Rivers of Gold Page 2

  You prick, I want to snarl at him. Can you even spell photography, or do you have people who do that for you?

  But I say:

  —Of course. You want something a little more toned-down, low-light, maybe fewer lightscapes?

  —We don’t want any lightscapes, Johnette says in her warmthless, gender-neutral voice.

  It’s nice to see Johnette hasn’t gone all warm and fuzzy on me. You need to be able to count on some things in life.

  Johnette continues mercilessly:

  —How do you do those anyway, do you just shoot out the window of a moving taxica—

  The food arrives, allowing me to regroup. I can hardly look at my seafood bruschetta, but take a few obligatory nips to look busy. Mousy Diane, who looks like she hasn’t eaten or slept for a week, is about to tear into her calamari when Chalk abruptly sends her out on some meaningless errand. Fabryce can’t stop toying with his BlackBerry, probably lining up a date at Splash. Johnette just glares from beneath her steel bangs, the serrated edge of her steak knife, dripping blood, turned toward me. I’d rather be anywhere but here.

  This is how it happens.

  There are moments of such unforeseeable synchronicity that they actually make you Believe. This is a good one. My phone gives a double-thump heartbeat in my jacket pocket, which tells me Prince William’s ready to meet, which means he’s got next week’s speak number. This is a legitimate excuse to cut the Roundup meeting short if it gets too unbearable. Business is business.

  Then Marcus Chalk says:

  —Okay, Renny, September cover’s yours. Twenty thousand. Sign here.

  And then my phone gives out the soft sample of a tritone from a Balinese gamelan. That would be L. Her timing’s always been uncanny (I think she really is a witch).

  Now I just need to get out of here. I make a show of reading the contract, but only the payment catches my eye. I scrawl my signature across the bottom of each page with my titanium Thoth and hand them back to Marcus Chalk, who wordlessly co-signs and hands me back one copy. (You’d think by now digital signatures would be legally binding; fucking lawyers.)

  Any further conversation is perfunctory; the main business has been transacted, and my presence is no longer required, nor perhaps even desired. The feeling is mutual. The end of dinner is a blur. Without quite knowing it I’m outside on the sidewalk, trying to hail a cab, check my messages, and suck down as much of a Davidoff as possible. Luck is with me; I hail a Ford Friesian. Best kind of cab, really, since I’m alone. While hybrids are righteous and good and blah blah blah, those separate seats make serious backseat cavorting well-nigh impossible. If you stick with the third-row bench seat, you risk the ire of a pissed-off cabdriver, who knows what you’re up to and a) is worried you’ll get him a ticket from cops with nothing better to do than hassle him, b) worried you’re going to make a mess back there he’ll have to clean up later, or c) wants to watch. Since more and more cabs now have cameras in them, it’s not a good idea to risk an altercation over anything other than the fare (unless you’re already in business with him).

  First things first. A short exchange with Prince William, and we’re set to meet at the Broome Street Bar and Grille at ten. A good spot for me, because it’s practically a straight shot across town from where he knows I’m heading to now, and because it’s high profile without being exclusive, and downmarket without lacking class. He’ll give me the new speak number, I’ll get the word out to my Special clients, and add a Fast Forty to the twenty I just signed up from Marcus Chalk. I love it when my legal and illegal paydays overlap.

  Having attended to logistics, I turn to the not-to-be-forgotten matter of pleasure. L desires some time off later this evening from the man who thinks he is her fiancé, and could we perhaps meet at our usual spot around ten thirty, ten forty-five?

  This is how it happens.

  The Friesian groans up Fifty-seventh, leans hard left on Seventh, throwing my erection and me into an uncomfortable configuration against the armrest, and we’re on the downtown glide path through the neon hell of Times Square.

  Capitale is a modern temple to indulgent exclusivity; how it survives is beyond me. From the moment you pull up in front of those fluted columns, those stately carved capitals spelling BOWERY SAVINGS BANK (a charming holdover from Gotham’s storied past—nobody actually saves any more, not with a zero-percent interest rate), past the stone lions and stone-faced security thugs into the glorious main chamber, all Corinthian columns and friezes and mosaics and gel-tinted spots.

