The victim (9 page)

were Leventhal's first words. "It's a swell day. You can smell the sea here." He breathed deeply. "Fish and clams." He observed approvingly that Philip's short hair was wetted and brushed, and that his shirt collar, which lay over the collar of his coat, was fresh and clean. He himself was wearing a seersucker suit that had just come back from the laundry; it made him feel set for the holiday. "Now, how will we go uptown? On the bus?" He touched the boy on the shoulder. "There isn't much to look at on a Saturday from the Broadway bus." "Oh, I get over to Manhattan," said Philip. "I know what it looks like. Let's take the subway." They walked down, Leventhal guiding him through the turnstile and the gloom of the curved platform. A distant, rapid concussion of cars, like hammer blows, came to them in the tunnel. It was fortunate that Philip was talkative, for, if he had been shy, Leventhal would have thought he was being reproached for his past neglect, not to be made up for in a single afternoon. He had read such a reproach into his silence last week, when he gave him the quarter. But there was no cause for misgiving. Philip talked on fluently, and Leventhal, though his mind sometimes appeared to be elsewhere, was secretly minutely attentive. The emotions Philip raised in him deepened his ordinary stolidity. But he glanced frequently at the slope of his cropped, handsome long head and into his face, and he thought that Elena's blood might show in his features but not in his nature. There they had something in common. The boy seemed to see it, too, Leventhal told himself. Philip put his hand on a chocolate slot machine on one of the pillars, and Leventhal hastily went through his pockets for pennies and put in five or six, turning the knobs. The train rolled in while he was getting the chocolate out of the metal trough, and they abandoned the machine and ran. "What do you say we walk a little?" Leventhal suggested at Pennsylvania Station. They got out and started up toward Times Square. The air was stiller here in midtown, and they walked, Leventhal listening to Philip's chatter, often a little puzzled by it. Philip was curious about the foundations of the skyscrapers. Was it true that they had to have shock absorbers? They must have something to ride out the vibrations of the subway and to take in the play at the top, the swaying. They all swayed. Max had told him that in a ship the plates were arranged in parts of the deck to give when there was bad weather to ride out. "It sounds reasonable," said Leventhal. "Of course, I'm no engineer." Philip went on, speculating about what there was under the street in addition to foundations: the pipes, water pipes and sewage, gas mains, the electrical system for the subway, telephone and telegraph wires, and the cable for the Broadway trolley. "I suppose they have maps and charts at City Hall." Leventhal stopped. "What about a drink?" They had a glass of orangeade at a bamboo stand where the paper grass bristled on the walls. The woman at the tank clapped down the pull with her wrist, holding her fingers with their cameo rings rigid. The drink was slightly bitter with ground rinds. Coming out of the stand they walked into a crowd that had formed around a man selling toy dogs that skittered and barked. The peddler, in a flecked sweat shirt and broken shoes, a band with Indian figures on his forehead, pushed them with his wide toe whenever they slowed down. "Run three minutes, guarantee," he said. To wind them he clasped them by the head; his fingers were too big to get at the key easily. "Three minutes. Two bits. They cost me eighteen. That's the con." He made his joke sullenly. His cheeks were heavy, his gaze unconciliating. "Three minutes. Don't pester, don't shtup. Buy or beat it." There was laughter among the bystanders. "What's he saying?" Philip wanted to know. "He's telling them in Yiddish not to push," Leventhal replied. He was reminded of what Allbee had said about Jews and New York. "Come on, Phil," he said. On Forty-second Street the boy stopped often to look at the stills outside theaters, and Leventhal reluctantly--he did not care for movies--asked whether he wanted to take in a show. "I'd certainly like to," Philip said. Leventhal surmised that Mickey's illness had probably interfered with his Saturday movie-going. "Any one you want," he said. Philip chose a horror picture, and they bought tickets and passed over the brown rugs of the sunless lobby, between the nebulous lamps in their shattered, dust-eaten silk shades, and the long brocaded chairs, into the stifling darkness. They sat down in the leather seats. On the screen an old scientist was seen haunting the dressing room of a theater where he had murdered his mistress many years ago. He had hallucinations about a young star who resembled her and he attempted to strangle the girl. The flaring lights hurt Leventhal's eyes, the music was strident, and, after half an hour of it, his nerves jarred, he went down to the lavatory. He found an old man there, leaning