Tales From Gavagan's Bar (31 page)

             
It must have been about one o'clock in the morning before she said she really had to go. She wanted me just to put her on a Number 7 bus, and when I just wouldn't hear of anything but taking her home in a taxi, she suddenly became very quiet, standing there on the curb. As the taxi pulled up she shook herself just a little and said: "All right. The Ogonz Building."

             
After we were in the cab she said: "You see, I live there," as though it were some kind of confession.

             
I didn't see anything to be ashamed of in it; lots of those office buildings have penthouses that have been converted into living apartments. But since the subject seemed to make her nervous, I said: "Can I call you there?"

             
It was so dark in the cab that I couldn't see her face, but her voice was quieter than ever. She said: "No. I live—a rather peculiar life, and don't have a phone."

             
"But when can I see you again?"

             
She said: "You shouldn't—Oh, I don't know."

             
I began to wonder how I'd offended her or what I'd stepped into. The suspicion even crossed my mind that she might be married or being kept by somebody, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to give up that easily. So I said: "How about Thursday, day after tomorrow? I know a little Italian restaurant where we can be quiet, and we can take in a show afterward."

             
She didn't say anything at all for a couple of minutes. Then she put one hand over mine and said: "I'll do it. If anything happens so that I can't make it, though, I'll leave word with Mr. Ankaiosou, the night superintendent." Then she became very gay again until we got to the building. But she wouldn't let me come up with her to the door of her apartment.

             
Not then nor any other time. And the more I went out with her, the better I got to know her, the more I got the impression that there was something mysterious connected with the place where she lived. She always met me downstairs, and seemed as happy as she could be to be with me, but whenever the conversation approached the subject of where and how she lived, she would suddenly go silent on me, as though it was something she didn't dare talk about. By the third or fourth time I met her, I dropped any suspicion that she might be married to or living with another man. I was seeing her practically every day, and she just couldn't have gotten away; besides, she wasn't the sort of person who would do that—too sweet and lovely and genuine.

             
I thought it must be because of her family or something like that, but I don't think I can really be blamed for
wondering. The matter came to a head one afternoon when we were out in the park—Althea loved the park. We had been kissing and were lying on our backs on the grass, close together, not doing anything except look up through the leaves at blue sky, saying a word or two now and then.

             
I said to her: "Althea, why won't you ever take me home? I don't care what's the matter with it or your family. I love you."

             
She lifted herself up on one elbow and then bent over with her face close to mine and her hair falling down around, and said: "Dick, I love you, too, and I'll do anything you ask but that. If you come to the place where I live I'll—have to go to another, and you may not find me."

             
I said: "I'll have to be at the place where you live when we're married."

             
It was the first time I had mentioned the idea. Two big tears came out of her eyes and landed on my cheek, and then she sat up and began to cry as I have never seen anyone cry before. I was simply agonized. I tempted her out of it after a while, but the day was spoiled, and she wouldn't meet me the next day either.

             
After that, I let the subject of her living arrangements alone and we were happy just being together and loving each other, until one day when I was at the Acme office. Sherwin was explaining that the fire inspectors had put a violation on the Ogonz Building, and that a bigger water tank to supply the sprinkler system would have to be placed on the roof, and pointing out where it would go on the plan, when I said:

             
"But this plan doesn't show the penthouse."

             
"There isn't any penthouse on the Ogonz Building," he said. "There never was."

             
Now that he mentioned it, I didn't remember seeing any on the one occasion when I had visited the place. All my old suspicions and a lot of new ones came into my mind with a rush, and I decided that anything was better than this uncertainty. I had a date with Althea that evening, so I went down to the Ogonz Building just before the place closed for the day, and up to the top floor. All the offices there were
perfectly good offices of perfectly good firms, no chance for a living apartment of any kind. Then I went up the stairs leading to the roof.

             
I could see through the wire-reinforced glass of the door leading out that there was a housing for the elevator machinery and a water tank on spidery legs, but certainly no penthouse visible on that side. I couldn't see through the back of the housing for the stair well, of course, so I opened the door and stepped out and around. The sun was just setting, and there was a brisk wind that made me grab for my hat. The roof had a parapet around it about chin height. There were the ventilator heads, and there was the flagpole.

             
And there was Althea Dubois, walking toward me as if she had just stepped out from behind the flagpole. She looked so beautiful it hurt.

