Improbable Fortunes

by Jeffrey Price

  The next morning, Mallomar called the hospital to check on his wife’s condition. The nurse said that she was awake and was in the middle of telling him that she had eaten a nice breakfast when Dana grabbed the phone and demanded that Mallomar have her released immediately. He refused. She called him many names. He responded calmly to her, making her want to slam down the receiver, but it wasn’t the kind of phone that could be slammed down. Why did she have to be like that, Mallomar wondered. Why couldn’t Dana be the sweet and adorable woman that she was when she was unconscious? Mallomar showered and dressed himself for the day. In his vast dressing room there hung one lone suit—his sole holdout from Goodwill. He grabbed his wallet, a few thousand for walking-around money, and his phone. He saw that, while he was in the shower, he’d had a message from a friend who worked at the Fed. Was he free for dinner? Right now, he just wanted to walk.

  It was the kind of day that Mallomar used to love—when the wind was blowing off the harbor making the Manhattan air smell as if one was walking on the deck of a ship at sea—rather than the usual sensation of walking on the deck of a garbage scow. Even with his medication, recent events with Dana had jangled him and pulled him downward to the bad pole. He sighed so loudly with melancholy that the people walking ahead of him actually turned to see whom it was.

  Next, he swung by Georgette Klinger’s on Fifth. The receptionist greeted him like the past recipient of his extravagant gratuities that she was.

  “Good morning, Mr. Mallomar. Welcome back! Natasha will be right with you.” He followed her to a private room where he changed into a robe and slippers. A few minutes later, Natasha, a zaftig bleached blonde woman in her late forties entered. Mallomar had found her years ago working at a high end Russian call out service. He saw something in her and arranged for Natasha’s enrollment in a cosmetology school.

  “You lose too much weight,” she said, in a blunt Balkan accent. “When a man reaches fifty, he must choose between his ass and face. You have chosen the wrong one.” Recently a citizen, Natasha had yet to adopt the diplomatic affectations of everyday American life.

  “Do what you can with it.”

  Natasha put on her magnifying goggles and aimed a bright circular lamp on his nose.

  “Oh boy,” she said. “Blackheads ’R’ Us.”

  What he had thought was going to be a relaxing interlude turned out to be an eye-wateringly painful forty-five minutes. Natasha’s habit of knitting her eyebrows and crossing her eyes in deadly concentration, gave Mallomar the impression that she was not just eliminating blackheads, but cleansing the Serbs responsible for the death of her father and brothers.

  “Still living in Queens?”

  “I move to Fort Greene. Buy condo.”

  “Huh. Well, good for you.”

  “Two condos—one to rent, one to live. Fort Greene has many blacks but changing.”

  “How’d you pull that off? Mortgage-wise.”

  “Countrywide. No problem.”

  “A fixed?”

  “Adjustable, sub-prime.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Why do you have such dirty skins?”

  “I’m a rancher now.”

  “You don’t say,” was now her turn to say.

  After she steamed and excavated every pore of his face, applied an astringent to reduce the redness and calmed it down with a vitamin-rich moisturizer, she saw he was still tearing, which may or may not have been the result of her work, and gave him a tissue.

  “I’m sorry this so painful. Can I do something to make you feel…happy?” Mallomar demurred and reached into the pocket of his robe—placing five, neatly folded hundreds into her moisturized hand.

  “Thanks. You already have.”

  Mallomar was a feel player and Natasha had unwittingly given him something substantial to feel. Returning to his apartment, he immediately placed a call to his consigliore, Sidney Glasker. They briefly discussed Dana’s health situation—the doctors were pleased with the photo-radiation blood-cleansing progress Dana was making and how they were wondering if Mallomar might be interested in helping them obtain FDA approval for their patent.

  “Sidney, c’mon. You and I both know these guys are quacks.”

  “I told them you could see your way clear to give them something.”

  “Then I won’t embarrass you. Cut them a check for a hundred grand. By the way, Sidney, how much is drlivingstonipresume.com worth right at this moment?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere between eight hundred and fifty million and a billion. Why?”

  “I want you to sell it. Tomorrow.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I couldn’t be more serious. Sidney, listen to me carefully. We are on the precipice of a banking disaster that’s going to rival the Great Depression.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Marvin, anti-depressants aren’t like baby aspirins. You can’t just stop taking them. You can have a psychotic episode.”

  “Today, my facialist, who makes no more than forty grand a year, told me that Countrywide gave her mortgages for two condominiums at sub prime. How is that possible?”

  “The government is encouraging home ownership.”

  “That’s the Kool-Aid. We’re going down the tubes. I can feel it.”

  “Marvin…”

  “Leave me a hundred million to live on, and sell everything else.”

  “What am I supposed to do with all that money?”

  “Short Freddie and Fannie. But do it in ten tranches so no one knows what I’m up to.”

  “Could you please give this the twenty-four hour test?”

