Authors: Louis Begley
It was good to have taken that second drink. It gave him the determination to do a thing he had never done before, honest to God, not even to one of those police chiefs who got him to the telephone off the toilet seat. He hung up.
That same day, late in the evening, already in his pajamas and bathrobe, he brought the stepladder to his bedroom and took down the box stored on the top shelf of the closet. There they were, wrapped in tissue paper. He was surprised by the care he had taken. He unwrapped them one by one, the photographs that were the story of his family, from portraits of Mary and him at their wedding to the snapshots she had taken in the last months, when they had already moved to Bridgehampton, but she was trying to carry on as she always had; the illness had not yet tightened its vise. He had put them away when Carrie came, so they wouldn’t stare down on the bed in judgment. Now they could return. Except for the pictures of Charlotte after she had met Jon, and the pictures of Charlotte and Jon together. For a moment he considered putting them in the living room, where he almost never sat, preferring the library, but really there were enough mementos there already, and of all sorts. He didn’t want them in his closet either. He put them back in the box, not bothering with the tissue paper, and, because he was too tired to rummage around the attic for a suitable place, set the box down for the night in one of the spare bedrooms. The room he liked best in the whole house, better than his own bedroom, was the room that had been Charlotte’s, and then
Charlotte and Jon’s, directly across the landing from him. Carrie was in it. He paused outside the door. Not a ray of light, not a sound. Sleeping like a baby.
She had called from the college, after a class, and told him she had reached Jason. Mr. Mansour was in the city and was going to dinner at a restaurant, so the other guys could cover. If Jason drove out to Bridgehampton, could he come over, like to say hello. Schmidt said yes, that was just what he would have recommended. Hey, she giggled, I’ll pick up a couple of pizzas. It’ll be like the old times, remember? Indeed. It made him ache to see her burst into the house all flustered and eager, worrying about where to set the table—in the kitchen because it was just pizza or in the dining room because this was like a big event—and what table service to use. The dining room, was his judgment, with the best tablecloth and silver and crystal glasses. She liked that. Ah, yes, like old times, like the first meal she had eaten in his kitchen, at the time of his great happiness. How beautifully they assumed their roles: Schmidt, the fallen ogre; his child mistress, more expert than Hecate and yet as pure as a vestal, her body newly branded with the mark of the invader, her hair heavy with musk and the secrets he had whispered in spasms of unendurable pleasure; the blond hero destined to conjure the spell. The boy would kill him, just as he, Schmidt, had killed Mr. Wilson. The method chosen for the execution remained to be revealed, but everything in its own good time. If he explained it all to the boy, made clear the circumstances, it could perhaps be a single blow to the neck, the trick of mercy Mr. Mansour bragged about, delivered in the library. The
lifeless body would sink onto the Chesterfield sofa, and there, in the smell of corruption, await the chorus of mourners, his Polish cleaning ladies. Except that, righteously, unexpectedly enraged by the tale Schmidt unfolded, he might choose to hack off his hands, feet, and penis, crush the skull, and throw the offal into the pond at the garden’s edge for the delight of crabs gathered at its slimy bottom. How much did the boy know? Had she told him also about Mr. Wilson’s initiatory practices, his transformation into “the man,” the fetid hobo to whom she lovingly ministered until the end? How strong was Jason’s stomach?
Gee, Mr. Schmidt, said Jason, this is real good. I don’t think Mr. Mansour serves better wine. Anyway, none I’ve managed to taste!
For the third time, Schmidt asked to be called Schmidtie. Capture the lad’s benevolence and reduce the ridicule. He wasn’t, after all, the father of the bride.
Look, Jason, he continued, it’s very nice that we are here, all three of us. That was a very good decision, to come to see me. You know how I feel about Carrie. She has been good to me, she has made me very happy, but she’s very young. I’ve always known things would change. I am glad it’s you. I’ve watched you at Mike Mansour’s—while you were watching me—and I believe you’re OK. Best of luck to you both.
Thanks, thanks a lot, Mr. Schmidt.
Schmidtie. And what happens now? Have you thought about that?
Carrie broke in. We’ve got no plans, Schmidtie. We just kind of got together.
Please, let Jason answer my question.
It’s hard, Mr. Schmidt. I make a good living with Mr. Mansour, but you’ve seen how it is. I’m with him, like most of the time, and when he travels I go with him. That’s one thing. The other is that if he finds out about Carrie and me I’m out. That’s his rule.
I think he’s got his own idea about what goes on.
Yeah, I know, he gets a kick sometimes out of needling you. But that’s because right now all he thinks is that maybe we kind of did something behind your back. Once it’s in the open, let me tell you that will be something else.
Perhaps I could talk to him.
Nah, that won’t do any good. He’s very strict. Like with all the staff. I’m not an exception.
I suppose you could quit and get another job.
