The Monkey Rope Page 4

  “What makes Junior right? He’s not black, after all, not your classic disadvantaged thug.”

  “I am making a serious proposal, counselor.”

  “Maybe so,” Seymour said, “but you will have to accept that I am a skeptic by nature, and I don’t think you’ve shown your whole card.”

  O’Riley held up his hands, and shook them over the table.

  “Nothing up my sleeve.” He smiled.

  Seymour picked up a dumpling with his chopsticks, and then let it slide back onto the plate.

  “You seem to have thought it all through. So why do you need me?”

  O’Riley’s eyes focused on the dumpling on Seymour’s plate, and the muscles in his jaw stiffened.

  “Because I don’t have the time to fool around, because Mr. Constantino might not regard my former kindness as kindness, might even turn me down. You are not to let that happen.”

  “I am his counsel, and I will make him aware of your offer.” Seymour folded his napkin and stood up. “We’ll take it under advisement,” he said. “I’ll get back to you after I speak with my client.”

  “Naturally. But be quick. I’ve scheduled a news conference for later this afternoon. And I don’t want to be disappointed.”

  “I hope you won’t say anything you’ll regret. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can, but I doubt it’ll be before tomorrow.”

  O’Riley reached across the table and held Seymour’s arm. “Understand me,” he said. “I intend to announce this new program along with my candidacy. Don’t cross me. Just sell the idea to Junior. What the hell does he have to lose?”

  Seymour pulled his arm free. “You know I can’t agree to anything, even if I wanted to, and that is open to serious question.”

  He got up and headed toward the stairs. When he turned back he saw O’Riley holding the last dumpling before his mouth.

  * * * *

  Seymour stared out the cab window at the Bridge, but this time he was alone, and night had fallen so that the structure sparkled in a silhouette of gracefully swooping lines illuminated by thousands of twinkling lights, and the brighter glow of headlights that formed, from this distance, an almost solid yellowish white line. He lowered his eyes to the black water of the East River, drawn to its silent movement as though it would carry him to his resolution with Junior.

  * * * *

  He knocked at the door the way Lois had done, and Junior answered almost immediately, drawing Seymour into the living room as much with the intensity of his dark eyes as with the hand that squeezed Seymour’s arm. During the cab ride to Brooklyn, Seymour had considered how to describe the deal proposed by O’Riley.

  Junior, though, did not give him a chance to speak.

  “I don’t suppose you saw the news tonight,” he said, his voice quiet and controlled.

  Seymour’s pulse quickened. He knew he had been taken.

  “No,” he said. “I haven’t been near a television. I met with O’Riley, and then stopped at my office to clean out some stuff. I’ll be moving into my new office next week.”

  “Well, maybe you should look for one with a kiddie corner for me to play in.” Junior smiled. “Relax man, we’re all celebrities. You, me, Lois, the baby, and that prick O’Riley.” He pointed to the phone he had ripped off the wall. “Everybody’s been callin’.”

  “That bastard,” Seymour muttered. “That son-of-a-bitch. I knew he wouldn’t wait. I should have him up on charges. He can’t do it.”

  Junior smiled more broadly and steered Seymour to the couch. His eyes still blazed, but the rest of his face had relaxed in resigned amusement.

  “Hey, it ain’t so bad. I’ve always wanted a real daddy to look after me. Mine didn’t do such a terrific job, you know.”

  Seymour caught his breath and forced his mind to focus.

  “Let me understand this. O’Riley was on the news, talking to the press, launching his campaign by telling the whole damned world the deal I talked to him about today, before I had a chance to run it by you. And what if you don’t buy it? Christ, what if I don’t buy it?”

  “He did, buddy, he did. Did it real good so that we don’t have no choice. If I don’t go along, I look like a first-class jerk, and he’ll shove it up my ass, too, and have no problem putting me away.”

  A thought flashed through Seymour’s mind, an idea he rejected but that insisted upon being voiced.

  “Junior, you need to tell me one thing straight. Did you talk to O’Riley before today?” He paused. “He told me he was the one who prosecuted you on the jewelry store robbery.”

