Sol Stein - Other people

I had to laugh.

"Having a client like her," he said, "is too preoccupying."

"Forgive me," I said, risking all, "I am old enough to be a Dutch uncle to you, yes? It is one of the great joys of life to have a preoccupation as beautiful and intelligent as Marta."

He looked at me.

"You said Marta."

"I meant Francine," I said laughing to the point of tears, "I meant Francine."

It takes a fool to be honest with other people all the time, and something higher than a saint to be altogether honest with yourself. I wasn't about to trust myself on the phone with Francine's disembodied voice. Not now.

My secretary has a way of standing in front of my desk when she figures I'm not doing something I'm supposed to be doing.

"What's bothering you, George?" she says. She never calls me George in front of people.

I looked up at her and had to smile. "You're being a pest, Grace," I said.

"Right," she said. "How can I help?"

"All right. I want to wrap up this damn Widmer case."

"I thought you liked Miss Widmer."

"Mind your own business, Grace."

"My job is to mind your business, George."

I suppose Grace's spunk was part of her attraction for me.

"I need the landlord's name off one of her rent receipts. Will you call her?"

"Sure."

Grace is as mischievous as a Persian cat. The next thing I knew she was buzzing me on the intercom, saying, "Miss Widmer's on the line."

I didn't want to talk to her, idiot. You were supposed to…

"Hello."

"Hello, George," she said. Her voice exuded pheromones. It was like hearing from another time of my own life.

"I need to meet with your landlord and see if I can't get you out of that lease."

"I'd be grateful if you could."

"I don't need any more gratitude."

"You mean I haven't paid your bill yet," she said.

"I haven't sent it yet," I said. Some conversation. "I don't have his name or address. Got a rent receipt handy?"

"I'll have to look around. Don't want to keep you on the line. I'll phone it in."

"No rush. You can mail it." Thomassy the Chicken-Hearted avoiding another zombie telephone call like this one.

When the receipt arrived, Grace brought it in ahead of the rest of the mail, held it in front of me, and said, "It's here. I'll leave you alone with it." The bitch.

I sat staring at it between my hands as if it was a relic of the crucifixion. Francine had held it. Now I held it. Contact. Ridiculous! I've got to concentrate on getting this last bit over with period.

The landlord was the Miltmac Corporation in Manhattan, Eighth Avenue midtown, obviously two guys' names, Milton and Mac-something. No phone. Don't want calls from idiot tenants. I had my secretary try information. Can you believe an unlisted number? How do people get in touch with them? I suppose anybody they want a call from gets the number. Or gets them under another corporate name. I tell my secretary to get Fat Tarbell. His line is busy. Christ!

I sat staring through the rent receipt, paying attention to what was inside my own head.

Sometimes I doodle thoughts over and over like a broken record. On the legal pad before me I had written A wife is a weakness . Well, a friend is a weakness, too, male or female. Where in my life did I see a friend? My father could use a friend up in Oswego. Or a wife. I am alone therefore I am strong. I don't have people to compromise with, cater to, work things out with. I decide, I do. My bachelorhood hadn't bothered me up till now. Up to Francine. It's not up to Francine, it's up to me.

Grace buzzed that Fat Tarbell was on the line.

"Miltmac Corporation. Real Estate. Manhattan."

"I don't do much in Manhattan, George."

"You did Anna Banana."

"That's because Brady works up here. Let me look. Call you back."

I had written Other people make life difficult. I crossed out "difficult" and wrote "interesting." I crossed out "interesting." Both were true.

"Mr. Tarbell calling back."

"That was fast."

"Nothing on Miltmac, George, sorry."

"Can you at least get me their unlisted telephone number?"

"No problem."

He called back in three minutes flat and gave me the number. "No charge," he said. "Any time."

"Thanks."

No point in making a cold call. I needed the name of a person at Miltmac. I noodled a bit and remembered Arthur had a book on his desk that showed all the principals in real estate, cross-indexed by corporation and name.

I apologized for bothering him. He said it was a privilege. Miltmac's principal, as it turned out, was neither Milton nor Macsomething. His name was listed as H. Hoover. I'll bet the H stands for Herbert. He must have loved his parents for doing that.

"Mr. Hoover," I said on the phone, "my name is George Thomassy. I'm a lawyer in Westchester. I understand your firm has property in this county."

"How'd you get this phone?"

"I dialed information."

"It's unlisted. They're not supposed to give it out."

"I guess someone slipped. Anyway, do the following addresses jibe with your records?" I gave him the addresses of Francine's apartment house and the two similar houses next door.

"What's up, mister, I'm a busy man."

"Are you aware that a felony was committed on your premises by someone who is a leaseholder with you?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I thought you might be aware that an employee of yours was also involved?"

"Now wait a minute."

"His name is Jason McCabe."

"That's the super."

"Right, Mr. Hoover. I was the lawyer that filed the trespass charges against him."

"What are you making trouble for? You looking for a payoff, what?"

"I'm working for my client, Mr. Hoover."

"Don't fuck me over, mister. What do you want?"

"I want to come and see you."

"I don't go in for payoffs."

"Would tomorrow at ten at your office be convenient?"

"I'll have Luigi here. He weighs three hundred pounds and can beat the shit out of a gorilla."

"I look forward to meeting you, Mr. Hoover."

There are moments in life I call high risk, high gain. You're tempted to do something that could either backfire or hit paydirt. I said to Grace that I was seeing Mr. Hoover at Miltmac the following morning at ten about Miss Widmer's lease, and it might be helpful if Miss Widmer brought the lease itself to the meeting.

Grace looked at me, not saying anything.

"Don't just stand there," I said. "Please make that call."

Grace returned with overcast on her face. Miss Widmer said she couldn't miss work, but she'd send the lease over to Miltmac by messenger addressed to me.

A jury consisting of strangers is easier to persuade.

"Please tell Miss Widmer that it's too risky sending the original to their offices, to photocopy it first and send the copy. Oh, and also tell her it might accomplish our purpose better if she was there in person, but I'll understand if she's too busy."

I stared out of the window. I'd had enough doodling.

I heard Grace's voice over my shoulder. "Miss Widmer says she'll take the day off. She'll be there."

Would you know my heart was sputtering like a chainsaw engine? Instead of an appointment with a landlord, I felt like I had a clandestine assignation with a woman I wasn't supposed to see.

Miltmac's office was on the third floor of an Eighth Avenue building that had a porn bookshop at street level and a massage parlor on the second floor. Francine would love this.

She was already there when I arrived. The seven or eight other people in the anteroom all looked like New York messengers, pimply teenagers, middle-aged spastics, and ancient mariners. Francine was standing. There were no more chairs when she arrived and no one had bothered to offer her a seat.