Peter Rabe - The Box

Ryder sat still in his chair on the other side of the desk and the window behind him showed a very well defined stretch of electrified skyline. That’s why he looks so impressive, thought Quinn. That and the red silk bathrobe. And the desk, and the tough guy behind me.

“You got maybe a lot of education,” said Ryder, “but you ain’t smart, Quinn.”

“Can’t get over it, can you, that you never got past reform school?”

Ryder shook his head at the man behind Quinn’s chair and said, “Don’t hit him again. That’s just smart-aleck talk.”

“Smart-aleck lawyer talk,” said the man behind Quinn. “They’re all alike.”

“No, they’re not,” said Ryder. He coughed with a wet sound in his throat. Then he lowered his head, which added another chin. And suddenly he yelled, with a high. fat man’s voice. “This one ain’t smart enough! You, Quinn! You were hired to be smart in this organization, not stupid, you shyster, not stupid enough to try and slice yourself in!”

Ryder closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. He wheezed a little, which was the only sound in the room.

Quinn said very quietly, “I’m not slicing myself in. I’m improving the organization.”

“Hit him!” said Ryder without opening his eyes.

Quinn got a jolt on the side of the head, and when he tried to get up the man behind him cut the edge of his palm down on Quinn’s shoulder.

Quinn exhaled with a sudden sound, like a cough almost, and bent over in the chair. He bent and stayed there. Of all the things he wanted to do-mostly violent and some quite insane-he did none of them. He held still with the pain in him and felt he could actually see it. A red wave with blue edges. Don’t move, don’t move, because that way, Ryder, that way I’ll get you later for this.

“Those unions are mine,” Ryder was saying, “and that sews up the waterfront. I think you’re trying to undo that for me, Quinn.”

“All I really did…”

“You’re lying, Quinn. You reshuffled the North end docks so that I got less say-so and you got more. And clever too.”

“Shyster clever,” said the man behind the chair.

“No. Not crooked at all. That’s where he got me. Never occurred to me to look for a straight way I could get robbed.”

“Okay, Ryder,” and Quinn sat up. “The set-up is still yours and the fact that you’re making less money has to do with the racket squeeze and nothing with me.”

“Then how come you’re making more money, Quinn?”

“I’m not.”

“You’re lying.”

“Should I hit him?” said the man behind the chair.

“Shut up. Quinn, you listen to me. You been working good the two years you’ve been over to my side, good like a real hustler. But do it for me, not for you.”

Nothing else came and there was just the wheezing from Ryder, and then a clink. When Quinn looked up, he saw that Ryder had put his false uppers into the water glass. He was going to bed.

“You mean you’re done?” said the man behind Quinn’s chair. “He’s walking out?”

“Sure,” said Ryder. All the words made a flabby sound. “He’s smarter now than he was.” Ryder bunched his empty mouth, then let it hang again. “And he knows we got methods-”

My God, what a face, thought Quinn. And I wish I had hit him and his face looked like that because I had done it to him.

“Out,” said the man behind the chair. “You got the message.”

After that, on the street, Quinn just walked. But it wasn’t enough moving for all the holding still he had done. He concentrated on a dream that came out ugly and strong, red, with blue edges-and then I go over, cool as cool, I don’t listen any more. I am cool as cool, fire inside though, fire in fist now, and suddenly ram that into the executive pouch-poof! plate jumps out, face collapses, fat lips hanging down, and I step on the plate, a crunch of pure pleasure “No, Ryder, you shut up and you listen because I pulled your teeth. No, Ryder, why hustle for you? And why is it I can make more than you but hustle for you? And why is it I’m smarter than you but it makes no difference? Why try being like you and get pushed for it, not being like you? Answer me, Ryder. Don’t flinch when I’m screaming. Just answer me. What’s the big answer-Ah, forgot, you haven’t got any teeth.” And then cool with my rage inside me, I hand him his plate, pink and white stuff that’s left of it, something like splintery gravel, and let it dribble into his water glass. And I leave and laugh. I want to laugh very hard, this is funny, I laugh harder, this could be so funny, why in hell can’t this be funny…

“Same?”

“I don’t know, Marie. Would you close the windows for me?”

“Look. He’s sweating.”

“I know. The first time. Close the windows for me, Marie, while I strap this.”

“But the heat…”

“Sirocco coming. Doctor Mattieux put a note on the board.”

“Ah. I hope this one is short.”

“They are sometimes the strongest.”

“How the last one screamed, you remember? How that sand can scream.”

“You have pinched the curtain in the window.”

“Oh. Why are you strapping him?”

“Mattieuxs order. He has been too restless.”

“Perhaps he wants to wake up?”

“In the meantime the straps, so he cannot cut himself on the needle.”

“Why doesn’t Mattieux wake him up? Perhaps just a little ammonia, perhaps no more and he would wake up.”

“Doctor Mattieux said, perhaps he is in this coma because he needs to be.”

“You know, Renee, he doesn’t look gentle today. He looks very much as if he were suffering.”

They watched how he tried to turn in his sleep…

He did not dream of the good times, the times when he had reached out and touched success; only the failures became important. He didn’t dream how he had gone ahead and split the organization right down the middle, the sweet sight of the power running right out of Ryder’s hands, the sweet sight of Ryder himself full of threatening talk, sweet silence from Ryder while he, Quinn, felt the better man, because he was worse than Ryder.

He dreamt how he tried to turn in his bed and couldn’t.

“Who in hell…”

“Lie still.”

“That’s all right,” said another voice from across the dark room. “Let him get up. So he’ll know.”

Quinn knew who it was even before he was out of the bed and before he could see well enough. He said, “Ryder, you son of a bitch! Ah, there’s two more? The strong arm? You don’t think…”

“I don’t have to, Quinn, and as for you, it won’t do you any good.”

“You have those goons lay a hand on me, Ryder, and you think I don’t have the set-up to make you float down the river by six in the morning?”

“Tut, tut, such violence. Show him, Jimmy.”

There were, after all, two of them and they hadn’t just woken up. They got him without a punch. A silent, panting affair. A wrestler. Not one punch but all wrestler, and the other one could murder me any place, any way, with his buddy’s grip crippling me out of shape. And he’s just standing there, doing what “Ryder, listen to me. I’ve got a call coming in, five in the morning, and if I don’t answer…”

“I’m not interested, Quinn. Whyn’t you watch what he’s doing?”

What is he doing? — Ryder wiping his sloppy mouth, the gorilla behind me not moving a muscle and neither can I, and the other-knife? No. Fountain pen? I should sign them a document?

“I left standing orders, Ryder, I told you once, that should I get roughed up…”

“No violence, Quinn. Look.”

Damn, this grip on my back, my arms like worms, and the waiting, the waiting, and why don’t you hit-ah, the other one heard me think, coming over “Ryder, for God’s sake-”