"That"s right, Councilman," said Chester Concannon.
We were at DiLullo Centro, a shining, famous bistro across the street from the Academy of Music, where a stylish crowd greeted each other warmly as they hopped from table to table. Everyone seemed to know at least someone there, and the one who everyone seemed to know was Jimmy Moore.
Moore was a thick-shouldered man of about fifty, short gray hair cut like Caesar"s, clean-shaven, with a round, angry face. He wore a flash Italian suit, designed for men thinner and taller. It was too tight on him and, in it, he looked nothing like the draped, statuesque mannequins in magazine ads. He had transformed it from a suit of elegance to a suit of armor. Embroidered on the white cuff of his shirt were the initials JDM. He had the intense eyes of an athlete and sucked attention to himself as he spoke, grabbed it with those eyes and the vicious certainty in his voice. He moved quickly, aggressively, head turning in sudden jerks like a giant bird. When he looked at me, it was as though he was looking into me and there was a sudden and intense connection. For that instant there was no one else in the room but him and me. And then he looked away, at someone else, and the connection was broken. But, even so, his animalistic power lingered like an afterimage burned onto the cornea, leaving no doubt that here was a dangerous man.
There were seven of us at a large, round table in DiLullo"s, having just finished a lavish meal. Next to Jimmy sat his wife, Leslie, grasping tightly to the stem of her champagne gla.s.s, the puffed shoulders of her bright red dress shining like huge apples. She was still a pretty woman, auburn hair done up in all kinds of wing things, smooth shiny skin tight over sharp cheekbones, a dramatic neck, but the years with Jimmy Moore"s pa.s.sion had clearly not been easy ones and her face showed the wear. Next to Leslie Moore was her sister, Renee, a heavier, more bitter version of Mrs. Moore, whose mission in life, it appeared, was to keep Leslie"s champagne gla.s.s filled. Then sat Chuckie Lamb, Concannon, myself, and Prescott, who had encouraged me to have the champagne but had taken none for himself. Jimmy Moore was holding court here, his voice loud and rich, his strong large hand warmly shaking those of his admirers as they came to the table paying respect.
"The mayor thinks he can destroy my reputation with this indictment, but he"s dreaming. Dreaming. His stooges in the so-called Department of Justice can try to sully my name, they can drag me through their mud, h.e.l.l let them. Let them. I got enough to kick their b.u.t.ts halfway to Jersey and still become mayor. They all think I"m doing this with mirrors, my numbers rising like a rocket ship, my fund-raising shooting through the roof. Over two million in the last year for CUP, my group, not to mention the fat stream of donations I have going for my youth treatment centers. And let me tell you something, I got some big guns giving, sure, but I get more ten dollar donations, twenty dollars, fifty dollars, more than anybody. n.o.body understands it. n.o.body. I was just a normal political hack like every other slob in City Hall when Nadine died, just another grubby councilman looking for his piece of the pie. But when she died, when they killed her with their poisons, murdered her, f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k."
He slammed his cigarette into an ashtray and lit another with his gold lighter. Leslie Moore drained her gla.s.s of champagne and reached for the bottle herself. There was a long silence. The Moores" daughter, Nadine, had died of an overdose of barbiturates, it was in all the papers five or six years back, a teenager still when she started playing around with a dangerous crowd, experimenting with whatever was available. And then one night at a party, after too much cocaine and too many of the wrong pills, she collapsed and died. Moore was on the evening news, crying first and then shouting about vengeance, railing at the drug dealers who were destroying the city"s youth. A few weeks later he started his campaign to wipe them out, neighborhood by neighborhood, crack house by crack house. There were marches, there were raids, there were mysterious fires and unexplained deaths. He had started a war.
After a drag from his cigarette, Moore continued. "I"ve been building my new coalition day by day. I speak in the neighborhoods, I do the good work, I open the athletic centers, the shelters, my youth treatment centers, but it"s not the speeches, it"s not the buildings, it"s not the programs that draw my support. These people, they look into my eyes and you know what they see?"
