Peter Rabe - The Box

“Come on,” he said. “Might as well see Remal.”

Quinn had just one highball, even though he had to sit with it for almost an hour. He did not want to feel dull, or feel happy, or indifferent. He wanted to sit there for whatever time it would take and feel sharp like this, nervous like this.

When Bea walked into the hotel he seemed glad enough to see her come up to his table, and he gave her a quick smile.

It was too quick, she thought, but then I’m too apprehensive. She sat down, looking at him, wishing he would look at her too so that she could tell how he felt.

“Buy you a drink?” he said.

“Thank you. Is yours Scotch?”

Quinn did not answer but waved at the waiter and called Scotch across the room.

“Quinn?”

“Huh?”

“I wanted to say something to you about this morning.”

“There’s Whitfield,” said Quinn and pointed out to the lobby. “Who’s that with him?”

“I don’t know. He’s a Sicilian. Quinn?”

“I guess they’re not coming in for a drink,” said Quinn. He folded his arms on the table and looked at the woman. “You were saying something?”

He even smiled, but she did not feel that the smile was for her, not for anyone even, it was that kind of a smile. She took a deep breath and said, “I wish it were morning again.”

“What?”

She made a small sound which was almost a laugh.

“I wish I knew myself what I’m saying.”

“Listen, Bea. Here’s your drink. You excuse me for a moment?”

She watched him get up and said, “Are you coming back?”

“Sure.” He was buttoning his jacket.

“Quinn, I don’t know exactly how but I’m trying…”

“Later. I’ll be back, huh?”

He waved at her, or he waved at the chair, and when he walked out he was not thinking of the woman at all.

He went to the desk in the lobby and put his hands on the marble top. This felt cool, and he felt cool. He said to the clerk, “Would you tell me where the mayor is?”

“Who?”

“Remal.”

“He is talking business at the moment.”

“I know, and I’m late. Where do I find him?”

The clerk told Quinn to go up the curved staircase to the only room on the next floor which had a double door. That was where the mayor was talking business. Quinn went up and the brass railing on the staircase felt cool, too. He did not go very fast and he did not delay either. Just about now, he felt, they should be in the middle of it.

He came to the double door and both wings had open slats, for ventilation. He could hear them talk in the room. Quinn knocked once, heard the silence, and walked in.

Quinn had no trouble at all in sizing up what went on in the room. Even without foreknowledge. The Sicilian looked most actively interrupted. Little Napoleon laying down the law, thought Quinn, little punk with big shoulders which he bought from the tailor. Whitfield had a crestfallen look, but Whitfield had never very far to go in order to look that way. And Remal, Quinn saw, was not wearing his cap. First time Quinn had seen the Arab without the cap on his head. It was on Remal’s knee and his left hand was making nervous plucks along the stitching.

“Who in hell is that?” said Cipolla.

Quinn looked at the Sicilian the same way he would look at the furniture. He ignored Remal. Let him stew, good for him, and then he used Whitfield for his wedge.

“I’ve come to help you,” he said to Whitfield. “I thought you could use a hand.”

“You have? You can?” said Whitfield and his face lit up with total belief.

“Now just a minute…” Cipolla started to say, but Quinn said for Cipolla to be quiet and never looked at him while he said it. He sat down at the table and then he looked at the Sicilian.

“My name’s Quinn. I’m new here and you and I don’t know each other, but maybe if you get off your horse for a minute, maybe there’s something in it for you.” Quinn did not wait for an answer but turned back to Whitfield, “This is about that alcohol shipment, isn’t it?”

“God, yes. Never in my entire…”

“What in hell do you know about this?” said Cipolla, and then, to get the meeting back under his own thumb, he was going to say something else.

Quinn interrupted him again. “I stole it.”

Cipolla got up from his chair and sat down again. Whitfield giggled and Remal let go of his cap. He started to frown very heavily which was about the most intelligent thing anyone did at the table.

“Mister Quinn,” he said, “I have underestimated you. My original impulse about you was correct, but then I did nothing about it. I underestimated you.”

“You can have the stuff back,” said Quinn.

“I know that. I know the shipment as such is of no interest to you.”

“You’re right.”

“Of course. I no longer underestimate you.”

Now, thought Quinn, for the first time, the man is getting dangerous. Now we start. Quinn sat back in his chair and felt right.

“Before anything else,” said Cipolla, and his voice was too high, “I want to know what in hell goes on around here and what’s the doubletalk around here.”

Whitfield translated doubletalk for Remal and then Remal explained to the Sicilian.

“Mister Quinn is here temporarily. He is nevertheless interested in business, that is to say, in my business, and this is his way of involving himself.”

Remal seemed to be on the point of saying more, but then he looked at Quinn and Quinn felt certain that the other man was puzzled. Then Remal looked away and said, “That is all.”

There had been no rancor and there had been no sound of danger, and Quinn could not gauge Remal any more. Remal was down and Quinn could not gauge him. He hunched his shoulders and put his arms on the table. He hooked his fingers together and for a moment imagined that one hand was he and the other was somebody else and these two were having a fight. Then Quinn relaxed, and now Remal did not puzzle him any more. Just watch him. This isn’t his dance, but mine, and he knows it. He’s just learning that now and isn’t sure what to do yet and that’s the reason why he doesn’t show something clear-cut, like anger.

Cipolla, in the meantime, got everything just as wrong. He got it wrong in a different way and for different reasons, and the most important thing was that nobody should think they could gang up on him.

“Hold it,” he said. “Just a minute.” He squinted his eyes because he wanted to show that he too could be conspiratorial. “I’m getting an ugly picture,” he said. “I’m getting an ugly feel here like you two are cooking up something around here, something between you two, and maybe you think I’m gonna get left out.”

Remal was too surprised by this diagnosis to say anything, and Quinn sat still.

“All I get from the doubletalk with you two is that one steals from the other, and the other one knows it, and the other one says you can have it back, and all that polite crap with nothing else showing, to me, you know what that looks like? Like maybe you two are trying to pull something over on me. And when that happens…”

“Really, Cipolla,” said Whitfield, “you must be quite wrong.”

“I must? How?”

Whitfield did not know how and shrugged. “Quinn,” he said, “before he speculates us all into a disaster, would you kindly explain what goes on here?”

“ He should explain?” and now Cipolla felt he had his feet back under him. “I took the run over here to get it straight from you and Remal how in hell you ship water across and don’t even know it. And I’m here with the message…”

“Before you give the message,” said Quinn, enjoying his trick of interrupting the other one, “I’ll explain it. They couldn’t explain it because, like you said yourself, they didn’t even know what they were shipping.”