Base Notes, page 15
“As opposed to?”
She shook her head and pulled her hand back, fluffing the mess of her hair back from her face. I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but she did. “Beau’s just full of . . . righteous indignation, you know? Which is . . . honestly, I wish I had the energy. But when he says I shouldn’t have to worry, all I hear is ‘I’m not worried,’ and then I worry twice as much.”
“You know he must be just as scared as you.”
“Sure,” she said, “but what the fuck is he doing about it?”
“Jane,” I said, and then nothing, because she had put her face into her hand and gone rigid: the pose of someone trying and failing not to cry.
“Sorry,” she said, after a while. “We had a fight. Not even a fight. I just yelled, and he apologized. He says sorry all the time, about everything. It’s like the word doesn’t even mean anything anymore. Like as soon as he hears himself grovel, his conscience is clear. He says he’s sorry, but he never, ever makes it up to me. Not in any way that counts.”
He gets off on groveling, I thought, but did not say. You’ve seen how he is; you ought to know.
Instead I said, “He will.”
Her eyes were red, the skin beneath them fragile. She didn’t ask me how.
Tearing a scrap from my croissant, I said, “I had thought Reg would be a good first step.”
She took a breath and wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm. “Because of the detective.” So quick and collected, even under duress.
I had been trying hard to push Pip Miles from my mind. This reminder made a shudder rise in me, but I didn’t let it show.
“Yes,” I said. “But after some consideration: Conrad knows more about me and is therefore a little more dangerous to the enterprise.”
“Sure,” she said. She was relieved; her posture told me that. Maybe this would be easier for her if Beau did it first.
Curiously endearing, this dynamic. Beau was her vanguard, her cavalry: daring, dashing, ready to charge and fail in the attempt. She was a general: strong, steady, cautious. And ruthless, when it came down to the moment of decision.
“If the old men get to talking,” I went on, “Eisner might figure out I’m up to something. Besides, Miles thinks Conrad is the main suspect in his wife’s disappearance. If he dies first, it might throw Miles for a loop. Reg will be sad if his father disappears, scared at worst, but not suspicious. At least, not of me. Ideally we’d get Pearson next and save Reg for last, because he’s least likely to put the pieces together.”
She let out an audible breath, and I realized I had placed her in an unenviable position: last in the line of events, with anticipation mounting. But maybe that breath was relief at her brief reprieve. She needn’t kill anyone yet.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but she shook her head.
“You’re right.” It came out steady, but pitched too low: she was trying to reassure herself with the sound of her own voice. “Reg is the only one who doesn’t know what you’re involved in.” Then, with a shaky smile: “And if he goes last, I can keep raking in tips whenever he comes by the bar.”
“Mercenary,” I said, and leaned in to kiss her. Her mouth opened under mine, and she made a sound like a sob. Relief, I thought, and caught that tempting lower lip between my teeth.
I could have gone on kissing her. She was yielding, soft, open to me. The electric current that made her bite and sting had been turned off, temporarily. She was all warmth, all wet. I could have sunk into that feeling and lost hours.
I broke the kiss and leaned my forehead against hers. The thud of her heartbeat passed through her bones into mine.
“If you want,” I said, a little breathless, “I’ll talk to him with you. We’ll drink, have a little dinner.” We would fuck too, but I didn’t say it. If she didn’t want to wield that kind of power in this way, I would let her maintain that illusion. I wanted to keep her happy. At the time, I thought it was only because her happiness would make my work easier. Or perhaps because protecting her happiness was another kind of power.
To my surprise—and disappointment?—she shook her head. “No. You know what? I think it has to be just me and him. No offense. But it’s . . . it’s between us, whatever he thinks he owes me.”
Fair enough. But letting this control slip from my grasp felt dangerous. Trusting Jane was another risk in an already risky endeavor. I did trust her to try. I just wasn’t sure I trusted her to succeed.
“When does he next see Reg?”