"Their taxes being raised," said Prescott.
Jimmy Moore laughed, a genuine, head thrown back laugh. "My lawyer the Republican wouldn"t vote for me on a bet, I know that."
"I can"t vote for you," Prescott said. "I live in Merion."
"Of course you do. But I didn"t hire you for your vote. I hired you because you"re going to kick the government"s a.s.s."
"We"ll do what we can."
"No, you"ll do what you have to. But let me tell you, Bill. What the people see in my eyes is real. It can"t be faked. You won"t find a white politician in the entire country with the following I have in the black community and that"s because they know the pain I"ve felt, they know the hate I feel, they know I will rid them of their greatest threat or die trying. What they see is my pa.s.sion."
He leaned over and draped one of his thick, tightly clothed arms over his wife"s shoulders.
"It"s no different than what I felt when I first saw Leslie, standing in that crowd outside the schoolyard, with her little Catholic school skirt and her saddle shoes. She was so shy, she was, hiding out at the back of the group, unable to meet my stare from the other side of the fence. I was in my football uniform when I first saw her, on the practice field, and my pa.s.sion spoke and I knew. I wouldn"t let anything get in the way. Not her mother, not her little private school boyfriend with the fancy sweaters. Nothing."
"And nothing did," said Leslie Moore without even the hint of a smile.
"That"s right," said Moore. "Remember the flowers and jewelry and poems, those marvelous rich poems?"
"Cribbed," said Mrs. Moore"s sister, Renee. "You couldn"t even write your own love poems to Leslie."
"I was not as sharp with words in my youth as I have since become," said Jimmy. "And John Donne expressed what I was feeling far better than I could have then." He gazed into his wife"s eyes and recited, ""Twice or thrice I have loved thee, before I knew thy face or name.""
Mrs. Moore took another drink from her gla.s.s.
"What happened to the boy with the sweaters?" I asked. Chuckie Lamb, who was in the middle of a champagne gulp, coughed the bubbles loudly out his nose and fumbled for a napkin.
"Richard Simpson," said Mrs. Moore. "Sweet Richard Simpson. He was such a nice boy. Refined."
"He stopped coming around after we started together," said Moore, turning to greet a stooped, grayed man who pa.s.sed by our table. "Judge," he said loudly to the man.
"You broke his jaw," said Renee.
"Judge Westc.o.c.k," said Moore, reaching out to shake the old man"s hand. "You"re looking better than ever, you fox." The judge"s palm pressed into the back of a pretty young woman as he spoke warmly with Moore, the conversation at our table stopping cold until Moore was free again to lead it. Every few minutes someone of import stopped by to shake the councilman"s hand and whisper in his ear, and during these interludes we waited until Moore could once again turn his attention back to the table. I knew the names of many of the people who came, basketball players and politicians and local names from every stratum. It was as if this table at DiLullo"s was the councilman"s after-hours office, where he could always be reached and deals always be cut.
"Funny," said Chuckie after the judge left. "That didn"t look like Mrs. Westc.o.c.k."
"She"s about fifty pounds lighter and fifty years younger than Mrs. Westc.o.c.k," said Jimmy Moore, laughing.
"I"m tired," said Mrs. Moore.
Moore lifted the champagne bottle out of its silver bucket and poured what was left into Mrs. Moore"s gla.s.s. "That will perk you up, it always does. Chuckie, get another bottle."
Chuckie Lamb pressed his lips together and said, "Yes, Councilman," before ducking away from the table to find a waiter. This would be our fourth bottle, and though the plan had been to grab a quick dinner before heading back to join the Talbott, Kittredge team at work, the champagne had successfully numbed our desire to deal with the piles of paper waiting for us at Prescott"s office.
"What kind of name is Carl?" asked Moore, turning his attention at me.
"My family is Jewish," I said.
"So you"re a Jew," he said in a voice so loud I shrunk from it. He might as well have been a druggist asking for the whole store to hear whether I wanted ribbed or lubricated.
