Chapter one

I was walking along St. Mark’s, past the quaint brownstones and sunken restaurants, the rundown theaters, the newsstands, the boutiques. I was walking with my hands shoved deep in my pockets and my shoulders hunched against the cold. I spared myself nothing. I’d pause beside the shops and gaze at the decorations. Or I’d stand at the corners and stare at the tumbling snow. I did everything but plant myself beneath apartment windows singing “A Poor Orphan Lad Am I.” And I’d have done that, too, if I’d thought of it.

It was mid-December, two weeks before Christmas. The world seemed full of lighted windows and closed doors. Visions of TV dinners, of too much scotch, of another holiday alone, danced in my head.

It was Monday, I remember. I was on my way to work, pushing along the wet sidewalk. As I walked I seemed to see the neighborhood’s bohemians—the poets and artists; the young, the skewed, the intense, the bizarre—turning into Hallmark cards before my eyes. Here was a radical composer of my acquaintance, hurrying past, humming the standard carols of the season. There was a postmodernist painter I knew, bundled in Norman Rockwell scarves and hats. The editor of the local socialist weekly staggered across the street under an armload of gayly wrapped parcels. And standing at a pay phone was a woman who called herself Randy Trash: the orange dye had been washed from her hair and I could hear her making plane reservations to Minneapolis. I was saddened, I tell you, by the evidence of hypocrisy all around me.

I decided to stop into Ingmar’s café for a cappuccino. I went down the stairs and pushed in through the glass door. The place was as it always is: dark, smoky, comforting. Crowded even in the early A.M. Metal tables crushed together. Cups and saucers stained with the residue of coffee. Wire chairs at wild angles. Conversation. Faces leaning toward each other. Mirrored glasses, berets, spiked hair. I weaved to an empty seat and squeezed myself in between elbows.

I scanned the room, hoping for an inspiration. Janice was there, nursing her Monday-morning bloody, a cigarette in one hand, the other pushing auburn hair up under her leather beret. But she’d already told me she was spending Christmas with Kevin. And he was the jealous type. Like, say, the Great Gatsby. My glance moved on to Arnold and Elaine. The two of them were drinking espresso and talking God. They did that a lot: espresso, God. The gold plate of their wire-rimmed glasses glinted in the light as their heads bobbed up and down at each other. Christmas with Arnold and Elaine seemed just the thing if your thing happened to be unbearable Christmases. As I watched them, a hand caught my eye. Toby, my favorite New Wave filmmaker, or No Wave filmmaker, or something. I’d forgotten about her. Toby. Mousey and cute, croissant crumbs on her chin, waving at me. Toby—or not Toby, that was the question. Tempting, definitely, but perchance unwise. I waved. I smiled. I bravely turned away. I saw Carter at the table in the far corner, smoking cigarettes and talking poetry at Belle and glancing black death at the universe. I was just about to turn back to Toby when Peter brought me my cappuccino and I remembered: I’d gone to see Peter play the Cenci in the tragedy of the same name. The only thing I’d understood for two whole hours was that the bastard owed me a big, big favor. I pounced. Peter, I said, how about taking me in for Christmas? But he begged off. He’d told his father he wouldn’t bring any friends if the old man wouldn’t show any home movies. I sighed and let him go.

A few minutes later I left my cappuccino half finished and headed out. I walked through the snow toward Washington Square.

By the time I got to the office, I was in a black mood. I grunted hello to Marianne and sank down at my desk across the room from her. There I sat, staring at the books stacked up in front of me, trying to work up the energy to get started. I was still working it up at about ten-thirty when McGill came in.

He was about forty-five, McGill, lean and wiry. Always wore a trench coat, always had his jacket open and his tie half undone. His face was sharp everywhere: sharp eyes that shifted, a sharp nose that flared, a sharp chin that he always led with as if he expected you to take a pop at it. All that was left of his hair, the last gray strands, were tangled and uncombed on his sharp pate.

As he came through the door he was grumbling to himself—he did that sometimes—as if he were in the middle of an argument. His overcoat was wet with snow, his cheeks red with cold, his mouth screwed up into an angry slash.

He stopped at Marianne’s desk to pick up his mail, then headed toward his office. He waved at me as he came on, his greeting, as always, half a mutter, half a bark.

“Mike. How’s it going? Good weekend? Yeah, good.”

Then, as he put his hand on his office doorknob, he paused. Now, a whole side of his face screwed up. But the debate lasted only a second. He turned to me.

“Oh, yeah, listen. You wanna come up to my place for Christmas? My daughter Susannah’s coming down for the week with a couple of friends. You bring a couple too: She won’t get bored with the old man. What about it?”

I managed to get out the word “Sure,” and he went on:

“Great. I want you to meet her before I leave for Peru.”

Then he went through the door and brought it shut behind him.