you just put me on mute, Masserly?”
The office ambiance came back with the kid’s voice. “Yeah, clean it up. They’re going to submit it tomorrow.”
“To the court?”
“But like I need to do anything to this thing.”
“They’re going to submit that motion to the court?”
“Tomorrow. I just got off the phone with—”
He was standing now between the bar and the stool, trying to concentrate on what Masserly was saying.
“With who?” he said. “Masserly?”
“—and they love it.”
“I wrote that motion,” he said.
“Which is why I’m calling. You should get credit, not me.”
“Kronish told me it was pointless.”
“And where did you get the genius to—”
Tim thought he heard the start of a guffaw just as Masserly’s voice cut out. His end had gone mute again. Or so it seemed. Sometimes lawyers made phone calls with one finger poised over mute so they could bad-mouth the opposition.
“Did you just hit mute again? Is someone in the office with you?”
“Mute? Look, I was asking where you got the insight to write a motion for summary judgment in Keibler when there’s Horvath. It’s genius. But you know Horvath chapter and verse the way you make implicit the differ—”
There might have been another guffaw, but the line went dead.
14
Another thing he had to do after getting his life back was tend to his ailing body. He visited the Russian and Turkish Baths on 10th Street, not far from Tompkins Square Park, where he sat in the steam room. The heat softened his bones. A bucket of cold water poured over his head reawakened dulled nerves. He liked the place, despite the fact that the other men made him feel like an anorexic. They were hunched, hairy, burly-backed men with traces of immigrant pasts who walked naked around the locker room, their taut bellies and bulby pricks too much for the rough handkerchiefs that passed for towels at the registration desk. He didn’t mind. He wasn’t vain. Vanity was a luxury of those exempt from the compromises of a long illness. He felt self-conscious only of his missing toes.
The entrance to the baths resembled any other crumbling red stoop in the city, with a lunette above the double doors that read Tenth St. Baths. A man came out just as he was entering and held the outer door open for him. Tim thanked him and climbed the small flight of stairs and almost went through the black door to the registration desk when he suddenly stopped. He dropped his gym bag and ran quickly back down the stairs.
He spotted the man walking east toward Avenue A. He was just then opening a translucent umbrella screen-printed with a map of the world. The unfurled umbrella swallowed up his head and shoulders.
Tim needed a better look, a clear and unambiguous look, to confirm that it was the same man he’d encountered on the Brooklyn Bridge. He ran down the stoop stairs and crossed to the opposite side of the street. It still felt unnatural to walk hurriedly with missing toes. He pressed down on their phantoms. He reached the corner ahead of the man and lingered there to see in which direction he would turn. The man waited for the traffic to clear and then walked across Avenue A. Tim followed him into Tompkins Square Park.
He kept his distance as they walked along the curving path, past benches and fenced-off trees. As they approached 7th Street, Tim quickened his pace. He walked ten feet ahead of the man and then turned and walked toward him. The man’s head was downcast and buried in the umbrella. Tim realized he wasn’t going to get the look he needed unless he said something.
“Excuse me.”
The man peered up. Tim saw the same drawn, lonely face, the same dimpled chin, the same long pointy nose with the knuckle in the middle. The man lowered his head quickly and resumed walking.
They hit 7th Street. They walked alongside each other just as they had on the bridge. “Hey,” said Tim, but the man would not be distracted again. Tim tapped his umbrella, and when that did nothing he grabbed it and held on. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”
The man yanked the umbrella away. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I know who you are.”
“Do you want some change, is that the idea? Well, I don’t have any change to give you. You should get a job.”
The man returned the umbrella above his head and resumed walking.
“Hey, don’t walk away from me.”
Tim had to move quickly to remain at