Damnation of Adam Blessing (17 page)

“You’re going to
what?”

“Repay you, Mr. Schneider. It was always my dream to repay you.”

Schneider sat back against the leather swivel chair. “Repay me?” he said incredulously. He had not told anyone about the gifts being sent him. Against everyone’s advice — Win’s, of course — but also Matt’s, his mother’s, the F.B.I. agent’s — against everyone’s, he had kept his bargain with the kidnapper. He had purposely framed his response to the ransom note in a way intended to convince Timmy’s abductor he would not turn on him. He had used words like “faith” and “integrity,” appealing to him in a soft key, trying to reach him on whatever substrata level there was in his make-up which would respond to another human being’s confidence in him. At the time he had thought of it as being like attempting to get some very fragile and infinitely precious object from the sticky hands of a recalcitrant child, approaching him inch-by-inch on tip-toe, afraid that one false move would send the object flying to destruction…. He had tried to be ever so careful, and in the same way one does not ever fool some children, he had not tried to fool the man who had Timmy captive…. And it had worked. He had never regretted the way he had handled it. Long afterwards, when he realized it was this same fellow sending the gifts from abroad, his reasons for telling no one were striped half with fear that it would start a resurgence, half with a thin acceptance of the idea that the kidnapper felt remorse, gratitude, guilt — Schneider did not know what to call it. There was an ocean separating them. Schneider had simply let well enough alone…. He had not even told Kate about it, and he told Kate nearly everything, omitting only the raw details of his life in hell with Win. He was not a superstitious man, Luther Schneider, but he felt there was something frangible about the understanding which had passed between himself and the kidnapper, something that must keep it a covert thing; almost as though after all the time that had passed, if Schneider were to break his word, what would stop the kidnapper from finding some way to retaliate; this time, to harm Timmy? … Now he could only repeat his last words, “Repay me?” as though the most disbelieving, lip-service Catholic had suddenly been confronted with the vision of St. Peter saying: “You have kept faith and now I am here.”

“Yes, that’s right, Mr. Schneider. Where will you be, for example, tomorrow?”

“That’s New Year’s Eve,” said Schneider.

“A perfect time to settle old debts, isn’t it, sir?”

“I usually go to my mother’s for the day
and
evening.”

“Good. Tradition is a fine thing. I believe in tradition myself.”

“Is this a joke? I have trouble believing this is — ”

The voice laughed, “No, you have never had trouble believing. You believed in me sir. You never gave me away. You gave me great peace.”

“I’m — gl-glad,” Schneider managed.

“You sound as though you doubt me. I don’t blame you. I’m sorry I cannot see you in person to thank you.

I would like to shake your hand, Mr. Schneider. Thanks to you, I have been many places and seen many things. It has not all been easy for me; I have suffered too, and caused unhappiness to others. But I found my way finally. A whole new world opened up for me. A new field.”

“A profitable field too,” Schneider said. “It must be very profitable if you really mean that you’re going to pay me back.”

“It’s not something I can explain on a telephone. Even in person, I wonder if I could explain it. It’s very involved, you see.”

“You got into some line abroad?” Schneider imagined telling Matt this. Matt was a lawyer first, of course. He could hear Matt’s answer. “The man broke the law, Lute, and you didn’t report his contact with you. You’re an accessory! I don’t care if he did pay you back!” Schneider was smiling all the more. Matt would damn near die once he got over being a lawyer.

“Yes, abroad. In Rome. It started in Rome, really.”

“I see…. Well, Mr. — I don’t know what to call you. Mr. — ”

“I would tell you my name if I were sure you completely trusted me. Oh, I know you used to. When you had a reason to, you had faith. But you see, it’s a funny thing about faith. Inless there is a good reason, one loses it.”

“You’re quite a philosopher.”

“You’ve accomplished that for me. All my life I needed just one person to trust me. You did.”

Schneider could think of nothing to say. He watched the snow. He could not stop imagining the look on Matt’s face when he told him about this. Still, he could not quite believe it yet.

