Steve Dublanica's Blog, page 26

Waiter Rant on Sale!

I just noticed that Amazon is selling the paperback edition of Waiter Rant for $10.19! A steal!

Sorry I haven’t been around much. Things are very busy over here! Back soon.

Room for Debate

I wrote a small Op-ed about entitled parents and restaurants for the Room for Debate section of the New York Times. Enjoy!

Let the hate mail begin!

Razor

It’s Monday morning and I’m in the bathroom performing my daily ablutions. After taking a hot shower with lots of soap, shampoo and conditioner, I towel off and go to the sink to shave. Not my favorite thing.

Today, however, I’m trying something different. After lathering up my face, I open my medicine cabinet and take out my new beard removal device – an old-fashioned double-edged safety razor. Annie and I went to Central Park yesterday and, after stopping inside the Time Warner Center to use what I consider the finest public toilet in New York, I popped into the Art of Shaving store and bought this little do-hickey for fifty bucks. Heavy, chrome plated and made of stainless steel; this razor is a throwback to a time when shaving took some skill. If I was real macho, I’d have bought a straight razor – but I’m not crazy.

Holding it by the very end, I take the razor, move the handle parallel to the floor, and then lower the blade to a thirty-degree angle to my face. Not applying pressure, I start moving down, following the grain of my beard and letting the weight of the razor do all the work.

After five minutes I manage not to Sweeny Todd myself and re-lather so I can work on the parts of my face that need a second pass. I like mastering a new skill and I’m enjoying the challenge. After I rinse off the razor in hot water I look into the mirror – only to find a face that’s not mine staring back at me.

“Do you speak English?” it asks.

Startled, I nick myself and blood starts turning the lather on my face pink. The man in the mirror vanishes, replaced by the reflection I’ve seen grow and change for forty-four years. Of course, there was never a strange man in the mirror; just the projection of a troubled mind.

After Ann I finished our sojourn in the park we ate Thai food and then started back to the Port Authority and our bus home. To complement the walk I light up a ten-dollar cigar I bought at Davidoff. Then around Fifty-Third Street, a thin guy wearing nursing scrubs comes up to us and asks me if I speak English.

“Yes,” I say, suddenly feeling uneasy.

“Listen,” the man says. “I’m not begging, I’m not a drug addict. My wife left her purse in a cab and I have no money. I need to get some infant formula for our baby.”

“Where’s the baby?” Ann asks.

“With my wife,” the man says quickly. “Listen, I know it sounds like a scam, but you can buy the formula for me. I don’t want any money. There’s a store right over there.”

I’ve given money to all sorts of beggars over the years, usually with the full knowledge they’d use it to buy drugs or booze. But this not wanting cash up front thing throws me.

“Please, sir,” the man says. “It’s only a couple of dollars.”

Part of me wants to run in the store and buy the baby formula. But another part of me, an almost unconscious part, is running my bullshit scanner full blast. The guy is wearing scrubs, but only the shirt. The lower half of his body is clad in jeans and ratty sneakers. When street people are admitted to psych wards and ERs their clothes are often ruined or they don’t have any at all. So the staff give these unfortunates whatever cast off clothes are laying around. And very often the shirt they get is the top half of a pair of cheap, disposable operating room scrubs. There’s also an odor coming off the man that I’ve smelled many times over the years – the scent of a ruined soul.

“Sorry, man,” I say. “I don’t have any money.”

A look of rage sweeps across the man’s face and I feel my feet and hips automatically shift my body into a balanced stand. Years of dealing with psych patients have given me decent radar for violent behavior. But the man just turns on his heel and storms off.

As Ann and I walk away I feel cheap and guilty. When you add up the razor, dinner and the stogie, I had treated myself handsomely to the tune of a hundred bucks.

“I feel bad now,” I say to Ann.

“Why?” she asks.

“It’s possible his story was true.”

“I doubt it.”

“He didn’t want money. What harm can there be in getting him some baby formula?”

“He’ll probably sell it for drugs.” I don’t reply

Ann knows me very well. She slips a five out of her purse and presses it into my palm. “Here’s your bum money,” she says.

We turn around and head back towards where we encountered the man, but he’s not there. So we walk a few more blocks, scanning the crowds enjoying the summer night. No dice. The beggar is lost in a sea of faces.

“He’s long gone,” I say, shaking my head.

“You tried,” Ann says.

“Son of a bitch,” I say angrily, realizing I had almost been scammed. “People like that just ruin it for the rest of us. What if you or I needed a stranger’s help?”

“We would never be in that position.”

Wrong. One day long ago I was walking the streets of Manhattan – drunk, my money gone and no way to get home. I thought about asking strangers if they could buy me a bus ticket, but I didn’t. After a begrudgingly accepted collect call, a friend of mine came to get me – five hours later.

When we get to the Port Authority I suddenly have to take a wicked piss, so I head to the restroom and Ann gets the tickets.

“Guess what?” Ann says when I rejoin her near the Cinnabon stand.

“What?”

“When I was buying the tickets a kid in a white hoodie asked me for a dollar and twenty cents. He didn’t have enough money to get home.”

“You give it to him?”

“Yep,” she says. “But here’s the best part. He’s on the same bus as us.”

Sure enough, when we get on the bus, the kid in the white hoodie boards and marches to the back. Not so much as a thank you.

“There,” Ann says, squeezing my hand. “I fixed your Mitzvah.”

Back in my bathroom I realize I’ve been staring at my reflection for five minutes, catatonic as I played back the night’s events in my head. As I recommence shaving, I remember why I didn’t beg for money twenty years ago, I didn’t want to feel the cold shoulder of an unforgiving world. I didn’t want the story of the Good Samaritan to become just another piece of bullshit.

