. The guy who finally told us his name, said that they had taken bets on what we do.
This interested Renora, who would never kick easy money out of bed. She asked him if he had a ten, and she took it and held it between her thumb and forefinger, flicking it, saying, “Okay, guess. Tell us what you guessed.”
“I said it was a dating service.”
We laughed. “And the other people?” Renora asked.
“One guy thought you were running a chatline. Or a travel agency.”
“Wrong, wrong, and wrong,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette under her weatherbeaten men's shoes and turning around.
“Tell me what you do, though. Guys, wait!” He called after us. When we got to the fourth floor, we burst into hysterics.
“I can't believe they've been watching us out the window!” I cried.
“I know, we've got to tell everyone about this!” She was laughing, her banana-withdrawal seemingly quelled by the distraction. We gathered a group of interested parties in the window right behind Sol's desk. He was unamused when he came out of the conference room to find his desk encircled by idle investigators.
“Outta here,” he said.
“Look, look over there!” Evan yelled, pointing excitedly across the street at the building to our right.
There, in the window, were about fifteen guys, standing around a hand-lettered sign written on computer paper. It said, CALL US 212-555-8888. Below it, they had written AMY and WENORA(sic) in smaller letters. Shrieks rose from the ranks. Even supercilious Morgan was amused despite himself, muttering, “This is not my life. This is not my life.”
“Did they ask Vinny how to spell her name? Wenora? Wenora?” Sol wondered aloud.
“They're right,” George chuckled. “We are running a fucking dating service here.”
Let's Rock This Joint in the Old-School Way
Dan and I e-mailed all week. They were all charming, inconsequential little missives. We made plans to see a Japanese movie he suggested on Wednesday. I was happy to be realizing two top priorities in my life's to-do list: something culturally ambitious that makes good dinner-party conversation and dating with the potential for a little action.
I met him at the East Village Cinema on Twelfth Street, a hole-in-the-wall art-film theater that I'd never been to before. He had shaved his dark hair since Monday, and his chin looked a little less defined without the dark scruff. But still cute.
“I brought you a present,” he told me. His sincerity was a little embarrassing. He fished something out of his backpack and put both his hands behind his back. “Pick a hand.” It was a mixed tape, and along the spine he'd written “From Yer Friend Dan.”
“Awww. That's so sweet.” Maybe too sweet. I shrugged off my any-club-that-will-have-me-isn't-worth-belonging-to pangs. He seemed pleased with himself. While we were waiting in line, he leaned over to me and said, “Look, it's Ad-Rock, from the Beastie Boys.” There he was, two people in front of us, in line with his hot Asian girlfriend, looking well ripened since his Paul's Boutique days.
The movie was awful. When we stepped out of the darkened theater, I heard Ad-Rock in front of us tell his girlfriend that the movie “rocked.”
“Wha'd you think?” Dan asked me.
“It rocked,” I said, hoping Adam Horovitz wouldn't lead me down the path of ill-repute.
“Really? I thought it was pretty shitty.”
“Me, too,” I recovered. “I said it wasn't pretty.”
“Right.”
We took the subway back to Brooklyn, and the ride home seemed to soothe my prickliness. When we got off the subway and he took my hand, I didn't pull away.
We got to my apartment, and I led him out the back door to the garden. Everything was shaded in smoky indigo and black. We spread an old sheet on the ground and lay down. Flashes of green-yellow light shone unsteadily across the lawn. Fireflies were our secret indulgence in Brooklyn. Could anyone imagine how, on summer nights, beneath its austere skyline the city was ablaze with a different kind of light from the artificial glare of Times Square? Out of the starkness of the city, a fragile ecosystem blossoms. Delicate nettle, wisteria, and morning glories wound through labyrinthine concrete gardens.
We sat on the grass. I put my hand out and let a firefly wander on to my palm. I cupped my other hand around it and held it up to my eyes, opening a small space between my thumbs to peek in and see the lines of my hands effervesce, and then fade again.
