6.
The more weed he smoked, the more people Bo called. By the time I’d fallen asleep, the party had become a sweeping, pulsing organism that had oozed into every room of the penthouse, consuming whatever lay in its path, vacuuming up all the drugs, all the food, all the liquor, the people. And as it grew, the party moved backward in time, as my mother had known it would, the guests collectively regressing to the age of their greatest beauty, the pinnacle of their intellectual and sexual potency. Corners and quiet rooms were colonized so that flirtations could flourish. Faces appeared in the doorway of the bedroom where I was watching TV and moved on.
Bo believed that there came a time for every party at which its alleged purpose fell away like a trapdoor to reveal its actual purpose, which was to facilitate sex. Whether you just wanted someone to tell you you’re pretty, or whether you wanted to fuck the living daylights out of someone half your age against the sink in the laundry room, a party’s soul was made of those who stuck around for the pheromones. Sometimes everyone left when the trapdoor fell open. Sometimes everyone dove right in.
This one was a diver, Bo could feel it. These people were in for the long haul. This party had motivation. In the blizzard, it had a reason to exist. The thick haze of infinite possibility had formed. These people imagined they were partying their way through the fall of civilization, like Brits groping each other in an alley as the air raid sirens screamed, possessed of the reckless courage that was born of hopeless terror. In the absence of bombs, a blizzard was a good enough excuse. And that’s all you needed, an excuse.
Hiwatt had finally pulled himself together and showed up with the Guerrero Gold, and every time Bo looked up, more people were streaming through the doors—strangers, people in jester hats and bonnets and propeller beanies. He’d made a pass by the bars and both were stocked to hold out for about another hour or two before he’d have to make a run to the basement for reinforcements. For now, his mission was to get the goddamn Beatles off the air before everyone under the age of thirty packed up and left. He do-si-doed, left hand lady, right hand rounded his way through the crowd, and was halfway across the expanse when he saw the Iranians talking to Daisy Walker.
She had them pinned down twenty feet from the bar. The heaving crowd left no chance of retreat. Daisy was the wife of a partner at Sullivan and Cromwell, a pearl-handled penknife whose Charlestonian lilt dropped just enough shadow over her incursions to make her a decent spy. Associates at Sullivan called her Death by a Thousand Cuts. At the moment she was trying to charm the Iranians, no doubt excavating tunnels beneath whatever fortification they might have erected in the name of privacy, and Bo only knew that he needed to get to them and derail the inquisition before Daisy breached their walls. He’d seen them first. They belonged to him. What were they doing here? Had Jane invited them or had they washed in under the door with the rest of the backed-up sewage?
Daisy would have said, And now how do you know the Vornados? in that little-girl voice, and Shahin, cross-eyed goon that he was, would have said, Ah, we are in business together! and that would be that. Daisy would hightail it home and tell the old sturgeon that Bo was in cahoots with some Iranians and he’d get on the phone to Paris, and Paris would pass it along to the Texans who’d been camped out on the Shah’s doorstep since all the trouble started, and they’d do a big fat belly flop on his plan to tap the vein when everything fell apart in Tehran.
Iranians had been bugging out all year. The Upper East Side had turned into little Elahieh. Entire buildings full of them, and they all burned hundreds to light their fireplaces. Looking around, somehow half of them were in his living room. Did they charter a fucking bus? Jesus, had he invited them? He couldn’t even remember.
Get ahold of yourself. Go smoke another spliff and sort this out logically. So Iran is here. They’re not stupid. Maybe they’re not stupid. How stupid are they? Not the sharpest tool in the shed, not Shahin. He would ruin the whole deal. Nelofar might keep him in check, though, sweet Jesus, please keep his tongue wrapped around your pinkie, you beautiful bitch.
Bo landed all teeth and eyeballs, two hands for Daisy Walker, a kiss, hands to shoulders for Nelofar, she went to school in England, lips to right cheek, lips to left cheek, dear god the woman smells like honey and she’s barely even here, she’s like water under my hands how do they do that, and her hair like water sweet mother of Christ what does she do with herself when Shahin’s out with his girls at 54? How does a wiry little prick like that get away with it? Money. Money uncurdles the milk. A strong handshake for the little shifty-eyed shit, a pat on the shoulder, you little Persian pissant.
Shahin pulled him into an embrace and Bo felt the disagreeable scrape of a stubbly cheek against his. Get her away from us, Shahin whispered in Bo’s ear as he thumped him on the back.
This good man, Shahin said to Daisy, has been an absolute prince, guiding us around the city, and he asks for nothing—nothing—in return. A gentleman in the finest sense of the word.
Well, don’t I know it, Daisy said. Such a dear.
Bo dipped his head and smiled at Daisy. He saw that lipstick had bled into the creased flesh around her lips, absolutely repulsive, yet his eyes locked on her mouth as she raised her wineglass for another dose, and he watched the waddles beneath her chin undulate as she worked the liquid down her esophagus, and the powder in drifts on her cheek. Repulsive. A horror.
First he took us to the Statue of Liberty, then the Empire State Building. Oddly enough, as many times as we’ve been to New York, we’d never had occasion to visit either one, Shahin said.
Well, that just makes you a true New Yorker, doesn’t it? I lived here fifteen years before I ever set foot on Liberty Island, Daisy said. And do you know, I wept when I did. That’s the truth. I wept.
It’s quite moving, Nelofar said.
Yes, a complete tour, Shahin said. Bo left no stone unturned.
We’d been discussing the situation, Daisy said.
Yes, a seemingly intractable situation, Shahin said, shaking his head somberly.
We met through a mutual friend—a friend from college days, Bo said.
Of course, Daisy said.
Why had he said that?
My old roommate from Boston days, he said. There’s a terribly funny story behind it—I’ll have to tell you when there’s time. Neil Ford. He’s at JPM and as it happens does some work for Mr. Jahanbani’s family.
Shut up, he thought. Stop talking.
Yes, I’m afraid we’re all but permanent residents now, said Shahin.
It’s awful, what’s happening, Daisy said. Bo forced himself not to sneer. Is the old bag actually bringing her little fucking embroidered hankie up to her nose, the mere thought of revolution too much for her delicate constitution to bear? Yes, she is. And there, with the hankie poised, she waits. What’s she waiting for? She’s waiting for Nelofar or Shahin to divulge some intimacy—the source of their money, their real connection to Bo, an opening into which she might insert her proboscis and drain them of their precious life-giving mammon, but they, in turn, were waiting her out, nodding sympathetically back at her, and Bo saw that they were going to stall her until her wings melted and she fell right out of the sky, and he could have just dropped to his knees and mauled the toes of Shahin’s calfskin brogues with his tongue, and Nelofar, oh, Nelofar, oh, spiced tits and mystery—
But what if it’s too late? What if Daisy’s already got what she needs and she’s just digging in the turd pile to see what stinks?
My god. Look at these poor souls, Bo boomed. Waiting here dry as a bone and I’m just standing by like a drugstore Indian without even offering—champagne? French 75? A scotch? Old-fashioned?