"I"m sort of nothing, but my family is Jewish."
"It"s good we have some diversity now. Prescott"s a fine lawyer but WASPs have such thin blood. It"s that northern heritage, all those millennia shivering atop Scandinavian glaciers. There"s no pa.s.sion bubbling through his veins, just cool calculation. But the Jews are a Semitic people, your blood was thickened in the heat of the Egyptian desert and the centuries settling beside the Mediterranean."
"My grandfather came over from Russia," I said.
"You"ll provide the pa.s.sion in our defense," said Moore.
Chuckie Lamb slipped back into his seat and said, "Just don"t spill all that pa.s.sion until after the trial."
"Victor will do just fine," said Chet Concannon.
"No doubt," said Prescott.
"I"m tired," said Mrs. Moore, draining what was left of her champagne. "Renee and I would like to go home."
"Why are we leaving so soon?" asked Renee.
The waiter just then brought another bottle of champagne and loosed the cork at the table. It shot into the napkin he held with a festive smack and bright white lather streamed down the bottle"s sides.
"The car will take you home," said Moore. Concannon stood as the women readied to leave. Prescott and I joined him.
The waiter had poured a small amount of the champagne into Moore"s gla.s.s and was waiting for a sign to pour it generally. Renee grabbed the bottle from his hand and poured it into her gla.s.s, taking a quick gulp.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Victor," said Leslie Moore.
"Thank you, Mrs. Moore," I said. "But the pleasure was mine."
"I"ll walk you out," said Moore.
"No need," said Leslie.
"I insist," said Jimmy.
"Something"s wrong with that bottle," said Renee, pouring another gla.s.s for herself.
"Let me see that," said Jimmy. He pulled the bottle from her hand and examined the label. "Who bought this c.r.a.p?"
"It was our fourth bottle," said Chuckie. "I thought..."
"Don"t think too much, okay, Chuckie? That"s not why I pay you. You think too much, you"ll end up back in that s.h.i.thole I dug you out of. I don"t care how much it costs, always get the best. I"ve told you that before."
"But I just..."
"Shut up. I don"t want to hear it. You buy another c.r.a.ppy bottle of champagne and I"ll can your b.u.t.t, understand?"
"I understand," said Chuckie.
"Now give this California p.i.s.s to some homeless voter and buy us another bottle of the real thing."
"Yes, Councilman," said Chuckie, his head down and his barking voice now pale and small.
As Jimmy and his wife walked to the restaurant"s exit, Renee took another quick swallow before following the others.
"I guess Jimmy prefers the imports," said Prescott.
"The councilman can"t tell the difference after one bottle," said Concannon, "but Renee"s got a taste for the best the councilman can buy. Sit down, Charles. I"ll take care of it." He called a waiter over. "Dom Perignon, seventy-eight. And take this bottle away, please."
The waiter bent a little lower and put on an expression. "Is something unsatisfactory, sir?" he said.
"You mean other than your breath?" said Chuckie, slumped in his seat.
"The wine was a bit too insouciant," said Concannon calmly. "The sommelier knows our tastes. Tell him we were disappointed."
"Of course, sir," said the waiter, whisking the offending bottle from the table.
Concannon mussed Chuckie"s hair. "It"s just the trial," he said. "Jimmy"s on edge."
"Too bad it"s not a knife"s edge," said Chuckie.
"Leslie looked good tonight," said Prescott, changing the subject.
"Therapy four times a week," said Concannon.
"She seemed almost cheery."
"For the amount of money that doctor costs," said Chuckie Lamb, "she should be d.a.m.n joyful. She should be a f.u.c.king Santa Claus."
"Well, it"s working, then," said Prescott.
"I don"t know about you," I said, "but that is as sad a woman as I have ever seen."
"And still," said Prescott, "the improvement is startling."