  “What are you sayin?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems to me you should be more upset than you are.”

  Junior stood up and paced. When he stopped in front of Seymour, his body seemed coiled, ready to spring, but his eyes were calm.

  “I think I understand your problem, man, but it is definitely your problem. The way I see it, you did your job. You got me off. I don’t really care how.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Junior leaned over Seymour. “Don’t push me, man, don’t ever push me. You gotta know the answer to that is no way.”

  “Good. Because if I think for a second you and he worked this thing out together, I’m outta here. So, we can forget that. Let’s just think about where we are. I can file a motion. Have the charges dropped on procedural grounds.”

  “That’s good lawyer talk, counselor. But it’s my ass on the line. And even if you win, I lose. I wouldn’t be able to take a deep breath before they got me for something else. So let’s just say it’s done, baby, it’s done. We’ll just have to live with it. Whether you want it, or I want it, don’t make no difference.” Junior sat down next to Seymour on the couch, bit off the end of a cigar, and lit it. Beneath the cloud of smoke he exhaled, he looked content.

  Lois came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. She smiled at Junior and leaned over to brush her lips against Seymour’s cheek.

  “Hey,” she said, “what’s the problem?”

  “My counselor here don’t like being used.”

  “There are worse things,” Lois said. “It all depends on who’s doing what to whom. Anyway, I’ve got my man, and we all have a friend in a high place.”

  “And going higher on our backs,” Seymour snapped.

  “Right,” Junior said. “But sometimes, like momma says, when you’re getting screwed you gotta enjoy the ride.”

  * * * *

  Seymour found it difficult to accept Lois in the domestic role she assumed serving them dinner, complete with wine, candles, and an after-dinner brandy, but somehow he understood that she was capable of changing her colors for any occasion, of being anything she wanted to for a purpose.

  Over dinner, they talked of trivial things: how Lois was looking forward to staying home with the baby, how the old neighborhood had changed, the whereabouts of friends.

  Only when Lois asked about Sammy did energy gather about the table, and when Seymour explained that his brother was a successful real estate attorney in California, Lois flashed an enigmatic smile.

  “Maybe I should have held onto a good thing when I had it,” she said.

  Junior sneered. “Couldn’t have been that good. Or maybe I was just that much better.”

  “Don’t blow yourself up too much. You’ll explode. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted in those days, and Sammy was nice, very nice, like all the Lipps.”

  “Yes, nice,” Junior said quietly, “but nice isn’t always enough, is it Lois?”

  “Maybe not,” she said, and then turned to Seymour, “but some times, like tonight, it might be just fine.”

  She asked Junior, “Don’t you think Seymour should look up Rosalie. She’s not very far away at all.” Her voice flowed a warm stream of false concern, with just a ripple of mocking good humor. She looked at Seymour. “Rosalie would be thrilled to get a phone call from her ex-lover, the distinguished lawyer, especially now that he’s been
on television.”

  “I wasn’t on,” Seymour objected, “and I don’t intend to be.”

  “Small difference. And anyway, don’t be so sure O’Riley didn’t dig up a picture of you somewhere, maybe from the college yearbook or something. But you were mentioned, and Rosalie must have seen the news. She’s the type to watch every night while she prepares her lonely dinner. Why not give her a call?”

  “I don’t want Rosalie dragged into this mess.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lois smiled. “Rosalie will be just fine. Take my word. Remember Rosalie and I go back a long way together, Rosalie and me and the whole Constantino family.”

  The slap startled Seymour. He had not seen Junior’s arm come sweeping across the table until the open palm hit Lois’ cheek. He grabbed Junior’s wrist, but it was like holding the arm of a marble statue. Junior stared at Lois, his eyes ablaze.

  “I told you never to talk about that.”

  Lois shrugged, and Junior turned to Seymour who was still holding his wrist. “Easy, hero, it’s all over, and it’s none of your business.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments, and then Lois continued as though nothing had interrupted her conversation.

