Stanley Elkin - The MacGuffin

My hero, Druff appreciated.

“Mr. Mayor, why haven’t we been better friends?” Druff asked.

That’s the way, MacGuffin encouraged. Good shot there, Druff, you wise old pol, you. Frame the argument, preempt and conquer.

Druff beamed. It was the nicest thing the MacGuffin had ever thought to him, and the City Commissioner of Streets felt ever so slightly more alert.

Though maybe Mr. Mayor was asleep. He didn’t answer him. It could be a trap, but.

Force his hand, prompted MacGuffin. Take a follow-up.

“Because I’ve never understood why we aren’t closer. I feel no animus toward you. I voted for you, as a matter of fact.”

“You voted for him,” Doug said. “You’re in the man’s administration, for heaven’s sake.”

“It’s a secret ballot,” Druff hissed. “We go into that booth, the curtain closes behind us.”

“Oh, please.”

“No ‘Oh, please.’ We could get away with murder if we wanted to.”

“Oh, please.”

“Give the man a break, Doug. He’s warm. He’s very warm. We could get away with murder.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor. It just makes me angry the way certain prominent officials who serve at your pleasure carry on sometimes.”

“It was a fair question, Doug. The man’s entitled to an answer. The reason I didn’t offer one is I found it hard to believe he didn’t already know. I still do. However —”

“What do you mean ‘drop this one off first’? Where are we? What part of town is this? I don’t recognize it.”

“The City Commissioner of Streets wants to know what part of town this is, Frank. The City Commissioner of Streets doesn’t recognize it. The City Commissioner of Streets is lost.”

“Now now. The man’s responsible for — what is it, Bobbo, a few hundred thousand square acres of streets in your jurisdiction?”

“I’m not out of the woods yet, you said. What kind of crack is that? You can’t stand the sight of blood, you said. What do you mean, I’m warm? What do you mean you could get away with murder?”

And now the City Commissioner of Streets was completely awake.

Doug was giggling. He was laughing out loud. He was snorting and laughing uncontrollably.

“You’re going to wet your pants you don’t watch out,” Druff said. “He can’t stand the sight of blood, he can’t stand the smell of puke. Maybe he’s not too thrilled with the stench of wee-wee.”

“I like the stench of wee-wee,” the mayor said.

Just jump in anytime, Druff addressed the MacGufĭìn.

“Oh hell, Bob. I said you’re entitled to an answer and you are. The reason we’re not better friends is I can’t let go of a grudge. That’s it. That’s the long and short of it.”

“Against me? What kind of grudge can you have against me?”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t approve of your negative campaign tactics that time you opposed me in the primary.”

“That was a thousand years ago. We were both just starting out. We were only running for alderman! Anyway, what negative campaign tactics? No one used television in those days. We didn’t even take out radio spots. Christ, most of my campaign literature was these cheesy, heavily inked fliers, my name on a piece of cardboard up on a stick in someone’s front lawn. Debates were held in high school gymnasiums, VFW halls, the American Legion. Out-of-doors in the park on company picnics. Which negative campaign tactics? What negative campaign tactics?”

“All right. You hired a car! You hired a car with a great big loudspeaker on the roof and rode all over the precinct playing loud music and crying ‘VOTE FOR BOB DRUFF! VOTE FOR BOB DRUFF ON APRIL EIGHTEENTH!’ ”

“You’ve got to be kidding. You’re kidding me. You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

He is and he isn’t. You’re not out of the woods yet. This one’s got a lot of unresolved menace in him.

“Would I kid you, Druff?”

“Doug’s right, I serve at your pleasure. If you’ve so much against me, how come I’m still working for you?”

“I didn’t appoint you,” the mayor said. “You were appointed by my predecessor. Anyway, that was just politics, that was just campaign promises.”

It was true. The mayor had pledged that if he was elected he’d do away with the spoils system. As part of his campaign to break up the machine, he’d promised to retain everyone who’d been doing their job reasonably well. Druff had come in toward the end of the Golden Age of streets and highways, just before the money Eisenhower had pumped into the interstates had begun to give out. It was a brilliant idea. A lot of his opponent’s hacks in City Hall either actively campaigned for the mayor, or stayed home. Meanwhile, he’d convinced enough of the voters that he was apolitical to win by a landslide.

He’s kidding and he isn’t kidding, the MacGuffin warned again. Where there’s smoke, in other words, there could be fire. A word to the wise old pol was sufficient.

Who then upped the ante, who took the bull by the horns and raised the conversation from bland schmooze and the cult of personality to bottom lines.

“All right,” Druff said, “do I need a lawyer? Am I a target of a grand jury investigation? What do you have on me?”

“Oho.”

“You owe me that much, Frank.”

“Sure, sure. Tell me another.”

“You do. You owe me that much. Whatever you may think of me personally I’m still an important player in this town. I’m a prominent official. Even Doug said as much. I control a few hundred thousand square acres of street. That was your estimate.”

“And just how much of that acreage is gutter, Mr. City Commissioner? How much runs over sewer?”

“Listen to me, Frank, I had nothing to do with that girl’s death.”

“Are we there yet, Doug?”

“Just about, Your Honor.”

“Well, step on it then.”

Druff listened for a siren. He hoped there’d be a siren. He wished Doug would slap a Mars light on top of the car. He wanted to see whirling red light ignite the houses and trees. He wished Doug would step on it. He wanted to feel speed press against his back. Anything, any spoor of ostentation that might compel a witness’s attention.

But there was nothing. Doug moved it along at the same careful, defensive driver’s pace Druff had noted earlier.

Fearfully, the City Commissioner of Streets raised his head and dared to look out the window.

They were not in the woods. They were in Druff’s neighborhood. Relieved, astonished, he said so.

“I knew this shortcut,” Doug said.

They were on Druff’s block. They were at his house. Doug pulled the big machine to a stop.

“Thank you,” Druff said. “Thank you for the lift.”

“My pleasure,” said Mr. Mayor.

“Hey,” Druff said, “if I said anything out of line—”

“Forget it,” the mayor said airily, “you were shitfaced.”

“That’s right,” Druff admitted. “I’m not much of a drinker. Well, the pressure of the situation. I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses. Well, I am making excuses, I know that, but I get nervous around people’s grief. I don’t know what to say. I’m at a loss, so I drink too much and get so comfortable I don’t behave well.

“Say,” Druff said, “I heard you mention you might see Paula tomorrow? Would you do me a favor? If you see her, would you offer my apologies? If I embarrassed her and her guests in any way — it’s just I felt so bad about Marv, about missing his funeral. I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong impression.”

And on and on like that. Getting in deep. Deep, deeper, deepest. Until Doug actually got out of the car and, just as if it were the City Commissioner of Streets’ own limo, walking behind the car (this being the protocol, never to pass in front of the windshield where the mahatmas in the back might see them), came around to the passenger’s side and opened Druff’s door for him, the poor man still talking, clipping along in a cloud of verbiage, like a magician. Just so, like a magician trying to distract his audience, bullying it with broad misdirection. And Doug, posed in a position of attention at the door he holds for him as if, had Druff any decency or at least conscientiousness left in him at all, he’d shut his mouth at once and scurry out of the car. Druff knows this but can’t stop jabbering, hoping that the words he’s so far spoken will cover over and perhaps bury the ones he can’t bring himself even to take back. The brief, passing reference to his innocence and that by- now-for-sure-he-thinks little murdered girl.