“He’s always writing a new song.”
“Tell him to write a song about us!”
“He’s writing one about me first!” Marissa giggled.
Seven going on twenty-five, and bursting with love for her dad. Sterling sighed. And so near to being separated from him for a long time. Well, I’ve got to be off. He took one last look at Marissa’s glowing smile, then left the rink.
Adjusting his homburg, he started walking back to Billy’s apartment. He was planning to accompany him to his meeting, and was looking forward to being in Manhattan again.
But I’m really getting to know my way around Madison Village, he thought, as his feet crunched in the snow, making a sound only he could hear. I must say it’s a very nice place to live.
“So howd’ya make out when you talked to Johnny one note?” Eddie asked. He was standing behind Junior, who, like a judge about to pass sentence, was sitting upright at his desk.
“Not very well.” Charlie’s hands were drenched in perspiration. He wanted to keep his voice calm but could not. “I spoke to Billy Campbell and offered him the scholarship for his daughter and explained that you would be dismayed if any remarks made in jest were misconstrued.”
“All right, all right, we know what you were gonna say,” Eddie said impatiently. “So what did he say?”
There was no staving off the answer. “He said for me to tell you that he’d pay for his daughter’s education himself, and that he doesn’t know what you mean by joking or lighthearted remarks. Then he slammed down the phone.”
Charlie knew he could not soften Billy’s reaction to the call, that if he tried, the brothers would see through him. The fact that Eddie was asking the questions was a frightening sign that now the next step would be taken. Coercion. And if that didn’t work…
“Get out of here, Charlie,” Junior ordered. “You sicken me. You let this happen.” He looked up at his brother and nodded.
Charlie slunk out of the office. By tonight, Billy Campbell and Nor Kelly would have a warning that might frighten them into silence. Please let them take that warning seriously, he prayed, then shook his head in misery.
Once again he cursed the day fifteen years ago that the Badgett brothers had come to his one-man law office in Queens and asked him to represent them in their purchase of a dry-cleaning chain. I needed the business, so I didn’t ask enough questions about them, he thought. Truthfully, I didn’t want to know the answers. Well, I know them now.
When she reached home, Nor relaxed in the Jacuzzi, washed and blow-dried her hair, and, planning on a nap, dressed in lounging pajamas. Then Billy’s phone call destroyed all thought of sleep.
Her throat closing, she listened as Billy related his conversation with “a representative of Badgett Enterprises.”
“I called that FBI agent, Rich Meyers, and left a message for him. Then I called Sean, but he’s out too. I waited to call you, Mom, because I hate to upset you, but you have to know what’s going on.”
“Of course I have to know about it. Billy, somehow those people found out that we were in that outer office. Maybe they have hidden cameras.”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone spotted us coming out of there.”
Nor realized she was trembling. “Do you know who it was on the phone?”
“He didn’t give his name, but I think it might have been that guy who told us what to sing when we got there yesterday.”
“I remember him. Kind of nervous and weasely-looking.”
“That’s the one. Look, I’d better get moving. I’m taking the three o’clock train into Manhattan.”
“Billy, be careful.”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Break a leg.’ ”
“I already did.”
“That’s right, you did. See you later, Mom.”
Mechanically, Nor replaced the receiver on the cradle. Break a leg. She had worked in a nightclub where the owner was behind in his payments to someone like the Badgetts. A broken leg had been his first warning to pay up.
And what didn’t seem to have occurred to Billy yet was that the caller had talked about Marissa. Will the Badgetts try to get to Billy and me through Marissa? Nor agonized.
She dialed Sean O’Brien’s number, hoping against hope that she’d reach him. He knew a lot about the Badgetts. Maybe he could tell her what they were likely to do next. We’ve already given statements, she thought. Even if we wanted to, how could we possibly take them back?
She knew the answer. It wasn’t that they couldn’t take them back. It was that they wouldn’t.
I always used to dress in a suit when I had a business meeting, Sterling thought as he followed Billy onto the three o’clock train to Manhattan.
For his appointment with the recording company executives, Billy had chosen vintage jeans, a loose-fitting dark blue shirt, boots, and a leather jacket.
I’ll never get used to these new styles. But then again, in the 1880s, when Mother was a young woman, she wore laced corsets, high-button shoes, bonnets, and floor-length dresses. Sterling sighed, suddenly nostalgic for the serenity of the afterlife, where concerns about clothing simply didn’t exist.
He took the aisle seat next to Billy, who had found a vacant window seat. I always wanted the window seat too when I traveled by train, Sterling remembered. When Annie and I went to visit our friends in Westport, I always grabbed the window seat, and Annie never complained. I wonder if that’s what the Heavenly Council meant when they called me “passive-aggressive”?
He could see how deeply worried Billy was just by looking at the troubled expression in his eyes and on his face. He was glad when Billy closed his eyes. Maybe he can relax a little, Sterling hoped. He’s going to need to be “on” when he meets that guy Chip Holmes.
The train was a local and took forty-five minutes to get to Jamaica, in Queens. From there they took the subway to Fifty-ninth Street in Manhattan.
We’re an hour early, Sterling noted as they climbed the steps to the street. Darkness was just setting in. The traffic was heavy, and there were Christmas decorations in all the windows. I hope Billy kills the time by taking a walk. I haven’t been in this part of Manhattan in forty-six years.
It looks the same and yet different. Bloomingdale’s will never change. But I don’t see Alexander’s. I loved living here, he remembered as he took it all in. There’s no place like it in the world.
He trailed behind Billy to Park Avenue. The trees on the center island were glowing with white lights. The air was cold but clear. Sterling inhaled appreciatively even though it wasn’t necessary for him to breathe. The hint of evergreen in the air made his mind drift back to other Christmases.
They started downtown and passed the building at 475 Park Avenue. My boss used to live there, Sterling recalled. He always invited Annie and me to his New Year’s Day open-house party. Whatever happened to him? I never noticed him in the celestial waiting room and I never saw him whizzing by the celestial window.