The Palace Thief (7 page)

I told her that I missed her, then followed this with a phrase we often used in the early days of our marriage.

“Oh, Abba,” she said.

Next I spoke to Naomi, who greeted me suspiciously but then told me about a young man who had taken her to the movies and about a party dress she had recently purchased; Abba came on the line and we spoke about baseball in general terms and our plans to see the Giants at home when I returned; Rachel spoke last and said she missed me. She was eager to hear of my time at camp and quizzed me concerning my at-bats, which needless to say I found gratifying. We hung up and I returned to my rooms.

I could not imagine what was transpiring downstairs, yet I
suspected it would have bearing on our meeting tomorrow. Perhaps it behooved me to join my colleagues in the sense that fraternity is pedimental to the business relationship; perhaps, on the other hand, to stay away would confirm my reputation as a moral force, which of course was integral to the standing of an accountant. I am not unaware that it will perhaps be of disappointment to learn that I indeed stayed in my rooms that evening. I took the proposal documents from my briefcase, read through them once again for accuracy, replaced them in their proper order, and changed for bed.

Sometime after night had descended to its full blackness and the moon had risen in my window, I heard the elevator arrive and boisterous conversation issue from the hallway outside my room. Eugene Peters’s voice crowed unmistakably along with the softer intonations of a lady’s, and I felt a bolt of distaste for the man, who though successful spent his days hobnobbing with ballplayers and his nights cavorting with strumpets. To my horror a knock sounded at my door.

I ignored it at first, but it sounded again and I could hear the two of them in the hallway rustling like raccoons outside a tent. I rose quickly, crossed the room in my pajamas, and opened the door, feigning sleepiness. Eugene Peters stood there, well into his cups, alongside the strumpet, and I will only record the first moments of the conversation to clarify its nature.

“See, sugar,” she said, “you woke the man up.”

“Just making sure you’re ready for business, eh, Abbot?”

“Indeed I am,” I said.

“Please excuse us,” she said, pulling on his arm.

“Abba doesn’t need to excuse us, I’ve known him for forty years, do you, Abba?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Abba and I are going to make a deal tomorrow, aren’t we, Abbot?”

This sort of embarrassment continued for several minutes until the lady, who seemed to be of surprisingly good breeding, succeeded in wrenching him away from my door and steering him down the hall. I climbed back into my bed and was able to dismiss the incident quickly, although it did occur to me that Mr. Peters was a shrewd negotiator and that this might have been his attempt to establish psychological superiority. Outside my window the sprinklers came on. Again I rose and reviewed the documents.

In the morning we had our meeting. I dressed as though for the office—that is, in a neutral suit and striped tie, on the supposition that overgrooming was superior to under, and strolled to Mr. Peters’s suite. Mr. Forbes, himself in a similar suit, met me at the door and ushered me into the foyer, which opened onto a second bedroom with a fold-out sofa and a dresser, next to which a portable meeting table had been placed. Here I took a seat. I had noticed several more closed doors adjoining the foyer and supposed these led to Mr. Peters’s own bedroom and most probably another living room. I noticed no evidence of the lady I had met last night. Although the layout of the suite caused my own rooms to seem puny in comparison, I reflected that in general I prefer small quarters. Mr. Forbes offered me a drink from the bar, and I accepted tomato juice. I complimented him on his fielding over the weekend, and he nodded. He made no attempt to offer conversation, so I opened my briefcase and pretended to occupy myself with preparation.

Suddenly Eugene Peters entered from a side door, dressed in his bathrobe. He shook my hand, told me that he had one more urgent piece of business to attend to, inquired after my comfort, my tomato juice, et cetera, and left out the same door. Mr. Forbes then entered and rather glumly refilled my glass with tomato juice. He left and I continued reviewing my papers.

