No
w look at the both of us: A drunk and a fugitive. Where did it all go wrong? Zeb has a saying for most occasions and I think the most apropos one for this moment is Sometimes the ugly duckling don’t turn into no swan, ’cause it’s a fucking duck. And you know what happens to ducks? They get fucked.
That’s what we are, Ev and me, a couple of ugly ducklings. And I know what happens to ducks.
I like a nice four-star hotel, something minimal and modern where the plumbing hasn’t had a chance to buckle under the onslaught. Five-star upscale joints usually bring on an attack of the unworthies. Especially ones like the Broadway Park House, an old-world Central Park South upscale joint with uniformed doormen shooting me the beadies the moment Evelyn and I are disgorged into the lobby by a revolving door. Smells like money in here: floor polish and whiskey fumes. Evelyn’s nose goes up like a bloodhound’s.
“Hey, Dan, you smell that?” she says. “Why don’t we . . .”
“No,” I say, cutting her off sharply. Whichever version of just one drink she is about to launch into, I’ve heard it before. I’ve heard them all.
Edit is pacing the lobby waiting, which is just as well because the doormen have formed a casual cordon around us and are getting set to tighten the noose. She catches sight of Evelyn and freezes like someone pulled her plug. It takes a few seconds to reboot then she’s across the shining floor and all over my aunt. Hugging her close, kissing her forehead. Evelyn grins and works her elbows like she’s dislodging a puppy.
“I don’t even really know this bitch,” she whispers to me between giggles.
If Edit hears this comment she doesn’t let on, but after a few more seconds of flurried hugs and kisses, she backs off and straightens the skirt of her wraparound pattern dress, which, I happen to know, from watching the ruthless Joan Rivers eviscerate red-carpet celebrities on Fashion Police, is a Diane Von Furstenberg.
“Last season,” I say inanely. “But an instant classic.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” says Edit and I swear she is blushing a little, not because I noticed her dress but because she has let her emotions show in public. Getting emotional is anathema to the top 1 percent. Nobody ever got rich by wearing a heart on their sleeve, unless it was someone else’s heart. And this was especially true of Paddy Costello, who tried his darndest to turn his kids into Vulcans and succeeded instead in pushing them somewhere to the left of Cheech and Chong.
Your mother is a whore, was my own father’s comment on mom’s hippie politics. I remember him telling me in a bar in front of all his drink buddies. She screwed so many guys before you popped out, I ain’t even sure you’re mine. Then he paraded the length of the bar collecting pound notes from all the soaks who bet him he couldn’t make a tough little terrier like me cry. Pop was so thrilled with himself he even gave me one of the notes. I took it too, for my ice-pick fund. Screw him.
Terriers. What a great show. What kind of moron cancels Terriers?
Edit calms herself down with some yoga breathing and literally beams at me. Her teeth are white and even like rows of Orbit spearmint except for a slightly crooked fang. I read somewhere that orthodontists are leaving in a flaw these days for a more natural look.
“Daniel,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t believe this is happening. You are my savior.”
I am almost blushing, myself. Edit is genuinely over the moon. There’s no fakery here. I read people pretty good and my levels are all in the green with this woman. She may not be a straight shooter but she’s shooting straight vis-a-vis Evelyn and myself.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say, playing the “shucks ma’am” card. “Just gave my aunt a ride home.”
Home. The word sets Edit off again. “Yes, home. You are home, Evelyn. Please stay. Please. You are all I have. You too, Dan.”
I thought she’d never ask. “Actually, I could use a hideout for a few days. My situation is complicated right now.”
“Of course. Of course. I have plenty of room. Stay as long as you need. In fact longer than you need. Do you have any bags, Evelyn?”
Evelyn frowns. “I had a trash bag full of stuff but the guy who rolled me in Queens took it, the bastard. What the hell does he need pantyhose for?”
Edit is confused. There are so many elements of her stepdaughter’s statement that she can never relate to.
“Rolled you?” she says, almost afraid to ask.
Evelyn elaborates. “Yeah. I had to do a little light hooking for beer money.” She winks. “You know that story, right Edit?”
One of the hovering bellboys snickers and I decide this is the ideal moment to get my aunt squared away before she gets the both of us tossed.
I take a good grip on Evelyn’s belt and march her past the snicker-er. “Elevators back here, Edit?”
Edit’s Laboutins (Fashion Police) tick-tack the marble as she hurries to keep pace with my marching feet.
