by Mike Miller
Next to him, short, plump fingers neatly folded atop the pale pink damask tablecloth and sitting well back in her chair, Tina Manetti surveyed the surrounding commotion through tiny golden eyes. A bitter matron, a woman deceitfully well preserved by the everlasting formaldehyde of infinite resentment, but with the perfect oval countenance of the impetuous former child-beauty and wheedling flirt. She was stuffed into a dress of gold and brown brocade, an upholstered boudoir chair of a dress ornamented with great, soft throw-pillow breasts, and wore her hair twisted into a round knot studded with jeweled clips, purple and green gleaming against the black. A magnificently unaware character with a mouth at once unpleasantly down-turned and sweet, an innocent air of hesitation, and an exquisite patrician nose she tended to wrinkle in universal distaste.
Another man sat directly opposite Manetti, his back to me; he was of average size and had the taut neck and wide shoulders of obsessive athleticism, pale brown coloring, and a good blue suit. A businessman of some ilk, probably, and destined to remain secondary to someone or other forever.
No real surprise Vinnie Scarpone was there too, although I admit I started when I saw him. He was in a light tan suit with the jacket hanging open and looked much more comfortable in this Bella Vista locale than he had at City Council. He was openly gawking at the minor celebrities.
There were two more women there, but neither made much of an impact on me. One was young: from what I could tell in her early twenties if that, with lots of thick brown hair to her shoulders, perfectly acceptable if not actually pretty features, and the relaxed, unimpressed air of a close relative. There was something constrained about the modest cut of her dark green dress and the way she behaved, but there wasn’t much modest about her otherwise, quite the opposite: she exuded a vulgar familiarity you knew would really come out when she was off with her peers.
The third and final female seemed about a decade older but a good half-century more sophisticated, reserved and self-confident; a very pale blond with glasses, an intelligent face, and no chin. She was clad in a conventional black silk suit and an unpretentious necklace of tiny rubies or garnets.
Then I noted something interesting: while these women were ostensibly busy eating and conversing, all three were secretly consumed with something or someone on the opposite side of the main room, past me to my left. Their heads kept popping up, their eyes briefly focusing. I turned to follow their line of sight, expecting to spot some A-list Hollywood type fortuitously in town for this event, but couldn’t identify anyone exceptionally notable. Finally I spotted a door just inside a narrow hall to the restrooms with a sign taped to it, the outline of a hand in royal blue marker with under it the words: SEE THE FUTURE!
My God.
Up on his private stage, Manetti was making some general comments and receiving the proper wifely response, the others putting in a polite word or two as appropriate. Outside and down from this secluded platform I identified the exquisite Lane Baylor seated with her husband. Lane was a successful plastic surgeon, her husband Tim an attorney and the mayor’s close friend, political supporter, and chief fundraiser. Together they made an admirable power couple on the municipal scene, ineluctably connecting themselves and the administration to various meritorious forms of civic endeavor. At that particular moment they were studiously and rather hilariously avoiding so much as one covert glance towards Manetti’s table. I turned back to Crystal and found her frowning thoughtfully at the palm reader’s closet.
So we were both glancing towards this magic portal when it opened and a young woman exited wearing an abashed but irrepressible grin; inside I caught a glimpse of another girl, dangerously underweight with unflattering, oily black hair and a purple sequined shawl around her bare shoulders. She was gathering up her cards from a table jammed into a closet under a shelf with linens piled on it, this miniscule space illuminated by a single hanging light bulb draped with a filmy red scarf. Almost immediately another gullible female approached and hesitantly peeped inside.
“Why don’t you go have your fortune told?” I suggested it because I’m a compassionate person, intending no denigration. When Crystal was slightly inebriated, as then, her features mysteriously reverted to childhood innocence and you could almost see the secret, slightly pudgy way she looked waking up in the morning, before the hair and make-up and desperate ambition. A common element was that pleasing, prattling frankness that betrays total self-ignorance.
