by Zev Chafets
It wasn’t unusual for non-Catholics to turn up at confession—the city was filled with nutcases, curiosity seekers and street people looking for a warm place to sit down. They filled Tommy with rage, because they were trying to beat the system—and since he was a part of the system, to beat him. It was one of his rules not to get beat and over the course of his short career he had developed ways of handling the deadbeats.
“What can I do for you, my son?” he said, stepping up the Brooklyn in his voice.
“I’ve sinned, Father,” said Mack.
“Yeah, you already mentioned that. You wanna be more specific?”
There was a long pause. “I’ve, ah, had sexual intercourse with the wife of my best friend.”
“How many times?”
“A few times. I’m not positive.”
“A few times in the same night, or a few different times? Don’t lie, I can tell.”
“A few different times.”
“Are you sorry?”
“Of course I’m sorry,” said Mack. “That’s why I’m here.”
Tommy smiled to himself—he had the guy going now. “You gonna do it again or what?”
“I might. I don’t know.”
“Yeah, well, you sound real sorry. You got anything else?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, close the door on the way out.”
“Aren’t you going to, ah, prescribe any penance?”
“For what, sthupping your buddy’s old lady? Okay, I hereby sentence you to see The Sound of Music three straight times. That ought to take your mind off poontang.”
“Hey, what kind of thing is that for a priest to say?”
“You got complaints, call the Vatican. The number’s in the book.”
“You’re not really a priest, are you?”
“What’s it to ya? You’re not a Catholic anyway.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Get outta here,” said Tommy. “You think I don’t recognize a Protestant voice when I hear one?”
“Protestant voice?” Mack said, laughing. “What does a Protestant sound like?”
“Very much like this,” said Tommy, raising his gravelly voice an octave and flattening his vowels in a good imitation of Mack’s Midwestern drawl. Green laughed again and the priest said, “Okay, pal, show’s over. Scram.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mack. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I’m a writer and I just wanted to find out what going to confession is like. It’s for one of my characters.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of writer?” asked Tommy, suddenly interested.
“A novelist. My name’s Mack Green.”
“Mack Green,” Tommy mused. “I’ve heard of you. The Oreo Kid, right?”
“Oriole,” said Mack.
“Hey, nice to meet ya,” said the priest. “I don’t get too many celebrities in here. My name’s Tommy Russo.”
“Not Father Tommy?”
“I’m twenty-eight years old,” he said. “You gotta be about that, right?”
“Twenty-nine,” said Mack.
“Well, you wanna call me Father, go ahead.”
“What I’d really like to do is buy you a beer and ask you some questions.”
“You mean like a consultant? Yeah, why not? ’Course I can’t mention names or anything—”
“I know that much,” said Mack.
“I can spring loose in about an hour,” said Tommy. “There’s a place on East Broadway, Brady’s. We could meet there.”
“Great,” said Mack. “How will I recognize you?”
“Just be on the lookout for a little Italian guy in a black leather jacket.”
“A black leather jacket?”
“I don’t go to bars in my clericals,” said Tommy. “Besides, I wasn’t born a priest, ya know?”
At Brady’s, Tommy ordered a dry martini, which seemed to him like a sophisticated choice, while Mack downed double bourbons with seemingly no effect and grilled him about his life. Delighted to be in the company of a famous young author, pleased to talk about himself for a change, Russo eagerly told Mack about his boyhood in a spit-on-the-sidewalk part of Bensonhurst, his days at the seminary and his increasingly onerous duties at St. Fred’s. “In the beginning I expected people to come in and confess to murders, like they do in the movies,” he confided, “but all I get is: ‘Father, I have impure thoughts, Father, I jerked off three times, Father, I told my kittycat a lie—’ ”
“You mind if I tell you something about yourself? Something personal?” Mack asked.
“Sure, why not?” said Tommy, feeling the gin. It seemed to him that Mack Green was the most interesting listener he had ever met.
“You don’t seem like a priest.”
“You mean like Bing Crosby in Going My Way? Yeah, I guess you’re right, I’m not really cut out for it.”
“Then why’d you become one?”
“Runs in the family,” Tommy said. “My uncle’s a priest, my older brother’s a priest and I got two sisters are nuns. I never really gave it much thought. One day I’m hanging out on the corner with the guys, singing, “Run Around Sue,” and then, bing-bang, I’m in the seminary. Just like that.”
“You didn’t have to go,” said Mack. “It’s a free country.”
“Where you live maybe it is,” said Tommy. “Not in my family. Besides, with the draft and all, the deferment seemed like a good deal.”
“There were easier ways to get out of Vietnam,” said Mack. “Get a letter from a shrink. Cut off your toe. Anything’s gotta be better than—”
“What, celibacy?”
“Well—”
“Don’t worry, everybody’s curious,” said Tommy. “It’s a part of the mystique. Truth is, it’s no big deal. I mean, I’m not a homo, I get the urge just like anybody else, but usually I can handle it okay.”
“What happens when you can’t?”
“Then I go outta town and get laid,” said Tommy.
“Are you supposed to admit that?” asked Mack, slightly shocked; he had an atheist’s awe of holy vows.