Clean-shaven and baby faced, I rub on some after-shave lotion. Last night I knew when to withhold and Ann knew when to give. Moral judgments like that are difficult for the best of us – and we often get it wrong.

Still troubled, I hold my new razor; admiring its heft as the morning sun slides along the chrome plated steel. As I place it in my medicine cabinet I remember a quote from the Upshanids Somerset Maugham used in one of his books. “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.”

My razor nick starts bleeding again so I put a piece of toilet paper on it. Ouch. Maugham wasn’t kidding.

Crazy Sexy

I need to refill my Lipitor prescription so I walk into the local Rite Aid with Ann in tow.

“I’ll check my blood pressure while you’re waiting,” Ann says.

Ann’s blood pressure is perfect, but she has a strange fetish. She likes the crushing feeling of a blood pressure cuff on her arm. She also like Indian burns. In case you’re wondering, she’s exhibited no other masochist tendencies – at least not yet.

Ann settles in to the blood pressure machine with a big smile – like a little kid getting into one of those crappy rides you find in supermarkets. Luckily for me, there’s no line at the pharmacist’s counter. I hate waiting in line behind people with obvious rashes and hocking up bio-hazardous phlegm from their lungs.

“Have fun, honey,” I call to Ann. “This will just take a minute.”

The clerk behind the counter is a very pretty, dark haired young woman in her mid twenties. I smile at her. She smiles back, enthusiastically.



“Hi,” I say. “The name’s Dublanica. You’re holding a prescription for me.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine. They’re very pretty eyes. “Let me get that for you.”

The girl goes over to the pharmacist and mumbles something. The pharmacist, also attractive and in her early thirties, looks over at me and stares. When she realizes I’m watching her, she too breaks into a big smile. “You still got it, Steve,” I say to myself. “You’ve still got it.”

I’m pleased as punch. It’s been a while since young women have looked at me admiringly. But I can’t help but wonder why I’m getting all this extra attention. I haven’t really changed much since the last time I was here. Maybe it’s because I lost five pounds. It could also be the grey coming in nicely at my temples or the two days worth of facial hair making me look all edgy and rugged. Maybe it’s the shorts I’m wearing. Every woman I’ve ever dated has told me I have nice legs. Sure, a potbelly is perched on top of them, but hey; flaunt what you’ve got.

“How’s it going honey?” I call over to Ann.

“Oh” she says, squirming delightedly in her seat. “It feels wonderful.”

“You’re a strange chick.”

The clerk returns with a plastic bottle and a sheaf of paperwork. Again, she looks at me with a look that I interpret as lust.

“Here you are, sir,” she says. “How would you like to pay?”

“Debit, thanks.”

I give the girl my card and, as she’s running it, I look over at the pharmacist, catching her eye. She blushes. I am a sex machine.

Ann comes over to me, rubbing her arm. “How’d you do?” I ask.

“110 over 70,” she says. “Perfect.”

“Good,” I say. Mine’s higher, but not by much.”

“You need to exercise more.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh my God!” the pretty dark haired girl says, covering her mouth.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Huh?”

“When you came over here I thought you were talking to yourself. I didn’t see your girlfriend over there.”

I look at the blood pressure apparatus. The workers can’t see it from behind the counter. Oh dear.

“So I told the pharmacist,” the girl continues. “I’m so sorry. We thought you were odd.” In back of me I can hear Ann chuckling.

I feel my ego deflate. These pretty women weren’t looking at me because they thought I was attractive. They were looking at me because they thought I was nuts.

“Well,” I say, trying to mask my disappointment. “When I was a kid, if you saw someone talking to themselves they were crazy. These days they’re just probably talking on the phone. Hard to tell now.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” the girl says, handing me my receipt.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. But I want to scream. “Why the hell didn’t you keep all this to yourself?”

Clutching my bottle of cholesterol lowering meds, Ann and I walk out to her car. I’m very quiet.

“What’s the matter Steve?” she asks. “You look sad.”

Now this is a sticky wicket. How do you tell the woman you’re going to marry that you’re upset that two attractive young women didn’t want to jump your bones?

“It’s nothing,” I say, shaking my head.

“No,” Ann says. “Something’s bothering you.”

I know the cornerstone of all relationships is honest communication, but I could end up on the couch for this. But Ann is very persistent so, against my better judgment, I tell her what happened.

“I understand,” she says. “No matter how old you are, you want to be thought of as attractive.”

“It’s just depressing,” I say. “Young women act like I don’t exist.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. I’m going out with you, right?”

“You’re eight years younger than me,” I say. “But I’m talking about 25 year olds. I’m not saying I’d act on it, but it’d still be nice to be wanted by that group.”

“And what would you do with a twenty-five year old?”

There are a couple of answers to that question, but the truest one works it’s way past my more piggish visions. “Nothing,” I say. “I wouldn’t know what to say to them.”

“There you go.”

“But if I was George Clooney or Bruce Willis…that would change things. “

“You think those guys are happy?” Ann snorts. Uh oh. Banishment to the living room is imminent.

“Maybe not,” I say, knowing they’re probably ecstatic.

“Well, I think you’re sexy,” Ann says, patting my butt.

“Thank you.”

As we walk out of the pharmacy I see my reflection in the sliding door. My face is flushed from the summer’s heat and the sight of my stomach makes me feel like a beached whale. There’s grey in my beard to boot. I feel old. Maybe I should go back inside and get some Just for Men. What I should do is get my ass to the gym. What Ann sees in me, I’ll never know. But as Hemingway once said, “You never understand anybody that loves you.”

