The Singer's Gun Read online

  “I quit a week ago,” Elena said. She was gazing up at the ceiling. “That night I didn’t come to you.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I wondered what’d become of you.” Wondered wasn’t exactly the right word. He had lain on his back on the floor till seven P.M. watching the door that didn’t open and thinking about the complete dissolution of the life he’d been building, and when he’d gone home that night he hadn’t even the energy to lie. “I just stayed late in the office,” he’d said when Sophie asked if he’d had another staff meeting.

  “And my swipe card still works,” Elena said. “It’s been seven or eight days, but I can still get into the building at five o’clock to see you. I thought it would be deactivated, but the turnstile gates still open for me in the lobby.”

  He was quiet.

  “I thought I’d be locked out of the system,” she said, “but no one’s told the building I don’t work here anymore.”

  “You haven’t worked here in a week, but you still come to see me at five?”

  “Of course,” Elena said.

  Anton lay down beside her again and held her close. She let her head fall against his chest. The breeze through the broken window was warm on his skin.

  “That first time you came to me,” he said after a while. “That first afternoon.”

  “What about it?”

  “Why were you crying?”

  She sat up and began reaching for her clothes. “Anton, has Aria spoken to you?”

  “About . . .?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “What time is it?” She was standing up and getting dressed again, smoothing her hair. She turned on the floor lamp and its yellow light filled the room. He stood up, blinking.

  “Ellie?” He touched her shoulder, but she still didn’t look at him. “About what? Has Aria spoken to me about what?” But she shook her head again and made a small but final motion with her hand, leaned over awkwardly to put on her shoes.

  “Ellie, please.”

  “I ran into her on the street a few days back. She asked how you were and said she needed to tell you something. That’s all. It’s none of my business.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “That’s all,” she repeated.

  “Well.” He was watching her closely. She retrieved a tube of lipstick from her handbag and applied it quickly, pressed her lips together once. “I’ll see her tonight,” he said. “There’s a dinner thing uptown.”

  “A dinner thing?”

  “It’s my parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary.”

  “Thirty years of marriage.” There were tears in her eyes. “Did they ever cheat on each other?”

  “Elena . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll see you on Monday, if my swipe card still works.”

  “Please call me if it doesn’t work. I’ll be here.”

  “Goodnight,” she said, and left very quickly without kissing him goodbye.

  His parents’ thirtieth anniversary dinner was at Malvolio’s Ristorante on the Upper East Side. He’d been there once some years ago for an event gone hazy in memory—Gary’s birthday?—and had forgotten exactly where it was but nonetheless arrived early. Anton didn’t feel like sitting at the table alone. He was waiting on the sidewalk out front when Aria pulled up in a silver Jaguar and gave her keys to the valet. He whistled softly.

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  “Isn’t it?” She was dressed expensively, wearing a silk neck scarf that made him think of flight attendants.

  “Is it new?”

  “This year’s model.” They watched the Jaguar recede.

  “Whoever said crime doesn’t pay doesn’t know you very well.”

  Aria laughed as she led him into the cool of the restaurant. “I want to talk to you about something,” she said when they’d been seated. Their table was in a back corner of the room, far from other customers.

  “I thought you might.”

  She glanced at him strangely, but continued. “I know this is forward of me,” she said, “but are you certain . . . is the wedding going through this time?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “And you’re definitely going to Italy afterward?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “In that case, I have a proposition,” she said. “I think you’ll find the terms attractive.”

  “What kind of proposition?”

  “I’ve been working on a major deal. It involves multiple clients, and they’re willing to pay me a lot of money. The catch is,” she said, “the deal has to be done in Europe. They’re unwilling to risk coming to the United States in the present political climate without the benefit of my product, if you know what I mean.”

  “So they have the wrong passports.”

  “Are you trying to get me arrested? Speak a little louder, I don’t think they heard you in the kitchen. Anton,” she said, “I could really use your help with this. You’re going to Europe on your honeymoon.”

  “True, but I’m also out of the business. I’m a respected junior manager at a major consulting firm.” Anton couldn’t help but think about Dead File Storage Four as he said this, and tried to focus on the old eleventh-floor office instead. The details of his old office were already slipping away from him. He was no longer absolutely sure, for example, what color the carpet had been. In his memories it shifted unsteadily between gray and blue.

  “There would be a substantial commission,” Aria murmured. “Ten thousand dollars.”

  He whistled softly. “What are you doing for them?”

  “Plausible deniability, Anton. You don’t really want to know.”

  “You’re right, I really don’t. Why can’t you go to Europe yourself?”

  “I’ve got some things I need to do here,” she said. “I can’t leave just now.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” he said, “but—”

  “There’s practically no exposure, Anton. We can set it up so that you’re plausibly innocent throughout the whole transaction. You go to a hotel in Europe, you receive a package from me addressed to a third party care of your name and room number, that third party approaches you that evening and introduces himself as a friend of mine, you hand it over to him without opening it, and a short time later a wedding gift gets wired to your bank account. It’s that easy. You couldn’t possibly be having your wedding at a better time, incidentally.”