  “Sell drlivingston, Sidney. Tomorrow.”

  b

  Mallomar flew back to Colorado at daybreak. That morning, on the floor of the NYSE, his instructions to sell drlivingstonipresume.com were carried out at the sound of the opening bell. Serendipitously, fifteen minutes later, Google announced news of an improved algorithm that would revolutionize search engines, and the stock price of drlivingstonipresume.com plummeted 35 percent by the close. The Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the New York District Attorney’s Office were quite interested in Mallomar’s exquisite timing. They contacted Sidney Glasker and suggested that his client return to New York for a frank discussion.

  “What do you want me to tell them?” Glasker asked Mallomar.

  “Tell them I’m busy.”

  “They won’t want to hear that.”

  “Did you place the short?”

  “Of course, I did. By the way, today’s FT says constructions starts are on the rise and real estate is up another nine point five percent across the board.”

  “There’s always a head fake before a crash.”

  “A billion dollars, Marvin. That’s an awful lot of money…”

  “Sidney, are you tryin’ to make me go wee-wee?”

  “I’m just wondering if we committed the wrong Mallomar.”

  “How much of your dough did you put in?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t you use any of your own money to short Fannie and Freddie?”

  “Fuck no, I didn’t. It’s insane.”

  “Let me ask you something. How much did you make riding my coattails into drlivingstonipresume.com?”

  “I don’t know…maybe three and a half million.”

  “Toss it in the pot, Sidney.”

  “Three and a half million has a different meaning to me than it does to you.”

  “Toss it in, you fuckin’ chicken.” And Mallomar hung up.

  His business in New York finished, Mallomar flew his plane back to Colorado that afternoon, but not before stopping at Russ and Daughters to pick up five pounds of Irish organic smoked salmon.

  It was unusual for Buste
r to pick up Mallomar at the Montrose FBO, but he had an ulterior reason. There were still three of the original rust-colored Puster outbuildings on the property and the architect wanted them torn down for aesthetic reasons. Buster wanted them to remain for authenticity reasons. Their only chance of survival rested with the Big Dog himself, so on the way home, Buster pretended that the lugs were loose on his left front tire and pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway. The location was no accident. While Buster play-acted with a lug wrench, he waited for Mallomar to notice what he had led him here to see. Across the highway was the Double RL, belonging to Ralph Lauren. Lauren had kept the outbuildings from the ranch that he’d bought from its original owner.

  “He’s got all his old buildings,” Mallomar said.

  Buster stood up and squinted across the highway.

  “Ah do b’lieve he has.”

  There was no need to say anymore. When they got back to the ranch, Mallomar put the kibosh on the demolition of his original buildings—much to his architect’s chagrin. However, it was conceded that if the dilapidated buildings were to stay, they would need reinforcing and rehabilitation. The fly in the ointment was that Mallomar had decreed that he was to be a member of the construction crew. Buster was sorry that he agreed when Mallomar showed up for work wearing a tool belt and the chrome-plated tools that he’d been gifted for his five-million-dollar contribution to Habitat For Humanity.

  Each of the rickety buildings was painstakingly lifted off the ground and reset on newly poured concrete slabs. The rotted wood was replaced. The barn walls, as well as the roof, were re-plumbed, shimmed and insulated. Mallomar, silver tools in hand, insinuated his position into every one of these tasks. It was clear that he wanted to show the locals working on this project that he was just “one of the guys.”

  However, his constant self-aggrandizing began to militate against the desired effect.

  No matter what the men were bullshitting about as they worked, Mallomar would find a way to free-associate a story involving some great achievement of his, a famous person he knew, a beautiful woman he had had sex with, an expensive item he once owned, an extravagantly crazy thing he once did, or some really wonderful food he once ate. Buster didn’t mind this when they were alone, but he became embarrassed for him when he did this around the other men. He tried to gently head off the conversation—the way a cowboy moves a straggler out of the trees and back with the herd. Eventually, Mallomar noticed.

  One afternoon while they and the crew were tearing out the asbestos roof tiles on an old chicken coop, Mallomar began to decry the quality of local meat.

  “The irony,” he said through his safety mask, “…is that here we are in the middle of beef country—and you can’t even get a decent hamburger. I had the guy at the meat counter grind up ten pounds of sirloin and it still tasted like I was eating a goddamn Dr. Scholl’s insole!”

  Buster could see the other fellows’ eyes widen and leaped in to say how many wild strawberries he’d run across while up in Beaver Park. Mallomar just stared at him, and then asked him to step outside for a moment.

  “What’s the problem?” Buster asked as he lifted his mask.

  “I’ll tell you what the problem is. Every time I start telling a story, you change the subject.”

  “Well, if’n ah do, ah ain’t aware of it.”

  “I’m aware of it. Trust me, you do it all the fucking time.”

  “Well, Mr. Mallomar, ah’ll try to keep an eye on it.” Buster turned to go back in the chicken coop, then stopped. “Tell you what…ever’ time you start to tell these folks, who mostly live offa food stamps, how you take perfekly good steaks and grind em up into burgers—or how you have some lil’ guy in Italy make two-thousand-dollar shoes for you cause you got ’specially skinny feet…ah’ll jes kep my mouth shut and let you go on makin’a dang fool of yorself.”

  “Are you saying I’ve got a big mouth?”

