Damnation of Adam Blessing (7 page)

On Saturday Adam did not open The Mart. The night before, near midnight, Charity Cadwallader called him. She agreed to meet Adam for cocktails and dinner. The call so elated Adam that he broke open a bottle of Billy’s Nuits Saint-Georges. He sat drinking the wine until four in the morning. His mind seemed to swell with new ideas. He invented a game for adults that would teach them the calorie count in all foods. The winning of the game would depend partly on their knowledge of calories, partly on their knowledge of other nutritional information, and partly on chance. Adam believed it would sweep the country much as Monopoly had in the years after the depression, when money was foremost in people’s mind. Health was the new concern. Adam called his game
DO OR DIET
. It was a penalty to
DIET
, a point to
DO
. He designed a simple board on which the game would be played. He planned to find a small manufacturer who would make up a lot of 100.

Another idea Adam got was for a way to promote the sale of autographs. He would place an unidentified autograph in The Mart’s display windows on Fifty-seventh, with an analysis of the handwriting underneath. He would give several clues about the identity of the person, and offer a free handwriting analysis to anyone who could guess who it was. He might even offer a free handwriting analysis to anyone who made a purchase in The Mart…. One day, he would write an entire book on the psychology of handwriting.

The more wine he drank, the faster the ideas came. He had the money now to back his ideas, and there was something else. He had a new forcefulness, he felt. There was nothing he could not do now. He fell asleep in his clothes on Billy’s couch and dreamed that he tracked down the kidnapper of the Zumbach boy, by analyzing the handwriting on the ransom note. Dr. Zumbach turned over the ransom money to him. Dr. Zumbach looked like the bartender in the Madison Avenue Inn. He apologized to Adam for not believing Adam was Billy Bollin.

• • •

It was not just his hangover that kept Adam from going to The Mart. He had overslept for one thing, but his real reason for staying home was that he wanted to clean the apartment. Charity was coming there that night for cocktails, before they dined out. Adam spent the entire afternoon cleaning, pausing only once at three-thirty, for a sandwich and a cold beer in the garden. It was then that he caught his third glimpse of Timothy Schneider.

• • •

He noticed the boy hanging on the fence, the same way he had first seen him. The boy was calling out the same thing:
“Regardez
Timmy Schneider,” over and over. No one seemed to be paying any attention to him, but when a smaller boy wandered by, Timothy Schneider stuck out his foot and kicked him. The smaller boy screamed, and suddenly a man in a tweed suit yanked Timothy from the fence.

Adam heard the man say: “You feel hostile today, don’t you, Tim?”

“I didn’t hit him on purpose,” the boy answered.

The man had him by the arm. “Oh yes, you did. Don’t lie, Tim.”

“I didn’t see him!”

“Don’t use that old excuse, Tim.”

“I didn’t see him! I didn’t! I can’t see everything!”

Adam set his bottle of beer down on the flagstone and leaned forward to watch the scene more closely. The Schneider boy was trying to pound the man’s stomach with his fist. He kept repeating that he had not seen the boy he kicked. Finally, the man reached down and took the boy’s thick glasses from his face. He held them in his hand.

The boy blinked and squinted, feeling the air around him with his fingers like a blind person.

“You only hit people when you can’t see them, Tim,” said the man. “So when you don’t feel like hitting me any more, I’ll return your glasses. You wouldn’t hit me if you could see me, would you?”

The boy began to whimper. He reached for the fence and held on to it.

“You don’t feel like hitting me now, do you?” the man said.

The boy shook his head from side to side, hanging to the fence with both hands.

The man said: “We all know you have bad eyesight, Tim, but don’t use it as an excuse to be belligerent.” “I’m not belligerent!”

“You saw Robin. You kicked him deliberately.”

The boy said nothing. He hung to the fence whimpering. The man in the tweeds walked over to him and put his arm around his shoulders. He gave the boy back his glasses. He said, “Will you apologize to Robin now?”

The boy nodded. He put his glasses on. Then he began to laugh.

“Laughing is good for you,” the man said.

