The Book of Air and Shadows

give me another, a double.”
    The bartender, a swarthy fellow a little older than Crosetti, made eye contact before he started fixing the drinks, the kind of glance that asks whether this moose is going to go batshit in my tiny bar and are you in a position to get him out of here before he does? Crosetti let his eyes slip downward in a cowardly way.
    “You think I’m drunk, don’t you?” asked Mishkin, as if reading the vibes. “You think I’m going to be out of control. Well, you’re wrong there. I’m
never
out of control. Except sometimes. But this isn’t going to be one of those times. Jews don’t get drunk, according to my mother-in-law. That’s the only advantage she admitted in reference to my wife’s generally disgraceful marriage. They were not fooled by my membership in the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church. That, and they’re good providers, Jews. Money, sobriety…oh, yeah, plus they don’t beat you. She actually said that, lounging on her silk settee under her stolen dead-Jew Renoir. The Catholics of southern Europe are extremely anti-Semitic, did you know that, Crosetti? Most of the major Nazis were Catholic-Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels. How about you, Crosetti? You’re a Catholic. You anti-Semitic? You ever get pissed at the Jewish mafia controlling the media?”
    “I’m half Irish,” said Crosetti.
    “Oh, well, that lets you off the hook, then, the Irish being notably free of all taint of racism whatsoever. I myself am half anti-Semitic on my mother’s side. Isn’t it funny that all the big Nazis sort of looked Jewish. Goebbels? Himmler? Heydrich was constantly getting pounded in the school yard because the kids thought he was a Yid. Aryan features but a big fat soft Jewish ass. My grandfather, by contrast, was a real Aryan, as so of course was my mother, his daughter. And my wife. Do you think my wife is attractive, Crosetti? Desirable?”
    “Yeah, she’s very nice,” said Crosetti, and checked the distance to the exit. The place was so small and Mishkin was so huge that it would be a damned close-run thing if he had to make a dash for it. It was like being trapped in a bathroom with an orangutan.
    “Oh, she’s more than
nice
, Crosetti. There are deep wells of heat in my Amalie. I noticed how you leaned toward each other across the aisle. You got a little kiss there too at the end. Did you arrange to meet somewhere? I mean, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least-it cries out for redress. I must’ve fucked forty or fifty women since we got married, so what could I say, right? You should go for it, man! Forget this Shakespearian horseshit and fly out to Zurich. They’re at Kreuzbuhlstrasse 114. You can fuck her in her little yellow girlhood bed. I’ll even give you some tips on how she likes it: for example-”
    “I’m going to bed,” said Crosetti and slid off his bar stool.
    “Not so fast!” cried Mishkin; Crosetti felt his arm gripped; it was like being caught in a car door. Before he knew what he was doing he’d grabbed his untouched cosmo off the bar and flung it into Mishkin’s face. Mishkin grimaced and wiped at his face with his free hand but did not let go. The bartender came around the bar and told Mishkin he’d have to leave. Mishkin shook Crosetti hard enough to rattle his teeth together and said to the bartender. “It’s all right. I was just explaining to this gentleman how to fuck my wife and he threw a drink at me. Does that seem right to you?”
    The bartender now made the mistake of grabbing Mishkin’s arm, perhaps hoping to establish a come-along grip, but instead the big man let go of Crosetti and threw the bartender over the bar and into his brightly lit shelves of bottles. Crosetti was out of there on a run, nor did he wait for the elevator but ran up three flights of stairs and into his room.

    The next morning, Crosetti left the hotel very early and went to the British Film Institute on the South Bank, where he watched Jean Renoir’s
Boudu Saved from Drowning
and
The Rules of the Game.
He would have stayed for
The Grand Illusion
, but while he was in the lobby seeking a drink of water, someone tugged at his sleeve, and when he turned around it was Paul Mishkin in a leather coat and clericals. Crosetti thought he looked like an actor playing a priest.
    “How did you know I was here?”
    “Where else would you be? Not Madame Tussaud’s. Come on, there’s been a slight change of plans.”
    “Such as?”
    “We’re