  “Glad it’s convenient for you. But seriously, Ari, you call that no exposure?”

  “It’s ten grand,” she said. “For accepting a FedEx package and then handing it to someone. You’re a respectable corporate drone on his honeymoon. You have no criminal record whatsoever. You’ve been out of the business for long enough that no one’s paying any attention to you, and you never even have to know what’s in the package.”

  “Aria,” he said after a moment, “I don’t want to do it. I’m sorry. I’m out of the business.”

  “I’m family,” she said.

  “And I’m not judging you. It’s a hell of a business you’ve built for yourself, I mean, I sure as hell don’t drive a Jaguar.” She didn’t smile. “I just don’t want to be a part of it anymore. That’s all.”

  She was quiet; she sipped her water; she rested her chin on her hand for a moment and stared into space.

  “This is the deal of my career, Anton,” she said softly. “It would launch me into a whole new sector.”

  “What’s wrong with your old sector?”

  “I think it’s almost time to get out of it,” she said. “These people are in the import-export business. It’s an area I’m interested in.”

  “Well, I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” Aria smiled, seemingly at nothing and no one in particular, and toyed with a corner of the tablecloth as she spoke. “I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be for you,” she said, “if Sophie were to find out that you didn’t actually go to Harvard.”

  “What?”

  “Do this one last thing for me,” she said. “Do this on
e last thing, and then you’re finished. I’ll consider you retired. You’ll never have anything to do with my business again.”

  “You’re blackmailing me.”

  “I’m helping you to avoid a supremely awkward explanation. Didn’t Sophie work nights as a waitress to put herself through Juilliard? And here you just cheated your way into your career. Do you think she’ll be very understanding?”

  He was staring at her, wordless.

  “Because I’m not at all sure that she will,” said Aria. “Poor motherless Sophie, playing the cello at nine in her trailer park in California while her father worked two jobs to support his kids. Sophie, who’s had a job since she was what, eleven? Twelve? I have enormous respect for her for that reason alone, Anton, but don’t you sense a certain, well, a certain lack of open-mindedness when it comes to, shall we say, alternative means of securing an income? She’s—”

  “Shut up,” he murmured, “just shut the fuck up. Sam and Miriam are here.”

  His parents had entered the restaurant. His mother was wearing the vintage yellow dress she wore only on special occasions in the summertime, an enormous amber brooch resplendent on the front. His father beamed under his summer fedora. They were laughing as they crossed the room. “It’s so lovely to see you both,” his mother said. They were kissing Anton and Aria and sitting down at the table; his mother was rummaging in her beaded purse for a tissue and blotting sweat from her forehead; they were talking about a restored garden fountain they’d just sold that morning, the white marble one they’d had for so long. They’d had a good week.

  “I can picture it,” Anton said. “I remember it exactly. Stone birds all around the edges. Beautiful piece.” He felt like throwing up but kept his voice as bright as possible. I’d just like to thank the Academy. “How long have you had it?”

  “Ten years,” said Aria. “I remember when we got it in. You remember how much Sophie liked it when she first came into the store?”

  Anton smiled painfully. His father had intercepted a passing waiter and was ordering wine.

  “How is Sophie?” his mother asked.

  “Excellent,” Anton said. “She’s doing well these days. She sends her regards, by the way, and her regrets and her congratulations.”

  “Quite a combination,” his mother said. “Regrets, congratulations, regards.”

  “She couldn’t get out of rehearsal tonight, otherwise she’d be here.”

  “Ah, is that it. Sir, may we have some menus? Thank you,” his mother said. “She feeling a little calmer these days?”

  “Miriam,” his father said. The two canceled wedding dates had been difficult to explain to Anton’s mother, who had some trouble understanding why anyone would hesitate even momentarily to marry her only child. The wine was being poured, and a basket of bread had appeared on the table. His father raised his glass of wine, so everyone else raised their glasses too. “To marriage,” he said. He reached across the table to hold Miriam’s hand.

  “Thirty years,” said Aria. “Congratulations.”

  “Congratulations,” Anton repeated. “Happy anniversary.”

  “Thank you,” his mother whispered. She was smiling, radiant. There were tears in her eyes.

  “And to Anton and Sophie,” his father said.

  “To Anton and Sophie.” Aria looked Anton in the eye and smiled as she spoke. “August 28th?”

  “The 29th,” Anton said. “The wedding’s August 29th.” His throat was dry. He put down the wine and drank half a glass of water without stopping for breath. It was already August 3rd.

  The appetizers were arriving. Aria, utterly at ease beside him, speared a white circle of mozzarella and ate it in pieces from the fork, talking about something—he was having trouble hearing, and also he wanted to kill her and his head was light—and his father said, “And then the next thing I know—” and Aria was laughing but he’d missed the joke. Anton couldn’t concentrate. Things were difficult to grasp.

  “You seem a little out of it,” his mother said finally. “Everything okay?”

  “Prewedding jitters?” his father asked.

  “No, actually, I’m being blackmailed by my cousin,” Anton said.

  Aria shot him a look, which he ignored, but he felt it graze his cheek.