The boy shouted out
“Regardez
Timmy Schneider, Robin!” and he skipped wildly across the yard to shake the smaller boy’s hand.

Adam finished his beer, thinking what a waste it was for a millionaire to have a son who was balmy. He remembered the disappointment in Luther Schneider’s face. Adam wished he could think of an idea that Waverly Foods could use. Adam would call on Luther Schneider personally and present the idea. He imagined the scene, imagined Luther Schneider leaning back in a large leather swivel chair, a reflective expression on his face, his eyes watching Adam with growing interest.

“You say you got this idea yourself?” he would say.

Adam would nod modestly. He would have on a dark suit, with a fresh white shirt, and a quiet tie; his hair combed neatly, carefully parted, a half inch of clean white handkerchief showing from his pocket.

“Tell me about yourself,” Luther Schneider would invite.

Adam’s daydream was interrupted by the shrill sound of the ringing telephone. It was Geismar. Geismar wanted to know what Adam thought he was doing not keeping The Mart open. He was angry with Adam, and he made an unnecessary remark about Adam having retired a little prematurely. The call angered Adam, and when it was over, he made his first drink of the day — two fingers of whisky, neat.

By the time Charity arrived, Adam felt as good as he had late last night. He was impatient at the fact Charity wanted to discuss the kidnapping in Switzerland. Adam did not feel like talking about dreary situations or people he did not know. He wanted to talk about his new ideas.

In addition, it irritated him that Charity would not have a drink. It took away any festiveness. Adam himself was drinking double shots.

She sat across from him on Billy’s conch-shaped couch. Several times Adam tried looking deeply into her very green eyes, but each time she lowered her lashes. She did not make the gesture shyly; she simply seemed disinterested in any sort of personal contact with Adam. Last night on the telephone she had said something about “settling everything for once and for all.” After three strong whiskies, Adam interrupted her speculations about whether one or two people had kidnapped the Zumbach child.

“I want to ask you something,” he said.

“Go right ahead.” She sounded almost defiant; Adam could not figure her out.

“What did you mean about settling things? You said that last night.”

“I wanted to thank you for the flowers and for the necklace,” she said, “and I’m sorry you went to so much trouble.”

“Why are you sorry?” Adam realized he was speaking in a loud voice. He interrupted her answer to apologize for it.

She said then, “… as I was saying, it’s just been a mistake. I wanted to tell you that. And I know it was my fault.”

Adam said, “I suppose Billy was such a good lover!” He got up and stomped into the kitchen, tipping the neck of the whisky bottle into his drink. Women were animals! He called out: “You said you hated Billy! Why did you hate him if he was such a great lover!”

She was behind him, on her feet with her bag and gloves in her hand. “Who mentioned Billy?” she said. “I didn’t! I didn’t say anything about anybody being a good lover,
or
a bad lover. You’re drinking too much!”

“Does somebody only get one chance with you?” said Adam. He had a passing thought then that he did not even want another chance with her, not that way.

She walked over and touched the sleeve of his jacket. “Adam,” she said, “it wasn’t
that.
Believe me!”

“Oh, yes it was!” said Adam. “Billy’s good and I’m rotten!”

“Let’s forget about it, Adam. Let’s go out and have a good dinner. Remember, we were going to dinner?”

“Where does Billy take you to dinner?” said Adam. “I might take you to the wrong place.”

There was a soft look in Charity Cadwallader’s eyes. They were so very green. Adam thought how he would like to just sit and look into her eyes, and have her look back at him — the way she had that first night at the Roosevelt. Everything was so complicated suddenly. She reached out and took the glass of whisky from his hand. “Come on, Adam,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

“Did you write Billy about me?” said Adam.

“Why do you care so much about Billy, Adam? Let’s forget Billy for tonight. We’ll just have a nice dinner somewhere.”

“I hope you told him you came here and offered yourself,” Adam said, “I hope you made
that
clear!”

She turned away from him abruptly and started toward the door. Adam caught her arm, holding it tightly. He felt himself choke up. He managed: “We’re having dinner, aren’t we?”