against a yellow sink, picking clean the end of a rolled cigarette. "The stuff they put Karloff in," he said. "A man of his ability." "You like him?" said Leventhal. "In his line, he's a genius." He offered Leventhal a light, holding the match vertically pinched between limy white nails; his fingers were raw; he must be a dishwasher. "Here he's horsing around. It's an inferior vehicle. Even so, he shines. He really understands what a mastermind is, a law unto himself. That's what he's got my admiration for." Leventhal threw away his cigarette; the smell of disinfectants interfered with the taste of it. He rejoined Philip, sliding into the seat. He shortly fell asleep. The efforts of the man next to him to push out of the row woke him up. He rose suddenly and heard the music of the newsreel. "Phil, let's go. There's no air in the place," said Leventhal. "It's a wonder anybody stays awake." The street was glaring when they emerged. The lights in the marquee were wan. There was a hot, overrich smell of roasting peanuts and caramel corn. A metallic clapping sound came to them from a shooting gallery. And for a time Leventhal felt empty and unstable. The sun was too strong, the swirling traffic too loud, too swift. "Well, where next?" he asked. "What about the park? We can take in the zoo. A little fresh air wouldn't be bad, would it? Out in the open? We'll have a sandwich first and then walk down." Philip agreed, and Leventhal could only guess whether the idea pleased him, or whether, having had his way about the movies, he felt obliged to acquiesce. "I'm out of touch with kids," he thought. "Maybe he's too sophisticated for the zoo. But I don't know why he should be." His earlier confidence in the understanding between them was fading. "Is there anything you'd rather do instead?" he said to the boy. "You don't have to be afraid to speak up." "The only thing I can think of is the Dodgers against Boston. But it must be about the fifth inning by now. I'm not afraid to speak up." "Good. We'll get the ball game another time. When you've got something on your mind, I want you to tell me. Meanwhile let's have a bite." The restaurant they went into was an immense place, choked with people. There were several lines before each counter. Leventhal sent Philip to buy soft drinks; he himself went for sandwiches. They found a table and Leventhal began to eat, but Philip went in search of a mustard jar. Leventhal sat sipping out of his bottle. Suddenly there was a stir in the crowd at the front of the restaurant; voices rose sharply. Several people stood up on chairs to see what was happening. Leventhal, too, lifted himself up and looked around for Philip, frowning, beginning to feel troubled. He entered the crowd and pushed forward. "Here's my uncle. Uncle!" shouted Philip, catching sight of him. His arm was held by a man whose back was turned but whose blond head and cotton jacket Leventhal immediately recognized. "What are you doing?" he said. In his astonishment he spoke neither to Philip nor to Allbee, but, as it were, to them both. "I took the mustard from the table and this man grabbed me," Philip cried. "That's right, I did. You put it back." Leventhal flushed and pulled Philip away from Allbee. "Oh, so this is your uncle?" Allbee smiled, but his eyes did not rest long on Leventhal. He was playing to the crowd and, standing there, his head hung awkwardly forward, he could hardly keep from laughing at the sensation he was making. And yet there was the usual false note, the note of impersonation in what he did. "I asked if I could have the mustard. I asked a lady and she said it was all right," said Philip. "Where is she?" "That's right, mister." Leventhal met the distressed eyes of a young girl. White-faced, she pressed her pocketbook to her breast. "What did I tell you?" "You sneaked the mustard jar away. It doesn't belong to this young woman. It belongs to the table." "I didn't see you at the table," she cried. "You keep on following me around," said Leventhal in a low voice, tensely, "you keep it up and see what happens. I'll get out a warrant. I'm not joking." "Oh, I could get a warrant out for you on a battery charge. Very easily. There was a witness." "I should have broken your neck," Leventhal muttered. His large head twitched. Because of the boy he dissembled his anger. "Oh, you should have. I wish it was broken." Allbee moistened his lips and stared at him. "Come on, Phil." Leventhal led him out of the crowd. "Who is he?" asked Philip. "He's a nuisance. I used to know him years ago. Don't pay any attention to him. He's just a nuisance." They sat down. Philip smeared mustard on his sandwich and looked silently at his uncle. "It didn't upset you, did it?" "Well, I jumped when he grabbed me, but I wasn't afraid of him." "He's nothing to be afraid of." He pushed his plate across the table. "Here, eat this half of mine, Phil." His heart was pounding. He gazed at the entrance. Allbee was out of sight for the moment. "I won't stand it," he thought. "He'd better stay away from me."

