Authors: Frank Baldwin
Our stuck horn led the state troopers right to us. From inside the car, bruised, shaken, but essentially okay, we saw their
bright lights bobbing down the long hill, then saw them brighten as they reached the bottom and started toward us. Four state
troopers stopped in a semicircle around our wrecked cruiser, their lights illuminating its cargo — six of TDX’s finest and
one seventeen-year-old high-school senior, all soaked to the skin in Matt’s beer and reeking of human shit.
We spent the night in a Utica jail cell, six of us at one end and Jeremy at the other. After soiling himself both ways in
the car, he completed the trifecta in the cell, when his maiden hangover kicked in, and though he was a sorry sight and we
were responsible, not one of us was man enough to brave the mess and lend him a hand. He lay sprawled there through the night,
clutching the toilet with both arms, apologizing between sobbing dry heaves to God and to his parents and to his high-school
math teacher, promising all of them that if he could just survive this night, he would go to a state school, any state school,
if there was still one left that would have him.
Jeremy started out at Ham Tech the next fall. It seems his old man had given enough money over the years that it would take
more than one night of legal trouble to keep his son out of the freshman class. We rushed him, of course. He was already a
legend in our halls, and we needed every curve-killer we could get our hands on to keep the administration off our backs.
Pardo became his big brother, and soon they were inseparable. Jeremy, who would pass the CPA exam as a sophomore, saw to it
that Pardo kept up the C–average he needed to get his diploma, and in return Pardo showed Jeremy that life on the Hill was
more than math and econ.
Both wound up in the city after graduation. Jeremy put in two years at Coopers & Lybrand and then was snapped up by the venture
capital firm he works for now, where he hauls in big bucks telling his bosses which greasy startups might grow into the next
Microsoft. And Pardo? He works for the governor. Splits his time between Albany and the city. A “roving political aide” he
calls himself, which seems to mean part bodyguard and part hatchet man, standing to the left of the podium at the old man’s
speeches and working “in the field” the rest of the time, digging up dirt on anyone who might make noises about mounting a
campaign.
As often as I can get away with, I treat Pardo, a true Knicks fan, to our client seats here at the Garden, and tonight I comped
Jeremy, too, as thanks for his help on the Brice account.
As the fourth quarter starts, the game is tight and the crowd into it, chanting, “Deee-fense!” when the ‘Wolves have the ball
and rising as one every time the Knicks score. Tonight has been a Sprewell special, Latrell alternately shooting the Knicks
out of the game and then running them back into it, all the while giving Coach Van Gundy the look that only Spree can give
him; a pinched, tortured expression as if Coach were just then, at that moment, passing a stone the size of an apple but knew
it was a baby next to the one behind it. Now Spree takes a pass, darts into the lane, draws three defenders, ignores a wide-open
Houston in the corner, and hits an impossible, twisting runner to give the Knicks the lead back. The crowd goes nuts, and
the Minny coach raises his hands in exasperation and signals for a timeout.
“It’s a different game from down here, isn’t it?” I say to Jeremy as the players leave the floor.
“I’ll say. Thanks for the ticket, Jake.”
“Sure.”
“How did I do in prepping you? Did you get your girl?”
I take a sip of beer. “I don’t know yet.”
Pardo looks over. “Good luck getting trim details out of Jake,” he says. “He treats them like state secrets.”
Jeremy takes a sip of his beer. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that account, Jake.”
“And?”
“Well, there were some funny things in that file.”
I hold up a hand. “I don’t want to know, Jeremy. We gave the partner our report already. If Brice is a tax cheat, I’m on his
side now.”
Jeremy smiles. “Okay,” he says.
“Would you look at that,” says Pardo, as the Knick City Dancers bounce onto the court, fan out into formation, and sit down
on the wooden floor, facing us. They cross their legs in perfect unison, open them, and cross them again.
“How’s the desk clerk?” I ask him.
He shakes his head dismissively.
“New York women — forget ’em. L.A., Jake. I was out there last week. Goddamn.”
“What do you mean?” asks Jeremy.
“They get their tits done in high school,” he says. Jeremy’s eyes widen. “I mean it. If you aren’t a C cup by senior year,
they boo you out of homeroom.” Pardo shakes his head wistfully.
