Jonathan Lethem - Chronic City

“Who’s E. Abneg?”

“Funny you should ask. Ephraim Abneg-my father. That pad was my college graduation gift, at the rent, in 1988, of seven hundred and forty-six dollars. I think it’s gone up a hundred bucks since then. I set up Perkus in the sublet when I bought my place. A new management company bought the building five years ago and harassed all the rentstabilized tenants out with the old trick of not cashing their checks and then suing for nonpayment, so I’ve had to personally wade in and fend off all sorts of shit just to keep him installed there, including a definite abuse or two of the power invested in me by blah-blah-blah. The point is, it wasn’t going to last forever, Chase.”

It was as if I’d just wandered into the big city from the boondocks, and was forever to be the callow newcomer. Everyone else’s friendships had provenances I couldn’t begin to trace, let alone compete with. Also, I might be stoned, and reading too elaborately into Richard’s outburst, but it puzzled me how eager he was to view the tiger as an envoy of real estate destiny, an impartial (if regrettable) agent calling in the city’s old debts. At this instant, though, I only wished to rebottle the pressures I’d uncorked in Richard, which looked to wreck the evening. I felt I’d rewarded Georgina’s hospitality poorly. She now reached out to stroke Richard’s arm, to draw him back to her special corporeal calm, that oasis in her which they’d created together. But Richard wasn’t pregnant, she was-just as this wasn’t his glorious penthouse, but hers. If apartments were fate, what about Abneg’s?

“I didn’t know you’d put yourself out like that,” I said placatingly. “Still, just because Perkus was on borrowed time in that place doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about his going up in smoke entirely.”

“You’re the one who raised a toast to apartments,” Richard snarled.

“This is irrelevant,” said Georgina, her tone of correction gentle but absolute. “You must try to do something from within your offices, Richard.”

“What makes you think I haven’t done something from within my offices?” asked Richard darkly, though his words were plainly chosen to skirt a lie. “Though some would defend the right of an adult to fall off the radar in this town without necessarily conferring with the fucking authorities.”

“You must find your friend,” said Georgina. The clarity of her statement suggested a simple parallel with Richard’s fussing to keep her from red wine, pot smoke, and chaldrons, a posture that plainly hadn’t escaped her. If Richard Abneg was a protector now, he should protect.

With that we turned to Jimmy Stewart, who always knew when he was a protector. Stewart set about rescuing a gun-ridden town without carrying a gun, but before Marlene Dietrich could be won over, the Hawkman was fast asleep, her stockinged feet drawn up and tucked to one side. The love seat on which she’d been sitting formed a plush catcher’s mitt where she sagged, so Richard and I finished the movie before he gently guided her away to bed. Somewhere in there midnight had tolled, but sealed in our turret we’d been blessedly unaware.

When Richard returned to where I waited, where the tube’s blue glow provided the only illumination over Georgina’s spoils, her Arp and her Halimi and her several Starcks, I couldn’t read his expression but figured in any event it was time for me to go. But Richard said, “Do you want one more smoke?” It was then I had my big idea.

“That’s Watt’s stuff we were smoking before, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re on his safe list?”

“Sure, and I can guess what you’re thinking, but I haven’t called him in months, that’s an old stash.”

“Okay, so call him now.”

“Tonight? Are you kidding?”

“He’s a drug dealer, he’s working, I’m sure.”

Richard used his cell, entering his digits into Watt’s beeper. The dealer confirmed immediately, so Richard dialed down to Georgina’s doorman, to prepare him to expect the late visitor. I sat with Richard and waited in sullen silence, our last grab at camaraderie apparently spoiled by my detective work. Fortunately, our wait wasn’t long. Watt was such a pro.

“You remember Chase Insteadman,” said Richard grousingly, once Watt was settled in and his case of wares clamshelled on the coffee table between us.

“Sure, Perkus’s friend. I used to love your show, man.”

“Thanks. Listen, speaking of Perkus, when’s the last time you heard from him?”

Friend or fan or whatnot, Watt had an ingrained dislike of questioning, and retreated to generalities. “I do a lot of business,” he said. “I don’t keep a log or anything, fellas, and if I did-”

“Right, you wouldn’t share it with anyone,” said Richard, glaring at me. “We’re all grateful for that.”

“He’s missing,” I said. “But we know he calls you a lot, and we were just wondering if you’d heard from him in the past ten days or so. Or if you’d gone to visit him anywhere apart from Eighty-fourth Street.”

This brought a scoffing laugh. “Brother never budges from his crib.” The burst of rococo dialect seemed a response to being asked to discuss Perkus in his absence, as though Watt had until now expected Perkus to emerge from the shadows of Georgina’s apartment, hence had still been on best behavior. I found it touching that the dealer had a special edition of himself tailored to please Perkus Tooth. It was more proof Perkus existed, at least.

“He’s budged now,” said Richard. “The city condemned his building.”

“Oh, shit,” said Watt. “Tiger?”

We both nodded. My eyes fell to the rows of Lucite boxes, with their gloriously ugly multicolored font: URBAN JUNGLE, TIGER’S CLAW, GIANT PAW PRINT. SABER-TOOTH, these nestled in alongside CHRONIC and the other usual names. Watt noticed me looking. “Kind of a craze lately,” he said, with the air of one making a helpless excuse. “Can’t sell enough, which just goes to show, you know, what I’ve always heard. People do love them some fear.”

“You’ve always heard that, huh?” said Richard. I felt the sarcasm was aimed in my direction. Certainly Watt took no notice.

“Listen, Foster,” I said, waving off the matter of his tiger-centric line of goods. “What about Ice?”

“Got plenty of that.” He shifted aside the top layer, the new names, to show me, even as he shifted his own register back to that of salesman. “Never travel without the old standbys.”

“I meant what’s different about it? Because you must be aware it has some special properties.”

“They’ve all got special properties,” he said, again resorting to platitudes. “Just depends what you’re in the mood for.”

This concerned Richard, too. He’d journeyed with me to the crossroads of Ice and eBay. He made a sour face, then summoned his full authority. “Here’s the thing, Foster. You’re not in any kind of trouble with us, we’ve just got a simple question. The names change , right? You don’t really have access to a hundred different grades of pot, you couldn’t possibly. That’s fine, you need to keep things interesting for your clientele. We just want to know if there’s something about Ice in particular that’s different, or if any of your other clients are reporting any special effects from it. This might or might not have something to do with Perkus’s disappearance, we don’t know, but we’d appreciate an honest answer.”

“It’s real popular,” Watt stalled. Under pressure he shrank to a Nielsen-rating view of his trade. Ice was a smash pop hit, like Coca-Cola or Adidas, like Martyr & Pesty . Maybe Watt could retire on the residuals from it. What else was there to consider?