Robert Alter - 100 Malicious Little Mysteries

“Next month is not sufficient,” I say. “My instructions are not to leave without a down payment now. Two thousand dollars is suggested.”

“I don’t have two thousand dollars,” he says. He looks down at the floor, then up at me with curious brightness. “Anyway,” he says, “I don’t think you have the nerve.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t think you have the nerve. The guts.” He puts his palms flat on the desk, raises himself to military posture. “I don’t think you have the guts to blow my head off at high noon on the seventh floor of this building with at least forty people on the same floor right now. The walls are like paper here. Corners are cut in the construction business something awful. The whole place may hear the shot, up to the fortieth story. You wouldn’t think of it.”

“Don’t toy with me, Brown,” I say. I focus my mouth into a snarl. “I don’t like being toyed with and I have a vile temper, to say nothing of a job to do.”

Brown shakes his head. “We all have a job to do,” he says, “but I don’t think you have the nerve to do yours.” He stares at me from his rigid posture. “Go on,” he says, “blow my head off. I don’t have five thousand dollars. I don’t have two thousand dollars. I have nothing to give you so you’re just going to have to carry through your threat.” His eyes glint disturbingly. He is exactly right about the construction business. Roadways, churches, automobiles — nothing is built the way that it used to be. Corruption and the cutting of corners prevail. Even the silencer on the pistol is flimsy; I don’t trust it.

“Come on,” he challenges. The position he has taken seems to have given him a sense of release. “Come on, do it. I have nothing to give you.”

He is quite right. My orders don’t provide for the contingency of defiance. Whether I have the nerve is another issue, but I don’t have to consider that now. Reluctantly I lower the pistol. “I’ll be back,” I say. “Soon. Maybe today. Certainly tomorrow. You can’t run. I know where you live — your wife, your children.”

Brown’s face leers with sudden power. “You won’t do it to them either,” he says. “You won’t do it to anyone. You’ve lost the fire. You’ve acquired scruple. You’re like all the construction people now, all the contractors. You just want an edge without risk.”

“I don’t have to take this kind of abuse,” I say. I put away the pistol and leave his office quickly. My footsteps clatter in the hallway; the whisk of elevators is audible at fifty paces.

What is the raw material of these modern office buildings? Chewing gum?

Considering the issue of scruple, I make my way crosstown and find in his accustomed place the bartender whose gambling losses are now in excess of fifteen thousand. He is alone behind the counter at this difficult hour of a February afternoon, but his face does not light with pleasure when he sees me. Quite the opposite. “I told you yesterday,” he says, “and I told you the day before that too. I don’t have it. I need time to get it together. At least a month.”

“They don’t want to wait a month.”

“That’s their problem,” he says. He dries his hands noisily on a towel. “I have to ask you to leave,” he says. “You hanging around here creates the wrong kind of atmosphere. Customers might be disturbed.”

“I’ll have a rye and soda.”

“No,” he says, “I don’t want to serve you.”

I reach my hand into my pocket in a menacing gesture. “Come on,” he says, “this business with guns no longer fascinates. I tell you, I don’t have it. I have personal problems, medical bills. Maybe by June I can work something out. Right now I can’t do a thing.”

“You’re in no position to make that statement.”

He flings the towel down the length of the bar. “Come on,” he says, “eighty-six it. I’ve had enough of this.”

Striations and laughter float from the television set — an afternoon celebrity quiz or something. The level of television has deteriorated as much as everything else, I think as I back away from the bar. Nothing works quite as it used to. Nothing can quite be trusted. Quality levels go down. Strapped gamblers and bankrupt fur manufacturers take a dictatorial position and there seems no way to deal with them. None of this would have gone on five years ago. It is part of urban rot, I think.

“And stay out of here,” the bartender says as I go through the door.

Who do these people think they are?

I phone in to tell them that collections have not gone well. They grumble if the message comes direct, but for the fourth day in a row it is the answering service and the answering service, of course, assumes a neutral posture. Sometimes I wonder if the messages are even passed on. Sometimes I wonder if they are out of the office permanently. Sometimes I wonder if I need this job, but then common sense prevails; at my age and stage of life there are few new careers open to me. It is one of the hazards of an overly liberal education; I should have learned a trade.

I take the train north and come in at the usual time. Lydia’s face is clamped with tension but at least the children are out for the evening — having dinner with their friends, I am told. “Pour your own drink,” Lydia says, “I’m not any servant. I’ve had a bad day myself.” I can see from her expression that it is going to be a difficult evening. We will be up until at least midnight and it will be necessary for me once again to explain to her the meaningfulness of life in the suburbs. Since I no longer believe in that, I will find it tedious and agonizing. “If you want dinner you take me out,” Lydia says. “I didn’t feel like cooking.”

“Restaurant food isn’t home cooking.”

“We can go to the Major.”

The Major is the local chain motel. “Franchises are no good,” I say. “Franchising has destroyed the nation. Everything is the same and nothing is very good.”

Her eyes, infinitely weary, look up at me. “I don’t want to hear that now,” she says. “Please don’t start up on that with me now.”

Who does the woman think she is, anyway? What has happened to the institution of marriage?

Maybe I’ll put my head under the pillow — no, that’s no good. I can imagine him, whoever he is, sneaking up on me. Okay, that does it! I’m going to get up and stay up, put the lights on in the living room, turn on the television.

Oh, I hate going into the dark... there! Overhead light on, floor lamp on, TV on, nice and loud. Now I’ll just sit down and relax and watch the—

Hey, what was that? Oh. Old houses creak, remember? If it creaked when Bill was here, it’ll creak when he’s away, and it’s just — just something in the house. It’s only your imagination, old girl, that’s what it is. And the more sleepy you get, the more vivid your imagination will get.

All the doors are locked, right? And all the windows, ditto. Okay, then. So I feel like an idiot, trying to stay up all night. Well, sitting here in the living room is a lot better than doing what I did the last time Bill was away overnight! Locking myself in the bathroom and staying there until dawn, for heaven’s sake—

Oh— Oh, the furnace clicked on, that’s all that was! Calm down, girl, calm down! The trouble with you is, you read the papers. You should read the comics and stop there. No, I have to read MOTHER OF THREE ATTACKED BY INTRUDER and WOMAN FOUND BEATEN TO DEATH IN HOME. But, oh, they were so close to us! That old lady lived — what was it, only three, four blocks away? But she lived alone, and nobody knows I’m alone tonight. I hope.

What is the matter with me?! I’m acting like a child. Other women live alone — for years, even — and here I have to stay by myself for just one measly little night and I go all to pieces.