The Box (7 page)

“No. And he left the same day he came, you know.”

“And for two months he won’t be back in New York.”

“He might report by letter,” said Whitfield, “from his next port of call. Tel Aviv, I think he said.”

Quinn asked no more questions. A report on him from the consulate would get to the States long before the captain would check in, but it wasn’t at all likely that Ryder had an ear in the State Department. Only the captain, reporting to harbor authorities right in New York—He hung onto that thought for a moment but then shook his head, almost as if snapping a whip.

Farfetched, all of it. The captain was gone, glad to be rid of his troubles, New York four thousand miles away, and the Ryder thing was really over.

But why would Remal forbid me the streets? And who’s trying to steal my cans? And why does everyone think that for one month I’ll dry out in the sun in Okar, goat-eyed, watching myself turn dry and blue?

Must learn to think clearly again. He felt sly and secretive.

Until they slowed down in the square by the warehouse Whitfield did not look over at Quinn. Whitfield had a headache and felt he should leave well enough alone. They slowed in the square and rolled to a stop by the warehouse, and Whitfield looked at Quinn sitting still for a moment, holding the wheel.

He used to look like something dumped out of a box, thought Whitfield, but no more. Something wide-eyed, maybe a little surprised, but not any more.

Because this was the first time that Quinn no longer felt entirely new but had the help of some of his of habits.

Chapter 8

A late half light was over the town and in a very short time the sudden dusk would fall and then night. Quinn stretched when he got out of the car, slammed the door. He watched a dog run away Run, he thought, or you’ll get eaten—

Whitfield still sat in his seat. When Quinn bent down to look into the window, Whitfield had the wine jug on his lap where it was making a stain.

“Dear Quinn,” said Whitfield, “this may surprise you, but in addition to everything else I am extremely hungry. Eat your headaches away, is what my sainted aunt used to say. You should have seen her. Which is to say, Quinn, can’t this entire maddening transaction with the goddamn cans wait till morning?”

“We’re here now.”

“I’m just afraid you might haggle with me.”

“Look,” said Quinn. “None of this means a damn to you. To me it does. Suddenly, to me there is nothing as important as getting what is mine. Those cans are mine. And any more…”

“Please, please. You’re quite right. None of this means anything to me,” and Whitfield got out of the car.

It was still fairly light over the water, the sea black and yellow, zebra striped. Inside the warehouse the bulbs had been turned on, six hard lights in clear glass, like hard, shiny drops on black strings hanging from the high ceiling.

“Ah!” Whitfield said, and his sigh was strong and genuine with the relief he felt. “Here is your treasure.”

The canisters, ten of then, lay in a corner. Whitfield sat down on one of them. Quinn stood and counted them, as he had often done before, though he couldn’t remember this. Now they were completely his and worth money, and even if it was pennies only, the difference was big. He had back one of his habits, namely, to let nobody think they could take advantage of him.

“Well, now,” said Whitfield, “I’ve heard about cases of this sort, of course, being a fascinated student of your country’s folklore.” He waved his arm and looked bright. “Here lies the start of it. The bent, bumped and humble beginnings of a great fortune, no less. And there you are, born in a box, raised in a gutter. Next he owns the gutter, next he owns everything that floats, crawls or swims in that gutter—Stop me, Quinn, something is making me feel ill.”

Surprisingly, Quinn smiled. He had no quarrel with Whitfield. Most of all, he did not take him seriously. He looked at his canisters which were lying around in a puddle of water. How considerate that they should have washed the cans.

“Let’s say a buck apiece,” said Quinn.

He didn’t look at Whitfield when he said this, but picked up a canister and turned it over. A little water ran out.

“My dear Quinn. A buck is a dollar. I understand, and in view of that fantastic price let me ask you what in the hell you think I’m going to do with all these cans.”

“I don’t know,” said Quinn, “but I need the money.”

He does sound simple again, thought Whitfield, but I no longer believe it. He watched Quinn pick up another can, lift it and hold it for a while with a look on his face which Whitfield thought was almost dreamy.

