Red Hook by Reggie Nadelson Read Free Book Online Page A

thinking: this is how it should be. I left Max for a minute and went over to the band and talked to the pianist and found out he was a big Stan Getz fan. We discussed some of the obscure tracks, and then he told me his favorite was an old LP called The Steamer that I loved, too, and confided in me that he had once met Stan, and I was like a schoolkid, impressed. He asked me what songs I liked, and then as I went back to Maxie, he grinned and did a couple of bars of “The Girl From Ipanema”.
    Maxine was looking in the direction of her mother and her ex-mother-in-law—she had been married to a fire captain who was killed on 9/11—and a group of girls she had grown up with in Brooklyn. She put her arms around me.
    â€œI better go make nice,” she said. “Artie, can I ask you something?”
    â€œAnything.”
    â€œHey, don’t look so gloomy, you look like a gloomy Russian,” she said. “It’s not so bad, getting married. Anyway, it’s like we were already married, right?”
    â€œAbsolutely. I was just thinking about something,” I said, trying to shake the fear I’d heard in Sid’s voice. “And I’m not a gloomy Russian. I’m an American. I know all the words to the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’, I love the Yankees, Frank Sinatra, The Sopranos, Tony Bennett, Ella, Michelle Pfeiffer, bacon cheeseburgers, pizza, New York, you. Yeah, you can ask me anything you want, we can do anything you want.”
    â€œThen can we look at some apartments tomorrow?”
    â€œSure. You think you found something?”
    She lit up like a bulb, girlish and thrilled, and nodded. “I think maybe,” she said. “I think I did.”
    We were still commuting. Max had stayed in Brooklyn at her place near Bay Ridge so the girls could finish middle school there. I was in my loft trying tofigure out how to renovate it for the four of us. It worked OK. We had been together a pretty long time and we were used to it.
    â€œThank you,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”
    â€œI’m the one,” I said and kissed her but before she could start off towards her mother, Tolya appeared at her side, carrying an enormous bunch of pink roses two feet long, wrapped in crackling cellophane, dripping with white silk ribbons. He presented them to Maxine, a ritual offering, and then kissed her cheeks three times, Russian style. I could see Maxine, swamped by the flowers, loving it. I just grinned. It was such a Russian gesture.
    Tolya threw his arms around me, and handed me a fat manila envelope. I thought I heard him hum “If I Was A Rich Man”. He had started drinking early.
    â€œA small party, you said. You promised. You lied to me.” I was laughing now, looking at the people still streaming in.
    â€œYour wedding party, right? You cannot have wedding without party, or what is point?” asked Tolya, half in English, half in Russian, as he pulled a magnum of Krug from a passing waiter and poured some into my glass. I drank. He poured. Maxine looked at the champagne and Tolya took the flowers from her and set them on a chair and offered her a glass.
    Anatoly Sverdloff had grown up, in Moscow, like me, but we met in New York, what was it, ten years ago? In his white linen suit and green silk shirt, Tolya was six-six, three hundred pounds, big as a mountain, and as solid. His white Gucci loafers had been made of alligatoror some other dead animal, eighteen-carat-gold buckles on them.
    He saw Maxine gaze at the shoes, and a grin spread across the face that, square and dimpled, resembled an Easter Island statue. He pushed the shock of dark hair off his forehead. From his pocket he extracted a gold cigar case engraved with a cigar, a big ruby for the burning tip glittering; he snapped it open and took out a Cohiba and put it in his mouth, then lit it with a quarter pound of solid gold lighter. The smell was delicious.
    In his element,