“I would like to tell you so many things,” the voice said. “I can’t. The things that have happened to me one doesn’t sit down and discuss.” There was a pause; Schneider heard a long sigh, then: “I will repay you tomorrow night.”

“How do you intend to do this?”

“I can’t say how. I wish I could. How or where, I can’t say, but you will be paid in full. I can promise that. By midnight.”

“My mother,” Schneider said, “is very old. She has a weak heart. I — ”

The voice cut in: “Don’t worry. I won’t be anywhere near your mother’s.”

Matt was picking Timmy up tomorrow morning, bringing him to Schneider’s mother’s home on Gramercy Park. Visiting privileges; Schneider thought they were the most sadistic words he had ever heard in any court…. The voice was reassuring him again; don’t worry, it would be managed efficiently; no embarrassment to anyone. Schneider played with his pipe as he listened; thank you, the voice was saying again, and then again the part about having always dreamed of repaying him. Always. Thank you.

Schneider straightened up in his chair. “I want you to understand something,” he said, “If this is any sort of joke, or trick, or an attempt to get more — ”

“Please! Please!”

“Well, I want you to be damn sure I’m not putting up with anything else! Do you understand!”

“I forgive you for looking at it that way. How could you look at it any other way? I forgive you!”

“Thanks.”

“Please, before I say good-bye, I’d like to hear a kinder tone. I know that’s very brazen of me. After all, I have no reason to expect kindness from you, but I’ve grown to think of you as my friend. I’ve thought of you more or less as my benefactor. That’s the word, all right — my benefactor.”

Schneider said, “Happy New Year! Will that do?”

“Your tone sounds harsh still. Do you mean it?”

“If you mean what you’re saying,” said Schneider, “I mean what I’m saying.”

“I swear by God,” the voice said. “I swear it!”

Then before Schneider could think of a rejoinder, the voice said, “Good-bye, Mr. Schneider. You’ll never hear from me again, but I’ll never forget you. I like to think you’ll never forget me.”

“Maybe I won’t,” Luther Schneider said; and, as he heard the receiver click, he thought: maybe I really won’t, and he had the same feeling he had had the night before Timmy’s return, a certain blind confidence in something all the odds were against happening; almost like a rapport with a perfect stranger … and yet a stranger who knew better than Luther Schneider’s most intimate friends, that the one thing Schneider had always wanted was an eighteenth century punch-ladle with a worm handle and silver mounts.

“He wasn’t that fat when I knew him,” said Dorothy Schackleford Neer.

“So that’s the great Adam,” her husband said. He giggled, and a woman in the row in front of him turned around in her seat and damned him with her eyes. A hiss of “Shhh!” spread through the audience.

“Well, he wasn’t!” said Dorothy Schackleford in a peeved whisper.

She had always made more of her friendship with Adam. She was always telling Wilson how she had nursed Adam through his breakdown, helped him become interested in the Fellow’s Foundation, watched him progress from a wild ne’er-do-well to a dedicated worker, and ultimately parted from him, with a little Schackleford embroidery on the latter. Well, he
might
have asked her to marry him — it wasn’t exactly a proven lie…. Wilson was a few inches shorter than Dorothy, and without his glasses he could not see his own nose, but Dorothy thought of him as “a dear thing,” and she was proud of the fact that he was one of the top engineers in Duco Oil Corporation. In April, they were going to Sumatra to live.

The speaker who had announced the $10,000 donation was pounding on the podium for order. There would be a hush momentarily, then a resurgence of the applause and chatter. The audience was as excited by the donation as they might have been if it were to be distributed among them in hundred-dollar bills. Behind the speaker, Adam stood, waiting to address the audience. He was enormous, Dorothy could not deny that. She wondered rather unkindly where on earth he bought his clothes, or did he have to have them made. His beard was even longer than it had been when she last saw him in Rome, and he looked much older than twenty-six.

Wilson leaned over and said: “He should have come a week earlier. He would have been the Santa Claus at the Christmas Party.”

