The Bonfire of the Vanities (78 page)

One of the silhouettes stepped forward from out of the glare and said, “Mr. Kramer? I’m Tucker Trigg.”

Tucker Trigg;
that was the guy’s actual name. He was her lawyer, from Curry, Goad & Pesterall. Kramer had set up this meeting through him. Tucker Trigg had a nasal honk Wasp voice that really put Kramer off, but now that Kramer could see him, he didn’t look like his idea of a Wasp. He was big, round, pudgy, like a football player gone to fat. They shook hands, and Tucker Trigg said in his honk voice:

“Mr. Kramer, this is Mrs. Ruskin.”

She was seated in a high-backed armchair that made Kramer think of one of those series on Masterpiece Theatre. There was a tall gray-haired guy standing beside her. The
widow—
how young and bouncy she looked!
Foxy
, Roland had said. Arthur Ruskin had had a lot on his hands, seventy-one years old, with his second pacemaker ticking away. She wore a plain black silk dress. The fact that the wide shoulders and cadet collar treatment were currently quite chic was lost on Larry Kramer, but her legs weren’t. Her legs were crossed. Kramer tried to keep his eyes from running up the highlit curve of the top of her foot and the glistening curve of her calves and the shimmering curve of her thighs under the black silk. He tried his best. She had the most wonderful long ivory neck, and her lips were parted slightly, and her dark eyes seemed to be drinking his right up. He was flustered.

“I’m sorry to intrude under these circumstances,” he stammered. He immediately felt he had said something foolish. Was she supposed to conclude that under other circumstances he would be happy to intrude?

“Oh, I understand, Mr. Kramer,” she said softly, with a brave smile.
Oh, I unnerstin, Mr. Krimmuh
. Or was it
merely
a brave smile? God almighty, the way she
looked
at him!

He couldn’t imagine what to say to her next. Tucker Trigg spared him the task by introducing the man who stood next to the chair. He was a tall, older man. His gray hair was combed back smartly. He had the sort of military posture seldom seen in New York. His name was Clifford Priddy, and he was well known for defending prominent people in federal criminal cases. This one had Wasp written all over him. He looked at you straight down his long, thin nose. His clothes were subdued and rich, as only these bastards knew how to do it. His shiny black shoes were oh-so-sweetly fitted in the instep and trim in the toe. The man made Kramer feel clumsy. His own shoes were heavy brown sloggers, with soles that stuck out like rock ledges. Well, this case wasn’t in federal court, where the old Ivy League network still looked out for its own. No, they were dealing with the basic Bronx now.

“How do you do, Mr. Kramer,” said Mr. Clifford Priddy, affably.

“Fine,” said Kramer, shaking hands and thinking. Let’s see how smug you look when we get you up to Gibraltar.

Then he introduced Martin and Goldberg, and everyone sat down. Martin and Goldberg and Tucker Trigg and Clifford Priddy; there was a quartet for you. Goldberg sat hunched over, a bit subdued, but Martin was still the Tourist Unfazed. His eyes were dancing all over the room.

The young widow in black pressed a button on the table beside her chair. She recrossed her legs. The curved sheens flew apart and reassembled, and Kramer tried to avert his eyes. She looked toward the doorway. A maid, a Filipino, if Kramer had to guess, was standing there.

Maria Ruskin looked at Kramer and then Goldberg and Martin and said, “Would you gentlemen care for some coffee?”

No one cared for coffee. She said, “Nora, I’d like some coffee, and—”

“
Cora
,” the woman said tonelessly. Every head turned toward her, as if she had just produced a revolver.

“—and bring some extra cups, please,” said the widow, ignoring the correction, “in case any of the gentlemen change their mind.”

Not perfect with the grammar, thought Kramer. He tried to figure out exactly what was wrong with what she had said—and then realized that everyone was quiet and looking at him. Now it was his show. The widow’s lips were parted in the same strange little smile. Was it bravery? Mockery?

“Mrs. Ruskin,” he began, “as I say, I’m sorry to have to come to you at this particular time, and I’m very grateful for your cooperation. I’m sure Mr. Trigg and Mr. Priddy have explained to you the purpose of this meeting, and I just, uh, want to—” She stirred her legs under her dress, and Kramer tried not to notice the way her thighs welled up under the shiny black silk. “—uh, emphasize that this case, which involves a very serious injury, possibly fatal, to a young man, Henry Lamb—this case is highly important to our office, because it’s highly important to the people of Bronx County and to all the people of this city.” He paused. He realized he was sounding pompous, but he didn’t know how to get back down off his high horse. The presence of these Wasp lawyers and the scale of this palace had made him get up here.

