Men Seeking Women Read online

  But the boy was preoccupied with calculations of his own. “What about the treasure?” he asked. With a dirty finger, he began tracing the outline of the condos on the blueprint—the space where the factory building now stood.

  “You mean the rate of return?” Excellent question—the kid really was sharp! Danny began searching through the stack of papers on the camp chair, looking for a copy of his business plan. “I’ve got some projections right here.”

  “No, the treasure,” said Carlos. “In the factory.”

  “Oh, that treasure.” Danny put down the papers and looked at the boy more closely. Carlos had big brown eyes, and curly hair in a wild tangle. It dawned on him that this strange nomad was—he had to struggle with the idea—not exactly like himself. Not a miniaturized adult, but not a happy-go-lucky kid, either. A pair of plastic sunglasses atop Carlos’s head gave him a strangely jaunty air, as if he’d just jumped out of a convertible, but his face looked worried in a way that had nothing to do with play or make-believe. “If the treasure’s there, it’s yours,” said Danny. “That’s our deal.”

  Danny understood that look better when he walked the boy home. Carlos lived with his sister in one of the tenements on the other side of the highway—buildings so old the brick facades seemed to bow inward. They went up a narrow staircase, down a dark hall. The swish of traffic moved through the floors, as if the house were an old dog, breathing in its sleep. The boy led the way—running his stick against the wall—and then opened the door with a key he kept under his turtleneck. The apartment itself wasn’t much bigger than the boat, and it didn’t have the advantage of feeling like a lark—there was a depressing air of permanence to the place. The floor slanted one way, the ceiling sloped the other—there wasn’t a right angle to be found in either of the two rooms. The walls looked as soft as taffy—layer upon layer of paint, the current one an odd shade of baby blue. A fluorescent light, of all things, buzzed overhead.

  Danny stood on the narrow stretch of carpet between the door and the couch, taking it all in. Suddenly he understood the urgency of treasure. He wished he could say something hopeful, something about how the future would be better if only Carlos studied hard in school, ate his vegetables, and didn’t fall into the canal. But everything he tried out sounded hollow—not just disrespectful but also stupid.

  “Do you want to watch TV?” asked Carlos, pointing with his stick to an enormous console, circa 1970, that took up half the floor space. His source of information on helicopters, thought Danny.

  “I’ve got to get back.”

  “Okay,” said the boy. He drew the GI Joe from his belt and climbed up on the couch, which seemed to be upholstered in brown teddy bear fur. “Remember what you said.”

  “The treasure is yours, pal.” Danny moved toward the door. He was suddenly desperate for air—even canal air—but the touch of the doorknob made him stop and turn back. There was more to say, even if he didn’t know what it was. “Hey, Carlos, have you ever heard of something called the ‘risk-reward ratio’?”

  The boy looked at him from his perch on the couch, clearly debating the pros and cons of admitting he hadn’t. “No,” he said finally.

  “It’s a very simple concept that expresses—” Danny caught the look of incomprehension and changed direction. “It’s a way of balancing what you stand to gain against what you stand to—” Still not right, even with the hand gestures. And then: “It’s the dogs versus the treasure.”

  The boy’s face filled with thought, as if he could see the dogs right there, guarding heaps of gold. “The dogs ain’t nothing,” he said, looking as if he almost believed it.

  Yes, a good answer. “You’re on salary now,” said Danny. “Come by the boat after school tomorrow and I’ll give you your first assignment.”

  Back at the boat he remembered his e-mail, and though he didn’t feel particularly vengeful at the moment, he booted up anyway. And there it was, a surprisingly lengthy reply posted at 9:28 that morning:

  I hardly know you, Angus, and yet I feel like I’ve known you a long time already. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but reading your message this morning made me teary, which was bad because I was in a taxi stuck in traffic on the bridge (Palm Pilot! another bad habit, along with cell phones and cigarettes). Tears aren’t good for people who wear makeup, and they can get you cashiered from the Society of PR Professionals. It’s just that you touched the most important part of me, the part that wants something different, something better. I love children, I love flowers and moose and elk! I envy you.