“Let’s say I give you five dollars for the lot,” said Whitfield, “which is a veritable fortune in Okar. And all because you were, so to speak, shipped to me and I feel responsible in a way, though don’t ask me why. It would sound too sentimental. I do, however, feel responsible, as I might, for example, were a little bird to land on my window sill, exhausted from travel.”

He liked that image and thought about it with his eyes closed. Then he heard Quinn laugh. But when he opened his eyes and looked at Quinn, he did not see a simple laugh, simple enjoyment of a tender comparison to a tired bird; in fact, the smile and the face were complicated. By God, thought Whitfield, if this simpleton isn’t getting amazingly versatile with his features. He watched the smile fade off and Quinn put the can back down.

“Price just went up, I think,” said Quinn.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Let me check first,” said Quinn, and he picked up three more canisters at random, one after the other, and seemed to hook into the open tops. “Yes, yes,” he said, “price went up.”

Whitfield waited, being sure that there was an explanation for all this somewhere.

“You drink, don’t you, Whitfield?” said Quinn and straightened up.

“Now Quinn, are you trying to reprimand me?”

Quinn smiled at Whitfield as if with affection. “I’m eight feet away from you, Whitfield, and you stink like a distillery.”

“I
beg
your pardon.”

“Of course. I take it back because I was mistaken and you don’t smell like a distillery. Here,
catch
.” He reached for the can at his feet and made it sail in a slow arc toward Whitfield.

Whitfield caught the can because he did not want to get hit. He held the can in both hands and caught the damp wave of alcohol odor which came out of the hole in top. Goddamn those sloppy Arabs, he thought.

Quinn held out another can but Whitfield shook his head. Goddamn their disregard for the most elementary rules of cleanliness, such as to smell clean after cleaning.

“Explain this to me,” said Quinn and leaned against the wall.

“Very well. As you know, Quinn, I am a drinker. As a matter of fact, I have been a trained drinker…”

“Not from five-gallon cans, Whitfield. Your supply comes in a bottle, capped and sealed, like the one you brought from the office. Besides,” and Quinn nudged a can with his foot, “this smell here is alcohol, pure and simple, not gin.”

“I mix my own. I am a trained…”

“Not trained well enough,” said Quinn, “not enough to cover the racket I smell here.”

“Your instinct for the illegal is uncanny,” said Whitfield. “You must have been an excellent lawyer.”

Quinn smiled again and enjoyed it.

“Small port on the North African coast,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “Dock clerk and Big Brother Remal are natural friends. Ten useless cans lie around and get filled with raw alcohol. I want my cans back, so they quick get washed out—almost washed out—so they’re just cans again and not contraband carriers.” Quinn looked down at Whitfield and said, “Right?”

A lot, Quinn thought, depends on Whitfield’s answer. I have only conjectures, and they have holes. But Whitfield has a habit of not caring much—

“Uncanny,” said Whitfield, and he hurried to his office.

He was sipping a little bit of straight gin from a teacup when Quinn found him. And now he’ll crucify me with further questions, propositions and reprimands, Whitfield thought, making me feel like a schoolboy caught smoking for which I thank him not, the bully. Bottoms up.

Quinn watched Whitfield upend the cup and waited for him to catch his breath after the maneuver. He, by all accounts, is probably the weakest link in the chain, Quinn was thinking, and the nicest. I could like Whitfield a lot and don’t care to know why. But I won’t badger him any more. Besides, I might look elsewhere.

Old habits were stirring in him, rising like snakes uncoiling. Quinn felt relaxed, confident and no longer pressed. And if feeling friendly was not one of his old habits, it had always been an old wish. He let it show, not feeling worried about Whitfield.

God help me, thought Whitfield, he has either gone simple again or that smile is genuine.

“Back to business,” said Whitfield, as if he were somebody else.

“Okay.”

“You can sell me the bleedin’ cans for eight dollars the lot, an outrageous price as I told you, a love price, Quinn. But then I don’t love anyone anyway and so can afford it. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Preserve me. Let’s go home.” Whitfield turned on his heel and walked to the door.

First they drove to the garden wall of Beatrice’s house, where the servant stood by the gate, waiting for the car. No, he told them, Missus Rutledge wasn’t in, and Whitfield said they could say goodbye to chances for a normal dinner. Home then.

