Colson Whitehead - The Intuitionist

Pause. Jim nods knowingly.

“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?” Lila Mae demands.

“What do you think we’re doing?” John responds. “We’re going over your place looking for evidence.”

Pause. Jim, again, nods knowingly. Actually, it’s more of an involuntary response to getting caught in the act, despite the reassurances of John’s cool act.

“Internal Affairs doesn’t have that kind of authority,” Lila Mae says curtly, “whether I checked in after my shift or not. Get the hell out of my apartment.” There have never been this many people in her apartment before.

Jim and John take a step closer to Lila Mae. A decent lunge and they would have her.

“So we’re Internal Affairs?” Jim asks. The burgundy residue of Aunt Sally’s preserves glistens on his right forefinger.

“Yes — we’re the watchdogs of the Elevator Inspector Industry,” John seconds.

“Department,” Jim says. He licks the remaining preserves off his finger.

“We’re the watchdogs of the Elevator Inspectors Department,” John says.

“The Department of Elevator Inspectors,” Jim corrects.

John takes advantage of Jim’s distraction to flip his magnifying glass into the air and catch it. Scare her. He makes a sudden fake forward, grinning, but Lila Mae stifles her flight-response. Damned if she’s going to look weak. Her visitors’ absurd wordplay annoys her, perhaps even more than their trespass into her home, her one safe place. She has spent a lot of time trying to find the correct arrangement of things. She never has guests, sure, but there is always the off chance. Sure. “Let me see some identification,” Lila Mae demands. “Now.”

“Let’s show her wink-wink identification,” Jim intones.

“That’ll be all, gentlemen,” a voice behind Lila Mae says. The voice is as smooth as a beach stone. It belongs to a short man in a perfect blue blazer. Pince-nez in this day and age, that’s what the man polishes with a handkerchief as he enters Lila Mae’s apartment, polishing far too diligently for there to actually be any grit on the lenses. He moves with the rapid movements of a pigeon, and his left arm resembles a wing, pressed close to the body as it is, nooking a leather satchel. He places his hand on Lila Mae’s shoulder and it is then that she truly gets scared. She cannot feel his skin but she knows it is cold. “There’s no reason for you to be harassing this young lady,” he says.

Jim and John look at each other. Throughout the history of their partnership, it’s Jim who takes his cues from his comrade, things as subtle as the tilting of a nostril or the vague tremble in the left knee. Jim is not reading any signals from John, and that’s a first. They’ve never been interrupted before. It’s so embarrassing.

The stranger, this latest stranger inquires, “Do you know who I am?” as he squeezes Lila Mae’s shoulder.

John sighs and answers, “I know your identity, Mr. Reed, and a few biographical details, but can I say I really know you?”

Jim is about to add his usual improv backup to his partner, a dialogic placeholder such as, “Does anyone really know anyone?” or “In the Biblical sense?” but Mr. Reed flicks a hand, dismissing him. Such rubbish. Mr. Reed looks at Lila Mae for the first time. “Miss Watson, did you invite these men into your home?”

Everything is different now, it seems to Lila Mae. Nothing in her apartment appears to have been moved, and yet everything is different. That’s how she feels. She doesn’t feel as if she lives here anymore. Lila Mae looks down at Mr. Reed, for he is a short man, shorter than Lila Mae, and she says, “No, I did not.” She doesn’t live here.

“If I may be so bold …” Mr. Reed begins. His eyes are wide and far apart. Like a pigeon’s. Lila Mae nods. Mr. Reed looks back to Jim and John and says, “Gentlemen, I must insist that you leave this place immediately.”

John shakes his left kneecap in his trousers and Jim places the jar of preserves on the kitchen counter, screwing the top back as he does so. Even though he’s been found out, habit tells him not to leave a trace. “Immediately,” John mimics, trying to save face through his characteristic deadpan sass, which is now halfhearted and at best a face-saving gesture.

“Immediately,” Jim says.

Jim and John head for the dim hallway outside Lila Mae’s apartment. They keep a safe distance from Lila Mae and the diminutive Mr. Reed. John takes the doorknob into his hand and says, “You want this open or closed?”

Mr. Reed looks at Lila Mae. “Open,” she says.

Jim and John don’t speak until they reach the landing of the floor below, and Lila Mae can’t make out what they say. She hears words, though, and the sound is a loud buzzing in her ears incommensurate with the actual volume. She feels dizzy but hides it well. She doesn’t know Mr. Reed from Adam. So far he’s just another white man with an attitude, never mind his keen sense of timing. “Mr. Reed, is it then?” she asks.

“Mr. Reed, yes,” Mr. Reed says. “I’m Orville Lever’s secretary. He sent me to fetch you.”

“I don’t need fetching. Though I suppose I should thank you for helping me out there.” Lila Mae walks over to the sullen kitchenette and returns the jar of preserves to the icebox. Then she thinks better of it and drops it in the trash.

“It was my pleasure, Miss Watson. If I may?”

“Have a seat,” Lila Mae offers. She has little choice.

“I’m not sure if you fully realize the difficult position you’re in, Miss Watson. Today’s accident has some very disturbing repercussions.”

“Which is why the Intuitionist candidate for Guild Chair has seen fit to send someone over to look after me. I don’t think I need looking after.”

“May I ask you a question? Why didn’t you report back to the Department after your shift?”

“I was tired.”

“It is standard operating procedure after an accident to report to your superiors, is it not?”

“I didn’t know there was an accident until I saw the late edition on the train home.”

“I think we should be going, Miss Watson. I wouldn’t advise staying here tonight.”

“This is my home.”

“And if I hadn’t stopped in?”

“I would have taken care of them.”

“My car is waiting downstairs. You inspected the Fanny Briggs building, did you not?”

“You know I did.”

“Then what went wrong?”

Nothing went wrong.

“You are aware, Miss Watson, that those men weren’t from Internal Affairs, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then who were they?”

Nothing.

“Has it occurred to you yet that you were set up?”

The accident is impossible. It wasn’t an accident.

Even if Jim and John had found Lila Mae’s safe behind the painting, the contents wouldn’t have interested them, except to flesh out John’s coveted psychological profile of this night’s subject. A soccer trophy from high school (everyone on the team got one, even Lila Mae, who sat on the bench all season and only joined the squad at her mother’s urging she “be social”). Her high school graduation ring (poor craftsmanship). A love letter from a dull boy, her diploma from the Institute for Vertical Transport, and her prizewinning paper on theoretical elevators. Not much, really.

* * *

Her father dropped her off in front of the place where she was to live and left the engine running. Lila Mae removed the two suitcases from the back of the pickup truck. The suitcases were new, with a formidable casing of green plastic. Scratchproof, supposedly. Her father had only been able to afford them because they were, manufacturer’s oaths aside, scratched — gouged actually, as if an animal had taken them in its fangs to teach them about hubris.