A cell phone goes off in the middle of us, and we all look down.
“Not me,” says Pardo.
“Not me,” says Jeremy.
“Not —,” I say, but it is, and I look in surprise at my jacket pocket.
“Since when do you have a cell phone?” asks Pardo.
“Last week,” I say, rising. “Work. I better take this out in the hall.”
They stand to let me by, and I walk through the crowd, then down the aisle and up the ramp into the quiet back halls of the
Garden. I walk to a pillar, my back to the ramp and the crowd beyond it. Only one person has my cell phone number. I take
the phone from my pocket.
“Hello?”
“Jake?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Mimi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
She doesn’t speak for a few seconds. I touch my hand to the cool gray pillar. We’ve passed twice in the firm’s hallways since
last Friday night. Since Nina Torring. Neither of us said a word.
“Can I see you, Jake?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have much time,” she says.
“You’re a runner, aren’t you?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Do you know where the river walkway starts?”
“On Sixty-fourth Street.”
“Meet me there, along the railing. In twenty minutes.”
I put the phone back into my jacket and walk back down the ramp and into the Garden crowd again. Into the high-priced seats,
through perfume and cologne, pretty people in designer clothes. I reach our section and shake my head at Pardo and Jeremy.
“Tax emergency, guys. I gotta go.”
“Heartless,” says Pardo. “Only ten minutes left. McSorley’s at midnight?”
I look at him. “Maybe.”
He looks hard at me. “You sly bastard,” he says.
Jeremy salutes me. “Thanks for the seats, Jake.”
I make my way through the crowd again, up the ramp and into the Garden lobby, gauging the game by the sounds behind me, groans
and staccato shouts when the T-Wolves score, mass roars when the Knicks pour it on. I walk through the big doors and out onto
Seventh Avenue, the night clear and cool as I cross the street, wave down a cab, and slide inside. “Sixty-fourth Street, on
the East Side,” I tell him. “By the river.” He swings onto Thirty-fourth Street and heads east.
Not a word between Mimi Lessing and me since I crouched beside her Friday night and mouthed, “Go.” Since I cut the panties
off Nina Torring and Mimi couldn’t watch any longer. The driver turns north on First Avenue and heads up the quiet streets,
past the dark and silent UN, the river just a hundred yards east of us now, a breeze coming through the open cab window. Friday
night was all I could have asked for. More. A seduction like none other, ever. A seduction charged by the history between
us, by the gold ring gleaming in the nightstand drawer. But charged most of all by Mimi Lessing, not just listening this time
but sitting close enough to touch her and seeing everything. Seeing Nina stripped and oiled and spread. Seeing her helpless.
Seeing it and knowing, as only a woman could, what it was doing to her; what the ties, the music, the ice, the cruel denial
were doing deep inside Nina Torring.
By the end Mimi couldn’t watch. She could only rock slowly, her hands in her dress. I lifted her chin, touching her for the
first time, and she was beautiful, her cheeks on fire, her eyes… there’s no describing them. I sent her away and finished
off Nina Torring, and it was the fuck of my life. But when it was over, when I’d cut her wrists loose and watched from the
doorway as she covered her breasts and turned her face into the bed, too weak even to free her ankles, I stepped from her
apartment and closed the door behind me, and I wasn’t thinking of the delicate, untouchable adviser I’d just broken so slowly,
so beautifully, so completely, but of the girl who’d watched me break her. I was seeing again the shock in Mimi’s eyes when
I told her to go, her halting steps as she backed out of the room. And as I stepped out onto Sullivan Street and felt the
air on my face, I knew that I’d either drawn Mimi in for good or lost her forever.
The cab turns east again, onto Sutton Place, and we glide past wide, clean sidewalks, past posh buildings with gilt awnings.
A four-block enclave that gives way to York as we speed out of the Fifties and then up into the Sixties and, suddenly, we’re
here. “Right here,” I tell the driver, and he pulls over to the corner. I pay him, step from the cab, walk up the steps of
the overpass and then along the concrete bridge that leads over the street and toward the water. And I see her. Alone, tiny,
standing at the railing fifty yards away, wearing a white sweater and a blue dress that the wind, stronger now, lifts away
from her bare calves. I walk to the end of the overpass and then down the curving ramp and onto the river walkway. She turns
and sees me, watches me walk toward her, and then turns and looks out again over the water. I step to the railing, a few feet
away from her, and we look out together at the black waves.