After several minutes I stood and went to the window. The morning sun was shattered into prisms by the blinds, and in the distance I could see a group of men on the grass. I was surprised, I must say, when I realized that these were the new arrivals here to replace us without even a day’s interlude. Several of them were throwing the ball around the infield while another took swings on the pitching machine set up alongside the bullpen. The light and the long vista onto the grass reminded me of Fort Bragg, where I had spent a few months at the end of the Korean War. The man hitting on the machine missed most of the pitches or nicked foul pop-ups that flew up behind him and bounced in the rope mesh like birds struggling in a net. It occurred to me that Mr. Peters had worn his bathrobe for a strategic reason, and I removed my jacket and set it across the dresser.

At the window the man I was watching suddenly hit a string of low, powerful line drives that sped to the end of the cage and ricocheted off the restraining fence. In a game they would have gone for extra bases. As suddenly as this string began, however, it ended, and he missed four pitches in a row. I was watching this demonstration with some interest. He stepped out of the box and tapped the dirt out of his cleats, but I could see that he was looking to see whether any of the other men had seen his string. On the field beside him they continued their throws. The man put down the bat, switched off the machine, and jogged out to the field. He took a throw from one of the other players. Then he ambled up to the man playing third base and began to chat between the ground balls they were fielding. In a few moments he pointed toward the batting cage, and I moved away from the window.

At this point I heard something that sounded like a burst of giggling followed by another, lower sound, although as soon as
it was over I was not sure whether it had come from the fields, from elsewhere in the hotel, or indeed if I had heard it at all. I was beginning to perspire. There was a great deal that made me uncomfortable here, although I shall not go into it. I patted my forehead with my handkerchief, went to the dresser, glanced idly in its mirror, and sat on the fold-out sofa beside it. Mr. Peters had been gone several minutes by now, and I began to wonder whether he really had another matter to attend to or whether he merely wanted to create the impression for business reasons. Again I checked the contents of my briefcase. I stretched my legs. The drawer to his dresser was slightly open, and without thinking I reached my arm back and drew out what touched my hand, which happened to be a piece of clothing. I do not believe I knew beforehand that it was one of the leggings of Willie Mays.

Yet that is what I now held, and although I suppose I should have replaced it immediately and closed the drawer, I could not help wanting to examine it. Leaning back in the sofa, I held it in my fingers. Though of course it was quite ragged, I do not mind saying that it was beautiful. The elastic top still drew firmly when I stretched it, and the stirrup at the bottom was of a second material—silk, I believe.

Though I knew Mr. Peters had in effect bought these leggings, as I sat there I nonetheless began to have thoughts again about the differences between him and me—that he hobnobbed with ballplayers, that he owned a large and growing business concern, that men of talent and ambition were in his employ, et cetera. I found it difficult to fathom that the lazy scoundrel I knew as a boy was now a captain of industry, and as I sat there with the legging in my hands I tried to remember if our childhoods contained some hint of our futures. At that moment, however, I heard him again in the hall, and without
thinking I opened my briefcase and dropped his legging into it.

Why did I do this? I cannot say I know. I might as easily have dropped it back into the dresser or simply continued to examine it, which was of course within the bounds of behavior. What troubles me is that my reaction was that of a thief caught red-handed, though of course my whole life had been spent in a profession that as a sidelight prevents exactly such behavior. I had little time to think. I closed the briefcase just as Mr. Peters re-entered the room, and this again served to reinforce the dreadful feeling I had that I was acting larcenously, although objectively speaking I do not believe I gave this dread away. Indeed for a fleeting second I had the bizarre thought that in another life I might indeed have made a competent thief.

Mr. Forbes had come in alongside. The two of them shook hands with me again and we all took places at the table, Mr. Peters across from me and Mr. Forbes beside. I set the briefcase between us—and again my own behavior surprised me, for one needs not have read a great many crime novels to know this was exactly the sort of brazen act ubiquitous among the criminal class. It was a feat of discipline that I was able to concentrate on the matter at hand.

