The Biology of Luck (24 page)

Larry grudgingly follows his boss up the cracked concrete path. Snipe ducks under the police barrier and helps his girlfriend navigate the cordon of tape. They lead Larry into a narrow, dusty vestibule that harks back to the era when mail was delivered twice a day and gentlemen wore hats in public. Maybe to the era when fresh ice was delivered daily and women wore corsets. The walls, wainscoting below, faded paper above, are decorated with tintype portraits and framed embroidery. A grandfather clock in one corner places the time at twenty minutes past nine; an ogee shelf clock on an end
table reads one forty-five. The parlor that opens on the antechamber is overfurnished with upholstered armchairs and knickknack cabinets. The rooms do not reflect any particular style or period. Iron folding chairs service a hand-carved Edwardian table. Color photographs are tucked into the framed daguerreotype above the mantel. The scene suggests a restoration rather than an active residence. For the dead woman's home resembles those of her neighbors, those of thousands of other elderly women, except that the windows at the rear of the parlor have been shattered, and that on the beige carpet, near the base of the piano, traces of a deep brown stain remain visible.

“It's upstairs,” says Jessie. “First door on the left.”

A second mesh of police tape protects the staircase. Snipe attempts to peel it off in strands, then punches his way through the web.

“Let's get this over with, Bloom,” he says.

Larry and Snipe mount the steep steps. The stairs groan under their feet. Larry makes the mistake of leaning his arm on the banister and it actually crumbles beneath him, cashing through the wooden newels and emitting a cloud of plaster dust.

“Goddamnit,” says Snipe. “Watch what you're doing.”

“I'm watching,” mutters Larry. “I'm watching.”

They reach the second-story landing and feel their way through the darkness to the designated room. Snipes pushes open the door and they are suddenly blinded by the brightness of the setting sun. When their eyes adjust to the shadeless windows of the dead woman's bedroom, they find themselves in a small chamber that smells like steamed barley. It is the dead woman's musk, her final legacy, clinging to the canopied bed and the rosewood bureaus. The sewing cabinet stands under the far window, between a mildewed hamper and a windup Victrola. They've already hoisted the wooden box onto their shoulders when the one-armed man steps out from behind the door.

“You put that down,” he orders. “You put that down and we talk.”

Larry lowers his end of the cabinet, forcing his companion to follow.

“Who the hell are you?” demands Snipe.

“You go downstairs,” says the one-armed man. “We talk then.”

The intruder is not brandishing a weapon. He is a compact, middle-aged creature wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a bolo tie. Even if he were not a cripple, he would be no match for two able-bodied men. Yet something in his tone, maybe its intransigence, maybe its equanimity, brooks no disagreement. Snipe glares at the interloper and grudgingly leads Larry out into the passageway. The one-armed man follows them to the parlor.

“We came downstairs,” says Snipe. “Now what the hell are you doing here?”

Jessie steps up behind her boyfriend.

“Who's he?” she asks.

“I have no fucking idea,” says Snipe. “He was hiding in the bedroom.”

“What are you doing here?” Jessie asks aggressively. “This is private property.”

Larry retreats into the background and sits backward on a folding chair. The one-armed man examines the broken banister and grunts.

“That's right, Miss McMull,” he says. “This here's private property. You got no cause to be breaking things. “

“Who are you?” Jessie demands again. “I'll call the cops.”

The one-armed man chuckles.

“You call the cops, Miss McMull,” he says, taunting. “Tell them that you broke into the scene of a murder. They'll like that. “

“What do you want?” Jessie asks. “How do you know my name?”

“Knowing is my business,” says the one-armed super. “Let's sit down and be comfortable. We talk. I tell you want I want. Then you go home. “

The one-armed super walks past Snipe and Jessie and seats himself across from Larry at the dining room table. He adjusts his gold-bridged sunglasses and then drums his fingers on the tabletop.

“Sit down,” he says. “We talk.”

Snipe and his girlfriend exchange whispers before seating themselves.

“Well?” says Snipe. “Talk.”

“My name is Bone,” says the one-armed super. “Not Mr. Bone. Not Bone something. Just Bone. My friend is Mrs. McMull's granddaughter. She lives in Albany. My friend is a very special friend. She wants the sewing box upstairs. That's all we have to talk about. “

“That still doesn't explain why you were hiding in Grandma's bedroom,” snaps Jessie.

