Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

His old nurse bent close to him and whispered.

"Don't say that to me! You work for me, you-"

Without a word, she rolled Lipper away, and like a child in a stroller he accepted her judgment passively, not bothering to say goodbye, instead eager for his next encounter.

I might have found good reasons to worry in Lipper's monologuehis vague references to the illegality of the Havana Room, to Allison's romantic manipulations- but I didn't, and not just because his words seemed the harmless and even touching ramblings of an old restaurateur edging toward senility. After all, much as I liked Allison, I was not actually involved with her. Having been around awhile, she and I both knew that the other had at least the usual biographical complications. Sure, I was jealous that she'd found a new guy, but I was also just glad to see her each day, satisfied to watch her from a distance as she adjusted her glasses or slipped a bit of hair behind her ear, any of the lovely little things that women do, and if I had been asked if I was getting to know Allison at least passably well, I'd now have answered yes. Moreover, my hours at the steakhouse proved such a pleasant distraction from the rest of my time- in my horrid apartment, feeling guilty about Wilson Doan, missing my son, listening to my similarly doomed neighbors scrape up and down the stairs- that I had no reason to dwell on Lipper's egomaniacal rant.

But that began to change one cold night in late February, long after I'd finished my dinner, when Allison came over to Table 17.

"Going already?" she asked, standing before me, heels together, her voice a little nervy.

"In a minute, maybe."

She looked at her watch. The time was nearly eleven. "Any chance you could stay a while?"

"Stay?"

She smiled. "I'll ply you with coffee or drinks or desserts and anything else we serve."

I told her I was full. "What do you need?"

Allison took a breath. "Remember I told you I met that guy?"

"Sure. You wanted to put his thumb in your mouth."

"Anyway, his name is Jay Rainey, and he called me a few minutes ago, and he needs a lawyer."

"The phone book is full of lawyers, Allison."

She shook her head. "No, no, Bill, he needs one tonight."

"Tonight?"

"He needs one now."

"Why? Did he get arrested?"

She sat down at my table, which was unusual, considering the restaurant was full. "It's something to do with- well, Jay's been trying to buy this building downtown and the seller is sort of this jerk, I guess, who's been really hard to deal with, and anyway, now the seller says they have to have a finished sale by midnight tonight or the deal's off."

I shook my head. "That's a bluff."

"That's what I thought, too, but Jay says the seller is telling the truth. It's a tax situation or something and-"

"Doesn't Jay have a lawyer?"

"That's the thing. Jay was planning to use his regular lawyer when the papers were ready, but not until then and then this evening the seller just presents him with the contract."

"What's the selling amount?"

Her eyes widened. "It's three million dollars, I think."

Not much. A tiny amount by Manhattan standards. "They've got some kind of deal worked out already?"

"I guess."

"Jay shouldn't sign it, not under this kind of pressure."

"I thought that, too," Allison said, nobody's fool.

"But he wants the building badly, right?"

"Guess so. Also I think the seller is insisting Jay have a lawyer look over the contract."

I tasted my coffee, feeling strangely miserable. "The lawyer's giving Jay no time to have the contract looked over and yet is insisting it be looked over?"

"I know, it's crazy. But will you do it?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Lot of reasons. He needs a title search and a survey. Usually there's a tax adjustment to be made. Some of these larger co-op buildings have very complicated tax situations, too. Abatements, escrowed reserve funds, all kinds of stuff. I haven't talked with the seller's lawyer, I haven't seen a title report, I don't have time to do any of the calculations, I don't have a legal secretary to file documents- c'mon, it's crazy."

"Would you at least look at the documents?"

"I can look at them, but that doesn't mean anything, Allison."

She started to stand up. "But you'll look?"

"I repeat. This is crazy."

"I'll set you up in the Havana Room."

I wasn't expecting this. "The room you didn't tell me about?"

"Yes."

"It's going to be open tonight?"

"Ha says he's ready."

"For what?"

She shook her head. She wasn't telling me. Not yet, anyway.

"You better watch out, I might like it in there."

"Yes, you might," Allison said. "Most do."

A few minutes later I followed Allison through the door with the brass plate and yellowed card down a curved marble stairwell- nineteen steps by my count- and was not disappointed when I reached the bottom and entered a long, dark space lit by yellowy sconces. Groups of men sat quietly at the mahogany bar and in booths. The decor hadn't changed much in a hundred years or so. They'd left the old hat racks, the brass spittoon filled with lost umbrellas, the chipped black-and-white tile floor. Allison set me up at one of the end booths, most private of all, and told the waiter to bring whatever I liked.

"Back in a bit," she said.

Now I eagerly inspected the space. True to the room's name, the far wall was shelved with hundreds of small boxes of quality cigarsCohiba, Montecristo, Bolivar- and under the pressed-tin ceiling each booth was graced with a painting of prerevolutionary Cuba, below which stood a small lamp, in case an item needed close inspection. A supply of pens, pads of paper, and ashtrays, each embossed with the steakhouse's gold script, was provided as well. The napkins, however, were imprinted HAVANA ROOM in small blue letters. The booths were less comfortable than the bar yet superior, for there were only eight of them, each so high-backed that you couldn't overhear adjacent conversation. Well, that's not quite true. I did catch a few lines of dialogue next to me that involved $200 million worth of new Malaysian bonds and how, tonight, guys, right here, right now, their credit rating was going to be improved. And I spotted two large fiftyish men in beautiful suits who sat examining the X ray of someone's knee with great interest. One of the men wore a huge championship ring on his hand.

Meanwhile, shuffling through the smoky gloom, came the waiter, ancient and aloof, who passed my order to the barman, himself a tired, unimpeachable fellow who worked without comment or, it seemed, awareness of the enormous, black-eyed nude stretched out behind him. You could not help but stare at the painting; imprisoned within her heavy gilt frame, the naked woman appeared both demure and illicit in her expression, beckoning in brush-stroked stillness across time and fleshly impossibility to all comers- a one-hundred-and-fifty-year selection of souls that now included me. I know what you want, her eyes said, and I felt embarrassed to be staring at her, so I stood and examined the dusty bookshelf that ran along the wall opposite the bar; on it sat a complete copy of the 1966 New York State Legal Code, a small volume of Irish poetry, a birds of North America reference work, a heavily marked environmental impact study commissioned prior to the creation of a coastal resort village in Florida, several of Teddy Roosevelt's naval histories, a King James Bible, tidal charts for New York Harbor for the years 1936-41, an owner's manual for a 1967 Corvette, and a series of pornographic novels set in 1970s Hong Kong involving a British banker. These random, brittle-paged leavings confirmed the impression that the room was so crowded with the shards and shadows of lost lives that one was rendered anonymous there; but for an occasional mop over the cigar butts and dead flies, it appeared no one cared what went on, so long as you paid your bill and remained civil. The men's room at the back was a surprisingly ill-kept green coffin, bordering on foul.