“Watch this,” she told him, and proceeded to put the quarters from the change—three of them—on the smooth and golden skin of her stomach just below her navel, all in a row from left to right, discarding the rest onto the mattress. “I saw a belly dancer do this once and it got me so hot.” And then she began flexing the taut muscles beneath her flat stomach, tightening and relaxing, tightening and relaxing, creating creases and folds in her tan skin that drew the coins in, and then pushed them back up. Tighten and relax, fold and crease, in and up, again and again, until she had a rhythm going and the trio of quarters were tumbling up toward her breasts in slow and seductive motion.
Only Jay found no seduction in it at all, and angrily slapped the coins from her body, and threw those which she had put on the mattress across the room. She cringed, and brought her hands up to cover her face, thinking he might strike her there. But he did not, and she felt the bed shift as his weight lifted off of it, and when her hands came down from her face all she saw was him stalking out of the bedroom.
Twenty Two
Empty Handed
Nine fifteen, Thursday morning, they were all at their desk, each inhabiting their own leg of the X, when Jude lowered the paper he was reading and said, “The world is made of money, boys. It swims in the sea like fishes.”
Jay looked instantly up from the grouping of random coins he had been dropping again and again on the Journal folded on his blotter.
“What are you yakking about, Duffault?” Steve asked, one eye on the clock and the other on Jay.
“Thousands of dollars have been washing up on Jersey beaches, the paper says,” Jude explained. “And no one knows where it’s coming from.”
“The money fish is laying eggs,” Bunker joked, and was surprised that actually got a chuckle from Jude in response. Nothing from Jay or Steve, though.
“What do you think about that, Grady?”
“About the money,” Jay said, recalling the ditty that had bubbled its way to the surface of his consciousness from some unknown place a while back—wishes, wishes, coins and wishes, money swims in the sea like fishes. He had been with Jude that night. Drunk as a skunk, and yet he had seen, had known this little ditty. And this day Jude had approximated it. It had come to pass. Odd, Jay thought. If the bum’s ‘see it, make it’ paradox weren’t so beyond even the fantastic things already scattered about his life, it might have troubled Jay. But it didn’t. It couldn’t. There were more pressing matters on his mind, like the fact that still the coins would not fall right, and therefore the knowing had not come to him. Considering that worrisome truth, just what did he think about the money, that money, the bum’s deposits? “Nothing, man. I don’t care.”
“Sourpuss,” Jude commented, then raised the paper again.
“Uh, it’s getting close to opening,” Steve reminded everyone. But it was clear the message was meant for one of their number.
“Yeah,” Jay said, and lifted the coins once more to drop them, taking the three quarters, two dimes, and one nickel up in his open palm and—
“Thanks, buddy,” Bunker said as he snatched the change from Jay’s hand and headed for the door. “Gotta get some candy before the bell rings. I owe ya.”
Jay watched him go, his hand closing slowly on the emptiness within it.
“Jay,” Steve said.
Jay lowered his hand to his lap and turned to his friend.
“We gotta enter our buys,” Steve told him. “Almost nine thirty. Opening bell in a few.”
Jay nodded. He had nothing. Not a damn thing. Something was wrong. Something had changed. And he was left...empty handed.
“Buy IBM,” Jay directed him, and Jude’s paper came down again.
“As in International Business Machines?” Jude checked. “That is going to be a mover today? Big Blue is going to move like the stocks we pick move?”
Jay stood, frustrated. With himself, mostly. With what he appeared not to be anymore. “You don’t like it, pick another one of those stocks that we pick.”
Steve and Jude exchanged a perplexed look, and watched their friend stomp away and out of the office.
Twenty Three
All Aboard
Friday was no better, but at least there was a party to look forward to that night. A party meant people, and chatter, and things spoken that he knew nothing about. And there would be booze.