“I heard you come in. I thought you were police. I hid. I entered through the kitchen and went up the back stairs. I didn't think it wise to disturb the yellow tape. “

“I see,” says Jessie. She turns to Snipe and adds, “Do something.”

“There's nothing you can do, Mr. Snipe,” says Bone. “I tell you why and then you go home. Do you know how I lost my arm, Mr. Snipe? I tell you how. I was in prison in my homeland. A prison from which no man ever escape. But I escape. They chain me by my arm to a tree branch in the hot sun as part of my punishment. They leave me for days without water. Many times I try to cut through the tree branch, but it is too strong. One day, I cut off my arm with a sharpened clam shell and walk away. Either that, Mr. Snipe, or I caught my arm in a train door. But you will never know. Now go home. “

Larry recognizes Bone from Starshine's description. This has to be the same one-armed man! Is this merely a coincidence, a rebuff to Ziggy Borasch? Or is it an omen? And if it is part of some larger plan, does it improve or injure Larry's prospects? He is too startled to weigh the evidence carefully. He doesn't know. What he does know is that, whether or not there is any truth to the super's story, the man will get what he wants. Bone is the kingpin. Bone is not a man to yield a sewing cabinet without consequences.

“Let's go home,” says Larry.

“Dog piss,” says Snipe. “I could give a damn about his arm. Let's get the sewing machine, Bloom, and get out of here. He can't stop us. “

“I'm afraid I can,” says Bone.

Snipe stands up and backs his way toward the staircase.

“You make this difficult,” says Bone. “But I warn you. You are a director of travel operations at Empire Tours, Mr. Snipe. You wear a wedding band. You are unmarried. You say you graduated from law school. You attended. You did not graduate. Shall I go on?”

Snipe stops dead in his tracks. The color drains from his face.

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Knowing is my business,” says Bone. “I know people. I know Mr. Frederico Lazar. He is the man Miss McMull is seeing when she is not with you. I know Starshine Hart. She is the woman with whom Mr. Bloom is to have dinner. I know other things. I know my friend will like her sewing box. “

“That's bullshit,” shouts Jessie. “Don't believe him.”

“Who the fuck is Frederico Lazar?”

Larry glances at this watch and stands up, his hand in his pocket, the letter from Stroop & Stone braced between his fingers. As long as he has his magic letter, he feels as brave as Bone. He would like to thank the one-armed super, but recognizes that Bone is a man far beyond mere gratitude. Instead, he walks up to Snipe, knowing that he may regret what he is about to do, and slaps the tour leader on the back.

“Dog piss,” says Larry. “Isn't it?”

He doesn't stop to listen to Snipe's invective. He is fed up with other people's problems, other people's business. It is already eight o'clock. If he pushes the Plymouth to the limit, he has just enough time to meet Starshine. That is his business. Not sewing machines. Not dead women. He is a new Larry Bloom. He will make his own decisions, look after his own interests, set his own pace. He will not let other people's needs and goals interfere with his life. Except people who matter: And nobody matters more than Starshine. This is Larry's determination as he pulls off Moshulu Parkway and onto the Henry Hudson. It lasts as far as the Kappock Street toll plaza and the gridlock of city-bound traffic.

What better place than Greenwich Village to start a romance, to end a story, to escape?

The urban hamlet radiating from Washington Square is the city's sanctuary, its asylum, the safe haven where generations of weary travelers have found solace after harrowing journeys. Bankers fleeing the cholera epidemics of the eighteenth century, Irish immigrants driven abroad by the potato blight, vagabond artists seeking an oasis from convention—all have been welcomed with open arms. The sidewalk cafes along MacDougal Street uphold no ideological standard. Clothing, loosely defined, is the only dress code in the taverns off Sheridan Square. If you are a trust-fund socialist or a Log Cabin Republican; if you're into understated elegance or bohemian chic; if you know that garlic cures cancer or biology determines luck, if you crusade for the perfect sentence; if you refuse to labor in shoes; if you're a bankrupt poet, a jilted lover, an adventurous tourist; if you're Walt Whitman or Henry James or Jack Kerouac; if you're waving or drowning; if you're squirming under the sword of Damocles; if your future hangs on the narrowest thread of hope; even if you're ugly: the Village will tolerate your idiosyncrasies, sponge your wounds, and nourish your dreams. It may also indulge your fantasies.

