Closing Time (49 page)

"I think I'd go if I were you. It's something to do. What about the one that's here? Teemer's patient."

"He'll probably be going home soon. He was a prisoner in Dresden with Kurt Vonnegut and another one nimed Schweik. Can you imagine?"

"I stood on line in Naples once with a soldier named Schweik and met a guy named Joseph Kaye. I never even heard about Dresden until I read about it in Vonnegut's novel. Send your friend up. I'd like to hear about Vonnegut."

"He doesn't know him."

"Ask him to drop by anyway if he wants to. I'll be here through the weekend. Well, Sammy, want to gamble? Do you think we might see each other again outside the hospital?"

Singer was taken by surprise. "Yossarian, that's up to you. I've got the time."

"I'll take your number if you're willing to give it. It may be worth a try. I'd like to talk to you again about William Saroyan. You used to try to write stories like his."

"So did you. What happened?"

"I stopped, after a while."

"I gave up too. Ever try
The New Yorker
?"

"I struck out there every time."

"So did I."

"Sammy tells me you saved his life," said the big-boned man in a dressing gown and his own pajamas, introducing himself as Rabinowitz in a lusty, lighthearted manner, with a hoarse, unfaltering voice. "Tell me how you did it."

"Let him give you the details. You were in Dresden?"

"He'll give you those details." Rabinowitz let his eyes linger again on Angela. "Young lady, you look like someone I met once and can't remember where. She was a knockout too. Did we ever meet? I used to look younger."

"I'm not sure I know. This is my friend Anthony."

"Hello, Anthony. Listen to me good, Anthony. I'm not joshing. Treat her real fine tonight, because if you don't treat her good I will find out about it, and I will start sending her flowers and you will be out in the cold. Right, darling? Good night, my dear. You'll have a good time. Anthony, my name is Lew. Go have some fun.

"I will, Lew," said Anthony.

"I'm retired now, do a little real estate, some building with my son-in-law. What about you?"

"I'm retired too," said Yossarian.

"You're with Milo Minderbinder."

"Part time."

"I've got a friend who'd like to meet him. I'll bring him around. I'm in here with a weight problem. I have to keep it low because of a minor heart condition, and sometimes I take off too much. I like to check that out."

"With Dennis Teemer?"

"I know Teemer long. That lovely blonde lady looks like something special. I know I've seen her."

"I think you'd remember."

"That's why I know."

"Hodgkin's disease," confided Dennis Teemer.

"Shit," said Yossarian. "He doesn't want me to know."

"He doesn't want anybody to know. Not even me. And I know him almost thirty years. He sets records."

"Was he always that way? He likes to flirt."

"So do you. With everybody. You want everybody here to be crazy about you. He's just more open. You're sly."

"You're cunning and know too much."

In Rabinowitz, Yossarian saw a tall, direct man with a large frame who had lost heavy amounts of flesh. He was almost bald on top and wore a gold and graying brush mustache, and he was aggressively attentive to Angela, with an indestructible sexual self-confidence that overrode and reduced her own. Yossarian was amused to see her bend herself forward to take down her bosom, lay her hands in her lap to hold down her skirt, tuck back her legs primly. She was faced with an excess of overbearing friskiness, of a kind she did not take to but could not defeat.

"And he's not even Italian," Yossarian chided.

"You're not Italian, and I don't mind you. The trouble is I do know him from somewhere."

"Aha, Miss Moore, I think I may have it," said Rabinowitz with a probing smile, when he sauntered in and saw her again. "You remind me of a lovely little lady with good personality I met one time with a builder I was doing business with out in Brooklyn, near Sheepshead Bay. An Italian named Benny Salmeri, I think. You liked to dance."

"Really?" answered Angela, looking at him with eye-shadowed eyelids half lowered. "I used to know a builder named Salmeri. I'm not sure it's the same."

"Did you ever have a roommate who was a nurse?"

"I still do," answered Angela, now more flippant. "The one on duty here before. That's my partner, Melissa."

"That nice-looking thing with that good personality?"

"She takes care of our friend here. That's why he's in. She fucks old men and gives them strokes."

