Seven Deadly Pleasures (5 page)

"Why, you slug," she said. Her eyes got weepy for a moment, but she fought it off with a quick sniff. I used the pause to the best of my ability.

"Honey! I made a bet with the Grim Reaper this morning and believe me, I'll be all right by mid-morning, please!" Her "hurt" look went ugly.

"Stop fucking with me."

"I'm not kidding! It's a curse! I just need two hours to get myself—"

She put her hands on her hips, and I jumped tracks.

"—that blouse makes your arms look fat, you pig."

Her eyes flicked to high beam.

"Fuck you, asshole!" She brushed past in a huff. "Today, I'll take the bus and the subway."

There it was. I had gone from "Mookie" to "Joe" to "asshole" in the space of two minutes. The room still held the muffled ring of hot words and Tina's voice wafted up the stairs just before the slam of the door.

"And don't chase me down the street, either! It would give our neighbors something else to laugh at, you bastard!"

I let her go. As badly as I felt about it all, it was clear that this would have to be patched up later over dinner and at the bottom of a bottle of fine burgundy. Wasn't there a really cool Italian place on Berkley that had waiters who played violins at the table? Yes, at the office I would make the reservation, order flowers, and maybe pick up a new piece of jewelry to sneak onto her cloth napkin. I reached into the closet for my double-breasted three-piece and frowned.

I could not go to work in this condition.

Still, I had to. Today, the unemployment report on which I had taken a few risky investment positions was being released. The old man knew it and I was under strict obligation to make an appearance.

But I had to stay home nonetheless, even though I had actually seen the old man issue a pink slip over a principle. If he was awarded my company in this condition, I would be jobless and blacklisted by 9:07. At 10:01 with the curse lifted, it would be easy to rush in with some kind of story to explain my tardiness.

I reached for the phone by the reading lamp and stopped before my hand touched the plastic. A sudden vision of the receptionist, Jessica McQuade, filled my head, and I drew my fingers back as if I'd been burned.

Jessie was a strawberry blonde who loved to show off her pretty legs. Two years ago she was a cheerleader for the Philadelphia Soul. Now, she ran the message center at Rollins and Howell in a blur of sheer blouses and short, tight skirts. She never wore panty hose, and it was a special pleasure to watch her kick off a heel, cross knee over knee, and massage her ankle while taking a call.

I stared at the phone and cursed my newfound inability to communicate. What could I trust myself to say or keep hidden? What words would I have for good old Jess when she answered my call?

I began to pace the floor. In desperation, I tried to figure a way to twist truths without telling lies and felt like an idiot locked in a cage with Rubic's Cube. On my second pass across the room I stubbed my toe on the bed leg and the small spurt of pain brought an idea along with it. I grabbed the receiver and dialed the office.

Jessie picked up the line and said, "Rollins and Howell."

I reared back and kicked the bedpost, hard, barefoot, and arch first. A bright bolt of pain rocketed up to my knee and I yelped.

"Hello?" she said.

"This is Joe Kagan," I said through clenched teeth. "I won't be in, and I just cracked my foot on the bedpost."

"Oh Lordy!" she said.

I hung up before my thoughts could turn from the pain in the foreground. I fell to the floor wincing and laughing, a private victory that meant nothing to no one.

The phone rang back at me like a dark intruder pinging a black bell. I stared at the device in dumb horror and thanked my lucky stars for answering machines. I got up and limped to the hallway to sneak in a listen. After the fourth ring the machine clicked on and I heard the odd, displaced sound of my own voice taped from downstairs.

"Hello. This is the butler. Joseph and Tina are on the yacht right now, but if you must leave a message, I'll hop in my dinghy and get it to them. Thank you."

There was a beep and I heard a blast of traffic through scrambled voices, with a pneumatic jackhammer deep in the background.

"Joe? Oh God, Joe, please pick up!"

It was Tina. She was crying. I rushed back for the bedroom phone and jerked it to my ear.

"Tina! What's wrong? Where are you?"

