It had rained earlier in the morning, a hard, wind-driven downpour and Nicholas was forced to sidestep ankle-deep pools of mucoid water that had collected at the street corners. Now the rain was letting up; the clouds began to skid off towards New England and beyond. Weak shafts of sunlight squeezed down between the buildings of midtown Manhattan. It was still drizzling enough to justify the Burberry Nicholas wore with its myriad of belts, buckles and other devices. These items had served the wearer well in the trenches, suitable to hang grenades on, for example, but for Nicholas they were useless trappings that came with the coat and nothing more. ("But, sir, classic never goes out of style," the salesman had assured him.)
"Just like this city," Nicholas thought, "to have storm drains that don't work. Millions for a baseball stadium, nothing for sewage and sanitation." He tried not to think about the unseen offal that clogged the labyrinth of pipes below his feet. He made a disastrous misstep around an excavation (Would they never stop digging?) and felt a surge of greasy water pour into his shoe. By the end of the day the now supple Bally at three hundred and ninety eight dollars would feel like cardboard.
Nicholas reached his office building and entered through the first set of revolving doors. His umbrella, which had carefully closed after reaching the lobby overhand, caught in the sweeping doors and was dragged around behind him, the tip emerging slightly bent.
The long black rubber rain mats were out.
"Good morning, Mr. Hunter. A nice day, isn't it?
The lobby security guard, a short, stoop-shouldered gnome of uncertain nationality, greeted everyone with the same evaluation every day. Rain or shine, paralyzing blizzard or stifling heat wave, holdup in the lobby bank that left five dead, mass transit strike or terrorist attack, to the guard it was always a nice day.
Nicholas grunted assent and stepped into a waiting car. He was greeted by Marjorie Cohen who was moving her shoulders in the rhythm of whatever was playing on her pink iPod. Marjorie was five feet two inches tall in her bare feet (a measurement Nicholas was determined to one day confirm) with shoulder-length auburn hair, large and soft round eyes and, he suspected and hoped, breasts to match. The fact that she said "wit" instead of "with" did not bother him in the least as long as someday he heard her say "All right, your place then."
Nicholas smiled. "Good morning, Marjorie. Twenty?"
She plucked the buds from her ears. "What? Oh. I have a meeting wit Norm Castle. I'll go to nineteen wit you."
He adroitly aimed the tip of his umbrella at nineteen.
The bend it acquired in the revolving doors caused the tip to hit eighteen. Not that it mattered. The floor indicators were the kind sensitive only to heat. Marjorie Cohen touched nineteen with a fingertip shrouded under a nail well-manicured in the French style. The doors slid shut with a thin pneumatic whistle. The fragrance of J.Lo perfume competed with the smell of wet clothing. Nicholas rocked gently on his feet, making a squishing sound.
Thirty seconds later the doors opened onto the leather and bronze reception room of Owens & Marshall Advertising.
The receptionist, a thoroughly vapid girl who constantly wore gloves because she was auditioning to be a hand model, looked up from The New York Times crossword puzzle. The puzzles became more difficult as the week progressed and this being Monday she had it half completed. "Nicholas, this is, ah..." She consulted a pink piece of paper. "ah...Mr. Ehlis. He's been waiting."
Nicholas turn his attention from Marjorie's rear end to the tall, angular man rising from the reception room couch. His three-piece was a gray chalk stripe slightly tucked at the waist. It covered a white shirt with long, pointed collars. The shoes were tasseled, highly and immaculately polished. Mr. Ehlis obviously has not been compelled to face the rigors of flooded street corners. The necktie was black except for the red woven design, an intricate pattern of what appeared to be dozens of the number six.
"Mr. Hunter. Mr. Nicholas Hunter." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Mr. Ehlis? I wasn't expecting anyone." he shot a disapproving glance at the receptionist who stared back balefully.
"I realize that. Actually, it is rather forward of me to call on you without an appointment, I admit. But if you will give me just ten minutes of your time, I believe you will forgive me."
"Uh, Mr. Ehlis, if you're selling something, I don't purchase anything. Creative is on the seventeenth floor. Production on twenty. Are you a rep?" Nicholas regretted the question immediately. It gave Ehlis the opening he needed.
Ehlis smiled. "No, I am not a salesman and yes, you might say I am a "rep" as you put it. Is there somewhere we can talk? Your office?"
"Mr. Ehlis, I...."
Ehlis leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"That was Marjorie Cohen, was it not? Would it be fair to say you have had certain, ah, thoughts about her? I believe I can help you in this delicate matter. Give me ten minutes. No more." The voice was smooth, positive, assured. Like a salesman. "I'll begin at the beginning and go to the end. Then stop. Ten minutes."
Nicholas Hunter was 33 years old, five feet ten inches tall and weighed in at about 165 pounds. He favored suits of the English cut with double-vented jackets, blue shirts and tasseled shoes whether they were "out" or "in." He had absolutely no use for new spade-like flat shoes that resembled a platypus. Twice each week he visited the health club where he swam ten laps in the pool, spent forty-five minutes in the equipment room and twenty in the sauna. The minutes passed among the machinery were also spent girl and women-watching. He received three hours of instruction each week in Okanawa-style karate (strictly for self defense, the sensei cautioned.)
