The victim (3 page)

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LEVENTHAL'S father-in-law had recently died, and his mother-in-law had been persuaded by the family to give up her house in Baltimore and to live in Charleston with her son. Mary had gone to help her move. In her absence Leventhal had been eating in an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. It was in the basement of an old tenement. The stucco walls were almost black. It had a damp, woody smell from the sawdust sprinkled over the plank floor. But it suited him; the meals were cheap, and he generally did not have to wait for a table. Tonight, however, there was only one available. The waiter led him to it. It was in the corner behind a projecting wall which cut off the breeze of the fan. He was about to protest and opened his mouth impatiently, but the waiter, a dark man with thin hair curved over his perspiring forehead, anticipated him with a tired and rather insincere shrug, indicating with a motion of his toweled arm that the place was filled. Leventhal tossed his hat down, moved aside the dishes, and leaned forward on his elbows. Near the kitchen step, the proprietor and his wife were finishing their dinner. She gave Leventhal a look of recognition which he acknowledged, making a stir in his chair. The waiter brought his meal, an omelet in a chipped, blackened enamel dish with tomato sauce hardened on the rim, a salad, and some canned apricots. He ate, and his mood gradually improved. The coffee was sweet and thick; he swallowed even the sediment and put the cup down with a sigh. He lit a cigar. There was no one waiting for the table and he sat awhile, bent backward and puffing, clasping his hands on the densely growing hair on the back of his neck. From the tavern across the way came the slow notes of a guitar, the lighter carried away, the deeper repeated tranquilly. Presently he shoved a tip under the saucer and went out. There was still a redness in the sky, like the flame at the back of a vast baker's oven; the day hung on, gaping fierily over the black of the Jersey shore. The Hudson had a low luster, and the sea was probably no more numbing in its cold, Leventhal imagined, than the subway under his feet was in its heat; the trains rushing by under the gratings and along the slanting brown rock walls seemed to set off charges of metal dust. He passed through a small park where the double circle of benches were jammed. There were lines before each drinking fountain, the warm water limping and jetting into the stone basins. On all sides of the green square, the traffic of cars and cabs whipped endlessly, and the cumbersome busses crawled groaning, steering down from the tall blue oblong of light at the summit of the street through a bluish pallor. In the bushy, tree-grown corners, children played and screamed, and a revivalist band sang and drummed and trumpeted on one of the sidewalks. Leventhal did not stay long in the park. He strolled homeward. He thought he would mix a cold drink and lie down beside an open window. Leventhal's apartment was spacious. In a better neighborhood, or three stories lower, it would have rented for twice the amount he paid. But the staircase was narrow and stifling and full of turns. Though he went up slowly, he was out of breath when he reached the fourth floor, and his heart beat thickly. He rested before unlocking the door. Entering, he threw down his raincoat and flung himself on the tapestry-covered low bed in the front room. Mary had moved some of the chairs into the corners and covered them with sheets. She could not depend on him to keep the windows shut and the shades and curtains drawn during the day. This afternoon the cleaning woman had been in and there was a pervasive odor of soap powder. He got up and opened a window. The curtains waved once and then were as motionless as before. There was a movie house strung with lights across the street; on its roof a water tank sat heavily uneven on its timbers; the cowls of the chimneys, which rattled in the slightest stir of air, were still. The motor of the refrigerator began to run. The ice trays were empty and rattled. Wilma, the cleaning woman, had defrosted the machine and forgotten to refill them. He looked for a bottle of beer he had noticed yesterday; it was gone. There was nothing inside except a few lemons and some milk. He drank a glass of milk and it refreshed him. He had already taken off his shirt and was sitting on the bed unlacing his shoes when there was a short ring of the bell. Eagerly he pulled open the door and shouted, "Who is it?" The flat was unbearably empty. He hoped someone had remembered that Mary was away and had come to keep him company. There was no response below. He