We get in the car and start driving back home. But I’m still shaken.

“But they thought I was nuts,” I whimper. “Do I come off as crazy?”

“If you were crazy,” Ann says. “You’d be cute crazy.”

“That’s not helping.”

Ann pats my thigh. “Hush, dear. Hush.”

You Must Be This Young to Ride This Ride

It’s Tuesday night and I’m walking through the Meadowland’s State Fair with my girlfriend, Ann. The weather is cool and breezy and attendance is sparse. That’s good because I won’t have to wait to get on a ride. And man, I love amusement park rides.

“So what ride do you want to go on first?” Ann asks, as we leave the petting zoo. I petted dirty llamas and miniature ponies as a favor to her. I don’t like seeing animals cooped up.

“Why don’t we start off easy?” I suggest. ‘”How about the Rock & Roll over there?” Ann can get sick reading on a plane.

The Rock & Roll whips you around on an undulating circular platform which makes you feel like the resulting centrifugal force will throw you out of the car which, if everything is up to specs, it won’t. Because of the forces involved, the heaviest passenger has to sit on the left side. If you reverse that order the smaller person would get squished.

We clamber into the car and I, an amusement park pro, lower the safety bar and lock it myself. That doesn’t stop the operator from checking it anyway. When all the other passengers get on board the operator flips a switch and, within a few revolutions, the ride’a going full speed.

Ann lets out such a bloodcurdling scream that I’m afraid the operator will stop the ride. The carnies, leathery looking guys who’ve logged thousands of hours operating these rides, are trained to watch the passengers for signs of distress. But I guess they’re familiar with every type of scream and, seeing no danger, they let the ride spin away. A big smile spreads across my face. Suddenly I’m ten years old again. The operator encourages up to throw up our hands, so I do. And that’s when the trouble starts.

Beads of sweat form on my brow and something starts tickling my stomach. This has occasionally happened to me before so I focus on the head of the girl in front and my equilibrium issues sort themselves out. The ride ends after two minutes and I climb surefooted out of the car. “Ah,” I say to myself. “You just needed to get acclimated.”

The Crazy Mouse is next on our list. It’s just a roller coaster where the car spins. When we get in Ann tells the couple sitting next to her not to mind the screams. Thirty seconds into the ups, downs and revolutions, that funny feeling returns and I focus on my feet to combat the swimming in my head. Getting off the ride I’m still steady and bound down the stairs. I realize now I was just kidding myself.

“Let’s go on the Gravitron!” Annie says, surprisingly looking none the worse for wear. “That’s my favorite ride.”

“No,” I say emphatically. We’ve all been on some version of the Gravitron. That’s the ride where you stand in a large spinning cylinder and the G-forces pin you to the wall. I don’t like it because your body says you’re moving but, because the ride’s completely enclosed, you can’t see that you’re moving. It’s the one ride I can’t stand.

“I’ll go on the Space Roller if you go on this one,” Ann says. The Space Roller is my favorite ride. Ann hates it.

“Okay,” I say, getting on line. “But you better not wimp out on me.”

The ride is exactly as I remember it. When the cylinder gets up to full speed and I’m sticking to the wall, I turn my head to look at Ann. This cause my inner ear to scream, “What the hell are you doing?’” and I feel my stomach muscles ripple. I close my eyes as a defense and just wait for the everything to stop spinning.

When we exit the ride we are greeted by a huge splatter of vomit just outside the entrance. “Somebody didn’t make it,” I laugh, pointing the puke out to Ann. “Looks like someone had roasted corn,” she replies.

“Now for the Space Roller,” I say, ignoring the “Cut this shit out!” signals my body is sending me.

The Space Roller is, aw screw it, I’m tired of describing rides. Just sample the video. It’s a doozy.

The ride starts and suddenly we’re spinning and tumbling upside down. Now I am definitely not having any fun. Bile starts rising up my throat and a clammy sweat covers my body from head to toe. I’m going to puke. Instead of trying to focus on something, I just close my eyes and start breathing deeply. “Don’t hurl,” I chant to myself. “Don’t hurl.”

The ride comes to a stop. “Oh thank God,” I say to Ann. “I don’t think I can take any more of this.”

“We’re not done,” she says. “Now we go backwards.” Oh shit.

Somehow I manage to keep the contents of my stomach from going airborne and when the ride stops I stumble off the ride like a man who’s had five boilermakers in half an hour. Then I remember something I watched on Modern Family a few weeks ago.

During the episode Phil, a father of three, gets woozy after going on a roller coaster with his son at Disneyland. Around my age and a self-avowed roller coaster junkie, when he gets off the ride he stumbles around in circles, not understanding what’s happened to him.

“You look like hell,” Jay, his father-in-law says.

“I think that ride did something to me,” Phil replies.

“Fluid in you inner ear is thickening,” Jay says. “That’s what happens when you get old.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, you can’t take the motion. I gotta to pop a Dramamine to get in my swivel chair.”

In full nausea mode, I walk over to a picnic table and sit down. Putting my head in my hands, a realization washes over me.

“It’s official,” I say to Ann. “I’m becoming an old man.”

“Why do you say that?” she says. I remind her about Phil.

Ann laughs. “You’re not old. We just shouldn’t have done so many rides in a row.”

“Last year I didn’t have a problem,” I say. “Now I do. What if we have kids? What am I going to do? I’ll be in my fifties by then. What? I can’t go on the rides with them?”

Annie and I are getting married and the thought of children, whether we have them or not, has been on my mind a great deal lately. But if we do, I’m going to be an “old dad.” By the time my potential children graduate from grade school I’ll be mistaken for their grandfather. And the thought that I won’t be able to do fun things with them saddens me.

