The victim (17 page)

18

THE dark came on. He did not light the bed lamp but sat, still with the cards in his hand, waiting for Allbee, listening for footsteps and hearing instead a variety of sounds from below, the booming of radio music through the floor, mixed voices, the rasping of the ropes in the dumb-waiter; the cries of boys scudding down the street rose above the rest, as distinct as sparks from fire. With the setting of the sun, the colored, brilliant combers of cloud rolled more and more quickly into gray and blue, while red lights appeared on the peaks of buildings, pilot warnings, like shore signals along a coast. The imperfections of the pane through which Leventhal gazed suggested the thickening of water at a great depth when one looks up toward the surface. The air had a salt smell. A breeze had begun to blow; it swayed the curtains and rattled among the papers on the floor. After a time, Leventhal held his wrist up to the faint, gold bits of light under the window and studied his watch. It was well past eight; he had been sitting for more than an hour. He looked meditatively into the street. His first anger had passed over. From waiting to confront Allbee, he had lapsed gradually into a state of inert rest and now he felt hungry and got up to go to dinner. No use waiting for Allbee, who was probably drinking up the last of the five dollars in some bar and was in that case disposing of himself the quickest way. It was just as well, he reflected, that Allbee had not showed up, for what he obviously wanted was to be taken seriously. Once he had succeeded in this he could work him, Leventhal, as he liked. And that, quite plainly, was his object. The restaurant was full; there was a crowd around the small bar. He moved to the rear in search of a table. "I got customers next at the bar," the bony, dark waiter said, "but I'll see what I can do for you." He had a cup of coffee in either hand and he hurried away. Leventhal was undecided whether to wait with the others or stand at the kitchen door. It was not very likely that the waiter would give him a table out of turn if he got into the crowd. He continued toward the leaning wall of the kitchen passage. Through the arch he saw one of the cooks beside the brick oven wiping the flour from his arms and waving his apron to cool his face. Leventhal brushed against someone who seemed to have stretched an arm into his path accidentally. Without looking, he said, "Beg your pardon." A man said laughingly, "Why don't you watch?" And though it was peculiar that this should be said with a laugh, he did not turn but merely nodded, and he was going on when he felt his jacket being pulled. It was Williston. Phoebe was with him. "Well, hello," she said. "Don't you talk to people any more?" It came over Leventhal that she was accusing him of deliberately avoiding them. "My mind was somewhere else," he said, his cheeks darkening coarsely. "Sit down. Are you alone?" "Yes, I am. They promised me a table, so don't let me..." "Oh, come ahead. Here." Williston pushed back a chair. Leventhal hesitated, and Phoebe said, "What's the matter, Asa?" in a manner that indicated it was impossible to show reluctance for another moment without offending her. "Oh, Mary's out of town," he said, "and I don't bother too much about meals. I just run out and grab something. And you're almost through." "Now sit down, will you?" said Williston. "What does your wife's being away have to do with it? My Lord!" Leventhal looked at her dead-white complexion, her thick level eyebrows, and the short, even teeth her smile revealed. The noise of the place cut off their conversation for a moment. He accepted the chair, massively crowding the table as the waiter passed behind him. With an anxious face he struggled up again to catch his attention. He sat down again, telling himself not to be so nervous. Why should they rattle him? He read the menu with his hand to his forehead, feeling the heat and moisture under his fingers, and putting his swarming emotions in order. "What's the matter; can't I stand up to them?" he asked himself. The challenge strengthened him. When he closed the menu he was surer of himself. The waiter came up. "What's special?" he said. "Soup, you want bean soup? Lasagna, we got tonight." "I see mussels." He pointed to the shells. "Very good," said Phoebe. "A la possilopo." The waiter wrote. "And