9

IN the thronged zoo, Leventhal kept an eye out for Allbee. Defiant and alert at first, he soon became depressed. For if Allbee wanted to trail him how could he prevent it? Among so many people he could come close without being seen. Frequently Leventhal felt that he was watched and he endured it passively. Half out of fear of being mistaken, he made no effort to catch Allbee. He tried to put him out of his thoughts and give all his attention to Philip, forcing himself to behave naturally. But now and then, moving from cage to cage, gazing at the animals, Leventhal, in speaking to Philip, or smoking, or smiling, was so conscious of Allbee, so certain he was being scrutinized, that he was able to see himself as if through a strange pair of eyes: the side of his face, the palpitation in his throat, the seams of his skin, the shape of his body and of his feet in their white shoes. Changed in this way into his own observer, he was able to see Allbee, too, and imagined himself standing so near behind him that he could see the weave of his coat, his raggedly overgrown neck, the bulge of his cheek, the color of the blood in his ear; he could even evoke the odor of his hair and skin. The acuteness and intimacy of it astounded him, oppressed and intoxicated him. The heat was climbing again, and the pungency of the animals and the dry hay, dust, and manure filled his head; the sun, overflowing above the topmost twigs and bent back from bars and cages, white and glowing in long shapes, deprived him for a moment of his sense of the usual look of things, and he was afraid, too, that his strength was leaving him. But he felt normal again when he forced himself to walk on. Leaving the zoo, he and Philip went into the park. Philip wanted to rest and went toward a bench. But Leventhal said, "We'll find a place with more shade," because this was at a crossing of two paths and exposed to all directions. They sat down on a slope where no one could approach unseen. At the crossing, about fifty yards distant, there was a knot of people, one of whom might have been Allbee. Evening was coming on, and a new tide of heat with it, thickening the air, sinking grass and bushes under its weight. Leventhal watched. He even thought of turning the tables on Allbee, lying in wait for him somewhere. But what if he did trap him, what use was it? Would he embarrass him? He was beyond being embarrassed. Beat him? With pleasure. But he felt that he ought to beware, for his own sake, of countering absurdity with absurdity and madness with madness. And of course he did not want to make another scene while Philip was with him. He did not know what effect Allbee had had on him in the restaurant. He believed that Philip realized how much the incident had disconcerted him and therefore tactfully hid his feelings. He had a mind to talk to him about it. But he did not want to betray his anxiety; furthermore, he was afraid to begin a conversation without knowing in advance where it would lead. And maybe he was giving the boy credit for too much discernment. But the mood of the outing had changed. Philip looked pensive; he had nothing to say; and it would have been natural for him to mention the incident once, at least. Certainly he hadn't forgotten it. "What's up, Phil," he said. "Nothing. My feet are tired," he answered, and Leventhal remained in the dark as to what Philip really felt. He decided to take a taxi to the ferry and he stood up, saying, "Let's go, Phil. Time to get you back." He set a rapid pace toward Fifth Avenue. Philip appeared to be somewhat puzzled by his haste but he enjoyed the ride in the open-roofed cab. Leventhal accompanied him to Staten Island and put him on the bus. Then he returned to Manhattan. About nine o'clock, after a seafood dinner he barely tasted, he was on his way home without a thought of going elsewhere. He wandered into a cigar store, glanced round at the shelves beyond the flame on the counter, and bought a package of cigarettes. He took the change absent-mindedly, but, instead of putting it in his pocket, he began to look through it to find a nickel with which to phone Williston. For all at once he had a consuming need to get an explanation from him, tonight, immediately. He could not understand why he had put it off all week. He leafed through the directory quickly, copied the number out, and went into the booth. Phoebe Williston answered, and the sound of her voice gave him an unexpected stab; he was reminded of the many times he had called to ask a favor of Williston, to get advice from him, or an introduction. The Willistons had been patient with him, usually, and he had often rather helplessly and dumbly put his difficulties in their hands and waited, sat in their parlor or hung on the telephone, waiting while his problems were weighed, conscious that he was contributing nothing to their solution, wishing he could withdraw them but powerless to do so. Inevitably there had been times when his calls were