As an account executive for the nation's fifth largest advertising agency, Nicholas was competent, energetic and innovative. His marketing recommendations were based on thorough and intensive study of the client's position, objectives, current and projected market conditions. In fact, he had become somewhat of an expert in the marketing of white goods - gin and vodka and that sort of thing. His client, a major distiller, liked him and respected his judgment and the way he coordinated their objectives with the agency creative staff. His briefs to this irreverent group clearly defined the advertising strategy without strangling creative efforts. His salary allowed him to pay his Upper West Side rent, dine out four times a week, add a frequent purchase to his collection of old illustrated manuscripts, retreat to Stowe for a week in winter and the Grand Bahamas in summer for a week of bonefishing.
Here his successes came to a grinding, screeching halt, particularly with women. Lasting relations with the opposite sex were zero. No one regretted this more than Nicholas and no one tried more intensely to figure out why. He had cultivated a measured degree of charm, his wit ranged from the sophisticated to the boisterous.
He was not handsome, certainly, but neither was he unattractive. You could expect to see him in a catalog modeling leather windbreakers or holding power tools. As an adolescent he had suffered acne but two summers aboard a fishing boat out of Chesapeake Bay had leavened his complexion. His teeth were not perfect, yet he was not afraid to smile broadly. He flossed regularly.
There were occasional encounters, of course. After the office year-end party with one of the girls from Media who thought the spilled drink opening gambit was "cute." There was the slightly older and thoroughly delightful woman he had met across town in an East Side book gallery. Nicholas had turned quickly and his elbow knocked into the portfolio she was carrying. The faded red ribbon parted and a dozen old prints had gone slithering across the floor. But that was about the end of it. Nothing steady. No repeat engagements. She departed or he departed. And if by chance they ever met again it was "How are you?" and "Keeping busy?" Nothing held over for another week.
Once, when Nicholas and his date were waiting on the subway platform having to forgo the usual cab ride because of the protest over police failure to run a killer of cabdrivers to ground, a man stepped suddenly from behind a gum-encrusted pillar and gave them both a start. Ever mindful of muggers, Nicholas tried to convert his surprise into a stance of Oriental defense, but managed to only step down hard on the open-toed shoe of his companion. The train arrived with a squeal that outdid the girl's by only two decibels. The doors opened and the girl limped aboard and while Nicholas feinted and adjusted, they closed just as fast. He was left alone on the platform facing an ancient and wizened messenger in an ill-fitting stained brown coat and black bag-like trousers. The creature gazed at Nicholas from empty, rheumy eyes, turned and shuffled away. The first pleasant, then romantic, and next sex-filled evening Nicholas had so meticulously planned vanished as swiftly as the red lights of the train.
In his search for the why, he hit upon a theory. He was a bumbler, behaving now and then like a minimum man. He knew this and that it was endearing to some, amusing to many.
But he also realized that women did not take him seriously. Yet for all the dropping of pocket change, spilled drinks, catching his coat on doorknobs, whacking his knees against desks, he knew he was good in bed. He was a considerate, attentive and skilled lover. An appreciative sensualist, he took delight in the scents of lovemaking, the thickening and swelling of tissues, the moistures, the involuntary flutter of abdominal muscles spreading out like ripples in a pond. The friction and the textures. But he rarely got the chance to prove it. The view of the city from Nicholas' office was unimpressive. In fact, it was nonexistent. The sheer mountainous bulk of a pinkish architectural miscarriage rose solidly for 50 stories only sixty feet away. Through its scores of windows could be seen as many office workers drinking coffee and eating bagels, manicuring nails, reading newspapers, watering plants, talking on cell phones. They may get to work on time but the first thirty minutes were theirs. Nicholas, not at all sure of what he was about to deal with, seated himself behind the standard-issue Owens & Marshall desk and began to fiddle with a brown pencil. The words Owens & Marshall Advertising in bronze lettering twisted back and forth. Ehlis chose one of the mauve-colored chairs facing the desk.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" Ehlis looked steadily through the gray lenses.
"You know that's not allowed...."
"That is so,"said Ehlis, "but I doubt if anyone will see me."
A thin cigarillo showing a quarter inch of ash appeared in the corner of Ehlis's mouth. He had not withdrawn a pack from anywhere, used a match or worked a lighter. The cigarillo vanished. Nicholas stopped twisting the pencil. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought I saw..."
"Would you care to see me do it again?"
"That's what I thought. I did see what I think I saw"
"I do this cigarette trick to save time," said Ehlis conversationally. "It helps close the credibility gap quickly. The cigarillo was now in his right hand, a thin wisp of oddly aromatic vapor curling toward the vents under the window.
Ehlis continued. "Mr. Hunter, you asked me if I was a 'rep.' Well, yes. I am the tri-state area field man representing the Old Gentleman."
