The Good Neighbor Page 17

  But they kept on showing up for work anyway, just in case.

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  Colt sat down and nodded to Herbert on his right, the balding, pudgy Asian man whom everyone called “Buddha.”

  “Hiya, Coltie,” Buddha said. “How’s it hangin’?” “Bood. What’s news?”

  Buddha shrugged. “Nothin’,” he said. “I’m long and wrong on Cisco.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, let’s see here.”

  Colt punched a random key and his screens flickered into wake fulness. One was connected to the Reuters line, another to various market indices, the third to his Web browser. He’d liquidated most of his holdings before they moved out to the new house; it wouldn’t do to be hanging onto stocks if he wasn’t there to con trol his position. They were in the moving business, after all, not the storage business. That was one of Forszak’s favorite lines— moving, not storage. We don’t hang on to things here, we buy ’em and sell ’em. Colt had kept a few penny stocks on the line like minnows, just to see what fortune they attracted, and he saw now with mild pleasure that one of them had advanced sufficiently for him to it sell off. He cast two hundred shares out into the electronic sea and watched as they were snapped up by some shark out of Philadelphia. Nice. He’d been at work for less than a minute and already he’d made a hundred dollars. That was how it went, day in, day out—sometimes the numbers were big and sometimes they were small, but all that really mattered was that they had a plus sign in front of them. He wrote “+ 100” on a piece of paper and leaned back, cracking his knuckles.

  “I suck,” he announced, for it was office superstition that the more one debased oneself, the more likely the market gods were to shower one with favor.

  “Coltie,” said Joe, the older man who sat across from him. “You move awright?”

  “Yeah, we moved.”

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  “How’d it go?”

  “Fine, I guess. Pain in the ass. Brother-in-law shows up outa nowhere, wife throws a hissy last night. Things are crazy. I was gonna take a few days off, but I had to get outa there for a while.” Joe nodded. “Story of my life,” he said. “You know things are rough when you’d rather be at work than at home.” He reached out and touched the plastic head of the little dippy-bird that he kept on his desk; this was a kind of perpetual-motion toy in the shape of an ostrich and filled with red-colored water, which con tinually bobbed up and down. It drove the others crazy, but Joe claimed it was his good-luck charm, which removed it from the

  realm of criticism altogether. Everyone was allowed their charm. “Joe moved once,” said Buddha. “After his wife found his gay

  porn collection. Dincha, Joe?” “Zing,” said Colt.

  “Don’t let the Bood get away with that shit, Joe,” said Raoul, on Colt’s left.

  Joe himself, frowning at his screens, seemed unperturbed by this assault on his character. He had started out as an order boy on the exchange floor decades ago, when positions were still being recorded in chalk on a big blackboard. Now over sixty, thrice di vorced, Joe was a big earner, a huge earner; only Buddha was al lowed to zing him, because Buddha was hilarious, when he wanted to be.

  “Fuck you, you Chink,” said Joe absently.

  “Great comeback, Joe,” said Colt. “Real good one there.” Buddha snorted. “He’s a regular Don Rickles, is Joe,” he said.

  “Mind as sharp as a noodle.” “Whoa,” said Raoul. “Lookit Dell.”

  Colt peered at the Reuters line. The price of Dell shares had dropped five cents—somewhere in the universe something was happening, and this was the ripple of it, washing up on shore. Frantically he hopped on five hundred shares, and was rewarded a moment later by seeing it appear in his holdings column.

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  “Hot diggety,” he said. “I got some.” “Me, too,” said Raoul.

  “Sell me yours,” said Colt. “I like Dell. I’ll give you two and half over your purchase.”

  “Done and done,” said Raoul, striking a few keys. “Now good day, sir.”

  “Anybody know anything about the Bomber?” asked Buddha. “What the fuck is the Bomber?” asked Joe.

  “I heard some guys talkin’ about it in the elevator. Bombardier.

  They make subway cars, or something. Canadian company.” Raoul and Joe guffawed. “Canadian!” they said, simultane

  ously.

  “Whatsa matter, Buddha, those American stocks getting too much for you?” asked Colt. “Old red, white, and blue too expen sive for your yellow blood?”

  “The official animal of Canada is the beaver,” said Joe.

  “Well, there ya go,” said Buddha. “My official animal is the trouser snake. It’s a match made in heaven.”

  “Don’t bet on fuckin’ elevator gossip, Bood,” said Raoul. “Next thing you know you’ll be goin’ to the cleaning ladies for tips.”

  “Naw, you go, Bood,” said Colt. “And send us a postcard when you get there.”

  They fell silent, preoccupied by the action on their screens. Half an hour later, when the price of Dell had risen again, Colt dangled a few shares, but was disappointed to see that no one was inter ested. Traders all over the country were waiting to see what would happen next. He leaned back again and folded his arms, waiting for a strike.

  “Buddha, you been playin’ any cards this week?” he asked. “Oh, Coltie, lemme tellya. I was in this all-nighter last weekend.” “Here we go,” said Joe, rolling his eyes. “The cannelloni story

  again. I only heard this five times already.”

