19 Purchase Street Read online

  “Phil was strange,” she said ambiguously, though insinuating something a little sinister.

  When recently Gainer had suggested introducing her to someone, she’d said lightly but pointedly that she’d prefer to do her own casting. Nevertheless, Gainer now told her: “At Clarke’s the other day I met someone you might find interesting.”

  Norma was away in other thought.

  “Seemed a nice guy, in his forties, full partner in a law firm.”

  After a moment she came back, asked: “What color tie was he wearing?”

  “I didn’t notice. Why?”

  Norma decided. “It was blue, a dark, sincere blue. Is he married?”

  “Was.”

  “How many times?”

  “Once, I believe he said.” Twice was more believable, Gainer now thought.

  “Better he should be a lawyer at lunch without a tie …”

  She had a point.

  “… and married,” she added.

  “Why married?”

  “Drew, honey, if there’s to be a divorce at least I should have the pleasure of being the cause of it.” She couldn’t keep a straight face.

  Neither could Gainer.

  She remembered the Neccos, dug into her bag and got them, tossed a roll to Gainer.

  He was pleased, and, as usual, exaggerated his surprise for her. With one of the candy wafers in his mouth, melting, he remarked, “It’s like tasting memories.”

  Norma thought perhaps the mood of the moment might help soften what she had to tell him: “I can’t go up to the Vineyard.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to make a carry.”

  He lowered his head and rubbed at his brows roughly with the heel of his hand, as though to prevent having to look at something that wouldn’t go away.

  “There was no way out of it,” Norma said.

  “You’ve only been back a week—”

  “Two actually.” It seemed even longer to Norma.

  “I thought their rule was at least a month between carries.”

  “I reminded them of that but it didn’t matter. They seem to be in a bind of some sort.”

  Gainer stood abruptly. The wet compresses on his shins were disregarded as they fell to the floor. His stride across the room seemed purposeful, although all he did was get that day’s racing form from the hall table, organize its pages and place it on the top of the stack in the corner. “They don’t get into binds,” he said.

  “Darrow implied as much. He said he wanted me, particularly me, to make this carry. Someone he could surely depend on, he said.”

  Gainer pictured such words coming from Darrow, and Norma soaking them up, falling for the flattery. “Darrow phoned you?”

  “I drove up there.”

  “Did you have to?”

  “Probably not, but it was a nice day to get out of the city for a while.”

  No use reminding her again that she should keep her contact with Number 19 as remote as possible. Usually the carry was brought to her by an intermediary, not always the same man but always someone nameless and neutral-looking who brought the full suitcase and took away the empty. Gainer believed it was safer for Norma not to get closer to Number 19 than that, but she took it as merely his way of viewing things through his street-cautious nature. Hadn’t her years of affiliation with Number 19 proved that? She’d always been treated well by Darrow and the others, in little ways made to feel that she truly was a trusted favorite. She wished Gainer would be more tolerant of them. That would make the situation more comfortable for her. As things were, the illegal side of it was always being stressed.

  Norma retrieved the compresses, dropped them into the bowl that she set aside where it wouldn’t get kicked over. “Hine was there today,” she said. “On his best prep school behavior, as usual. I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Hine, the way Darrow talks right through him.”

  Going on about them as though they were ordinary people, Gainer thought.

  “Hine asked about you,” she said.

  Gainer had been to Number 19 a few times with Norma, on certain social occasions when she hadn’t wanted to go alone. He’d gone against his better judgment but reasoned that seeing who and what were there might lessen his concern.

  It didn’t.

  No matter how pleasant the place appeared or how polite and upright everyone acted, Gainer knew all it would take was a scratch to reveal mob.

  He had also accompanied Norma on several of her carries to Zurich. For the fun of it, was the way Norma persuaded him. To experience what she was up against was more his reason for going along. He knew, of course, what that certain piece of luggage of hers contained and it amazed him how nerveless she was about it. It never seemed to cause the uneasiness it deserved nor received any evident special care. It just got conveyed and heaved and lugged to its destination along with the rest.