“Time to call it quits,” I say, thoroughly depressed “Let’s go home.”

As we start walking out of the park I see men almost half my age carrying their sleeping toddlers and I’m suddenly envious of their youth. Maybe I should have married long ago and had my kids when I was in my twenties. We have only so much time on this earth. Maybe I’ve squandered a good part of it.

“Let’s go on the Ferris wheel before we go,” Ann says. “You can handle that, right?”

“Sure.”

As the Ferris wheel takes us skyward something a female friend told me echoes in my ear. “Don’t have kids,” she said. “You’re too old. Trust me, you won’t have the energy to keep up with them.” When she told me that I also realized I could die when my kids are still young.

After giving Ann the obligatory kiss, I sit in silence. Something at a fair always makes me sad. Sometimes it’s seeing the animals in cages, entitled people cutting in line or some crazy person having a meltdown because they didn’t win a teddy bear. This year it’s the realization of my own mortality.

Yet, looking at the New York skyline sparking in the distance, I remember what a wise man in his seventies also told me. “There’s a benefit to having kids when you’re older,” he said. “When you’re young you’re hustling to make a buck and into all that ‘Gotta be a success’ bullshit. Because your mental energy is tied up with that, you often don’t give your kids as much attention as you’d like. But when you’re older, you know all that stuff isn’t that important. So the time you spend with your children can be of higher quality, even if they don’t have you around as long.”

“Maybe,” I replied, not quite believing him.

“You’ll be a good father Steve,” he said gently. “Don’t worry.”

Despite a churning stomach, either from the rides or the fact my life will soon change in a big way, a smile spreads across my face. When I was in my twenties I was a mess. If I had kids then it would have been a disaster. Besides, I never would have met Ann – and that would have been an epic loss. I did the right thing waiting. I found the right one. And late is always better than never.

Slipping my arm around Ann I let out a satisfied and slightly puke flavored sigh. Whatever happens will happen. I can still ride this ride.

And if I have kids and take them to an amusement park, I’ll just pop a Dramamine.

Headline News

This is last minute, but I’ll be on Headline News at 5:40 today. I’m talking about automatic gratuities. Some restaurant called the cops on some people who wouldn’t pay! Should be fun.

Anderson Cooper

Hello again. Just wanted to let you know I’ll be on Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show tomorrow afternoon. (May 1) Please check your local listings for showtimes. Guess what? Anderson was a waiter once too! I knew I liked the guy.

Welcome!

If you’ve come to this website after watching 20/20, welcome! Most of my waiter stories can be found in the archives dating from 2004-2009. After that, you’ll find some fiction I wrote and some observations I’ve made about life. I hope you enjoy all my stories! And yes, you can buy Waiter Rant or my book on tipping, Keep the Change at fine retailers everywhere. Just click on the bookseller links to the right!

Remember to tip 15-20% And stay off those cell phones!

20/20

Hey everybody. I’ll be on ABC’s 20/20 this Friday night at 10PM. Set your DVRs!

A Little Part of You Dies

(Another Byrne story I wrote for fun. Comments and free editorial suggestions welcome.)

Hoboken used to be a tough town filled with stevedores and working stiffs until a wave of New York real estate fetishists crossed the Hudson back in the 90's and turned it into an oblast of Manhattan. As I walked down Washington Street and looked at the expensively dressed yuppies darting in and out of the fusion restaurants and trendy boutiques, I shook my head. It was like the town wasn't even part of New Jersey anymore.

I found Brent Yeomans' brownstone on Third Street and rang the doorbell. Before the chimes faded the door swung open to reveal a thin man with thinning hair. About forty and wearing a pair of rimless spectacles, he was wearing a pair of tight fitting chinos and a flannel shirt. I knew that was the look the young hipsters were cultivating that year, but this guy was too old to be one of them.

"Mr. Yeomans?" I asked. "I'm Pat Byrne."

"Oh yes," Mr. Byrne," he said. "Won't you please come in?"

I entered the foyer where a large staircase took up half of the hallway. At one time the brownstone had probably been a tenement chopped up into three or four apartments. Now it was obviously a million dollar home for one guy. Yeomans led me into a parlor with a view of the street and pointed to an antique looking chair that looked too small to withstand my 6'2, two hundred pound frame, but I gave it a try anyway.

"Would you like anything Mr. Byrne?" Yeomans said. "Water? Coffee?"

"I'm fine Mr. Yeomans," I said. "What can I do for you today?"

"I want you to find someone. A young woman."

As I shifted in my uncomfortable chair, Yeomans told me he was rebounding from a recent divorce when had fallen head over heels for a 28-year-old girl named Melissa Stuart from the Upper East Side. According to him it was love at first sight but, after five months of hot sheet bliss, she had suddenly stopped taking his calls and had not shown up to her job for over a week.

"I'm worried sick," Yeomans said. "I want you to find her."

"Did you call the police?"

"No," he said. "I didn't want to embarrass her if this was all a misunderstanding. I thought that someone like you, something more discreet, was called for."

"New York is not my usual beat," I said. "It's a lot of tolls, gas and aggravation. It'll cost you."

"What do you charge?"

"A thousand dollars a day, plus expenses. The expenses will be high."

Yeomans waved his hands. "That's no problem."

I don't know about you, but a thousand dollars is a lot of money for a guy like me. Judging from Yeomans' digs however, to him it was probably comparative to buying a Happy Meal.

"I trust you will need a retainer," he said. "Will five thousand be enough to start?

"Yes."

"When can you start?"

"Today."