a bottle of beer; a plate of soup to start." "Right up." "I've been trying to reach you," Williston said. "Oh?" Leventhal turned to him. "Anything in particular?" "The same matter." "I got your message. I was going to call back, but I've been tied up." "By what?" said Phoebe. Leventhal considered his answer. He was unwilling to speak of his family; he did not want to appear to be soliciting sympathy, and besides he was incapable of mentioning Mickey's death conversationally. The thought was repugnant to him. "Oh, things," he said. "Labor Day pile-up, eh?" said Williston. "That and some private things. Mostly work." "What are you doing with yourself over the week end?" Phoebe asked him. "Planning to go somewhere? We're invited to Fire Island." "No, I'm not going anywhere." "Are you facing three days in town alone? You poor man." "I'm not what you might call alone, exactly." Leventhal glanced at her, speaking quietly. "I have a friend of yours staying with me." "Of ours?" she cried. He saw that he had her off balance. "You mean Kirby Allbee?" "Yes, Allbee." "I wanted to ask you about that," said Williston. "Is he still with you?" "Still." "Tell me, how is he?" Phoebe said. "I didn't know you came about him, the other night. I wouldn't have stayed in the kitchen." "I didn't realize you were so interested." "Well, now I'd like to know how he is," she said. Leventhal wondered how much of his description Williston had repeated. "Didn't Stan tell you?" "Yes, but I want to hear more from you." Her habitual cool, good temper was missing. A faint color appeared below her eyes, and he commented to himself, "Out in the open, for a change." He delayed, thinking that Williston might intervene. The waiter put the black and green mussels before him, and he said, taking up the fork as if to weigh it, "Oh, he's getting around." He began to eat. "Is he very broken up about Flora?" "His wife? Yes, he's broken up." "It must have been terrible for him. I never thought they'd separate. They started out so brilliantly." "Brilliant?" Leventhal thought. He paused, letting them see that the word had struck him. "What does she mean? That's only the way women talk about marriage. What could be brilliant? He, Allbee, brilliant?" He made an indifferent movement of concession. "I attended the wedding, if you want to know why it interests me," she said. "Phoebe and Flora were roommates at school." "Were they?" said Leventhal, somewhat curious. He poured the beer. "I met her a few times at your house." "Yes, you must have," Williston said. Phoebe for a brief moment regained her usual manner. "At the church I remember they were going to have a singer and they didn't on account of his mother. They didn't want to hurt her feelings. Everybody humored her about her singing. She studied in Boston for years and years. She was about sixty, and she might have had a voice once, but she certainly didn't have one then. She sang anyway. She was bound to, at her son's wedding. They couldn't stop her. Poor Kirby. But the old lady was very nice. She told me she had beautiful legs when she was a girl and was so proud of them, wasn't it a shame she had to wear long skirts? She said she was born too soon." "Excuse me for asking," put in Leventhal, "but was this marriage supposed to be a good thing from his wife's point of view?" "What do you mean?" "Did her family like him?" "They were suspicious. But I thought he was very promising. Intelligent and charming. So did lots of other people. I always believed he'd outdistance all our friends." Williston corroborated her. "Yes, he's brainy and well read, too. He used to read an awful lot." "And suddenly the bottom falls out. I wonder whom you could blame for that." Phoebe sighed and turned her long, handsome, pensive face with its marked, level brows to her husband first and then to Leventhal. "Why, she wasn't to blame, was she?" said Leventhal. "His wife?" "No..." Phoebe appeared to be disconcerted. "Why should she be? She loved him." "Well, if she wasn't to blame, who's left?" asked Leventhal. "She left him, didn't she?" "Yes, she did. We never learned why. She didn't take it up with me. We saw it from the outside, mostly. It was hard to understand because he was so charming." "Charming!" Leventhal scornfully repeated to himself. "--Brilliant start!" What could this woman actually have seen with those two eyes of hers? What