“I think he’s doing a fitting on something next week.”
“And Conrad will call him . . . ?”
“Two or three days later. Every time.”
“When Conrad calls, that’s when you push him. As hard as you think you can.”
“It won’t have to be very.” She finished the rest of her drink. “Have you talked to Giovanni yet?”
“I’m working on it,” I said, which wasn’t true. But it would have to be, and soon.
14
Notes de Tête: Lime and Bergamot
Notes de Cœur: Malt, Bread, Toasted Sesame
Notes de Fond: Dust and Winter Subway Accord
I had a haircut scheduled—I tended to put the next one on my calendar at the end of the last. Every five weeks, which was honestly too long, but I had rent to pay and a business to run and even at a discount a haircut was still cash out of my budget. So cuts didn’t come around that often. Usually, I looked forward to them.
This time, not so much.
I kept thinking about what Jane had said—Giovanni? Not in a million years. And of Giovanni himself, telling me he was too good for this kind of life, for the machinations it took to get yourself out from under corporate thumbs, investor scrutiny.
There was no way that this was going to work. How could I even begin? Do you really want to eat the rich? Really want to kill them all? What if we start with one?
And then in my head, I’d hear his voice: high and nasal, a trace of Queens. He sounded like a man in an old movie. Stalag 17. Double Indemnity. He even had the morals of a man in an old movie: Premeditated murder just seems less defensible somehow.
But he was independent too. Fiercely so, to own his own business in Manhattan. Didn’t I know what that took? I didn’t imagine his drive was born in the same dark place as my own, but his hunger must be at least equal to mine.
How well did I know Giovanni, really? He was my barber, but what did that amount to? He knew how I liked my hair cut. He tended to be taciturn but posted incongruously quirky selfies to his Instagram. His work playlist was a mix of bossa nova, Miles Davis, rockabilly. In the last month I had learned more about him than I had in years as his client: that he was tired and angry, and friends with Jane. That he and Beau called each other by their surnames like squad mates in a war film. That he lived in Jersey City and commuted to the Village. That he knew the wine buyer at Astor and said things like “eat the rich” but didn’t mean them, not to the point of murder.
None of that gave me much to work with, which meant I would have to feel my way.
I called on the day of my appointment and told the assistant a conflict had come up: Could I move my haircut back by a few hours?
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re booked up.”
“Shit,” I said. “I’m in sort of a desperate situation. There’s no way he could make a little space?”
There was a wavering pause. “Hang on, I’ll ask him.”
He wouldn’t like that. But if he didn’t want his assistant bending the rules, he shouldn’t be so flexible. This was the eight-fifteen beard trim all over again; he couldn’t say no to loyal customers, couldn’t not cut them a deal. It was good for building relationships, but it would grind him down to the bone if he wasn’t careful.
“Vic?” It was Giovanni who got back on the phone, not the front desk girl. “What’s up?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Something’s come up at work and I can’t do six o’clock anymore. Is there any chance you could squeeze me in later tonight?”
“Sure,” he said, without any hesitation. “Sure. Come by at eight.”
“But you close at—”
“Vic, I’m telling you: come by at eight. I wouldn’t do it for just anybody, but . . . I owe you a beer, right?”
“I think I owe you a beer,” I said.
“Whatever. Come at eight.”
And so I did.
He had already closed and locked the door by the time I arrived—closer to eight fifteen, ironically. I had taken a brief detour around Washington Square Park to pick up a six-pack of interesting but not overwhelming beer. Giovanni didn’t seem like the kind of man who appreciated a saison brewed with coriander and sea salt.
“Cheaper to buy it in bulk,” I said when he took the six-pack from my outstretched hand. “I didn’t know your exact preference, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who will turn down a solid brown ale.”
He laughed. His mustache made his smile seem wider. After hours, the shop had a whiff of sandwich bread and vacuum filter. A comfortable smell, not so curated as the lime and eucalyptus that suffused the place when it was open. He and his barbers had eaten dinner here, cleaned up after. It smelled human—a whiff of all the mess and warmth and precarity humanity entailed.