"How long do you think it will take to find her?"

I shrugged. "That depends on a lot of things, usually I can find people quickly."

"Good," Yeomans said, "Just wait here a moment." Then he walked out of the parlor. When he returned he was holding a check and a manila envelope.

"This is your retainer," he said. "And this envelope contains everything I know about Melissa; her picture, address, cell phone numbers and a few other things that might be important." I took them.

"Do you have any thoughts as to why she disappeared?" I asked.

"None."

"She have any enemies that you know of? Someone that would want to hurt her?"

"None. Everybody likes Melissa," Yeomans said. "She's quite charming."

I nodded. "How were things going between you two, before this?"

"She was withdrawing a little," Yeomans said. "Asking for more 'girl time' and stuff like that. We had been going hot and heavy so I thought her need for space was normal, that our relationship was settling into a new phase."

"No warnings that there might be trouble between you two?"

"None at all," Yeomans said. "She said she loved being with me."

Yeomans had called me because he feared something bad had happened to his girlfriend. If that were the case he would've called the cops. The only calamity he really feared was that he was in love with someone who didn't love him.

"I hate to say this," I said. "Is it possible she's seeing another guy?"

Yeomans' face crumpled. "That would kill me."

I almost felt sorry for Yeomans because I recognized the look wrecking his face. He was at the age when men discover time is taking their youth and all the possibilities that go with it. Being with Melissa probably made him forget that. Youth is the drug of choice for many middle-aged men. Ah, the midlife crisis. I had one once, but that was because someone stabbed me.

"But if she's seeing another guy," Yeoman said, quietly. "Then yes. I want to know."

"Okay."

"When you find her, call me immediately and tell me where she is."

I shook my head. "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"We used to find lost loves and then tell the clients where they were," I said. "Problem was, some of the clients occasionally killed them. So we had to change the rules."

"I'll give you more money"

"No can do."

"I can hire another detective."

"And he'll tell you the same thing. He won't risk his license."

Yeomans slumped into his seat. "Very well then," he said. "Just find her as fast as you can."

Leaving my client looking dejected in his designer duds, I retrieved my illegally parked car and drove back to my office.

————————————————————————————————————

Three days later I was walking through Midtown Manhattan towards the Carondelet Hotel.  A hard rain was falling and I was enjoying it. I've always liked the rain; the smell of it, the sound of it, the feel of it on my skin. When I was a boy I used to imagine the sky was laundering the world. Now I was forty-four and knew the rain had an impossible job.

"Working Byrne?" Hanley, the Carondelet's burly doormen asked as he swung open the lobby door.

"Always," I said, pressing a twenty into Hanley's palm. "And you never saw me here."

Hanley slipped the bill into the front pocket of his red uniform coat and nictitated an oblivious sheen over his blue eyes.  "Welcome to the Carondelet, sir. Enjoy your stay."

I'm not much of a New York person, but I liked the Carondelet and had entertained a few women here in my time. Walking across the lobby's diamond patterned parquet floor, I took a moment to admire the old hotel's magnificent Art Deco decor. The centerpiece of the lobby was a circular white confidante sofa flanked by two low-slung red leather couches. Chairs with stainless steel frames wrought to suggest rapid flight were carefully scattered about, subtly gleaming in the subdued light from the silver pedestal lamps and wall scones artfully placed thoughout the lobby. I half expected people from the Thirties to suddenly materialize – women in long silver dresses waving around cigarette holders and talking to fedora capped men in a fast and witty patter that only happened in that era's black and white movies. No one ever really talked like Nick and Nora Charles, but they should have.

On the right side of the lobby was a glass block wall with a revolving door that led to the hotel's quiet and elegant bar.  If you asked one of the white coated barman behind the zinc topped counter to make you a Gibson, he'd pour it with Zen like precision into a frosted martini glass and top it with three fat cocktail onions on a stainless steel cocktail skewer. Classy.  I had to remind himself I was working and not to get one of those alcoholic snacks. If I did they'd turn into two or three and then my day would be shot. So I forced myself to walk over to one of the red couches where a thin Indian man was fiddling with an iPad.

"How's it going Sarad?" I asked, sitting next to him.

"Very well Patrick," Sarad Rajani said in a British accent so elegant that, if you're eyes were closed; you'd think he was a white Oxford don. Fine featured and wearing an elegant blue Saville Row suit, you'd be hard pressed to believe that he had been a London police inspector for almost twenty years. Now he owned a private outfit that I sometimes called when one man wasn't enough for a surveillance job in the city. "And how's life in New Jersey?"

"The Turnpike still smells. So where is she?"

"Up in her room," Sarad said, adjusting the razor crease of wool trousers. "She had lunch in the bar but went nowhere else."

"Any visitors?'

"One gentleman," Sarad said, his mouth pursing in distaste. "At one o'clock. He left half an hour ago."

I looked at my watch. It was now six. "Nothing like an afternoon romp."

"Quite."

It took me all of two hours to find Melissa Stuart. For the price of rink side seats to a Ranger's game, a guy I knew illegally pinged her cell phone and tracked her to the Carondelet. After a murderously congested drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and some well-placed bribes to Hanley and the front desk clerk, I had Melissa's room number and a copy of her bill.

Contrary to what you see in the movies, it's not easy to keep tabs on a guest in the fortresses high-end hotels have become. They are swathed in security cameras, you need a computerized key card to get anywhere and, if you spend too much time loitering in the lobby, a burly guy with a nameplate reading "Guest Services" will eventually have a chat with you. So I called Sarad and ordered a surveillance package. His firm consisted entirely of Indians and Bangladeshis who, posing as busboys, waiters, or housekeeping staff, could move about the hotel practically unnoticed. From the sounds of sexual congress coming out of Melissa's room, Sarad's men had determined she had entertained three different lovers in as many days.

