“This is for our use of the kitchen,” he said to Max, who closed and locked the suitcase and gave Quinn the key. Quinn lifted the bag, heavier than a bowling ball. He left it for Max to carry and went to the living room.
“Many thanks for the use of the room, Jess. My friend is very grateful.” He handed Jesse the folded bill.
Quinn kissed Malinda’s hand and said thank you. Jesse unfolded the hundred, held it up to the light and said to Quinn, “He want that kitchen for the whole month this’ll cover it.”
“He’s got other plans. I’ll see you for lunch one of these days, Jess.”
Quinn checked the street, nobody walking, nobody in any windows. He opened the trunk of his ’59 Mercedes 220S and gestured to Max to bring the bag. Max lifted it in and Quinn spread his blanket over the treasure, which immediately began to pulsate and exude gamma rays.
“Where will you park it?” Max asked.
“That no longer concerns you, does it?”
“I suppose not.”
“It’s my problem. You have other problems.”
“I’m incredibly grateful to both of you for this, and I mean that with every bone in my head. The fifty is yours, all yours, period, end of argument.”
“That’s unbelievable generosity,” Renata said.
“Thanks but no thanks, Max,” Quinn said.
“Call me if anything goes wrong,” Renata said.
Max kissed her on the forehead, nodded at Quinn, and they watched him drive away.
“Where will you park it?” she asked.
“The old Albany Garage, just down from the DeWitt. In the twenties it was a drop for the Albany machine’s bootleggers bringing booze from Canada. That’s a nice bit of symmetry, don’t you think, parking Max’s contraband there while he slinks off to Canada? It also reminds me of riding in Diego’s car with you after the Palace attack. You were driving and the car had a trunkful of guns. I thought you were a crazy lady. And I was right.”
“But you fell in love with me.”
“I’d already done that at the Floridita.”
“And so did I.”
“But then what happened?”
“We ran away.”
“We eloped and got married and didn’t have a honeymoon.”
“We had a honeymoon before we got married.”
“There was somebody else in the bed that night.”
“He was dead.”
“And somebody had beaten me to the bed when I caught up with you in Miami.”
“Max is nothing to me, nothing!” She raised her voice on this one. “He saved my life! What is one night with him? It’s like having a drink at the bar. It’s nada, nada, nada!”
“That’s why you’re saving his ass and minding his hot money.”
“Coño, Quinn, coño. You are un bobo.”
“Plus he gives you fifty thousand for his latest excursion into your pants.”
“Do you know what fifty thousand is? Do you know what it could mean to us? Do you know how much money we do not have?”
“You command a high fee. But I didn’t marry you for your money.”
“Stop the car.”
He stopped, half a block from the Albany Garage on a dark one-way street.
“Lléname,” she said. “Right now.” She raised her skirt and pulled off her panties. She backed against the car door, spread herself. “You are so worried about fucking. Fuck me now.”
“I haven’t had my dinner yet,” Quinn said.
He drove up the ramp into the garage, up to the seventh floor and parked near the stairs. There were no other cars on this level. Renata was still in position.
“What does your gesture mean, and this language? Is this a gesticulation toward intimacy? If I make the move is that a decree of irrevocable possession? Is your offer made in good faith or is it meant to change the subject?”
“I said in the hotel that I loved you. Did you hear me say that?”
“I did.”
“I have not said that in a long time.”
“Neither have I.”
“Do you no longer love me?”
“It’s very hard to say.”
“Try to say it.”
“I find it very difficult to love you.”
“But do you?”
“Well, somehow, somehow, yes, though I often think of it as my misfortune.”
“But it is love. You still know what love is. It is still love.”
“Such as it is, it still seems to be love.”
“Then show me your misfortune. This is a night like we have never had. You don’t understand that yet, but I do. I see you more clearly than ever. I know you. Put your misfortune into me.”
Quinn shifted his weight toward her and stared her down. “All right,” he said, “but I’m not paying for this.”
They were nine at a table for eight, the chicken dinners of all but Roy in shreds and bones, and two new bottles of wine and another round for the Schlitz drinkers were on the table, ordered by Quinn. George and Vivian, Matt and Martin, then Tremont straggled in, Roy and Gloria arrived half an hour later, and Quinn and Renata finally returned after their disappearance, but without Max. Cody was at the piano, and he paused to say now he wanted to do a piece he’d written and recorded in memory of Fats Waller. He called it “Blues for Fats,” who was a brilliant musician and funny and lived to play, too hard, played around the clock and kept going, dead at thirty-nine from an overdose of life. Cody had started this tune as an improvisation of what he’d felt about the man, then kept it going like Fats at a party, meditating on his early death and the depth of his talent, keeping it slow; but the piece got longer, eight choruses, right hand wailing melancholy arpeggios in the high register, Fats liked Bach, and then a last low chord and fade, the way Fats did. Cody stood up from the piano and the applause was wild, long, real, and it put a smile on his face that did not fade. He said he was going to cool out but he’d be back.
Mike Flanagan and his group moved back in, launched “If I Could Be with You” and people danced. Cody tried table-hopping to thank his roomful of friends but at the second table he felt weak and had to sit. Roy went to his table and touched his shoulder. Cody grabbed his hand and stood and gripped his arm. “You got out,” Cody said, and his smile grew larger as they moved to a corner where Roy gave his father the news.
“I’m surprised you’re here,” Matt said when Roy came back to the table. “You had a rough night.”
“This is Cody’s night. I thought I’d miss him.”
“What’d they charge you with?”
“Participating in a riot. The lawyer says they want me for inciting riot, that I told those guys at the Four Spot the cops had shotguns but I could get them guns to fight back.”
“I was there. I didn’t hear you say that.”
“Albany cops do their thing. In the last eight months they busted all ten members of the Brothers’ Council, me and Ben twice, and we both did time. Not one of the charges was worth a damn and most of them were thrown out, but they keep it up. Harass those mothers and maybe they’ll go away.”
“Maybe they confused you with Zuki. He could’ve come up with some guns.”