Irwin Shaw: Nightwork

“The Blackstone will do,” I said.

“In the same conditions in which it was found, please,” Vance said. “In one-hundred-dollar bills.”

I nodded again.

“Well,” be said, “that takes care of everything, I think. I must be on my way now.”

At the door, he stopped. “You haven’t asked me whom I represent,” he said.

“No.”

“Just as well. I couldn’t tell you if you had asked. Still, I can say that your … your escapade … was not without its benefits. It might ease the pain of having to return the money to know that it saved several distinguished people … very distinguished people from considerable embarrassment.”

“That makes my day,” I said.

It was nine o’clock when I went up in the elevator in the apartment building on East Fifty-second Street. I had left word with Anna to tell Mrs Grimes that I had been called to the city suddenly on business and that I would be gone a day or two. I could have called Evelyn at her office, but I didn’t want to have to explain anything.

Henry let me into the apartment. I had caught him just as he was about to go out. He and Madeleine had tickets for the theater, but when I said he would have to wait for me, he said, “I’ll be here.” He looked worried as he opened the door. Madeleine was in the living room. dressed for her night out in New York. She, too, looked worried.

“Maybe it would be better if you and I talked alone, Hank,” I said. But he shook his head. “I’d rather she stayed, if you don’t mind.” “All right,” I said. “It won’t take long. I need a hundred thousand dollars. Hank. In hundred-dollar bills. I haven’t time to collect it from Europe and I don’t have it here. I have only three days. Can you get it for me in three days?”

Henry sat down suddenly. We had all been standing in the middle of the living room. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, in a gesture that was a hangover from childhood. “Yes,” he said, almost inaudibly. “Somehow. Of course,”

It only took two days.

I called Vance’s room from the lobby of the hotel. He was there. “I’m coming up,” I said. I held the heavy suitcase in one hand while I held the telephone with the other.

“Excellent,” he said.

I waited while he counted the bills. He did it slowly and carefully. I hadn’t asked Henry where he had found the money and he hadn’t told me. “That’s it,” said Vance, as he snapped a rubber band around the last bundle of bills. “Thank you,”

“You can keep the bag,” I said.

“That’s kind of you.” He escorted me to the door.

I drove fast. I wanted to look in at the hospital before it was too late for visitors. I had called at noon and spoken to Lily. Fabian was resting comfortably, she had said. I wanted to tell him that the man had come, as he had predicted, and asked for a hundred thousand dollars and that I had had it to give to him,

When I got to the hospital, the nurse at the front desk stopped me. “I’m afraid you’re too late, Mr. Grimes,” she said. “Mr. Fabian died at four o’clock this afternoon. We tried to reach you, but…”

“That’s all right,” I said. I was mildly surprised at how calm my voice sounded. “Is Lady Abbott here?”

The nurse shook her head. “I believe Mrs Abbott has left town.” Even at that moment her American distrust of titles prevented her from saying Lady Abbott. “She said there was nothing more she could do here. She thought she could catch a night plane back to London.”

I nodded. “Very wise,” I said. “Good night, nurse, I’ll be here in the morning to make the necessary arrangements.”

“Good night, Mr Grimes.” she said.

I drove slowly toward East Hampton. There was no hurry now. I did not want to go home just yet. I drove to the barn, dark now, with the newly painted sign. The South Fork Gallery, in small, modest letters above the door. “Don’t neglect the shop,” Fabian had said. I took out my ring of keys and opened the door. I sat on a bench in the middle of the room, without turning on the lights, thinking of the joyous, dishonest, scarred, cunning man who had died that day, and who, by the terms of the contract we had signed that slushy day in the office of the lawyer in Zurich, now had left me free and absurdly wealthy. The tears came slowly.

I got off the bench and went over to the switch and turned on the lights. Then I stood in the middle of the room and looked at the paintings of the wanderings of Angelo Quinn’s father, glowing on the walls.

Retinoschisis is a disease of the nerve tissue in the eye. It affects the retinal cells in the macula (the central fixation point of vision at the back of the eye).

To write in a sprawling, irregular manner.

Coquettish – a woman who makes teasing sexual or romantic overtures; a flirt.

A second person singular present tense of shall

The soft tissue under the lower jaw, especially when well-formed

An exclemation to express shock or extreme emotion. To be a son of a bitch.

Third-person singular simple present indicative form of stop.

A duotone textile pattern, characterized by broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes.

Here and after “h” is used to show a foreign accent

fr. dull beggar

fr. shit

Edouard Manet – Breakfast in the Open Air, 1863

fr. betrothal

confectionery