Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

Probst, with a hypothetical wave of his fingers: “But this has no adverse effect on the overall economy of the region?”

“How can increased investment have an adverse effect?” Chuck grinned like a kindergarten teacher.

“Well, for instance, in West County.”

“Oh, Martin. That particular region is still so healthy. So healthy. You have nothing to worry about on that score. Is that what’s worrying you? Goodness! West County? Nothing to worry about, nothing at all.”

Probst’s next stop was back in Webster Groves, in Webster Park, behind the library. He kicked his way up the unshoveled walk and rang the doorbell. He waited. He hadn’t heard the bell. The bell was broken? He knocked. Soon the door was opened by an unshaven man, Probst’s age, wearing jeans and a green collarless surgeon’s smock. “Martin Probst? Howdy.” The man extended a hand and pulled Probst inside. “Rodney Thompson.”

In intermingling piles along the baseboards of the Thompson living room were hundreds of magazines, mostly of the sort with text but no pictures on the cover. The air smelled strongly of dated pancakes. Plants in the windows had shed a mulch on the wooden floor, and someone had spilled a cup of coffee on the wool rug by the television set. The cup still lay on its side.

“This room doesn’t get much use,” Thompson said. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walked back to the kitchen. Probst also did.

“So you’re Luisa’s father.”

“Yes.”

“I guess our wives have spoken.” Thompson sat down and drank from a tall glass of orange juice and, swallowing, signaled an offer of the same to Probst, who shook his head. “And you’re the man who built the Arch.”

“Not singlehandedly.” Standard comeback.

“Of course not. It’s an achievement nonetheless. I’m very impressed. Impressed with Luisa, too. I like her.”

Probst wished he could figure out a way of asking, within the context of this get-acquainted visit, just how much time the Thompsons had spent with her.

“She talks a lot about you, very positively, although I also understand you’re not on such good terms at the moment, for whatever reasons.”

“How often do you see her?” Probst asked.

“We’ve taken them to dinner a couple of times. We try to make an effort to stay in touch. These are difficult years for kids. I know Duane’s going through some re-evaluations, sounding out alternatives, trying to get his act together. We stay in touch. Not that Pat and I have a lot of time these days. Pat’s working, by the way, sorry she missed you. We’ll all have to get together sometime, all six of us.”

Thompson squinted at a nearby calendar.

“Not this weekend, though, I mean not the coming one. I guess after Christmas. January. Oh. Or February. You can all come over, we’ll make a night of it. The kids really love Pat’s paella. Fracture?”

“Yes.” Probst exhibited his finger more completely, and then, for the twentieth time, related the stadium story. The last ten times, he’d told it identically, word for word.

Thompson nodded at every sentence. He made large swooping nods, smaller horizontal rows of nods, rotational nods of total comprehension and agreement, odd nods in angled planes, singsong windshield-wiper nods. When Probst was done, he said: “As far as Lu and Duane go, it’s hard to tell how serious they are, but I think pretty. She seems very determined to assert her independence.” Thompson flattened the front page of the Sunday Post and read a few lines. “It’s really a matter of values when you get right down to it. The old story, right? There’s not much I can add, personally, beyond the fact that both Pat and myself like Lu very much. What’s more, we respect her.” He looked at his watch.

It had been two weeks since Buzz Wismer had seen Martin Probst. Much had changed. Martin hadn’t. He looked awake and fit when he arrived, that Sunday afternoon, at Buzz’s office. Even the aluminum splint added. He looked like a brilliant soldier on leave.

“I thought,” he said, “that you might be able to fill me in on what Rolf Ripley is up to these days. I’m married to his sister-in-law and I know less than nothing.”

“Well,” Buzz said. “There was the hoopla about his new defense electronics division. From what I hear, though, that’s been in the works for quite some time.”

“Stop right there,” Martin said calmly. “How did you know it had been in the works?”

“Well. I guess I would know. We’re in competition for engineers. My people in personnel told me back in March he was recruiting in new areas. More computer, more nuclear—”

“OK. Fine. What else?”

“Lately, you mean? Well. There are rumors he’s moving some of his operations back into the city.”

“But the papers print that kind of stuff all the time.”

“That’s true. I took this more seriously, though, because my own name was mentioned in the same connection. A lot of stockholders saw the rumor, I think even the New York Times picked up the story, and I got calls from as far away as Boston. I felt we had to ask the Post about its sources, which is like pulling teeth. To make a long story short, it appears that a highly placed officer in Ripleycorp started the relocation rumor, and he said that we were also considering a move.”

“So it didn’t originate with you?”

“No and yes.” Buzz explained that while the rumor hadn’t originated with him, it had caused him to direct Finance to look into the feasibility of a change of headquarters. Finance had advised against it but had hedged by suggesting they nevertheless purchase some property in the city before prices rose any further. Buzz had authorized the purchase. It had been routine. But he actually felt his face growing hot as he explained it to Martin, as if he were revealing a guilty secret, something primitive, because the purchase was associated with Asha.

Martin smiled wistfully. “Thanks for telling me, Buzz. Businesswise, as you’re aware, I need to know what’s coming next, and in some way in the past few months I’ve failed to pay attention. It’s bad leadership on my part, too — I feel a kind of stewardship this year as MG chairman. At the same time, I don’t exactly think it’s my fault. Haven’t the trends around here always been visible to everyone years in advance? Like Clayton, the highways, the waterfront, West County. There used to be an openness, and I don’t see it anymore. This is why I want to know what your sense of things is.”

It wasn’t what Martin said, Buzz thought, or even how he said it, it was the underlying honesty, the almost obtuseness. This man was whole. Evil puzzled him. He hadn’t changed.

“My…sense of things. I think we’re all right, really.” Buzz blinked. “I’ve had a pretty upsetting week, I guess. And I tend to lose sight of…”

“What do you think of Asha Hammaker?” Martin asked suddenly.

For a second Buzz had the distinct suspicion that this was the only question Martin had come to ask him.

“I don’t mean personally,” Martin added. “I mean as a businesswoman.”

“As a businesswoman I have no idea.”

“Have you heard anything about a transfer of stock to the city?”

“But lest you have heard rumors,” Buzz continued, unwilling to pass up this chance to confess, “I should add that it’s true that Mrs. Hammaker has several times made overtures of a, em, physical character to me and perhaps to others as well, in public, so that there may be rumors to that effect which you may have heard.”

Martin smiled and shook his head with rhetorical amusement. “Why don’t they ever do that to me?”