unwelcome and the Willistons' patience overdrawn. Whenever he rang their bell, or dropped a nickel in the slot and heard the dial tone, the question in his heart was, "How will it be this time?" And now, too, it was present, despite the fact that the circumstances were altogether different. "This is Leventhal," he said. "How are you?" "Leventhal? Oh, Asa Leventhal. How are you, Asa?" He thought she didn't sound unfriendly. It was too much to ask that she should be positively cordial, considering that this was his first call in three or four years. "I'm good enough." "You want to talk to Stan, I suppose." "Yes." He heard the instrument being laid on the table with a knock and then, for several minutes, the sound of a conversation carried on at a distance. "He doesn't want to talk to me," thought Leventhal. "He must be telling her that she should have said he was out." Presently the phone was picked up. "Hello, there." "Yes, hello. Is that you, Asa?" Leventhal said without preliminaries, "Say, Stan, I want to see you. Can you give me a little time tonight?" "Oh, tonight? That's pretty short notice." "Yes, I know it is. I should have asked if you were going out." "Well, we were planning to later, as a matter of fact." "I won't stay. About fifteen minutes is all I want." "Where are you now?" "Not far. I'll grab a taxi." It seemed to him that Williston did not conceal his reluctance. But when he said, "All right," Leventhal did not even bother to say good-by. He did not care how Williston consented to see him, just so he consented. He went into the middle of the street and flagged a cab. Of course, he observed to himself getting in, Williston was displeased by his phoning and blurting out his request, dispensing with the usual formalities. But there was much more than that to be concerned about, assuming that Williston really did side with Allbee, There was fairness, a man's reputation, honor. And there were other considerations as well. The cab raced uptown, and Leventhal suddenly felt his face burning, for he had just recalled a verse his father had liked to repeat: Ruf mir Yoshke, ruf mir Moshke, Aber gib mir die groschke. "Call me Ikey, call me Moe, but give me the dough. What's it to me if you despise me? What do you think equality with you means to me? What do you have that I care about except the groschen?" That was his father's view. But not his. He rejected it and recoiled from it. Anyway, his father had lived poor and died poor, that stern, proud old fool with his savage looks, to whom nothing mattered save his advantage and to be freed by money from the power of his enemies. And who were the enemies? The world, everyone. They were imaginary. There was no advantage. He carried on like a merchant prince among his bolts and remnants, and was willing to be a pack rat in order to become a lion. There was no advantage; he never became a lion. It gave Leventhal pain to think about his father's sense of these things. He roused himself to tell the driver to hurry. But the cab was already in Williston's block, and he grasped the handle of the door. He recognized the elderly Negro who took him up in the elevator. Short, broad-shouldered, and slow, he stooped over the lever, handling it with the utmost deliberateness. They rose and stopped smoothly on the fourth floor. The knocker on Williston's door was also familiar--a woman's head cast in copper that surprised you by its heaviness. Phoebe Williston let him in. Leventhal shook hands with her and she preceded him along the high-walled gray corridor into the living-room. Williston stood up from his chair in the bay window, a newspaper falling from his lap and spreading around the base of the lamp. He was in his shirt sleeves, the cuffs turned back on his smooth, reddish forearms. He hadn't lost any of his ruddy color. His brown hair was brushed sideways and his dark green satin tie hung unknotted from his buttoned collar. "Pretty much the same, eh?" he said in his pleasant, deep voice. "Yes, just about. You, too, I see." "A couple of years older all around," Phoebe remarked. "Well, it goes without saying." Williston brought another chair forward in the bay window and the two men sat down. Phoebe remained standing, resting her weight on one foot, her arms folded, and Leventhal thought that her look was fixed on him longer than it need have been. He submitted to this prolonged look with an air of allowing her the right, under the circumstances, to inspect him. "You seem to be all right, filled out," she said. "How's your wife?" "Oh, she's out of town for a while, down South with her mother and family. She's fine." "Lord! South in this weather? And are you still in the same place?" "Address or job? Both the same. The same job, Burke and Beard; same people. I guess Stan knows." The maid came in to ask Phoebe a question. She was a pale, slow-spoken girl. Phoebe listened, inclining her head and twisting her necklace in her fingers. She went back with her to the