Colson Whitehead - The Intuitionist

Pompey.

“It didn’t have to be you,” Mr. Reed tells her. “It could have been anyone. If Chancre can’t find the box, he can at least stall until after the election, fight the rumors by orchestrating a high-profile failure for the Intuitionists. And their liberal policies.”

Liberal meaning her. “But I haven’t heard any rumors.”

“It’s been pretty inner-circle, Miss Watson. Until Monday, when the new issue of Lift comes out. It’s the cover story. Forced Chancre’s hand.” Mr. Reed taps his cigarette case on his thigh and stares at the cherub in the fountain. It hasn’t moved. It never does. “An elevator doesn’t go into freefall. Not without help. He’s scared. Yesterday proves it. And as for us,” he looks back at Lila Mae, “let’s just say we’re anxious to get our hands on the box and let it speak for itself.”

“Who were the men at my apartment?”

“Are you surprised at Chancre’s tactics? That he’s a thug? He plays golf every Tuesday with Johnny Shush. They were probably some of Shush’s men. The mob does more than just control the city’s elevator maintenance contracts, you know. They have a lot of muscle.” He looks up at the sky for a long moment. “It looks like it’s going to rain, but it’s not. Not today.”

He’s getting that airy look in his eyes again. “So where is it?” Lila Mae prods.

“We’ll find it soon,” Mr. Reed replies. “We think we know who sent out the journals. I think we’ll have it soon.”

This slow debate about the rain: it’s not about rain at all, but the fragility of what we know. We’re all just guessing. The second elevation, she thinks. The new cities are coming. “Thanks again for yesterday,” Lila Mae says. “And for the room.”

“A safe house,” Mr. Reed says. He attempts to smile. “You’d be surprised how many people have taken an interest in your career, Miss Watson. The first colored woman to become an elevator inspector. That’s quite an accomplishment. We’re glad to have you in our camp.” He pats her thigh. “All this business should be sorted out on Monday. Mr. Jameson, our House counsel, will talk to Internal Affairs and they’ll back off. We take care of our own.”

She looks down at the tabloid headline. “What about the accident?”

“You will be absolved. Did you do your job?”

“Yes.”

“Then the fault lies with the Empiricists and Mr. Chancre, who have betrayed the public trust. Mr. Jameson will take care of it. If Chancre wins the election, he’ll have no reason to press the issue. And if he loses, he won’t be able to because Lever will squash it. Once we show Chancre a united front on Monday, his goons will stop harassing you. He’ll know we’re on to him.” Mr. Reed again attempts to smile and is more successful this time. “You’ll be back in your apartment Monday night.”

“I don’t want to,” Lila Mae says.

“No?”

“I want to find the black box.”

* * *

So complete is Number Eleven’s ruin that there’s nothing left but the sound of the crash, rising in the shaft, a fall in opposite: a soul.

Ben Urich on a Saturday night: ambling quickly down the street, a blur in his favorite powder blue seersucker. He’s flipping a dime as he walks — heads, he always bets on heads and is correct about half the time. Whistling a doo-wop confection that’s always on the radio in the coffee shop where he eats his breakfast, where he folds his newspaper into tight squares to better peruse the sports pages.

It’s late but not too late. He notices that the big shows are starting to let out, vomiting dandy citizens and intrepid tourists onto the sidewalk from brightly lit lobbies. It’s not too late, he looks at his watch, and celebrations coalesce in his mind, festivities to be groped and devoured once he picks up an advance copy of his cover story at the office. O’Connor’s? He’ll have to spend half an hour explaining what the story’s about before the inebriated inspectors start buying him drinks, not to mention the fact that the Saturday shift is a generally surly bunch, swollen with career ne’er-do-wells, men of little ambition who sweat out their days looking at the calendar for their retirement date. Tough crowd. Plus, the place isn’t that cheerful. Is downright depressing. Plus, he has no idea how amenable they’ll be to the prospect of an Intuitionist black box. Especially after a few hours of the bottom shelf. The Flamingo is starting to jump at this time of night, and that colored band they got on Saturdays is just what he wants in mood music. Sex music. The music, a few boilermakers, and a present from Lady Luck at the bar: easily impressed bottle blondes who won’t ask many questions, legal secretaries in torpedo bras, the odd beautician. Heads. This is my city, my night.

She was talkative enough after she’d had enough Violet Marys. Suspicious at first when he pressed her too early for details about her job at United Elevator Co. — him being a notorious muckraker at the biggest trade journal there is, Lift magazine. He put on his 100-watt smile and waved his index finger at the waiter when the drinks ran dry. Keep ’em coming. He told her he didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable, he was just asking about her work, it sounded so interesting. She blushed and drained her Violet Mary. The sanctity of the journalist’s creed, the indefatigable war against industry corruption, throw in a toothy anecdote about his suffragette mother: these matters and more Ben Urich discoursed upon, to the effervescent delight of his companion, Miss Betty Williams. He was only laying the groundwork this night; the cover story would clinch the deal. Ensured of his integrity, there was no reason Miss Betty Williams couldn’t pinch a file or two from the United archives. For background purposes. The customary assurances that under no circumstances would he quote from the documents. Inviolability of sources. He was merely trying to serve the public to the best of his ability, he informed her, adhere to the values instilled in him by his mother at an early age, while she painted placards arguing for a woman’s right to vote. He noticed that her eyes flashed a bit when he dropped newsroom lingo, and commenced to disperse words like copy and lede into his lullaby, to a commensurate increase in eye-flashes. He’d drop a copy of his Lift cover story by her office and the next day or the next after that press his new acquisition for a choice file or two. Ben Urich kissed Betty Williams’s swaying cheek as he packed her off in a taxi. Fairly swooning.

Heads. It wasn’t all smoke, however. Ben Urich takes his job as self-appointed watchdog of the country’s vertical transport industry seriously, and he feels he deserves credit for his work. Like exposing the Fairweather Scandal, which resulted in the resignations of seven elevator inspectors and five clerks in the Buildings Department and caused the formation of the first city-Guild joint commission on irregularities in municipal elevator inspection. His series on the alleged (“alleged,” whirling the journalist’s baton) mob control of elevator maintenance in the city may not have brought any indictments, but still stands as the first public report on the industry’s biggest dirty secret. Well, one of them: now that Fulton’s black box is out there somewhere, the whole future of vertical transport is up for grabs. Ben Urich’s future, too. He’s paid his dues. Can scrounge up a legit reporting gig before long, after all the fallout. One of the city’s bigger dailies, maybe even a glossy. Heads.

There’s not much for a night watchman to do at the Lift building at this hour but scrabble at his university-by-mail course. So it comes to pass this night that Billy the night watchman is parsing Victorian English when Ben Urich taps on the front door.