But until then Jay had to wrestle with the reality that his thing, his ‘donzerly light’, was not shining anymore. He wasn’t seeing, or knowing, and he didn’t know if it was gone for good, or just on hiatus. At any rate for that day it had been AWOL, and he’d fallen back on a Fortune 500 company, a big boy, to keep from making a wild pick from left field that would drag their portfolio down. AT&T wouldn’t do that, and hadn’t, luckily. No ‘29 or ‘87 crashes this day—so far.
Hell, only half the day was done, and already he was out of there, on his way home, maybe with a stop at the liquor store on the way to restock the Jack, and the beer (he still savored a cold Coors every now and then, unlike Jude, the whiskey purist), and maybe pick up a bottle of white for Christine. Or maybe a bottle of red to piss her off. No, to hurt her, Jay corrected himself, because that was what it would do, and he knew it. And he didn’t care, which pissed him off, and she wouldn’t care, which pissed him off even more, because it made those true colors of hers oh so bright. He could probably slap her silly, and still she’d be there. Because he had the green. And for the green she could probably tell herself anything was worth it.
God, they were alike, Jay realized right them. Compromisaholics. Anything for the green.
He suddenly found himself wondering where Carrie was, and what she was doing, and who she might be with. And Jay was envious of whoever that might be, and sad for himself.
A drink, dammit. He needed a drink. And a wild hour or two in bed with his green whore. Maybe some of her coke, too—she always had some around, along with a good assortment of pills at the back of her underwear drawer. Just something to forget. To not think of Carrie. To not think of anything. To get through the afternoon until the distraction of the party, where total strangers would thrill him with stories of their yachts and their villas while he sipped on a drink and chuckled at every appropriate witticism uttered. He could impress when blitzed. Oh yes, he could, because that was when he had begun to like himself the best.
So a stop for ‘refreshments’ it would be before home, and then maybe he’d call Christine and tell her to knock off early from the job she still kept, answering phones at Braintrust (keeping her options open, Jay thought...smart girl, smart girl...never knew when another fatter wallet would come along...and who knew if his would be fat for very much longer, considering), and have her come on over for a little afternoon delight. Yes, that would be good. Things would be fine then. Fine for a while.
And then?
Fuck ‘then’, he thought, and walked on toward the crosswalk at Broadway. Toward him.
Couldn’t walk up the other way, take the long way around, or grab a taxi. No. Had to go this way. Had to...what? Pay respects? Was that what it was? Because if it was, there wasn’t much to be paying for for the last couple of days.
Jay half considered going up to the bum and putting the question to him. Why had it stopped? Had he pulled the plug? Or was it just a case of ‘all good things must come to an end’? Well, that warning label hadn’t come with the package. At least Jay hadn’t been made aware of it.
Some crazy ride, Jay thought wistfully. That was how he’d characterized this new part of his life at the time of its origination. Well, he didn’t think that of it now at all. Now it seemed more a speeding train that had just veered off the main track and onto a siding that went God knows where. And, he wondered in that vein, who the hell was the conductor on this line?
Sign Guy? Jay considered this as the bum came into view up ahead through the lunchtime crowd and the breaks in Broadway’s thick traffic. Was he still punching the tickets? And if not, who was?
<
br /> Or was it now a runaway train?
Fuck this, too, Jay implored himself, and strode fast for the crosswalk.
On the way in he hadn’t seen that day’s sign, matters of seemingly greater importance occupying his mind right then, but at the curb now, just shy of the fat white lines that had done nothing to protect an angry bald man two days hence, Jay did see it, and it made not a lick of sense.
M U T T O N
O R
W O O L
Okay, what the hell did that mean?
It means what it means. Of course it did, Jay realized. How stupid of him! Common fucking saying. Everybody understood ‘Mutton Or Wool’.
Everybody but him, maybe. But then coins no longer came up heads for him either, so this was par for the course.
And fuck that as well.
The light changed and Jay stepped between the lines, a crowd with him. If a car was going to mow him down it was going to take a lot of people with him, and he didn’t think the bum would do that. But then, how did he know?
He didn’t, and his step quickened upon that realization.
