PART III
Nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.
—ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP
15 | SOHO GRAND
January 20, 2006
CHAPPY CAN BROKER A SINGLE TRADE THAT GENERATES enough commission to warrant a celebration. These types of trades can come together over a period of days or in an instant. Celebrating only in response to a big commission would make Chappy seem cheap, so there are also arbitrary parties. Celebrating without cause is the key to swagger.
Tonight is in response to a trade we put through Chappy. The brokerage fee on the transaction is about six hundred thousand and Jack Wilson will spend a good piece of that tonight. At any rate, I’m in an elevator at the Soho Grand on the way to a suite Chappy has for the night. I used to crave this kind of night. Like rounding the bases after hitting a home run, I thought I would always have the energy for it. Now I have the premonition of a heroin addict who looks down at the needle in his arm with the vague recognition that this crap will kill me one day.
Jack knows enough not to put the room in his name anymore. He’ll have some broker on his desk do it and let him know the expense will be covered. I get off at the penthouse level and go to Chappy’s suite knowing exactly what I’ll find. The Soho Grand has two penthouse suites, one with a view north and one with a view south. We’re in the southern-facing one looking over Canal Street to the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island. I hope the northern one isn’t rented.
There’s a full bar set up but no bartender. Any other party would have bartenders and a few cute waitresses to pass hors d’oeuvres, but this party needs more discretion. I count five hookers in the room, each with a martini glass and a grip on the stem as though it were a ski pole. One bends down over the coffee table to rip a snort of cocaine. She straightens up like the yellow plastic bird in chemistry class that perpetually dips its beak in water, and her momentum pours her martini down her chest. A pimply kid who could pass for nineteen tries to drink it off her.
“Nick, good to see you. What’s going on? What can I get you?” Jack Wilson seems to appear in a flicker next to me.
“Gin and tonic. I see I’m not too early.” It’s only 9 p.m. I usually try to avoid work functions on Friday nights. Even though I can sleep off the hangover, I’m hoping to make an early night of it.
“We got a jump on things.” Woody comes through a bedroom door on the other side of the suite, arm in arm with two more very attractive hookers.
“Not bad.” Jack follows my gaze to Woody and his two friends.
“Two grand each. They just got here. There were two others here earlier that were totally unacceptable and I sent them back. I gave the agency an earful, so they sent along these two in mint condition. Obviously it didn’t take Woody long.”
A person eavesdropping might have the sense that we’re talking about pieces of fruit. Very expensive pieces of fruit. For a moment I imagine the cab ride home of the two hookers, scolded and rejected by a coked-up Jack Wilson. He passes my gin and tonic. My hand isn’t visibly shaking but I can feel it and I force myself not to slurp down the drink.
The suite is huge, especially by New York City standards. The main room is the size of a tennis court with various sofas and chairs organized to create different pods for conversation. The room is elegant and conservative, lots of dark woods, dark carpets, and mostly dark blues in the fabrics. It would take a guest twenty minutes to try out every available place to sit. The suite is not designed to provide for every possible need; rather it is designed to provide the sensation of having so much excess that the notion of having to meet a need vanishes.
The rooms have been renovated to have the feel of a modern club room with high-end entertainment systems. There are two bedrooms, a bathroom, a study, and a balcony connected to the main room. Everything looks to be in use.
“Hey, Nick!”
“How ya doing, Woody?” He’s still arm in arm with both hookers, who are surprisingly beautiful and no more than twenty years old. Poor things are probably fresh from some small town, just pretty enough to have a chance at a modeling contract with Ford or Wilhelmina, and like the rest of the new girls to the city, to pay the rent they end up waiting tables or promoting Bacardi rum in the bars. Or hooking.
“I’m excellent. Just survived a round with these two lovelies.”
“Mazel tov.” I’m looking down at my drink. The girls don’t seem to mind being talked about in the third person. They’re looking around but at nothing in particular.