I grinned at Sarad. "So why are you here? I'd thought one of your boys would be doing the grunt work."

"Today's man had to fly to Delhi for his father's funeral," Sarad said. "So I took his place. I do like to keep in practice."

"Security didn't hassle you?"

Sarad gave me a thin Brahmin smile. "I am rich. I look like I belong here."

I nodded. "So do you have what I need?"

Sarad handed me an envelope. "That's the master key card," he said. "It will let you take the elevator up to her floor and open her door, but just for today."

"How do you get your hands on this kind of stuff?"

Sarad shook his head. "I have to keep my secrets, old boy. I am sure you understand."

"Sure," I said, getting up.  "Besides, I won't be needing your people anymore, I'm going up to talk to her now."

'What will you tell her?"

"The hell if I know."

"Did you tell your client about his paramour's assignations?"

"Yeah. This morning."

"How did he take it?"

"Not well."

"Love is a many splendored thing," Sarad said, dryly. "I shall send you my bill on Monday."

Sarad's bill would be obscene, but hell, I wasn't paying it. So I shook his hand, got on one of the elevators, inserted my fraudulent key and then hit the button for the twenty-first floor. As the elevator pressed against my feet, I thought about my telephone call with Yeomans that morning. After his keening sobs had subsided he had said,

"You still won't tell me where she is?"

"I told you I couldn't. I'm at my office now, but I can go see her this evening.  What do you want me to tell her?

"Tell her that I forgive her," Yeomans said. "That I love her and I want to be with her. I don't care about the other men."

When the elevator car reached its destination I decided that the odds of Melissa running back into my client's arms was about one in a hundred. But I was being well paid to try for that one percent.  When I got to her room I decided to be old fashioned and knocked.

'Who is it?" a female voice said from behind the door.

"Ms. Stuart," I said. 'My name's Patrick Byrne. I'm a private investigator. Brent Yeomans sent me to find you."

"Go away."

I took a deep breath and fingered the key card in my pocket. I decided not to use it. For some reason, I had decided to take a gentler approach. "Listen," I said. "Brent isn't here and I'm not going to tell him where you are. I just want to talk to you."

"I'm going to call security,"

"Ms. Stuart, it took me two hours to find you. I can find you again. Eventually you'll have to talk to me. So why don't you open the door and we can discuss the situation like adults. If you want hotel security to be here while I talk to you, be my guest."

"Do you have any ID?" the voice asked. I took out my license and held it up to the peephole. After a few seconds I heard the safety lock click back and the door opened.

Melissa was a tall, athletic looking girl with long chestnut brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Wearing jeans and a man's dress shirt, her face was blessed with high cheekbones, a perfect nose and generous lips.  She had looked a bit stiff in pictures Yeomans had given me, but in the flesh her face was animated with an aura of sexual possibility that she couldn't have turned off if she tried. Now I had some idea of what my client was going though.

"Come in," she said. "We might as well get this over with."

Melissa was staying in a suite that must have cost a cool six hundred dollars a night. As I walked into the elegantly appointed living room I looked around. Off to the right was a French door that led to the bedroom. It was half open and I could see the bed sheets were in a heap on the floor.

"Say what you have to say," Melissa said, looking fairly nonplused that a strange man was in her room.

"Not much to say," I said. "Brent says you went missing and he hired me to find you. He's very worried."

Melissa sat down on a divan and stretched out her long legs. She was barefoot and I could see her toenails were covered with clear polish. "Brent's being melodramatic," she said. "I just needed a break from everything so I took a little vacation."

If it weren't raining so hard, the windows in Melissa's room would have had a commanding view of Midtown. In the distance the Empire State Building looked like it was having an unaccustomed bout of modesty, draping itself in swirls of fog.

"Well, you're certainly vacationing in style," I said. "This place is very expensive."

Melissa smiled. "I can afford it. So what does Brent want?"

"This is the part where I tell you that Yeomans says he loves you. That he wants you back and that he will forgive you for seeing other people."

Melissa's brow furrowed. "Other people?"

"You've entertained three different men in this room over three days."

Her eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

"Not to sound clichéd, but it's my job to know."

"'Did you take pictures or something?"

"No," I said. "Nothing crazy. But it doesn't take much to put two and two together."

Melissa didn't say anything. I stood there and waited, listening to the rain as it shattered against the windows.

"Brent's pretty broken up about this," I said, breaking the silence. "My job is just to ask you to talk to him."

Melissa shook her head. "I've decided not to see Brent anymore. You can tell him that."

I shifted my weight from my left foot to my right. I'd have sat down, but it's nice to be invited. "I know this stuff is hard," I said. "But that's something you should tell him in person."

Melissa brushed back a lock of her hair. "You don't know Brent. He's very possessive."

"Are you afraid of him?"

"No," she said. "But he'll make a scene and I don't need that stuff in my life right now. He's very needy – to the point of being overwhelming. Just tell him that it's over."

I produced a business card from my wallet and handed it too her. "Okay," I said. "I'll give him that message. But if you decide you want to talk to him, I can be there with you.  Just call me."

"Thank you."

I got up and headed for the door. "I'll be going now."

"Would you like a drink, Mr. Byrne?"  Melissa said, suddenly. "You seem like a nice man and I could use one right now." I didn't know if she was talking about booze or me.

"Sure," I said, thinking a drink might lower her inhibitions enough to talk to my client.

"Let me just freshen up."

