least I can tell myself that I lost to the winning team.”
“If that helps. You got any message for her?”
“Seriously?”
“If you do, I’ll pass it on.”
He thought about it. “Sure,” he said, looking down at the papers on this desk. “You can tell her to go fuck herself.”
Chapter 8
It was twenty-four hours before Golzen had a chance to speak to Reinhart. The man’s movements were wholly unpredictable, and his presence could not be guaranteed even at the club he owned on Orchard, in the ratty, crumbling backstreets of the Lower East Side, south of the Village and east of anywhere good, above which Golzen and others laid their heads at night in exchange for services rendered.
He slipped in through the street door. It was ajar, as often in the mornings, in a vain attempt to clear the stale, secondhand air inside, a stealthy, underhand odor that seeped up from the crumbling building’s foundation. The area beyond was empty, cavernous, and dark, a wide central space with black-painted walls shading off into low-ceilinged, shadowy little corridors and booths where the small hours would find the bar’s racier patrons taking drugs and advantage of one another.
Golzen walked across this, past the bar along the right-hand wall, and into the office in the back. Reinhart was sitting behind his desk. The space was otherwise empty. No filing cabinets, no computer, no pictures on the wall. No second chair, even. Just a boxy old 1970s-style phone, positioned to line up neatly with the corners of the desk. As always, Reinhart was wearing a coat, as if he’d recently arrived or would be leaving almost immediately. He was watching the door as Golzen entered, as though waiting for him.
He didn’t wait for Golzen to speak. If you needed that kind of fluff, you did business with someone else—the problem being, so far as Golzen knew (and his contacts were indeed good, and situated far and wide), there was no one else working this game in the entire city. It was Reinhart or nobody.
“Did you talk to him?”
“I tried.”
“The fuck is up with that guy?”
Golzen considered his response. Idealists who cleave to different ideals seldom mix well. His view was that Maj was unpredictable, full of himself, and basically an asshole. Moreover, a dangerously volatile asshole. He’d expressed this opinion more than once. Reinhart evidently saw something else in the guy, however, and wouldn’t let the matter drop. “He learned at Lonely Clive’s knee.”
Reinhart grunted, irritable and dismissive combined. Golzen knew the man got what he’d meant—some of it, at least. Reinhart had taken the trouble to understand the world inhabited by the people he now did business with. He knew Golzen meant that when Maj arrived in the city he’d been taken under the wing of a member of the old guard—the ones sometimes called the Gathered, before the term became loosely applied to all of them. Originally it had referred to a cabal of friends who’d started introducing structures and systems into their lives. The Jesuits declared that if you gave them a boy, they’d give you the man. It had been the same with the Gathered, or the few that were left. The Scattered would be a better name now. They’d done good in the way back, for sure, dominating the scene for fifty years or more—but had been fading in authority even before Reinhart arrived. It had happened much faster since, and good riddance to them. They’d never listened to Golzen’s ideas either.
“Keep on it,” Reinhart said. His hair was cropped short and the single bulb above caught the top of his hard, square head. “Get your buddies to stick to him, too. Like glue. Any sign of an angle, tell them to work it. Hard.”
“Okay.”
Reinhart smiled. It was pitch perfect as a coordinated movement of muscles, but once you got to know the guy, his ability to do this only made him even more unnerving. “Don’t worry—you’ll always be my number one. I’d
“If that helps. You got any message for her?”
“Seriously?”
“If you do, I’ll pass it on.”
He thought about it. “Sure,” he said, looking down at the papers on this desk. “You can tell her to go fuck herself.”
Chapter 8
It was twenty-four hours before Golzen had a chance to speak to Reinhart. The man’s movements were wholly unpredictable, and his presence could not be guaranteed even at the club he owned on Orchard, in the ratty, crumbling backstreets of the Lower East Side, south of the Village and east of anywhere good, above which Golzen and others laid their heads at night in exchange for services rendered.
He slipped in through the street door. It was ajar, as often in the mornings, in a vain attempt to clear the stale, secondhand air inside, a stealthy, underhand odor that seeped up from the crumbling building’s foundation. The area beyond was empty, cavernous, and dark, a wide central space with black-painted walls shading off into low-ceilinged, shadowy little corridors and booths where the small hours would find the bar’s racier patrons taking drugs and advantage of one another.
Golzen walked across this, past the bar along the right-hand wall, and into the office in the back. Reinhart was sitting behind his desk. The space was otherwise empty. No filing cabinets, no computer, no pictures on the wall. No second chair, even. Just a boxy old 1970s-style phone, positioned to line up neatly with the corners of the desk. As always, Reinhart was wearing a coat, as if he’d recently arrived or would be leaving almost immediately. He was watching the door as Golzen entered, as though waiting for him.
He didn’t wait for Golzen to speak. If you needed that kind of fluff, you did business with someone else—the problem being, so far as Golzen knew (and his contacts were indeed good, and situated far and wide), there was no one else working this game in the entire city. It was Reinhart or nobody.
“Did you talk to him?”
“I tried.”
“The fuck is up with that guy?”
Golzen considered his response. Idealists who cleave to different ideals seldom mix well. His view was that Maj was unpredictable, full of himself, and basically an asshole. Moreover, a dangerously volatile asshole. He’d expressed this opinion more than once. Reinhart evidently saw something else in the guy, however, and wouldn’t let the matter drop. “He learned at Lonely Clive’s knee.”
Reinhart grunted, irritable and dismissive combined. Golzen knew the man got what he’d meant—some of it, at least. Reinhart had taken the trouble to understand the world inhabited by the people he now did business with. He knew Golzen meant that when Maj arrived in the city he’d been taken under the wing of a member of the old guard—the ones sometimes called the Gathered, before the term became loosely applied to all of them. Originally it had referred to a cabal of friends who’d started introducing structures and systems into their lives. The Jesuits declared that if you gave them a boy, they’d give you the man. It had been the same with the Gathered, or the few that were left. The Scattered would be a better name now. They’d done good in the way back, for sure, dominating the scene for fifty years or more—but had been fading in authority even before Reinhart arrived. It had happened much faster since, and good riddance to them. They’d never listened to Golzen’s ideas either.
“Keep on it,” Reinhart said. His hair was cropped short and the single bulb above caught the top of his hard, square head. “Get your buddies to stick to him, too. Like glue. Any sign of an angle, tell them to work it. Hard.”
“Okay.”
Reinhart smiled. It was pitch perfect as a coordinated movement of muscles, but once you got to know the guy, his ability to do this only made him even more unnerving. “Don’t worry—you’ll always be my number one. I’d
Similar Books
