Free Red Hook by Reggie Nadelson

What about him?” Her tone was sour.
    â€œWere they close?”
    Dawn shrugged, and said, “I don’t really know. “Why?”
    â€œNever mind,” I said, and kissed her and then she stood back from me, straightening her jacket, and looking at someone behind me.
    â€œLook who’s here.”
    â€œJack?”
    I was pretty surprised that Jack Santiago had come to the party and I didn’t know who had invited him, but I was glad to see him. The place was still crowded, butpeople had settled into groups, at tables, eating, on the terraces, smoking, flirting, the little kids cross-legged on the floor, a few already asleep.
    â€œHey, man, congratulations,” he said, shaking my hand with both of his, pumping my arm.
    â€œThanks for coming, Jack.”
    He was medium height and wiry. He had probably been a skinny ugly kid, but he had turned his looks into a style. He looked like he went to the gym. He wore a soul patch on his chin, the black eyes glittered out of the narrow face. He had a good haircut; expensive, I thought. He wore a hip pinstriped suit, a dark blue shirt, no tie.
    Jack could really write. He was a reporter who had won a Pulitzer for his work in Moscow during the collapse of Communism. He knew everyone in the city and when I was single I used to run into him in bars sometimes. He liked knowing cops. He reminisced about Sonny Grasso. He liked retailing other stuff he knew, movie gossip, mafia lore, choice pieces of city life that he fed to his audience at a bar or restaurant—where John Gotti’s parents lived off Houston Street, who had done liquor deals with Frank Costello in the old days, which store on Grand Street Tom Cruise bought a suit at when he was filming in New York, which Klimov made money on gas scams in Brighton Beach. Jack knew where to drink, he knew the bartenders, the club owners, the guys at the door. He always had great-looking women.
    He leaned in towards you when he talked and energy flowed out of Jack. He shook my hand some more andgave me a guy hug, and he listened to what I was saying even though it was probably just social stuff, how are you, where you going on vacation, joking about the city, the politicians.
    Jack kept those hot coals he had for eyes right on me; it was the thing they talked about when anyone mentioned him, the way he gave eye-lock, the way he made you feel you were the most important person on earth; Clinton had it, people said, Jackie Kennedy, too. I once heard somebody say, “Men want to be Jack, and women want to fuck him.”
    He scanned the room for people he knew.
    â€œYou need a drink?” I said.
    He held up the empty glass in his hand. “I will, thanks. Good party, Art, really nice.”
    I suddenly saw that Jack was loaded.
    â€œSo congratulations again,” he said. “And hey, sorry I got here so late. Took me a while.”
    I remembered that Jack had lived somewhere downtown, not far from me.
    â€œYou still in SoHo?”
    â€œSoHo’s so over,” he said. “I’m out in Brooklyn now by the water. But where’s the bride? I always liked Lily, man, always thought she was a seriously great woman, brains, looks.”
    â€œLily?”
    â€œDidn’t you marry Lily Hanes?”
    â€œI married Maxine.”
    â€œHoly Christ, am I an asshole or what, I only got a message by phone about the party today. I never thought. Shit, I am sorry. Who’s Maxine?”
    â€œIt’s OK.”
    â€œYeah, well, good luck, either way, of course,” he said and then I saw he had spotted someone in the crowd and I knew he had been looking for a particular person all along. Jack moved off into the crowd and out on to the terrace. People stopped him, shook his hand, enlarged by meeting Jack Santiago.
    I was heading for the bar nearest the terrace door a minute or two later when I heard someone yelling, “Jack, stop it. Jack!” Over the music and the noise of