             
"Oh, Dick!" she said, in a kind of wail. "I warned you."

             
While I stood there, she ran past me and down the stairs. Before I could catch her at the top floor, I heard the elevator grinding, and when I rang the bell it wouldn't answer. I had to walk down all the way, and when I got to the ground floor there was no trace of Althea or of Mr. Ankaiosou either. I haven't been able to find any trace of either of them since. But I think she may be in some tree near where we were together, so I'm trying every one. I know if I find
the right one, she'll come back to me.

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The drinkers at Gavagan's Bar were silent for a moment. Then Keating said: "What did you say the night super's name was?"

             
"Ankaiosou; I think that's right."

             
Keating said softly. "Ancaeus the Lesser was on
e of the Argonauts, a demigod. He's the only one about whose later life nothing is told. He was from Samos, and his specialty was navigation."

-

             
"Meet Mr. Allen, Mr. Willison," said Doc Brenner. "He's an engineer."

             
Willison gloomily accepted a hand. "Does he shake for drinks?" he asked. "Make mine a Rye and Water, Mr. Cohan. Mr. Allen can maybe help us out. Witherwax here is trying to explain the fourth dimension that he read about in a book, and we can't understand it."

             
"But look," said Witherwax. "Suppose I draw a line around my glass there." He reached across the bar, wet his finger on the brass grating where Mr. Cohan set beer glasses after filling them from the tap, and drew a line around his cocktail glass. "A two-dimensional thing couldn't get past that line without getting wet, but since I'm three-dimensional, I can." He demonstrated by drinking the Martini. "So if I was four-dimensional, I could get around a three-dimensional barrier."

             
"Like the time my brother Herman locked the combination into the safe," said Mr. Gross. "It was an awful time to do it, because he was supposed to get married that afternoon and the license was in there, too."

             
Willison said: "But you're not four-dimensional. Nobody ever saw a four-dimensional man. Or a two-dimensional one, either."

             
"But Einstein—" said Witherwax.

             
"What has Einstein got to do with it?" said Willison.

             
"So his partner," continued Gross, "insisted they didn't ought to get one of those safe-opening experts because he'd
blow a hole in it, and this safe had cost them a lot of money. So he used to be an opera singer under the name of Felitti before he went into business with my brother Herman, and he said if he could bust a glass with his voice, he could make the safe open by singing at it—"

             
"He also says the fourth dimension is time," said Witherwax.

             
Willison had lost the toss. As Mr. Allen, the engineer, raised his Rob Roy in salute, Willison said: "Can you do anything about this?" He indicated Witherwax.

             
"Why, I don't know that it's really necessary," said Allen. "He's quite right as far as he goes. Anything you can measure is a dimension. You can take Time as the first dimension, for instance, and the amount of money in my pocket as the second, and figure out how long I can stand here drinking without going broke."

             
"That isn't what I mean," said Witherwax.

             
"Me either," said Willison. "Mr. Witherwax here says if we could use the fourth dimension, we could go places and see things that we can't ordinarily."

             
"Oh," said Allen, sipping his drink, and then looking into it as though he expected to find a fish at the bottom. Then: "In the general case, it's quite true that the fourth dimension is a purely mathematical concept, and it isn't even theoretically possible to use it in the way you mention." He gave a nervous little laugh, finished the Rob Roy at a gulp, and signalled for another. "But I have reason to believe that three-dimensional bodies can use the fourth dimension. A funny thing happened."

             
Gross made one more effort and was shushed by Doc Brenner. Willison said: "If you're going to claim you can use some kind of formula—?"

             
"No. I'm not. And I only hope it was the fourth dimension. Because if it isn't, there's something going on that—well, I'll tell you, and you see if you can find any explanation.

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About two years ago [said Allen] I was out east with International Bridge. We were putting in a pipeline in southern Iran, down where it gets a hundred and twenty in the shade, and there isn't any shade. I guess everyone's
temper got pretty short, bu
t we had a job-paymaster named Mintz, a fat man from Minneapolis, whom the heat hit hardest of all. Well, one Saturday afternoon, I came into the office to find him having a terrific row with old Hamid Abadi, the foreman of the native gang. Hamid wanted the week's money for his men and was claiming he hadn't received it as usual on Wednesday, when Mintz was out with dysentery or some sort of collywobbles, and Mintz was saying that the big boss must have given it to him, and Hamid was just trying to collect twice before skipping out.