“It’s funny,” said Tommy. “You come to me for confession and here I am confessing to you. It doesn’t matter, though; I’m quitting.”
“When did you decide that?”
“Just now, when I said it. But it’s been building up.”
“Can you do that? Walk away?”
“Hey, we’re not talking Mafia here. The pope isn’t going to put out a contract on me. I’ll leave just before Easter and let that lazy bastard Dorsey do some work for a change.” The thought of Father Francis X. Dorsey chaperoning the St. Fred’s High School spring hop made Tommy grunt with pleasure.
“Why not sleep on it?” said Mack with real concern.
“Naw, like I said, I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years.” He took another sip of his martini and smiled. “Ever since my draft lottery number came up 346.”
“What about all your uncles and sisters and—”
“They’ll survive,” said Tommy. “It’s like Sinatra says, I gotta do it my way. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve had guilt stuffed down my throat. And for the last few years I’ve been stuffing it down other people’s throats. But, hard as I try, I can’t feel guilty about this. I’m not priest material and that’s that.”
“What are you going to do? For a living, I mean?”
“I got a cousin in Jersey City sells life insurance. I can probably catch on with him for a while. After that, who knows? Other guys get by, I figure I can too.”
“You ever think about becoming an agent?”
“Like James Bond? Double O Seven? I don’t think I got the right accent.”
“I meant a literary agent.”
“A literary agent? I don’t even know what a literary agent does.”
“Not much,” said Mack. “You basically negotiate for authors with publishers.”
“What makes you think I could do that?”
“You’d b
e a natural. You’re a smart guy, likable. And you know when you’re getting bullshitted. Like today at confession.”
“Yeah, but that comes from experience—”
“You’ve got the experience,” said Mack, warming to the idea. “A literary agent’s basically just a middleman, same as a priest. Only instead of making deals for sinners with God, you make ’em with editors who just think they’re God. They’d be a pushover for a guy like you who’s used to dealing with the real thing.”
Tommy thought about it for a moment. “What kind of dough do they make?”
“Ten percent of whatever their clients get, usually,” said Mack.
“Sounds like a piece of cake,” said Tommy. “Providing you got clients, that is.”
Mack looked at Tommy and wondered what would happen to a priest who quit and became a literary agent. Turning real people into fictional characters was instinctive to Mack, and when he came across the right ones, professionally profitable. Tommy Russo was one of those people.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “Right now I’ve got a proposal for a new novel called Light Years. It’s with my editor at Gothic, Artie Wolfowitz. He’s offering an eighty-thousand-dollar advance. I want a hundred. Get it for me and I’ll take you on as my agent. How about it?”
“What the hell do you need me for?” asked Tommy. “You already know the guy.”
Mack grinned. “He’s my best friend, which is why I can’t negotiate with him. I don’t want to fight with him over money. You fight with him.”
Tommy returned the grin, but his mind was on the phrase “my best friend.” Earlier Mack had confessed that he was sleeping with his best friend’s wife. “Just out of curiosity, aren’t you worried about this Wolfowitz finding out about you and his old lady?”
“It’s no big thing,” said Mack, frowning. “Just recreational sex, that’s all.”
“Yeah, then why did you pick that particular thing to confess?”
Mack laughed. “I figured it was the kind of thing a priest would consider a sin,” he said. “I didn’t know I’d run into one who gets laid in Poughkeepsie.”
“I’m not so sure you’re right about this Wolfowitz,” said Tommy. “I’m just a wop from Bensonhurst, but where I come from, when a guy buddy-fucks his best friend there’s usually trouble.”
“That’s another reason you’ll make a great agent,” said Mack. “You’ve got primal Sicilian instincts. So, have we got a deal?”
“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot,” said Tommy, extending his hand. For years he had been dreaming of a way out of the priesthood and now a stranger named Mack Green was offering him one. He was drawn to the young author’s careless charm, but it was the money that excited him—10 percent of a hundred thousand bucks seemed like a fortune. If the agent thing didn’t work, he could always go into the insurance business, but for that kind of dough it was worth taking a flyer. Looking back later, Tommy Russo realized that it was at that precise moment that he stopped being a priest and became a player.
Seven
As a new husband, Artie Wolfowitz spent his time and money indulging his pregnant wife. He went into debt to rent a place on Central Park West large enough for a nursery and a study for Louise, took her to expensive restaurants and Broadway openings, watered and fed her supercilious artistic friends. She responded with an offhanded affection that more than satisfied him. Louise Frank was a prize, greater than any he had dreamed of attaining, and he never awoke in the morning without a feeling of intense love and amazement at his good fortune.
The birth of Josh, seven months after the wedding, brought changes. Louise, who had passionately wanted a child, now insisted that an English nanny move in to care for him, and she paid the infant what Wolfowitz considered scant attention. She also limited their sex life to an occasional, grudging quickie. And, for the first time in their marriage, Louise began to go out at night on her own.
“I’m a writer, Arthur, not a hausfrau,” she told him. “I need stimulation.”
“Why can’t we be stimulated together?” he asked plaintively.