  Here, the children of privilege giggle and pose and sniffle and flirt, lit up by a hundred flashbulbs, for the pleasure of the leering older crowd that can actually afford such a place. In here, every banker’s a pasha, every fund manager a khan. This is the domain of the hyphenated name, indoor shades, and hectares of pampered, succulent, magazine-quality flesh. It will either turn your stomach or make you hard. Or both.

  This is where I live, by choice as well as by necessity. I may not always be thrilled with it either, but I’ve learned to go with the flow.

  This is the great fluid confluence of endless possibility.

  Let the Games Begin.

  I’m needing some high-octane fuel after that meet at Shelley’s, so I join the horde by the long draped bar, behind a gazelle in sandals with straps reaching all the way up beneath her short pleated skirt. By the time we get our drinks, I’ve already forgotten her name. She waves a kiwirita around while I carefully balance a massive double Mumbai martini for the obligatory exchange of digital cards. Here, unlike the Outside, it’s permissible, even encouraged, to gawk (whereas Outside we all studiously avoid making eye contact at all costs; these days, it can get you killed). So my less-than-surreptitious appraisal of her décolletage and gluteal musculature does not earn me a kiwirita shower.

  It’s not long before I see the first familiar face, and the gazelle apparently doesn’t like the company because she’s gone with an audible Nice meeting you and a muted Call me before I sit down at one of the tables along the perimeter of the dance floor (deejays only tonight, but it’s too early for this crowd to achieve the requisite chemical boost for a floor show). It’s the usual rogues’ gallery tonight: here’s Luigi, and Chas, and Euan and Timo, and Joss and Tory and Dylan and Siobhan. These are my clients, for better or worse.

  —I didn’t think you’d all be out on a Tuesday, I offer from behind my Mumbai.

  —Tuesday’s the new Thursday, quips Tory.

  —Monday’s the new Friday, adds Chas.

  —Wednesday’s the new Saturday, Dylan puts in, eager to catch up.

  —And every hour is happy hour! they chorus, laughing and clinking glasses and inadvertently mixing ingredients. The happy squeals of adult children at play.

  —Here’s lookin’ at you, kids, I intone, finally starting to relax.

  —So, Dr. Feelgood, pipes Timo, got the new number yet?

  Timo’s a spoiled fucking brat who knows nothing about discretion. But he’s also a client, and business is business.

  —You’ll be the first to know, I assure him with my best Wry Insider grin. I should be getting it later tonight.

  —You always get it later at night, Luigi guffaws through his Negroni. (He’s a client, too, but for carnal, rather than chemical, services, and I’m not in on that end of the business, strange as it may seem.)

  —Pig, Joss sighs in disgust. (I wonder if Luigi’s had her, too. Joss would seriously freak if she knew where he’s been ensconcing his conch. I would have tried for her myself by now, but Renny’s Rule Number Two is, No Client Coitus.)

  —But you will let us know first, yes? Your benefactors? Timo drawls, tipping his martini toward me for emphasis.

  The prick is playing the boss for his friends, trying to lord my access to this party and others like it as being due to his patronage. He sees me as some shiny piece of rough trade in from the boroughs to hobnob with Manhattan’s hoi polloi, a chance find that adds a dash of edgy color to his safe, easy l
ife. Whatever. I tell myself to relax. I don’t need the shit I will surely get if I lose steady customers, but I also don’t need to take any shit from a brat like this, client or not. Without me, they won’t find the speaks, and if they don’t find the speaks they can’t buy my Specials. I lean forward and say in a low voice:

  —I said, you’d be the first to know.

  It’s momentary, a fleeting thing, but the shift is palpable. Timo blinks, the bated breath of the congregation eases out, Joss gives me an appraising look that says, Not tonight, but soon.

  But not tonight. I make my good-byes with just enough haste. There’s more business waiting for me at Broome Street.

  I call Prince William that because (a) he’s British, and (b) he can make money out of thin air. How he came to work for our boss, Reza, I have no idea, but it’s a natural fit.

  I might not be in the position I’m in had we not met at the launch party for Moan cologne at the Flatiron Lounge, sponsored by Pyrethrum magazine. I was shooting for the mag; he was there because he’s got The Knack. (Any party, anywhere, anytime, he’ll know about it before it happens.) Over round after round of ginger-pear-basil-aspic martinis (those with The Knack never see a bar tab), I told him about how I was funding my digital media classes at Pratt with magazine work. He told me I should be at Parsons or the Art Institute (like I could have afforded that at the time). His accent was mesmerizing, his speech hypnotic. He told me about how he parlayed two double-default mortgages into one of the new three-thousand-square-foot loft conversions in the Mink Building in Harlem for no money down, that’s how fucking slick he is. Plenty of players can trade up these days with the glut of housing on the market, but Prince William fucking cleaned up, no mistake.