did she allow herself to see? Could anything that started so well, so promisingly, have ended so badly? There must have been a flaw in the beginning, visible to anyone who wanted to see. But Phoebe did not want to see. And as for Allbee, no wonder he stayed away from the Willistons, they had such a high opinion of him. He said reservedly, "They say that drinking people usually make a good impression. They're supposed to be likeable." "Still drinking, eh?" Williston asked in an undertone. "Still?" Leventhal shrugged, as if to say, "What's the use of asking?" "No, he was just what I say. Ask Stan. Even before he started drinking. But you haven't told me how he's making out and what he's doing." "He's doing nothing. And he hasn't told me what he's going to do, either." "Well, ask him to come over and see us, will you?" Her face was tremulous with hidden resentment. "With pleasure." Leventhal sounded rather sharp. Williston was turning over a spoon in his short fingers. He had spoken very little realizing, perhaps, that Phoebe was in the wrong, and was afraid to make matters worse by interfering. Leventhal hid his annoyance. They wanted to see Allbee--they could have him altogether, as far as he was concerned--but they didn't say they wanted him to stay with them, only to visit. And why, Leventhal wanted to know, didn't it occur to Phoebe to ask why Allbee was with him rather than with his friends? Logically, they were the ones for him to go to. But it struck him, in examining her white face, that there were certain logical questions she didn't want to ask. She did not want the facts; she warded them off. In a general way she understood them well enough, he was sure. She only wanted to insist that Allbee be taken care of. And chances were that she no more wanted to see him in his present condition than he wanted to see her. She probably knew what he was like. Oh, of course she knew. But she wanted him changed back to what he had been. "My dear lady," Leventhal protested in thought, "I don't ask you to look at things my way, but just to look. That would be enough. Have a look!" However, and he always returned to this, the Willistons had been kind to him; he was indebted to them.--Although what Williston had done for him was nothing compared to what he was being told implicitly to do for Allbee. Williston roused himself, or so it appeared to Leventhal. "I don't think Kirby wants to see us now, dear," he said. "He would have come before." "Too bad he hasn't," said Leventhal. He showed more feeling than he had intended, and Phoebe quickly took him up. "I don't think I understand that, Asa," she said. "You ought to see him. From the way you're talking about him, I don't think you'd recognize him. I know I don't recognize the same man." "Well, that may not be my fault." She stopped with a short release of breath. The red began to come out again under her eyes. "I suppose he has changed," said Williston slowly. "Believe me, he's not what Phoebe says. I'm telling you." Leventhal tenaciously limited himself to this in order to control his mounting sense of wrong. "You ought to be more charitable," Phoebe said. At this he almost lost his head, staring at her while the color spread to her cheeks. He pushed away his plate, muttering, "I can't change myself over to suit you." "What?" said Williston. "I said, if I'm not, I'm not!" "I don't think Phoebe meant what she said, exactly. Phoebe? I think Asa got the wrong impression." "I see that you misunderstood me," she grudgingly said. "Well, it doesn't make any difference." "I didn't mean anything except that Kirby was promising, and so on. I wasn't saying anything but that." What did she know about him? Lcventhal thought bitterly. But he was silent. "I phoned because I wanted to know if I could help out with a little money," said Williston. "I haven't been able to think of a job for him, but he must need things. I guess he can use a few dollars." "That's right," Leventhal said. "I want to give you ten or so. You don't have to tell him where it comes from. He might not want to accept money from me." "I'll give it to him," said Leventhal. "It's very nice of you." The Willistons left. Leventhal watched them in the blue mirror of the bar above the massed forms of the bottles. Stan waited while Phoebe stopped to give a touch to her hat and they went up the stairs together, passing under the awning.

