Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [11]
I took out another cigarette, preparing to enjoy the show, but my attention was drawn back in the other direction by a rather startling development. On the bench beside the wino, the diaper-donning New Year had begun to sing “Auld Lang Syne” in a flawless falsetto. Pure and heartfelt, as disembodied as the plaint of an oboe drifting across the surface of a lake, his voice lent an eerie beauty to the night. Though one has to practically sing along with “Auld Lang Syne” by law, such was the otherworldliness of his performance that no one dared to sound a note.
When he had tapered out the final refrain with exquisite care, there was a moment of silence, then cheers. The ringmaster put a hand on the tenor’s shoulder—recognizing a job well done. Then he took out his watch and raised his hand for silence.
—All right everyone. All right. Quiet now. Ready . . . ? Ten! Nine! Eight!
From the center of the crowd Eve waved excitedly in our direction.
I turned to take Tinker’s arm—but he was gone.
To my left the walkways of the park were empty and to my right a lone silhouette, stocky and short, passed under a street lamp. So I turned back toward Waverly—and that’s when I saw him. He was hunched behind the bench at the little boy’s side fending off the attack of the fraternity brothers. Aided by the unexpected reinforcement, the boy looked more determined than ever. And Tinker, he had a smile on his face that could have lit every lamp at the North Pole.
When Eve and I got home it was nearly two. Normally, the boardinghouse locked its doors at midnight, but the curfew had been extended for the holiday. It was a liberty that few of the girls had made the most of. We found the living room empty and depressed. It had scatterings of virginal confetti and there were unfinished glasses of cider on every side table. Eve and I traded a self-satisfied gaze and went up to our room.
We were both quiet, letting the aura of our good fortune linger. Eve slipped her dress over her head and went off to the bathroom. The two of us shared a bed, and Eve was in the habit of turning it down as if we were in a hotel. Though it always seemed crazy to me, that unnecessary little preparation, for once, I turned the bed down for her. Then I took the cigar box from my underwear drawer so I could stow my unspent nickels before going to bed, just like I’d been taught.
But when I reached into my coat pocket for my change purse, I felt something heavy and smooth. A little mystified, I pulled the object out and found it was Tinker’s lighter. Then I remembered having—in a somewhat Eve-like manner—taken it from his hand to light my second cigarette. It was just around the time that the New Year had begun to sing.
I sat down in my father’s barley-brown easy chair—the only piece of furniture I owned. I flipped open the lighter’s lid and turned the flint. The flame leapt and wavered, giving off its kerosene scent before I snapped it shut.
The lighter had a pleasant weight and a soft, worn look, polished by a thousand gentlemanly gestures. And the engraving of Tinker’s initials, which was in a Tiffany font, was so finely done you could score your thumbnail along the stem of the letters unerringly. But it wasn’t just marked with his monogram. Under his initials had been etched a sort of coda in the amateurish fashion of a drugstore jeweler, such that it read:
TGR
1910 – ?
CHAPTER TWO
The Sun, the Moon & the Stars
The following morning, we left Tinker an unsigned note with the doorman at the Beresford:
If you ever want to see your lighter alive, you’ll meet us on the corner of 34th and Third at 6:42. And you’ll come alone.
I set the likelihood of his showing up at fifty percent. Eve set it at a hundred and ten. When he climbed out of the cab, we were waiting in trench coats in the shadows of the elevated. He was wearing a denim shirt and a shearling coat.
—Put em up, pardner, I said, and he did.
—How’s it coming with those ruts? Eve prodded.
—Well, I woke at the usual hour. And after my usual squash match, I had my usual