“You should have seen the two that were here earlier. Jack traded up.” He smiles at Jack and gives the girls a squeeze around the shoulders.
“Nice.” I think I’m the only one feeling uncomfortable. “How’s the balcony?” I take a step out of the conversation toward the balcony doors.
“Nothing out there,” Woody calls after me. “It’s freezing outside.” I keep moving toward the balcony. “William and Ron are at Scores. They’ll be over later.” This is said as though it’s information I’ve been waiting for.
I step outside and the cold snaps me alert. The wind blows much harder at this height. The balcony is the size of a suburban living room. I walk past some metal furniture to the rail and can see the activity up and down Canal.
“Hey, Nick. I see a little gray coming in on the sides. Hadn’t noticed that before.” Jack had followed me outside.
“It’s premature.”
“Yeah. Me too. Very distinguished-looking. You’re not getting too old for all this?”
I wonder if Jack can see through to me. He’s in sales, he must have some knack for picking up on things in people. On the other hand, it may not require any special gift to notice I’m miserable. “Maybe I am.”
“You have any kids? That’s when it really gets tough. I’ve got a kid with my ex-wife.”
“No kids. I’m almost too old to start having kids.”
“There are real advantages to starting at this age.”
“Such as?”
“When you divorce, you can date a gal twenty years younger and she’s still plenty older than your kids.”
“I’ll remember that.” I sip the last of my drink. My lips are numb from the cold air and I can’t feel the liquid but only the sting of the liquor. “Are you getting too old for this?”
Jack heaves a sigh as though he’s already thought about this, and I can see a long trail of his breath blow in the cold night over the street. This is body language I’ve never seen from him before. Maybe he followed me out because he wanted this conversation. “I probably am. But I’ll keep doing it until I’m such a pathetic hack that they force me out the door.” His eyes briefly betray a fear that he’s already a hack. It’s just a flash, as though he may have wanted to talk about it but decided it is best not to be found out. In this moment of hesitation, Jack seems human, like a person who can get sad or confused, not an emotionless runaway train. For the first time I get the sense that he could have been a boy once. Maybe he has always just held up a front. No one wants to go drinking with sad. They want fun and fearless and invincible. Maybe it’s not so easy being Jack Wilson either. Not at this age.
Jack finishes his drink, taking my cue, though now I’m a little interested. “Why don’t you just walk out the door? Under your own power. Go buy a strip joint and run it.”
He rattles the ice in the empty glass and answers me still looking at the ice cubes. “I used to think I would. I might still. Not the strip joint part.” He looks up to me and smiles. “I had a magic number of fifteen million. Once I saved up that much, I’d walk away. The problem is once you get to that point, you’re making so much money every year that it’s hard to walk away. You’re also spending so much that there needs to be some lifestyle changes for fifteen million to be enough to last.”
I’m impressed he’s cleared the fifteen-million mark. When you take out federal, state, and city tax, it takes a while to clear that much. Some people think brokers are second-class, but the good ones make more than most traders. I’m working the calculations. If Julia and I shed our expenses, could we make fifteen million last for the next forty years? With no kids and selling the Sag Harbor place it seems possible, with some belt tightening.
Jack pulls a cube from the glass and throws it like a dart across the balcony and it skids against the door. “So I don’t think five years down the road. There’s no point, it’s too far from today.” He seems to be slipping back into his carefree swagger and even his voice takes on a come-what-may tone.
“You don’t love what we do?” I know the answer but there is a perversion that makes me need to hear it from him.
“Does anyone over thirty?”
“Right.”
“I just make a deal with myself to get to the next New Year’s Eve. When I get there, I can either quit or make a resolution to make it to the next New Year’s Eve. Those are bites I can handle. The same way you eat an elephant. One bite at a time.”
We’re now both holding glasses with nothing but ice cubes in weather that is too cold to melt them without alcohol. “It’s freezing out here. Let’s get another drink.”