“Look, violets,” he said, plucking a tiny petal amid the climbing ivy and brush covering the brickface along the length of the garden. He crushed the flower between his thumb and forefinger and held it to my nose, letting me smell the perfume, and then, in one motion, brushing my cheek and pulling my face closer to his. I was too busy enjoying the smell of the flower and the feeling of his smooth skin to notice the garden humming around me.
NINETEEN
But the world is neither meaningful nor absurd. It quite simply is. And that, in any case, is what is most remarkable about it.
—ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET
Heir to the Throne
On my way to my interview with Mr. Wallinghurst, I copped a latte at Lexington and Eighty-seventh. His building was a grand town house, the kind that runs from eleven to twenty-five million green ones. Nice work if you can get it. The door was answered by an Indian manservant who introduced himself as Mr. Singh.
“I will get Meester Wallinghurst for you, Meese Amy,” he said, winking, and strutted away. He wore traditional Indian dress, a colorful turban and a sherwani of green silk with matching shoes that curled at the toe.
When Mr. Wallinghurst came out and introduced himself, I was surprised by how frail he seemed. He looked like he was probably in his early eighties, and it was hard to connect this elderly man with the effete voice I'd spoken to.
“It's a pleasure,” I said, grasping his hand, which shook as I held it. I took a seat at his desk, which was framed by a bay window. The walls around us were covered with dark oak bookshelves, housing, among others, The New York Law Journal from the last forty years. I realized I wasn't sure what Mr. Wallinghurst did, although it seemed fairly clear at this point that he was retired.
“I must say, when you contacted me, I wasn't sure if I should talk to you.” He, like George, tended to talk to a me just over my left shoulder and fifty yards behind me. He also rubbed his eyes a lot, keeping his hands in loose fists near his face should he need them. “My son-in-law has a glitzy life and there are a lot of hangers-ons and paparazzi that come sniffing around.” I nodded sympathetically.
“I suppose when you said you want to protect someone else, I understood that. I think enough people have been swindled by Nars.” Wallinghurst handed me a folder from his desk. The first document inside it was a copy of a promissory note Nars had written him, signed in 1993. Wallinghurst had lent him $400,000 over three years for various KNUT-related schemes. He showed me canceled checks, more promissory notes, and letters from Nars, some apologizing for “trying” Wallinghurst's “goodwill,” and others angrily demanding more money.
This presentation took more than twenty minutes. The documents, which he had Xeroxed and given to me, were methodically organized and listed.
“Mr. Wallinghurst, I hope you don't mind my asking, but why did Nars ask you for so much money when his own father was one of the wealthiest men in Europe?”
“Niels cut him off years ago. Nars desperately wanted to prove to him that he could start and run profitable businesses, so Niels slowly let Nars take over some small KNUT offshoots that tickled his fancy.”
“From what I've read, Nars has become very active in the KNUT publishi
ng arm, which is the division our client's deal concerns.”
“That's true.” He paused and brought a shaky, liver-spotted hand up to wipe his glistening brow. “He's done nothing but hurt it in the long run, though.”
“How do you mean?”
“KNUT has experienced serious losses over the last few years due to natural attrition in the publishing business and with the success of Internet publishing. Nars basically siphoned the money off his other businesses to stop the hemorrhaging at KNUT Publishing and the other showcase businesses in the KNUT Group, and his father let him do it.”
“Do you have any evidence that he embezzled money from KNUT pension funds?”
“No,” he conceded. “I can tell you, it's out there. The SFA in London is shaking them down. That's why these pension managers at KNUT companies are being investigated for mishandling the funds. Nars is on the board at every one of those companies, and he was using pensions at his other companies to pump up the numbers at KNUT Publishing.”
“He was defrauding his own employees to keep the numbers looking good at KNUT?”
