Again, though, the message life sent him was: Never despair. Hang tough. The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
For a week or so, he was very depressed about Gina. More depressed than he would’ve expected. At first, he thought it was the ego-blow of losing her to his friendly rival Ellis, which was worse somehow than having some stranger come along and snap her up. Soon, though, he realized it was more than that. It was Gina herself. He told himself that other girls got teary-eyed over baby pictures and made mischievous jokes and were generous with their help and got silly about clothes and movie stars. Plenty of girls were like that. But somehow, none of them added up to the whole Gina package. One morning — one morning when it was very bad — he looked at his half-shaven face in the mirror and whispered the truth to his own image: “You dumb dick. You’re in love with her.” Great time to figure it out.
Then, that very morning, at just about his darkest hour, he went into his office and there was an e-mail waiting for him from his boss. Avram wanted to meet with him before lunch. The way he was feeling — as down in the dumps as he was — his first thought was that he was going to be fired. But that didn’t make sense. And, in fact, when he entered Avram’s office, the roostery little man came out from behind that ten-square-acre desk of his and greeted him with a smile and an outstretched hand.
It got better from there. When Danny was seated on the sofa and Avram was enthroned in his armchair, one arm slung over the back, his legs crossed at the knee, the boss actually apologized for what he called “the Spinker cock-up.” Danny could afford to play it generous now. It was past history, he said, with a little bygones-be-bygones shrug.
Avram went on in his strange style, at once fatherly and watchful. Danny always thought of him as a cross between a Dutch uncle and an assassin. When you were his friend you were his best friend and when you weren’t his friend, you were dead meat.
“You’ve been doing such a great job on Paulson’s, I want you to oversee the other division campaigns as well. Think you can handle that?”
Danny heard himself spluttering, “I… you mean, like, division manager? Isn’t that Kane?”
“It was Kane. Now you’ll be Kane. What do you think? Bigger office, bigger paycheck, bigger headaches, the whole deal.”
It was such a shock that Danny was at the door, pumping Avram’s hand, before he managed to wipe the stupid look off his face and say thank you.
“It’s good for you here, right, Danny?” Avram said. “I mean, no complaints, right? Things are going great for you, aren’t they?”
Great hardly covered it. Danny was going down in the elevator before he even began to comprehend the scope of his bounty. He was twenty-seven. Replacing Kane, who was old — forty, at least. At practically double the pay. With bonuses. Which practically made him rich.
He thought about what it would be like to tell Gina. That made him realize: He was going to be her boss now. He was going to be Ellis’s boss too. He couldn’t hide from himself that there was a certain amount of satisfaction in that. Not that it could make up for losing Gina. A stubborn misery haunting the pit of his stomach even now made him suspect that nothing would ever make up for that. But as consolation prizes go, this was a pretty good one.
Danny came out into the lobby. The revolving doors carried him onto the street. He had been so depressed when he entered the building that morning, but now he was in a sort of golden haze of happy confusion, gladness spreading in him like rays of rising sun, changing the aspect of everything it touched. He gazed around at the traffic and the skyscrapers and the autumn light — at the city which had suddenly become the backdrop of his success. He was so absorbed in it all, it was a moment before he realized what he’d seen: the black Lexus gliding past in the noonday rush, the pitted skin, the sardonic smirk on the face of the large man behind the wheel.
Was that Tunny?
Too late to tell — the car had already disappeared around the corner. It probably wasn’t Tunny. Or maybe it was, but so what? Why should that bother him? He hadn’t thought about the driver in weeks.
Still, the idea sank into him. It was weird. It felt like a drop of ink falling into all that golden happiness, a black drop spreading, darkening everything.
He was still thinking about it a few nights later. It kept nagging at him. He was in his apartment, scanning his laptop, trying to familiarize himself with the other projects that would soon be his responsibility. He only had half a mind for the work, was still excited, savoring his promotion, thinking about the future. Then, every now and again, he’d find he was thinking about Tunny, too. About the black Lexus driving by and that night he’d rescued Mary in the park and taken her home to her parents. And something else, something Avram said, the way he said it, something in the tone of his voice.
It’s good for you here, right, Danny? I mean, no complaints, right? Things are going great for you.
Danny hadn’t noticed it at the time, but when he thought back on it, it didn’t sound like Avram. Avram, the self-made man, who fought his way up from the mean streets, who always knew what he wanted, who wasn’t cowed by anyone or anything. He’d sounded uncertain. As if he needed Danny to reassure him. As if…
“As if he were afraid,” Danny murmured.
It was ridiculous. Avram wasn’t afraid of anything. Lawyers, journalists, the IRS. He’d told them all to go to hell at some point or other. What would he have to be afraid of?
Danny licked his lips. He thought about the black Lexus driving by and Tunny’s smirk and the glinting, hard eyes of Mary’s father. He thought about the photographs on Avram’s desk, photographs of his five-year-old daughter and his eight-year-old son and his pretty wife who was pregnant again with a new baby. Everyone had something to be afraid of…
Danny shut himself up with a puff of laughter. His brain was a freaking nonsense factory once it got going. Remember that time he thought Tunny was going to drive him to a swamp somewhere and shoot him? Then there was that day he opened the Post and saw the headline Police Seek Two Missing Teens, and, for a second, when he looked at their pictures, he thought, Hey, those are the guys from the park. But, of course, they weren’t. He could barely remember the attackers’ faces anymore, but he was almost sure they weren’t the same guys.
He shook his head and laughed at himself again.
Then there was Spinker taking off for St. Louis like that…
The door buzzer sounded. Danny checked his watch. After ten. Puzzled, he went to the intercom. Ellis.
Ellis was a big, broad-shouldered, blond, good-looking guy. Track and field at Stanford. Girls galore. Not the Great Brain of the Age or anything, but a sure feel for the markets and an expert way of befriending clients and intimidating them at the same time.
When he stepped into Danny’s apartment, though, he looked unsteady — not his usual shambling, cheerful self — gray, uncertain. Danny gave him a bottle of beer and he knocked back half of it in one swig. He plunked himself on the sofa and looked at everything in the room except Danny. Danny watched him from his desk chair.
“Look,” Ellis said. “I think I screwed up. Gina and me — that never made sense. She should be with you, man. We both know it.”