“You open it,” Raymond said, moving toward Jay Walt, “and I’ll throw him. How far you want him to go?”
“I guess all the way down,” Mr. Perez said. “Might as well.” He walked over to the room’s smaller, regular-size window, snapped the shade up spinning on the roller, and raised the lower window flush with the top pane. “How’s that?”
“That’s good,” Raymond said.
Jay Walt didn’t believe it, looking from Mr. Perez to Raymond Gidre, who was close to him now, with his wet-down hair and sportshirt and mother tattoo. He could smell Raymond’s hair tonic. He said, “Hey, guys, come on.”
“I can run him right through there,” Raymond said. “Got handles on his coat.” Raymond grabbed the belt and one of the epaulets, almost jerked Jay Walt off his feet, and ran him across the room toward the window.
Jay Walt screamed. “Jesus Christ-come on! For Christ’s sake, wait!”
Jay Walt’s head banged hard against the window frame. “Shit,” Raymond said. He backed him up, straining, clench-jawed, and pushed him half through the open window, Jay Walt squeezing against the sill with his knees to hold on, looking straight down seventeen floors to the Jefferson Avenue service drive, seeing the tops of cars moving, inching along, feeling the wind cutting his face.
“Son of a bitch is stuck.”
“Hold him there,” Mr. Perez said. “I believe he was saying his prayers.”
“I don’t know, he mentioned Jesus,” Raymond said. “Ain’t he a Jew boy?”
“I believe so. Ask him.”
Raymond leaned close to Jay Walt’s back. “Hey, are you a Jew boy?” Raymond looked up at Mr. Perez. “He nodded yes.”
“Ask him was this his idea.”
Raymond asked him. “He shook his head no,” Raymond said.
“Ask him again.”
“Nooo!” wailed Jay Walt, out in the wind.
“Ask him whose idea was it.”
“Ryan!” Jay Walt screamed. “I don’t know anything about it-honest to Christ!”
“Bring him in and shut the window,” Mr. Perez said. He walked over to the bar and made himself a drink. When he came back, Jay Walt had edged away from the window and seemed to be holding on to his stomach, protecting himself.
“Slap him a good one,” Mr. Perez said. “Get his attention.”
Jay Walt didn’t see it coming. Raymond gave him an open hand across the face that almost knocked him down. Jay Walt screamed as he got it.
“Some more.”
He looked round and fatter in the coat, trying to cover up. “Please, please don’t hurt me. I swear to God-”
He tried to turn, but Raymond caught him by the front of his coat and cracked him hard across the face. “Look at me, Jew boy,” Raymond said. “Hey, look at me.” Raymond grabbed him by the hair then, raising his face, Jay Walt moaning, trying to squeeze his eyes closed, and began slapping him with his yellow-callused palm, back-handing him on the return swing, raking the man’s nose and cheekbones with his knuckles.
Mr. Perez sipped his drink and lowered it. “That’s fine, Raymond.” As Raymond stepped away, blowing on his hand, Mr. Perez said to Jay Walt, “Did you learn anything of value today?”
Jay Walt, his mouth open and swollen-looking, nodded and mumbled something.
“I can’t hear you,” Mr. Perez said.
“Yes, sir, I did, I didn’t mean to-”
“Let me hear you say, I will never fuck with Mr. Perez again.”
Jay Walt began to repeat the words.
“Speak up,” Mr. Perez said. “I still can’t hear you.”
“I will never…”
“I will never fuck with Mr. Perez again, ever.”
“I will never fuck with Mr. Perez again,” Jay Walt said.
“Ever.”
“Ever,” Jay Walt said.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mr. Perez said. “Now wipe your nose and go home.”
Ryan liked a dark business suit and white shirt with a suntan. It made the person look successfuclass="underline" sitting at a table in the Salamander Bar, quietly waiting to hear the outcome of a business deal. The subdued lighting was also good for suntans. He had a 7Up, then switched to a ginger ale and fooled with it, making it last, sucking at the ice in the bottom of the glass when Jay Walt came in.
“Wow,” Ryan said, with reverence. “You look like you been stung by bees.” He made a gesture of rising as Jay Walt wedged himself into the table and collapsed.
“We got to get out of here. No, I want a drink, Christ.” He was gasping, barely moving his swollen mouth. “They open the window, Christ, try and push me out. This big son of a bitch starts hitting me as hard as he can.”
“While you’re out the window?”
“Seventeenth floor, I look down, Christ, I said, Hey, guys, come on, this isn’t funny.”
“What’d Perez say?”
“What’d he say? He tried to push me out the fucking window. Where’s a waitress in this place?”
Ryan sat back in his chair. “So he didn’t think much of the mandatory injunction, uh?”
Buying Jay Walt a couple of doubles and sitting with him gave Ryan time to plan his next immediate move. He gave Jay Walt another hundred dollars, saying he was awfully sorry it turned out the way it did-with Jay Walt getting some of his nerve back with the scotch and threatening to sue the son of a bitch-walked him over to the escalator, thanked him again, then crossed the lobby to the house phones.
When Mr. Perez came on, Ryan said, “Jay Walt just phoned me. Looks like you’re gonna have two legal suits on your hands.”
Mr. Perez said, “Don’t you believe it.”
“Not afraid to go to court, huh?”
“Why don’t you come by and we’ll talk about it,” Mr. Perez said.
“If we can do it on the ground floor,” Ryan said. “Maybe later on. There’s something I got to do first.”
“There is, huh? Son, you don’t have anything pressing on you like I’m going to.”
“You’d be surprised,” Ryan said. “Why don’t we have dinner together? I’ll call you back.” He hung up before Mr. Perez could say anything else.
That part was done, getting it set up.
Ryan went to a pay phone then to call Virgil Royal, with the odds heavy against Virgil answering or even finding him short of a few hours. Virgil said hello, with his lazy tone, and Ryan couldn’t help but grin. Imagine being glad to hear Virgil Royal’s voice. They talked for a minute and agreed on Sportree’s in about an hour. Ryan said he’d find it.
“I don’t see you doing much,” Ryan said. “You want something, but I don’t see you breaking your ass especially to get it.”
“I’m being patient,” Virgil said, “waiting till everybody make up their mind. You want a real drink this time?”
“No, this is fine.” Ryan still had half a Coke. He watched Virgil nod to the waitress. She was over at the bar where several black guys were sitting with their hats on, glancing at themselves in the bar mirror as they talked and jived around. “What’s this, the hat club?” Ryan said. “There’s some pretty ones, but they can’t touch yours.”
Virgil was looking at him from beneath the slightly, nicely curved brim of his uptown Stetson. “I get my money, what’s owed me, I’ll give it to you,” he said.
“I’ll take it,” Ryan said, “and everybody’ll be happy. If we can get you to do a little work.”
“What kind of work?”
“First, how much we talking about? What you say Bobby owes you?”
“Half.”
“Half of what I heard he got is nothing.”
“No, I’m telling you. Round it off, ten grand,” Virgil said. “Now you tell me, how much we talking about? The whole deal.”
“We don’t know yet.”
“But you got an idea. Explain it to me again, what the man does.”
The hatbrim rose as the waitress put another orange drink in front of him. Virgil gave her a look that was warm but sleepy. She smiled taking his empty, like they had something going.
“All the guy does,” Ryan said, “as I told you, he tries to make the beneficiary sign an agreement for his fee or give him power of attorney to make the stock transaction, you know, get certificates issued by the corporation, and according to what his percent is, stated in the agreement, he gets that much on the sale of the stock.”