Apron, wash hands, and leap into a whirlpool of noisy greetings over the biggest breakfasts you ever could imagine.
Jonie, a lanky lad who shared Josephus’s rotten taste in rotten music, told me Fredo had suffered an accident on Grand Central Parkway, been unconscious all night. Jonie was a merry soul who dressed like a jogger itching to go, laughed at his own joke: “Business worries got him hospitalized, Lovejoy—and business worries woke him right up!” Everybody thought that hilarious. I grinned, quipped that dough worried everybody, got a chorus of “Right, right!” and pressed on serving coffees, shouting orders and making sure the right sauces, pickles, condiments, were on hand for whatever customers lurked behind those mounds of steaming food we served and served. And served.
“LOVEJOY?”
“Evening, Rose.” I was tired by eight. She was in, same stool, had her tunnyfish salad and sliced eggs and coffee and a glass of white wine.
“Want me to buy you a drink?”
I thought I’d misheard at first. “Er, thanks, love. But I don’t drink on duty.” Then I contemplated the alternative, the terrible cinnamon tea of America, and relaxed my rule but insisted on paying for it myself. She frowned slightly, heaven knows why. I got some American white wine.
“Why d’you lot import so much European stuff when yours is better?” I mused between customers, on the principle that compliments stop women frowning. ”Like your American cut glass.”
“Cut glass?”
“Late Victorian. It’s miles better than… er, foreign antiques of that vintage.” I’d caught myself in the nick of time, reminded myself that I was a Yank, not an illegal immigrant hopefully passing through.
“You and antiques. We take in that exhibition?”
“Give me half a chance, love.”
“It’s a date. Tomorrow afternoon?” She saw my hesitation, reminded me tomorrow was Sunday. I agreed with ecstasy. Antiques and time to think? “Then you can concentrate on legit antiques, Lovejoy.”
She smiled, tilting her head towards the lovely woman in the corner who’d captured my attention an hour previously by her accessories. Her purse was a genuine Victorian Belgian gold-mesh chained handbag—I was practically certain it had a garnet clasp and a gold dance pencil on its chain. It may sound silly, but purses and handbags are still among the easier antiques to find. And they’re still relatively cheap (though by the time this goes to press…) I must have stared rather. The woman, aloof from us rabble, actually used a cigarette case with the old Czarist tricolour enamelled between gold mounts. Surely not Fabergé, here in New York?
“Lovejoy ma man, Fredo wants you.”
I served one customer a gallon of bourbon (mounds of freezing ice, poor bloke) and left them to it. Josephus took over. He hated this, it stopped him singing because people along the bar talked and he had to answer. Fredo was in his office, ashen now.
“Lovejoy. You gotta do a job for me tonight, y’hear?”
“Tonight?” I was knackered. I’d never thought the prospect of snoring my head off in that grotty little hotel would seem like paradise. But Fredo looked worse than I felt. His eyes were bloodshot and he was slanted in his chair. He was on whisky. “Shouldn’t you be in hospital?”
“I been in hospital, goddammit.” He groaned at the effort, sweat pouring down his face. “A thousand dollars for nuthin’, send you home worse ’n before, for chrissakes.”
He was worrying me. “Look, Fredo. Close Manfredi’s just for tonight, eh? Call your doctor—”
“Lovejoy.” He spoke with drained patience. “You do my outside job tonight, right? Juss do it, ya hear?”
So I got this job, dead on nine. Wasn’t there some old play once by that title, where somebody finishes up shot? It didn’t turn out like that. Not immediately anyhow.
WHEN you’re in some new country, city, anywhere, it’s only natural to want to look, get the feel, be amazed at whatever’s there to be amazed at. Tired as I was, I was impatient to see New York, walk and gawp. So far I hadn’t had a chance. I’d been in two shops — I’d bought essentials, razor, street map and that — plus Manfredi’s Eatery, plus my microscopic drossy pit. So Fredo’s command to get in a taxi and go to a written address pleased me: chance to see New York at last! I waved to Rose and explained to Josephus and Jonie and Delia and Lil, left them arguing the toss about who was to do what, and left.
The taxi man was local. “I’m the only remaining New Yorker behind a wheel,” he told me. “You’re lucky you got me. Now, they’re all African, Hispanos, Europe, you name it. Next month I quit, run my own service on Long Island with my dumb brother-in-law. He’s a schmuck…”
I listened in bafflement as his family hatreds came out. I’d never heard anyone speak like this before. Was it the custom? To tell a stranger your native city stank from garbage? That you’d kill the mayor if you could? That your President shoulda done law ’cos he’s stoopid? That your son was a bum? By the end of the journey I was stunned. I hadn’t even looked out of the window.
“How much?” I asked, alighting in this enormous driveway. A large house loomed above up narrow stone steps, an ominous place in spite of the lights and music on the terrace.
He spoke with disgust, explained, “It’s down to Fredo, my brother-in-law. You believe my luck?” And drove away into the glittering night leaving me standing there being watched by two silent goons.
One beckoned, examined my bag. I felt my nape hairs rise. Being looked at like that brings out the coward in me every single time. Life’s always on the wobble, and men this tranquil exist solely to tip life out of control.
“My waiter’s things,” I said, nervous.
Silence, broken after a couple of centuries by a woman’s irritated voice calling was he here at last and get him in here. I received my bag and was shoved to the rear entrance, where another bulky goon was standing, knowing I was coming and saying nothing. His hands hung down. He made no reply to my nervous “Hi there!”
“Where the hell have you been?” The same woman, by her voice, light hair and smart in dark blue and ruffles, comely but modern.
“I only knew a little while ago, ma’am. Mr Manfredi sent me. He’s had a road accident.”
“In there. You’re on. They’re just going in.”
The place was beautiful in a modern way, by which I mean clean and spacious and wretchedly dull. As I changed into the jacket—slightly too big, but it had to do—I could hear music and a faint kitchen clatter. The aromas were mouthwatering. I managed to get the shoes on, too tight but no time to argue, and tried combing my hair. It never works. Ready.
“For chrissakes! What’ve you been doing? This way!”
Shapely walk, white gleaming corridors of below-stairs, following into a lift—incredible. A lift! In somebody’s house!—then a pit-stop at some unnumbered floor.
“Manners above all. Y’hear? You done this before?” Her voice was a whispering bandsaw. This was a lady with whom I would never argue.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The place was plush. Other flunkeys were standing about the edges of the concourse. Pale lavender carpet, a grand staircase asking for gowned starlets to make riveting descents, chandeliers and antiques. Paintings on the walls that bonged into my chest and shut my mind off from common sense. A superb Chippendale library table which some lunatic had placed against the wall where its loveliness would be concealed. Sacrilege. Why not in the library, for God’s sake? I found myself tutting in annoyance. The woman furiously told me to pay attention.
“The butler’s Mr Granger. I’m Jennie, catering. The captain’s Orly, okay?”
“Mr Granger, Jennie, Orly.” The white-gloved old bloke was straight out of rep theatre.