"No," he says again. "I've seen your face somewhere."
Finally, exasperated, I ask, trying to appear casual, "You have? Really? Interesting. Just watch the road, Abdullah."
There's a long, scary pause while he stares at me in the rearview mirror and the grim smile fades. His face is blank. He says, "I know. Man, I know who you are," and he's nodding, his mouth drawn tight. The radio that was tuned into the news is shut off.
Buildings pass by in a gray-red blur, the cab passes other cabs, the sky changes color from blue to purple to black back to blue. At another light – a red one he races straight through – we pass, on the other side of the West Side Highway, a new D'Agostino's on the corner where Mars used to be and it moves me to tears, almost, because it's something that's identifiable and I get as nostalgic for the market (even though it's not one I will ever shop at) as I have about anything and I almost interrupt the driver, tell him to pull over, have him let me out, let him keep the change from a ten – no, a twenty – but I can't move because he's driving too fast and something intervenes, something unthinkable and ludicrous, and I hear him say it, maybe. "You're the guy who kill Solly." His face is locked into a determined grimace. As with everything else, the following happens very quickly, though it feels like an endurance test.
I swallow, lower my sunglasses and tell him to slow down before asking, "Who, may I ask, is Sally?"
"Man, your face is on a wanted poster downtown," he says, unflinching.
"I think I would like to stop here," I manage to croak out.
"You're the guy, right?" He's looking at me like I'm some kind of viper.
Another cab, its light on, empty, cruises past ours, going at least eighty. I'm not saying anything, just shaking my head. "I am going to take" – I swallow, trembling, open my leather datebook, pull out a Mount Blanc pen from my Bottega Veneta briefcase – "your license number down. . ."
"You kill Solly," he says, definitely recognizing me from somewhere, cutting another denial on my part by growling, "You son-of-a-bitch."
Near the docks downtown he swerves off the highway and races the cab toward the end of a deserted parking area and it hits me somewhere, now, this moment, when he drives into and then over a dilapidated, rust-covered aluminum fence, heading toward water, that all I have to do is put the Walkman on, blot out the sound of the cabdriver, but my hands are twisted into paralyzed fists that I can't unclench, held captive in the cab as it hurtles toward a destination only the cabdriver, who is obviously deranged, knows. The windows are rolled down partially and I can feel the cool morning air drying the mousse on my scalp. I feel naked, suddenly tiny. My mouth tastes metallic, then it gets worse. My vision: a winter road. But I'm left with one comforting thought: I am rich – millions are not.
"You've, like, incorrectly identified me," I'm saying.
He stops the cab and turns around toward the backseat. He's holding a gun, the make of which I don't recognize. I'm staring at him, my quizzical expression changing into something else.
"The watch. The Rolex," he says simply.
I listen, silent, squirming in my seat.
He repeats, "The watch."
"Is this some kind of prank?" I ask.
"Get out," he spits. "Get the fuck out of the car."
I stare past the driver's head, out the windshield, at gulls flying low over the dark, wavy water, and opening the door I step out of the cab, cautiously, no sudden moves. It's a cold day. My breath steams, wind picks it up, swirls it around.
"The watch, you scumbag," he says, leaning out the window, the gun aimed at my head.
"Listen, I don't know what you think you're doing or what you're exactly trying to accomplish or what it is you think you're going to be able to do. I've never been fingerprinted, I have alibis–"
"Shut up," Abdullah growls, cutting me off. "Just shut your fucking mouth."
"I am innocent," I shout with utter conviction.
"The watch." He cocks the gun.
I unhook the Rolex and, sliding it off my wrist, hand it to him.
"Wallet." He motions with his gun. "Just the cash."
Helplessly I take out my new gazelleskin wallet and quickly, my fingers freezing, numb, hand him the cash, which amounts to only three hundred dollars since I didn't have time to stop at an automated teller before the power breakfast. Solly, I'm guessing, was the cabdriver I killed during the chase scene last fall, even though that guy was Armenian. I suppose I could have killed another one and I am just not recalling this particular incident.
"What are you going to do?" I ask. "Isn't there a reward of some kind?"
"No. No reward," he mutters, shuffling the bills with one hand, the gun, still pointed at me, in the other.
"How do you know I'm not going to call you in and get your license revoked?" I ask, handing over a knife I just found in my pocket that looks as if it was dipped into a bowl of blood and hair.
"Because you're guilty," he says, and then, "Get that away from me," waving the gun at the stained knife.
"Like you know," I mutter angrily.
"The sunglasses." He points again with the gun.
"How do you know I'm guilty?" I can't believe I'm asking this patiently.
"Look what you're doing, asshole," he says. "The sunglasses."
"These are expensive," I protest, then sigh, realizing the mistake. "I mean cheap. They're very cheap. Just… Isn't the money enough?"
"The sunglasses. Give them now," he grunts.
I take the Wayfarers off and hand them to him. Maybe I really did kill a Solly, though I'm positive that any cabdrivers I've killed lately were not American. I probably did. There probably is a wanted poster of me at… where, the taxi – the place where all the taxis congregate? What's it called? The driver tries the sunglasses on, looks at himself in the rearview mirror and then takes them off. He folds the glasses and puts them in his jacket pocket.
"You're a dead man." I smile grimly at him.
"And you're a yuppie scumbag," he says.
"You're a dead man, Abdullah," I repeat, no joke. "Count on it."
"Yeah? And you're a yuppie scumbag. Which is worse?"
He starts the cab up and pulls away from me.
While walking back to the highway I stop, choke back a sob, my throat tightens. "I just want to…" Facing the skyline, through all the baby talk, I murmur, "keep the game going." As I stand, frozen in position, an old woman emerges behind a Threepenny Opera poster at a deserted bus stop and she's homeless and begging, hobbling over, her face covered with sores that look like bugs, holding out a shaking red hand. "Oh will you please go away?" I sigh. She tells me to get a haircut.
At Harry's
On a Friday evening, a group of us have left the office early, finding ourselves at Harry's. Group consists of Tim Price, Craig McDermott, myself, Preston Goodrich, who is currently dating a total hardbody named, I think, Plum – no last name, just Plum, an actress/model, which I have a feeling we all think is pretty hip. We're having a debate over where to make reservations for dinner: Flamingo East, Oyster Bar, 220, Counterlife, Michael's, SpagoEast, Le Cirque. Robert Farrell is here too, the Lotus Quotrek, a portable stock-quotation device, in front of him on the table, and he's pushing buttons while the latest commodities flash by. What are people wearing? McDermott has on a cashmere sport coat, wool trousers, a silk tie, Hermès. Farrell is wearing a cashmere vest, leather shoes, wool cavalry twill trousers, Garrick Anderson. I'm wearing a wool suit by Armani, shoes by Allen-Edmonds, pocket square by Brooks Brothers. Someone else has on a suit tailored by Anderson and Sheppard. Someone who looks like Todd Lauder, and may in fact be, gives thumbs-up from across the room, etc., etc.