Mike Offit - Nothing Personal - A Novel of Wall Street

She told him that she had checked one bag, and they strolled arm in arm downstairs to the carousel. The flight had been okay, and she watched the movie. The guy next to her had tried to pick her up, and she’d tried to pick up Harrison Ford. Both failed, she said, sad to report. Warren smiled.

Her bag came out quickly, and they were in the car within twenty minutes of her landing. Warren went from being apprehensive about seeing her to complete comfort. She was relaxed, and it put him at his ease.

“I think it was the Bloody Marys that did it,” she said when Warren remarked she didn’t seem the worse for wear. “I just love that Mr and Mrs T. mix. I think I had four of them. I wanted to get my money’s worth. I had the steak, which was okay, and a hot-fudge sundae, and one of those little bottles of Kahlúa. Did you eat?”

“Yeah, I did. At twelve o’clock.” Warren hadn’t even thought about dinner—he’d been preoccupied. He had noticed Sam had a penchant for reciting menus.

“You hungry?” She slipped her hand around his waist and curled up against him.

“Hey, I can always eat.” He turned toward her, and she met him in a long kiss. “Mmm. It’s good to see you,” he whispered in her ear.

“And it’s good to be seen.”

“That’s warm. That’s loving.” She nudged him in the ribs. Warren thought to himself things were going their way. The ironically named Van Wyck Expressway had actually been moving, a major miracle, and the Grand Central Parkway was wide-open, the traffic light, three smooth lanes leading to the shimmering city.

“Doesn’t it strike you as strange?” The light was streaming in through the tall French windows, the view of Central Park South crystal clear in the crisp, cold air. Sam was sitting on top of the covers, with a plate of toaster waffles and syrup on her lap, eating them with sticky fingers. They had spent the night getting reacquainted physically, and they were both happily fatigued, having slept in until mid-morning.

“A little, I guess. But this is New York. People get killed here all the time. Whole families get caught in the cross fire. It was just a coincidence.” Warren was leaning back against the headboard, his arms behind his neck, taking in the view. Sam’s dark hair was tousled, her long legs showing from underneath the Rangers T-shirt he’d lent her. Her angular features caught the sun, and Warren felt for a moment a desperate loneliness, almost a panic at the thought that she hadn’t been here yesterday, and that there might be a time when she was not here again.

“Yeah, but have you even known one person who’s been killed before? Now two in a few months? Hey, maybe you’re next.” She pointed a maple-coated finger at him and shot him in mime.

“No, not really.” Warren reached out and smoothed her hair, and his eyes met hers. She smiled at him, and didn’t look away. “Funny, there were two girls in school at Columbia who died in accidents, but Anson was a son of a bitch. Dougherty was a good guy. That was sad. At least he had a lot of insurance, though. Evidently that’s big with the Irish.” Warren sat forward and plucked a corner of waffle from the plate. “Besides, why would anybody bother killing investment bankers? Usually, if there’s going to be genocide based on financials, it’s the Jews who go first. I mean, you didn’t see Hitler herding the Hapsburgs out of the Deutschebank.”

“What is it with you Jews? If someone else gets killed, you figure it was a mistake, and they were aiming for you. It’s like there’s a Holocaust in every closet.” She was waving a waffle in the air for emphasis.

“Uh-oh. Do I detect a little of the fascist in you? This could be it! I always had a thing for Mussolini. Great outfits! He did the same thing with his food. Waved it around and ate with his hands. And you’ve got a similar figure. Better hair. I think I’ll call you Il Duce.” Warren ducked as the waffle came whistling at his cheek. He grabbed Sam’s hand and brought the waffle back to his mouth. He ate it slowly, then licked the syrup off each of her fingers, working his way up her arm to her neck. “You have beautiful hands, did you know that?”

“Yuk. Your lips are all gooey.” She made a halfhearted attempt to push him away. He resisted and got her plate onto the night table before he pushed her back onto the bed and started searching under her T-shirt for where she had hidden the other waffles.

They didn’t make it out of Warren’s apartment until almost noon. The sun made them squint as they went through the front door. Warren still managed to catch Angelo’s glance as the doorman sized Sam up with an appraiser’s eye. Invariably, Warren would get a critique the next time he passed through the lobby alone. His building only had doormen on duty from 8:00 a.m. to midnight, so he had to remember to get Sam a key for the lobby door.

Warren’s two front rooms each had small balconies with planting boxes, which he had filled for the winter with ivy and miniature evergreens. He’d taken his first vacation from Weldon and spent a long weekend days furnishing the rooms in an eclectic collection of French country antiques mixed with Biedermeier and art deco pieces from antique stores in Brooklyn and Greenwich Village. His mother had always told him the way to make a room interesting was to blend periods and styles. Larisa had designed the curtains, which had been sewn and hung by a frail Argentinian gentleman who ran a tiny workshop on upper Amsterdam Avenue. His prices had been unbelievably reasonable, but he was so nervous that Warren had given him a glass of brandy to calm him down halfway through the day he spent putting them up.

Sam had complimented him on the décor, as it was unusual for a young, single guy to invest in anything more complicated than a sectional sofa and a couple of posters. She singled out the curtains, and the care taken in picking fabrics. Larisa had spent three days in the Decorators and Designers building obsessing over moiré silks, velvets, and the like, bringing him dozens of swatches, settling on an art deco printed velvet. He had thanked Sam for the compliment and shamelessly took full credit.

They hailed a taxi on the corner and headed east, through the roadway that cut across Central Park and emerged just south of the Metropolitan Museum. From there, they turned down Fifth Avenue. They both had some last-minute Christmas shopping to do. Warren had suggested Bergdorf Goodman as a likely source of gifts for her family, and he had to get something for his dad.

The store was bustling, but Warren found the layout confusing. In the small men’s department, Sam picked out six pairs of boxer shorts with silly, colorful designs, two each for her father and uncles, and Warren was split between a heavy pigskin suede duffel coat and a brown leather polo bag. The overly helpful salesman was pushing him toward the bag, but Warren finally opted for the coat. The price was almost breathtaking, $1,200, but it was an awfully nice coat. He’d already sent his mother a handbag from Bottega Veneta.

Before they left, Warren wanted to look at some suits. They went up in the elevator, to a part of the floor divided into a dozen small niches, each representing a single designer. Warren recognized some of the names from Goering’s clothes. After five minutes, he told Sam it was time to go. He hadn’t seen a single item under $1,300. “It may be the 1980s,” he’d said to Sam, “but those prices are just crazy.”

Outside, in the cold air, Sam realized she was hungry again.

“Isn’t it a bit late for lunch?” He felt as if he’d hardly digested the waffles.

“Lunch, dinner, who cares? C’mon, what’s good around here?” Sam waved with an expansive gesture. Warren noticed that she started moving her hands a lot when it was feeding time.