  “You prolly know someone in New York who’s got a bigger one, a better one, one that can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same time whilst recitin’ all the companies on the dang New York Stock Exchange—but, yessir, that’s what ah’m sayin’.” Buster had never stood up to anyone like this before. Sarcasm, in Buster’s upside-down brain, had finally come onstream.

  Mallomar sputtered, at a loss for words.

  “I was just trying to hold up my end of the conversation,” he protested weakly.

  “We ain’t on a talk show, Mr. Mallomar. These men are only here cause yor payin’ em. You don’t need to impress ’em any more’n that.”

  Mallomar swallowed the lump in his throat. The doleful look on his face was a pitiful sight to behold.

  “Well, I’m…I’m not going to say another fucking word,” Mallomar said petulantly.

  Buster raised an eyebrow and pig snorted.

  “Now, Mr. Mallomar, we both know that ain’t true.”

  “I mean it, goddammit! I’ve got a big mouth and I’m not going to say another word!”

  “Now really, Mr. Mallomar, that ain’t dang posserbull.”

  “I’m not going to say another word for seven days and seven nights.”

  “You cain’t do it.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Cain’t.”

  “Can.”

  “Cain’t.”

  “Can.”

  Then Mallomar broke a hunk of asbestos over Buster’s head. Buster, deadpan, broke some asbestos over Mallomar’s head. The others came out of the chicken coop and stood in silence watching the two men crack each other over the head at least a dozen times and bray with laughter until the air had been squeezed out of each others’ lungs and they fell to the ground. They then proceeded to heap dirt on each other until their ears, nostrils and mouths were filled with the stuff and they spat out dirt-colored drool like two hydrophobic dogs. The help could see that this was not an ordinary relationship between a ranch boss and his foreman. They just didn’t know what exactly it was.

  “Seven days and seven nights without talking,” Mallomar gasped.

  “What’s the bet?”

  “I’ll bet you one hundred acres of my land.”

  “And iffin’ ah lose…?” Mallomar knew exactly what he wanted from Buster. And it had been sticking in his craw from the day they went elk hunting.

  “I’ll take your truck.”

  All the men looked at Buster. It was too late to back out now.

  “All right…it’s a bet,” Buster said.

  Suddenly, the ground started to rumble and the ranch dogs woke from their naps under the deck and started barking. Mallomar’s face took on a glum expression that Buster hadn’t seen in weeks as a black Suburban worked its way up the road. Buster recognized the logo on the door as belonging to the local limo company.

  Six full-sized Halliburton cases were eased down from the luggage rack, but the main cargo still hadn’t shown herself. Mallomar shooed the barking dogs away, then tapped on the blacked-out window. He found himself in the very difficult position of wanting to yell at her, but holding to the bet, not being able to speak. Tapping on the window wasn’t getting him anywhere with the occupant. He looked at Buster, entreatingly.

  “Hmmm mm mmmm.” Have a heart, he said with his lips closed. Buster stepped forward, not wanting to take unfair advantage of the situation.

  “Uh, you can come out now, Mrs. Mallomar.”

  Buster shaded his eyes and peeked into the blacked-out car. He could make out the form of a woman in the back seat, but she wasn’t budging. Mallomar’s jaw muscles tightened, and he rapped on the window again. This next time, a bit more impatiently. Buster and Mallomar could hear the electric doors lock again.

  “Hmmuhmmm.” Sonofabitch, it can be assumed he said.

  “Hello there, Mrs. Mallomar…’member me? Buster McCaffrey? Welcome to the Big Dog Ranch! If ya’ll kindly unlock them d
oors we can get you sich-eee-yated in the main house,” Buster said as sweet as coconut pie. But Mrs. Mallomar didn’t budge. Mallomar sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He started to walk away from the car and then stopped. His face turned purple and contorted. He charged the Suburban kicking and clawing at the door like an animal.

  “Do you have any idea what you put me through? Well, that’s enough goddammit! That’s enough! If you don’t get out of this car right now—I’m going to break the window and pull you out by your fucking hair!” Mallomar couldn’t believe what had just burst from his mouth. Buster raised an eyebrow and smiled to the other men. They nodded as if to say, Yep, we heard him, all right. The Big Dog Ranch was now minus one hundred acres.

  Now, the damage done, the locks clicked up, and the door opened. A skinny white leg in black shorts swung out and paused as if testing to see if the atmosphere on earth was safe. An empty bottle of Ketel One toppled to the ground. Finally, the sum of Mrs. Mallomar’s Giacometti-thin figure emerged and steadied itself against the car. She jauntily adjusted her black Oakleys. She was wearing a black baseball cap that the hospital had given her as a going away present, heralding the generic version of “AMITRIPTYLIN.”

  Swaying as if in a breeze, Mrs. Mallomar’s sunglasses took in her surroundings: an almost finished house in the middle of nowhere, the husband wearing cheap western clothes covered in filth, and some tall cowboy—also dirty and smiling at her through tobacco-stained horse teeth.

  “Fuuuuuuuck,” she said, and threw up all over Buster’s boots before passing out.

  Buster and Mallomar caught her before she face-planted. Together, they fireman-carried her into the house.