Thom was back, hovering debonairly over an elderly couple immediately to our left. Both were white haired; he had that long-boned, slim elegance age doesn’t much diminish, well complemented by a navy blazer bearing some kind of gold insignia; she was smaller, plump, and happy to be there, very dressed up in a cream-colored lace blouse with pinkish pearls at her ears and throat, and she was beaming up at Thom because everyone does.
The husband was fingering a bottle, and I realized he’d brought his own supply of brand name French dressing with him. As I watched he lifted his salad plate and very carefully tipped the excess back into the bottle. Following which exacting task he joined the ongoing conversation, speaking with a pleased expression and the shy intimacy of a man coaxed into divulging his most outlandish sexual fantasies. I strained to hear.
“I’m not the best gardener myself, mind you, but I know the history and location of every planting on my property.”
“How marvelous!” Which was only Thom’s usual enthusiasm, and you have to understand that he was convinced that he meant it, that he found everyone ultimately fascinating.
“Gardening is my greatest pleasure in life.” This innocent marital affront, it developed, was untrue, because some months later, the pleasant-seeming wife dead of a stroke, this gentleman decided to depart his Barbados hotel room through a twentieth-floor window. They are for real, this Main Line type with their gentle little waves good-by. “All righty-roo.” “Yes in-dee-dee.”
Ruth came through from the kitchen, the basic black pants and white apron of the celebrity waitstaff emphasizing her paleness, affording her a sort of false elegance. I watched her weave her way extravagantly and I suspect unnecessarily through the appreciative tables bearing a loaded tray out in front of her like a suburban grandmother presenting the Thanksgiving turkey. She was so lost in concentration she brushed behind Crystal’s chair without recognizing me.
Once up at Manetti’s refuge she extracted a folding stand from some corner, settled her tray on it, relaxed her shoulders with a grin and started distributing plates, chatting with professional ease over the orders. Tina Manetti and the two younger women were happily attentive, buying into the patter, leaning forward on their elbows with all of them talking at once while at the same time aware of the men indulgently listening. All of them, even Ruth, also performing for these men.
Following which busy minutes, with everything settled and satisfied, Ruth breezily, unbelievably commandeered an extra chair from a lower table and inserted herself into the private party of Jimmy Manetti, famously reticent mob boss of a criminal organization at war against increased obsolescence.
“He dared me,” she explained. “Joking, but still.”
Everything I knew about Manetti was common knowledge; I’ve never expended the energy necessary to differentiate these unimaginative career thugs although I have colleagues who specialize in this stuff, get totally absorbed in it and covertly love the cleansing violence, even admire the whole mythical code of honor. Anyway, as I understood it Manetti was connected to three separate, prominent dynasties who between them split apart this region in the seventies. Reputedly a made man from that same period, these days found him a relatively unscathed survivor courtesy of his enormous self-control, his ability to avoid impulsive violence or overweening narcissism or undue ambition. He was a cautious bore, and it served him well.
And initially he was severely undervalued for this extraordinary patience and emotional restraint; he was never dynamic enough to attract notice, never really promising or threatening. So whil
e still a fairly young man he found himself relegated to what was then the sad backwater of Atlantic City, a traditional Philly territory he managed with routine efficiency while building up a number of private businesses along the Jersey shore.
Competently toeing the line, pushing back on the ambitious Blacks and Russians and Asians and Mexicans inexorably encircling his terrain with their fresh takes on carnage and terrorism, their efficiency and contempt for boundaries. Manetti moved with the herd, concentrating on microcaps, health insurance, telephone cards, all those lucrative but relatively placid opportunities, although when required his problems disappeared without undue public outcry. He displayed equally solid judgment in his personal life, avoiding melodrama, marrying young and remaining wed, certainly without fidelity but also without scandal, never dishonoring his wife and family. So essentially an unimaginative drudge, as uninteresting and greedy and childishly spiteful as evil itself, but just intelligent enough to recognize his own limitations.