  Now, in a tone she knew he would not doubt, she told him: “I’m sorry Drew.”

  He shrugged and tried to smile it off but his disappointment was too thick. For weeks he’d been aiming his time to this coming Thursday—her birthday—the celebration he’d organized with Leslie’s help, the special wines, thoughtful presents, little personal touches. He wanted this birthday of Norma’s to tell her a lot for him. Now he couldn’t even reach Leslie to tell her not to bother with any of it. There wasn’t a phone at the cottage.

  “It was just bad timing,” Norma said.

  Gainer returned to her, to his chair by the window. The mood was changed from what it had been, as though someone had sprayed the air with dejection. The two of them sat there, sunk silently in it for a long moment. “Do you intend to ever quit them?” Gainer asked.

  No reply from her. Instead, she smoothed back her hair with both hands, this time so severely that for a moment her eyes were elongated.

  Gainer didn’t allow the sidestep. “Do you?”

  “I’ve mentioned it to Darrow,” Norma said offhand.

  “When?”

  “A while back.”

  “But not lately.”

  “Not lately.”

  “What did Darrow say?”

  “He thought it would be crazy for me to walk away from such a good thing.”

  “In other words no.”

  “No what?”

  “You can’t quit.”

  “That’s not exactly what Darrow said.”

  “It’s what he meant.”

  “I only mentioned the matter, didn’t press it. In fact I didn’t even put it to him in a way that called for a yes or no. If I ever really wanted to I’m sure I could quit. The choice is mine. For the time being I’d just as soon leave things be.” She wasn’t rankled, said it in a normal tone.

  “You’re hooked on the money.”

  “That’s for sure,” she said, “I’m an addict.”

  Gainer put two Neccos in his mouth and immediately bit down on them. Once, to do that would have been a transgression. They were supposed to be sucked on until they melted.

  “Drew, do you know how much I’ll clear this year?” She heard his crunching the candy. “Two hundred eighty thousand. For only six days’ work, if it can be called work. Two hundred eighty I get to keep.” After a beat, she added, “What’s more, I’ve come to enjoy Zurich.”

  Not cold-blooded, overmethodical Zurich, Gainer thought, all those people with adding machine eyes. What was there to enjoy?

  Norma sensed his question, was tempted to tell him. Instead she moved forward in her chair, leaned to him, awkwardly gave him a hug with both arms around. His hand matched the round of the back of her head as he momentarily held it. He hoped she didn’t think he blamed her. He could never blame her for anything.

  They heard his stomach growl.

  “Deep down anger?” Norma asked lightly.

  “No lunch.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen.

  His kitchen was as neat as hers, everything in place. While she was making the Brie and tomato sa
ndwiches, she glanced out at him. From where she stood the doorway was reduced to a horizontal slit, but it allowed some of Gainer in profile. Norma thought how caring it had been of him to worry about her situation with Number 19. Although by now, after ten years of it, he should know that making carries was a safe, easy business and there was certainly no reason to be concerned about Darrow. Darrow might not be as straight as he tried to impress but he was far from being a heartless mobster.

  She sliced the tomatoes as thin as possible to please her Drew.

  And also, she thought, it had been sweet of him to try to get her interested in that lawyer he’d met. She’d responded a bit flip but he wouldn’t mind that. She might tell him her reason soon, would have to if ever her body and mind became convinced that it definitely wasn’t a passing thing. Which at the moment it certainly didn’t feel like.

  From where Gainer sat he caught glimpses of Norma moving about in the kitchen. At times, observing her was like looking into a mirror, seeing a ten-year-older feminine version of himself. They looked that much alike. Same dark hair and hairline, same green eyes, faces identically shaped. He also had the resolute mouth and unyielding gaze and while those aspects somewhat diminished Norma’s beauty, for Gainer they were considered masculine and attractive.

