Gotham (4 page)

‘So tell me how the creator of
The Snatcher
gets to be an appreciator of institutions.' It seems as good a way for me to put it as any.

He takes the shirt from Eloise, rubs the fabric between thumb and finger.

‘Soft,' he says. ‘I like that.'

He holds it up against himself. There's a full-length mirror next to me, angled so that he can appraise himself.

Just when my question seems to have drifted out of view, he adds, ‘Institutions. The record's all about one of the oldest institutions. It's about a thief of love and pussy.'

He offers it as though it's the smartest thing said in the world all week. He's said it dozens of times, I bet—‘a thief of love and pussy'—with no thought as to whether the recipient might already have given the record's title a second's thought and be wise to the sledgehammer subtext.

He bundles the shirt into a ball and tosses it back to Eloise.

He's still looking in the mirror when he says, ‘That record got me more pussy than a bucketful of fish marinated in catnip.' Then he glances Smokey's way. ‘That's a new one, new right now. You can have that one for Australia.'

He sets up for a fist bump and Smokey obliges.

‘He's a poet, my boy,' Smokey says, shuffling his cuffs again and giving Na
ti a smile I can't read.

I have, it turns out, missed most of the trying-on of clothes. I'm here to bear witness to the boy pharoah's taste for Bloomingdale's, to his penchant for mashing up high-end and street, but I've been spared much of the detail. Andie has been folding and piling the chosen garments on the next countertop along from the frozen yoghurt. The throw to Eloise signified that the Pensacola Henley is a no. They have a system.

I take out my camera and snap some pictures of Na
ti on the chaise lounge, picking up the plush red, the gilt trim, the silver of the ice bucket over his shoulder. He knows I'm doing it and looks as disengaged as possible. He's been watching models.

‘Would you like to see the purses now?' Eloise says. The question's directed at Na
ti
but her eyes shift for a moment to Smokey. She's following orders. Some time during the planning he put purses on the list. Smokey seems not to notice her. He's checking his phone again. ‘I have a selection from our premium designers.' She indicates a trolley that's mostly obscured by the grey yachtsmen.

‘I would.' Na
ti Boi sits back on the chaise lounge and runs his hands down his thighs, as though smoothing invisible wrinkles in his shiny synthetic trackpants.

‘I have a McQ clutch…' She reaches for the trolley.

‘All of them.' He glances towards Smokey, who has the same smile as before still in place. ‘I want to see all of them.'

‘It has a razor-edge laser hologram.' Eloise is still with the McQ clutch, her spiel spooling another sentence before she can pull it to a halt. Her hand is on the way to the clutch, but she lets
it land on the brass handle of the trolley instead. ‘But all of them, sure, no problem. We have quite a range, all new season. I'm sure there'll be something that will…' She doesn't know who it's supposed to be right for. She looks around as if the recipient of the purse might conveniently appear among us. ‘Be just right.'

It's specificity that she's searching for. She sells purses to men all the time, perhaps, but the woman is present—it's part of the gesture, the trip together to Bloomingdale's to buy the purse—or the woman is named straight-up. Before confessing a complete ignorance of purses and throwing himself at her expert mercy, the one thing any man tells her is who he's buying for.

On the surface, there is nothing in this for any of the pieces I'm writing, but I'm still recording. Too much is unexplained. We are in male personal shopping. These purses were gathered floors away and brought here.

Eloise eases the trolley across the tiles and into full view.

‘Which one's the most expensive?' Na
ti Boi says, having not clarified since he tossed the Henley that he's the boy pharaoh here.

‘Sure.' It comes out clipped, Na
ti's bare crassness a gust of cold air that has her buttoning down her response.

She searches through the purses—they're filed like books on a library trolley—checking tags only occasionally and mostly making her price assessment based on the purse itself. She slides one out and sets it on top. It's plum-coloured, shaped like the round-cornered square of a Scrabble letter, with a long black strap. The second purse she pulls out is gloss black with a black suede flap, silver clasp and a shorter black strap. They are for different occasions, different people.

‘These two come in at nineteen ninety,' she says. ‘One thousand, nine hundred and ninety.'
She turns the tag on the second over again and nods. ‘Both Costume National. This one's the Colorblock Piccola Messenger and this—' She touches the flap of the black bag, ‘—is the Tema Morbido in suede.'

‘Let me see the…' he points lazily in the direction of both of them. ‘Purple one.'

‘The Piccola Messenger? Sure.'

He takes it in both hands and feels the weight of it. He opens the flap and then clicks it shut again. It's a good, solid click, almost a clunk. He tests the gold buckles that join the strap to the bag and then holds it up by the strap and rotates it to view it from all angles.

‘Yeah.' He turns to Smokey, the bag suspended from two of his fingers. ‘You know who this is for.'

‘I do, LyDell.'

It is a moment between them that is not to be broken by me asking the obvious question.
Sometimes, in this job, a question can be the worst way to go. Rapport is not about questions and will not come easily with Na
ti Boi as it is. The truth, the interesting part of it, at least, is not often arrived at through asking for it directly.

‘He's my cousin, you know,' Na
ti Boi says to me. ‘This man.' He places the bag in his lap, folds the strap over it and keeps both his hands there. The gesture looks protective, like the move of a grandmother on a train rattling through a bad part of town, her eye out for miscreants. ‘Second cousin or some shit. Maybe second and a half. With me all the way.'

‘All the way from diapers,' Smokey says, smiling at him, rubbing a cufflink with his thumb and finger under his jacket sleeve. ‘All the way from when you was only Lydell Junior.' Back before the ‘D' in LyDell got capped. Lydell Senior never made that move. ‘He got Na
ti Boi from what old Ms Willard round the corner
used to call him. And she used to call him that 'cause he was one nasty boy. Full of nasty tricks, you was.'