  Children! scoffed Danny, refilling the bowl Carlos had used with more Froot Loops. What did she know about children? Could she explain basic business concepts to an eight-year-old? Did she employ any children? Danny Price did! Nevertheless, he found himself feeling magnanimous, even a little sorry for her, and he thought of calling the whole scheme off and letting her go unharmed—until he read what followed:

  Here’s another thing I probably shouldn’t tell you. I just got out of a bad relationship, and the sense of freedom is still a little overwhelming. I had suppressed my real self for so long, in order to conform to my boyfriend’s narrow-minded expectations, I could barely remember who I was anymore. I went through a period of anger, of course, blaming him, and then I realized I’d never recover unless I took responsibility for my own life. Now I only pity him. He sold everything he had and bought a toxic waste dump. I’m sure he fits right in.

  Call me whatever you want, thought Danny, except narrow-minded. He was now feeling very vengeful indeed. And so he began to type a reply—a long, lyrical reply full of birdsong, sunlight through branches, and the fragrance of mown grass. He got her response at 2:09—it had been written in an elevator in the Chrysler Building—and sent off his answer at 3:52. This last was such a tour de force of gentle wisdom that he printed it out for future reference and taped it to the wall.

  What followed over the next few weeks was a series of rapid exchanges, three or four a day, more on weekends, with Clarissa usually writing from work or the back of a taxicab via her Palm Pilot, and Danny typing at his laptop with a somewhat puzzled Carlos looking over his shoulder, offering suggestions.

  Danny:

  I can’t take all the credit, Clarissa, and it’s not because I’m so modest, either. Pottery is a collaboration between the potter and the clay. The clay tells me what shape it wants to take, and I supply the hands, that’s all. It’s really all about listening, the same as with people. The world opens up when you learn to listen.

  Clarissa:

  When I think about you sitting at the wheel in your potting shed, listening to the clay, I just get a lump in my throat. How beautiful! And then I become ashamed of myself and the life I lead. All I do is talk on the phone—two phones at once, sometimes—and sit in meetings, and get stuck in traffic in the back of taxis. Nobody here listens, least of all me.

  Danny:

  You listen to me.

  Clarissa:

  Because you listen to me.

  Danny:

  Because you have so many beautiful feelings to share.

  Clarissa:

  I feel I can say anything to you, Angus, and be accepted as who I am. And I want you to know that I accept you as who you are too, no matter what. So let’s just get it over with: Why haven’t you sent me your picture yet? Is there a reason? I’m not looks-oriented. Do you think I’m that shallow?

  Just because you work in PR? For cosmetics firms?

  “She probably thinks he’s been disfigured,” said Danny, turning to Carlos. The boy was seated on the folding table, working his way through yet another bowl of Froot Loops while reading Danny’s business plan for the marina.

  “These numbers don’t add up right,” said Carlos, pointing to a row of figures.

  “Later with that. Don’t you see this is important?”

  Danny’s solution to the photo problem was to go out and buy a stack of woodworking magazines, as he figured they were the best place to
look for anonymous pictures of reasonably fit bearded men in ponytails and work shirts. He and Carlos spent the rest of the evening thumbing their way through issue after issue of Woodshop and Modern Carpenter until they found the right guy: late thirties, not too handsome, not too ugly, broad shoulders, strong hands—but sensitive.

  “Does this look like a truly uninhibited man, unafraid of his own sensual nature?” asked Danny. “Be honest.”

  “Danny, you’re wasting time. We could be rich by now.”

  “When you’re older you’ll understand.” Danny cut the picture out, snipped off the caption that read Tom demonstrates proper use of the bandsaw, scanned it into his computer, and sent it off.

  The response came later that night, after he had walked Carlos home:

  The beauty of your soul is right there in your face and in your wonderful, strong hands. You are a good man, Angus. I can see it in your eyes.

  Danny sat, peering at the words on the screen—at those two short words in particular: good man. He had longed for those words, yearned for them, waited weeks for them, but now that he had them he could only stare with something approaching dismay. What was a good man? He didn’t know, really, though for the first time in his life he thought that this might be a useful piece of knowledge to possess. Right now, he understood only that it was Clarissa’s highest form of praise, and that it meant she was now officially besotted with the fictional Angus Green. His revenge, so carefully cultivated, was ready. All he need do was suggest a meeting.