“I understand,” said the widow, possibly to help him out. Her head was slightly cocked, and she smiled the smile of an intimate friend. Kramer had rogue stirrings. His mind leapt ahead to the trial. Sometimes you ended up working very closely with a cooperative witness.

“That’s why your cooperation would be of such great value to us.” He threw his head back, to emphasize the grandeur of his sternocleidomastoid muscles. “Now, all I want to do right now is to try to explain to you what’s going to be involved if you do cooperate or if for any reason you decide not to cooperate, because I think we have to be completely clear on that. Certain things are gonna naturally flow from either decision. Now, before we start, I should remind you that—” He paused again. He had started the sentence off wrong and was going to get tangled up in his syntax. Nothing to do but plow on. “—you’re represented by eminent counsel, so I don’t have to remind you of your rights in that respect.”
In that respect
. Why these pompous, pointless block phrases? “But I am obliged to remind you of your right to remain silent, should you want to for any reason.”

He looked at her and nodded, as if to say, “Is that clear?” She nodded back, and he noticed the swell of her breasts moving under the black silk.

From beside the chair he lifted his attaché case up to his lap and immediately wished he didn’t have to. The case’s scuffed corners and edges were an exposé of his lowly status. (A $36,000-a-year assistant D.A. from the Bronx.) Look at the goddamned case! All dried out, cracked, and scuffed! He felt humiliated. What was going through these fucking Wasps’ minds at this moment? Were they just holding back their smirks for tactical reasons, or out of some condescending Wasp politeness?

From the case he took two pages of notes on yellow legal paper and a folder full of Xeroxed material, including some newspaper clippings. Then he closed up the telltale luggage and put it back on the floor.

He looked down at his notes. He looked up at Maria Ruskin. “There are four persons known to have intimate knowledge of this case,” he said. “One is the victim, Henry Lamb, who is in an apparently irreversible coma. One is Mr. Sherman McCoy, who is charged with reckless endangerment, leaving the scene of an accident, and failure to report an accident. He denies these charges. One is an individual who was present when the incident occurred and who has come forth and has positively identified Mr. McCoy as the driver of the car that struck Mr. Lamb. This witness has told us that Mr. McCoy was accompanied in that car by another person, a white female in her twenties, and the information provided makes her his accomplice in one or more of the felonies that Mr. McCoy is charged with.” He paused, for what he hoped would be maximum effect. “That witness has positively identified that woman as…yourself.”

Kramer now stopped and looked the widow squarely in the face. At first she was perfection. She didn’t blink. Her lovely brave little smile never wavered. But then her Adam’s apple, almost imperceptibly, went up and down just once.

She swallowed!

An excellent feeling came over Kramer, in every cell and every neural fiber. In that instant, the instant of that little swallow, his scuffed attaché case meant nothing, nor did his clodhopper shoes nor his cheap suit nor his measly salary nor his New York accent nor his barbarisms and solecisms of speech. For in that moment he had something that these Wasp counselors, these immaculate Wall Street partners from the universe of the Currys & Goads & Pesteralls & Dunnings & Spongets & Leaches would never know and never feel the inexpressible pleasure of possessing. And they would remain silent and polite in the face of it, as they were right now, and they would swallow with fear when and if their time came. And he now understood what it was that gave him a momentary lift each morning as he saw the island fortress rise at the crest of the Grand Concourse from the gloom of the Bronx. For it was nothing less than the Power, the same Power to which Abe Weiss himself was totally given over. It was the power of the government over the freedom of its subjects. To think of it in the abstract made it seem so theoretical and academic, but to
feel
it—to see the
looks on their faces—
as they stare back at you, courier and conduit of the Power—Arthur Rivera, Jimmy Dollard, Herbert 92X, and the guy called Pimp—even them—and now to see
that little swallow of fright
in a perfect neck worth millions—well, the poet has never sung of that ecstasy or even dreamed of it, and no prosecutor, no judge, no cop, no income-tax auditor will ever enlighten him, for we dare not even mention it to one another, do we?—and yet we
feel
it and we
know
it every time they look at us with those eyes that beg for mercy or, if not mercy, Lord, dumb luck or capricious generosity. (Just one break!) What are all the limestone façades of Fifth Avenue and all the marble halls and stuffed-leather libraries and all the riches of Wall Street in the face of
my
control of
your
destiny and your helplessness in the face of the Power?