There was a long sigh and I could picture her looking at the sky, thanking the powers of heaven for finding me at home.

"Joe, honey. I'm at a pay phone. A couple of guys—"

A big truck or something roared past.

"Hold on!" I shouted. "I can't hear you! What the hell did you say?"

The large vehicle faded out and her voice came back in a gush.

"Two guys jumped me and stole my purse! I fought them, Joe, I tried but the big one knocked me down and they got everything. Credit cards, bank card, all my money, my cell."

"Then how did you make this call? You can't call collect to an answering machine! Why haven't you called the police? Why—"

"Because I've memorized our calling card number and I want to get out of here before Christmas!" She erupted into a fresh rush of tears and hiccups. "Why are you grilling me? I'm scared, Joe."

I looked at my feet.

"Tina, I love you so much. I want you to know that."

"I don't need you to love me right now. I need you to come and get me."

"Where are you?"

There was a pause.

"Well, there's a crab shack on the corner, a check cashing store next to a tattoo parlor, and a beauty shop called
Slick Divas
."

"Look for a street sign, Tina."

There was a clunk, and I knew that in defiance Tina had dropped the phone to go take a better look. My mind's eye could see the stained and chipped receiver swinging on its metal cord like a dead thing on a rope.

"Sixth and London," she said.

It was the worst section of the city, a war zone smack in the middle of the fastest route to the downtown business district. Together, we drove down Fifth, a block over, each day with our windows shut and doors locked. And now, Tina was trapped, out in the open, exposed to the wolves. She had probably been mugged on the short walk between the bus stop and the overhead subway trestle. The animals.

"I'll be right there," I said. "Keep an eye out for the car."

On the telephone's quick trip from my ear to its holder, I heard Tina plead a last word.

"Hurry."

***

The streets of my neighborhood flew past as I cheated one yellow light after another. Peripherally, I could feel the sun rays spangle across the Kennedy Middle School's football field and glint off the steel goal posts closest to the road. To the right was a blur of stores and lots that led to the cluster of buildings before Fifth Street, then the Blockbuster Video, Keystone Beer Distributor, and Rosenburg's Auto Tags. I cracked the window, lit a cigarette, and registered in some deep and far-off place that I really had to quit these foul things.

After the quick right on Fifth the properties withered and the buildings closed in on each other. Long zigzagged cracks in the sidewalks sprouted gnarled clumps of weeds, street signs were bent at odd angles, and plywood-covered doorways wore layers of unintelligible graffiti. I took my eyes off the road for a moment to flick an ash and almost slammed an old woman jaywalking a group of young girls to the Flemmings Ballet School on the far corner. I screeched my brakes and she glanced back at me with a sour look of distaste. I rolled down my window.

"Hey, pelican face," I said. "Next time, move your fat, wrinkled ass! Don't you have a duty to die or something?"

There was a spatter of laughter from the children and I drove on feeling lower than dirt.

I hurtled down the one-way, straight into the side of town most broken-down. Garbage bags billowed from the paneless windows of dirty tenements. The wind had knocked over a few recycling bins, and they barrel-rolled at the front of an alley like cars on a short-circuited Tilt-a-Whirl ride. Across the street, a pit-bull on a chain gnashed and slammed against a rusted, diamond-link fence.

I cursed out loud.

A block ahead I could see the two hookers that worked the corner of Fifth and Walsh. Tina and I passed the pair every day and had slowly numbed ourselves to them, made the whole thing into a joke. We even gave them nicknames. Thelma and Louise.

Today, Thelma had on her Friday colors, black mini and heels with both legs sporting a roadmap of purple bruises. Louise, the stockier one with fire-red hair hanging in dreads, boasted yellow hot pants and a matching bikini top. The girls looked feisty. They were in the middle of the street prepared to block traffic.

I drove between them just fast enough to make them shove over, and couldn't help but forfeit a grin.

They howled.

"Look at him with the piss-face laughing," Thelma said.

