The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) by Norman Manea Page A

countless times, and released just as many, due to lack of evidence. Mike Mark was the proprietor of two hundred gas stations and some large apartment buildings.
    He’d refused the FBI’s protection against the threats of his former accomplices. “I don’t need the FBI, I’m better than they are. I’m not moving my family from my home, as I’ve been advised to do by the idiots who claim they want to protect me. My family is sacred andmy house is sacred,” the reporter quoted. An exemplary father and husband, and the fanatically devoted son of Holocaust survivors, who had arrived in the Dreamland not too long ago. The magnate upheld the honor of the family above anything else.
    Among those mentioned in the fabulous history of the immigrant Mike Mark there was a friend of this man, a neighbor from the street in the modest suburb of Bucharest where he’d grown up. Lu recognized the name of a former university classmate. Peter smiled. In the jungle of the unknown, here at last was the name of a real person. Professor Gora, the name they avoided mentioning, he was also real; you could call him on the phone; but he remained a ghost hidden among the literary ghosts.
    “There’s no end to trying,” cried Lu. She was feverishly looking in the phonebook. There could be no other; it had to be Miu Stolz, or rather, the one and only Michael Stolz.
    Peter was smiling; Lu was picking up the phone and, hop, there he was Miu-Michael, out of the woodwork, reporting for duty. It seemed as if it were only yesterday that he was tailing the beautiful brunette like a rabid dog. He didn’t explode with surprise. Phlegmatic but polite, Michael Stolz invited the couple to visit him in Forest Hills. A long way on the subway, then by foot, up to the doorbell to the right of the massive oak door.
    The Chinese doorman welcomed them in with a bow.
    Misu Stolz was waiting for them in the vast and elegant foyer. He himself was vast and elegant. Tall, massive, black suit, white shirt, it seemed as if he were just coming out of a business meeting, and he’d hardly had time to loosen his tie. He introduced himself to Peter, bowing ceremoniously, without directing any of his erstwhile charm toward the beauty.
    The former colleagues looked at each other sympathetically. Mi,u, happy to find himself in a superior social position, and Lu, amused by the American incarnation of her admirer.
    “I live alone. I’m celibate.”
    He stared intensely and defiantly at the couple of cousins, if they were actually cousins, which he evidently did not believe they were.
    “The Chinaman is my cook, butler, housekeeper, errand boy, everything. I’m not a wealthy man. I never accepted Mike’s offers; I smelled trouble and didn’t want to be mixed up in it. He helped me enormously at the start. Even with money. He’s merciless with his competitors, but generous with friends. A heart of gold. Gold wrapped in shit.”
    While Miu interviewed the adventurers, the Chinese man arranged the sandwiches and bottles with a mastered condescendence.
    At the end of the visit, with a glass of French cognac, he admitted that he also owned three gas stations, a few limo-taxis and an income a little larger than was entirely honorable. Of course, there was a lot of work, he’d never worked so hard in his life, with so much stress,
of course,
but money doesn’t come from hard work. He smiled, proud of the horse sense of his remark; the pronunciation of the remark, however, completed his smile with a short laugh completely devoid of cordiality, “In fact, money is never made through work. It’s not the workers or the drivers who make money, but the owners. I make it.”
    At the end, the host gave the guests his card, saying to Lu, “If you need me, call. The third number on the card is less busy.”
    The visit didn’t indicate there might be a sequel. But there was one. After a few months of unemployment and short, transitory gigs, Peter called Stolz, without warning Lu, and