Yeah, in security. That’s the same problem all over again. You get no time off; you have no life. I’ve been thinking of starting a security business of my own. I know a lot of reliable guys, well trained, and I could help people who don’t have an organization like Mr. Mansour or that friend of his, Mr. Perle. Even those guys might like that. Sort of get the problem off their hands. I’ve been saving to do that, but I’m not there yet. Not by a long shot. He laughed.
Do you think it’s a good business?
Oh, yeah. The demand is there.
Well, is that something I might want to invest in? I mean if it was helpful.
Gee, Mr. Schmidt, I don’t know, I never thought about anyone helping me out.
It wasn’t clear to Schmidt whether there was more Jason might say, because Carrie broke in.
You guys are nuts. Lay off, Schmidtie.
All right, does Jason have any other ideas?
Yeah, I’m good with bikes. I’ve thought of running a bike shop, but I don’t know. The competition is real hard. I know this guy who used to be on Route 27. He was on the force, he knows what he’s doing, but after a couple of years he gave up and moved to the North Fork. He’s doing OK, but just OK.
And Carrie, what do you think?
I don’t know, Schmidtie. I don’t think it’s up to me.
Do I take it then that you don’t mind if Carrie goes on living here? For the time being? With me?
Man, no. I mean that’s great if that’s all right with you, Mr. Schmidt.
Schmidt looked at Carrie full in the face, but she seemed to be studying the weave of the tablecloth, and her eyes didn’t meet his. He decided to concentrate on the pizza and the ice cream that followed. The permutations subsumed in the proposition that she would stay at his house were numerous. He didn’t think they could be discussed with Jason in her presence or with her while Jason was there. Perhaps they couldn’t be discussed at all. She added to Schmidt’s puzzlement by asking them to stay with her in the kitchen while she did dishes. He had thought she might chase them out to the library, to let her clean up, or find another way to give him a moment with Jason. But perhaps
she knew better. When the dishes were finished, she told Jason it was time for him to go and told Schmidt she’d be right back; she wanted to say good-bye to Jason. It turned out to be a long good-bye. He imagined its being performed in Jason’s car or in the servants’ quarters of Mike Mansour’s house, if such things were allowed on the premises or could be done on the sly.
He turned out the lights in the kitchen and waited in the library. During his last visit to the mall he had bought a CD of
The Marriage of Figaro
to replace the fading tape. The vinyl LPs had not traveled from the New York apartment to Bridgehampton. In fact, he wasn’t sure he knew whether they had been thrown away, sold, or given to a thrift shop. It didn’t matter; he no longer owned a turntable on which he could have played them. The scanning feature of the CD player was a lovely convenience. He found in the fourth act the aria “Aprite un po’ quegli occhi” and played it over and over, although he knew that, even if Carrie was a witch and had enchanted him, that was not really the point; he hadn’t been fooled, and no one need open his eyes. It was just a way to let off steam, since, like Figaro—and Almaviva!—he felt sorry for himself.
Basta!
He poured a brandy and was considering having another when he heard the front door slam. Carrie rummaging in the front hall, going upstairs, coming down. She had changed into the pair of black silk pajamas he had given her to mark the beginning of the new college term. Her feet were bare. She sat down on the Chesterfield sofa, catty-corner from his armchair.
Hey, I took a bath.
That, thought Schmidt, could be simply because it’s cold out.
I’m all clean.
The first hypothesis was put in question, but not necessarily defeated.
Schmidtie, you’re going to talk to me?
Yes, I’m just shaking myself awake. Or something like it. I guess I don’t know what to make of the conversation with Jason. I don’t understand where you and he stand. I would have imagined he had some idea—how you might live together, married or unmarried. Anyway, an idea of living as a couple. I didn’t hear that.
It’s heavy for him. You know, when he quit the PD he was like in the detective section—her tone rose, questioning, because she didn’t know what she was talking about and whether she was saying the right thing. He did it because Mike Mansour pays a lot. A lot, maybe twice what he was making. But, like he said, Mike could fire him. So what’s he going to do?
And you, what do you think?
I told you, Schmidtie. I don’t know. It’s like this. I want to be with him, but I don’t want any pressure. It’s crazy.
Could it be that you want to find out whether it really works for you to be with him?
Oh, it worked just fine, she told him, but there was no way to be with him except when he was off duty, and then they had to look for a place to be alone. Thereupon, she squirmed around on the sofa as though she had a big itch. Schmidt
began to see that if he thought all he had to do was to say yes to a suitor asking for the hand of his child mistress he was wrong. In that case, the question had to be put to Mr. Schmidt: Where did he stand? Schmidtie thought he knew the answer.
