Peter Rabe - A Shroud for Jesso

“What are you worried about, Bonetti? You know I haven’t got a gun.”

“All right.” The old man sounded peeved. “Take him down.” He nodded at his daughter. “He only paid in advance till tomorrow.”

Bonetti’s daughter led the way through another room, into the kitchen, and stopped by a chipped piece of linoleum on the floor.

“Pick it up,” she said. “I ain’t so young any more.”

Jesso picked it up and then the trap door underneath. The woman climbed down the stairs, grunting each time she took a step. She waited for Jesso in the basement.

It stank. It wasn’t just the mold and the dead air, but other things too. Behind a coal bin, in a thing like a storage closet, there was a cot under a dim window.

The first thing Jesso saw about the man was his eyes. They glittered like the buttons upstairs.

He lay on the cot, face up, and he was mumbling without ever moving his lips.

“He’s sick,” Jesso said. “Has he seen a doctor?”

The old woman made a motion with her mouth, turned, and went back up the stairs.

The man on the cot was lying as before. His bony head looked white and his hair started far back.

“You Joseph Snell?”

His eyes blinked and he started to chatter.

“Look pal. I’m not getting a word of this,” Jesso said.

“They can’t wait,” the man was saying. “Can’t much longer. I told him. Kator knows it.”

“You’re Snell, all right.” Jesso leaned closer. “You wanna glass of water?”

“But you gotta have both. I got it, I got it. Honeywell-You were sixteen, my village queen-” he started to sing.

Jesso picked up the milk bottle at the foot of the bed and sloshed the liquid around. It was water.

“Here, take some.” He held the man up by the neck, forced the bottle through the man’s teeth, and poured. Snell started to drink. His eyes focused suddenly and he sat up. He spat out the water and pushed the bottle away.

“Did you hear?” he said. “A beauty. Man, such a beauty!”

“Yeah, what a kid.”

“What a prom,” said Snell, and he shook his head. Then he slumped back again and stared. “Honeywell,” he said.

“I know. Certainly.” Jesso put the bottle down.

“Honeywell high! Honeywell high!” The man sounded excited.

“Look, Snell-”

“Honeywell high, Honeywell high!”

“Sure, what a team. Good old Honeywell High.”

“Good old Honeywell High,” said the man, and his sick eyes weren’t looking at anything.

Jesso tried to get through once more, but he had to give up. He went up the stairs into the kitchen, and left the trap door open. In the room with the sewing machine he found Bonetti and his daughter.

“Take him some coffee,” he said. They stared at him. “Take him some coffee.”

He watched the woman take a cup of the stuff to the kitchen and left. There weren’t any customers in the front; just the buttons with the sick glitter.

He took his time driving back to Manhattan. The job had taken barely half a day. Kator could wait. And Snell, he wasn’t going anywhere with that fever. The noon traffic was heavy across the bridge, but Jesso hardly noticed. He thought of Gluck once, good old anxious Gluck with the convention smile, biting his fingernails, hardly able to wait for Jesso to throw the job and give Gluck his chance to make his move. All by the code, too. “You goofed, Jesso, and out you go. We can’t afford dead wood,” or some fine phrase like that. Gluck had a surprise coming.

But the thought didn’t give Jesso any real kick. He kept crawling with the traffic, not minding it, because right then he didn’t feel like going anywhere fast. Maybe a drink would pick him up. Maybe a short trip South and to hell with Gluck and his schemes. Or a woman, if he had a real woman.

He stopped the car in the Fifties and walked across the street to the bar.

There was a lot of carved oak and antlers and brass-buttoned leather. Aside from that, the place was almost empty. The barkeep was eating a corned-beef sandwich, and when he saw Jesso he took one more bite and reached back for the bottle of Scotch.

“Been out of town?” he said through a mouthful. Then he pushed Jesso’s double across the bar.

Jesso paid and sat down.

“Where’s the cool, beautiful blonde?” said the barkeep.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Lynn, wasn’t it?” The barkeep took another bite. “Been here a few times. Nary a drop she had, just looked. You two busted?”

“You will. Any minute now,” Jesso said. He took his glass and went to a table. He sat down and watched the fat shine of the sunlight where it hit one end of the oak bar. At first he thought about Lynn, because the bar-keep had mentioned her and because she used to come here with him. He’d brought her here because he liked the place, not because it was especially good for a twosome. She got to like it too. She started to like everything he did, in the end.

Jesso sipped his double and tried to think of Lynn. But it was just a game, because he was so completely through with her that there was nothing to think about. One of the brass buttons on the leather chair opposite kept shooting a light in his eyes, so Jesso shifted. Another chair with brass buttons. Nothing but buttons all over the place. Like that poor bastard in Bonetti’s basement with two fever buttons for eyes. Jesso wondered what Kator might be after. It couldn’t be friendly. Kator was too big and Snell was too small. Just about the kind of setup Gluck would have liked. Gluck big, Jesso small, and the chase was over. Jesso sipped and felt the Scotch work up behind his eyes. Nothing like Snell was going to happen to him. Not Gluck or Muck or who knows what was big enough to make that happen to Jesso. He took a big breath, as if testing whether there were still enough air around. That felt better. Right then even the thought of Gluck didn’t bother him, because actually Gluck didn’t mean a damn thing to him. Gluck was a small bug in a big web and he thought everybody else must be the same. Jesso blew smoke and watched it drift away That’s what he thought of Gluck and his outfit. All Jesso ever wanted was a free hand and nobody underfoot, and no smoke-blowing bug in a web was going to change that.

That’s all he ever wanted, he was thinking, and then he knew there was something else he wanted. He wanted that, and a special kind…

The door opened and Lynn walked in. A special kind of woman.

“Darling! I found you!” she said.

But Lynn wasn’t it.

“Do you know I was in here just yesterday, Jackie? Do you know I had a feeling you might drop in?”

He got up and moved a chair for her.

“Wanna drink?” he said. He said it nicely, because he had nothing against her. Only she’d probably give it the wrong slant, all loaded with meaning and undercurrents and inevitable love.

“Scotch, darling. But I’ll have mine with water.”

He drank Scotch, she drank Scotch. That was Lynn. The barkeep was eating a pickle, but he stopped long enough to bring the drink.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Jesso said when the barkeep came up. The barkeep closed his mouth, put down the drink, and left.

“Smoke?”

“Yes. One of yours,” she said.

She blew smoke, being careful to point away from the table. Then she looked at Jesso.

One thing about Lynn, she had a fine touch with feelings. She was blind when it came to loving Jesso. He could have tossed her out of a window and she wouldn’t have believed it, but with everything else she was sensitive.

“What is it, darling?” She put her hand on his.

“Nothing. How’s the drink?”

“Something’s troubling you, Jackie.”

That’s another thing about Lynn, he thought. No privacy. She tries to crawl right inside you.