Charity looked closely at him; an unpleasant look. “You’re not a very nice person, are you?” she said.

Adam felt tears start to sting his eyes. Even to himself his voice sounded infantile. “You said you’d have dinner with me — ” self-pitying, mulish. He wished she would go; he wished she had never come at all. “Please!” he begged.

“Let go of my arm, Adam!”

“But you said — ” Adam’s voice broke. Tears began to run down his cheek. He let go of her arm. “Please — ” and it was a sob. “It’s so important,” he whimpered.

“If we have dinner, Adam,” she snapped at him, “I want to leave right now.”

“My eyes,” Adam whined, “they’re all — ”

“Splash cold water on your face!” said Charity Cadwallader.

They sat in one of the high-ceilinged back rooms of Luchow’s. Adam was amazed at how he had managed to pull himself together, in the short while it had taken them to cab there. Over a dark beer he told Charity he had been under considerable strain these past few days. He discussed his difficulties at The Mart with remarkable clarity, considering the fact that half of what he discussed was a lie. Leaning back in the wooden chair, smoking a Gauloise, he was himself again. He complimented Charity on her ability to use words of more than two syllables, adding that he had never found this “indigenous” to young women. Adam had no idea whether or not Charity did use words of more than two syllables, but he knew that nearly everyone liked to hear it, and almost no one thought they did not speak well. It was delightful the way he was taking hold. He was able to remember all the words from his own vocabulary list, which he had painstakingly copied into his Journal each week. He spoke with a delicious fluency, and he felt utterly controlled. Some of his German from his adult educaton classes came back to him. He was able to say
Bitte
to the waiter, and to point out to Charity that Koenigsberger Klops were meat balls. Even the fact that Charity told him she already knew that, did not irritate Adam. He was invulnerable. Despite her objections, he had a second beer before ordering.

• • •

During the second beer, Adam got a marvellous idea. Why didn’t restaurants instead of having menus and dozens of waiters, work out a master electronic selector? It could operate the way a jukebox did. One could sit at the table, punch “Sauerbraten” or “Alpenragout” and have it recorded mechanically in the kitchen, at the same time the price was tabulated automatically on a check. Waiters would only be needed to serve the food.

Charity seemed impressed. At least she was quiet and did not try to change the subject; she smiled and enthused, and Adam had a third beer while he waited for the wine list. He began to tell her all his ideas.

In the midst of his description of
DO OR DIET
, the waiter brought the wine list. It annoyed Adam. Waiters were always fast when you wanted them to be slow, and slow when you were in a hurry. Adam chose a Beaujolais, with instructions to chill it. He added an aside to Charity that Beaujolais and Swiss Dole were the only red wines that could be profitably chilled…. Adam was continuing with his explanation of the game he had invented when he realized the waiter was lingering. “Well?” said Adam.

“The lady is having Savannah Shad and you’re having the duck?” Adam nodded.

The waiter pointed out that a cold Moselle might be preferable.

Adam’s heart began pounding.

“I think he’s right, Adam,” said Charity.

Then suddenly Adam regained his composure. Still, Adam was invulnerable; still he had hold. He very graciously instructed the waiter to bring whatever wine the waiter thought best. He used the word “indubitably;” indubitably the waiter knew wines better than Adam did. Charity was smiling and the waiter was smiling, and Adam began to smile too. He handed the wine list back with a flourish.

During dinner, Charity only played with her glass of wine. Adam no longer minded that she did not drink. It meant more for him, and he had the whole bottle, save for the tiny amount in her glass. He felt wildly happy and expansive. He said that tomorrow he was going to offer the Howard Johnson chain his idea for an electronic menu. He said he even knew a way to help finance the project, and the idea for this came as he talked. He would call on Luther Schneider, the head of Waverly Foods. A deal could be worked whereby Schneider would pay for the installation of the machine, if Howard Johnson’s allowed Waverly to print across the machine’s top that Waverly Foods were served. It would mean business for both, he told Charity, and as he told her this he realized he had not even finished his duck, and the bottle of wine was empty. He called for another beer then changed the order to another bottle of Moselle.