Mickelsson's Ghosts (29 page)

Mickelsson sucked his lower lip in. “Maybe I should give her a call,” he said, “try to reason it out.”

“Do that. Good luck to you!”

There was a pause.

“Probably not such a hot idea,” Mickelsson admitted. He leaned forward onto his elbows. After a moment he said, “I just don't see why she doesn't take it. She must realize it's fair—more than fair—and the best I can possibly do.”

“That I doubt she believes,” Finney said. “What did you make on the speakers' circuit—three, four hundred a night?”

“That was years ago, when I had a book out and people had heard of me.”

“So write a book. You forget how to type? And what about those summers? June, July, August you just sit on your can, go live in some fancy hotel in the Adirondacks and watch the birds and bees, maybe paddle a boat around and try to find some late Redskin ass. You could be doing your duty as a father and ex-husband, maybe get yourself a job with the merchant marines, a little highway construction. Take some inches off.”

“That's bullshit, Finney.”

“Isn't everything, ole pal? Listen, don't yell at
me.
Lady's got a right to dream, understand? And you gotta admit you invited it. You offer her the moon and a ton and a half of fingerpaints, no wonder she wants you to throw in a rag to wipe her hands on.” He laughed again. When he laughed, Mickelsson remembered, Finney's face would begin to shine. One of these days he'd have a stroke.

“I just want to do what's fair,” he said. “It seems to me she shouldn't have to move to a smaller house or even cut down on expenses all that much. If she'd just be reasonable—”

“By what standard, Professor? You got a book somewhere tells you what's reasonable and what's not?” Mickelsson could see him bending forward in his chair, leaning on his desk, picking up a pencil, getting serious. Finney was breathing harder now, his belly crowding his lungs. “Maybe you found someplace in the Bible that tells you how much the Lord allows? Believe me, you're dreaming! Two years now, you been dreaming like a baby. Little cottage in Eden, with a cleaning woman comes in two times a week—that's what you think your wife deserves; she's a human being, right? Little lower than the angels? What if the money to pay for it just doesn't exist? Nowhere in the world? Never mind, what's right is right, you've got your dream. Am I on to you? But what about
her
dream, since we're ignoring reality and all its pigshit tedium. Why should she settle for a miserable fucking cottage, nobody interesting to talk to but a couple of big bossy angels, maybe a snake. You hearing me, Professor? You on my wave-length? In a perfect world you wouldn't need me, that's granted. But unfortunately we're dealing with a world made of crap, world of cut or be cut, so if I was you I'd start listening to a little advice.”

Mickelsson said nothing. It struck him that it wouldn't be easy to get back into his writing.

“Don't send the lady another thin dime. Let her see you're serious. She'll negotiate—no choice! When she's hungry enough she'll go to court for a settlement and the judge'll award her maybe ten thousand tops—probably less, all things considered. You can always send her a little more if you get conscience pangs. Hell, you can give her every penny you make, but as your lawyer I can't let you commit yourself to going to prison if you should hold a penny out.”

“All right, I won't send her any money for a while,” Mickelsson said.

“Now that I call reasonable.”

“But when we get her to court, the offer I've already made stands.”

“And that I call
not
so reasonable. But OK, OK. We'll play it as it lays. Say, I see your kid got his kisser in the paper.”

Mickelsson sucked in his upper lip. “I didn't catch it, I guess.”

“Yeah, one of those ‘protesters arrested' things. I'll slap it in the mail.”

“Do that. I'd like to see it.”

“I bet you would.” Finney laughed.

Mickelsson hung fire for an instant. “What does that mean?”

“Nothin, pal! It's been a long time since you've seen him, right? He looks terrific, believe me. Peak of health!”

“I'm glad to hear it.” His mind remained snagged on Finney's laugh. At last he said, “What was he protesting?”

“Nukes, I think. Seabrook or Yankee, one of 'em.”

“I see.” Mickelsson nodded. His fingers played absently with the phone cord. “Do send the clipping. I'm sorry I missed it.”

“Will do, pal,” Finney said. “Keep fit, now. Anything else?”

“I guess that's it.”

