Tim Green - Exact Revenge

“I know that,” I say.

“Then who’s the other one?” he asks.

“I saw Allen’s mother today,” I say after a pause. “I knew her in that past life.”

“You knew all of these people.”

“Yes and no,” I say. “Now I really know them.”

I turn to look at Bert, but he’s gone, and for a moment I wonder if he was there at all.

I go up to my bedroom on the third floor and change into slacks and a thin cable-knit black sweater, then take my limousine to the Garden. The boys are in the box and full of themselves. Helena is magnificent. After the show, we worm our way through the concrete tunnels into the vaulted green room, where I introduce them-wide-eyed-to Helena and the five dancers that accompany the show. After turning over my limousine to Allen and Martin and the dancers for the night, I get inside the long black car waiting for Helena and we go back to the Fifth Avenue mansion.

Helena showers and I strip off my clothes and wait in the dark for her on the bed. When she comes back, her long hair is wet and she’s wearing a red slip. I gently pull it up over her head and run my hands the length of her lean muscular torso.

“Why do you like to stand up?” she says in an amused whisper.

“So I can get three-dimensional,” I say. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Front and back,” she says. Her teeth gleam in the dim light spilling out from the bathroom.

She turns away from me, arches her back, and pulls me close, reaching behind her and snaking a naked arm around my neck. She twists her head around and our mouths find each other.

After, when we’re slick with sweat, I lay breathing heavy with her cheek on my stomach. When I ask her if she’s tired, the only response is a soft snore. I stroke her hair, still damp from the shower but full now and slippery smooth.

I ease out from under her, cross the thick oriental rug to my closet, and pull on a pair of jeans. Wearing a dark T-shirt and driving shoes, I step softly down the sweeping spiral stairs, running my hand along the smooth marble banister. A small table lamp outside the library dimly lights the hall on the first floor. The weight of the bronze door handle is cool and it clanks when I turn it to let myself out into the night.

Past the fountain and the white lights mounted on the stone gateposts, the park across the avenue is like ink. I smell the cigar before I see the orange dot of its glow. The image takes me back to the night I delivered Roger Williamson’s letter. My heart skips a beat and the hair rises on the back of my neck. I walk toward whoever is standing there looking at my home.

As I cross the street, I can begin to make out the enormous shape of the smoker standing in front of the low stone wall that marks the edge of the park. When the cigar glows orange again, my foot is on the curb and I see the round cheeks and narrowed eyes of my friend.

I exhale and say, “You’re up late.”

“There’s lots of things going on in there, you know,” he says, swinging his chin over his shoulder at the murky park. “Bad things. Good things too. I like to walk in there, but not on the path.”

“I bet you scare the hell out of people.”

“They don’t see me,” he says, drawing on his cigar. “I’m an Indian. You’re the one who should be sleeping.”

“Come on,” I say, and turn to walk up the sidewalk toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “When you’ve been where I was, you don’t like to waste time sleeping.”

“Did you get done what you had to tonight?” he asks, stepping along beside me.

“Allen and his friend were impressed,” I say. “Especially when they saw Helena.”

“She’s impressive,” he says. “I’m surprised you let her run around all over the place the way she does.”

“She’s a star, Bert. That’s what they do. Go on tour.”

“You ever see the way she looks at you whenever she gets ready to leave?” he asks.

“I see her.”

“Like she’s waiting for you to stop her.”

“Why would I do that?” I say.

He glances at me, then jams his hands into the pockets of his coat. The cigar ember glows, then he exhales.

“Isn’t just walking like this wasting time?” he asks.

“This is living,” I say. “Especially if you’ve got another one of those Cubans. You hear that wind in the trees?”

“Here,” he says, digging into the front pocket of his jean jacket.

We stop under a wrought iron streetlamp and he lights me up. I draw in the rich smoke and let it linger in the back of my throat before exhaling and watching it hurry away.

We smoke while we walk, not saying a word until we reach the steps of the massive museum. Bright lights shine down on the towering columns and the colorful banners above, each the size of a tractor-trailer. One announces the contents of an Egyptian tomb, another the czar’s Fabergé eggs, and the third a Rembrandt exhibit.

“Can you imagine trying to break into this place to steal a painting?” I say.

Bert looks the building over from end to end, then up and down with a wrinkled brow. The ember of his cigar flares and he exhales a plume of smoke.

“You’d have to think big,” he says finally.

I nod and say, “I knew a guy who thought big.”

“What happened to him?”

I shake my head and say, “In the end it killed him.”

I start back toward the mansion and we walk for a while before Bert says, “Is it gonna kill you?”

“No,” I say, taking the cigar out of my mouth. “I’m not the one you have to worry about. But there are some people out there who’ll think just getting killed is a pretty good deal.”

“I’M GOING FOR A JOG,” Lexis said to her maid. She was dressed in a velour sweatsuit and sneakers with her hair tied into a ponytail.

The girl nodded without looking up from her work. Instead of taking the elevator, Lexis quietly opened the door to the stairs, looked behind her, then started down. She let herself out through the maintenance door in the back and jogged down the alley. When she came to the street, she looked before turning right and heading toward the stench of the Third Avenue subway station.

On the platform, she watched the stairs. When the number five train came, she waited until the last second before getting on, the doors nearly closing on her foot. She stood swaying in the car, scanning the faces until she got off on 77th Street. Traffic was heavy. The last remnants of rush hour. Even the sidewalks were crowded with people, and it was a slow-going jog until she reached the park. She snaked her way south, staying off the main paths, looking over her shoulder from time to time.

Tree leaves rustled overhead in a sweet breeze. A duck quacked on the Pond, taking off into the dusk, and its sound echoed off the stone face of the wall bordering 59th Street. Lexis looked behind her at the shadows that had grown thick. She knew Frank liked to keep an eye on the people who were close to him. When she swung her head back around, a jogger coming the other way startled her.

The Plaza Hotel showed its white face through the trees, illuminated by lights that made its green roof practically glow. Lexis smelled the horses and thought of the times she’d taken Allen for long carriage rides through the park. They’d take one every birthday until he turned fifteen and brought a girl of his own. A tradition between the two of them. She thought of others. Reading before bed at night. Museum exhibits on Saturday afternoons. Early breakfasts at E.J.’s while Frank slept in.

A young carriage driver wearing a stovepipe hat looked down from his white carriage and rattled his leather reins.

Cornell Ricks’s long stooped back jumped out at her. He sat at the Oak Room bar, bent over a martini, stirring it absently with a straw, and glancing to his right and left. In front of him on the dark wood was a bowl of mixed nuts. Like most of the people, he was dressed for business. His suit was gray and the thick burgundy and blue stripes of his tie were punctuated with a Harvard pin.