They walked away from Beatrice’s house and smelled the night smell coming out of the garden. Between two houses, they took stone steps which went up to another street, and on that street they came to a corner where a strong odor of roasted coffee hung in the dark air, a warm smell lying there like a pool.

“It’s always here,” said Whitfield, “because of that roasting house at the corner.”

Quinn saw no roasting house—only dark walls and the sky overhead, like a gray upside-down street.

“Which means,” said Whitfield, “day or night, drunk or sober, I can always find my way home by the odor cloud at this corner. Doesn’t that make you feel weird? Makes me feel like a dog, Quinn, going home by scent, and that does make me feel weird.”

“I don’t like to feel like a dog. They get eaten around here, you said.”

“Well,” said Whitfield. “Well! I thought I was being weird.”

At Whitfield’s apartment Quinn saw the two rooms, the two ceiling fans paddling around and around with an oily motion, and the tub in the room where the bed stood. There was water in the tub and in the water swam a label which said GIN. While Whitfield changed his shirt Quinn looked at the balcony through the French doors. Then he opened the doors and looked at all the cartons out there. He saw all the regulation gin bottles there, not cans, not odd bottles, and each of them the same brand. True, the labels of some were missing, but Quinn knew how that had come about. He closed the balcony doors again and thought, if there is no sweet racket here, smuggling this and that, then there sure as hell ought to be.

He sat down on top of the books on the couch and watched Whitfield come back with a handful of bills.

“I’ll have to give you your money,” said Whitfield, “in local currency. It’s a pile, like I told you,” and he put it on the table. “Now, watch this. Bottle of wine? A dollar to you, I should think. Here, fifteen cents. A meal. Dollar-fifty or more? Here, ten cents and up, to maybe fifty cents, figuring your kind of money You follow?”

“Yes. Cheap spot here.”

“There is an additional point: carry no more than one of these bills on you, which is about fifty cents. You don’t need more to get through a day or so. This way it won’t be too likely that you’ll get robbed.”

“All right,” said Quinn and got up. He absently stuffed all the bills in his pocket and then he hitched his pants.

“You can sleep here tonight,” said Whitfield. “I forgot to mention it.”

“All right,” said Quinn and walked to the door.

“I say, you do sound absent-minded, Quinn.”

Quinn stopped at the door and opened it. He hadn’t been listening.

“And I say, are you going out?”

“Yes. I’ll be back in a while. Got to go out and think.”

“But you mustn’t!” and Whitfield ran to the door. He touched the door and then he took his hand away. He blinked at Quinn but did not quite understand the expression he saw on his face.

“And of course Remal will be over shortly. To find out how it went with the consul, to arrange for your accommodations…”

“And to tell me I’m confined to quarters after dark?”

Whitfield raised his hand once more to touch the door, but then he just dropped it. He said, “Oh, hell,” and stepped back. What’s happened to my baby from the box, he thought, and why the hell should I try to handle it—

Quinn walked out and down the stairs. He stood in the hall downstairs for a moment and wondered why he hadn’t heard Whitfield close the door all this time, but he didn’t dwell on it. He walked out, found the roasting odor, made his turn in the dark. He walked in the dark, except when crossing the main street. In the darkness again he occasionally watched the sky street overhead, and sometimes the blind walls of the houses. He felt alone and liked it. He felt he was growing up again, old habits, new habits, no matter what, and this feeling was like a tonic, the way recklessness can be.

At the end of a street was the long quay with the sky now very big overhead. The Mediterranean was black. It was here only a licking sound and a wet smell, but not an ocean.

The warehouse was dark and Quinn went there. At both ends of the building a fence closed off the company dock, a wire mesh fence, where Quinn hooked his fingers into the loops and stood looking. He saw a junk with a light swinging somewhere inside and he saw a motor yacht tied to the pier. Then the wire mesh moved under his hands, a give and a sway, making Quinn think of a net.

“Yes?” said the man.

Quinn saw that the man stood by the fence the same way he himself was doing it, hanging his hands there from hooked fingers. Big, white teeth showed in the man’s very dark face and Quinn wondered if this was a smile.

“Yes? Yes?” said the man, always showing the smile.