When Melissa emerged from the bedroom her face was expertly made up and she was wearing a low cut cashmere sweater and a black leather jacket. Still wearing her tight designer jeans, in her high heels she was almost my height. "Shall we go?" she asked cheerily.

After a silent elevator ride we walked into the Carondelet's bar and asked to sit in one of the green leather booths.  The waiter glided over and Melissa ordered a Basil Hayden on the rocks and I asked for a Gibson made with Plymouth Gin. When the drinks came I saw the fat onions in my martini glass and smiled.

"What shall we drink to?" Melissa said.

"You pick."

"To private eyes," she said." I've never met one before." After we clinked glasses I sipped my drink. It was strong and cold. I love a good martini.

Melissa's lips drew into a coy smile and I felt her leg brush up against mine.

"So how does one become a private eye?" she asked.

"Most of us are ex-cops who don't know how to do anything else."

"You were a policeman?"

"Across the river in Newark. Fifteen years."

"I've never been to Newark," she said. "Only the airport."

I shrugged. "You're not missing much."

Melissa leaned towards me, making sure I had a clear line of sight into her cleavage. "Is your work dangerous?" she asked. I decided flirting was probably automatic for her.

"Occasionally," I said, "But not often."

"Are you carrying a gun?"

"Yes."

"Can I see it?"

"Some other time."

"Most of the men in this town are wimps," Melissa said. "You know, those sensitive evolved PC types with man bags. They'd pass out at the sight of a gun. You're the tougher kind of sort. I can tell."

I shrugged. "So what was Brent like?" I said. "Other than being possessive?"

"He was fun for a while," she said. "But then he wanted something more. For me he was just a fling.

"Did you tell him that?" I said. "Let him know what the deal was?"

"No. I thought he'd figure that out on his own."

"By your withdrawing from him?"

"Yeah. He didn't get the point." Melissa titled back her drink and finished it with two long swallows. The waiter silently reappeared.

"Do you want another?" Melissa asked, pointing to my still full glass.

"I'm gonna nurse mine for a while, thanks."

The waiter returned with Melissa's drink and two minutes later it was half gone, causing an alcoholic flush to color her cheeks.

"You know," she said. "Brent should've known I was seeing other people. I never told him we were exclusive."

I gently revolved my martini glass. "Some people think that the act of sex makes the relationship exclusive."

"Not me," Mellissa said, talking into her drink. "I like sex too much."

"Nothing wrong with that," I said. "I just think you need to be having this conversation with Brent. He needs to move on."

Melissa waved her hand dismissively. "Listen, I know this sounds immodest, but I'm a hot girl. And this city is filled with thousands of men, thousands of choices. Brent didn't measure up."

"So, you're holding out for a supermodel?"

Melissa flashed me a perfect smile.  "Yes! Why should I settle? I don't have time to coddle losers like Brent."

"Must be tough to find someone when there are so many choices out there," I said.

Melissa took a long pull on her drink. "I never have trouble finding a man. The problem is they all have a tendency to fall in love with me. You know, I could have been married ten times over by now, but I've never been in love with any of them. Not once. I don't have the romantic gene."

"So what do you want?"

"To be an object of a man's desire," Melissa said, brightening. "When a guy will do anything to have you, to be the center of his world, it's intoxicating. I love that feeling."

"That's usually how relationships start out," I said. "But that kind of passion can't last forever."

"Yes," she said. "And that's the problem. I've done the whole living together thing. Ugh. The sex got awful."

The waiter came and placed another bourbon on the table. I had the feeling the waiter was well acquainted with Melissa's level of alcohol consumption.

"So you like that initial rush," I said.

"Hell yes," Melissa said. "You know what it's like. You're banging each other all the time, in restaurants, nightclubs, even alleys. I love it when a guy can't keep his hands off me, when he fucks me from behind and pulls my hair. When they're pumping me they think they're possessing me, but it's really me possessing them."

Then Melissa giggled. "Did I just shock you?" I shook my head.

"I bet I did. Do you think I'm a slut?"

"Slut's a very subjective term," I said, shrugging. "Means different things to different people."

"And what, pray tell, what is your definition?" Melissa was drunk now.

"People who treat their sexual partners with craven disregard to their feelings."

"Craven," Melissa said, rolling the word on her tongue. "Is that what I am?"

I don't know," I said. "But it's been my experience that women just cover up their brutality a little differently." Melissa's reply was to suck on her drink.

"Are you going to tell Brent about the other men?" she said, after putting her glass down.

"Have to."

Melissa leaned back in her chair. "You know how most of my affairs end?" she said. "It usually ends with them saying, 'I never want to see your face again.' It's always an awful scene. Brent will feel the same way and that's good. Anger helps guys get over me."

"When men say they never want to see your face again," I said. "Part of you must like that too."

Melissa blinked at me in surprise. "Well hello there, Sigmund Freud."

I spread my hands. "If you do a thing over and over again, even if it's unpleasant, it's a good bet you're getting something out of it."

"You know what that thing is?"

"No."

Melissa's leg started rubbing provocatively against mine. "You know what I think? I think you're one of those guys who likes to play therapist. Get into a girl's head, make her spill her guts and then screw her."

"I'd be a lousy therapist," I said. "But I've been around long enough to know that human beings fall into predictable patterns. And when people secretly hate themselves, they'll look for someone to punish them."

An almost feral carnality sprang into Melissa's eyes. "Is that what you want to do, punish me?"

"No."

"Yeah you do," she said. "You think I need to be put in my place. You know what? I want you try." I had gotten under Melissa's skin and now she was trying to reassert herself the only way she knew how. This too, was predictable.

