ONE In all of Ray Carney''s years as a fence--he had been a reluctant fence and a ruthless fence, at times imperiled by his choices and at others the embodiment of crooked intelligence--there was only one occasion when he participated in the theft itself, and that was in the summer of 1981 when Uncle Rich came back to town. That bad-news time. The city that year was true to its personality, as malformed across the centuries--a monstrous entity powered by innate miseries, operated by brute will, and held together by pluck, fury, and rebar. It had been flat broke, and now clambered from the crater of debt one mucky handhold at a time. Crime in its ingenuity devised new permutations daily, making every citizen a victim or a witness. New arrivals poured in hourly, as if there were room, multiplying the local varieties of sadness and perseverance, and outnumbering those who had scurried to the suburbs or fled their last humiliation. It was dirty, and sick, and plainspoken in its threats. "How am I doin''?" the mayor asked on his rounds, barking like one of the mangy seals installed at the decrepit and neglected Central Park Zoo (a real dump).
It was his trademark. Everybody needs a gimmick: " How am I doin ''?" The same as everyone else: tired, banged-up, but staggering forth somehow. As for Ray Carney, he was a son of his city, enduring his ration of misfortunes and managing to engineer a few reversals. The day the Uncle Rich mess came to a head, Tuesday the 16th of June, was already out of the ordinary in that Carney had a notable appointment--an interview with Sterling Quality , the monthly magazine of the Sterling Furniture Co. Carney had sold their products since he first opened his doors, to budget-conscious Harlemites of contemporary sensibility and taste, to bright-eyed couples who strained cheerfully under the monthly payments, to geezers who set themselves adrift in living rooms on new recliners. Now the company had chosen him as Northeast Regional Dealer of the Month (August). Carney jumped up and almost knocked over his coffee when he got the call. Across a lifetime, a man cultivates a number of secret wishes that he dare not share with the world, precious things too delicate to exist outside the safe pastures of his mind.
To see his name flow and curl in the dignified typeface of the Sterling Furniture house magazine--it was a dream he''d kept close for decades. He and Elizabeth celebrated with a dinner at this French joint off Lex, where too-tiny portions coiled on the big plates in insolent triumph. Sterling saluted five dealers a month, from the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest, according to sales numbers, length of service as a Certified Dealer, and overall fidelity to the other, undisclosed attributes that gave the magazine its name. Each month Sterling Quality featured one of those five; Dealer of the Year, in turn, was drawn from that pool of twelve subjects. Carney didn''t have any illusions about being DOY, but was pretty sure he was the first Afro American Dealer of the Month, except maybe for Lou Edminson (March 1973), who was most likely passing, what with that wavy hair of his, criminy. Carney knew something about maintaining a false front and appreciated the complexities. Carney''s introductory conversation with the writer of the piece confirmed his trailblazing status. "I don''t think we''ve ever chosen someone from your background before," Andrew Fisher told him.
"I thought it was important." He went on to relate a story from his childhood in Bloomington, Indiana, when a black family moved in down the street and he was the only kid who''d play with the son. "They only lasted a year, but it''s a friendship I still cherish." On the day of the interview, Carney wore a suit and tie to stay in character, even though it was over the phone. He wore the same one three weeks later when the magazine took his headshot. In the published photograph, the readers of Sterling Quality encountered a slim gentleman in his early fifties, with the calm, practical air one expected in a purveyor of home furnishings. His hair was graying, but his face retained a youthful openness that some mistook for naivete, and others for benevolence. Both assessments were incorrect.
Comfortable in his achievements, he had grazed upon the feast of middle-class comforts and had lately acquired a paunch, which was just out of frame. The rejected headshots captured a recent addition to his repertoire of expressions--a distinctive squint, as might belong to a bookkeeper skeptical of his sums or someone lost in a maze wondering which wrong turn to undo. An indicator of unease, trouble below. The photographer found the squint vaguely degenerate, counter to the "even keel" that was a Regional Dealer''s stock in trade. He burned the negatives one drunken night in a renouncing mood. Andrew Fisher called Carney''s Furniture from the company HQ in Waltham, Massachusetts, where Sterling''s founder, Atherton James, had opened his factory more than a hundred years ago. ("Furniture for Life.") Carney locked the door of his office for privacy, like it was the old days and he was meeting some shady mope with a satchel full of hot watches.