  I know a sales pitch when I hear it, but the Prince was a cut above the rest. He recruited me for Reza with the skill of a master angler, all in a night’s work. And when the money started flowing, I was hooked. That was then, and this is now, and the wheels on the bus go round and round. Life in the Big Apple in 2013 isn’t about pride or principles, it’s about survival. And you have to survive to thrive.

  Tonight the Prince is at the far end of the bar under the chalkboards, chatting up a pair of buzz-cut birds in tank tops, perhaps planning a threesome. Even if they’re actually lesbians, it wouldn’t matter to him, he’d simply see it as yet another challenge. Prince William could talk the devil himself out of his pitchfork, he can certainly talk a couple of dykes too young to be set in their ways yet into a surf-and-turf. The Brits have this sense of restraint about them, which explains how they get away with such excess. Not just in speech but in print: English-style text layouts are so much more pleasing to the eye, all em dashes and no quotation marks cluttering up dialogue.

  My arrival alters the balance of the equation, however, and the two girl-girls take their tattoos on out the door (though the shorter one compliments me on my hair, was that an ever-so-slightly hetero twinkle in her eye?), kindly leaving us their seats. Prince William takes the stool closest to the wall, and sits facing me. I take up a position next to somebody who might very well be a bum (or an NYU student), from which I can face Prince William and also see partway into the back room, from which an interesting kind of noise emanates.

  —Driving off potential playmates was not the intention.

  —No worries, good sir. They know how to find me. One if not the other, mayhap both.

  We always talk like this, he and I. It’s not an affectation. Prince William talks the way I’d like to, in another life. People always think I’m gay because I speak in complete sentences and use BIG WORDS. Or else just because of my hair. In an age of enhanced communications, the first casualty is speech.

  Bon vivant though he is, the Prince looks moody and apprehensive tonight. He’s drinking his usual gin gimlet, which I complement with a heavily iced G and T. Out of the corner of my eye over the rim of my first slug I see him slide the matchbox down the beveled lip of the bar, our bodies blocking all view of the transfer. I put my glass down next to it, which will facilitate a surreptitious pocketing on my next pull. Prince William’s going on about something Reza’s been saying, something about increasing volume, but I’m not catching all of it because there’s an altercation brewing outside the window just across from us, probably over a fucking parking spot, and because standing in the doorway of the back room is a strawberry blonde in a ribbed halter top, with a silver navel ring in the middle of the most defined set of abdominals I’ve ever seen on a white woman. She’s partially shadowed by the spiky, leather-covered carapace of an enormous male of indeterminate species (biker? ball player?), but she’s checking her cell phone. Men, for the record: A woman with a man, with her cell phone in hand, should be classified as Keeping Her Options Open, and therefore a viable target. I ease out my iPhone.

  —Renny, you listening, mate? This is serious, the Prince says seriously.

  —So is this, I reply, thumbing up iHook. This handy little app (created anonymously online, a gratis download) is tailor-made for those looking to connect on the sly while still in sight of their Significant Others—or, in this case, standing right next to them. The woman with the cobblestone stomach is obviously bored with her present company, and a gentleman should never let a lady rest unamused. It’s not long before our eyes connect. One thing that hasn’t gone out of style is the age-old technique of using bar mirrors to make eye contact, thus avoiding the possibility of being caught staring at someone else’s girlfriend, thereby inviting assault or murder. Twice in two minutes is the rule, and I can see the look of wry surprise, the connection, and that exquisite moment of being the only two people in a crowded room sharing a secret. I thumb over my introductory message (iHook can beam up to twenty feet between phones without actually making a call and blowing your cover, a handy resuscitation of old technology): BORED? (Text is usually accompanied by a sig file consisting of a photo of oneself and contact information.) She juts out her chin a bit to hide the smile, turns her face toward her company, and crosses her arms at the border of her halter top, her phone in her lowermost hand, pointed my way. I’m only halfway through my drink before I get the reply: WITH SOMEONE. MAYBE LATER. She looks over at me once for just a second, to make sure I’ve gotten the message (and I experience again that luscious sensation of speaking a language only we two understand), before turning back to her eurypterid boyfriend.