“Wil
-son!” … but she was not truly angry at the remark. She just hoped Wilson would be nice after the meeting when he met Adam. Wilson was not what Dorothy would describe as a sensitive person. She always thought engineers were not the type to be sensitive anyway. They were all slide rules and fix-things-down-in-the-basement. Once she had told Wilson how Adam had attempted to kill himself, after that Vittorio Gelsi’s execution. She had tried to explain to Wilson that Adam felt responsible, even though he was not in the least responsible. For a while Adam had even believed
he
had murdered

Gelsi’s wife, and he had gone about saying he must repent. Bats in the belfry, Wilson had said, marbles in the attic, but that was Wilson for you.

The audience was quiet now, and Adam was stepping up to the podium.

“I thought you said he was such a sporty dresser,” Wilson whispered.

“Well, he was!”

The knees of Adam’s pants were baggy, and there was no press in his suit. Worse, he wore a yellow shirt with a crooked green tie. Dorothy wished she had left Wilson home.

Adam had a hand on either side of the podium. He was leaning forward, staring out at the audience, waiting for silence. Finally, after several slow seconds in this pose, he straightened. His face was very grave, and when he spoke, his voice boomed out in the small church basement.

“My name is Adam Blessing. I am an alcoholic.”

He paused and again looked at the audience. Dorothy attempted a faint smile when he looked in her direction, but if he recognized her, he showed no sign.

He said, “I used to hide behind a bottle for courage. I am not going to stand here and lie to you, and say I did not find the courage I needed, because I
DID
find it. I had a
GREAT DEAL
of courage when I drank. Drink gave me courage to pursue a very beautiful girl … My best friend’s girl.” There was a sprinkle of laughter from the audience. Adam Blessing waited for it to subside.

He began again, “Drink gave me courage to propose marriage to this girl…. Today, I am still a single man.”

More laughter.

“I am also minus one best friend.” Laughter again.

“He was proposing all over the place,” said Wilson.

“He exaggerates,” Dorothy whispered back.

“Oh sure,” Wilson said, “you were the only girl he ever proposed to, I suppose.”

“Drink,” Adam boomed out, “gave me the courage to behave as a rich man, when I was a poor man, gave me debts when I was debt-free, gave me the courage to be a thief when I was honest. There is an awful lot of courage in a fifth of whisky!” Applause.

Adam Blessing’s eyes were narrowed, now as he resumed: “Courage is defined as that quality of the mind which enables one to meet danger and difficulties with firmness. Dangers and difficulties, friends and Fellow’s, not delusions of dangers and difficulties, not imaginary dangers and difficulties, but real ones. Liquid courage, the kind you find in a fifth of whisky, is one of the best manufacturers of synthetic difficulties and dangers in the world today! Is there courage in a fifth, oh yes, and plenty of it, but it’s liquid!”

More applause. “Words, words, words,” said Wilson. “I like it better when girls speak and tell how they almost undressed in public when they were drinking.”

Adam Blessing said, “Some of us are people with little courage. If we are alcoholics, we need to supplement our threads of courage with faith. How do you have faith? Faith is contagious. You believe in me, and I’ll believe in you. We members of Alcoholics Anonymous have demonstrated that credo to the fullest degree. I once looked up ‘Faith’ in the dictionary. I found it defined as ‘fidelity to one’s promises.’ Of course! Fidelity to one’s promises! You trust me and I shall trust you. I will not ever forget you. If it seems as though I am letting you down, it is not so. You are on my mind constantly. It is just a matter of time before I will be with you again. Faith!”

“What the devil is he talking about?” Wilson asked his wife. Some of the audience were looking at one another with puzzled expressions. Dorothy Schackleford Neer smiled, half with embarrassment, half with amusement. Adam used to be called “The Preacher” in Rome when he first began with Fellow’s.

“I will leave you, but I will be back.”

“A tiny nosegay to General MacArthur,” Wilson snickered.

“You are always on my mind!”

“He would have been a great song-writer in the thirties,” said Wilson.

