A Confederacy of Dunces (37 page)

Zalatimo aside, and opened the files in the A's. There was no Abelman folder. The drawer was completely empty. He opened several other drawers, but half of them were empty, too. What a way to begin fighting a libel suit.

"What do you people do with the filing?"

"I was wondering about that myself," Mr. Zalatimo said vaguely.

"Gonzalez, what was the name of that big kook you had working in here, the big fat one with the green cap?"

"Mr. Ignatius Reilly. He handled the letter to go out." Who had composed that awful thing?

"Hey," Jones's voice said over the telephone, "you people still got a fat mother with a green cap workin there at Levy Pant? A big white guy got him a moustache?"

"No, we don't," Mr. Gonzalez answered in a shrill voice and slammed the phone down.

"Who was that?" Mr. Levy asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Someone for Mr. Reilly." The office manager wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. "The one who tried to make the factory workers kill me."

"Reilly?" Miss Trixie said. "That wasn't Reilly, that was . . ."

"The young idealist?" Mrs. Levy sobbed. "Who wanted him?"

"I don't know," the office manager answered. "It sounded like a Negro voice to me."

"Well, I guess so," Mrs. Levy said. "He's out trying to help some other unfortunates right now. It's encouraging to know that his idealism is still intact."

Mr. Levy had been thinking of something, and he asked the office manager, "What was the name of that kook?"

"Reilly. Ignatius J. Reilly."

"It was?" Miss Trixie said with interest. "That's strange. I always thought it ..."

"Miss Trixie, please," Mr. Levy said angrily. That Reilly blimp was working for the company at the time that that letter to Abelman was dated. "Do you think that that Reilly would write a letter like that?"

"Maybe," Mr. Gonzalez said. "I don't know. I had high hopes for him until he tried to get that worker to brain me."

"That's right," Mrs. Levy moaned. "Try to pin it on the young idealist. Put him away where his idealism won't bother you.

People like the young idealist don't deal in underhanded things like that. Wait until Susan and Sandra hear about this." Mrs.

Levy made a gesture that indicated that the girls would clearly go into a state of shock. "Negroes are calling here to get his counsel. You're about to frame him. I can't take much more of this, Gus. I can't, I can't!"

"Then do you want me to say I wrote that?"

"Of course not!" Mrs. Levy screamed at her husband. "I'm supposed to end in the poorhouse? If the young idealist wrote it, he goes to jail for forgery."

"Say, what's going on?" Mr. Zalatimo asked. "Is this dump gonna close down or what? I mean, I'd like to know."

"Shut up, gangster," Mrs. Levy answered wildly, "before we pin it on you."

"Huh?"

"Will you keep quiet? You're getting everything confused,"

Mr. Levy said to his wife. Then he turned to the office manager. "Get me this Reilly's phone number."

Mr. Gonzalez awakened Miss Trixie and asked her for a phone book.

"I keep all of the phone books," Miss Trixie snapped. "And no one is going to use them."

"Then look up a Reilly on Constantinople Street for us."

"Well, all right, Gomez," Miss Trixie snarled. "Hold your horses." She took the three hoarded office telephone books out of some recess in her desk, and, studying the pages with a magnifying glass, gave them a number.

Mr. Levy dialed it and a voice answered, "Good morning.

Regal Cleaners."

"Give me one of those phone books," Mr. Levy hollered..

"No," Miss Trixie rasped, slapping her hand down on the stack of books, guarding them with her newly enameled nails.

"You'll only lose it. I'll find the right number. I must say you people are very impatient and excitable. Staying at your house took ten years off my life. Why can't you let poor Reilly alone? You already kicked him out over nothing."

Mr. Levy dialed the second number that she gave him. A woman who sounded slightly intoxicated answered and told him that Mr. Reilly wouldn't be home until late in the afternoon. Then she started crying, and Mr. Levy got depressed and thanked her and hung up.

"Well, he's not at home," Mr. Levy told the audience in the office.

"Mr. Reilly always seemed to have the best interests of Levy Pants at heart," the office manager said sadly. "Why he started that riot I'll never know."

"For one thing because he had a police record."

"When he came to apply, I certainly didn't think he was a police character." The office manager shook his head. "He seemed so refined."

