Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

the skirts of the big copper beech. I'd fallen asleep here, before that first Ike seminar.

The four were Dr. Blair Heiler, Dr. Errol Cabot, Dr. A. K. Lowell, and Dr. Schlomo Dove. Heiler and Cabot were playing against Lowell and Dove. All wore classic white tennis gear except Schlomo, who was in Converse All-Stars and black socks unrolled below bulging varicose calves. Their rackets were the latest design and alloy, those oversized oval jobs with big sweet spots.

I led Geneva to courtside and stood watching. Each of the players glanced at us in turn, secreting away any reaction, denying we were there.

Heiler was aggressive, hogging the net, slashing away viciously at every shot, and, when he missed, shouting and cursing and throwing his racket in disgust.

Errol was pure macho, his thighs and calves and biceps full of steroids and God knows what other drugs, hogging the court, thundering bulkily between the baseline and the net, thrashing at the ball as if k were a feeling still left alive after ever-higher doses of medications, thrashing with grunts and curses and cries of disbelief at the weird spins and bounces it would take.

In the throat of the curses from Heiler and Cabot, the other side of the net functioned in an eerie silence.

A.K. was, as I knew all too well, a lobber. She lay back, in a defensive and defended position, never leaving the backcourt and baseline, merely trudging to and fro, with plenty of time to gauge the ball coming at her, and, for each ball, even the most hot low drive, somehow with a flick of her wrist sending it up and up and up, lobbed over the heads of the onrushing foes, sending them scrambling back together and calling for it and trying to elbow each other out of the way to hit it, and then, either Errol or Heiler smashing at it as if it were a last hungry mosquito in the bedroom at night, usually failing to hit it at all, or hitting it and his partner or himself, and cursing out the ball or the partner or A.K. for playing "wimp" tennis.

Most bizarre was Schlomo. In all my years as a tennis player, including my stint as captain of the Columbia High Fish Hawk tennis team, I had never come up against a player like Schlomo. He was a slicer. He never hit the ball true. He had perfected a stroke that could put a spin on the ball in

many different ways, so that when it bounced, it never bounced the way Errol or Heiler thought it would. It kept you guessing. Sometimes lower than it seemed, sometimes higher, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. Just when they thought they had figured out, from Schlomo's stroke motion, which way it would spin, he'd dupe them by somehow with the same motion hitting it dead straight.

And Schlomo cheated. Any close call, any ball hitting the line, he would call "Out!" This would provoke argument from Errol and Heiler, but Schlomo would respond to these accusations with silence, and when A.K. was asked her opinion, she would respond vehemently with as much nothing as I'd ever heard.

Soon the Heiler-Cabots were infuriated. Curses doubled in intensity, rackets crashed to the blacktop. You'd think they all hated each other.

Geneva asked what was happening. I described it blow by blow. My talking during their tense awaiting of service annoyed them. Heiler and Cabot told me to "Be quiet." The other two sent me contemptuous glances.

Suddenly there were other people watching.

Solini and Hannah and the formidable Gilda were across the court from us, their fingers laced into the chain-link fence.

And then who should walk up and lean against the fence behind Heiler and Errol but Mr. K. and the Lady Who Ate Metal Objects. They stood watching, lacing their fingers into the twisted squares of metal, the Metal Lady gnawing at the galvanized alloy with a vengeance.

A few minutes later, Zoe appeared and took up a position directly behind Schlomo Dove. When Schlomo turned and walked back to take his serve, he caught sight of her. He showed no reaction, but his first serve, a vicious slice, sailed long. His second, one of those inept "patty-cake" pops, sailed far over the line, out of bounds. Double fault.

We watched the four shrinks on court flailing away in hatred and contempt. None of us said anything, but the pressure on them was almost palpable. It was only a matter of time before the game would be over. We would stay until it was.

They never even finished the set.

Schlomo walked to the net, gesturing the others to him. They consulted. Heiler and Cabot argued and cursed, to no

effect. The four got their gear and walked toward the door of the cage. Suddenly there was a shout: "Dickheads Incorporate!"

Could it be? The person shouting this, strolling lazily down the path from the Farben, looked a little like Thorny, but rather than the wild-eyed, scraggly-clothed maniac who'd escaped from Misery many weeks ago, here was a clean-shaven, bright-eyed, calm young man in a dark business suit and snappy tie, carrying a briefcase and a laptop. "Dickheads with Laptops!" he cried out happily. "Thorny?" I asked, taking his hand as he joined Geneva and me.

"Clean and serene!" he answered. His handshake was as firm as an MBA's. "Clean and serene?"

'Thorny!" He stared at the shrinks at the net. "Hey hey hey!" he shouted at them. "We got us some Dickheads at Play!"

We laughed, and then we fell silent, watching them watching us.

Then they walked from the net to the gate, opened it, and filed out, one by one.

We stared at them. They couldn't meet the pressure of our outrage. They looked away, saying nothing to each other. They walked the concrete path leading out of the amphitheater formed by the facades of Farben, Toshiba, the Toshiba research foot, and the high ledge of granite and thick woods. The four of them in single file disappeared over a hillock toward the safety of the parking lot and their wonderful cars. Even though we had failed to find another victim, even though it now seemed like the whole thing would just fizzle out and join the other buried violence of the year, I felt great.

The amphitheater was quiet, even still. Then, with a shout, the Metal Lady started running up the path after the shrinks. "They can't stand it," I said to Geneva. "Stand what?" she asked. "Feeling seen. They can't stand feeling seen." "Yes," she said, taking my arm to leave. "We can't."

FREE THAT WEEKEND, Berry and I did a day hike up the back face of Sunapee to Lake Solitude, picnicked and swam,

and drove to Dartmouth for dinner. As we walked up to the Hanover Inn we saw black and white balloons everywhere, tugging up against their tethers in the brisk June breeze. The patio was filled with black people and white people celebrating something. One black and white couple were dancing. The white man wore a black tuxedo; the black woman a white wedding dress.

'There's hope," Berry said.

"Wonderful, yes."

We walked into the lobby. As we approached the counter I saw a short, bald, chubby Jewish-looking man in his fifties, wearing a dark suit, his arm around a much younger woman, who was quite a bit taller than he. She was slender, with an aristocratic face and sharp nose. Her hair was cut short. She wore a light-colored summer dress. Guests at the wedding. As if caught in a black-and-white photo, they stood still, watching the bride and groom cruise the floor.

A chill shot through me. I squeezed Berry's hand.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Do you know them?"

"No."

"What, then?"

"We've got it. I think I've found another victim."

"Who?"

"A. K. Lowell."

"What?"

"C'mon. We've got to drive back down to my house, before it's too late!"

"But what about dinner?"

"No way. No time. I'll explain as we go. Jesus! C'mon!"

I dragged her, half running, to her Volvo. I drove back up alongside the College Green, beat the yellow light across Main Street and roared down the hill and across the river to the interstate. When we were settled into mindless speed, I told her.