T. Boyle - Talk Talk

AS SOON AS he laid eyes on the house, he knew he had to have it. Even when he'd been living with Gina and making out pretty well, king of his own domain, envious of no one, he'd be going one place or another-running errands, dodging between the two restaurants-and glance out the car window and see a house like this and feel something move in him. Awe. A kind of awe. To think about the people who lived there, doctors, lawyers, old money, the real class acts with blue-chip investments handed down through the generations and the Jag and the SLK280 sitting side by side in the garage. They came into Lugano sometimes, people in their forties, fifties, even sixties, and they knew their wines and never needed help with the menu or the pronunciation of anything, whether it was Italian, French or German. Then they went home to a house like this, the slate roof, the mullioned windows, shrubs a hundred years old clipped and tamed as if they were an extension of the walls, flower beds, ivy, wisteria-and always a hill studded with trees. To look down from.

And here it was, right before him. The real deal. This was no development house thrown together with two-by-fours and plasterboard, no condo, no rambling Peterskill Victorian that had been divided up two generations ago into dark stinking run-down rat warrens inhabited by welfare mothers and crackheads, this was where the rich people lived, where they'd always lived. And rich people built their houses out of stone. That was the first thing he saw, the stone-a sun-striped bank of silvered gray stone glimpsed through the trees as they followed Sandman and the real estate lady up the gravel drive-and then the poured water of the windows, the slate roof that shone as if it were eternally wet, the ancient copper downspouts with their tarnish of green.

Natalia said, “It is a nice set, yes?”

The sunlight pooled in the drive where Sandman and the real estate lady-Janice Levy, short, bush-haired, expansive-were just getting out of the car. “Setting, you mean,” he said. “And look at that-look at that view.” He was pointing now, as the lawn unscrolled to a line of trees that dipped away to give up the river and the mountains beyond.

“I hate it.” Madison was leaning forward, her face intent, eyes roaming over everything. “Mommy, I hate it. It looks like a witch's house. And there's nobody to play with.”

For once, Natalia ignored her, and then they were climbing out of the car, Sandman grinning and Janice Levy watching them with the keen eyes of a behaviorist, watching for nuance, the slipup, anything that would give him away. “Wait'll you see inside,” Sandman was saying. “This place is you, man, I told you.”

Sandman was right. It “was” him, sure it was, no doubt about it. Even if the inside was as vacant as a barn or redecorated in motel revival with cottage cheese ceilings and lime-green paint he would have taken it on sight, the deal already done and awaiting only his approval. And Janice Levy's approval of them, on behalf of the Walter Meisters, who were already in West Palm Beach because Mrs. Meister, at seventy-two, could no longer take the winters and didn't care how muggy and buggy Florida got, it couldn't be any worse than a New York summer, even with the breeze off the river. Muggy was muggy. At least that was what Janice Levy told them, pinching her voice just this side of caricature to impersonate the old lady as she showed them through the place, pointing out the amenities and spewing away non-stop.

Sandman-he looked good, looked respectable, his tattoos covered up under a long-sleeved button-down shirt in a pale banker's blue that brought out the color of his eyes and his facial hair reduced to a single strip of dirty blond soul beard depending from his lower lip-grinned and tugged at his sleeves and dropped his baritone down to its most soothing pitch as they shuffled through the rooms and Janice Levy waved and jabbered and professionally ingratiated herself. “And the bar,” he said. “Look at the bar.”

They were in the main room, with its fireplace and views out to the river, oak floors, golden with age, the bar-sink and mini-fridge beneath it-tucked in against one white-plastered wall. “Yeah,” he heard himself say, “nice.” He was wearing his expressionless expression beneath the new mirror shades he'd picked up in a mall someplace in Utah, give nothing away, though the price had already been set and there was no reason or room for bargaining, sign the papers or walk. But this was how he did business: never let them know what you're thinking.

Natalia ran a hand over the burnished surface of the bartop and turned to Janice Levy to ask about storage space. “Are there not closets?”

Balancing one elbow in a cupped palm and tilting her head in what was meant to be an ingenuous way, Janice Levy assured her that the closets were more than adequate, though, of course, in an old house-a classic house-you did have to be creative. And didn't she know just the antique dealer to find her some real period pieces, wardrobes, chiffoniers, breakfronts, but really, a house like this- That sold Natalia right there-that and the kitchen, which, as Sandman had promised, had been upgraded to the highest haute bourgeois standard (the Meisters were real foodies, Janice Levy confided, with over five hundred cookbooks alone). The kitchen pleased him too-granite countertops, a prep island, hooks for the saucepans, the big Viking range every bit the equal of the one they'd left behind-and he made the mistake of saying so.

“Oh, are you a foodie, then, Mr. Martin?”

He gave her a stare, then removed the shades to fix his eyes on her, to show her he was sympathetic, handsome, dashing, a ladies' man, nobody to fear. “I wouldn't go that far,” he said. “I like to cook. And I like a good restaurant too.”

Natalia was fully warmed up at this point-he could see the let's-go-shopping look settling into her pretty dark whiskey-colored eyes, a whole new house to fill, a real house, a country estate surrounded by antique dealers and Manhattan just over an hour away. “He is the best. A cook to dream for. And wine. His own sommelier.”

Janice Levy was watching him. So was Sandman. The time had come to sign the papers, two-year lease with an option to buy, break open the Perrier-Jouët and get the real estate lady out the door so she could drive overfed couples around in her white Land Cruiser and sell, sell, sell. She knew all about him. Knew the amount he kept in his bank accounts, knew how much equity he had in the condo in Mill Valley, knew he was clean, debt-free, and that he was twenty-nine years old and had a degree from the USC film school and money to burn. “So,” she said, laying her briefcase on the bar and snapping the latches with a practiced flip of both thumbs, “what is it you said you did? For a living, I mean?”

“Investments.”

“Oh,” she said, “of course. Yes, I knew that.” She was marshaling the papers for his signature, the handing over of the check, the first six months paid in advance, Sandman to get his deposit back, when she mused: “You're in the film business?” In the background he could hear Madison's piping skirl of a voice, “Mommy, Mommy, there's a swing set!”

“No,” he said, moving up to stand beside her and run his gaze over the first page of the agreement, “that's an amateur's game. It's like gambling, know what I mean?”

Her eyes-they were green, sharp, attractive, definitely interested-shifted to him. He could smell her perfume. Like all real estate women she had terrific legs, which she showed off in a skirt that fell just below the knee. “No, not really. But I do have a client looking for a house now who works in TV, in Manhattan, and he-”

“Investments,” he repeated. “Keep it real.”