At the far curb, where the rest of his crossing companions moved on, Jay slowed and looked the bum’s way. Just did, because he had to. Somehow he had to. And when he did he saw that Sign Guy was smiling again, some contentment returned to his countenance, and he looked very warmly at Jay, and raised his hand as he had so many times before and flashed him the V, and opened his mouth to speak, but what came out was not what was expected. It was something new. Something that sounded so...final.
“So long, brother.”
Twenty Four
The Other Side Of The Coin
Black blazer, no bra. That was her choice. And Jay had to admit, it worked. Lou Carrillo’s eyeballs nearly popped when he saw her. She beamed at the attention. All Jay could think was Slut.
They chatted with the Green Machine’s potential new client for a few minutes, Christine on his arm as he walked them into the depths of the gathering. He pointed out his Degas, and his Lichtenstein, and the bar when Jay asked where that was. He excused himself, telling Christine he’d be back in jiff. She swallowed the lie like candy.
He waded through the crowd and the hum of chatter that rose from it like a fog. You couldn’t hear a thing because you could hear everything. The high ceilings, Jay figured. Great look, bad acoustics.
At the bar built into one full wall of the massive living room Jay ordered a Jack straight up from a vested tender named Hal. Hal poured, and Jay drank, elbows on the bar like he might at any friendly tavern. Only this friendly tavern was twenty stories up on the West Side. And the booze was free.
After a moment he turned, his back to the bar, and surveyed the room. There was green everywhere. On necks, on fingers, on wrists. And there was the green you couldn’t plainly see, the kind secreted in wallets, those long leather jobs that kept each bill in an unfolded state of readiness. Most obviously, though, there was that kind of green in this room that you didn’t need to see, that you could feel, almost smell, that you just knew these people possessed in such quantities that they felt invincible to any chill wind life might send gusting their way. This, Jay thought, sipping quickly his drink, some strange hurt rising within. This is what I’ve been after. I have what they have.
And he had nothing at all.
“Hey, buddy!” It was Jude, his arm outstretched above the crush of guests like the fin of a jovial shark cutting the surface of a crowded sea. Bunker and Steve were with him, each already with drink in hand as they reached him at the bar. “You just get here?”
“A few minutes ago,” Jay told him.
“Did you not bring...” Jude checked hopefully.
“Sorry, Jude. Our host is entertaining her.”
“I can dream, buddy, can’t I?” Jude joked, clinking his own glass of Jack to Jay’s. “So what do you think?”
“Of him?” Jay checked, and got a nod in response. “He’s fine.”
“Fine?” Jude snorted at his friend’s ability to understate a situation. “He stinks of green, Grady.”
Jay looked around, spying the art, the decor, the sheer volume of the space. It was magnificent. And he didn’t care. “He spent some of it on this place.”
“Chump change,” Jude said, and put his glass on the bar for a refill.
Bunker stepped up, chuckling. “You should have come in the limo with us.”
“Bunk, man, it’s gross,” Steve said, his face twisted sour. “Don’t.”
But Jude was suppressing an anticipatory laugh already as Hal refreshed his Jack and his rocks, so Steve was going to lose on this one.
“You won’t believe what we did on the way here,” Bunker said. “Unbelievable.”
“Is this something else profound?” Jay asked, tiring of Bunker’s beating around the bush.
“Profoundly hilarious,” Bunker told him. “Get this. The limo picks us all up, and then on the way up here Jude tells the driver to cruise up West 89th. You know, by the spot.” He began to chuckle, some of his drink sloshing over the lip of the glass and spotting his shoes, a foible he never noticed. “It’s out of the way, but so what? So we’re there, and we’re standing in the open sunroof...”
“They’re standing,” Steve made it clear, shaking his head at revelry which he simply could not honor.
“Me and Jude,” Bunker went on. “And we’re looking up, like to see where the Old Man took the dive from, and out of nowhere the limo bounces really hard, down and then up.” A burst of outright laughter leapt from him right then. Jude was keeping a hand over his wide smile. “The limo keeps going, and we look back, and there’s this huge fucking pothole where the Old Man must’ve hit! Ha!”