  The physical resemblance had come from their mother. The only photograph of her was kept by Gainer on his dresser in a recent frame. A black and white professional portrait that she had signed with love and, later, perhaps to fit another frame, had cut away nearly all her love and signature. The mother’s face in the photograph was so retouched it was as unrealistically without lines as a movie star’s publicity photo. Still, her features were there and, no doubt, sister and brother, Norma and Gainer, had mostly taken after her.

  This was not, though, the extent of Norma’s and Gainer’s alikeness. Many of Gainer’s ways were masculine translations of Norma’s ways. Not to suggest he was effeminate, but some of her was apparent in his posture, his turn of head, his stride, his transitional movements from one physical attitude to another.

  The similarity even carried over into the more abstract. It was often possible for them to be together, hardly exchange a word and still feel as though they’d had a long informative talk. That much affinity.

  Norma and Gainer.

  When she had just turned fifteen, he was about to be five. They lived on West End Avenue in a twenty story building that had the year 1923 cut into its cornerstone. Theirs was an apartment of ten rooms, most of them immense with twelve foot high ceilings and poor light. A remnant of those who determined such fashionable camps as the West Side and moved on, leaving behind prodigal ghosts, abused elegance and reduced rents.

  The apartment was because the mother had wanted space, not to suffocate, she’d said. The father had held back, saying it wouldn’t be comfortable. Their largest sofa seemed a miniature of itself against the living room wall and no single rug they owned or could afford would be good and large enough to satisfy the dining room. All the hardwood floors were left bare and waxed, scattered with rugs that were constantly slipping out of place, having to be corrected.

  Gainer would get a running start down the entrance hall and slide on the copy of a prayer-sized Kashan as though the floor were ice. His big bedroom was as deep into the apartment as it could be, his bed cringed in a corner and in the night his playthings searched for one another across the waxed expanse.

  Gainer would put his feet up and thump on the wall, not too loudly, with his heels. Norma’s room was adjacent, her bed in the abutting corner, closer than anyone to him. She would respond, tap the wall with her fingers and help bring everything down to his size.

  The father was employed by a major advertising agency as its personnel director. He had a degree in Business Administration from Colgate. At least it sounded Ivy League. The father’s office did not have a window but it was on the executive floor and vice-presidents sometimes said hello or good-bye to him by name.

  Presumably it was the father’s job to assess potential employees, decide if they would do. The father took it seriously. He believed his judgment of people was an infallible litmus. True character was not always on a person’s front page but more often in the finer print of his want ads, the father claimed. Those, his words, were framed on the wall behind him to let an applicant know straight off that he was about to be thoroughly read.

  Most of those hired by the agency were as good as hired before the father ever set eyes on them. A shapely female marketing assistant was a desirable prospect, a clever television writer was a prize already brought in by one of the “head hunters,” as the employment agencies were called. The father was aware of the circumvention, but never let it be known, went about his departmental procedures as though the hiring, final yes or no, was up to him. He also seemed immune to starting salaries that usually exceeded his own by five to thirty thousand.

  The father appeared to have a perpetual smile. It was the way he’d conditioned the flex of his cheek muscles, causing the corners of his mouth to be ever so slightly upturned. For that reason alone he was thought of as a pleasant person, though he rarely laughed and when he did it was never full out. Not once in his life had he experienced such a release. It just wasn’t in him to let it out.

  Neither was it in him to quarrel. Any argument with the mother was her argument. First, he would remove his eyeglasses as though intending to fight. She would rant around him, thrust pointed insults while he sat there behind his small smile, waiting out her battle. Then, as though it had never been waged, he’d put on his glasses and fix his attention again on the racing section of the News.

  That was the most incongruous thing, his playing the horses. Four years back he’d given up the Wall Street Journal and following the market every day for the Daily News and the horses. He played mentally, just as he had with the market, made mind bets of five dollars a unit and kept a running tally to know how he would have done if he’d actually bet. There really wasn’t much difference between National Copper at thirty-four and a quarter and Light Warrior in the fourth at six to one. Except, at five dollars a unit, betting the horses was within his investment range.