"Where's the little woman?" Louise said. "Come back here, baby. Ain't there something you want to ask me?"

I slammed on the brakes. I couldn't help it. I threw the car into reverse and squealed backward to a halt. Thelma approached, and the car behind me honked long and loud.

"Go around, muthafuckah," she shouted. "This is business!" He put on his signal and squeezed around like a good little boy.

"Hey there, sugar," she said into my face, arms folded on the lower window rim. Her breath stank of peppermint Dentyne and stale gin.

"There's something I always wanted to know," I said. "How much for what?"

She grinned brown, crooked teeth.

"I got two programs, sweet thing. Regular and High Octane."

"What's Regular?"

"For a hundred dollars we go to a room above the Y across the street. I light a cigarette and put it in the ash tray. Then you get to possess this body like the Devil himself, but when the smoke gets down to the filter, your time be over."

"And what's High Octane?"

She reached in and slipped a hand under my lapel to rub my chest.

"Not recommended for a little punk like you. The only thing left would be your belt buckle and a puddle of sweat."

There was a clunking sound and my car bowed down in front. It was Louise, crawling on all fours up the hood. She slipped down a strap and popped out her breast.

Thelma's hand became a strange shape under my suit jacket, and she made a play at stealing the gold Cross pen in my pocket.

"Hey!" I said. I pressed the heel of my hand to her forehead and pushed. She fell backward on shaky heels and landed butt to the asphalt. I hit the gas and Louise smacked the glass cheek-first before rolling off to the right. I burned rubber and eyed the rearview. Thelma was in the street shouting obscenities. Louise was looking for something to throw. I sped away as if the hounds of Satan were snapping at my tires.

Something was burning. It was the smell of tobacco and smoking fiber. I had dropped my lit cigarette during the scuffle and something was burning and my crotch was on fire!

I spun the wheel to the left and peeled curbside behind an old abandoned Buick that had been torched and picked clean of just about everything but the steel skeleton. I pushed open the door and scrambled to the street where the warm wind kicked up angry whirlwinds of newspaper, scraps, and plastic debris. I rubbed off my fly and bent in to brush the hot ash off the seat.

I heard laughter. I shut off the engine, backed out, and turned to a sea of eyes from across the sidewalk.

It was a welfare line, a smorgasbord of all the races and creeds that defined our own wretched refuse. There was a lot of flannel, cheap sneakers and soiled T-shirts covering pot bellies. Course sprouts of facial hairs grew from wart bubbles and the men looked even worse. My face brightened.

"Hi!" I said. At some deeper, more intellectual level, my brain was telling me not to do this, but that rational captain of industry was locked in a dark office in the back of the building somewhere. The mad elves were loose in the factory now, yanking the gear knobs, bending the crankshafts, pounding on the buttons, and pinning all the meters.

I stepped away from the car and walked toward my rapt audience. The intersection of Sixth and London was just one city block to my right.

"I just want to know how my employees are doing," I said. I unbuttoned my blazer and put my knuckles on my hips. "I pay taxes so in a sense you all work for me."

No one spoke back. They did not even speak to each other. And no one moved. They didn't want to lose their places in line. Yet.

I began to walk up and down their flank.

"Do you know who I am? I'm Joe Kagan. I trade stocks. I pull short or go long on the unemployment figures. Do you know what that means?" I slapped my hand to my forehead. "It means we make money off you whether you're working or not. And lately, it's been pretty easy to predict, let me tell ya."

"Shut up," someone said.

"Yeah," someone answered.

That broke the line. They began to converge in a follow-the-leader domino effect; I was surrounded. Rough hands grabbed and pinned back my arms. There were shouts and hoots. A thin, scarecrow bag lady type wiped her nose, licked the back of her hand, and spat on my headlights. A wiry dude wearing a back turned Mets cap grabbed a saw horse that had "POLICE" stenciled up the supports. He struggled it over to a blue dumpster and swung it around in an arc. There was a splintery crack and he was left with a busted two-by-four that read "LICE." I struggled and went nowhere.