Then legalized gambling gained traction in Atlantic City and Manetti’s luck was in big time, the casinos and unions and politicians of that damply disintegrating resort town showering him with sudden respect. He curtailed the endless ambitions of New York by vicious preemptive right, raking in the spoils until he was unexpectedly removed or promoted to a Philadelphia struggling to recover from an era of unprecedented bloodshed, tasked with curbing the egotism of an immature heir apparent, a brutal jerk much too eager to reign. Maybe that was lucky, considering AC these days. The idea was, Manetti would act as senior partner, mentor, and control, but somehow this didn’t pan out as hoped, the kid slaughtered some people and went to jail, and Manetti carried on solo. Sitting quietly in a South Philly restaurant, being catered to.
“I’m going,” Crystal announced, recapturing my attention.
“Hunh?”
“I’m going to ask about us.” On which threat she stood and draped the gold chain of her shiny little evening bag over her shoulder, assumed her public face, wheeled on a high-heeled sandal without incident and marched herself towards the door of enlightenment, which was closed. So she stood along the wall and looked back at me with a triumphant little smile.
Ruth was leaning on her fist and heeding Tina Manetti. I imagined that worthy freely scattering scorn upon the heads of the assembled local celebrities, and certainly the tight dismissive gestures directed towards anyone foolish enough not to be Mrs. Manetti herself or at least a close family member supported that supposition. Thom was closer to me, speaking mildly to someone I didn’t know; I saw him send an indulgent smile towards his wife that I interpreted as a public show of unconcern.
Crystal had vanished.
To reappear twenty minutes later totally pissed off, scraping out her chair and clearly holding me to blame me for whatever.
“Do you think people are jealous of me?” she demanded. “Because I happen to think I’m a pretty good judge of people and I think most people like me, including any women with short dark hair I can think of.” Ignoring her cold coffee and swallowing down the final inch of wine in her glass, then looking round for a waiter. Someone, not the mayor, came and cleared our table.
“I mean it’s so silly, like I’d buy this shit.” Crystal almost never swears; she was struggling to contain tears of disappointment. “I mean, special purifying crystals to remove the strong negative influence from my unbalanced charkas, which is what’s preventing my true happiness!”
“At this kind of function?” I was actually a little surprised.
“Apparently I’m going to always have just enough money but never a lot. I’ll never be rich. Plus I’m blocked from following my heart, so even though I’m definitely going to marry and have more than one child my heart will never be satisfied.” She put her hands down flat on the table. “I think I want to go home right now. If you don’t mind.” The tears were winning out, glimmering brightly in those narrowed eyes.
“Nobody else came out crying. Maybe there is something wrong with your chakras.”
Ruth and Manetti were having a serious conversation; she’d moved over next to him, which was possible because the full female Manetti contingent was waiting outside the magic door, the younger two self-consciously laughing despite Mrs. Manetti shushing them so they wouldn’t anger the spirits. Ruth continued to gaze steadily at Manetti; as I watched she started to speak to her own fingers, splayed out on the tablecloth, nodding a tiny bit and very solemn, and I realized she was at least a little drunk.
Manetti, though, seemed to be treating her with something akin to Thom’s inexplicable leniency, bestowing delicate, encouraging smiles at reasonable intervals. “Up close he’s darker, more gray than silver, and his skin looks darker. It’s like he’s made out of some dull metal. But his mouth is soft, the way he purses it in that prissy way, you know? Once I thought he was going to pat my hand but I think my expression stopped him. I’m not much for being patronized.” Vinnie and the man in the blue suit were still at the table but concentrating on coffee and dessert, conspicuously ignoring their boss’s conversation.
“I appreciate that you’re honest. It’s refreshing,” Manetti sat back in his chair to better approve of her, all personal geniality.
