Pete Hamill - Tabloid City

Then he hears the elevator kicking in, humming as it rises in its shaft. A pause, as someone boards. Maybe it’s that Irish guy who has a hit novel out that I can’t even read now. Seems like a nice fella. Another guy who wakes up in the night and needs the air to unlock a paragraph. There’s been a lot of those guys here over the years. Now the elevator is coming down. He hopes the passenger is not leading a strange dog. Camus knows all the regulars. But he brooks no arrogant hounds. Particularly phony tough guys. Those runty little dogs with teeth like critics. Camus, after all, was once a member of the Resistance. Or his namesake was.

Lew Forrest hears the elevator stop, with a jerk and a thump. The doors open. Harry whispers his good morning. Then he hears the klok-klok klok-klok of knobby heels. He knows who it is.

— Oh, Mr. Forrest.

Lucy from ARTnews . Down from the third floor.

— Good morning, dear, Forrest says.

She comes around and sits next to him. Camus exhales, returning to his position with paws stretched out, head between them on the tiled floor.

— I couldn’t sleep, she says.

— Good. That’s the best time to work. Wear yourself out and sleep till noon.

— It’s not that easy.

— The key is, Forrest says, leave the television set off. It scrambles the brain, whether you’re painting or writing.

— Funny, that’s exactly what happened.

— See what I mean?

— There was an awful story on New York One. I had it on to check the weather, to see if the rain would end. And there was this story. Very upsetting. Two women were murdered in the Village. One of them was a cop’s wife. The other was a woman named Cynthia Harding.

— Cynthia Har ding? Forrest whispers, shock in his voice.

— Did you know her, Mr. Forrest? New York One said she was a patron of…

He inhales, then exhales.

— I knew her, yes.

— The TV said she raised money for the arts and—

— She did a lot more than that.

— Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Forrest.

— She owned some of my paintings and hung them down at her home in Patchin Place. She bought them in, oh, nineteen eighty-five? Before anybody was buying them. Before the dough started rolling in from buyers, before I was suddenly hip after fifty years of painting… But I first knew her back in the sixties, after I came home from Paris… Or was it Mexico? Anyway, I knew her. She was the same age you are now, maybe. Beautiful, and very smart… Oh, God. Oh, goddamn it all to hell.

She touches his face with both hands.

— I didn’t mean to hurt you, she says. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

— Yes, the hurt… But it’s not about me, Lucy dear. Not even close. It’s about her. Lovely Cynthia…

He stands up. So does the dog, who stretches, then shakes.

— Can we go for a little walk? Forrest says. The rain’s over, isn’t it?

— Yes, Lucy says. But it’s pretty wet out there.

— Eh, let’s try.

Lucy opens the door, and Camus moves through it, pulling Lew Forrest after him.

Harry is with them. Awake now. Protective.

— Don’t go too far, Harry says.

— We’ll be all right, Harry, Forrest says.

Then he, the dog, and Lucy are outside under the awning. Each inhales the freshness of the rain.

— Just beautiful, he says.

— Yes, it is.

They walk in silence toward Eighth Avenue, following the lead of the dog.

— Can I ask your permission for something? Forrest says.

— Of course.

— Can I touch your face?

She giggles.

— Of course, she says.

He uses his right hand, and runs his fingertips lightly, gently over her brow, her cheekbones, her chin, her nose, and her lips.

— You’re beautiful, he says. I thought so.

— Come on, Mr. Forrest.

— You are, he says. I wish I could draw you.

They are still walking toward Eighth Avenue, and stop under the marquee of the movie house.

— But you live alone, he says. How come?

— Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not as beautiful as you think. Guys are… you know.

— Yeah, I know. Are you lonely?

— Sometimes, she says.

Forrest thinks: That means all the time.

— Don’t let it get to you, he says. It’s part of the deal, especially in this goddamned city.

He turns to go back to the Chelsea. She holds the crook of his arm. Then he stops again.

— How bad was it? he says. The killings, I mean.

— Pretty bad, she says. If New York One has it right.

— Both of them shot?

— No. Stabbed.

— Oh, God.

He pauses, feels tears welling in his ruined eyes. He flashes on Cynthia Harding’s smooth skin, her delicate neck.

— I’m so sorry, Mr. Forrest, Lucy says, squeezing his arm. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

— No, no. Don’t apologize. Please.

— But I—

— It’s not you, Lucy. It’s her. And the son of a bitch who did it to her.

Camus senses that something is wrong. He nuzzles Forrest’s leg, pulls gently on the leash. And leads him home.

3:50 a.m. Freddie Wheeler. His apartment, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

He sits barefoot in a bathrobe, leaning back in the chair, staring at the blank screen. He has checked the news bulletins online, and they are alive with the killing of Cynthia Harding and Mary Lou Watson. He wants to write, and can’t. He knows nothing about Mary Lou Watson. She doesn’t even have a Facebook page, f’ fuck’s sake. But neither does Cynthia Harding. He has never spoken with her, but he does know her. Rich bitch with a press agent. Her name in the papers, the columns, fund-raising for the library, a Brooke Astor knockoff. Never gives interviews. Didn’t even know that books are over, that words on paper are over, that nobody goes to the fucking library in the age of Google. Still, why kill her? Why slice her up? Nobody deserves that…

— Stop, he says out loud.

Céline would laugh at you, you mushy airheaded sentimentalist! What makes you think Cynthia Harding was not just another New York hustler, chiseling her piece from the charities, lying on her taxes, and always nasty with the help? What makes you think she didn’t deserve it? For Chrissakes, she was the girlfriend of that son of a bitch Briscoe. That should have been enough motive, right?

And laughs, thinking: Oh, my Céline: I’ve been doing this too long.

He stands up and stretches. He places a hand on the window frame and stares across the street at the converted four-story tenements, with their black metal chimneys rising from the rooftops like hooded night watchmen. Water drips from cornices. Fire escapes cover the facades… a kind of iron calligraphy… cluttered with dead flowerpots… and one soaked denim shirt that has been there for months. A few lights burn in yellow rectangles behind drawn shades… still awake, or living in fear. He senses the city beyond the corniced rooftops… the sleepless… block after block of loveless imperfect fortresses that have lasted now for a century. So many people are awake… like the rats within the walls. The lucky ones are fucking… risking everything… even their lives. The rest are plotting… scheming… seething.

The way I do.

The way Céline did.

Even Céline needed sleep, he thinks. I must sleep now… be ready to celebrate. In a few hours… must raise a fist in the air… and curse Briscoe… and proclaim the end of the World .

3:50 a.m. Malik Shahid. Sixth Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn.

He is stretched across the backseat of the car, thinking that all we have is the past. The long-ago past. Medina in the seventh century. The immediate past. Two days ago. An hour ago. The blue Toyota is about eight years old, with a rusting scar on the hood. Definitely not a car worth stealing, either for resale or joyriding. It smells too of cigarette smoke and stale Chinese food. The filthy perfume of corruption. All the way from Sunset Park, Malik had been careful, never speeding, never trying to beat a red light. On Fourth Avenue, he drove all the way in the center lane. Looking casual. Middle-class. Yeah. Some graduate student from CUNY. Yeah. That’s me. Even when a police car eased past him and made a right on 9th Street. He didn’t play the radio, didn’t want to hear news bulletins on 1010 WINS. No weather report. The rain stopped. The sky gray.