“That's correct,” Mr. Wallinghurst said. “My daughter and he were married for seven years; they have two children. I don't want to press charges against him, but the Swedish authorities are going after him now, and so is the Financial Action Task Force.”
“They are?”
“All of these pension indictments are going to be used to assist in ultimately arresting and charging Nars.”
“Really?” I felt ill at this point. KNUT was a major player in international business, although a lot of the tech companies in the U.S. seemed to be run by European expatriates. The repercussions of KNUT's demise could be another kick in the groin to the “technology economy.” We had all noticed a lot of our clients’ technology companies faltering in the last six months. The high life of dot-com-sponsored open bars and the stampede of buying property in the Hamptons had gone from a downpour to a slow drip. I couldn't count on ten hands how many businesses we'd seen go under since I'd been at the Agency and it added to the general sense of unease.
“Have they contacted you?” I asked him.
“They have, and if I'm asked to testify at the trial, I will. This will all be coming out soon.”
“Do you know what the schedule is for bringing charges?”
“I don't, but with the pension indictments over the last several weeks, I think they're moving quickly.”
“Do you think Nars knows they're coming after him?”
“I believe he does.” I looked down at the yellow legal pad where I'd been taking my notes. The paper was warped from sweat, and ink stains dotted my palms. I looked at Wallinghurst's hands, clutching each other, shaking, and then at mine, poised for more work, also shaking violently. We spoke some more. I thanked him, then he called Mr. Singh to come and see me out. “I had always hoped Anne would meet a wonderful man.” He seemed to be fighting tears. “I feel betrayed, Miss Gray. I hope you can protect your client from that feeling. It is truly awful.”
As Mr. Singh led me downstairs and out the gilded doors at the entrance, I thanked him and on my way out added, “Please take care of Mr. Wallinghurst.”
“Yes, Meese Amy, of course. I will indeed.”
Let Them Eat Cake
Back at the office, I e-mailed Sol my report, and ten minutes later he called me.
“A. Gray?”
“Yep.”
“Excellent work. I just spoke to the client. They're spooked, but I explained that Nars Norrsken might not know about the investigation in Sweden, so they won't be mentioning it.”
“Good. I know Wallinghurst doesn't want to be the one taking Nars down. He wants the information we have to go just to the client, and to let the Swedish authorities take care of the rest.”
“Okay, Gray.” Sol smacked his lips together. “You did a great job.”
“Thanks!”
“But don't let it go to your head.”
“Right.”
I went back to my desk to finish writing up the case. The knowledge of KNUT's betrayals felt weighty, cumbersome. I imagined how many thousands of their employees had lost their retirements, a lifetime of promises shattered. The worst part was, most of them didn't even know it yet. My stomach was taut and I wanted to cry. I flipped through my mental Rolodex, wondering who could cheer me up. Dan, maybe. I wrote him and waited to hear back. Then the phone rang.
“Amy Gray!”
“Jeremy! Almost the boy I was just hoping to hear from.”
“So I'm the runner-up to the cute indie-boy rock star you've been seeing. I can live with that. He can do things I can't.”
“Who told you about Dan, anyway?”
“Ben.”
“Ben? He doesn't know anything.” I wondered where the hell Ben got off telling my friends who I was dating when Jeremy cut to the chase.
“Aim, I have a huge favor to ask you. And you can totally say no. But I think you might like it. But if you don't want to that's totally cool—”
“Jeremy? Spit it out!” It turned out Jeremy was blowing his load to go to this party that boys could only get into if they were with a girl.
“That sounds like every club in New York.”
“No, this is different. It's a club created to promote women's sexuality, so they have lots of chicks in lingerie or underwear, and vibrators for sale, and men being treated like pieces of meat.”
“Sounds like your wet dream.”
“Exactly.” Jeremy was a living oxymoron, a highly educated denizen of low culture. The sexy soirée was sponsored by Cake; the all-girl club promised to wave the $20-per-person cover charge if you filled out the membership application: “To me, sexy is ———.” “The most erotic place on my body is ———.” “The most outrageous place I ever had sex was ———.”