Carrie, I’ve told you that you can stay with me, he told her. As a member of my family. Nothing will change in that regard. But you and I can’t sleep together if you are sleeping with Jason. I know I told you once, long ago, that I wasn’t asking you to be faithful, but that was before I loved you so much, before we had lived together. So if you want to be with Jason, you and I can be best of friends; as I said, you’ll be a member of my family. Or if what you’ve had with Jason is off, we can be just the way we were before. It’s up to you, baby.
She came to sit on the arm of his chair and put her arms around his neck. It’s not off with Jason. But I love you, Schmidtie. Like I said I want to stay here. As long as you let me. Hey, can I still get in your bed? If we keep our pants on? Honest?
N
O SOONER
had Gil Blackman disembarked at Kennedy from his Los Angeles flight and gotten into his car than he telephoned Schmidt.
I’m back, he said, just landed. How about lunch tomorrow at what’s that place in Bridgehampton? I’m spending the night in the city, but I’ll be out first thing tomorrow. We have to talk.
Such eagerness on the part of the great filmmaker to see his fuddy-duddy old college roommate was without precedent in recent memory. You would have to go back to the time when Gil positively needed him, such as when he had decided to leave his first wife and, being as yet unacquainted with the divorce lawyers celebrated in the tabloids, had asked Schmidt for help.
O’Henry’s, said Schmidt, very gladly. I’ll see you there at one.
There was no longer any reason, it seemed to him, to avoid that hamburger joint, which of late had also taken to serving lobster and chicken-salad sandwiches on pita bread with
diced avocado on the side. Certainly not if he went there without Carrie, to meet the glamorous Mr. Blackman. And even if she consented to come with him, surely a de facto statute of limitations had begun to apply. There was the owner left to remember Carrie—and the fun he had humping her, if he was to believe Bryan—and Pete, the bartender, so far presumed innocent. The waiters, a bunch of aspiring actors and actresses with no imaginable talent and overly familiar manners, were practically all new, hired after her time. Half-breeds most of them, like Carrie. Ah, cauterize the wound with scorn, obliterate the past: how she would lean, when she brought his food, on the empty chair at his table and speak in a voice so hoarse his entire body strained to hear, how she let her hand sometimes brush against his shoulder when she hurried by, how this willowy, sallow-faced, gallant kid from the slums let him love her.
The kid, as he set out to meet Gil, was already behind the steering wheel of her car on the way to her art class, speeding dangerously, he was willing to bet, on the back roads. Drawing from the model! He could draw her with his eyes closed—each lineament, shade, and hollow. These were the last weeks of college courses; the semester would be over soon. What to do about the Christmas vacation worried her; that was clear. Schmidt had accepted Mike Mansour’s invitation for the holidays at his Dominican Shangri-la as soon as it was extended. It was what she said she wanted, but now going there as Schmidt’s girl, as though nothing had changed, while Jason lugged bags from the tarmac to the car, drove to the beach house, lugged the bags again to the bedroom, and watched
over the master and his guests frolicking in the water or feasting at table, all that was hard, even humiliating. Scenes of the goings-on in the bedroom shared by Carrie and Schmidt—in reality strictly nothing, a sword lies between them—would pass before Jason’s eyes, behind those reflecting sunglasses. And Mike Mansour’s amused glances! How much does he really know, and how much will he confide to a chosen guest or two, and how the word will spread! That is a problem for Schmidt too, although a small one, really a pinprick. But all things weighed, early on he said to her, Let’s tell Mike we won’t come. It won’t upset him or his plans; this sort of house party is like a picnic, you don’t count the guests, not with a house like that. We’ll go to Paris instead, and to Egypt if that is still possible, and, if it isn’t, to Morocco. The Mamounia or Fez or both; you decide. But the kid does want to go to Mike Mansour’s, because she’s never been to such a house or traveled in a private jet or plunged into a sea of liquid blue and gold off a great, big yacht. Also, above all perhaps, because Jason will be there. She can’t get enough of that perfectly formed head and face, with its brush of blond hair, the blue eyes, pert nose, white teeth, and believe it or not a cleft chin, and this is before you take in the rolling shoulders, pectorals of a discobolus, and, Jesus, the biceps. There is, of course, much more to descant upon that Carrie knows in detail and Schmidt prefers not to think about. All right, he told her, if you don’t want to give up the trip, we’re going. The most interesting question may be what does Jason think, what does he want? Being the strong and silent type isn’t the same as having no point of view. The boy is an enigma to Schmidt.
There must be some sort of test for armed bodyguards; certainly there are intelligence tests you must take before you become a New York City detective—assuming Carrie got that right—and it’s unlikely that Mike Mansour would have hired him if Jason tested dumb. Perhaps it’s a special sort of smarts, an aptitude for the chokehold grip and the quick frisk: to Schmidt, he doesn’t seem nearly as smart as Carrie. But then he has an unnatural, perhaps excessive, respect for Carrie’s brains. Intelligence raised to a greater height by sensitivity and intuition: an unbeatable combination.