In the Age of Love and Chocolate (26 page)

“They want to leave you in here overnight, and I’m not sure it’s a bad idea.”

I didn’t answer him.

“But luckily for you, I still know a few people. I’ve woken a judge, and there’ll be a bail hearing later tonight, where they will probably set some exorbitant number. You’ll happily pay it and then you’ll go home.” He looked at me sternly, and I felt sixteen again. “You always have to go and make matters worse, don’t you? Seemed a grand idea to you to assault a police officer, eh?”

“They were shutting down the club! And I didn’t assault anyone. I only tried to grab his hammer. What even happened tonight?”

“Someone tipped off the cops that there were people at the Dark Room without prescriptions. They started checking everyone’s prescriptions and some people got upset and when people get upset, they get rowdy. The cops began confiscating the cacao, saying the club was dealing chocolate illegally, which, as we know, isn’t true.”

“What’s the upshot?” I asked.

“The upshot is that the Dark Room is shut down until the city decides what to do.”

I worried how the shutdown could affect our other locations. “When’s that Department of Health hearing?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why are they suddenly interested in the Dark Room? Why now? We’ve been open for over three years.”

“I thought about that,” Mr. Delacroix said. “And the answer can only be politics. It’s an election year, as you well know. And I think this is a plan to make me look like I was involved in illegal dealings. My campaign is predicated on the idea that bad legislation needs to go, that we change the laws and bring new business to the city. The Dark Room is an accomplishment for me. Shut it down, and it takes away from that.”

“You’re wrong, Mr. Delacroix. Your accomplishments extend beyond the Dark Room. Maybe it’s best to cut ties with me and the club altogether. Say you were only involved in contracts and such. It isn’t far from true.”

“Yes, that could be a way to go,” he said.

“Listen, I’m going to bring on Simon Green tomorrow. He’s my half brother, and I trust him. It was foolish of me to put off hiring your replacement. You can’t take this on right now. The election is in less than two months. I won’t let you take this on.”

“You won’t
let
me?”

“I want you to be mayor. And by the way, I am glad to see you.” I leaned casually on the glass. I don’t know why, but it was easier to speak from the heart with a six-inch-thick panel of glass between us. “I am sorry for the way we parted. I’ve been trying to tell you that for weeks. I just didn’t know how.”

“So you thought you’d attack a police officer? There are easier ways to contact me. Pick up the phone. If you were feeling old-fashioned, a slate message.”

“Several times I apologized to your face on the side of a bus.”

“Yes, I don’t always get those messages.”

“And also, I’m thankful to you. You owe me nothing, Mr. Delacroix. We are even, and I don’t expect you to ruin your campaign to try to help me out.”

Mr. Delacroix considered this. “Fine, Anya. There is no point in arguing. But let me hire a lawyer for you. It isn’t that I doubt your ability to do it, but you won’t have much time before the hearing tomorrow, and Simon Green is too—forgive the pun—
green
for such a responsibility.”

“Simon’s not so bad.”

“In a few years, he’ll be perfect. And I am glad you’ve made peace with him, but he doesn’t know the ins and outs of how this city is run. You require someone who does.”

*   *   *

I got very little sleep that night, but in the morning, I received a message from Mr. Delacroix that the new lawyer would meet me at the Department of Health, where the hearing was to be held.

When I arrived, Mr. Delacroix was waiting for me. “Where is the new lawyer?” I asked.

“I am the new lawyer,” he said. “I couldn’t find anyone on such short notice.”

“Mr. Delacroix, you can’t do this.”

“I can. And really, I have to. Look, I’ve made mistakes. That is no secret. But you can’t run a campaign by trying to separate yourself from your accomplishments. Not a successful one, at least. I am proud of the Dark Room. I am going to defend it even if it costs me the campaign. Yes, that’s how strongly I feel about this. But listen, you have to hire me again, or I can’t defend you.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I’d rather defend myself.”

“Don’t be a martyr. Hire me. I am your friend. I want to help and I have the skills to do so.”

