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Seventeen

HARVEY STEERED the black Toyota into the parking lot of the Skyline Motor Lodge and parked the car in the last space on the right. As he got out of the car, he looked over his shoulder at the traffic whizzing by on Route 46. It was early afternoon and very hot, and Harvey was perspiring. He reached in his pants pocket for his handkerchief and wiped his face.

The door to room twelve was unlocked, and Harvey let himself in. Al was sitting on the bed with his shirt off watching a Met game. An open bag of Cheez Doodles sat next to him on the bed. He was drinking a Diet Pepsi and trying with one finger to pick a piece of Cheez Doodle out of his navel.

"You're late," said Al.

"I'm sorry. Traffic on the bridge," said Harvey. "Help me get this fuckin' thing off. It itches like a motherfucker."

Al pushed his bulk off the bed and stood up. Harvey took off his shirt. There was a Nagra recorder adhesive-taped to the small of his back and a wire running down under his crotch and up his chest to a tiny microphone. Al turned him around and, in three quick motions, tore the whole apparatus unceremoniously from his skin.

"Jesus! That hurts!" said Harvey.

"Shave your back next time. It won't hurt so bad," said Al.

Harvey stood in front of a streaked mirror at an angle, examining the pink welts on his back. "I should put some cream on this," he said. Al went to the closet, found his jacket on a hanger, and tucked the little Nagra and the mike into the inside pocket.

"No air-conditioning," said Harvey. "You don't get any air-conditioning in here?"

"It's broken," said Al. "I'm hot too."

"You're hot," said Harvey. "I've been sweating my balls off, I can't even get a nice room to cool off in. It's like an oven in here." He wrinkled his nose. "And your feet smell."

"It's these sneakers," said Al. "I gotta get a new pair." He turned off the Met game. "You want a Diet Pepsi?"

Harvey waved his hand dismissively and sat down in a scratchy, floral-print chair that made his back itch.

"And Fort Lee," he asked. "I got to come all the way out to Fort fuckin' Lee? You know it's four fuckin' dollars get back in the city?"

"Just looking after your security there, Harvey," said Al. "So how'd it go?"

"I thought he was going to pat me down or something. I'm standing there with the guy and I'm thinking, These guys are huggin' each other all the time. What happens he gives me a hug and feels it there. I end up in the fuckin' trunk of a car. One pat on the back and that's it. You know he put his hand on my shoulder. I thought I was gonna let go in my pants."

"But it went alright?"

"I'm here aren't I?"

"So what happened?" asked Al.

"We went out for a walk-talk," said Harvey. "Down Spring, up West Broadway, over Prince, and back. He was nervous. Says people are watching him, he's got to be careful."

"Well, he's right about that," said Al.

"I gave him the money," said Harvey.

"All of it?" asked Al. "You didn't give him a story?"

"I gave him what I was supposed to. It's on tape."

"He say anything interesting?"

"It's all on the fuckin' tape," said Harvey. "Listen to it."

"I want to hear it from you," said Al. "What did he say? How did he seem? Happy? Sad? Nervous? Whimsical? What?"

"He seemed nervous. And pissed off about something. Didn't talk much. Just 'Where's the money, make sure you have it together for next week.' He asked about the other people. The people from Brooklyn. Whether I'd seen any of them around."

"What did you say?"

"I said no. What do you think?"

"Did he believe you?"

"I don't know. Like I said, he seemed pissed about something."

Harvey got up from his chair and went to the bathroom. He took a few sheets of toilet paper and wiped under his arms. He found a water glass wrapped in paper on the counter. He took one of the sodas off the night table, unwrapped the glass, and poured himself half a glass of Diet Pepsi.

"Shit is warm."

"Sorry, I've been here awhile. It was cold when I got it."

"They don't have ice here?"

"There's a machine by the office," said Al. "But I didn't want to leave the room."

"I didn't see your little red Alfa out there," said Harvey.

"No. I got something else today," said Al. "You see the black van on the other side of the lot? Got a sunroof and a mural on the side? That's me."

Harvey peered through the blinds. The van was parked all the way over. The mural on the side depicted a black man standing in front of some extraterrestrial landscape, surrounded by bejeweled naked women with melon-sized breasts, "Who's the schvoogie on the side?" Harvey inquired.

"Jimi Hendrix," said Al. "I think so anyway. It's a fuckin' seventies whorehouse on wheels, that thing. Carpet, beanbag chairs. Got it off DEA, they took it oft some druggie—Florida, I think."

Harvey took a sip of his warm soda and sat back in the chair.

"I went out with the chef the other night," he said.

"That's Michael, the chef—isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Harvey. "He's French, you know. Or his family's French. I don't know,"

"So?"

"Well we go out for some drinks together. Talk about the menu, discuss a few things. Well, all night long he's bitchin' about his chef's knife. It's some expensive Jap knife he got custom made, costs about a million dollars, they got to measure your hand and everything to make it. Anyway, he's bitchin' about it getting all fucked up. He comes in the other day and it's all beaten to shit like somebody's been pounding on it with a hammer. There was chunks missing out of the thing, blade all bent up. Like somebody tried to cut through a chain-link fence with it. So after he comes into my office and a lot of pissing and moaning, I sent him out to get a new one. Cost me five hundred bucks. So we're sitting there at this bar and he's going on and on about his fuckin' knife and who could have done such a thing and I start thinking. I'm thinking about when the knife got so fucked up. See the chef keeps asking who could've done it and I realize who it was in the kitchen the night before. It was that night Sally was there."

"What did you tell him?" asked Al.

"Michael? I didn't tell him anything. I don't really know anything. I mean, I know who was down there, Sally and Tommy and all. But what am I going to say? I told him maybe the porters did it trying to scrape out a pot or something."

"That satisfy him?"

"I guess so."

"So what are you telling me, Harvey," said Al. "Sally is dropping by your kitchen in the middle of the night to play with knives? Is that what you're telling me, Harvey?"

"I don't know. I don't know who did it. I just know Sally and Tommy were there that night."

"Maybe it was somebody else," said Al.

"Everybody in the place knew about that fuckin' knife. Nobody was to touch it. Chef told everybody. Cooks, waiters, dishwashers, porters. He told them all a million times. Somebody put a little ding in it one time, he called a staff meeting to tell everybody not to touch his damn knife."

"And it wasn't the porters," said Al.

"The porters weren't there," said Harvey.

"Right, right," said Al.

"Anyway I thought about that today when I'm talking to Sally."

"Anything unusual about the place when you came in?"

"When?"

"The day after Sally used the place."

"Unusual. Like what?"

"Like how did the place look? Ashtrays full of mysterious cigar butts? Any booze missing? Sinatra tapes you didn't previously own left in the machine? Anybody cook anything? Maybe Sally just had a few friends over for a late supper. Fucked up the knife cutting lamb chops for some buddies. You see any dirty plates with some half-eaten lamb chops on them? Help me out here."

"No. I was the first one in. There was no plates. Somebody did them all."

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