Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

'Very impressive,' I said. 'You speak to them in their own language. They seem to respect you. They obey you.

The only thing that bothers me is — '

'I know what bothers you,' he interrupted. 'You're wondering if I'm not teaching those monsters how to be expert muggers.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Something like that.'

'It's a risk,' he admitted. 'I know it exists. I keep pounding at them that they're learning the martial arts only for self-defence. And God knows they need it, considering what their lives are like. And they do need physical exercise.'

'Does it have to be karate?' I asked. 'Couldn't it be basketball?'

'Or tiddledywinks?' he said sourly. 'Or I could read them Pindar's odes. Look, Joshua, most of those kids have records. Violence attracts them. All I'm trying to do 210

is capitalize on that. Listen, every time they punch the air and shout " H a h! " they're punching out the Establishment.

I'm trying to turn that revolt to a more peaceable and constructive channel.'

'You can kill with karate, can't you?' I asked him.

'I don't teach them killing blows,' he said shortly. 'Also, what you just saw is only half of my programme. The other half is group therapy and personal counselling. I try to become a father figure. Most of their natural fathers are drunks, on drugs, or have disappeared. Vamoosed. So I'm really the only father they've got, and I do my damndest to straighten out their tiny brains. Some of those brutes are so screwed up — you wouldn't believe! Mens sana in corpore sano. That's really what I'm hoping for these kids. What I'm working towards. Let's eat.'

He had made a salad of cut-up iceberg lettuce topped with gobs of mayonnaise. The roast beef sandwiches had obviously been purchased in a deli; they were rounded with the meat filling, also slathered with mayonnaise. He opened two more beers for us and we ate and drank. And he talked.

He was a very intelligent, articulate man, and he talked well. What impressed me most about him was his animal energy. He attacked his sandwich wolfishly, forked the salad into his mouth in great, gulping mouthfuls, swilled the beer in throat-wrenching swallows.

'But it all costs money,' he was saying. 'Money, money, money: the name of the game. There's no church available for me — for any of the tentmakers. So we have to make our own way. Earn enough to do the work we want to do.'

'Maybe that's an advantage,' I said.

He looked at me, startled. 'You're very perceptive, Joshua,' he said. 'If you mean what I think you mean, and I think you do. Yes, it's an advantage in that is keeps us in closer touch with the secular life, gives us a better understanding of the everyday problems and frustrations 211

of the ordinary working stiff — and stiffess! A pastor who's in the same church for years and years grows moss. Sees the same people day in and day out until he's bored out of his skull. There's a great big, cruel, wonderful, striving world out there, but the average preacher is stuck in his little backwater with weekly sermons, organ music, and the terrible problem of how to pay for a new altar cloth. No wonder so many of them crawl in a bottle or run off with the soprano in the choir.'

'How did you meet Tippi Kipper?' I asked.

Something fleeting through his eyes. He became a little less voluble.

'A friend of a friend of a friend,' he said. 'Joshua, the rich of New York are a city within a city. They all know each other. Go to the same parties. I was lucky enough to break into the magic circle. They pass me along, one to another. A friend of a friend of a friend. That's how I met Tippi.'

'Was she in the theatre?' I asked.

He grinned. 'That's what she says. But no matter. If she wants to play Lady Bountiful, I'm the bucko who'll show her how. Don't get me wrong, Joshua. I'm grateful to Tippi Kipper and I'll be eternally grateful to her kind, generous husband and remember him in my prayers for the rest of my life. But I'm a realist, Joshua. It was an ego thing with the Kippers, I suppose. As it is for all my patrons. And patronesses.'

'Sol Kipper contributed to your, uh, activities?' I asked.

'Oh sure. Regularly. What the hell — he took it off his taxes. I'm registered in the State of New York. Strictly non-profit. Not by choice!' he added with a harsh bark of laughter.

'When you counsel your patrons,' I said slowly, trying to frame the question, 'the rich patrons, like Tippi Kipper, what are their problems mostly? I mean, it seems unreal to me that people of such wealth should have problems.'

'Very real problems,' he said soberly. 'First of all, guilt for their wealth when they see poverty and suffering all around them. And then they have the same problems we all have: loneliness, the need for love, a sense of our own worthlessness.'

He was staring at me steadily, openly, it was very difficult to meet these hard, challenging eyes.

'He left a suicide note,' I said. 'Did you know that?'

'Yes, Tippi told me.'

'In the note, he apologized to her. For something he had done. I wonder what it was?'

'Oh, who the hell knows? I never asked Tippi and she never volunteered the information. It could have been anything. It could have been something ridiculous. I know they had been having, ah, sexual problems. It could have been that, it could have been a dozen other things. Sol was the worst hypochondriac I've ever met. I'm sure others have told you that.'

'When did you see him last?' I asked casually.

'The day before he died,' he said promptly. 'On a Tuesday. We had a grand talk in his office and he gave me a very generous cheque. Then he had to go somewhere for a meeting.'

We sat a few moments in silence. We finished our second beers. Then I glanced at my watch.

'Good heavens!' I said. 'I had no idea it was so late. I've got to get back to my office while I still have a job. Pastor, thank you for a very delightful and instructive lunch. I've enjoyed every minute of it.'

'Come again,' he said. 'And often. You're a good listener; did anyone ever tell you that? And bring your friends. And tell them to bring their chequebooks!'

I returned to the TORT building at about 2.50, scurrying out of a drizzly rain that threatened to turn to snow. Yetta Apatoff greeted me with a giggle.

'She's waiting for you,' she whispered.

'Who?'

She indicated with a nod of her head, then covered her mouth with her palm. There was a woman waiting in the corridor outside my office.

She was at least 78 inches tall, and wearing a fake monkey fur coat that made her look like an erect gorilla.

As I approached her, I thought this was Hamish Hooter's particularly tasteless joke, and wondered how many applicants he had interviewed before he found this one.

But as I drew closer, I saw she was no gorgon. She was, in fact, quite pleasant looking, with a quiet smile and that resigned placidity I recognized. All very short, very tall, and very fat people have it.

'Hello,' I said. 'I'm Joshua Bigg. Waiting for me?'

'Yes, Mr Bigg,' she said, not even blinking at my diminutive size. Perhaps she had been forewarned. She handed me an employment slip from Hooter's office. 'My name is Gertrude Kletz.'

'Come in,' I said. 'Let me take your coat.'

I sat behind the desk and she sat in my visitor's chair.

We chatted for almost half an hour, and as we talked, my enthusiasm for her grew. Hooter had seen only her huge size, but I found her sensible, calm, apparently qualified, and with a wry sense of humour.

She was married to a sanitation worker and, since their three children were grown and able to take care of themselves, she had decided to become a temporary clerk-typist-secretary: work she had done before her marriage. If possible, she didn't want to work later than 3.00 p.m., so she could be back in Brooklyn in time to cook dinner. We agreed on four hours a day, 11.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m., with no lunch period, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.