19

FROM the foyer he saw Mrs Nunez sitting cross-legged on the divan, putting up her freshly washed hair. She held her chin against her breast, and there were pins in her mouth and others strewn on the brown and white squares of her skirt. He rapped, and she drew her hair back from her eyes but did not change her position or cover her unsymmetrically gartered legs. "I don't want to disturb you," he said, looking at them. "I was thinking--the flat's pretty dirty. Could you give me a lead about a cleaning woman? Ours hasn't been around." "Clean? I don't know anybody. If it's straighten, I'll do it for you. I don't do the heavy work." "Nothing heavy, I just want the place to look a little neater." "Sure, I'll straighten it for you." "I'll be much obliged. It's getting to be too much for me." The look of his front room by lamplight disgusted him. It would have done Phoebe good to see it. He half regretted that he had not invited the Willistons home with him. He set to work gathering up the papers from the floor and spread clean sheets on his bed and laid out a pair of pajamas. In the bathroom he soaked and rinsed the robe and rubbed out the ink-stains with a brush and soap powder. Taking it to the roof he wrung it out and spread it on a line. There was a smell of approaching fall in the breeze. Leventhal walked over the pebbles and tar to the parapet. To the east the lights of the two shores joined in a long seam in midriver. Summer would end soon after the holiday and with the start of fall everything would change; Leventhal felt inexplicably convinced of this. The sky was overcast. He looked out awhile and then returned to the staircase, careful of lines and wires in the dark. He touched the robe in passing. It was drying rapidly in the breeze. On the landing he heard someone coming and glanced below. It was Allbee. Regularly his hand clasped and released the banister as he made his way up. Catching sight of Leventhal at the last turn, he paused and raised his head and seemed to examine him. The low light crossed his face up to the brows and eyes and gave it an expression, most likely accidental, of naked malice. A stir of uneasiness went over Leventhal. He remembered immediately, however, that there were a few things Allbee had to answer to him for. And, to begin with, was he drunk? But he was already quite sure, he could sense that he was sober. "Well?" he said. Reaching the landing, Allbee gave him a restrained nod. His hair had been trimmed. Along the sides of his head and down his cheeks there was a conspicuous margin of shaven whiteness. His face shone. He had on a new shirt and a black tie and he carried a paper bag. When he saw Leventhal inspecting him he said, "I picked these up on Second Avenue, in a bargain store." "I didn't ask you." "I owe you an accounting," he said matter-of-factly. Leventhal listened for a provocative note in his answer; there was none. He looked at him suspiciously. "I haven't had a drink today," said Allbee. "Come in here. There's something I want to find out." "What is it?" "Not here; in the house." Allbee held back. "What's the trouble?" he asked. Leventhal seized his coat and pulled him forward. Allbee resisted, and he lay hold of him with both hands, and, with a sullen look of determination, his anger rekindled, dragged him into the house and flung the door shut with his foot. He twisted him around. Allbee tried to free himself anew, and Leventhal shouted, "What the hell do you think I'll stand for!" "What are you talking about?" "You'll answer me. You won't duck out of it." He tore his coat out of Leventhal's grasp and swung away. "What's the idea?" he said with a trembling, short laugh, wonderingly. "Have you decided to beat me up?" "How much do you think I'll take from you!" Leventhal was panting. "Do you think you can get away with everything?" "Don't lose your head, now." His laugh was gone and he looked at him gravely. "After all, I expect to be treated fairly. I'm in your house, and you have certain advantages over me... Anyway, you ought to tell me what this is all about." "This is what it's about." Leventhal snatched out the cards. "Going through my desk like a damned crook and blackmailer. That's what it's about." "Oh, is that it?" He swung his hand loosely toward them. Leventhal's voice broke as he cried, "That? Isn't that anything? You followed me around and snooped, before. I let you in here and you get your dirty hands all over my things, my private business, my letters." "Well, now, that's not true. I haven't touched your letters. I'm not interested in your business." "Where did I find these!" Leventhal threw the cards down. "In my bathrobe that you were wearing." "That's where I found them. I don't like to defend myself against such accusations. They're not fair. This is the kind of thing that gets people in trouble." "Isn't this yours?" Leventhal picked up a clipping from the classified ads. "Oh, I know what was in that pocket. But some of it was there when