“Tonight,” Adam Blessing roared, “we heard of a donation of $10,000 to the New York Fellow’s Chapter. What pure joy for the donor! Give, and you will be blessed!”

A few members of the audience were stifling smiles. There was a buzz of exchanged comments, shoulders shrugging with bemusement. Wilson gave his wife a questioning glance. “Is he all right?”

“He’s just not organized,” said Dorothy Schackleford, but she hoped he would not go on much longer. She glanced at her watch. The audience was very noisy now.

“Money cannot bring you peace, that is my message. Give it away! Peace is infidelity to one’s promises, in the returning of another’s faith in you, in the thought — no, the
CONVICTION
that faith can make you do
ANYTHING
! Love,
MURDER
, cry, laugh — ”

“He looks like he’s really crying himself,” Wilson said.

“Oh God, I’m afraid he is.”
“He is?”

“He needs a rest.” Dorothy Schackleford covered her eyes with her hands, so she would not have to look at Adam.

• • •

Afterwards, he seemed all right. The chairman had interrupted him five or six minutes after Dorothy had stopped watching the podium. The chairman had said something about the meeting running overtime, and Adam, with the tears wet on his cheeks, had stepped aside without a protest. Dorothy and Wilson went up to him, and Adam hugged her with enthusiasm and shook Wilson’s hand solemnly. They adjourned to a Schrafft’s on Madison Avenue. Adam consumed two chocolate sundaes, and a piece of coconut layer cake. He asked Wilson about his work, and reminisced with Dorothy about members of the Fellow’s in Rome. They were very nearly ready to leave when he brought up the names of Billy and Chary.

“Of course, I didn’t expect a card at Christmas,” he said, “but then again it might have arrived after I left. I might not have it yet.”

“They’re in Caracas,” said Dorothy. “Billy’s head of the Caracas office. We got a brief note from Chary on the back of their Christmas card. She’s going to have another child.”

“Caracas,” Adam repeated.

“City of American-sponsored laundromats,” said Wilson facetiously.

Adam seemed not to hear him.

He was playing with the cake crumbs on his plate, pushing them about with his fork. “I never knew what they named their boy.”

“Ted.”

“Oh … Theodore.” “Teddy, Chary calls him.” “I guess they didn’t name him after anyone.” Dorothy could see the tears forming in Adam’s eyes again.

She said, “What will you do now, Adam?”

“I’ve saved some money. I imagine I’ll rest awhile.”

“Good!”

“Rest, and eventually settle down somewhere,” Adam said after the pause. “I have something to finish up here, and then — I’ll settle down somewhere.”

Dorothy picked up her gloves from the table. “It was good to see you again.” Then she braved, “We liked your talk.”

“I get worked up sometimes,” Adam said softly. “It’s as though everything builds up in me with such an urgency, I nearly explode.”

“We better get on, Dorothy.” Wilson was pushing back his chair.

“In Rome,” said Adam, “I realized there was an obligation I must fulfill immediately. It upset me, the realization, but it brought me peace too. Perhaps it is the only true thing I’ll ever do.”

“Oh, you’ve done a lot of good in Rome, Adam. I heard all about it!”

“I’m very tired. Very tired … I’d like to settle down.”

“We’re walking as far as the subway, Adam.”

“Go along. I’ll have a glass of milk I think. Good night, Wilson.”

“I love your beard, Adam.” Dorothy was standing facing him, not quite sure the evening should end so flatly. But Wilson had made it very clear:
for the love of Pete, don’t ask him back to the place!

Adam said, “I’m going to shave it off tonight.” He smiled. “It gets caught in the steering wheel.”

“You have a car, Adam?” She could hear Wilson sighing behind her.

“I learned to drive in Rome, a month ago. I thought I might rent a car and practice.”

She took his hand. “Good-bye, Adam. Let us hear from you.”

“Good-bye and Happy New Year,” he said. He dropped her hand and smiled. “It’s nice, isn’t it,” he said, “to begin all over again?”