Bright Lights, Big City

You recognize the voice-it could be worse-and put a finger to your lips. Taking a pencil and pad from Clara's desk, you clumsily write, with your uninjured left hand, Is the door locked?

Tad gives you a search-me look.

There is a steady wheezing outside the door and another knock. The doorknob turns one way and then the other. Allagash is poking your arm and mouthing frantic interrogatives. The latch clicks and the door swings open. Alex Hardy stands in the doorway. He nods his head gravely as if you were the very two people he expected to find in Clara's office at midnight. You are trying to devise a quick story that will wash. Tad is brandishing a yardstick that he found behind the door.

"You gave us a scare, Alex. I couldn't imagine who would be wandering around here at this time of night. I was just looking for my wallet. I was in here this morning… "

"Pygmies," Alex says.

Tad looks at you inquisitively. You shrug.

"I am surrounded by pygmies."

You now see that Alex is stupendously drunk. You wonder if he recognizes you.

"I knew the giants," he says. "I worked with the giants. The guys whose words went out into the world and kicked ass. Okay, girls too. Women, whatever. I'm talking about ambition. I'm talking about talent. Not like these precious turds around here. These goddamned pygmies." Alex thumps his fist on the wall. The ferret leaps out from hiding and bolts for the door. It snakes its way between Alex's legs. Alex tries to get out of the way. The ferret's claws scrabble on the linoleum. Alex struggles for equilibrium, grabbing first at the door frame, then, as he starts to fall, at the coat-rack, and finally at a bookshelf which goes down with him. The top hooks of the falling coat-rack narrowly miss Tad's face. Alex is sprawled on the floor in a heap of books. You're not sure how hard he hit.

"Let's get out before he comes to," Tad says.

"I can't leave him like this." You crouch down and check him out. He's breathing; already the office smells like liquor.

"Come on. Do you want to explain what we're doing here? Let's go."

You clear some of the books from Alex's chest and stretch his legs out. Down the hall a phone starts ringing.

"He's fine, for Christ's sake. We're dead meat if we get caught in here."

"Get the suitcase," you say. You take the cushion from Clara's chair and put it under Alex's head. His feet are sticking out the door so you can't close it. The elevator takes days to arrive and makes a racket like an All Points Bulletin.

In the lobby, the watchman is still absorbed in his magazine. You keep your hand in your jacket pocket while he unlocks the door to the street. Outside, you both break into a sprint.

Neither of you speaks a word until you're in the cab. At Tad's place you wash and examine the wound while he changes his pants. At first you're concerned. You're trying to remember the last time you had a tetanus shot when suddenly you think of rabies. The signature of the teeth is clearly visible between your thumb and index finger. The punctures are deep but not wide. Tad assures you that stitches aren't necessary. He says that if the animal was rabid, it would not have been so friendly before you put it in the suitcase. He pours a glass of vodka over the wound. You're eager to be reassured. You don't want to go to the hospital. You hate hospitals and doctors. The smell of denatured alcohol nauseates you. Then you think of Alex. Maybe he suffered a concussion. Only the Post could make this fu

"He's just sleeping off his drunk," Tad says.

"Let's hope."

"Love to be there in the morning when the gang starts coming in for work."

Tad gets some cotton pads and adhesive tape from the medicine cabinet and then cuts some lines on the table while you fuss with the first aid.

With the application of anesthetics, the pain and guilt recede and the episode becomes a source of hilarity. "Giants," Tad says. "Fucking giants. I'm thinking, Who is this dwarf calling me a goddamned pygmy. Then – boom. Fred the Ferret to the rescue. De casibus virorum illustrium, as we used to say in Latin class."

"Say what?"

"Something about the fall of famous men."

Tad suggests taking the show on the road. He says it's early yet. You say it's not that early, and he points out that it's not as if you had a job to wake up for in the morning. This is a convincing point. You agree to one drink at Heartbreak.

In the cab on the way downtown, Tad says, "Thanks for taking Vicky off my hands. Inge is eternally grateful."

"My pleasure."

"Really? Got lucky, did you?"

"None of your business."

"Are you serious?" He leans over and looks into your face. "You are serious. Well, well. To each his own."

The cabby swerves between lanes, muttering in a Middle Eastern language.

"Anyway, it's nice to see you getting over this Amanda deal. I mean, she wasn't hard to look at. God knows. But I don't see why you felt like you had to marry her."

"I've been wondering that myself."

"Weren't you suspicious when you saw the sign on her forehead?"

"Which sign was that?"

"The one that said, Space to Let. Long and Short Term Leasing."

"We met in a bar. It was too dark to read."

"Not so dark that she couldn't see you were her ticket out of Trailer Park Land. Bright lights, big city. If you really wanted to do the happy couple thing you shouldn't have let her model. A week on Seventh Avenue would warp a nun. Where skin-deep is the mode, your traditional domestic values are not going to take root and flourish. Amanda was trying to get as far from red dirt and four-wheel drive as she could. She figured out she could trade on her looks farther than she got with you."

For Tad, Amanda's departure was not only not surprising but inevitable. It confirmed his world view. Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.

Toward dawn you are riding around in a limo with a guy named Bernie and his two assistants. The assistants are named Maria and Crystal. Crystal is in the back seat with one arm around you and the other around Allagash. Bernie and Maria are facing you from the jump seats. Bernie runs his hand up and down Maria's leg. You're not sure if Tad knew these people before tonight or if they are new friends. Tad seems to think he knows of a party somewhere. Maria says she wants to go to New Chursey. Bernie puts a hand on your knee.

"This is my office," he says. "So what do you think?"

You're not sure you want to know what line of work Bernie is in.

"You got an office like this?"

You shake your head.

"Of course you don't. You got Ivy League written all over you. But I could buy you and your old man and his country club. I use guys like you in your button-down shirts to fetch my coffee."

You nod. You wonder if he's hiring this week and how much it pays.

"You're wondering where the rest of my operation is, right?"

"Not really," you say.

Tad is disappearing inside Crystal's dress.

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" Bernie says. "You know what? I'm going to tell you. It's down on the Lower East Side, Avenue D and the Twilight Zone. Not too far from where my old Bubbie and Zadie ruined their health in a sweatshop so their kids could move out to Scarsdale and Metuchen. It's spies and junkies now. I'll show you. I'll even tell you how we move the product. You want to know?"

"I don't think so."

"Smart. You're a smart boy. I don't blame you for not wanting to know. You know what happens to people who know too much?"

"What's that?"

"They become dog chow. Fucking Purina Dog Chow."

Tad looks up. "We handle that account at the agency."

You ask yourself: How did I get here? The hand that Fred bit throbs painfully. You wonder if it's rabies. You wonder if Alex is all right.