  Prince William, who of course has been following the whole vignette in the bar mirror, drops his head and sighs through his nose, his mouth in a tight-lipped smile, and raises his glass.

  —My dear Renny, you are truly fucking incorrigible. I admire that in a man.

  —It’s the scandalous company I’m forced to keep, I reply, clinking glasses.

  —Look, do try to make Reza happy, Prince William says, and I’m surprised, because it sounds like there’s genuine concern in his voice. He’s got quite a nasty temper, you know. We have to move more product, period. Full stop.

  —No worries, mate, I say through clenched teeth around an unlit Davidoff, leaving a twenty on the bar. À bientôt.

  I have to cross the street to light up, because it’s always better to hail a hack on the far corner so you don’t lose money sitting at a red light. Also, the altercation outside the bar is turning nasty, two neck-tattooed behemoths in jumped-up pimpwear (one black, one Latino) screaming an endless stream of muthafuckas at each other. This is Street Stupidity; there’s probably sixteen cameras on them now between the security cams up on the traffic lights and the phones of the gathering crowd come a-gawking. Traffic’s against me, I can’t cross, there’s an empty Ford Heifer parked right in front of me but the driver’s on his fucking phone and waves me off. Asshole. Luckily, an empty Ford Friesian rolls up neatly behind the Heifer, and I’ve got the door open, and I hear the scuffle on the street coming closer and then there’s a scream (man? woman?) and I hear someone shout something like stigmata and car doors are opening and now several women are screaming (Get in the cab) and men are s
houting and cursing (Get in the cab, Renny) and the driver of the Heifer in front of us is out on the sidewalk wrestling the black guy to the ground and now I can hear sirens (RENNY, GET IN THE FUCKING CAB) and I’m in the cab and the driver locks the doors and stomps on the gas and the motor gargles to life and I see the belligerent Latino frozen with his hands at his sides staring down the laser beam coming from beneath the muzzle of a weird-looking pistol held rock steady in the hands of the bum/NYU student I was sitting next to in the bar and the Friesian lumbers across West Broadway toward the river and the highway and I’m gone.

  —What kind of gun was it? L asks me over her caipirinha.

  —I don’t know. It looked futuristic. Kind of like Will Smith’s gun in I, Robot.

  We’re snug at the front window table at Ouest. No matter how crowded the bar gets, L always seems to be able to get this table for herself. She likes it because she can hide behind the framed clips hung in the window, but can still see out onto the street. With her particular beauty, she’s always a little uncomfortable in public, but it’s really just because she has to keep a watchful eye out for the man who thinks he is her fiancé. She doesn’t explain, and I don’t ask. She says he travels a lot. I figure she uses him for a sugar daddy, or maybe window dressing to keep annoying family pressure off of herself. I don’t know and I don’t care, because as long as I can keep fucking her with no strings attached it doesn’t matter who she’s with or what story she tells. You would too, believe me.

  I’m still a little shaky from earlier. It still isn’t clear to me what happened, maybe it was just one of those random rootless acts of violence that happen so often these days, a mistimed glance or an overheard utterance leading to carnage. The cops put it down mighty quick but what were they doing there? Broome Street’s a legit bar, been there since before I was born, it’s not a speak.

  But being here now with L, getting lost in her eyes, watching her exquisite mouth and knowing what pleasure it can bring, is taking the edge off. The man who thinks he is her fiancé must realize that although he can put a ring on her finger (which I’ve never seen her wear), he cannot possibly hope to keep her to himself. There is too much passion in her, too much sexual fire banked behind a facade of stylish gentility (she’s an investment banker, or so she says). After our much-too-brief first date, she took me shopping at Jamie Hearse in the West Village, walked in on me in the back dressing room as I was changing, and proceeded to give me the blow job by which I have since measured all others. In the backseat of the Heifer on the way back to my place that night we achieved everything but St. George–style penetration (and not for lack of trying). When I am with her I feel like ancient European royalty instead of a freelancer from Queens. Prince William and Reza and my Specials clientele and the whole miserable Roundup crew and the NYPD and every thug in the city can all go fuck themselves raw. I’ve got L, she’s mine. For the next few hours, anyway.