  But that wasn’t easy, somehow. He sat, listening to his own breathing, wishing that Carlos were still there. Carlos would have told him what to do. The kid had remarkably good sense for an eight-year-old.

  Almost mechanically, he began composing a reply:

  The time has come, Clarissa. I can’t wait any longer, I need to see the candlelight reflected in your eyes. Do you know a restaurant in the Village called Madame Lafarge?

  This was a little risky; Madame Lafarge had been a favorite of theirs during their courtship, five years earlier. But he felt he could get away with it.

  It’s on Charles Street. Meet me there at nine tomorrow night. I’m jumping into the car.

  The rats began their nightly scratching at the door. Danny clicked SEND.

  Danny twisted on his bunk until the sky lightened, and then finally fell into a thin, oily sleep, the sort normally associated with fever and too much cough syrup. The howl of the dogs and the gibber of the rats infiltrated his dreams. He was driving the dogs away from Clarissa with a torch. No, he was lighting her on fire. Then he was pushing her into the canal. She was sinking. He was throwing her a rope. Rats came running up the rope. He let go. He was at the computer, clicking a button marked SEND.

  He didn’t see this night of misery as indicative of conflicted feelings, however, only weakness. Ten A.M. found him on his second pot of coffee, dialing escort services. He was finding out that it isn’t easy to rent a fiancée for a Saturday night in New York, especially when you have exacting requirements. If this dinner was going to be the crushing blow he had imagined it to be, he needed to match Clarissa’s vulnerabilities point for point: she was thirty-three, so he needed twenty-eight; short, so he needed tall; petite, so he needed buxom; Midwestern, so he needed exotic—preferably with a sexy accent. Clarissa wore black and never showed skin, so he had to have a red gown with a slit up the side and significant—meaning vast, restaurant-disruptive—décolletage. And long red nails. And stiletto heels. Clarissa would pretend to sneer, but inside she would crumble.

  It was nearly noon when he finally tried an operation called AAAtractive Escorts. The woman in the photo they e-mailed him was most certainly attractive, and almost as important, showed evidence of the gown, the heels, and the nails, as well as a lot of upswept blond hair. The accompanying spec sheet listed her name as Olga, her age as twenty-seven (probably shaving three or four years, thought Danny, but still within parameters), height five-eleven (with or without hair? he wondered—no way to tell), and bust forty-two. “And has thick Russian accent,” said the very Russian voice over the phone. “Is what you want, yes?” They were to meet at 8:30 in a coffee shop on Hudson Street and proceed together to the restaurant. “Not to worry, Olga never late.” Feeling rather giddy, Danny gave the voice his credit card number.

  I get it now, he told himself. It’s just like riding a bicycle. Momentum is your friend. He called the restaurant and made reservations, one in the name of Angus Green, one in his own, then went back to the Yellow Pages and got the addresses of some rental jewelers, half-surprised that such places really existed. Christ, you can rent anything in this town, he muttered, and went to get the car, a bashed-up Toyota he kept locked inside the factory’s security fence, camouflaged under tarpaulins and old tires. He dug the car out, got it started, and headed toward the expressway. But something made him stop short at the entrance to the on-ramp—a feeling that momentum alone wouldn’t get him over the top and into traffic. He sat for a while, listening to the swoosh of cars overhead. Revenge was lonely. He doubled back to Carlos’s house.

  They took the bridge into Manhattan, Danny driving, the boy sitting in the passenger seat like an oil sheik in his Rolls. He wore those plastic sunglasses, far too large for his face, and an expression of deep satisfaction with the world and its skyscrapers. Danny knew Carlos had been across the river just a handful of times, though he lived only minutes away. To him, this was foreign travel.

  “Can we see the stock exchange?” asked Carlos. When Danny went upstairs to get him, the colossal old TV had been tuned to a snowy installment of Market Watch.

  “Closed on Saturdays,” said Danny.

  “What about the Empire State Building?”

