“Piss off, son.”
Nick, anticipating trouble, slid between them.
“Anybody seen Mother Foley?” Terry asked.
“Not to worry, Terry. Foley will be here. Got time for a nosh?”
“Not tonight, dear, I’ve got a headache.” Cunningly lifting a jacket sleeve, Terry revealed his magnificent bulky black wristwatch. The face showing absolutely nothing until he flicked a tiny knob and 7:31 lit up in computer-type numerals. “Ta-ra, ta-ra!”
“Where’d you nick it?”
“It’s not even on sale here yet. Lucy got it for me in New York.”
Suddenly Foley loomed over them. Grey curls leaking out from under a broad-brimmed safari hat, wine turtleneck sweater, tie-dyed jeans. Terry slipped into the Gents’ after him.
“You bring the bread, mon?”
“Mañana. No fear.”
Foley rubbed his purple jaw pensively.
“Oh, come off it, luv. When have I ever let you down?”
Foley handed it over. Terry, blowing him a kiss, danced back into the bar. “I’ve got time for one more.”
“And where are you off to tonight?” Des asked. “Pray tell.”
“Oh, maybe Annabel’s for a bit of the old filet mignon and some Dom P. Or possibly Les A. for a spot of chemmy.” Actually she had yet to take him anywhere that she might be recognized. Infuriating, that.
“Shame on you, Terry, selling your body beautiful for such ephemeral trifles.”
He reclaimed his MG, shooting into Hyde Park, emerging at the top of Sloane Street and cutting into Belgravia. He knew, without looking, that she would be waiting by the window of her mews flat, chain-smoking. So he took his own sweet time getting out of the car.
Wearing a black silk shift, the sleeves necessarily long, Lucy opened the door before he could ring the bell. The thumb on her right hand was wrinkled as a walnut, all the moisture sucked out of it. She had tried bandaging it at night, but it didn’t work. She tore the bandage off in her sleep.
Lucy’s large black eyes flickered with distress. Not quite forty-one, she looked older, possibly because she was so scrawny now. “The money’s on the hall table,” she said. Like he was the delivery boy from John Baily’s.
“You haven’t said a word about my suit.”
“Don’t tease me, Terry. Hand it over.”
“Do you think the trousers are too snug?”
“They advertise. Shall we leave it at that?” And she disappeared into the kitchen, slamming the door.
Terry drifted into the bedroom, idly opening drawers. In the topmost drawer of her bedside table, a priceless antique no doubt, the surface pocked with cigarette burns, he found a half-finished Toblerone bar. More chocolates, these from Bendicks, were in the next drawer, as well as used tissues everywhere, rings he could risk saying the char had nicked. The next drawer yielded a bottle of Quaaludes. Other bottles. Uppers, downers. And a book, many pages dog-eared, passages underlined here and there. The Collected Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. The book was inscribed in a tiny scrawl. “July 12,1956: To my darling Lucy, love, Moses.” Terry’s first impulse was to rip out the inscription and tear it into little pieces, but his instinct for self-preservation saved him. There were limits.
“You’ve got it,” Lucy said, emerging from the kitchen, “haven’t you, and you’re teasing me?”
“Sorry, luv.”
“Get me a drink.”
“Please.”
“I wouldn’t go too far if I were you.”
So he fetched her a Scotch. “Drink up. There’s a good girl. Now let’s go out and eat.”
“I can’t go out like this. I need something right now.”
“Ta-ra,” he sang out, leaping back as he flashed his envelope at her. “Ta-ra, ta-ra!”
“Terry, please.”
“I want to go to Les A.” Fending her off, he held tenaciously to the envelope. “Will you take me to Les A. for dinner?”
“Yes. Why not?” she said, startling him.
“Promise?”
“Yes yes yes.”
“All rightee, then.” Pulling her bodice away from her with a hooked finger, he rammed the envelope between her breasts. Then he stepped back, smirking, but smelling of fear. Lucy, beads of sweat sliding down her forehead, retreated to the bathroom. She trapped the little vein in her neck, pinching it between two fingers—it was either that or her tongue, the other veins had collapsed—and then she reached for the needle. When she came out again her manner was imperious. “Sit down, Terry.”
He sat.
“You were never the only hunk of meat dangling on the rack, my dear. If I shop around I daresay I can find a less expensive, more obliging cut.”
Cunt. But he didn’t say it. He knew from experience that it would soon wear off, she would need more, and then she was the one who would be obliging. So he grinned, making an offering of his dimples. “Can’t you take a joke any more?”
“A joke, yes. You, no.”
“Aren’t we going to Les A. together? Like you promised.”
“We’re not going anywhere together any more.” Relenting a little, she added, “Come on, Terry. Surely you knew it had to end sometime.”
“All rightee, then. Okay, ducks.”
Two
Mr. Bernard died on a Monday, at the age of seventy-five, his body wasted. He lay in state for two days in the lobby of the Bernard Gursky Tower and, as he failed to rise on the third, he was duly buried. The family requested, unavailingly as it turned out, that instead of flowers donations should be sent to the Cancer Society. The flowers, some in the form of wreaths from sympathizers unfamiliar with Jewish ritual, were meticulously screened for compromising cards by a dutiful Harvey Schwartz. Most of them, Harvey was gratified to discover, came from celebrated people, achievers, names recognized beyond Montreal, around the world in fact, and this information he imparted to attendant newspapermen with his customary zeal.
Happily, there were no embarrassments. Lucky Luciano was dead. So were Al Capone, Waxey Gordon, “Little Farfel” Kavolick, Longy Zwillman and Gurrah Shapiro. Other cronies from the halcyon days did not send flowers or, with the exception of Meyer Lansky, were sufficiently tactful not to comment in the press. Lansky, unforgiving, told the reporter who surprised him in Miami with the news of Mr. Bernard’s death, “Without Solomon that bastard would have ended his days like he started them. Sweeping up in a whorehouse.” But, pressed by the news agencies, Lansky refused to elaborate. He insisted that he had been misquoted.
Fat Charley Lin rode to the funeral in a rented Rolls-Royce, passing out scented cards for his trendy Toronto restaurant, the House of Lin, to all comers. Stu MacIntyre, the former minister of justice, was also there, amused to see the son of the late Judge Gaston Leclerc in attendance. André Leclerc, who was in charge of public relations for McTavish in Europe, was rooted in Paris, but also, appropriately enough, maintained a château on the Loire. And just as Callaghan had anticipated, Bert Smith showed up to see Mr. Bernard buried.
“Mr. Smith?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Tim Callaghan. Remember me?”
“I remember you.”
“Yes. I thought you would. Well, he’s dead. It’s over now.”
“Over? It’s not over. It’s just begun. Now he will have to face a Judge that he can’t subvert.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
“It’s the only way of looking at it.”
“I would like to talk to you, Bert.”
“Call my secretary for an appointment.”
“We’re old men now, Bert, both of us. I would be grateful if we could go somewhere and talk.”
“About the good old days?”