Since reopening, Carney rarely met crooks in the store. Sure, he sat down with lawyers, insurance agents, and other straight-world deputies of varying degrees of corruption, but not crook crooks. Carney preferred not to insult his new office with their presence. New office , even though it had been five years since the fire. The blaze had destroyed his two-decade archive of Qualitys , but he''d started a new collection--and was relieved that Fisher drew his questions from a master template. Carney had studied up. They settled into a genial collaboration. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles on his desk.
"As a small-business owner," Fisher said, "you''ve been through some rough patches. Had to make some tough decisions. Can you share with our readers a moment when you were tested?" The responses that popped into Carney''s head all referred to his other business, not the furniture trade, forcing him to grope for a Quality -worthy answer. He ignored the images that emerged--a ruined face framed by a shattered car window, the exuberant jet of blood when the straight razor bit into the thug''s windpipe, that final expression of bewilderment when the bullet penetrated Alexander Oakes''s eye socket. Carney cleared his throat. "Opening up the shop all those years ago--for sure, that was a test--but then reopening after the fire. Can I pull it off? It''s audacious. It''s too big an idea.
But you go ahead because you have no choice. Might was well be dead if you don''t try." "Right, right." Like this white guy knew what he was talking about. Fisher had let it drop that this was a little intern stint on his summer break from Harvard; an uncle was a VP of marketing. "I''m learning so much. About business, and also life." A moment when you were tested.
He was a black man in America. When was he not being tested? For Chrissakes. He thought of Elizabeth''s latest loan rejection, from some bumpkin bank in Virginia. The system didn''t know how to accommodate Carney, and it certainly didn''t know how to handle his wife. He pictured the bank officers who had torpedoed her business loans these last eighteen months: an identical succession of white-haired mummies in tweed. Scratching codes in the margins of her applications, banker graffiti, to alert the manager that the business was black-owned--nix. "One second," Fisher said. He riffled through his notes.
Mike appeared through the window, herding a middle-aged Spanish lady toward the new Egons. Post-renovation, Carney''s office looked out on the second-floor showroom, directly above where his old office had been. His new office furniture re-created the original scheme as much as possible. He hadn''t been able to replace the autographed picture of Lena Horne from her Cabin in the Sky days, but the new one, a flamboyant color photo from an early ''70s Vegas stint, picked up his spirits on low days. The earlier photo introduced an eager, hungry talent; the latter confirmed an indomitable personality. She had survived. The Spanish lady galumphed between the ottomans. Harried-housewife sag, glassy-eyed.
Mike gestured and she set her A&P shopping bags on the Lucite side table next to her. Out for groceries and popped in on a whim. Suddenly remembering the threadbare arms of her couch and the ten-year-old Kool-Aid stain, or walking by and drawn in by the new DeMarco sleeper in the window display? It had been Rusty''s idea to feature DeMarco''s Slumber King out front; Carney made a note to thank him. Might cheer the guy up, what with his divorce and all. Mike squeezed his hands together in the air, miming the pliable comforts of a polyurethane core. He worked ''em good. The kid was a natural, explaining microfibers and payment-plan scenarios like a Casanova enumerating impending delights. The customer nodded.
How long would Mike hang around? This new breed bored easily. Used to be a gig at an uptown store like Carney''s was a career. Stable, nice salary for the neighborhood. "Positive working environment," occasional acts of arson aside. The Quality writer reeled Carney back in. "What would you say is the best thing about your job?" Carney whistled. "So many." Like opening his 1977 model Hermann Bros.
safe and depositing a brick of cash atop last week''s brick, one neatly fastened by the bank''s paper belt, the others grubby bills cinched by a rubb.