“Can I answer these questions by saying ‘no comment’?” I asked. “This stuff is kinda personal, and I can't get it up to answer them.”
“No, you have to write something really outrageous, or else they might not accept your application.”
“What? They're judging my answer? Forget it.” I got Jeremy to agree to do the nasty deed for me and then I would send it in. But, I protested, wasn't a horny artsy guy going there for chicken-choking fodder spoiling the point of this girlie love-in? Jeremy pointed out that he hadn't gotten laid in months.
“Puuleeease do this for me,” he begged. “I haven't had sex in sixteen months.”
“Stop! This information doesn't fall into the need-to-know category.”
“I'm the guy who joined a lesbian Riot Grrl rally in college because I wanted some threefer action. I'm incorrigible.”
“Hey!” I was indignant. “You took me to one of those meetings. I thought you were a real militant feminist radical! So I guess being secretary of the ISO was just a ruse, too?”
“Ilana Richards, the vice president, had the cutest little rack.”
“Jeremy!”
He sounded sheepish. “What can I say? I'm a pervert.”
“You're sick.”
“I'm desperate.”
“Okay.” Hopefully, this evening of gurl-on-gurl action would have a mollifying effect on Jeremy. Furthermore, I hoped my adventurer's spirit would pay off in the karma department. This might actually be just what I needed. It's so wrong, it's right.
“Hey, the invite says to wear something ‘hot “n’ tasty’ ”
“Jeremy, honey,” I warned. “You're already getting lucky. Stop while you're ahead.”
The Leading Economic Indicator of “My Moms”
Dan asked me to go to a show with him on Thursday, but he had to cancel the day before to “Help my Moms move.” His divorced parents both lived in Manhattan, and his mother was moving in with her boyfriend of ten years.
We ended up seeing each other on Saturday. “You wanna see amazing rock? ” he asked me (we were talking only on the phone by this point.) We went to go see a band called Old Prince. They were great,
but then we stayed for the second band, which was loud and performance-based. The lead singer sang all the songs like a rabid Goth evangelist on crack. They even had the accoutrements of religious fanatics and freak shows, including a flaming crucifix and a caged python onstage. “And He's gonna get you, and when He does, you're gonna burn in heeelllll!” he railed. When we walked out of the piss-‘n’-beer-stained Brownie's, I was experiencing my usual post-show syndrome, a kind of shell-shocked dream state I also get after leaving movie theaters. We shuffled our way, dazed, onto Avenue A.
“Actually, that second band used to play a different kind of stuff.”
Dan started skipping and hopping his way down the block. “But dude,” he marveled, “I just can't believe I got to see Old Prince with Jack Press drumming on that last track. That was so awesome.” He continued telling me how this guy used to be the drummer for this other band, and that whole riff they did on that track totally reminded him of that other band, and how “that totally rocked.” As he said this, he was air-drumming heavily. His face contorted in alarming and disfiguring ways as he strained to his imaginary cymbals. “Aww!” He gave a Mick Jaggeresque yelp.
“Ummm.” How could I respond to that? As we ambled down First Avenue to his practice space, Dan was slamming the hell out of his imaginary drums and humming another unidentified tune.
In fact, it sickeningly dawned on me, the whole night I'd been listening to him expound on the musical histories of every member of the band. How the drummer was once on a chain gang in Detroit, how the bassist went to Yale and dropped out to start a mink farm before he joined the band. On our last date, I had winced several times when Dan kept quoting the lyrics to songs on the B sides of limited-release EPs by now-defunct bands. But I'd brushed it off. Chalked it up. Overlooked it. The problem was, I wasn't sure what to talk to him about if it wasn't music.
“I love the sounds of the city,” I offered, immediately realizing I'd ruined my opportunity for a reprieve.