Jude kept all but a giggle inside. “I said we should stop and paint a bull’s-eye on it.”
Bunker grasped the edge of the bar for support as laughter nearly doubled him over.
“They’re sick,” Steve said to Jay, and asked Hal to tidy up his own glass of Jack.
After a minute Jude patted Bunker on the back. “Okay, okay. Enough. We’re here to make an impression, remember. We don’t want Carrillo thinking we’re straight out of the frat house.”
Steve nudged Jay with an elbow right then. “Hey, no one seems to know, buddy.”
Jay knew what his friend was referring to—his, well, non-performance of the past two days.
“I haven’t heard anything either,” Jude concurred. “We kind of fanned out after we got here and tested the crowd. No one’s talking about it. So we’re okay. Okay?”
Jay sipped his drink and said, “Sure.”
And through the crowd right then Christine came, the male guests parting as she waded by, their stares chasing and groping her every seductive step.
“Hey, boys,” she said, and attached herself to Jay’s arm. She looked to Hal and ordered a Chardonnay, gazing toward the lofty ceiling after her first sip. “You could trampoline in here.”
Jude gave her an offhanded, slightly contemptuous glance, but said nothing.
Jay, though, did say something. Asked something, actually, about a bit of that day which his numbing brain saw fit to serve up right then. “Anyone have any idea what ‘Mutton Or Wool’ might mean?”
“‘Mutton Or Wool’?” Surprised, Jude’s brow crunched down. “Oh come on, farmboy. You gotta be kidding me.”
“What?” Jay asked.
“‘Mutton Or Wool’,” Jude repeated patronizingly, thinking it might jog his friend’s brain. “Sheep, farmboy. They’re either mutton, or their wool. It’s the difference between life and death.”
The difference between life and death? Jay wondered, thinking the bum had never crafted quite as serious a sign as that. Was that what it meant? And if so, what life, and what death did it pertain to?
“You know,” Steve said, ready to partake of this conversation and its less disturbing subject matter. “That sounds like something Sign Guy would put on his sign.”
They nodded, all but Jay, who w
as about to tell them that what Steve was suggesting was in fact the way it was when Jude spoke up first.
“Yeah, but did you see what he had today? Nothing. Nothing but a blank white board leaning against his knees all fucking day. How’s that for crazy as a loon?”
Jay stared at Jude, saying nothing, reacting outwardly not at all. But within, a sickly shiver stirred low in his chest. He breathed a little deeper. His heart began tapping a few extra beats. And his head swam with a mist of unease. Something was wrong. More than just the absence of his knowing. More than that. Something was...
...coming.
“Hey, buddy,” Bunker said to Jay, and Jay looked to him.
“What?”
“Put out a hand.”
“Huh?”
Bunker held his own hand out, as if ready for someone to ‘give him some skin’. “Put out your hand.”
Jay complied, his actions partly on autopilot, that shiver inside creeping out now and crawling up his back like a dread fear that something was coming, God, coming.
“I am in the debt of no man,” Bunker said, his hand emerging from his pocket and dropping the change he’d snagged from Jay the day before into his friend’s palm. Six coins plus one. “I repay you with interest.”
And he had, a penny now added to the three quarters, two dimes, and one nickel, all of which lay in Jay’s palm, and all of which were showing...
...tails.
Tails? Jay thought, and then thinking became virtually impossible. His hand clenched suddenly, violently around the coins.
COLD.............
It hit him like a fist, the sensation, the most terrible, burning iciness he could have never imagined. A spike of cold so intense in his gut where the mere shiver had sparkled, so numbing, that his drink dropped from his hand, the glass shattering at his feet.
COLD......COLD......
He reeled back against the bar, his mouth gaping, the hand that held no coins grabbing at his collar, knotted fingers pulling at the tie that circled his neck. His cold and constricting neck.
The Donzerly Light Page 18