Mr. Gonzalez watched Mr. Zalatimo probing his long index finger high into one of his nostrils. What would this one do?

His feet tingled with fear.

The factory door banged open and one of the workers screamed, "Hey, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Palermo just bum his hand on one of them furnace door."

There were sounds of disorder in the factory. A man was cursing.

"Oh, my goodness," Mr. Gonzalez cried. "Quiet the workers.

I'll be there in a minute."

"Come on," Mr. Levy said to his wife. "Let's get out of here.

I'm getting heartburn."

"Just a moment." Mrs. Levy gestured to Mr. Gonzalez. "About Miss Trixie. I want you to give her a welcome every morning.

Give her meaningful work to do. In the past her insecurity probably made her afraid of taking any responsible work. I think she's over that now. Basically she has a deep seated hatred of Levy Pants that I've analyzed as being rooted in fear.

The insecurity and fear have led to hatred."

"Of course," the office manager said, half listening. The factory sounded bad.

"Go see about the factory, Gonzalez," Mr. Levy said. "I'll get in touch with Reilly."

"Yes, sir." Mr. Gonzalez made a deep bow to them and dashed out of the office.

"Okay." Mr. Levy was holding the door open. Just come near Levy Pants and you were subjected to all sorts of annoyances and depressing influences. You couldn't leave the place alone for a minute. Anyone who wanted to take it easy and not be bothered had better not have a company like Levy Pants.

Gonzalez didn't even know what kind of mail was going out of the office. "Come on, Dr. Freud. Let's go."

"Look how calm you are. It doesn't matter to you that Abelman is about to sue our lives away if he can." The aquamarine lids trembled. "Aren't you going to get the idealist?"

"Some other time. I've had enough for one day."

"Meanwhile Abelman has Scotland Yard at our throats."

"He's not even home." Mr. Levy didn't feel like speaking with the crying woman again. "I'll call him tonight from the coast.

There's nothing to worry about. They can't sue me for a half million for a letter I didn't write."

"Oh, no? I'm sure somebody like Abelman could. I can just see that lawyer he's got. Crippled from chasing ambulances.

Mutilated from being caught in fires he's started for insurance money."

"Well, you'll take the bus back to the coast if you don't hurry up. I'm getting indigestion from this office."

"All right, all right. You can't spare a minute of your wasted life for this woman, can you?" Mrs. Levy indicated the loudly snoring Miss Trixie. She shook Miss Trixie's shoulder. "I'm going, darling. Everything is going to be fine. I've spoken to Mr. Gonzalez and he's delighted to see you again."

"Quiet!" Miss Trixie ordered. Her teeth snapped menacingly.

"Come on before I have to take you to get a rabies shot," Mr.

Levy said angrily and grabbed his wife through her fur coat.

"Just look at this place." A gloved hand gestured to the dingy office furniture, to the warped floors, to the crepe paper streamers still hanging from the days when I. J. Reilly was custodian of the files, to Mr. Zalatimo who was kicking at the wastebasket in alphabetical frustration. "Sad, sad. A business down the drain, unhappy young idealists stooping to forgery to get even."

"Get out of here, you people," Miss Trixie snarled, slapping her palm on the desk.

"Listen to the conviction in that voice," Mrs. Levy said proudly as her round, furry figure was being hauled through the door. "I've worked a miracle."

The door closed and Mr. Zalatimo came over to Miss Trixie, absently scratching himself. He tapped her on the shoulder and asked, "Say, lady, maybe you can help me out with this. What would you say comes first, Willis or Williams?"

Miss Trixie glared at him for a moment. Then she sank her teeth into his hand. In the factory Mr. Gonzalez heard Mr.

Zalatimo's screaming. He didn't know whether to desert the seared Mr. Palermo and see what had happened or to stay in the factory, where the workers had begun dancing with one another under the loudspeakers. Levy Pants demanded a lot of a person.

In the sports car, as they drove through the salt marshes that led back to the coast, Mrs. Levy, pulling her blowing fur up closer around her neck said, "I'm establishing a Foundation."

"I see. Suppose Abelman's lawyer gets the money out of us."