“OK, then. Keep in touch—I hate surprises. Bye-bye!”

“Good-bye,” Mickelsson said.

When he looked over what he'd written he saw that he'd been right. It had terrific drive, a quality one could only call magical, easily the flashiest piece of argument he'd ever pulled off. But the mood had left him. The very room around him looked dead, as if whoever lived there had moved. Again he reread his pages, struggling to get the feeling back. Rhetoric like a delicate tracery of ashes.

Late that afternoon it began to rain, a gray, smoky rain that moved back and forth against the mountains like curtains, and Mickelsson's depression increased. For all his work, he'd gotten out only another half page, and he did not need an objective friend's eye to know that it was worthless. He forced himself to quit. A day like this—lurid gray sky, gray rain, gray hills—would be a good one to waste on finishing the straightening up of the mess his visitors had left. He went to the cabinet under the stereo for the one bottle of Gordon's gin and the one small bottle of Martini & Rossi with which he'd replaced all the liquor he'd lost, paying with a check he was pretty sure would bounce, though he had, really, no idea. He fixed himself a large martini, then moved dully from room to room, putting things back into their drawers or onto their proper closet hooks, shoving the furniture back where it belonged, then sweeping and dusting, stopping every fifteen minutes or so for a sip of his drink, finally putting his books back on their shelves, this time imposing, as he hadn't done before, some measure of organization. The size of the stack of bills on his desk made him sick. He wouldn't think about them. When he came across the silver-headed cane in the hallway, where he'd left it that night, he stood looking at it for a moment, then leaned it up against the rickety coat-and-umbrella rack as though it had for him no more special meaning than any other familiar household object.

Housecleaning finished, he went down to the basement to look over the still-unopened boxes of tools he'd gotten from the hardware store in town, the great stack of wallpaper rolls, the paste and brushes. The basement—cellar was more properly the word—was damp, full of smells of decay. The beams overhead had patches of gray fuzz on them, like lichen or dampened ash. The stone walls literally dripped, probably not leakage from the rain outside, and the cardboard boxes, brand new a few days ago, were soft to the touch. Leave the wallpaper rolls here much longer and they'd be money down the drain. He carried them, armload after armload, up to the kitchen and nested them on the long, formica-covered counter. He must get busy soon at fixing the place up. He remembered as if from a different existence how eager he'd been to get at it all, just a week ago. Now his decision to write that blockbuster book made his plans for the house an annoyance, though of course he must carry them out; otherwise the waste of money would be criminal. He stood sipping the martini, finishing it off, his shoulders drooping, stomach falling heavily forward as in some Beardsley drawing (no doubt even now he was flattering himself: his trousers were limp, baggy, and soiled; his shoes were damp and shapeless and had a rancid smell), gazing wearily at the wallpaper rolls, their patterns hidden inside their white wrappers—patterns he'd brooded on, considering and reconsidering, though now he couldn't remember which ones he'd chosen—and he was filled with such weariness and misery he could hardly understand why he'd left the apartment.

He went to the refrigerator for more ice, then to the cabinet under the stereo, and made a second large martini, then wandered back to the study to look over his writing. All the interior of the house was gray, like the gloomy, fading afternoon, but his study, where the bills were, seemed the grayest room of all. Outside his window the birdbath was coming apart in flakes, like the treasures of Venice, and the large, orangish roses had been shaken and shattered. Rain was still falling, a lead-gray, luminous mist.

At last it came to him that, though his eyes had been going over and over the typewritten sentences he'd been working on, his mind remained stubbornly fixed elsewhere. His hand went to the telephone receiver: he would call Information and get Donnie Matthews' number. But then he changed his mind and drew his hand back. He leaned his elbows on the desk in front of the typewriter, rested his chin on his interlaced fingers, and closed his eyes, shutting out the stack of bills, trying to think. The instant his eyes closed he realized he was slightly drunk. No wonder, of course. He hadn't eaten all day. He would go down to the restaurant in town and get supper. He switched off his worklight, pushed back his chair, and got up. He carried his drink with him to the hall, where he meant to get his raincoat, then changed his mind and went into the bathroom to wash and shave, then to the bedroom for a clean shirt—surprisingly frayed at the cuffs, but the best he had—a relatively unwrinkled ascot tie, and his dark blue sportcoat. (Two buttons were missing, but no one would notice if he remembered not to button it, which he would, since the coat had grown too small.) When he was dressed and had looked himself over in the mirror, he went downstairs again, finished the drink, put on his hat and raincoat and took the cane from the umbrella stand. He had no umbrella, but no matter. The rain, as if to please him, had stopped.