“You’re such a dominant personality, I don’t feel like myself with you around,” she explained in an appeasing tone. “I need to have my own experiences.”
Even in his love-besotted state, Wolfowitz understood that these experiences might include other men. He reminded himself that he had agreed to allow her an independent life, told himself that he was a bigtime New York editor now, and should be sufficiently sophisticated to accept his wife’s liberated lifestyle. And then he went out and hired a private investigator named Edgar Conlon to find out what Louise was doing in her spare time.
Conlon’s report took six weeks to compile and it was worse than anything Wolfowitz had imagined. It included dates, times and the names of five men. Four of those names meant nothing to Wolfowitz. The fifth was Mack Green.
“Are you absolutely sure?” Wolfowitz asked the detective.
Conlon, a retired New York detective with a large nose and bad dentures, nodded. “I got pictures,” he said, with the impersonal cheer of a man selling hot dogs at a ballpark.
“I don’t want to see any pictures,” said Wolfowitz, feeling numb.
“They don’t cost that much, especially when you consider what they could save you in a divorce settlement,” said Conlon. “And you wouldn’t need the entire gallery. Probably just one or two guys would be plenty.”
“There’s not going to be a divorce,” said Wolfowitz, more to himself than to the detective. His numbness was thawing, replaced by a humiliated rage. At that moment he made two irrevocable decisions. He would forgive Louise because he loved her too much to lose her. And he would take his revenge by ruining Mack Green’s life.
• • •
Wolfowitz’s strategy for keeping his wife was to make himself indispensable to her. As an anniversary gift he published her collection of short stories, Village Idiots, lavishing on it the ingenuity, attention and money he had once given The Oriole Kid. The book sold well despite lukewarm reviews and Louise was astute enough to see that its success was due to her husband’s efforts. That realization altered the balance of power between them.
“You’ve given me a wonderful anniversary present,” she told him one night in bed. “I wonder what you’d like from me.”
“I’d like for you to stop going out alone so much,” he said. “I worry about you. Besides, I don’t think so much socializing is good for your career.”
“I wouldn’t want you to worry,” said Louise, aware that a transaction was taking place. She snuggled against him and kissed his neck. “I’ll stay home more at night if you want me to.”
Wolfowitz noted the “at night” but decided to let it pass; he didn’t want to make life intolerable for Louise. He knew that there was something perverse about the overpowering passion he felt for her, but he didn’t care. In a way he even took pride in it, the pride of a square man in his secret kinkiness.
Wolfowitz’s campaign against Mack Green was more surreptitious. Since his marriage, the two men no longer spent their evenings together but they still met for lunch at least once a week. Wolfowitz was careful not to display any outward signs of hostility, and Mack’s obliviousness to impending disaster sharpened the pleasure of anticipation; Artie knew it was only a matter of time before he got his chance to get even.
Opportunity arrived in the rotund form of Tommy Russo. “I wanna talk to you about Mack’s new book,” he said. “See if we can come to some arrangement.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Wolfowitz genially. He was aware that Mack had recently picked Russo up the same way he had once been chosen and for the same purpose, as a combination servant-sidekick. He also knew that the little ex-priest didn’t know a thing about the book business.
“Mack told me what you want to pay. It’s not enough,” Russo said.
“How much did you have in mind?”
“A hundred,” said Tommy, as if he dealt with six figures every day.
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“I’m not going to give you a hundred,” said Wolfowitz. “I’m going to write my offer on this piece of paper and let you read it.” He scribbled a number, handed it to Russo and watched his face melt into greedy amazement.
The number Russo saw was $250,000.
“It’s a two-book deal. A quarter of a million dollars for each of the next two Mack Green novels. Fair enough?”
“Jeez,” Russo said, fingering his shirt where his clerical collar had been. Wolfowitz could see his dark eyes calculating his $25,000 commission. “Jeez, I dunno.”
“I know you don’t,” said Wolfowitz. “You’re probably thinking that if I’m willing to pay this much, I might pay more, that maybe you asked for too little.” He raised his eyebrows in a gesture that invited confirmation, peered at Tommy and saw that he had guessed right. “It’s not too little, it’s too much, but offering too much this time is smart business, for two reasons. Since you’re just starting out, and because we’re both friends of Mack’s, I’m going to explain why. Don’t worry, I won’t bullshit you, you can believe me. All right?”
Russo nodded, watching Wolfowitz’s face closely. His years in the priesthood had taught him to be wary of people who said “believe me.”
“First, I’ve got a huge investment in Mack and I want to keep him here at Gothic. The book business is changing, authors are starting to get big money. If I sign Mack for too little this time, he’ll feel like he can do better someplace else. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
“Makes sense,” said Tommy. “What’s the second reason?”
“The second reason is you,” said Wolfowitz. “I want to do you a favor.”
“What for? If you don’t mind my asking?”
“Because I want you to owe me,” said Wolfowitz. “When word of this deal gets around town, you’re going to be a hot agent. I want to see your best books first, to negotiate with you in the spirit of mutual understanding.”
“Mutual understanding meaning?” The phrase reminded Russo of the oily euphemisms of the Bensonhurst wise guys.