• • •
The artist’s name is Iliati.
He paints village scenes in dazzling color. The town plaza on market day; an olive field at dusk; a stone church, with the
faithful converging. Somewhere in each painting is the brilliant Tuscan sun.
I step back and look across the room. In the muted light I can see her, moving gracefully among the other enthusiasts. She
looks over. I walk to the next painting. A water tower in silhouette, set against the flaming hills. She breaks from the others
and starts across the room, and I remind myself again of the painter’s career details. His apprenticeship in Arles. His love
of cinema.
“Hi,” she says. “May I help you?”
“Yes. I’m here to buy.”
She laughs. “So much for small talk,” she says, extending a delicate hand. “Welcome. I’m Nina Torring.”
• • •
“Tell me about your first one, Jake.”
Jake Teller looks at me, then down at the black railing, and out at the lights of Roosevelt Island. He doesn’t say anything
for so long that I think he’s not going to answer.
“It was a year ago,” he says quietly. “She worked in the building across from mine.” Jake looks at me, then out at the lights
again. “My office was on the fourth floor, and hers was on the second. The street was narrow, maybe fifty feet across. I could
see right in.”
The wind is cool on my face and neck. On my bare calves. Mark expects me at his apartment in twenty minutes. We’ll rent a
movie, he said.
“I couldn’t see her features, but I knew she was a beauty. I could tell from her posture, from the way the guys in her office
lingered in her doorway. And there was something else about her, something… lonely, restrained. She wore her hair up every
day. Sometimes if she worked late and everyone was gone, she would take it down. Take the pins from it and shake it loose.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I didn’t. I just watched her.”
Jake looks at me again, then down into the dark water.
“For a month, at least. Then one night I was finishing up my work, and I looked across and saw her lock her desk and take
her coat from her chair. I went downstairs to the street and there she was, just coming out of her building. I followed her
to Grand Central. Down the stairs, through the turnstile, down to the platform for the uptown trains. An express came, the
one I always took home, but she didn’t get on it, so I stayed on the platform. A local came next, and I watched her step into
it. I stood there, staring at the open doors, and just as they closed, I jumped in. I took a seat down and across from her,
and I saw her face close-up for the first time. She was beautiful. Delicate eyes, very little makeup. She sat with her knees
close together, a book in her lap. At Seventy-second Street she got off, and I followed her all the way to her apartment building.
I watched her go inside.”
I look at Jake, and he meets my gaze.
“For twenty minutes I just stood there. Then I walked home. The next morning, at work, I pulled the blinds down in my window.
I never watched her again.”
Jake steps away from the railing and looks down the walkway at the distant lights of the Manhattan Bridge. He puts his hands
on the railing again, looks at me for a second, then back down into the dark water.
“Three weeks later, I worked late on a Friday night. When I finished, I walked to Grand Central. I waited on the platform;
when the express came, I let it go by. I took the local to Seventy-second Street and walked to her apartment building. I was
still in my work suit. I sat down on the steps of a building across the street. At eight-thirty, she walked out the door.
I stood up and followed her. Onto the subway, down to West Fourth Street. To the Waverly Theater. She went to the window and
bought a ticket. An erotic movie was showing. A Japanese erotic movie. It wasn’t porn — there were write-ups from the big
papers outside the theater. It was an art-house movie. I bought a ticket and went inside, and I took a seat right behind her.”
I try to picture it. The dark theater. Jake in his suit, sitting just behind her. Bodies on the screen. I feel the weakness
in my legs, the color rising in my face.
“I couldn’t take my eyes off her hair. When I leaned forward I could smell it, rich and dreamy. It was held up by a single
long pin, passed through a wooden hairband. Deep into the movie, I reached forward and pulled the pin out of her hair. Her
whole body convulsed, but she didn’t make a sound or turn around. I watched her hair come down, and then I reached forward
and touched it. Still she didn’t move. And then I got out of my seat, crouched in the aisle beside her, and held out the pin
and band in my open palm. She looked at me, and I saw in her eyes that she was terrified. She took the pin and the band, and
then she stood and walked past me and up the aisle and out of the theater.