Larry races down University Place and past the Memorial Arch at top speed. A day that began on the sleepy streets of Harlem will end in a dash to the finish. The soles of Larry's feet throb after hours
of walking; his throat burns from wasted words; his clothes bear the scars of smoked eel and pickled herring. In less than twelve hours, he has saved the life of a pompous buffoon, failed to rescue a beautiful maiden, and abandoned a corpse to the mercies of the news media. An overbearing journalist has kidnapped his bouquet. A one-armed soldier of fortune has threatened to rearrange his kneecaps. He has seriously contemplated suicide. He has frivolously considered murder. It has been the most traumatic day Larry has ever experienced, a whirlwind of dreams extinguished and hopes renewed, but what makes this snippet of June so inconceivable is that the two greatest challenges are still to come. He may yet be an author. He may yet be a lover. All depends on whether Starshine, glorious Starshine, will wait for him.

Larry stops to regain his breath. Dusk has settled over the park and the paths are crowded with strolling couples and evening joggers. The elderly women and chess players who command the benches during the afternoon have yielded their dominion to amateur folk singers and small-time drug pushers. A troupe of acrobats and an African drummer compete for the attention of the passersby. A tender twilight has tamed the city, and all around Larry, like fireflies on a summer evening, young lovers emerge from their dormitories and high-rises and cold-water flats to share the wistful romance of the nightfall. They kiss. They embrace. They dream of other summer evenings, much like this one, when they savored the same verdant air and sensed the same hushed tranquility and caressed the gentle lips of long-lost sweethearts. This is the lovers' truce that envelops the city for a fleeting interval between day and night, after offices have emptied but before bars have filled, when for a few short moments the entire island pairs off in a duet of sentiment and nostalgia. These are the precious minutes when young vows are proffered and old vows are consecrated. This is the interlude that makes the day worth living.

The last of the sun has already dipped behind the rooftops when Larry reaches the corner of Sullivan and Houston. He has selected a cozy, traditional Southern Italian bistro called Il Mandolo, the Almond Tree, in the hope that the soft music and elaborate frescoes will work
their magic on Starshine's heartstrings. The restaurant boasts crystal candelabras and decorative jeroboams, but also a smoking section for the high-strung patron. Larry has dined in Il Mandorlo on several previous occasions, all uneventful blind dates, but the lack of passion was as much his own fault as that of his companions. These were not women for whom ships are launched, for whom kingdoms are imperiled, for whom epic literature is composed. They were pleasant strangers who had no more interest in Larry than he did in them. But if the company disappointed, the ambience did not. Larry cannot imagine a more perfect venue for opening his envelope or tendering his devotion. Starshine will have waited. Of that, he is certain. She will be sitting at the reserved table by the window, her face glowing in the candlelight, her flawless beauty openly displayed.

And there she is!

Starshine rises to greet him and plants a light kiss on his cheek. Larry feels the warmth of her body as she gently presses his hand. Her hair exudes a mild fragrance of scented shampoo.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” says Larry. “The West Side Highway was a parking lot.”

“But you're here,” answers Starshine. “That's what matters.”

Larry settles into his seat and spreads his napkin over his lap. He polishes off the contents of his water glass, lights a cigarette, watches the curls of white smoke rising through the draft; one of the added perks of Il Mandorlo is the staff's indifference to the city's indoor smoking ban. Larry's hand plays shell games with the silverware. This is the moment he's been planning for two years, the long anticipated audience with the princess, but he finds himself unable to speak. Or even to look her in the face. Paralysis has set in. His vocal cords refuse to vibrate while his mind whirs aimlessly like the gears of a disconnected engine. The truth of the matter is that he has spent so many hours anticipating this showdown, dreading its failure, savoring its success, planning for every possible contingency and consequence, that he's never actually devoted any time to the specifics of what he intends to say. Larry has imagined Starshine's answer countless times,
suffered every possible permutation. But he has never, not even once, rehearsed the question. How do you tell a woman that you've written an epic novel recounting her life on the day when she falls in love with you? Will she be frightened? Might she even be insulted? What once seemed like the cleverest of ideas, when hatched in solitude from the vantage point of Larry's smoke-filled apartment, suddenly appears much less promising. The book is a harebrained, presumptuous scheme that can only be a recipe for disaster.