“I don’t need anyone to rescue me, if that’s what you think you are doing.”

“Hiring someone to assist you is not the same as being rescued. I thought we’d settled that years ago. It’s plain good sense. We can only do the jobs we can do in this life. What happens here is important and will determine what happens in San Francisco with Leo, and in Japan, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, and everywhere else. We have to go inside in thirty seconds.”

I didn’t like being forced to do anything. And I wasn’t sure that he was even right.

“Fifteen seconds. One last reason. I am certain that I am the cause of this situation. Do you want my wife to hate me? My son? What good is being mayor if your family hates you? Can I leave the love of my son’s life to defend herself?”

“That isn’t true, and I’m not even sure it’s rel—”

“Five seconds. What say you?”

*   *   *

The hearing was open to the public, and when I got inside, the crowd that had gathered astounded me. Half the city seemed to have taken an interest in this little proceeding. Every seat was filled in the mezzanine and the balcony, and people were standing by the doors. Mouse and people from the Family had come, as had Theo, Simon, and most of my staff from the Manhattan and Brooklyn clubs. In the very back of the mezzanine, I saw Win and Natty. I hadn’t even told them about the hearing, but somehow they had gotten here, and quickly. There was a certain amount of press, but most of the crowd consisted of what appeared to be regular people—that is to say, the kind of people who came to my club.

“This is a hearing to discuss the club on Fifth Avenue at Forty-Second Street in Manhattan County, New York. Today’s hearing is largely discovery, and everyone who would like to speak will have a chance. At the end, we will determine whether the Dark Room should be allowed to remain open. This is not a criminal proceeding though in fact a criminal proceeding may follow depending on what is revealed in this forum.” The head of the board read the complaints against the Dark Room and its president, me: essentially that I was serving chocolate illegally, that some patrons at my club were obtaining chocolate without prescriptions, and that cacao was actually chocolate. “By calling chocolate ‘cacao,’ Ms. Balanchine, who is the daughter of a deceased organized-crime boss and still maintains connections to that family and other known international crime families, has introduced what is little more than a term of art to shield her criminal dealings. Though the city has chosen to look the other way for some time, it has become increasingly apparent that the Dark Room is a front for illegal activity.”

A chorus of boos from the gallery.

Mr. Delacroix spoke first. He offered our legal justification for the business (chocolate was not served at the club, cacao for health benefits was not illegal) and asserted that we were not in violation of any laws or ordinances of the city. “On a personal note,” Mr. Delacroix said, “I find the timing of this to be suspicious. Why now, after the club has been open for three years, in the middle of a mayoral election? This whole proceeding is offensive. The Dark Room is a credit to this city. It has created hundreds of jobs and brought in innumerable tourists. The entire section of Midtown around the club is reinvigorated. This young woman, who I have worked with for the past four years, is a credit to this city, too, and should not be subject to persecution because of who her father was.”

I thought Mr. Delacroix was being a bit grandiose, but that was his way.

At that point, the hearing was opened to the public for thoughts and opinions. Theo went up to the microphone first. He spoke about the health benefits of cacao, and the ethical way the cacao was grown. Doctor Param, who still worked at the club, spoke of the precautions he and the other doctors took, and then he went off on a rant about the stupidity of the Rimbaud Act. Mouse spoke of the Balanchines’ attempts to turn the Family to legal operations, and how I had spearheaded that. Lucy spoke of the standards we had implemented to keep the recipes as healthful as possible. Natty spoke about how hard it had been for me when we were young and how it had always been my dream to legalize chocolate. Scarlet, who was getting to be known as an actress, spoke of the fact that I was godmother to her son, and the most loyal person she knew. Win spoke of the sacrifices I had made for my family and how important the club was to me. And those were the people I knew! Little old ladies spoke about the transformation of the neighborhood around the club. High school kids talked about how they liked having somewhere safe to go. It went on for hours. Amazingly, not a single person spoke against the club or me.