"He won't. The young idealist is trapped," she said calmly. "A police record, inciting a riot. His character references will stink."

"Oh. Suddenly you agree that your young idealist is a criminal."

"He obviously was all alone."

"But you wanted to get your hands on Miss Trixie."

"That's right."

"Well, there will be no Foundation."

"Susan and Sandra will hate to know that your bum's attitude toward the world almost ruined them, that because you won't even take the time to supervise your own company, we have somebody suing us for half a million. The girls will really resent that. The least that you've always given them has been material comfort. Susan and Sandra will hate to know that they could have ended up as prostitutes or worse."

"They might at least have made some money at it. As it is, they're all for free."

"Please, Gus. Not another word. Even my brutalized spirit has some sensitivity left. I can't let you slander my girls like that."

Mrs. Levy sighed contentedly. "This Abelman business is the most dangerous of all your mistakes and errors and evasions through the years. The girls' hair will curl when they read of it.

Of course, I won't frighten them if you don't want me to."

"How much do you want for this Foundation?"

"I haven't decided yet. I've been composing the rules and regulations."

"May I ask what this Foundation is going to be called, Mrs.

Guggenheim? The Susan and Sandra slush fund?"

"It will be called the Leon Levy Foundation, in honor of your father. I have to do something to honor your father's name for all that you haven't done to honor it. The awards will commemorate the memory of that great man."

"I see. In other words, you'll be tossing laurels at old men outstanding only for their unequaled meanness."

"Please, Gus." Mrs. Levy held up a gloved hand. "The girls have been thrilled by my reports on the Miss Trixie project.

The Foundation will really give them faith in their name. I must do all I can to make up for your complete failure as a parent."

"Getting an award from the Leon Levy Foundation will be a public insult. Your hands will be really full of libel suits then, libel suits from the recipients. Forget it. Whatever happened to bridge? Other people are still playing it. Can't you go play golf at Lakewood anymore? Take some more dancing lessons.

Take Miss Trixie with you."

"To be quite honest with you, Miss Trixie was beginning to bore me the last few days."

"So that's why the rejuvenation course ended all of a sudden."

"I've done all I can for that woman. Susan and Sandra are proud that I've tried to keep her active so long."

"Well, there will be no Leon Levy Foundation."

"Do you resent it? There's resentment in your voice. I can hear it. There's hostility. Gus, for your own sake. That doctor in the Medical Arts building. Lenny's savior. Before it's too late.

Now I'll have to watch over you every minute to see to it that you get in touch with that idealist criminal as soon as possible.

I know you. You'll put it off, and Abelman will have a van out in front of Levy's Lodge taking everything away."

"Including your exercising board."

"I've already told you!" Mrs. Levy screamed. "Leave the board out of this!" She adjusted her ruffled furs. "Now get to that Reilly psycho before Abelman comes down here and starts taking the hub caps off this sports car. With somebody like that, Abelman has no case. Lenny's doctor can analyze Reilly, and the state will put him away someplace where he can't try to wreck people. Thank goodness Susan and Sandra won't know that they almost ended up selling roach tablets from door to door. Their hearts would break if they knew how carelessly their own father handled their welfare."

George had set up his stakeout on Poydras Street across from the Paradise Vendors, Incorporated, garage. He had remembered the name on the wagon and looked up the address of the vending firm. All morning he had waited for the big vendor, who had never shown up. Perhaps he had been fired for stabbing the fairy in Pirate's Alley. At noon George had left his outpost and gone down to the Quarter to get the packages from Miss Lee. Now he was back on Poydras wondering whether the vendor was going to show. George had decided to try to be nice to him, to hand him a few dollars right away. Hot dog vendors must be poor. He'd appreciate a few bucks. This vendor was a perfect front man. He would never know what was coming off. He had a good education, though.

At last, sometime after one o'clock, a white smock billowed off the trolley and whipped into the garage. A few minutes later the oddball vendor wheeled his wagon out onto the sidewalk. He was still wearing the earring, scarf, and cutlass, George noticed. If he put them on in the garage, they must be part of his sales gimmick. You could tell by the way that he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him. George had been wise enough to get out of school as soon as possible. He didn't want to end up like that guy.