his money out the window. Unconventional pleasures! As for his wife’s being too young and available, that doesn’t bother him. He’s not obsessedwith supervising or lording over her; he leaves her to the will of her unlimited appetite, hires a Balkan vagabond to conduct his morning conversations about the past among men, just like in the old days!”
He’d begun the gig with great enthusiasm. Every afternoon he went to the city’s central library and photocopied the old newspaper that he would present the following morning at work.
Breakfast would sometimes lengthen, but Mr. Artwein never exaggerated his courtesy; he never invited him to lunch. Not that he’d have had time, anyway. He had other things to do in the afternoons.
But destiny wasn’t to allow a long life to these meetings, unfortunately. Two months after the birth of Mr. Artwein, Beatrice appeared—elegant and distinguished, as ever—to inform her former colleague that her husband had suffered a stroke and was now semi-paralyzed.
“Semi? What does semi mean?”
The young Mrs. Artwein didn’t appear shocked by Gapar’s quick blunder and apparent lack of compassion for his patron’s state; she stared the lank Peter Gapar directly in the eyes, as she’d done many times.
“It would do him good, I think, if someone continued to read to him from the newspaper, in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the evenings. However, in his case, semi-paralysis means absence. His body isn’t entirely paralyzed, but his mind is blocked, at least, for now. He may return, with time. In fact, now that I’m really thinking about it, I don’t see any problem with continuing to pay, a few months, a year, whatever, for the service from which you were so unexpectedly suspended. Seriously, not a problem at all. You could come every day. Read the paper, just as you’ve been doing until now, even without anyone to read it to. At whatever time suits you.”
Again she stared the hussar directly in the eye.
Peter declined the offer again and again.
After that, he found small paying gigs here and there. He even worked with a group that translated menus for transatlantic airline companies, domestic and international; and so, he was among Russians,Arabs, Chinese, Spanish, all sorts of Africans, Indonesians, Greeks, Turks, French, Japanese, the whole Babel brigade. The universal ingredients of feud and fraternization bored him; the pay was small and temporary.
By the time Gora heard her voice again after a long pause, he was on the threshold of a more extravagant endeavor.
Lu and Peter Gapar used to amuse themselves in the evening in the tiny, miserable hotel room where they lived by reading the phone book.
Find the rabbit hole—
that was their game. They would try to guess from where the next rabbit would jump, so to speak.
And out of the forest of unknown names, a true surprise leaped out at them when they least expected it. Not from the phonebook, but from the illustrated magazine that Peter had bought on his way home, a long article about the Eastern European Mafia in New York. The central figure was someone named Mike Mark, described in biographic details that were none too banal: his studies in chemistry in Bucharest, his complicated emigration to America, with just one suitcase, his infiltration into the oil business. “No business like the oil business,” the sharp reporter had specified. Then there was the perfecting of the taxicab meter, selling the invention to the city clerk’s office, sensational alliances with the Russian and Albanian mobs, the growth of their wealth. Seen from the street in Queens, the two-story Mark house didn’t seem at all imposing, but it had three subterranean levels, a swimming pool, security cameras galore, six luxurious bedrooms, walls and ceilings made of glass. On the doors of the numerous rooms, in gold, were engraved the words:
I love America.
An FBI informant and counterinformant, the master embezzler had been captured
He’d begun the gig with great enthusiasm. Every afternoon he went to the city’s central library and photocopied the old newspaper that he would present the following morning at work.
Breakfast would sometimes lengthen, but Mr. Artwein never exaggerated his courtesy; he never invited him to lunch. Not that he’d have had time, anyway. He had other things to do in the afternoons.
But destiny wasn’t to allow a long life to these meetings, unfortunately. Two months after the birth of Mr. Artwein, Beatrice appeared—elegant and distinguished, as ever—to inform her former colleague that her husband had suffered a stroke and was now semi-paralyzed.
“Semi? What does semi mean?”
The young Mrs. Artwein didn’t appear shocked by Gapar’s quick blunder and apparent lack of compassion for his patron’s state; she stared the lank Peter Gapar directly in the eyes, as she’d done many times.
“It would do him good, I think, if someone continued to read to him from the newspaper, in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the evenings. However, in his case, semi-paralysis means absence. His body isn’t entirely paralyzed, but his mind is blocked, at least, for now. He may return, with time. In fact, now that I’m really thinking about it, I don’t see any problem with continuing to pay, a few months, a year, whatever, for the service from which you were so unexpectedly suspended. Seriously, not a problem at all. You could come every day. Read the paper, just as you’ve been doing until now, even without anyone to read it to. At whatever time suits you.”
Again she stared the hussar directly in the eye.
Peter declined the offer again and again.
After that, he found small paying gigs here and there. He even worked with a group that translated menus for transatlantic airline companies, domestic and international; and so, he was among Russians,Arabs, Chinese, Spanish, all sorts of Africans, Indonesians, Greeks, Turks, French, Japanese, the whole Babel brigade. The universal ingredients of feud and fraternization bored him; the pay was small and temporary.
By the time Gora heard her voice again after a long pause, he was on the threshold of a more extravagant endeavor.
Lu and Peter Gapar used to amuse themselves in the evening in the tiny, miserable hotel room where they lived by reading the phone book.
Find the rabbit hole—
that was their game. They would try to guess from where the next rabbit would jump, so to speak.
And out of the forest of unknown names, a true surprise leaped out at them when they least expected it. Not from the phonebook, but from the illustrated magazine that Peter had bought on his way home, a long article about the Eastern European Mafia in New York. The central figure was someone named Mike Mark, described in biographic details that were none too banal: his studies in chemistry in Bucharest, his complicated emigration to America, with just one suitcase, his infiltration into the oil business. “No business like the oil business,” the sharp reporter had specified. Then there was the perfecting of the taxicab meter, selling the invention to the city clerk’s office, sensational alliances with the Russian and Albanian mobs, the growth of their wealth. Seen from the street in Queens, the two-story Mark house didn’t seem at all imposing, but it had three subterranean levels, a swimming pool, security cameras galore, six luxurious bedrooms, walls and ceilings made of glass. On the doors of the numerous rooms, in gold, were engraved the words:
I love America.
An FBI informant and counterinformant, the master embezzler had been captured
Similar Books