He pushed his length out of his chair. "I see Senator Specter over there. Chester, why don"t we give our regards before I head home. When Jimmy comes back," he commanded me, "tell him I"ll talk to him in the morning." Off he strode with Concannon to the other end of the dining room.
"Mrs. Moore is upset about the indictment, I guess," I said to Chuckie.
"s.h.i.t. Look at the bar," he said. "As soon as the councilman finishes escorting his wife out of the restaurant the councilman"s girlfriend will step away from it and join us."
I scanned the bar, crowded with couples waiting for tables and singles, dressed as if they were in New York, waiting for something else. On one of the stools at the end of the bar an aggressively curved woman sat alone, drinking. From the angle we could see the breadth of her cheekbones and the swell of her chest. She turned her head to look at us for a moment.
"She"s been here the whole time?" I asked.
"Just waiting for Leslie to get lost."
"Does Mrs. Moore know?"
"She knows," said Chuckie Lamb. "She knows every last thing, that"s her problem." He stood. "I"ll be back," he said. "I got to pee."
Chuckie Lamb left for the bathroom and I was left alone like a geek at that large, now empty table to concentrate on the woman at the bar, Moore"s mistress. From the way she was turned I could see just enough. Where do these women come from, I wondered, thinking of Moore"s mistress, thinking of the receptionist at Talbott, Kittredge and Chase, thinking of the new Miss Jersey Tomato, whose picture in the Daily News that morning I couldn"t help but admire. How do their b.r.e.a.s.t.s grow so? Some sort of growth rub? Who does their hair and how do they get it to stay model-perfect, as if it had just been teased by a stylist before the photo shoot? How many cases of Aqua Net? Is there a finishing school for these women, a Barbizon trade school, do they have their own professional a.s.sociation? And if there are so d.a.m.n many of them, spread across the country like overripe peaches on a tree, why do they always end the night in someone else"s bed? Maybe I should move to Georgia, improve my chances.
As I stared at the curve of her back and my feeling of deprivation grew, I noticed another woman walking up the aisle that ran past our table. She was Audrey Hepburn to the Marilyn Monroe at the bar. She was beautiful too, but in a 180-degree different way. Tall, with shoulder-length, straight brown hair. Her thin hips shifted as she walked. Her shoulders were marine straight, but her head hung low, with pale blue eyes, big and just slightly limpid, subtle cheekbones, a soft, round nose. She wore a short black dress with thin shoulder straps and she was looking at me as she walked up that aisle. I wondered if everyone else saw the beauty lurking there, hoped they hadn"t, hoped she had a mother who always told her how homely she was, hoped she was insecure about her slight b.r.e.a.s.t.s, hoped she had been a high school outcast. Guys like me know that things like that can help. She saw me looking at her, possibly read the hope in my eyes, and she smiled at me. Her smile was incandescent.
I smiled back, expecting her to nod and move on, lost to me for all time because that was the way it always was with girls I pa.s.sed on the street with whom I fell instantly in love, but then she did something strange. She came right up to the table and sat down next to me.
"Hi," she said.
"Do I know you?" I asked hopefully.
"Veronica," she said, reaching out a slim, soft hand.
"Victor Carl."
"Explain something to me, Victor Carl," she said. "Men with toupees."
"What"s to explain?"
"Explain to me why. Look over there by the bar, the man with the dead beaver on his head. Why would a man wear so obvious a rug? You"re an initiate to those dark secrets of manhood. Explain toupees to me."
"It"s a calculation," I said. "Champagne?"
She smiled and let out a soft giggle that was s.e.xy, not silly. "Yes, please."
I reached across the table for the new bottle the waiter had deposited in the wine bucket and turned over Prescott"s unused goblet. I filled her gla.s.s and then mine. She tasted the wine and looked at me and gave me that smile again.
"That is so good," she said.
"It is, isn"t it. The French." I couldn"t understand why I had never before tried to pick up a woman with Dom Perignon.
"I don"t remember seeing you here before," she said.
"I"m here with City Councilman James Moore."