He locked his doors carefully—thinking of his visitors—then walked carefully, stepping between puddles (he had no rubbers), to the Jeep. It was now nearly dark. The house, when he switched the Jeep lights on, was all rough elbows, frowning eyes.

After he'd parked the Jeep on Main Street, in front of the bank, directly across from those who watched the intersection from their old wooden bench (he did not feel inclined to salute them, this time), Mickelsson, succumbing to a sudden impulse, turned west toward Reddon's instead of east toward the restaurant, hesitated for a moment in the doorway, then, swinging his cane, moved quickly past the battered mailboxes and up the stairs. “I'll just ask her if she's had supper yet,” he said to himself, “or if perhaps she'd like coffee.” He began, whispering, to rehearse what he would say. “Evening, Miss Matthews. Remember me?” The stairway was full of cooking smells and the tinny noise of television sets. At one of the landings a woman's voice cried out, startling him out of his daydream, “How many times I got to tell you, Robert?” Mickelsson slowed his step, at first out of alarm, then from interest in learning what it was that Robert kept forgetting; but the whining voice that answered was far away, another room perhaps, and the woman, when she spoke again, had moved farther from the door. He continued up the stairs. Halfway up to the next landing he stopped, with his hand on the railing, to catch his breath. He could see her white plastic rose.

He had knocked several times before he was willing to believe she wasn't in. Even now it would not be accurate to say he believed it. He had thought, not quite consciously, that all reality had been magically on his side: the fact that he hadn't eaten, so that it was necessary (more or less) that he come into town; the fact that the rain had opportunely stopped. … He put his mouth close to the door and called, “Donnie?” With his ear against the wood he knocked again. He stepped back quickly and glanced past his shoulder as the door to the apartment behind him opened. One eye and half of a dark, splotched face looked out. He nodded and touched the brim of his hat. For three or four seconds the eye went on staring. Then the door creaked shut.

At the restaurant, just after he'd given his order to the waitress, a voice at his shoulder said, “Professor Mickelsson! How's everything going up there?”

When he turned, raising his head, he saw and, after an instant, recognized Tim's boss, Charley Snyder. The man was spiffied up, downright distinguished-looking, suit and tie under the raincoat, big white grin on the darkly tanned face. For some reason it hadn't until now dawned on Mickelsson that the man was more than commonly well-off, though of course he'd seen those Snyder Realty signs everywhere and had once heard Snyder joked about: someone, one morning at the Acme Market, had been telling some out-of-towner how Marie Antoinette, hoping to escape to America, had bought up thousands of acres of northern Pennsylvania. The woman at the cash-register had winked at Mickelsson and said, “Just like Charley Snyder.” He had laughed, of course, but he understood now, seeing Snyder dressed to the nines, that the joke was more true than not. The man had a large onyx ring on one finger. His raincoat and the suit underneath looked like something in an ad from
The New Yorker.

“Hello, Charley,” Mickelsson said, and reached up his hand to shake Snyder's. “Care to join me?” He tilted his head, indicating the unoccupied chairs.

“I could do that, if it's not any trouble,” Snyder said, giving him a brief serious look.

“By all means!” Mickelsson said. “Good to see you!”

“I'm meeting some friends here,” Snyder explained, looking toward the door, then back at Mickelsson. He began to take off his raincoat. “We usually meet over at Dobb's Country Kitchen, but some of us thought, well, you know. Support local business.”

They both laughed. Snyder folded the raincoat carefully and hung it over the back of a chair, then seated himself next to Mickelsson. “I'll just have coffee,” he said to the waitress, who had appeared with her pad from nowhere.