  “Yes, Seymour, I think you should call Rosalie tomorrow, first thing.”

  “Why not tonight, if you think it’s such a fuckin’ good idea.” He got up from the table and slammed his chair in.

  Lois reached over to him and took his hand, soothingly.

  “Tonight would be too soon,” she said. “Don’t take things so hard. We’re all friends, aren’t we?”

  “That’s it, that’s the way,” Junior agreed. “Tonight, you’re our guest. Trust me. I’ll choose what’s right for you.”

  “No thanks,” Seymour said. “I think, if anything, I will have to choose for you.”

  Lois leaned over the table again closer to Seymour. “Call Rosalie tomorrow. Tomorrow is soon enough for her.”

  * * * *

  After dinner, Junior took out a cube of hash and a small onyx pipe. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a knife, and flicked it open. With one swift motion, he sliced a chunk of hash off the cube and ground it between his fingers. Then he tamped it into the bowl of the pipe, and lit it. The smoke curled up softly toward the ceiling, thick and pungent.

  Seymour grabbed Junior’s thick forearm. “I just got you off a drug rap.”

  Junior looked down at Seymour’s hand on his arm. “Now, that’s twice you’ve grabbed me, and that’s twice too much, for anyone, even you.” Then he smiled again. “The rap, man, was for dealin’, not taking a blast with friends.”

  * * * *

  They sat before the television at eleven o’clock to watch the news. Seymour did not remember leaving the kitchen to walk into the living room. He recalled that after Junior had inhaled the smoke, he had handed the pipe to him, and that he had taken a deep drag that had left his mouth and throat dry. He had coughed a bit and then inhaled again, enjoying the buzz.

  At first the sensation was tamer than he remembered, but then he noticed that he was seeing things with great clarity. The scar on the bridge of Junior’s nose leaped out at him and bared its jagged edge. The color seemed to redden on the scar and Junior’s face began to glow. He looked at Lois and her breasts heaved in a slow and measured movement. He did not feel particularly aroused, more intrigued in an almost remote way by the protruding nipples that poked at the cotton of her top.

  When O’Riley’s features flashed onto the television screen, Seymour felt a sympathetic smile began to curl his own lips. O’Riley looked ridiculous with his tweed cap perched on one side of his head. His teeth appeared extraordinarily bright, at first, but the more Seymour looked, the more he noticed their unevenness. The incisors were long and yellowed, like the fangs of an old wolf.

  He was talking about Seymour and Junior, and then Lois and the baby. He said he could not provide pictures because he wanted to protect the “struggling family’s” identity. Seymour heard his own name several times, but he lost the context even though O’Riley’s words echoed as though they had been uttered into a marvelously acoustic tunnel. Seymour could not determine whether the words were coming from the far or near end of the tunnel because the sound varied in intensity, always clear, but ranging from an almost unbearable volume to a loud stage whisper, with always the suggestion of a laugh or a snarl, and then he realized that some of the laughter he heard was coming from the other side of the sofa.

  Junior’s smile had widened so that it split the lower portion of his face from the upper. His jaw appeared elongated, and his dark eyes burned deeply in the olive of his face. Lois was sitting on the other side of Junior, and Seymour had to lean forward to see her. She smiled at him and opened her mouth to talk. Although he saw her red lips and pink tongue moving slowly, he could not distinguish her words. He settled back to look at the television and tried to bring O’Riley back into focus, but he could only make out the imposing line of microphones that filled the screen in front of the prosecutor’s face. When he next looked over to Junior, he had disappeared. Lois was stretched out on the couch, staring at him. Her fingers began at her lips and trailed down over her breasts, pausing for a long moment, and then reached the space between her legs. She rolled her hips in the deep cushions of the sofa.

  In the darkness of her bedroom, she undressed him and sealed her flesh to his. He felt both oddly detached, as if he were witnessing the sensations of another, and intensely alive at each point of contact, as though for that moment his whole being were concentrated wherever her lips or fingers touched. They fell slowly onto the bed.

