Last Night - James Salter [29]
Tahar could hear only her end of the conversation and did not know who it was with, but he made a slight motion with his chin that said, finish with that. Pam nodded a little in agreement. Tahar did not drink but he offered a powerful intoxicant: darkened skin, white teeth, and a kind of strange perfume that clung even to his clothes. He offered rooms above the souk with a view of the city one could not even imagine, nights of an intense blueness, mornings when you had drifted far from the familiar world. Brian was someone she would remember, perhaps someone she could always call.
Tahar made another gesture of slight annoyance. For him, it was only the beginning.
Palm Court
LATE ONE AFTERNOON, near the close, his assistant, Kenny, palm over the mouthpiece, said there was someone named Noreen on the phone.
— You know her, she says.
— Noreen? I’ll take it, Arthur said. Just a minute.
He got up and closed the door to his cubicle. He was still visible through the glass as he sat and turned toward the window, distancing himself from all that was going on, the dozens of customers’ men, some of them women, which once would have been unthinkable, looking at their screens and talking on the phone. His heart was tripping faster when he spoke.
— Hello?
— Arthur?
The one word and a kind of shiver went through him, a frightened happiness, as when your name is called by the teacher.
— It’s Noreen, she said.
— Noreen. How are you? God, it’s been a long time. Where are you?
— I’m here. I’m living back here now, she said.
— No kidding. What happened?
— We broke up.
— That’s too bad, he said. I’m sorry to hear that.
He always seemed completely sincere, even in the most ordinary comments.
— It was a mistake, she said. I never should have done it. I should have known.
The floor around the desk was strewn with paper, reports, annual statements with their many numbers. That was not his strength. He liked to talk to people, he could talk and tell stories all day. And he was known to be honest. He had taken as models the old-timers, men long gone such as Henry Braver, Patsy Millinger’s father, who’d been a partner and had started before the war. Onassis had been one of his clients. Braver had an international reputation as well as a nose for the real thing. Arthur didn’t have the nose, but he could talk and listen. There were all kinds of ways of making money in this business. His way was finding one or two big winners to go down and double on. And he talked to his clients every day.
— Mark, how are you, tootsula? You ought to be here. The numbers came in on Micronics. They’re all crying. We were so smart not to get involved in that. Sweetheart, you want to know something? There are some very smart guys here who’ve taken a bath. He lowered his voice. Morris, for one.
— Morris? They should give him an injection. Put him to sleep.
— He was a little too smart this time. Living through the Depression didn’t help this time.
Morris had a desk near the copy machine, a courtesy desk. He had been a partner, but after he retired there was nothing to do—he hated Florida and didn’t play golf—and so he came back to the firm and traded for himself. His age alone set him apart. He was a relic with perfect, false teeth and lived in some amberoid world with an aged wife. They all joked about him. The years had left him, as if marooned, alone at his desk and in an apartment on Park Avenue no one had ever been to.
Morris had lost a lot on Micronics. It was impossible to say how much. He kept his own shaky figures, but Arthur had gotten it out of Marie, the sexless woman who cleared trades.
— A hundred thousand, she said. Don’t say anything.
— Don’t worry, darling, Arthur told her.
Arthur knew everything and was on the phone all day. It was one unending conversation: gossip, affection, news. He looked like Punch, with a curved nose, up-pointing chin, and innocent smile. He was filled with happiness, but the kind that knew its limits. He had been at Frackman, Wells from the time there were seven employees, and