“Nobody told me about this!” said the maître d’ at Sardi’s, studying Eugene’s business card.
Eugene didn’t say anything, just stood there holding his briefcase like he was bored, staring at caricatures of Liza and Anthony Quinn.
“And I’ve never heard of your company either.” The maître d’ read the card again:
The maître d’ turned the card over. He saw two names in pencil: his own and that of the restaurant’s owner.
“Where’d you get these names?”
“My boss. Those are the people I’m supposed to ask for if there’s any trouble.”
The maître d’ began to perspire. He stuck a finger in his collar to loosen it. He picked up the phone under the brass lamp on the reservation podium and dialed the number on the card. He got Eugene’s answering machine. “…Big Apple Urinal Guys, we’re not in…”
The maître d’ hung up. His Adam’s apple stuck out.
Eugene remembered what the book had said. There’s a point in conflict resolution when the next person who talks loses. You’re ready to play with the big boys when you can recognize that moment.
The maître d’ coughed. “I, wait, uh…”
“I won’t need an escort,” said Eugene, moving past the man for the men’s room.
The money rolled in. The Essex House, Trattoria, the Brasserie. Eugene experimented by wearing his dark sunglasses and offering paper towels in the wrong direction, but the increase in sympathy tips was offset by people who waved a hand in front of Eugene’s face and then took money
He couldn’t complain. The hours and money were great — it was working out just like it did for the character in his paperback. Eugene was making a fortune as the Wildcat Urinal Guy.
It being New York, however, the scheme did have limits. One night in a regional French bistro on Amsterdam Avenue, Eugene learned the hard way that the mob had a hand in the urinal guy rackets on the West Side, and he was toilet-dunked by two guys in sharkskin suits. He got home and found his loft apartment had been tossed.
So he stuck to midtown and the East Side. He began taking other precautions he’d learned about in his paperback. When he left his apartment each day, he lightly sprinkled talcum powder on the doorknob and some more in front of the threshold, only enough to notice if you looked. He went out on the fire escape and taped a human hair across the base of the window.
A week went by without incident. He was working Rockefeller Center that Friday when he was approached by a capo in La Cosa Nostra. They made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Eugene was a pro by now, and the mob had taken notice. They’d also become increasingly unsatisfied with their own soldiers assigned to urinal duty — guys whose heart wasn’t in it, slouching against the sink in Naugahyde jackets, smoking, listening to Knicks games on transistor radios.
“Excuse me, could I have a mint?”
“You want a mint? Sure, I’ll give you a mint. I’ll shove it up your fuckin’ ass, you fuckin’ douche bag!”
For some reason, the mob wasn’t seeing a lot in tips. Not the kind of money Eugene was making. They proposed a split. Eugene would be allowed to expand into their territory. He’d return a piece of his action from Hell’s Kitchen, and they’d give him a taste of Little Italy and protection from the crazy Jamaican gang that was already running a wicked urinal guy operation in Jersey and Queens.
Business boomed. Le Cirque, the Ritz-Carlton, the River Café. In the middle of an eight-hundred-dollar night in the Russian Tea Room, he pulled the paperback out of his pocket again and smiled at the cover. Eugene decided that if he ever got the chance, he’d make sure he thanked Ralph Krunkleton in person.
29
December thirtieth in New York is no time for shorts and tropical shirts. The Russians stood rubbing their arms in the cab line outside JFK.
“Screw this,” said Ivan. “I know a trick.”
They went back inside and followed the arrows to curbside check-in. They waited until a taxi dropped off a fare, then sprinted outside.
“Manhattan!” yelled Ivan.
“It’s against the rules. I’m supposed to go back to the pickup zone and wait at the end of the line…” The driver stopped and looked around quickly. “Get in!”
They pulled away from the airport. Ivan looked out the window and saw a giant metal sphere flickering through the trees, the old ’64 World’s Fair globe in Flushing Meadows. He sat back in his seat and noticed a thin ribbon of incense smoke by the dashboard, but it was no match for the foul human smell. Strange, mystical music came from the radio. The driver had oily hair and a scraggly beard.
Ivan leaned to the partition. “Are you an immigrant?”
“No. College student.”
The driver made an unexpected turn, and Ivan was pitched against the door. A recorded message came on in the backseat. “This is Paul O’Neill of the New York Yankees asking you to hit a home run for safety. Please buckle up.”