Kramer stretched that moment out for as long as the bounds of logic and minimal decency would allow and then just a little bit longer. None of them, not the two immaculate Wasp lawyers from Wall Street and not the beautiful young widow with her new millions, dared make a peep.

Then he said softly, paternally, “All right. Now let’s see what that means.”

When Sherman entered Killian’s office, Killian said, “Ayyyyyy, whaddaya whaddaya? What’s the long face for? You won’t mind coming all the way down here when I tell you why. Dja think I brought you down here to show you this?”

He tossed
The City Light
over to the edge of the desk.
FINANCIER’S WIDOW
…Sherman barely glanced at it. It had already come humming and sizzling into the arcade.

“He was right there in the room at Burns’s. This Peter Fallow. I never saw him.”

“It don’t matter,” said Killian, who was in a jolly mood. “This is old news. We awready knew this. Am I right? I brought you down here for
the news
.”

The truth was, Sherman didn’t mind these trips down to Reade Street at all. Sitting in the apartment…waiting for the next telephoned threat…The very grandeur of the apartment mocked what he had now been reduced to. He sat there and waited for the next blow. Doing anything was preferable. Riding in a car to Reade Street, moving horizontally without resistance—swell! Terrific!

Sherman sat down, and Killian said, “I didn’t want to even mention this over the telephone, but I got a very interesting telephone call. The jackpot, in fact.”

Sherman just looked at him.

“Maria Ruskin,” said Killian.

“You’re kidding.”

“That I wouldn’t kid you about.”

“Maria called you?”

“‘Mistuh Killyun, muh nim is Muhreeuh Ruskin. Uhm a frin uvuh client uh yuhs, Mistuh Shuhmun McCoy.’ Does that sound like the correct party?”

“My God! What did she say? What did she want?”

“She wants to see you.”

“I’ll be damned…”

“She wants to see you this afternoon at four-thirty. She said you’d know where.”

“I’ll…be…damned…You know, she told me yesterday, at Burns’s, she was going to call me. But I didn’t believe that for a second. Did she say why?”

“No, and I didn’t ask her. I didn’t want to say one word that might make her change her mind. All I said was, I was
sure
you’d be there. And I’m sure you will be, bro.”

“Didn’t I tell you she’d call me?”

“You did? You just said you didn’t believe she would.”

“I know. Yesterday I didn’t, because she’s been avoiding me. But didn’t I say she wasn’t the cautious type? She’s a gambler. She’s not the type to play it safe. She likes to mix it up, and her game is—well, it’s
men
. Your game is the law, mine is investments, hers is
men
.”

Killian started chuckling, more at the change in Sherman’s spirits than anything else. “Okay,” he said, “terrific. Let’s you and her play. Let’s get started. I had another reason for bringing you down here instead of me coming up to your place. We got to get you wired.”

He pressed a button and said into the intercom: “Nina? Tell Ed Quigley to come in here.”

At precisely 4:30, with his heart pumping away at a good clip, Sherman pressed the bell marked “4B Boll.” She must have been waiting by the intercom box—the intercom itself no longer worked—because right away he could hear a buzz in the door and the heavy
click-click-click
of the electric lock opening, and he entered the town house. The smell was instantly familiar, the dead air, the filthy carpet on the stairs. There was the same old lugubrious paint and battered doorways and the dismal light—familiar and at the same time new and dreadful, as if he had never taken the trouble to notice what was really here. The wonderful bohemian spell of the place was broken. He now had the misfortune to gaze at an erotic dream with the eyes of a realist. How could he ever have found it enchanting?

The creak of the stairs reminded him of things he wanted to forget. He could still see the dachshund hauling his fat tube up the risers…“You’re a wet little piece a salami, Muhshull”…And he had been sweating…Sweating, he had made three trips up this decrepit staircase carrying Maria’s luggage…And now he carried the heaviest burden of all.
I’m wired
. He could feel the tape deck in the small of his back the microphone over his sternum; he could feel, or he imagined he felt, the grip of the tape that held the wire to his body. Each of these artful, stealthy, miniaturized elements seemed to grow with each step he took. His skin magnified them, like a tongue feeling a broken tooth. Surely they were obvious! How much of it showed on his face? How much deceit? How much dishonor?