Not to say it didn’t still smell like Proraso.
When he locked the door behind me, I saw a weight fall from his shoulders. He was on his turf, on his terms. The music wasn’t the usual bossa nova or midcentury jazz but pure nostalgic post-punk. I remembered that he was older than me, by about five years. Maybe more. This was his music.
He looked momentarily stymied by the cap on his beer, then grinned and half undid his belt. A moment later, with a hiss of carbonation, the cap tumbled to the floor. He handed me the first bottle and repeated the process, then lifted his drink to touch mine.
“Thanks for the beer,” he said, then set it aside and fastened his belt again.
I shrugged. “Thank you for squeezing me in.” And then, like the first, subtle move in a game of strategy: “I hope I won’t meet the kind of end you’re planning for Jim.”
“Who?”
And back to me. “The eight-fifteen beard trim.”
He snorted into the neck of his beer bottle. “God, I’d forgotten all about that. Those negroni sours are something, huh? Have a seat.” He put the sheet over me but left my beer hand free.
“The usual?” he asked.
“What else?”
As he began to comb my hair, cool mist flying from the spray bottle, I considered my next turn. How to recapture that bittersweet, cathartic brunch humor? The mood that would make him feel he could admit to anything?
Well, why not start where we had left off?
“I was a little worried Jane might actually go after Reg.” Knight to f3. “Can you imagine?”
“Jane?” He started snipping. “You know, I could. When she gets mad, she’s scary. Cold, right? Like, ice-queen rage.”
“Oh, I know the type,” I said. I was one.
“Not me,” said Giovanni. “When I’m pissed, you’ll know it.”
“I hope I never will.”
He laughed. This banter felt to me like the slap of hands on chess timers, the acceleration of play until it moved so quickly onlookers were lost and the two players were moving just to move, respond, keep up the rhythm. Faster and faster until one or the other of them made a fatal mistake: a slip of the tongue, an error in judgment, fingers closing too quickly on the tip of the bishop’s miter.
It was just a matter of watching him more closely than he watched himself, then catching him when he slipped up and holding him to the commitment.
“Head down.” The tips of his fingers landed on the back of my skull in a precise configuration, channeling pressure. I dipped my chin toward my chest.
“So you wouldn’t kill in cold blood,” I said, “but if you got mad enough you think you might?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Like Jane said, probably any of us could.”
“A reminder to tip well, I suppose.”
The comb scraped my scalp. “Nah, you’re good. It’s never the people who worry, right? The people who worry about doing right by you, they always do. Service does for service. It’s the fucking bankers and tech guys that’ll stiff you, every time.”
“It’s so . . . stopgap,” I said. “We’re all down here giving each other discounts, legs up, tips and tricks. Living life on each other’s generosity.”
“I kind of like it,” said Giovanni.
Of course he did. I did too. Who didn’t like a little special treatment? “But this separate economy isn’t sustainable. Discounted haircuts aren’t helping me save for retirement. Nobody’s going to slip me health insurance along with a free glass of wine.”
He opened his mouth—no doubt to say something about Medicaid, the state exchange—and I added, “Good health insurance, Giovanni. The kind doctors actually take. I don’t care about tax penalties if my teeth are falling out of my head. Do you know how many dentists accept Medicaid in this city? Do you know how many of them are any good?”
His mouth fell shut and he went back to combing.
After a moment of silence and a sip of beer, I asked, “Do you ever think of getting out of all this? Getting a boss, a nine-to-five, a salary?”
“Like I could. I’d just have to find another chair somewhere. What would I even interview for?”
“I don’t know. Go back to school, like Jane. Become a consultant for somebody else’s small-business incubator. Get off your feet and let somebody else make your money.”