kitchen. Williston explained, "That's a new girl learning her way around." Leventhal, as in the past, felt conscious of a household that had more of the atmosphere of established habit than any he had ever known. Williston lay loosely in his chair, crossing his feet, his fingers pushed under his belt. Within the metal guard of the semicircular window were several flowerpots with blossoms coarse as bits of red ore. Looking at them, Leventhal considered how he should begin. He was unprepared. It had seemed simple enough; he came with a grievance and he wanted an explanation. Perhaps he had counted on finding Williston roused against him; he certainly had not expected him to sit back and wait while minute after minute of the time he had requested ran out. He had not foreseen the effect Williston was having on him; he had forgotten what he was like. More than once, in the old days, he had mistrusted him. He had been full of rancor toward him when he thought Williston was uneasy about the reference letter. But on that occasion and others he had changed his opinion; he invariably did when he was face to face with Williston. He came to him complaining, but soon, without quite knowing how it happened, he began to feel unsure of his ground. So it was now, and he was unable to start. He sat in the bay window looking down, over the heads of the flowers, at the sprinting headlights in the depth of the park below the net of trees, as they turned on a curve and illuminated the boulders and trailing bushes of a steep hillside, one beam after another passing through an immobility of black and green. "I wanted to talk to you about your friend Allbee," he said at last. "Maybe you understand what he's up to." Williston was immediately interested; he lifted himself up in his chair. "Allbee? Have you seen him?" "I sure have." "I lost track of him years ago. What's he doing? Where did you see him?" But Leventhal would answer no questions till he knew where he stood with Williston. "What was he doing last time you saw him?" he said. "Nothing. He was living on insurance money. His wife was killed, you know." "I heard." "It hit him hard. He loved her." "All right, he loved her. He didn't go to her funeral. And why did she leave him?" Williston raised his eyes to him curiously. "Why," he said with a certain reserve, "I can't say for sure. That was something between them." Leventhal was quick to feel the rebuke in this and he changed his tone somewhat. "Yes, I guess a third party never really gets the true story. I thought maybe you knew." He sensed that he ought to explain himself further. "I'm not trying to find out something that's none of my business. I have a good reason. Maybe you have an idea what it is...?" "Well, I think I do," Williston replied. Leventhal's heart ran hot. "I understand that you take his side," he said. "You know what about. You think I'm responsible for everything, just as he does." "Everything takes in a lot of territory," said Williston. "What are you driving at? I'd be more specific about something I was going to land on a man for." He was not quite so composed and genial, now; his voice was beginning to sound taut, and Leventhal thought, "Better, much better. Maybe we'll get somewhere." He bent his heavy, dark face forward. "I didn't come to accuse you of anything, Stan. I'm not landing on you. I came to ask why you said certain things about me without hearing my side of the case?" "Unless you tell me exactly what you're talking about, I can't answer." "You want me to believe that you don't know? You know..." he made an ill-defined pushing gesture. "I want you to tell me right out if you think it's my fault that Allbee was fired from Dill's Weekly." "You do? You want to?" Williston asked this grimly, as if offering him the opportunity to reconsider or withdraw the question. "Yes." "Well, I think it is." A hard stroke of disappointment and anger went through Leventhal and drove the breath from his body. His limbs were empty; his thighs felt hollow and rigid as brass, and he could not stir his hands from them. He hardly knew what expressions were crossing his face. "It is... It is?" he said, struggling. "I don't see why." "For definite reasons." Leventhal, his glance bitter and uncertain, said stum-blingly, "I wanted to know..." Williston did not treat this as needing an answer. Leventhal continued more surely, "I asked you, so you were bound to give me your opinion. If it's right, fair enough. But what if it's wrong? It might be wrong." "I'm not infallible." "No. When you say it's my fault, you're as good as telling me that I set out to make trouble for Allbee because of the way he acted toward Harkavy that night at your house, here. It must mean that I wanted to get even with him because of what he said about Jews." Williston's frown told him that this was something he didn't want to hear. Ah, but he would hear it, Leventhal said to himself fiercely. "That's what Allbee claims, that I wasn't going to let him get