I put the robe on. Maybe you object to the fact that I used the robe. I'm sorry, I..." Leventhal refused to be deflected. "You mean to say that you didn't go through my desk?" Allbee made a movement of sincere, straightforward denial. "How about this. Where did you get this?" Leventhal pointed to Shifcart's card. "I found it on the floor. Now, there I'll admit... if I did anything really wrong it was to take that card. It was on the floor near your bed. I had no right to keep it. Perhaps you needed it. I should have asked. But I didn't think of that. I was interested in it. In fact, I was going to bring it up in connection with something I've been thinking about but kept forgetting." "You're lying." Allbee was silent. He stood looking at him. "I didn't put the postcards in the bathrobe," said Leventhal, "and this card of Shifcart's was in the desk." Allbee answered simply, "If you didn't put them there, then a third party must have. I know I didn't." "But you read them!" He said this violently, but he wanted to sink away. "Yes, I did," Allbee dropped his eyes as if to spare him. "Damn you to hell!" Leventhal shouted in anguish and outrage. "That's not all you read. What else!" "Nothing." "You did!" "No, that was all. I couldn't avoid looking them over. It wasn't intentional. But I took them out of the pocket and so I had to see what they were. It's mostly your wife's fault. She should have put them in an envelope--things like that. I never would have pulled a letter out of an envelope. But I read this before I realized what it was. It's not so serious, is it? What's so special about your cards? Any wife might write like that to a husband, or a husband to a wife. And an old married man like me... it's not the same as if a young person, say a young girl, got hold of them. And even then, I wonder if anybody is innocent. And last of all, I don't think it would matter to your wife. This is not the kind of thing for postcards. If she cared, she'd have written it in a letter." "I still think you're lying." "Well, if you do, I can't change your mind. But I'm not. Why not keep your desk locked, as long as you don't trust me?" "It is now." "You should have locked it sooner. Nobody likes to be jumped on like this. Keep it locked. You have a right to lose your temper when there's definite proof that somebody is monkeying with your private things. It's not very nice. But neither are such accusations. Suppose I did look in your desk, and I absolutely deny it, why should I want to carry the cards around?" "Why should you? Search me!" "Like a mental case? Not me, you've got the wrong party." Leventhal did not know what more to say. Perhaps he was wrong. Except when Allbee spoke of young girls he made sense and even that, fully explained, might not be irrelevant. Besides, the haircut, the shirt and tie, and the fact that he was sober made a difference. It was the haircut mainly; it gave him a new aspect. His face appeared more solid. Leventhal all at once felt nothing very strongly; he only had a certain curiosity about Allbee. He sat down beside the desk. Allbee sank into the easy chair and stretched his legs out. After a few minutes of silence he said, "Did you see this morning's paper?" "Why, what's in the paper?" "There was an item in it I thought you might have picked up. It's about Rudiger. Really about Rudiger's son, but he was mentioned too. The son's in the army and he was promoted, yesterday. To the rank of major." "What about it?" "I just happened to notice. I was in the barber shop looking at the paper and saw the boy's picture. He worked in the office for a while. He's a very ordinary boy. Nice... I can't criticize him. Just a college boy; very ordinary, no special spark. It's no business of mine; that is, it can't do me any good or harm. But I'm always interested in the way things work themselves out. Now somebody without influence spends twenty years in the service, first in this hole of a garrison and then in that one, lives with native girls because he can't afford to marry. Maybe he gets a little rank in the end, becomes a second lieutenant. You can't tell me it isn't a matter of influence." "It probably is," said Leventhal idly. "Yes. Not that I have anything against him because he happens to be his father's son. Why shouldn't he take advantage of the old man's position? And what else can the old man do for him?" He suddenly changed the subject with a quick laugh. "Notice my haircut?" "I see." "I didn't drink, either. That's not what you expected, is it?" "Go ahead, surprise me." "No, you thought I'd get looped again." "Maybe." "I told you I wasn't that far gone." "I'm glad to see it." "Are you?" There was a break of excitement in his hilarity. "Sure," said Leventhal. He felt a responsive laugh forming in his chest and he held it down. "What do you want, a basket of roses?" "Why not?" "A medal?" Leventhal began to smile. "Yes, a medal." He coughed thickly. "I ought to have one." "You ought to get one." "Well, I wasn't even tempted, to be honest about it. I didn't have to fight a yen; not a bit of trouble." Allbee bent forward and laid his hand on the arm of Leventhal's chair, and for a short space the two men looked at each other and Leventhal felt himself singularly drawn with a kind of affection. It oppressed him, it was repellent. He did not know what to make of it. Still he welcomed it, too. He was remotely disturbed to see himself so changeable. However, it did not seem just then to be a serious fault. "I had clippers on the sides." Allbee brought the tips of his fingers to his head. "I got into the habit. It's cleaner that way, I've learned. Because of nits. