Fury

Eleanor took over. “Yes, it was difficult.” But Florence was lovely. How are you?” He thought for a minute. “Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.” She thought for a minute. “You shouldn’t promise him you’re coming back if you aren’t,” she said, angling for information. “What’s the matter?” he asked, changing the subject. “What’s the matter with you?” she replied.

That was all it took. He had already heard the telltale wrongness in her voice and she in his. Thrown off balance by what he had just understood, Solanka made the mistake of retreating into Neela’s dialogue: “Oh, for Pete’s sake! You think you can read my mind, but you’re so often so wrong. If there’s something to be said, I’ll say it. Don’t meet trouble halfway.” Coming from Neela this had sounded genuine enough, but in his mouth it came across as mere bluster. Eleanor was scornfully amused. “For Pete’s sake?” she wanted to know. “As in ‘Jeepers creepers,” Jiminy Cricket,’ or’ What the heck? “When did you start using Ronald Reagan’s lines?” Her ma

The fury was passing from him, but everyone else seemed to be in exceedingly poor humor. Mila was moving. Eddie had hired a van from a company called Van-Go and was uncomplainingly hauling her possessions down from the fourth floor while she stayed in the street smoking a cigarette, drinking Irish whiskey from the bottle, and bitching. Her hair was red now, and spikier than ever: even her head looked angry. “What do you think you’re looking at?” she yelled up at Solanka when she spotted him watching her from his second-floor workroom window. “Whatever you want from me, Professor, it’s unavailable. Got it? I’m a person engaged to be married and believe me you don’t want my fiand to get mad.” Against his better judgment—for she had worked her way through most of the fifth of Jameson’s—he went down to the street to talk to her. She was moving to Brooklyn, moving in with Eddie in a small place in Park Slope, and the webspyders had opened up an office there. The Puppet Kings site was fast approaching its launch date, and things were looking good. “Don’t worry, Professor,” Mila said blurrily. “Business is great. It’s just you I can’t stand.”

Eddie Ford came down the front stairs carrying a computer monitor. When he saw Solanka, he scowled theatrically. This was a scene he had been wanting to play for a long time. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, man,” he said, setting the monitor down. “Do I make myself plain? Ms. Milo has no fuckin’ desire to fuckin’ converse. You apprehend? You want to see her, call the office and seek a fuckin’ business appointment. Send us e-mail. You show up at her fuckin place of residence, you’ll be answerin’ to me. You and the lady got no personal relationship no more. You’re fuckin’ estranged. If you ask me, she’s a fuckin’ saint to want to do business with you at all. Me, I’m not the saintly type. Me, I just want five minutes. Three hundred seconds alone with you would suffice for my fuckin’ needs. Yes, sir. You follow me, Professor? Am I on your frequency? Am I comin’ through?” Solanka bowed his head quietly and turned to go. “She told me what you tried on her,” Eddie shouted after him. “You’re one fuckin’ sad and sick old man.” And what did she tell you, Eddie, about what she tried on me? Oh, never mind.

Ah, Professor.” In the corridor outside his front door he ran into the plumber, Schlink, or, rather, Schlink was waiting for him, waving a document and bursting with words. “All is good in ze apartment? No toilet problem? So, so. What Schlink fixes stays gefixt.” He nodded and smiled furiously. “Maybe you don’t remember,” he continued. “I vos frank viz you, eh?, my life story I shared viz you for nossink. From zis you made a cruel choke. Maybe a movie, you said, could come from my poor tale. Zis you did not mean. You spoke, I am sure of it, in chest. So grand, Professor, so patronizing, you piece of shit.” Solanka was greatly taken aback. “Yes,” Schlink emphasized. “I make free to say so. I came here particular to tell you. You see, Professor, I haff followed your advice, zis advice vot to you vos chust a schoopit gag, and sanks Gott, success has blessed my effort. A film deal! See for yourself, here it is in black and white. See here, ze studio name. See here, ze financial aspect. Yes, a comedy, chust imagine. After a lifetime vizout humor I vill be played for laughs. Billy Crystal in the title role, he’s on board already, he’s crazy for it. A surefire hit, eh? Lensing soon. Opens next spring. Lotsa buzz. Goes boffo right off. Big opening veekend. Vait and see. Okay, so long, Professor Asshole, and sank you for ze title. jewboat. HA, ha, ha, HA.”

16

The inadequate summer closed overnight, like a Broadway flop. The temperature fell like a guillotine; the dollar, however, soared. Everywhere you looked, in gyms, clubs, galleries, offices, on the streets, and on the floor of the NYSE, at the city’s great sports stadia and entertainment centers, people were readying themselves for the new season, limbering up for action, flexing their bodies, minds, and wardrobes, setting themselves on their marks. Showtime on Olympus! The city was a race. Mere rats need not bother to enter this high-intensity competition. This was the main event, the blue riband contest, the world series. This was the master race, whose wi

Athletes were all over the airwaves that Olympic fall: disgraced Chinese turtle-blood drinkers, Marion Jones’s mouth murmuring into a microphone, Marion Jones’s husband testing positive for nandrolone, Michael Johnson ru