Joseph Heller - Closing Time

All in all, Yossarian decided, it was a typically modern, poorly adjusted, new-age family in which no one but the mother truly liked all the others or saw good reason to; and each, he suspected, was, like himself, at least secretly and intermittently sad and regretful.

His family life was perfect, he liked to lament. Like Thomas Mann's Gustav Aschenbach, he had none.

He was still under surveillance. He could not tell by how many. By the end of the week there was even an Orthodox Jew pacing back and forth outside his building on the other side of the avenue, and a call on his answering machine from the nurse Melissa MacIntosh, whom he had all but forgotten, with the information that she'd been rotated to the evening shift for a while, in case he'd been planning to take her to dinner-and to Paris and Florence too for lingerie, she reminded with a caustic snicker-and with the incredible news that the Belgian patient was still alive but in pain and that his temperature was down almost to normal.

Yossarian would have bet his life that the Belgian would already be dead.

Of all those tailing him, he could account for only a few-the ones retained by the lawyer for his estranged wife and those retained by the estranged, impulsive husband of a woman he'd lain with half-drunkenly once not long before, a mother of adolescents, and thought halfheartedly he might wish to lie with some more, if ever he was graced with the urge to lie with a woman again, who had detectives shadow every man she knew in his craze to obtain evidence of fornication to balance the evidence of fornication she had earlier obtained against him.

The idea of the others festered, and after another few spells of aggravated embitterment, Yossarian took the bull by the horns and telephoned the office.

"Anything new?" he began, to Milo's son.

"Not as far as I know."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"To the best of my ability."

"You're not holding anything back?"

"Not as far as I can tell."

"Would you tell me if you were?"

"I would tell you if I could."

"When your father calls in today, M2," he said to Milo Minder-binder II, "tell him I need the name of a good private detective. It's for something personal."

"He's already phoned," said Milo junior. "He recommends a man named Jerry Gaffney at the Gaffney Agency. Under no circumstances mention that my father suggested him."

"He told you that already?" Yossarian was enchanted. "How did he know I was going to ask?"

"That's impossible for me to say."

"How are you feeling, M2?"

"It's hard to be sure."

"I mean in general. Have you been back to the bus terminal to look at those TV monitors?"

"I need to clock them some more. I want to go again."

"I can arrange that again."

"Will Michael come with me?"

"If you pay him for the day. Are things all right?"

"Wouldn't I want to tell you if they were?"

"But would you tell me?"

"That would depend."

"On what?"

"If I could tell you the truth."

"Would you tell me the truth?"

"Do I know what it is?"

"Could you tell me a lie?"

"Only if I knew the truth."

"You're being honest with me."

"My father wants that."

"Mr. Minderbinder mentioned you were going to call," said the sanguine, soft-spoken voice belonging to the man named Jerry Gaffney when Yossarian telephoned him.

"That's funny," said Yossarian. "Which one?"

"Mr. Minderbinder senior."

"That's very funny then," said Yossarian in a harder manner. "Because Minderbinder senior insisted I not mention his name to you when I phoned."

"It was a test to see if you could keep things secret."

"You gave me no chance to pass it."

"I trust my clients, and I want all of them to know they can always trust Jerry Gaffney. Without trust, what else is there? I put everything out front. I'll give you proof of that now. You should know that this telephone line is tapped."

Yossarian caught his breath. "How the hell did you find that out?"

"It's my telephone line and I want it tapped," Mr. Gaffney explained reasonably. "There, see? You can count on Jerry Gaffney. It's only me who's recording it."

"Is my line tapped?" Yossarian thought he should ask. "I make many business calls."

"Let me look it up. Yes, your business is tapping it. Your apartment may be bugged too."

"Mr. Gaffney, how do you know all this?"

"Call me Jerry, Mr. Yossarian."

"How do you know all this, Mr. Gaffney?"

"Because I'm the one who tapped it and I'm one of the parties who may have bugged it, Mr. Yossarian. Let me give you a tip. All walls may have ears. Talk only in the presence of running water if you want to talk privately. Have sex only in the bathroom or kitchen if you want to make love or under the air conditioner with the fan setting turned up to- That's it!" he cheered, after Yossarian had walked into the kitchen with his portable phone and turned on both faucets full pressure to talk secretly. "We're picking up nothing. I can barely hear you."

"I'm not saying anything."

"Learn to read lips."

"Mr. Gaffney-"

"Call me Jerry."

"Mr. Gaffney, you tapped my telephone and you bugged my apartment?"

"I may have bugged it. I'll have one of my staff investigators check. I keep nothing back. Mr. Yossarian, you have an intercom system with the staff in the lobby. Can you be sure it's not on now? Are there no video cameras watching you?"

"Who would do that?"

"I would, for one, if I were paid. Now that you know I tell the truth, you see we can become close friends. That's the only way to work. I thought you knew that your telephone was tapped and that your apartment might be bugged and your mail, travel, credit cards, and bank accounts monitored."

"Ho-ly shit, I don't know what I know." Yossarian soaked up the disagreeable intelligence with a prolonged groan.

"Look on the bright side, Mr. Yossarian. Always do that. You'll soon be party to another matrimonial action, I believe. You can pretty much take all that for granted if the principals have the wherewithal to pay us."

"You do that too?"

"I do a lot of that too. But this is only the company. Why should you care what M amp; M E amp; A hears if you never say anything you wouldn't want the company to hear? You believe that much, don't you?"

"No."

"No? Keep in mind, Mr. Yossarian, that I'm getting all of this down, although I'll be pleased to erase as much of it as you wish. How can you have reservations about M amp; M E amp; A when you share in its progress? Doesn't everybody share?"

"I have never gone on record with that, Mr. Gaffney, and I won't do that now. When can we meet to begin?"

"I've already begun, Mr. Yossarian. Grass doesn't grow under Senor Gaffney's feet. I've sent for your government files under the Freedom of Information Act and I'm getting your record from one of the best consumer credit-rating bureaus. I already have your Social Security number. Like it so far?"

"I am not hiring you to investigate me!"

"I want to find out what these people following you know about you before I find out who all of them are. How many did you say you think there are?"

"I didn't. But I count at least six, but two or four of them may be working in pairs. I notice they drive cheap cars."

"Economy cars," Gaffney corrected punctiliously, "to escape being noticed. That's probably how you noticed them." He seemed to Yossarian to be extremely exact. "Six, you say? Six is a good number."

"For what?"

"For business, of course. There is safety in numbers, Mr. Yossarian. For example, if one or two of them decided to assassinate you, there'd already be witnesses. Yes, six is a very good number," Gaffney continued happily. "It would be nicer to get them up to eight or ten. Forget about meeting me yet. I wouldn't want any of them to figure out I'm working for you unless it turns out that they're working for me. I like to have solutions before I find out the problems. Please turn off that water now if you're not having sex. I'm growing hoarse shouting, and I can hardly hear you. You really don't need it when you're talking to me. Your friends call you Yo-Yo? Some call you John?"