  For some reason, Seymour was at first preoccupied with the blanket, which had been neatly folded down. His skin recoiled at the touch of the cool sheets. Then he heard the low hum of the air conditioner and realized that he had been sweating in the sultry air of the living room.

  Lois turned him onto his back. Her hair shifted to one side and brushed against his bare shoulder. It felt soft and warm. She followed his eyes, and then dipped her head so that her hair drifted over his chest, pausing to tease each nipple with just the tips of her hair.

  The couch in her parents’ apartment in Brooklyn flashed into his consciousness, and he rolled away. Too many times, in that place, he had allowed himself to be used, to be humiliated—to be pleasured. He grabbed her by the shoulders and started to turn her on her back, but she resisted. They struggled for a moment, and then she laughed, soft against the hum of the air conditioner.

  “I know,” she whispered, “but not this time. This time it has to be our way, Junior’s way.”

  He remembered her appearance in the lobby, the way her bare thighs had seemed to glow with a warmth he could feel, how her full-lipped smile had beckoned him, and he realized that he had given himself to her at that moment, whatever she might demand. Now it was clear that he would have to accept her as Junior’s gift to him, or not have her at all. He lay back and closed his eyes.

  He felt her breath against his neck, and he pulled her down onto him, crushing her against his chest. She raised her upper body, and he reached for her breasts. He found a nipple with each thumb and caressed it while thrusting his pelvis up. He squeezed one nipple a little harder and a thin bluish-white drop oozed onto his fingers. The pearl, just like your come, she had said, so sweet and white. He heard the springs creak and Lois’ breath quicken, and then her warm flesh collapsed on him, feet locked for leverage, and then he felt only her hair blanketing his face.

  * * * *

  Seymour awoke in the darkened room. He turned toward Lois, but the bed was empty. As he rolled back to his side, he felt a damp spot in the middle of the sheet. He ran his fingers over it and then alongside the inside of his thighs where his hairs were matted and stiff.

  He tried to remember the warmth of the night, but it had left only a still damp stain on the sheet and an unclean feeling between his thighs. His body, which had felt such vital pleasure, now offended him with its leaden and stoli
d presence. He studied, as was his habit, the unusually smooth and white skin drawn over the end of his shortened foot.

  The room in its air-conditioned seal, curtains drawn over the high basement windows, did not permit the outside to penetrate. He strained to hear signs of activity, trucks rumbling, birds chirping, kids shouting, anything, but all that reached his ears was the constant drone of the air conditioner. He forced himself to drop his feet over the side of the bed and onto the thinly carpeted floor. He looked down and saw that the carpet was the kind found in cheap motels, a skimpy, short shag that separated beneath his feet. He drew back the curtain and discovered that the sun was at a midmorning height, and that the street was alive with kids playing ball. He could see their mouths moving and their arms gesturing, but no sound reached through the window.

  When he turned around, Junior was at the foot of the bed, his smile brilliant in the dim light.

  “Hey, lover, rise and shine. You’ve been makin’ love to momma and forgettin’ me.”

  “Where’s Lois?”

  “She’s gone, as she came.”

  “But where?”

  “Don’t sweat it, man. Like I said, she was here when I told her to be.”

  Seymour shuddered. “And gone the same way.”

  Junior beamed. “You got it babe, you got it.”

  * * * *

  Seymour found Lois in the kitchen, sitting at the table and wearing a plain terrycloth robe, open at the top so that she could nurse the baby. The baby had her right breast firmly between its hands, and its mouth was working rhythmically on the nipple. Lois was looking down at the tiny face and murmuring a string of nonsense words. She looked perfectly content.

  He sat down next to her, and she smiled at him as though she had just met him on the street after not having seen him for a long time. The smile said that the night before had never happened, but the sight of the baby greedily working at her breast stirred his memory, and he felt again her milk between his fingers. She studied his face, and as though she had read his thoughts and insisted on deflecting them she turned her head toward the refrigerator.

  “If you want some breakfast, you’ll have to fix it yourself. Junior has already eaten, and I can’t get up. But help yourself to whatever you want in the fridge.”