"I wish you wouldn't say that to people," Yossarian reproved her mildly, after Rabinowitz had gone. "You'll destroy her prospects. And it wasn't a stroke. You'll ruin mine too."

"And I wish," said Angela, "you wouldn't tell people my name is Moorecock."

Thty studied each other. "Who've I told?"

"Michael. That doctor Shumacher." Angela Moore hesitated, for intentional effect. "Patrick."

"Patrick?" Surprised, Yossarian sensed the reply before he put the question. "Which Patrick? Patrick Beach?"

"Patrick Beach."

"Oh shit," he said, after his jolt of surprise. "You're seeing Patrick?"

"He's called."

"You'll have to go sailing. You'll probably hate it."

"I've already been. I didn't mind."

"Doesn't he have trouble with his prostate?"

"Not right now. It's why he isn't coming by here anymore. You were close with his wife. Do you think she'll know?"

"Frances Beach knows everything, Angela."

"I'm not the first."

"She knows that already. She'll be able to guess."

"There really is something going on between you and that nurse, isn't there?" guessed Frances Beach. "I can almost smell coitus in this rancid air."

"Am I letting it show?"

"No, darling, she is. She watches over you more protectively than she should. And she's much too correct when others are here. Advise her not to be so tense."

"That will make her more tense."

"And you still have that vulgar compulsion I never could abide. You look down at a woman's bottom whenever she turns around, at all women, and with so much pride at hers. It's that pride of possession. You eye mine too, don't you?"

"I know I always do that. It doesn't make me proud. You still look pretty good."

"You would not think that if you didn't have memories."

"I've got another bad habit you'll find even worse."

"I'll bet I can guess. Because I do it too."

"Then tell me."

"Have you also arrived at that wretched stage when you can't look seriously into a human face without already picturing what it will look like when old?"

"I can't see how you knew."

"We've been too much alike."

"I do it only with women. It helps me lose interest."

"I do it with every face already giving clues. It's evil and morbid. This one will wear well."

"Her name is Melissa."

"Let her know it's safe to trust me. Even though I'm rich and fashionable and used to have some bitchy fame as an actress. I'm glad you're not marrying for money."

"Who's thinking of marriage?"

"By my time with Patrick it was much more than the money. I think I approve. Although I don't like her girlfriend. Patrick has taken to sailing again. I think he may be flying as well. What more can you tell me?"

"I can't tell you a thing."

"And I don't want to know, not this time either. I would feel so guilty if he thought I suspected. I would not want to step on anybody's happiness, especially his. I wish I could have more too, but you know my age. Our friend Olivia may be my exception. She won't visit often but fills the room with this glut of flowers. And she signs each card 'Olivia Maxon,' as though it were a British title and you knew a thousand Olivias. I adore your catering company."

"It's Milo Minderbinder's."

"Two tons of caviar is divine."

"We could have got by with one, but it's safe to have a little more. This wedding in the terminal is just aboul the biggest piece of fun I see in my future."

"It's just about my only fun. Oh, John, Johnny, it's a terrible thing you just did to me," said Frances Beach. "When I learned you were sick, I finally felt old for the first time. You will recover, and I never will. There's somebody here. Please come in. Your name is Melissa?"

"Yes, it is. There's someone else here to see him."

"And my name is Rabinowitz, madam, Lewis Rabinowitz, but friends call me Lew. Here's someone else-Mr. Marvin Winkler, just in from California to pay his respects. Where's our lovely friend Angela? Marvin, this is Mr. Yossarian. He's the man who will set it up for you. Winkler wants to meet with Milo Minderbinder about a terrific new product he's got. I told him we'd arrange it."

"What's the product?"

"Lew, let me talk to him alone."

"Well, Winkler?"

"Look down at my foot." Winkler was a man of middle height with conspicuous girth. "Don't you notice anything?"

"What am I looking at?"

"My shoe."

"What about it?"

"It's state-of-the-art."

Yossarian studied him. "You aren't joking?"