“You should have seen him.” (Although I pretty much had.) “Automatically assuming I was flattered and respected his opinion.” Perhaps correctly interpreting his gently exploratory conversation as broadly insulting.
“Yes, I hope so.” Smiling across at him from that cautious yet willing posture over the empty coffee cups and tiramisu crumbs and dirty flatware. Ruth was immediately comfortable accepting his flattery, not because she believed it but because meaningless flattery was a regular part of her public life. “But please don’t misunderstand me; everyone seems to misunderstand me.” Certainly it was tedious having to explain all this yet again. Adding to that discomfort her survival instinct was kicking in, warning her against revealing any additional profound secret of the universe since it would only fall on infertile ground, leaving her depleted. And God knows she knew more secrets.
“I wanted to explain that thinking you’re virtuous is a kind of dodge or defense. Well, a lie, because you’re as much wrong as right and you need to act responsibly and with respect.”
Blanching a bit, halting to stare at the delicate centerpiece candle, a tiny flame in a low white glass nestled in pale pink rosebuds. “But even so that doesn’t mean there’s no right and wrong.” Then with an impudent grin: “Personally I believe in the law the way I believe in breathing.”
He was examining her from some remote place then, certainly without any false affection, but he responded with a shrug and brush of the arm that set his gray silk suit shimmering. “Oh, the law, there I agree with you wholeheartedly, more than you realize. No one should disrespect the law because they have some excuse about how life wasn’t fair to them. As if they can do what they want with no consequences.”
This trite idea expressed with easy contempt but genuine venom. “You look at some people in this city.” Well, that was certainly a fortuitous suggestion given the circumstances; Manetti and Ruth both involuntarily glanced towards the chief executive, then leaning against the maitre d’s podium and flirting with an impossibly thin hostess. “It used to be you had shame, but now everybody’s proud to be a piece of shit.”
“Yes, I think you may be right.” Lightly, with a little laugh.
“Now your husband, he’s one of the rare civilized people in this room. He epitomizes true civilization. That’s right, isn’t it? I’ll tell you something in confidence: I think he’s someone who makes the right decisions.”
Ruth rose ass first in the manner of a retreating wild creature facing a serpent: a bird or a fawn, backing herself across the table without shifting her fixed, bland gaze. “Oh my gosh, you make me forget that I’m supposed to be working here!” Luckily Tina Manetti was just returning, and Manetti’s purposeful energy reverted back to smooth gentility.
“I mean, can you imagi
ne how outrageous and insulting! Just stupid! Only what did he mean, specifically? Do you think he meant something specific? I should have found out; it could have been important. Fuck, I should have encouraged him.”
“For God’s sake, he was just shitting you for his own amusement,” I said. I still think that, too. “Or not even that. Stop being such a damn drama queen.”
She quieted down. “Yeah, probably.”
But then she basically fled to the kitchen, diving into that barrage of heat and noise and urgency only to immediately reappear strolling oh so casually back into the main dining room, wiping her hands on her apron, glancing around. Thom was still chatting with the upper crust, observing everything sharply and so far as I could tell still utterly unfazed. Crystal and I were by then halfway to the foyer. Up front, I turned for a brief word with the mayor and saw Ruth poke her head into the psychic’s lair, then enter and shut the door after herself.
This is what she discovered: She was a good person. She would have a long life with no major health problems, but there was some concern about the health an elderly member of the family. She was meant to have one marriage and more than one child. No? Well, it was supposed to happen. Also, someone was jealous of her, an older woman with short hair? She should be cautious because this person was very powerful. And her greatest fear in life was the fear of success. This fear is what stops her from doing what she secretly knows is her purpose in life. (Ruth prattled that twisted, flattering line obliviously, but I recognized it and marveled that such manipulative crap could reach even a Mandela.) And unfortunately her chakras were out of alignment, but this could be corrected with special crystals, available for a reasonable sum. This was important because she was in a time of turmoil and there would be great changes in her life.