I had never been in negotiations with Eugene Peters, and I was in fact surprised at the manner in which they began. He had changed his clothing, and now it was only I who was without a suit jacket. Nonetheless he opened by discussing everything other than what we had gathered to discuss. He talked about Willie Mays and the 49er football team, offered voluble praise for my performance over the weekend, and at one point mentioned that perhaps it was I who ought to have won the award. Naturally, I was pleased by this and denied vehemently that I deserved it. One can imagine my feelings.

Quite suddenly Mr. Peters slapped the table with both
hands, opened his arms expansively, and said, “Well, Abba, let’s see it.”

I was quite flustered for a moment until I realized he was referring to the proposal. Without willing the act I had at some point removed the briefcase from the table and set it on my lap, for that is where I now found it. I nodded and lifted it in front of us again. Mr. Peters smiled. I moved it forward on the cherry table, placed my hands on the latches, then withdrew it to my lap again. He was still smiling, although something quizzical had entered his expression. I considered opening the case on my lap, but to the side of me stood Mr. Forbes, who I realized was his henchman and would not refrain from peering into it.

I am sure that the reader would have chosen another course of action in this same circumstance, though I am equally sure the reader has not found himself in it. “I’m sorry, Eugene,” I said, “but I have no proposal.”

“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Peters.

“Our principles have determined that it would not be in our interest to represent your companies. We no longer wish to solicit your account.”

“Pardon me, Abba?”

I hesitated to repeat what I had said, for I was in a dark woods and each moment stepping further into it. As soon as this phrase was spoken, I realized that Mr. Peters might well contact our principals for explanation.

Mr. Forbes had stood and moved a step toward me. “Say that again, fella,” he said.

“We are no longer in a position to solicit your account.”

“I thought you had the proposals all prepared, Abba.”

“Well, I do not.”

It is painful and perhaps pointless to recount the remainder of our meeting, or for me to relay how by uttering that single
phrase I had destroyed a reputation that had taken me a lifetime to build. He asked me several times to clarify my position, and in each case I was forced to argue against everything I had been working toward over many years.

Of course, it would be less than truthful to claim that I did not consider confession. Indeed, while Mr. Peters formulated several rejoinders to my refusal, I considered opening my briefcase, attempting to cast the whole incident and business refusal as a practical joke, and beginning our negotiations once again. Perhaps this is what I should have done and let the chips fall where they might—it is a tantalizing possibility to consider. However, I did not. Our meeting escalated to threats and culminated in rancor, and in an hour I was on the airplane back to San Francisco.

Naturally I made every effort to put the incident from my mind. I thought of what I would say when Naomi showed me her new dress, and what I would tell Rachel about baseball camp, and as we crossed the snowy peaks of the eastern Sierras I decided that on the way home from the airport I would purchase a small pendant that I knew Scheherazade had been considering buying. Over San Francisco Airport we entered a holding pattern, and it was not until we had circled the southern traverse of the bay, cocking our starboard wing toward the banks of fog in the foothills, that I felt able to consider my situation again. Indeed, it seemed that I had irrefutably damaged the progress of my life, all because I had agreed to something I had not even wanted to do. I cursed the day I had decided to attend the camp.

Shortly, I regained hold of myself. The airplane was crossing the northern tip of the bay, and I removed the briefcase from its underseat compartment and moved it to my lap. The man next to me took no notice, and after keeping it there for one complete cycle of our holding pattern, I ventured to open it.

The legging lay across my proposal. Of course it did—where else would it have been?—although I confess that I was surprised to see it. In my mind the events of the preceding hours had taken on a dreamlike quality, and before I opened the case I actually hoped that they had somehow not really occurred. Yet there lay the legging, coiled darkly across my papers. I glanced at my neighbor and brought it up into the air, where I rolled it between my hands, stretched it to and fro in the light of the window, and even smelled it, although the only scent I could discern was that of commercial laundry soap.

Suddenly the thought occurred to me that the man next to me might have believed it to be a woman’s stocking. I glanced at him, but he did not acknowledge me. I cleared my throat and said, “It’s not what you think it is.”

“Probably not,” he answered.