I step back inside and the dry heat of the room makes my face flush as it comes back from numbness. Jack and I wordlessly split up like two little kids who have been doing something wrong and shuffle away with averted eyes so as not to get caught.
There have been a few more arrivals of young Chappy brokers full of excitement and pride to be here. They will retell their stories about tonight to their young friends back in their hometowns and dangle them all on a string of awe.
Eminem is playing but at a civilized volume. Probably a request of the hookers. I step through the crowd and more than half the guys here are only a handful of years out of college. The girls are under twenty-five and all professionals. There are the youthful expulsions of energy of a fraternity party, but while college has a jubilant venting of steam, this has already acquired a more sophisticated corruption. I get the feeling I need to throw myself a lifeline to pull myself out of this if I’m ever to have a chance. How can I find this to be an acceptable part of my life? I decide I need to force myself to imagine a different career. Even if it seems impossible, I need to go through the exercise. This weekend I’ll get a pen and paper and draw it up. Maybe just by taking that step, I will make things start to feel more possible.
In the meantime I walk to the self-service bar. More gin. There’s not a single person I’m interested in talking to.
“Hey, Nick!” Woody again from across the room. “I just spoke to Ron. He and William and a few other guys are leaving Scores now and bringing the bachelor party here. They’re bringing a few of the Scores strippers with them.” A few cheers and claps sprinkle the room at the news. I raise my glass in a silent toast. Woody does the same but with a yell and knocks back the rest of his drink. I feel like I need to get out of here and hope to make it through the hotel before Ron and William arrive. I don’t want to seem like the old guy leaving early, but more than that I don’t want to seem like the old guy sticking around not having any fun, and I can’t be around all these kids and hookers.
I finish my drink and tap Jack on the shoulder for a quick thanks and make an excuse for the early night, and I’m out the door into the hallway. The heavy door closes behind me with a seal, and in an instant all the voices are gone like snapping off the radio. I wish things were good with Julia so I could have something I couldn’t wait to get home to, but leaving here is good enough for now.
The elevator takes me all the way down without a single stop and I step past the two bronze Great Danes that line the elevator alcove. I’m almost to the door outside when I hear a collection of laughter and too many stories told at once in loud voices coming in from the other side. They’re already here. Ron must have called Woody from a car close by.
They push through the door in a single mass, like an amoeba with forward body motion fueled by alcohol. Eight guys in designer jeans and untucked button-down shirts under navy trench coats. Like a uniform. I’m unavoidably in the path and I hear my name called in a chorus.
“William, congratulations on the big night out.”
“This is an unofficial one, but it has all the ingredients. Are you coming or going?”
“Going. I need to get home.” Less is more when trying to leave. Any information about why gives a foothold for counterargument.
“Nick, you can’t. We have Scores dancers coming over.”
“I heard. Where are they?”
“Coming at the end of their shift. We gave a down payment, and what stripper in her right mind would turn down a night at the Soho Grand penthouse with limitless blow?” In my mind this is said loud enough for the entire lobby to hear.
“I’ve never heard of such a stripper.” William laughs at this. I need to go. “Damn, I can’t believe I’m going to miss this one, guys.” I try hard to sound genuine. “Take pictures and don’t leave out any details on Monday.”
“Okay. You sure?” I’m his boss. There’s only so much complaining he can do.
“Yeah. Have fun. Stay out of trouble.”
I get outside and the bellman gets a cab for me. I notice there’s a voicemail on my cell phone and I check it.
Nick, it’s Rebecca James. I hope it’s okay that I’m calling you. I know you can’t talk about Freddie’s work, but I thought we might get together and talk about other things. Some nonconfidential things. Anyway, call me when you can.
I don’t know how she got my number. I guess reporters have their ways. It’s been more than a month since I saw her and I’m craving to call her back, but I know if I call her, I’ll have created something that will take on a life of its own. I decide that if I call her, I need to wait until I’m in a place where I can concentrate rather than in the back of a taxi. This way I can just decide about it all later.