  “Blackmailed,” Sam repeated. “Really?”

  Aria shrugged.

  “Really,” said his mother. “Aria, please explain.”

  “Well,” said Aria, “I’m conducting a transaction.” She leaned forward across the table and dropped her voice to a murmur. She repeated the details about the ten-thousand-dollar wedding gift and the FedEx package at the Italian hotel, but added that her plans depended on Anton’s involvement in the initial transaction—the successful completion of this deal would open up a particularly profitable segment of the import-export business, which was where she’d been wanting to focus her attention for some time. Aria wasn’t entirely sure, she had to admit, why anyone would consider her request for assistance even faintly unreasonable under the circumstances.

  “Under what circumstances?”

  “You left me hanging,” she said. “I’ve been through three business partners since you left the business, and none of them worked out.”

  “How is that my fault? And she’ll tell Sophie about Harvard if I don’t do it,” Anton said.

  His parents were silent. Miriam looked at her wineglass, twisting the stem between two fingers and her thumb. Sam nodded and stared into space, considering the situation.

  “Well,” his mother said, after some time had passed, “she is family, Anton.”

  “What? Mom. She’s blackmailing me.”

  “Listen,” his father said quietly, “I can’t say I’m down with the coercion aspect, but it does seem fairly low-risk if you think about it.” He speared a tomato slice, and looked contemplatively at the wall behind Anton and Aria as he talked. Anton glanced over his shoulder. There was a mural on the wall, painted long ago and cleaned rarely since, a greasy waterscape of gondolas and dim canals. “You sign for a package, you give the package to someone without opening it, in the worst-case scenario you deny all knowledge of its contents, and in any event you get ten thousand dollars wired to your bank account. Do you know what she’s sending you?”

  “No.”

  “There you go,” his father said, as if that resolved everything. “You keep it that way and come home with a nice little nest egg for your life with Sophie, you don’t even know what you did, you help out your cousin at great personal gain and virtually no personal risk. Why not?”

  All three were looking at him. Aria was smiling slightly.

  “You’re only going along with this,” Anton said to his mother, “because you don’t want me to marry Sophie.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” his mother said. “Why wouldn’t I want my only son to marry a girl who’s canceled the wedding twice?”

  Anton’s father raised his hand for silence; the waiter was approaching.

  “Who ordered the chicken parmesan?” the waiter asked.

  “Me,” Anton said, without taking his eyes off his mother’s face. She was looking at the waiter.

  “I’m the veal,” she said helpfully.

  “Linguine?” asked the waiter.

  “Over here,” said Anton’s father.

  “And you must be the steak.”

  “I am,” said Aria. “Grazie.”

  “Listen,” his father said when the waiter was out of earshot, “it seems like a fairly smooth transaction.” He was winding pasta around his fork. “I’m not going to lie to you, I think you’d be a fool not to do it.”

  “Well, that’s exactly it, Dad, actually. I don’t have a choice but to do it.”

  “But why wouldn’t you want to?” his mother asked. “I know you lead a different kind of life these days, but ten thousand dollars, love.”

  “You don’t understand, I don’t have a—”

  The waiter was approaching again; Anton fell silent and
clenched the tablecloth with both hands under the table.

  “Fresh pepper, sir?”

  “Thank you,” Anton’s father said. He leaned back in his chair to allow the pepper mill unrestricted access to his plate.

  “Because that was the whole point of Harvard,” Anton said when the waiter was gone. “So I wouldn’t have to do this kind of thing anymore.”

  “But you didn’t go to Harvard,” Aria said reasonably.

  “But she doesn’t know that.”

  “A marriage has to be based on honesty, sweetie,” his mother said. She put down her fork and held her husband’s hand for a moment on the tabletop.

  “Thirty years,” Aria said. She raised her wineglass. “To Sam and Miriam.”

  “Thank you,” his mother whispered. They raised their glasses again. Anton raised his glass too, but he couldn’t make himself speak. He set the glass down next to his plate and tried to concentrate on dinner. Look at this holy chicken parmiggiano, this holy salt shaker, the starched purity of this tablecloth. Behold the holiness of my family, serene and utterly at ease in their corruption, toasting thirty years of love and theft in a restaurant on an island in a city by the sea.

  Anton paid for dinner. Outside Malvolio’s Aria said goodbye and he stared at her flatly until she shrugged and climbed into her silver Jaguar and disappeared into the river of red taillights that flowed south down the canyon of Park Avenue. When Aria was gone his parents kissed him and thanked him for a wonderful evening, said goodnight and walked east holding hands. Anton stood on the corner of Park Avenue and 53rd Street, dazed, a little lost. He glanced at his watch, nine thirty but the summer light was endless—it was twilight still, not night, and the city was hazy. He began to walk south, in the opposite direction of home. After a few blocks he took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a cell number from memory as he crossed 49th Street.

  “Where are you at this moment?” he asked when Elena answered.

  “The Starbucks downstairs from the office.”

  “Alone?”

  “Caleb’s working.”

  “You didn’t want to go home?”

  “Something like that.”