  The father asked around about a bookie.

  One of the elevator starters in the agency’s building arranged for him to meet Manny.

  Manny was a fair-haired George Raft with camel-haired coat, kid gloves and all, but no hat. His territory was around Madison and Fifty-seventh and he had a fairly large handle out of the hotels: the Plaza, the Pierre and the Sherry Netherland. Of course, he was not as interested in the father’s five dollar action as he was the prospect of larger bettors once he got a foot in the door of the agency. To that end he showed the father some special treatment, even to the extent of once in a while steering him off a bad thing and, at his own expense, onto a winner. Manny insisted on taking the father and the mother to dinner at any place they chose. The father thought perhaps somewhere Chinese. Manny took them up to the Rainbow Room. For Christmas Manny gave the father a case of Canadian Club. He gave the mother an eighteen karat gold Cuban link chain bracelet he’d bought from a fence.

  The mother was never contrary about the father’s horseplaying. Actually, it became an agreeable thing for them and every so often she’d ask him to make a bet for her. The father thought she liked certain horses only because she liked their names, and it was incredible, the luck of the ignorant, that even quite a few of her hopeless longshots came in. Manny was not unhappy to pay off.

  Practically every day the mother was done with the house by eleven, made-up, dressed and out of it by noon. Sometimes she went to museums or a show, but more often it would be Altman’s or Saks. Bonwit’s was her favorite with Bergdorf’s a close second. “Today I’m doing Bonwit’s,” was the way she’d put it.

  Rarely did she abuse her charge accounts, although it wasn’t unusual for her to buy as though she were Jackie O—without even a peek at a price tag, load up on dresses, coats and whatever. She’d return t
hem for credit to her account the following day. Evidently she found such gratification in looking, trying on and buying that keeping was anticlimactic. Normally, she wouldn’t head home until the stores closed. On Mondays and Thursdays that was nine.

  The father thought it absurd that she spent so much time shopping. While he was at the office where he should be, she was out there anywhere wandering aisles and try-on areas. A shame she couldn’t find something better to do was the opinion he kept to himself.

  One night in April the mother didn’t come home. The stores had been closed for hours and the father didn’t know where else she could be. He was worried but too embarrassed to phone the police until the following morning before leaving for the office. The police gave him some fast reassurances. She’d show up. That was what happened ninety-nine out of a hundred times. She’d show.

  Apparently the police were used to the husbands of straying wives.

  But the mother didn’t return.

  She became officially missed.

  The police believed it significant that she hadn’t taken any of her personal things, not even her hairbrush or jewelry.

  Gainer asked if the mother was dead, not really knowing yet what dead meant.

  The father left everything of the mother’s exactly as she’d left it. Her make-up by the bathroom sink, nylon nightgown on the hook on the back of the bathroom door. He only put the cap on a tube of lipstick so it wouldn’t go dry.

  After two weeks Norma received a postcard from the mother. Postmarked Miami. It said she was all right, would be all right. She promised that someday everyone would understand. It was signed with all her love.

  The father emptied the mother’s closets and dresser drawers. Put all that remained of her into four footlockers and had the superintendent take those down to the building’s storage area. The father said he intended to have the Goodwill people come pick them up.

  He didn’t miss a day at the office. However, the first to go was his small smile. His cheek muscles gave way and the corners of his mouth inverted on him. People began thinking of him as a bit of a grouch for no particular reason. He had never looked well in clothes because he was bow-backed, an exaggerated erectness with shoulders tensed and chest forward, which caused his suit jackets to strain across the front and bunch loosely behind. Now, his body underwent a rather sudden transposition. His back bent the other way, shoulders stooped, chest sank. His clothes fit him differently, worse. They seemed resigned to be on him.