well, a surgeon who had
handled the delicate nose bones with such finesse, they would never resume their previous position, a surgeon who, because
of his own checkered past, would never talk.
Soon, another heavyweight guard would relieve Hugo for a few hours, but there was no one as dedicated as he was. In his opinion,
another of Hugo’s major assets was his keen antipathy to women.
Lucky Hugo. Although no woman would dare try to fool him, he sometimes wished he could leave them alone, too. Would his new
nose and the few other alterations just carried out make him more attractive to women? As if he cared. His old nose had never
stood in the way of his conquests. How could it when he was, as Randela had once described it, “literally filthy rich.” The
delicious, but far-too-smart-for-her-own-good Brazilian had pointed out one day that truckload after truckload of dirty crumpled
dollars, pounds sterling, lire, yen, pesetas, and marks pouring into Colombia from drug deals had given new meaning to the
phrase, just as a new one—money laundering—had had to be invented to make use of it.
If Randela had had the sense to shut up and to stay alive, how surprised she would be to know that it was she who had first
given him the idea that, when it became expedient to take on a new identity, he should go to a plastic surgeon.
He could remember it as if it were yesterday. They’d just made love and he’d noticed something different about her thighs.
There was simply less of them, and finally she admitted she’d had some body work done, some thigh trimming, from the most
famous slicer in the world at that time, a Doctor Ivo Pitanguy in Rio de Janeiro, so deft with the knife, according to Randela,
women flew to him from all over.
He’d thought it was her national pride speaking, but he’d checked it out and sure enough, Pitanguy was indeed then the top
doc in that field.
Hugo knocked and put his head around the door. “The doc’s here, wants to see you. Okay, boss?”
The man who didn’t believe in words when actions would do nodded.
“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor.
He nodded okay, to the doctor, too.
“Good, good. This morning you will see your new look for the first time. I think you will be pleased. In three to four weeks
when everything is perfectly healed, your new profile will look as if it has always been in residence.” The doctor examinedthe bandages. “Very good. In about an hour then.” He paused. “Any questions?”
“I’ll be leaving today.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
When the doctor left, the patient smiled. New profile was a good description of what lay ahead. He’d been giving a lot of
thought to his profile in general and his name in particular during his layover. Of course, in common with the other patients
in the clinic, he was using an alias, one of many he’d used over the years.
Now he’d made a final decision. Just as he had reduced the large nose he’d lived with all his life, so it was time to reduce
his extra-long, difficult to pronounce real name, the one he’d been born with in Georgia, Russia, sixty years ago.
For the life of respectability that was imminent he would shorten it to one syllable, one that everyone could say—and remember—a
name with resonance.
When he arrived in New York with his new profile, his name would simply be Svank.
Bumper-to-bumper to the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and Ms. Ginny Walker, eighteen this past December, poked her tongue out at
the huge billboard, which nobody could miss and her mother had been raging about for months. It was the first time she’d had
an opportunity to study it, so for the moment the intense traffic jam didn’t bother her.
YOU’RE GOING TO NEW YORK DRESSED LIKE THAT? Charivari, the Manhattan fashion business, was asking the provocative question
in fifty-foot-high letters.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, Madame Charivari, I am,” she thought,
handled the delicate nose bones with such finesse, they would never resume their previous position, a surgeon who, because
of his own checkered past, would never talk.
Soon, another heavyweight guard would relieve Hugo for a few hours, but there was no one as dedicated as he was. In his opinion,
another of Hugo’s major assets was his keen antipathy to women.
Lucky Hugo. Although no woman would dare try to fool him, he sometimes wished he could leave them alone, too. Would his new
nose and the few other alterations just carried out make him more attractive to women? As if he cared. His old nose had never
stood in the way of his conquests. How could it when he was, as Randela had once described it, “literally filthy rich.” The
delicious, but far-too-smart-for-her-own-good Brazilian had pointed out one day that truckload after truckload of dirty crumpled
dollars, pounds sterling, lire, yen, pesetas, and marks pouring into Colombia from drug deals had given new meaning to the
phrase, just as a new one—money laundering—had had to be invented to make use of it.
If Randela had had the sense to shut up and to stay alive, how surprised she would be to know that it was she who had first
given him the idea that, when it became expedient to take on a new identity, he should go to a plastic surgeon.
He could remember it as if it were yesterday. They’d just made love and he’d noticed something different about her thighs.
There was simply less of them, and finally she admitted she’d had some body work done, some thigh trimming, from the most
famous slicer in the world at that time, a Doctor Ivo Pitanguy in Rio de Janeiro, so deft with the knife, according to Randela,
women flew to him from all over.
He’d thought it was her national pride speaking, but he’d checked it out and sure enough, Pitanguy was indeed then the top
doc in that field.
Hugo knocked and put his head around the door. “The doc’s here, wants to see you. Okay, boss?”
The man who didn’t believe in words when actions would do nodded.
“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor.
He nodded okay, to the doctor, too.
“Good, good. This morning you will see your new look for the first time. I think you will be pleased. In three to four weeks
when everything is perfectly healed, your new profile will look as if it has always been in residence.” The doctor examinedthe bandages. “Very good. In about an hour then.” He paused. “Any questions?”
“I’ll be leaving today.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
When the doctor left, the patient smiled. New profile was a good description of what lay ahead. He’d been giving a lot of
thought to his profile in general and his name in particular during his layover. Of course, in common with the other patients
in the clinic, he was using an alias, one of many he’d used over the years.
Now he’d made a final decision. Just as he had reduced the large nose he’d lived with all his life, so it was time to reduce
his extra-long, difficult to pronounce real name, the one he’d been born with in Georgia, Russia, sixty years ago.
For the life of respectability that was imminent he would shorten it to one syllable, one that everyone could say—and remember—a
name with resonance.
When he arrived in New York with his new profile, his name would simply be Svank.
Bumper-to-bumper to the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and Ms. Ginny Walker, eighteen this past December, poked her tongue out at
the huge billboard, which nobody could miss and her mother had been raging about for months. It was the first time she’d had
an opportunity to study it, so for the moment the intense traffic jam didn’t bother her.
YOU’RE GOING TO NEW YORK DRESSED LIKE THAT? Charivari, the Manhattan fashion business, was asking the provocative question
in fifty-foot-high letters.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, Madame Charivari, I am,” she thought,
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