He was already shaking his head before he spoke. “No, no way. Not a chance in hell.” If this had been a chess game, really, I’d have been losing pieces to him. But that was all right: they were pieces I had meant to lose.
“You’re bleeding money,” I said. “You told me so. You said you’d be franchising if the rent hadn’t gone up every year. I’m in the same boat”—this wasn’t quite true, as rent was only one of my myriad problems—“and I can tell you it’s a pretty fucking leaky one.”
His scissors stopped, and he leaned on the back of my chair. The leather creaked. “Somehow I can’t see you going corporate, Vic. Not unless you went straight to the top of the ladder. And they don’t really let you do that unless you’re somebody’s kid.”
“Like Reg?” I asked. Back to my knight.
“Like Reg.”
“I mentioned, didn’t I: his company owns this building. In a roundabout sort of way.” Another step across the board.
“You trying to get me to go after him or something?” Giovanni polished off his first beer and cracked a second. “I think Jane has that one under control.”
I laughed, like it really was a joke and not part of my endgame. He put a hand on the curve of my skull to keep me still and went back to cutting.
“Reg isn’t who you’d want anyhow,” I said. “I did some googling. It’s one of the other executives who heads up the real-estate investments. Gerald Pearson.” With a silent apology to Iolanda, always amenable and incurious, I added, “Fucking New York landlords. Too bad they don’t come around and find you in just the right bad mood.”
“For the landlords,” he said, “I’d go out and find them.”
I imagined the chess hustlers of Union Square, their swift hands and the hollow thud of flesh on metal as they struck the buttons that would stop their clocks. The pivotal moment, a test of their skills of legerdemain, and suddenly the game was no longer being played by the rules.
“Would you?” I asked. “Really?”
His comb and scissors paused, as if he’d seen my sleight of hand. But when he spoke it was with humor. Still playing the old game, not my new one, but that was fine if I could maneuver around him, herd him where I needed him to go.
“Why?” he asked. “You wanna go out hunting?”
“I’m more of a trapper, myself.” This wasn’t strictly true. I couldn’t catch my prey and come back later. But in a more poetic sense, I was often a moving part in larger mousetraps. Witness the sticky situations I had gotten into with Eisner, Pearson, Yates & Yates. “Don’t you think Gerald Pearson would make a pretty nice rug?”
“Jesus,” he said. “No wonder Jane likes you.” A few more snips, and then: “I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking.” He was starting to catch on.
I met his eyes in the mirror. “What if I wasn’t?”
A minute pause. A tiny space of silence, inside of which I had time to hope. And then, incredulous: “I’d call the fucking cops. What do you think?” He pushed my head down again and ran rough hands through my hair.
The rejection hurt more than I thought it would, and I let him hear it. “Come on, Giovanni. I give you a friends and family discount, and you’d call the cops on me?”
Without answering, he retrieved the clippers for a few finishing swipes around the tendons at the nape of my neck. The blades made my skin tingle. “You’re kind of giving me the creeps, Vic.”
I didn’t apologize.
He finished the cut and dusted me off: sweet cornstarch and a quick, toasty blast of the hair dryer. Then the sheet came off and he spun me around so we faced each other without the intermediary of the mirror.
“Really?” I asked.
He took it as lightly as he could, trying to save the situation. “What, giving me the creeps? Yeah.”
“No,” I said, loading it with ballast. “I mean, would you really call the cops?”
An unsteadiness about the mouth, a tightening at the corners of his eyes. He was wavering, though with fear or doubt I couldn’t tell. His beer bottle hovered near his lips, but he did not remember to drink.
“Of course,” he said, not sounding quite so sure. But maybe the disbelief was for me: the absurdity that he would need to say yes, he would turn me in for murder.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what you do, Vic. That’s how it works.”
“Says who?” I asked. It came out raw, surprising me. This was not a move I had meant to make. But I was angry, and a little frightened. Surely he wouldn’t turn me in for this. We were just joking, nothing more. There was deniability.