“Yes. Big golden doors. You can’t miss them.”
That’s not true. You could miss them. All the doors in this place are big and golden, even the restrooms. I take an educated guess and pick the set of golden doors with call buttons.
The Costello penthouse is more subtle now that Edit is pulling the curtain cords. I remember being here once before, the year before Dad introduced the family car to a concrete wall. I was fifteen and mom brought me over for a reconciliation attempt. The logic being that I was the spitting image of Paddy himself as a young man and that gazing into the time-mirror might melt the ice packed around Old Man Costello’s heart. Mom didn’t really want to be there, but she didn’t really want to be where she generally was either and so allowed Evelyn to talk her into coming over.
Father wants to see Dan, Evelyn had told us on her last visit. Dan’s a scrapper and you know Dad’s a sucker for a spunky hard-ass.
I remember sitting in the antechamber waiting for an audience, feeling a little anxious about the phrase spunky hard-ass.
In those days, the Costello penthouse apartment was like something from the Acropolis, with honest-to-God Greek pillars and a couple of busts mounted on plinths. The décor was all from the testosterone school, including the mounted head of a twelve-point buck and a taxidermed mountain gorilla, which was scaring the pants off me with its unblinking stare even though I knew its eyes were glass. I remember Mom hugging the gorilla and calling it Buttons, but that only made the thing creepier. If it had come alive at that moment and squashed my mom in its powerful black fingers I would not have been in the least surprised.
We were kept waiting for half an hour, then a light over the office door flashed green, which meant Mom was cleared to enter.
She squeezed my hand and said. “Okay, Dan, I’m going into the lion’s den. Don’t worry if you hear shouting. That’s just how Paddy Costello communicates.”
Mom slipped inside, the double-height doors making her look elfin, and there was plenty of shouting, almost immediately. I managed to contain myself until I heard the musical tinkle of breaking glass, then I thought to hell with this and barged into the sanctum.
I was feeling pretty good about myself in the role of protector. Only the previous week I had pushed my dad so hard that he cracked his spine on the tabletop and I regularly messed up boys much older than me. Surely I could manage an old man.
Paddy Costello was not even the giant I had built him up to be, in fact I was half a foot taller than he was, but the guy had an energy coming off him in waves, an aura of harsh intimidation. He reminded me of a billy goat, with his spearhead Vandyke, wiry frame and wild, darting eyes. Those eyes flitted from the trophy cabinet, with its glass door that had been shattered by the hurled book, to my mother, who huddled scared in a low wooden chair, then finally to me. The boy who had come to rescue his mother.
My grandfather spat on his own floor then pointed a stiff finger at me, as though I was to blame for the thrown book. I didn’t know what to say to this old guy—I say old but I guess he was maybe fifty—but I needed something strong. My mouth went ahead
of its own accord and said, “Fuck you, old man.”
The fuck you didn’t bother Paddy at all. It was the old man that riled him.
“Old? I could take your head off with a punch.”
I didn’t bother responding to that challenge. I just arranged my feet the way my school boxing coach had taught me. Now either he would fight me or shut the hell up.
Paddy did neither. Instead he chuckled, showing a mouth of craggy teeth, and crossed behind his desk to the trophy cabinet.
“Young Daniel. A chip off the Costello block, so they say. Seems like a day doesn’t go by without someone filling my ears with stories of young Daniel.”
I did nothing but keep my eyes on him. Could be he was a tricky bastard.
“Daniel is bright and he’s tough. Daniel could carry on the Costello business, if not the name.”
Paddy reached into the trophy cabinet, through the ring of jagged shards, ignoring the fresh cut on his index finger.
“Let me tell you something, Daniel,” he said drawing out the book. “I don’t need someone to carry on my business or name. I’m gonna live longer than a man has ever lived and after that they’ll put me into the ground. Then I could give a shit about the whole ball of wax. The whole world can go to nuclear hell and I won’t know a thing about it. I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been.”
My mother once told me that her father only had two moods: bad and worse. I supposed that he was giving me a peek at worse.
Paddy thrust the book at me and I caught it on reflex.
“Here’s a test for you, boy. That book is a signed first edition of The Fountainhead. You can sell it today for ten grand. There’s a guy on Fifty-ninth that would give you twelve. But if you hold on to it for a few years it could be worth ten times that. Choose wisely, boy, because this book is all you’ll ever get from me.”