Robert Alter - 100 Malicious Little Mysteries

That was at eleven o’clock, maybe too late for that kind of walk on a week night. And there wasn’t much happening downtown, only a few night spots here and there open; or maybe I’d just picked the wrong part of town.

I strolled innocently along, my light raincoat slung over my arm against any threat of rain. I’d stopped in a few places that looked fairly respectable, staying in each for only one drink and a few words of conversation before going back outside and resuming my wandering. Walking around and sort of taking in the atmosphere of strange cities is a habit of mine. My job keeps me traveling just enough not to get bored with it, so I’m usually interested in new places. And I knew I’d probably never get back to this city.

It was almost one o’clock when I noticed my wallet was missing. I was on Nineteenth Street at the time, idly walking along and looking in the windows of the closed shops.

A lost wallet. Nothing so unusual about that. You’ve probably lost your wallet at some time and felt that sudden rush of helplessness. Well, that feeling’s even stronger in a strange city, in case you’ve never had the experience. Everything that gave me a sense of identity or security was in that wallet — my driver’s license, my folding money, my credit cards...

For a moment I stood in bewilderment, checking my other pockets, but of course the wallet wasn’t in any of them. A wallet’s the sort of thing you automatically return to the right pocket. I hurried back along the almost-deserted streets toward the Posh Parrot on Twelfth Avenue, the last cocktail lounge I’d been in, all the time keeping my eyes to the ground on the off-chance I might see the wallet where it had fallen from my pocket.

The Posh Parrot was closed, the neon sign in its window dull and lifeless, the window itself throwing back a pale reflection of my worried self.

I told myself it didn’t matter. If I had lost the wallet in the lounge and someone had picked it up, he’d probably taken it with him. But I distinctly remembered sliding the wallet back into my hip pocket after paying for my drink; I even remembered folding the corner of a fifty-dollar bill to mark it from the smaller denominations. I began retracing my route back to Nineteenth Street, figuring the wallet must have slipped out of my pocket somewhere along the way.

No luck. What was I going to do? What would you do?

Even the ticket for the last leg of my trip home was in that wallet. I felt suddenly like a vagrant, a trespasser. I realized what a difference a dozen credit cards and a few hundred dollars’ cash make in our society.

The only thing I could do was phone Laurie, my wife, and get her to wire me some money. I felt in my other pockets, and among keys, comb, and ballpoint pen, could muster only a nickel and two pennies. So much for that inspiration.

To make me feel worse, a light drizzle began to fall. I hurriedly slipped on my raincoat and turned up the collar.

I was walking forlornly, head down, hands jammed in my coat pockets, so I didn’t see the man walking the poodle toward me until we were only about a hundred feet from each other.

My awkwardness and embarrassment about trying to borrow money from a stranger, combined with the short period of time I had to come up with what I was going to say, made my throat suddenly dry. You’d feel the same way.

I stopped directly in front of the man, a little guy with wire-framed glasses and a droopy mustache, and he stood staring at me with alarm.

“Would it be possible for you to lend a stranger some money?” is what I meant to say, and then I was going to explain the reason to him. I was ill at ease, as nervous as the little man appeared, and my voice croaked so I guess he only heard the last part of my sentence, the word “money.” He backed up a step, and his poodle sensed his fear and my nervousness and began to growl.

The man’s droopy mustache trembled. “I don’t have much...” he said, “honest...” I saw his eyes dart down to the bulge of my right hand in my raincoat pocket, and I understood.

“Wait a minute,” I started to say, but I saw him glance off to his right and his eyes grew wider behind his thick glasses. I looked and saw the cop almost on us.

“Trouble?” the cop asked. He was young and rangy, built more like a cigarette-ad cowboy than a cop.

“In a way, Officer,” I said.

“He was trying to hold me up!” the little man almost screamed, and his poodle started growling again.

“I thought so,” the cop said. “I was watching from across the street.”

I felt my heart fall like a meteor. “Hey, no, wait a minute!” I was shoved roughly so that I had to support myself against the side of a building with both hands.

“Be careful!” I heard the little man shout. “He’s got a gun in his right coat pocket!”

The cop’s hands searched me the way they’d been trained in the police academy, and I knew by his unsteadiness that he was nervous. All three of us were standing there frightened. Even the dog was frightened.

“He was bluffing you,” the cop said. “They do that.” He jerked me up straight and held onto my arm.

“Bluffing?... I was only trying to borrow some money!..”

The young cop let out a sharp laugh. “A polite mugger, huh?”

“This is insane!” I said.

The cop shrugged. “So plead that way in court.”

“I’ll press charges!” the little man kept saying. “You can be sure of that!”

But the cop was ignoring him now, reciting my rights in a low monotone. He was even ignoring me somewhat as he droned on about my “right to remain silent.” He was really going to do it! I might really be going to jail! And even if I wasn’t convicted, what would the arrest mean to my family, my friends, and my job?

I panicked then, and in what seemed at the time a lucky break, a bus turned the corner and lumbered toward us. I remember one headlight was out and the wiper blades were swinging back and forth out of rhythm. The bus was only doing ten or fifteen miles an hour, and when it was almost even with us I jerked out of the cop’s grip and darted in front of it, around it. The front bumper even brushed my pants leg, but I didn’t care.

Now the bus was between me and the law, and I had a few precious seconds to run for freedom. The bus driver helped me by slamming on his brakes, probably stopping the bus directly in front of the cop so he had to run around it. I was running down an alley, not looking back or even thinking back, when I heard the shot. In my state, the bark of the gun only made me run faster. I turned the corner, flashed across the rain-slick street and cut through another alley. That alley led to a parking lot, and I ran through there to the next street. I slowed then, listening, but hearing no footsteps behind me. I knew I wouldn’t have much time, though. The cop was probably calling in for help right now.

I walked for three more blocks before I saw a cab. It scared me at first; I’d thought the lettering on the door signified a police car. Then I saw that the light atop the car was blue, and there was a liquor advertisement on the trunk. I waved to the cab and climbed in with deliberate casualness when it stopped to pick me up.

“Regent Hotel,” I said, trying to keep my breathing level. Didn’t every city have a Regent Hotel?

“Torn down,” the cabby said, glancing over his shoulder. “You mean the Regency?”

“That’s it,” I said, and we drove on in silence.

After about ten minutes I saw an all-night drugstore ahead of us, and I had the cabby pull over.

“I’ll only be a minute,” I told him. “I want to see if they’ll fill an out-of-town prescription for insulin.”

“Sure.” He settled back in his seat and stared straight ahead.