  “Sure, if we have time.” Danny drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, distracted by his own turbulent thoughts. “You know, I’m really beginning to feel okay with this,” he said. “I’m starting to have fun.” But of course this wasn’t true. Why couldn’t he just relax and enjoy his revenge? he wondered. He had earned it, he deserved to enjoy it. Not enjoying it seemed like a kind of character flaw, an inability to appreciate life’s gifts. What was wrong with him? Did he want to be a victim all his life? Did he intend to let people step on him forever?

  Twenty minutes later they were standing at a counter in a store on Canal Street, looking at rings—jagged knobs of light mounted on circles of gold. “What do you think of this one?” asked Danny, handing it down to Carlos. “It’s definitely big.” In fact, it looked like a golf ball made of crystal. The saleswoman watched as if this were perfectly ordinary: a man who looked like he’d passed a bad night in the park renting a ring with the help of a boy who kept a GI Joe tucked in his belt. Perhaps it was ordinary. The city is big, and human exigencies just about endless. A sign on the wall said RENTAL JEWELRY—THE WORLD’S SECOND OLDEST PROFESSION.

  Carlos lifted his sunglasses, then held the ring to the light, squinting. “Looks good to me.”

  “It’s just that she brought this on herself,” said Danny. “She dumped me for a cartoon character.”

  “You made him up,” said Carlos. They were on the observation deck of the Empire State Building now, the ring in a box in Danny’s pocket—radiating some kind of invisible power, lethal as plutonium. He was sweating.

  “It was for her own good,” he said, holding Carlos up so he could see down. “To show her what a fool she is.” The boy was surprisingly small in his arms, and Danny could feel his ribs through the sweatshirt he wore.

  “Do you think you could parachute from here?” asked Carlos, trying to press his face through the bars.

  “Not without really good insurance.” The wind picked up suddenly, and Danny tightened his grip. “The thing is, I’m committed,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the whistle. “Even if I went and confessed the truth, she would never speak to me again. I might as well get it over with and move on. Closure is what I need. Then I can concentrate on the marina.”

 
“What’s closure, again?” asked Carlos.

  They were back on the boat now, Danny in a suit and tie carefully checked for mold. He was standing by the hot plate but not touching anything—to sit anywhere at all would have resulted in a wet spot. The box with the ring was in his hand, and it seemed to weigh a ton. “Closure is payback,” he said. “Closure is inflicting maximal pain.”

  He checked his watch again. It was 8:15, and he should have left to meet Olga twenty minutes ago. The fact that he couldn’t bring himself to step ashore and get in the car made him feel pathetic, and that made him feel angry—at himself. As an antidote, he began mentally cataloguing every injury Clarissa had ever dealt him over the past five years, culminating in the night she walked out of their Brooklyn Heights apartment—the ultimate act of betrayal. But none of it got him closer to opening the door. He began pacing up and down the tiny cabin—two steps forward, two steps back. “What’s a good man, Carlos?”

  “How should I know? I’m just a kid.”

  “Don’t give me that crap.”

  The boy spoke as if reciting a lesson from memory. “A good investor balances risk and reward.”

  “You get that from one of your programs?”

  “I got it from you.”

  “And what the hell does it mean?” This last was a shout of frustration directed at the ceiling.

  “It means it’s okay to be scared of the dogs.”

  Danny stopped. The boy was sitting on the bunk in his jeans and a sweatshirt, the glasses perched on his head, a half-drunk bottle of Coke propped in his lap. He had no parents, as far as Danny could tell, and a sister who worked two jobs and was hardly ever home. His playground was a toxic canal infested with rats, and his sustaining dream the discovery of buried treasure where there was none. He knew the dogs.

  Danny glanced at his watch. It was 8:39. He pictured Clarissa in the back of a taxi on her way to the restaurant, peering nervously into a little pocket mirror, checking her teeth for lipstick. Was she so wrong to feel the time slipping away? How much time do we have to make things right with each other, anyway? He pictured the never-late Olga, decked out in her red gown, finishing a cup of truly execrable coffee in that diner on Hudson Street. Perhaps she was thinking about calling in to her dispatcher; perhaps she was simply lost in nostalgic memories of winter in Vladivostok. Forget her; she had been paid in advance, she would go on to her next out-call. And forget Angus Green. He would go on growing virtual Swiss chard in his virtual garden forever. He was of no relevance to the here and now, to life on the canal.