"I wish you had filmed me banging those guys in my room," she said. "You'd see how good I am at it. Try and break me. I dare you."

I said nothing and watched as the condensation ran down the stem of my martini glass.

"I'll be the fuck of your middle aged life," Melissa said. "Face it, when are you ever going to have a shot at a girl like me again?"

"I'll take a pass."

Her lustful gaze didn't waver. "No one has ever turned me down and you won't either. C'mon. Let's go upstairs."

I had seen enough women like Melissa to know how she'd end up. The prudent move would've been to say nothing, pay for the drinks and leave.  But Melissa lived in an echo chamber filled with the voices of men who always wanted something from her. I might be the only person who'd ever tell her the hard truth.

"I don't have sex with cripples," I said. "You're narcissistic, sex addicted and probably an alcoholic to boot. And I'm going to tell Brent he's dodged the biggest bullet of his life."

Melissa rocked back in her chair like she had been punched.

"This is how it's going to go for you, honey,' I continued, "You're cute now, but eventually your looks will start to fade. Men won't throw themselves at you like they're doing now. Then, by the time you hit forty or so, you'll panic and marry some guy so you won't end up alone. But most of the good guys will be gone and those that are left will see that you're damaged goods. So you'll have to settle for someone who's just as damaged as you. And he will hurt you."

"So you've got me all figured out then?" Melissa said, he eyes brimming with anger. "Huh, Sigmund?"

"Get some help Melissa. Turn your life around."

Melissa's seductive façade cracked and a riot of expressions began to roil her face. I watched as a tear rolled off her cheek and disappeared into the blackness of her sweater. "You think I'm a wreck don't you?" she said, sounding small. "A friend of mine thinks like you do. She told me that every time you sleep with someone, a little part of you dies."

"If you think sex is about dying," I said. "Then you have a problem."

Melissa laughed crazily. "You may be right," she said. "But if it's true then I'm not long for this world." Then she finished her third bourbon and her composure reappeared as quickly as it had left.

"Well, this had been real," she said. "But I've got to go. You'll pick up the tab?

"Sure. Brent is paying for it."

Melissa got up and put on her coat. "I think I'm right about you," she said. "You like getting into people's heads so you can feel superior. Probably the only way you can hide from the fact you're a loser."  Obviously, I didn't agree.

"You know where I'm going now?" she said, "I'm going to meet a guy for dinner at Café Boulud and fuck his brains out afterwards. And when I'm done I will have forgotten all about you."  Then she turned on her heel and left.

Several men turned to watch Melissa's backside as she walked out of the bar. Despite what I knew about her, it was hard blame them. Then, just as I signaled the waiter for the check, two gunshots shattered the bar's quiet elegance. Before I understood what was happening I was suddenly in the lobby, pointing my Glock at Brent Yeomans' head.

Melissa was sprawled against the lobby's circular sofa, clutching her throat as blood sprayed from between her fingers and onto the lobby's parquet floor. The look on her face was the one everyone has when they're shot – utter surprise. Yeomans was standing above her, smiling stupidly and holding a large stainless steel revolver that looked too big for his small hand. Then Melissa began to emit a liquid and terrible groan.

"Drop it Yeomans!" I said, adjusting my aim. "Drop it!"

Yeomans turned and looked at me. For a moment I thought he was going to say something. But he just grinned, stuck the revolver's muzzle under his chin and blew his brains out.

————————————————————————————————————

At six the next morning I was in Sarad's car heading back to New Jersey. After a night spent in windowless rooms talking with homicide dicks and assistant DAs, I was wiped out.

"Nothing you could have done, old man," Sarad said. "They picked you up at your office and followed you using six cars – using radios and running parallels. Even I would not have been able to pick up a tail like that. They were very good."

"That doesn't make me feel better," I said.

Sarad sighed. "I know the owner of the firm. He is very upset that his outfit was used to facilitate a murder-suicide. But he should have known something was queer about the whole thing. Who orders a rush surveillance job for twenty-thousand dollars?"

"Crazy people," I said. "That's who."

"It will be in all the papers," Sarad said. "It will be bad for him. For you too."

As we drove though the rain down Route 3, I stared out the window of Sarad's Mercedes and watched the thunderclouds boiling high above MetLife stadium. It was a dreary start to a new day, one that Melissa would never get to see.

"I must be slipping," I said. "I should have known that Yeomans was unstable."

"You took the usual precautions," Sarad said. "You can't help that he hired people follow you."

"And now a twenty-eight year old woman is dead. A girl."

Sarad's manicured hands glided across the steering wheel as he drove onto the exit for my town. "From what you told me, she was living a dangerous life," he said. "If it was not Yeomans, it would have been someone else eventually."

"Sleeping around doesn't merit a death sentence."

"No, it does not," Sarad said. "But it means a person will eventually run into the wrong sort of person.  And in this girl's case, she ran into the worst possible kind."

I remembered how I told Melissa that someone would hurt her, though I never figured it would be so soon, or so total. I also felt bad that some of the last words she heard were less than kind. No one deserves that.

We pulled up to my building. I began to get out of the car and then stopped.

"Just before she got shot," I said, "Melissa told me something she once heard, 'Every time you sleep with someone, a little part of you dies.' What do you think about that?"

Sarad sighed. "That has not been my experience, Patrick. But for broken people it may indeed be the truth. In their case promiscuity is a form of suicide."

I said goodbye to Sarad and walked through the driving rain towards my apartment. As I wearily started up the stairway, I saw Melissa's blood on my shirtsleeve and stopped to stare at it. It had dried hours ago, but now the rain was washing it off, dripping crimson reminders of her onto the ground.