New York - The Novel

Barrio, and he’ll have to get into politics to do that. Then he’ll become mayor of New York—another La Guardia. Then he’ll run for president. By that time I’ll be a big-time banker and I’ll raise funds for him, and then when he’s president, Juan will reward me by sending me somewhere really nice as an ambassador.”
    “Sounds great,” said Janet, with a laugh. “Where do you plan to go?”
    “Maybe London, or Paris. I will accept either.”
    “London,” said Juan firmly. He turned to Janet. “His French is terrible.”
    “I’m impressed, Gorham,” said Janet. “You have your whole life worked out.”
    “It all depends on Juan, though.”
    “Did Juan ever take you round Harlem?”
    “I took him round El Barrio several times,” Juan said. “He asked me to. And it’s not all bad in El Barrio—he got to like our music, and our food, didn’t you, Gorham?”
    “I did.”
    “Of course,” Juan continued, with a twinkle in his eye, “if you want to see something really impressive, you have to see Gorham’s apartment. He owns this big place, you know, on Park Avenue.”
    But though he said this to Janet, it was the redhead at the next table that he was watching out of the corner of his eye. And sure enough, as he had planned, she turned to look at Gorham again.
    Outside, there was a rumble of thunder. Rain started to fall. Juan glanced at the door. There was a young couple there, hoping to get in, but all the tables were now occupied. He saw his chance, and leaned across to the redhead.
    “Excuse me, but are you waiting for someone?”
    “Yes,” said the redhead tersely. And then, so as not to seem rude, she added: “My brother.”
    “Do you think he’ll show up?”
    Juan had such a charming way of being intrusive, that people usually forgave him.
    “Maybe.” She glanced at her watch. “Maybe not.”
    “I was just thinking,” said Juan politely, “that if you came to our table, those poor people at the door could get in out of the rain.”
    The redhead stared at him coldly for a moment, glanced at the couple at the door, and then relented.
    “And if my brother turns up?”
    “I think,” Juan smiled, “we could fit him on the end of our table.”
    The redhead shook her head with a wry amusement. “Okay,” she conceded, “I’m Maggie O’Donnell.” They introduced themselves. “I guess I already know what you all do, but I’m a lawyer.”
    The meal passed very pleasantly. They learned that Maggie worked for Branch & Cabell, and Gorham said: “That means you’re going back to work after this, am I right?” And Maggie admitted that she was.
    It wasn’t long before Gorham decided that this B & C lawyer wasrather attractive, and he tried to find out more about her. He managed to discover that she’d been to a meeting of the Historical Landmarks Commission at lunchtime, and that she was passionate about protecting the city’s classic architecture, like Grand Central, from the relentless advance of the glass-box skyscrapers. His father would have approved of that—a point in her favor. But though Maggie was perfectly friendly, Gorham noticed that she had the lawyer’s trick of evading questions she didn’t want to answer.
    Gorham wanted to know more about what Juan had been doing recently, so Juan told them how he’d been working with nearby Mount Sinai Hospital to provide health care in El Barrio, and how he was trying to improve the terrible housing there. He’d been working with some of the radical Puerto Rican activists in El Barrio as well, getting them to back these projects too.
    Gorham was impressed. “That’s good work, Juan,” he said. “The link with Mount Sinai is brilliant.” Maggie also listened intently, but the young lawyer seemed puzzled.
    “How do you work with the radicals?” she asked. “From what I hear, some of these people are pretty dangerous.”
    Juan sighed. He knew what was troubling her. Back at the end of the sixties some of the younger Puerto Ricans had formed a group, called themselves the Young Lords, and demanded better conditions in El Barrio. For a while they’d made common cause with the Black Panthers of Chicago, for which they’d been reviled in the press. It was hardly surprising that a nice, white, middle-class lawyer like Maggie would find such people frightening.
    “You have to understand, Maggie,” he said, “that I was lucky. I got an education, and I was out of the gangs. Otherwise I might easily have been