  “Shut up, Joe. Listen, Colt. I was playing cards out in Brooklyn, a regular game I hit sometimes. Good buncha guys, usually the

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  same ones.” Buddha was an excellent gambler; it was well known that he supplemented his already considerable income by playing poker, and if his own stories were to be believed, sometimes he made as much as ten thousand dollars on a good weekend. Bud dha didn’t discuss his bad weekends. “Lawyers and accountants and shit. A judge. Sometimes a congressman. Most of ’em I’ve known for years. Y’know?”

  “Yeah,” said Colt.

  “Which congressman?” asked Raoul.

  “I ain’t sayin’, numbnuts. The Brooklyn game, I’m talkin’ about. So last time they’ve got this new guy, someone I never met before. Right away, I see I’m gonna have a problem with this guy. He’s bluffin’ all over the place and winning on dumb luck. Can’t read him at all. And he never shuts up. I mean never. His mouth is running the whole time. You get his whole life story—how he went to Bermuda and banged a movie star, how he’s got four Porsches, how his whole family is in prison.”

  “His whole family’s in prison?”

  “His last name is Buonarotti. He even showed me his driver ’s li cense.”

  “Fuck me,” said Colt. “Those Buonarottis?” “Yeah, and,” said Joe. “Wait for it, Coltie.”

  “So then he starts goin’ on and on about how his second great- uncle twice removed is the Mob boss and he’s all mobbed up him self, and if he ever wanted anybody whacked, all he had to do was ask. See what I mean? A real sweetheart.”

  “Does this story never end?” asked Raoul.

  “Fuck you, Raoul. So about two in the morning we order out for some food. An Italian place that delivers all night, if they know ya. The food comes, our little Mob buddy insists on paying himself, he’s calling the delivery guy ‘paisan’ and all that shit, he even tips him a hundred bucks just to make himself look good. Really doing it up. And he opens up one of the containers and he looks inside, and he says, What the hell is this?”

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  “Tell ’im, Buddha,” said Joe. “What was it?” asked Colt.

  “Cannelloni,” said Buddha. “Fuckin’ guy is supposed to be in the Mob and he doesn’t even know what fuckin’ cannello
ni is? Yeah, right.”

  “I love this story,” said Joe.

  “Did you know what it was?” asked Colt.

  “Yeah, I fuckin’ knew what it was,” said Buddha. “I’ve eaten so much Italian food in my life I got it comin’ outa my ears. Don’t let these slanty eyes fool ya. I’m practically half dago.”

  “It was stuffed cannelloni,” said Raoul. “Tell the story right, Buddha.”

  “Excuse me. It was stuffed cannelloni. I left out that very signifi cant piece of information. So I figure, this guy’s gotta be full of shit. I mean, how can you be in the Mob and not know what can nelloni is? It don’t figure.”

  “Beats me,” said Colt.

  “Anyway,” said Buddha, “once I realized what a liar he was, I took him for five grand.”

  “Whoop! There it is!” said Raoul.

  “I toleja, I love that story,” said Joe. “Buddha figured out his tell.

  Dincha, Bood?”

  “His tell was that he was breathin’,” said Buddha. “His tell was that he was a fuckin’ idiot. Every time he opened his mouth he was lyin’. That was his tell. He bluffed every time, Coltie. I was like a kid in a candy store.”

  “You gotta love fools with money,” said Colt.

  “I know,” Buddha chuckled gleefully. “What with them bein’ parted so soon, and all.”

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  Later, after everyone else had gone home, Colt was still at his desk when Forszak came out of the gloom of his office.

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  “Good,” Forszak said upon seeing him. “I said to myself, I said, ‘Self, if Coltie is still out here when I’m done for the day, I’m gonna invite him for a drink.’ And here you are.”

  “Here I am, sir,” said Colt. “So, let’s go.”

  Colt sprang to his feet. He’d been watching the action on the screen in Hong Kong—part of his never-ending scheme of trying to figure out when would be a good time to jump into the whole mess in Japan—but you didn’t turn down an offer from Forszak for anything, because you might not get another one.

  They took the elevator to the prefabricated Irish pub in the lobby and sat on a vinyl banquette, Colt sipping a Guinness, Forszak a bitters-and-soda. To the unspoken relief of everyone in the office, Forszak had recently stopped wearing a toupee that hadn’t entirely covered the expanse of mottled toad-skin on top of his head; no one had the guts to say anything about it, but no one could bring themselves to look him in the eye during the agoniz ing weeks he wore it, either. Forszak was the one man in the office whom no one teased, for obvious reasons. His dome gleamed dully now in the twilight of the bar as he stared ahead, thinking. Colt sipped his drink and waited, geishalike, for his master to speak first.

  “Normally I like a little Scotch in my soda, but I’m in training,” Forszak said after a while.

  “Right. How’s that going?”

  Forszak smiled ruefully. “I run five miles a day, I’m on a diet, I’m in hell,” he said. “I have to drop ten pounds before I can even fit into the suit. But the docs gave my heart the okay last week. I never smoked, see. And it’s gonna be worth it. You know what I’m doing next Tuesday?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Next Tuesday, I am going to take a flight in a zero-g simulator.

