Then Gina got pregnant and told her father, and her father-a loudmouth and bullhead in a league of his own who'd never warmed to Peck because he wasn't Italian and even if he had been it wouldn't have mattered because nobody was good enough for his girl, not the right fielder for the New York Yankees or Giuliani's favorite nephew-insisted that they get married within the month. From Peck's point of view, the whole thing stank. He didn't want a kid, didn't want to be tied down at so young an age, and he resented Gina for letting it happen in the first place. But he went along, not coincidentally because her father was the controlling partner of both Pizza Napoli and Lugano, and he loved her, he did. At least then he did. They were married at the Assumption church, big reception at the country club in Croton, no expense spared, Peck's mother there in the front pew, drunk as usual, a buddy from high school he hadn't seen in six years-Josh Friedman-standing in as best man, and it was a fait accompli.
The thing is, it all might have worked out, a slow upward climb into maturity and the fullness of a relationship, the kid, a dog, a house in the country, if it wasn't for Gina. As soon as she got pregnant, she stopped sleeping with him. Just like that. She was always sick, always complaining about imaginary pains, and she got sloppy and let herself go. She never washed her hair. Never picked anything up. And sex. Did he mention sex? Sex was about as frequent-and satisfying-as the comet that comes every four hundred years and then you go out on the lawn and gape up at some poor pale pathetic streak of scum in the sky you can barely locate. Big thrill. Big, big thrill.
Could anybody have blamed him, even the pope and his College of Cardinals, if he began staying late at the restaurant? Even now, even after the jail time and the hate and resentment and going underground and all the rest, he had no regrets. Sometimes he'd just close his eyes and see the glow of the bar at two a. m., the front door locked and two or three of those candles guttering in their yellow globes till it seemed as if the whole place had been sprayed with a fine patina of antique gold, and Caroline or Melanie or one of the other cocktail waitresses sitting there beside him having a slow smoke and a Remy, his hand on her thigh or her breast as if he were fitting her for a custom-made outfit. So casual. So slow and sure. The beauty of it: he'd fucked her the night before and he'd fuck her again tonight. Once he got around to it.
“So jazz-you dig jazz at all?” Jonas was saying, and Peck had been away for a moment there, and at first, for the smallest sliver of a second, couldn't quite place him. “The new Diana Krall-did you know she married Elvis Costello? — it's pretty awesome.” The man was fumbling in his jacket, the big hand moving like an animal caught in a bag, and then he flashed the CD and handed it across the table. “You might want to put this on. It's pretty awesome. Believe me.”
Somehow, Peck's mood had soured. The pans were dirty, the meal stewing down in their guts, the Armagnac evaporated-was the guy using a straw, or what? Plus there was this asshole Bridger, threatening everything, and the first chink in the walclass="underline" the credit card he'd laid out on the counter at the Wine Nook was invalid, or so the pencil-neck behind the counter informed him. Natalia-half-playful, half-serious-had accused him of brooding and he'd defended himself, lamely, as in “I'm not brooding-I'm just thinking, that's all.” Now he took the CD from Jonas in its compact plastic case and stared at it absently.
“I think you're going to like it,” Jonas said, leaning in over the table. He was drunk, sloppy, fat-faced. Peck suppressed an urge to punch him. “Isn't that right, honey?” Jonas said, turning to his wife.
“Oh, yeah,” Kaylee crooned, “yeah, I think you'll really like it.” She shrugged, a long shiver that ran up one side of her torso to her shoulders and back down again; she was drunk too, and why couldn't anybody sit down and eat a nice dinner without getting shit-faced? She gave him a wide wet-lipped smile. “Knowing you. Your soulful side, I mean-”
Natalia was nestled into the sofa like a cat, her legs drawn up, shoes off, the snifter cradled in the v of her crotch. She let her eyes rest on Jonas. “It is what, standards-is that how you say? Standards? Such a funny term.”
No one answered her. After a moment, the CD still balanced in his hand, Peck said that he'd once been to the Five Spot with a girl he was dating ten years ago or more and that the band that night-female vocalist, flute, piano, percussion, bass-was like somebody taking their clothes off in the dark because they're ashamed of the way they look, and then he laid the disc back down on the coffee table and rose to his feet. “Listen,” he said, “I just remembered something-if you'll all excuse me a minute. I've got to-got to go out. Just for a minute.”
Natalia said, “But, Da-na, it is near to one in the a. m. Where? Where do you go?”
She was laying into him in front of the guests and that rubbed him the wrong way. He wanted to say something hurtful and violent, but he held back. He was all bottled up. He was wrong, he knew it, and so he said something in melioration, something he shouldn't have said: “I need to make a phone call.”
And now a whole shitstorm of protest and sympathy rose up, Natalia complaining in a little voice that he'd smashed her cell phone and wondering why he couldn't use the landline and both Jonas and Kaylee whipping out their cells as if the cells were six-shooters and this was the OK Corral. What could he say? Nothing. He just waved them off and backed across the room as if he were afraid they'd chase him down, tug at his sleeves, force their phones into his hand, and he snapped a mental picture of their faces-drunken faces, puzzled faces, a little indignant even-as he slipped out the door.
Outside, the fog had grown thick, obscuring everything. It was cold suddenly, the damp reach of it getting down inside his shirt, and he wished he'd thought to bring a jacket, but no matter. He slid into Natalia's car-“Natalia's car:” the registration was in his name and he was the one making payments on it-turned over the engine and worked the button on the temperature gauge till it read 80 degrees. There weren't many pay phones around anymore-they were a vestige of a bygone era, Frank's era, Jocko's, his own dead father's, and they'd be gone entirely in a decade, he would have put money on it-but there were a couple in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, and that was where he headed.
He stopped at the bar for a cognac and five bucks' worth of change. He had no idea what it cost to call San Roque, and he probably shouldn't have been doing it, anyway-there were easier ways to get what he wanted-but he couldn't resist, not tonight, not the way he was feeling, so sour and disconnected and twisted up inside. The lobby was over-lit, blazing like some meeting hall, but it was deserted at this hour. He listened to the coins fall and the operator's voice and then the ringing on the other end of the line.
“Hello?”
“Bridger?”
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted to confirm that your listing in our guide is correct-can you give me a spelling on your complete name?”
“Listen, if you're selling something, I don't want it-this is my private cell and you better, please, just remove it from your records.”
“Oh, I'm not selling anything, not that you want, anyway.” He gave it a heartbeat, just to let everything settle. “It's me, Dana. You know, the Rick James fan.”
There was a silence, festering, the scab picked, the bandage torn from the wound. It made his heart swell to listen to it, to listen to the shithead dangle on the other end of the line, caught out at his own game. “Yeah, uh, hi.”