"I don't joke about business," answered Winkler, issuing words with strain as though emitting sighs of affliction. His voice was low and guttural, almost inaudible. "I've been in it too long. I manufactured and sold surplus army film after the war. I was in baked goods too and was known for the best honey-glazed doughnuts in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Everything I did was state-of-the-art. I still make chocolate Easter bunnies."

"Have you ever hit it big?"

"I've had trouble with my timing. I was in the food-service business too once and offered home-delivered breakfasts Sunday mornings so that people could sleep late. My firm was Greenacre Farms in Coney Island, and I was the sole proprietor."

"And I was a customer. You never delivered."

"It was not cost-effective."

"Winkler, I will get you your meeting. I can't resist. But I will want you to tell me about it."

"I won't leave out a word."

"We've been thinking of a shoe," Milo admitted, "to sell to the government."

"Then you certainly want mine. It's state-of-the-art."

"Just what does that mean?"

"There's none better, Mr. Minderbinder, and no good reason for the government to choose any other. Look down at my foot again. I see the flexibility? The shoe looks new when you first start to wear it; when it's older it looks used as soon as you break it in. If it's dull you can polish it, or you can leave it the way it is or wear it scuffed, if that's what you want. You can make it lighter or and even change its color."

"But what does it do?"

"It fits over the foot and keeps the sock dry and clean. It helps protect the skin on the sole of the foot against cuts and scratches and other painful inconveniences of walking on the ground. You can walk in it, run in it, or even just sit and talk in it, as I'm doing with you now."

"And it changes color. How did you say it does that?"

"You just put this magic plastic insert into the slot of the heel and then take them to the shoemaker and tell aim to dye it to whatever color you want."

"It seems like a miracle."

"I would say that it is."

"Can you make them for women too?"

"A foot is a foot, Mr. Minderbinder."

"One thing escapes me, Mr. Winkler. What does your shoe do that the ones I'm wearing will not?"

"Make money for both of us, Mr. Minderbinder. Mine is state-of-the-art. Look down at the difference."

"I'm beginning to see. Are you very rich?"

"I've had trouble with my timing. But believe me, Mr. Minderbinder, I'm not without experience. You are doing business with the man who devised and still manufactures the state-of-the-art chocolate Easter bunny."

"What was so different about yours?"

"It was made of chocolate. It could be packaged, shipped, displayed, and, best of all, eaten, like candy."

"Isn't that true of other Easter bunnies?"

"But mine was state-of-the-art. We print that on every package. The public did not want a second-rate chocolate Easter bunny, and our government does not want a second-rate shoe."

"I see, I see," said Milo, brightening. "You know about chocolate?"

"All that there is to know."

"Tell me something. Please try one of these."

"Of course," said Winkler, taking the bonbon and relishing the prospect of eating it. "What is it?"

"Chocolate-covered cotton. What do you think of it?"

Delicately, as though handling something rare, fragile, and repulsive, Winkler lifted the mass from his tongue, while maintaining a smile. "I've never tasted better chocolate-covered cotton. It's state-of-the-art."

"Unfortunately, I seem unable to move it."

"I can't see why. Have you very much?"

"Warehouses full. Have you any ideas?"

"That's where I'm best. I will think of one while you bring my shoe to your procurer in Washington."

"That will definitely be done."

"Then consider this: Remove the chocolate from the cotton. Weave the cotton into fine fabric for shirts and bedsheets. We build today by breaking up. You've been putting together. We get bigger today by getting smaller. You can sell the chocolate to me for my business at a wonderful price for the money I receive from you for my shoe."

"How many shoes do you have now?"

"At the moment, just the pair I'm wearing, and another one at home in my closet. I can gear up for millions as soon as we have a contract and I receive in front all the money I'll need to cover my costs of production. I like money in front, Mr. Minderbinder. That's the only way I do business."

"That sounds fair," said Milo Minderbinder. "I work that way too. Unfortunately, we have a Department of Ethics now in Washington. But our lawyer will be in charge there once he gets out of prison. Meanwhile, we have our private procurers. You will have your contract, Mr. Winkler, for a deal is a deal."

"Thank you, Mr. Minderbinder. Can I send you a bunny for Easter? I can put you on our complimentary list."