  You know what that is?” “Nope.”

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  “It’s a plane,” Forszak said. “It’s a plane that flies straight up to the goddamn edge of the atmosphere, and then it goes straight down again, and you take off your seat belt and for about thirty seconds you’re weightless. Because you’re in free fall, see? You can float around and everything. Just like they do in outer space. It’s practice for the real thing.”

  “Sounds fun,” Colt said.

  “Fun? More likely I’m gonna shit my pants. I tellya, Coltrane, I’m so excited I can hardly sleep at night. Me, going to the moon! They’re almost done with building that ship, did I tell you?”

  “No, sir, you didn’t.”

  “It’s called the Komet,” Forszak said. “The irony of it all is just fuckin’ killin’ me. First I have to run from the Nazis, then from the Russians, and here I am going to the moon in a goddam com mie spacecraft that was built with Nazi technology. Did you know that the Yoo Nited States practickly got its whole space pro gram from captured Nazi scientists? From the V-two program, to be exact?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, that’s irony for you. If it wasn’t for Adolf Hitler, I wouldn’t be goin’ to the moon. Ha. That’s true in more ways than one. Think about it.”

  Colt nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

  “Well, things are different now, anyway,” said Forszak. “Rus sians aren’t even commies anymore. I don’t even know what the fuck they are. Ah, well. If my parents could only see me now. They’d never believe it.”

  “It is pretty amazing, when you think about it,” said Colt. “You’re going to be famous.”

  “Yeah. Or dead.” Forszak shuddered and reached out for a piece of wood, but there was none to be found, only laminated plastic that had been painted an “authentic” smoky black-brown. “Oh, shit,” he said, falling back against the banquette. “Remind me to touch a tree or something, next time I see one.”

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  “Yes, sir.”

  “So. How’s your new place?”

  “It’s great, thanks. Needs a little work.” Forszak grunted. “Don’t they all. How old?” “Hundred fifty years.”

  Forszak whistled softly. “That’s almost as old as me. Still in good shape?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “I thought you were gonna take some time off.”

  “I, uh . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t gonna come in today but . . . I changed my mind.” He looked down at his drink. “I sit around too long, I start to go crazy.”

  “That’s why I like you, Colt,” said Forszak. “You love to work.

  You got a great work ethic.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Colt. He paused, choosing his words care fully. “Matter of fact, I was going to ask if you and Mrs. Forszak would like to come out for a weekend sometime, maybe when the weather gets warmer. I’m going to put in a putting green in the back. Tons of room out there. Peace and quiet. I think you’d like it.” “Well, why not?” said Forszak grandly. “When one of my top performers asks me out to his country place, who am I to say no?” Gratified, Colt smiled. “There’s lots to do in winter, too, of course,” he said. “Cross-country skiing and stuff like that. I might

  get a snowmobile or two. “

  “Sounds like a great place for kids,” Forszak said absently. “Speaking of which, you and the missus have any plans along those lines?”

  Colt blanched. Yeah, Coltie, said his father ’s voice. What about those kids?

  “Ah,” he said too loudly. “No. Not really. Not yet, I mean.

  How—how are your kids doing?”

  Forszak sighed. “Wish I knew,” he said. “I don’t hear much from ’em. Son lives a mile away and I never see him. Too busy. My daughter ’s in San Francisco now, did I tell you?”

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  “No, sir.”

  “Yeah,” said the older man. “Well, I didn’t know myself until last month. Can you imagine that? A daughter moves across the country and she doesn’t even tell her own father?” He brooded silently. “She and I don’t talk much, obviously,” he explained. “She’s got some... resentments. What was her phrase? Oh, yeah. I was ‘emotionally absent.’ ” He shook his head in mock wonder. “Some goddam pop psychology bullshit she picked up somewhere. Lemme tellya something. Those kids have no idea what I went through. No idea.”

  Colt remained silent. Sneaking a glance at his boss, he saw that his face had grown dark and empty. Hurriedly he looked away again. But out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Forszak was nodding to himself, as if in agreement with whatever he was hearing i
nside his own head. Maybe the whole world is hearing voices, Colt thought. Maybe the entire planet isn’t actually run by people, but by the voices in their heads. Wouldn’t that be a scream?

  “I ever tell you I didn’t even learn English until I was thirteen years old?” Forszak asked.

  “No, sir,” Colt said, though he had, several times—and though the guttural hints of some other tongue still lurked in the back of Forszak’s throat, emerging only when he was excited.

  “I came to this country with nothing. I lived in a fuckin’ or phanage in France for two years. Not even in a building—in a tent. There was hundreds of us. All our parents gone. It was like being in a prison. It wasn’t near as bad as the camps, but it wasn’t good, either. Finally I just snuck out, and lied about my age to get a job. And then I lied again to get over here. Said I had family in New York. I didn’t have no family. I didn’t have no money, either, Coltie. Nothing. I wasn’t even old enough to shave.”