Jane Mendelsohn - Burning Down the House

Why is it your responsibility to stop them?

I can’t stop them. But I can keep them off my property. I don’t have to give them a place to violate.

They will find someplace else.

Steve looked at her with a menacing, rocklike determination. Yes, he said. But not my place.

—

She thinks he looks like one of those heads on Mount Rushmore but thousands of years from now, when the wind has worn them down, not to the bone, not to dust, but softened them and in so doing made them more ferocious because they have lasted, their softer edges expressing their endurance. She looks at him and it is like the Sphinx staring at Mount Rushmore, two monuments, two ruins, sand blowing, no people, stone and clay.

—

A few days later Neva greeted two men at the door and escorted them to Steve’s study. She seated them on the couch and brought them bottled water. Steve kept working at his desk. His fingers tapped rhythmically. Eventually he took off his reading glasses, sighed, and stood up. He looked at the two men sitting on his couch. One was slender and tall, the other of average height and very broad. Steve’s face was furrowed, sagging, thoughtful. He breathed deeply and nodded for Neva to close the door. She did so and stayed in the room.

The slender man was named Warren. He was some kind of sinister professional. He had a briefcase on his lap. His long arms dangled at his sides. He spoke first.

Did you have a chance to think about our proposal?

I did, Steve said.

Warren looked at the broad man. Excellent, Warren said. He began opening his briefcase as he said: We were concerned you would dismiss the idea outright.

That’s not your problem, Steve said.

Warren stopped. He spoke without lifting his head from looking down at his briefcase.

Do we have a problem?

Yes, Steve said. We do. But it isn’t that I didn’t think about your proposal.

Warren looked again at the broad man and then back at Steve, who was by now leaning against his desk, towering.

We have a mission to get this thing done, Warren said.

Steve didn’t answer.

You know this will happen with or without you.

Steve unscrewed the top of a water bottle with his articulate fingers. I’m aware that this is the direction our world is going, he said.

So you want to be a part of it, we assume.

Don’t assume.

You’ll go out of business without us.

Maybe. Eventually.

And that’s okay with you?

That’s not your concern. You do what you want.

—

Warren rose and looked beyond Steve out through the large windows that contained a view of the park. The apartment was on a high floor on a side street between Madison and Fifth. It was late February and the waves of bare trees rippled from the East Side to the West. Warren had no idea that Patrizia had assumed they would take the full-floor apartment with a treetop view of the park up the block, but that Steve had preferred this more stealth penthouse off of Madison. Warren shrugged his shoulders at the vast expanse of distantly writhing branches. Real estate, he said. It doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s just property. He walked toward the door and asked Neva where the restroom was located. He looked back at Steve, who was wheezing the slightest bit, the water bottle held to his lips. I’m not coming back, he said. You know our offer. Warren took a moment to look at the broad man who was still seated calmly and then he opened the door with his skinny hand and was gone.

—

Steve had by now seated himself in a club chair facing the couch. The broad man had a wide face. His name was Wolf. That was his first name and he used it with everyone. He sat very still looking across the apricot marble table shot through with gray and white veins, back at Steve. Wolf came from Eastern Europe and had arrived in the United States when he was fourteen. He lived in Brooklyn, near the water. He couldn’t remember how exactly he’d gotten into the business he was in, but it seemed inevitable, like the tides. This was the way the universe was tilting, toward hotels, strip malls, and the women who worked there. He was just making business possible. He watched Steve and he watched the enormous sky out the window white and foamy like the ocean on a foggy day.

Mr. Zane, what don’t you like about our proposal?

Steve stared at him.

You understand what I don’t like. You don’t need me to explain it to you.

You are a man of high morals, is that what you’re telling me? Wolf asked.

You flatter me, Steve said.

But isn’t that what it is? You think you are above this kind of thing?

Steve stood up and walked around his desk. Some pigeons had risen and were winging toward the clouds, moving like dark gray letters across the blank page of white sky.

If that’s how you want to think about it, Steve said.

Wolf said nothing.

Steve walked back toward the couch. As he sat down again in the club chair he said, offhandedly, I think of it as a question of being human or not.

Wolf’s entire body tensed.

You are saying we are inhuman?

I didn’t say that. I don’t know what you are.

But you think you’re better than us?

I’m not thinking about myself in terms of you. I am merely acting on my own principles.

What if we destroy your business?

How exactly can you do that?

We use other malls, other hotels, and we make those developers and landlords more successful than you.

So they’ll make more money. That doesn’t mean I’ll be unsuccessful.

Eventually.

Eventually I’ll be dead. So will you.

This is a terrible position you’re putting me in.

What would be a good position? I let you do illegal, immoral, inhuman things on my property? That’s a good position?

This is going to happen someplace.

Not my place.

My boss is going to be disappointed.

That’s not my problem.

He is willing to pay you a tremendous cut of the profits. Almost fifty percent.

Steve looked like he might pound his fist into the chair, or into Wolf, but he did not do it. He leaned in very close toward Wolf, and Wolf’s head instinctively moved away. Then Wolf gathered his strength and stood up. Without standing Steve seized his arm. Wolf looked at Steve’s hand on his arm and Steve removed it. Steve stood up and the two men stared hard at each other high above the low marble table, Steve’s head reaching up toward the ceiling while his eyes gazed through Wolf. Wolf’s legs solidly planted on the ground.

I won’t sell people, Steve said.

You wouldn’t be doing the selling.

I would be giving my permission, enabling it, and then taking a portion of the proceeds. That’s close enough.

Isn’t that what you do in all your properties?

You misunderstand completely. That’s what’s wrong with you and your boss.

It’s all the same, Wolf said.

If I had a gun I might kill you, Steve said.

—

Neva watches them from the corner of the room. Her heart is pounding. She is somewhat afraid but more than fear she feels ashamed that she has ever doubted Steve or that at one time she had expected to despise him. She is confused, alarmed, feels stupid and amazed. Impressed by Steve’s refusal, his fearsome and tragic determination. She is afraid of him again, but in a new way. She respects him.

—

Wolf’s face was red. The veins in his neck stretched. He stuck out his hand.

Well, I’ll be going then, he said.

Steve looked at Wolf and his wide-set nearly black eyes. He was staring not at Steve but out the windows. A darker shade of white had covered the sky, as if the brightness had been turned down. Another handful of birds appeared to be thrown into the view, this flock rising as one and breaking up into words and sentences. Steve took Wolf’s hand and shook it briskly. He nodded for Neva to open the door. She did and Wolf pressed his hand against his tie and made his way around the low table and slid out of the room. He was gone.