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" Leventhal shrugged. "Oh, if you got them in your hair, hair like that... Your hair amazes me. Whenever I see you, I have to study it. With some people you sometimes doubt if it's real and you want to see if your man is wearing a wig. But your hair; I've often tried to imagine how it would be to have hair like that. Is it hard to comb?" "What do you mean, is it hard?" "I mean, does it tangle. It must break the teeth out of combs. Say, let me touch it once, will you?" "Don't be a fool. It's hair. What's hair?" he said. "No, it's not ordinary hair." "Ah, get out," Leventhal said, drawing back. Allbee stood up. "Just to satisfy my curiosity," he said, smiling. He fingered Leventhal's hair, and Leventhal found himself caught under his touch and felt incapable of doing anything. But then he pushed his hand away, crying, "Lay off!" "It's astonishing. It's like an animal's hair. You must have a terrific constitution." Leventhal jerked his chair away, wrinkling his forehead in confusion and incipient anger. Then he bawled, "Sit down, you lunatic!" and Allbee went back to his place. He sat forward, ungainly, his hands under his thighs, his jaw slipped to one side, exactly as on the night when he had first confronted Leventhal in the park. The white of his trimmed temples and his shaven face made the blue of his eyes conspicuous. No further word was spoken for a while. Leventhal was trying to settle his feelings and to determine how to recover the ground he had lost through this last piece of insanity. "It's hard to have the right mixture of everything," Allbee suddenly began. "What are you driving at now?" said Leventhal. "Oh, this about your calling me a lunatic when I give in to an impulse. Nobody can be sure he has the right mixture. Just to give you an example. Lately, a couple of weeks ago, there was a man in the subway, on the tracks. I don't understand how he got there. But he was on the tracks and a train came along and pinned him against the wall. He was bleeding to death. A policeman came down and right away forbid anyone to touch this man until the ambulance arrived. That was because he had instructions about accidents. Now that's too much of one thing--playing it safe. The impulse is to save the man, but the policy is to stick to rules. The ambulance came and the man was dragged out and died right away. I'm not a doctor and I can't say whether he had a chance at any time. But suppose he could have been saved? That's what I mean by the mixture." "Was he yelling for help? What line was that?" Leventhal said with a frown of pain. "East-side line. Well, of course, when a man is spread-eagled like that. He was filling the tunnel with his noise. And the crowd! The trains were held up and the station was jammed. They kept coming down. People should have pushed the cop out of the way and taken the fellow down. But everybody stood and listened to him. Those are the real trimmers." "Trimmers?" "They're not for God and they're not for the Old Scratch. They think they're for themselves but they're not that either." "What does he tell me this for?" thought Leventhal. "Does he want to work on my feelings? Maybe he doesn't know why himself." Allbee began to smile. "You should have seen how surprised you looked when I showed up dead sober. You're going to be even more surprised, you know." "By what?" "You were joking with me this morning about a new start. You wouldn't take me seriously." "Do you believe it yourself?" "Don't you worry," he said confidently. "I know what really goes on inside me. I'll let you in on something. There isn't a man living who doesn't. All this business, 'Know thyself'! Everybody knows but nobody wants to admit. That's the thing. Some swimmers can hold their breath a long time -those Greek sponge divers--and that's interesting. But the way we keep our eyes shut is a stunt too, because they're made to be open." "So. You're off again. You can do it without whisky. I thought it was the whisky." "All right," cried Allbee. "Now let me explain something to you. It's a Christian idea but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to understand it. 'Repent!' That's John the Baptist coming out of the desert. Change yourself, that's what he's saying, and be another man. You must be and the reason