“But the connection to organized crime cannot be denied,” one of the board members said. “Look at who we are talking about. She is an accused poisoner. As a teenager, she went to Liberty multiple times. She is her father’s daughter. I notice that Ms. Balanchine has not spoken a word during these proceedings. Perhaps she is worried that, if she speaks, she might impugn herself.”

Mr. Delacroix whispered to me, “You don’t have to let yourself be baited. This is going very well. Everything that needs to be said has already been said.”

I am certain it was good advice.

I stood and went up to the podium. “Yes, it is true. My father was Leonyd Balanchine. He was a mobster and he was a good man. He went to sleep one day, and when he woke up, the business his family was in had become illegal. He spent his whole life trying to figure out how to run a chocolate business legally, but he never could. He died trying. When I became an adult, I took up the cause. I did not have a choice. Mr. Chairman, you say that the difference between cacao and chocolate is little more than a ‘term of art.’ And I suppose this is true. The fact is, I would not have gone into cacao if not for who my father was, and so the connection to chocolate is there. As much as I have tried to in my life, I cannot escape it. But what I know—what I know in my soul—is that the club is good for New York. We who work there want nothing but the best for the public. We are not motivated by money or the desire to trick the system. We are citizens who want our city to be healthy and safe, to have sensible laws that protect the people. I am a
mafiya
daughter. I am my father’s daughter. I am a daughter of New York.”

I was about to sit, but then I decided I had even more to say. “You shut down the club because you thought there were people in there without prescriptions. Well, I don’t know if this is true, but what I do know is that there shouldn’t
have to be
prescriptions. The city or this board should grant any establishment that wants to serve cacao a cacao license, and that should be the end of that. You want less crime? Make it so there are less criminals.”

And then I really was done.

*   *   *

The board voted to allow the Dark Room to remain open: seven yeas, two nays, and two abstentions. There would not be a criminal case brought against me.

I shook Mr. Delacroix’s hand.

“You ignored my advice,” he said.

“I ignored some of your advice. But thank you anyway for being there to give it.”

“Well, I won’t make the mistake of ignoring yours. If I manage to become mayor, I will look into amending the Rimbaud laws in the city.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’d do that because it is the right thing to do. Now go celebrate. Your sister and my son are waiting for you.”

“You won’t come with us?”

“I wish I could, but the campaign calls.”

I shook his hand again. And he put both his hands around mine. “This may sound condescending, but you know that I have come to think of you as my daughter. And it is in this context that I find myself wanting to say how very proud I was of you today.” He stood up straight. “Go have some fun, will you? I am very much rooting for a happy ending when it comes to that loyal boy of mine and you.”

“How sentimental.”

“I am certainly more invested in the outcome of this little high school romance than I ever thought I would be. But I care about the characters, and forgive me for wanting everything to turn out for the plucky heroine.” He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

*   *   *

We went to dinner at a new restaurant near Penn Station. “I didn’t expect to see you two at the hearing,” I said to Natty and Win.

“My father called me,” Win said. “He told me he was going to be representing you and that you could use support. I asked him what I could do to help you, and he said that I should get on a train to New York and round up as many people as I could find who might have kind words to say about the club and you.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It wasn’t. Almost everyone I called was willing to come. Theo helped me. Dad thought the hearing would become a referendum on what people thought of you.”

“My character.”

“Yes, your character. That if the city believed you were good, they would believe the club was good.”

“And you dropped everything to do this?”

“I did. You probably think less of me.”

“Win, I am older now. I take help when it is given, and what’s more, I say thank you.” Hadn’t I learned that lesson six hours ago?

I leaned across the table, and since I was feeling in high spirits, I kissed him on the cheek. How long had it been since I had kissed that boy?

I should say,
that man.

Just on the cheek, friendly-like, but still.

Natty began to chatter about a project involving the extraction of water from garbage. She’d been working on this for years. It was probably going to save all of us, but I wasn’t paying any attention.

Win smiled at me, a bit ruefully.