called out again, impatiently. It was very probable that someone had pushed the wrong button, but he heard no other doors opening. Could it be a prank? This was not the season for it. Nothing moved in the stair well, and it only added to his depression to discover how he longed for a visitor. He stretched out on the bed, pulling a pillow from beneath the spread and doubling it up. He thought he would doze off. But a little later he found himself standing at the window, holding the curtains with both hands. He was under the impression that he had slept. It was only eight-thirty by the whirring electric clock on the night table, however. Only five minutes had passed. "No, I shouldn't have gone," he said to himself. He was suddenly full of misgivings. It was a mistake to run out of the office like that. If he had considered the thing sensibly, he would have waited till evening. Five minutes more and Elena would have called him again. Then why hadn't he waited? Did he actually want to stand Beard up for once, was that why he had left the office? No, and Beard's remark was disgusting, besides. It did not come as a surprise. He had known all along that he was capable of making it. If a man disliked you, he would dislike you for all the reasons he could think of. It was not important, merely disgusting. All the same, he shouldn't have gone. He washed his face, put on his shirt, and left the apartment. His difficulty, he reflected, was that when he didn't have time to consider, when pressure was put on him, he behaved like a fool. That, mainly, was what troubled him. For instance, last week at the press Dunhill, the lino-typer, sold him a ticket he didn't want. He protested that he didn't care for shows and had no use for one ticket--this was before Mary left. But because Dunhill had insisted, he bought the ticket. He gave it to one of the girls at the office. Now if only he had been able to say at the outset, "I will not buy your ticket..." He muttered, "Well, what do I do it for?" frowning. One of his neighbors appeared, bare-chested and in tennis shorts, and deposited a clinking bag of bottles to be removed by the janitor. The Porto Rican superintendent, Mr Nunez, in a straw hat, his dark feet in Chinese straw slippers, was sitting on the stoop. Leventhal asked him whether he had noticed anyone ringing his bell, and he answered that he had been on the stoop for half an hour and that no one had gone out in the last fifteen minutes or come in. "Maybe you heard the radio," he suggested. "Sometimes I think somebody is in the house talking to me, but it's the radio somewhere." "No, the bell rang," Leventhal said positively; he looked seriously at the superintendent. "Was it the dumb-waiter bell, you think?" "If somebody was fooling around the basement. I didn't touch it tonight." Leventhal set out for the park. Perhaps it was a radio, though he did not think so. Perhaps something in the wiring, affected by the heat--he did not know much about electricity--or the dumb-waiter. What really concerned him was that perhaps his nerves were to blame and that he had imagined the ring just as he had imagined that he had slept. Since Mary's departure his nerves had been unsteady. He kept the bathroom light burning all night. Somewhat ashamed of himself, he had yesterday closed the bathroom door before getting into bed, but he had left the light on. This was absurd, this feeling that he was threatened by something while he slept. And that was not all. He imagined that he saw mice darting along the walls. There actually were mice in the apartment. The building was old; there were bound to be some nesting under the floors. He had no dread of them, and yet he had begun to jerk his head around at the suspicion of a movement. And now he had been unable to fall asleep. Heat had never hitherto interfered with his sleep. He was sure he was unwell. The park was even more crowded than before, and noisy. There was another revivalist band on the corner, and the blare of the two joined confusingly above the other sounds. The lamps were yellowed, covered with flies and moths. On one of the paths an old man, sunburned, sinewy, in a linen cap, was shining shoes. The fountain ran with a green, leaden glint. Children in their underclothing waded and rolled in the spray, the parents looking on. Eyes seemed softer than by day, and larger, and gazed at one longer, as though in the dark heat some interspace of reserve had been crossed and strangers might approach one another with a kind of recognition. You looked and thought, at least, that you knew whom you had seen. Some such vague thing was in Leventhal's mind while he waited his turn at the drinking spout, when suddenly he had a feeling that he was not merely looked at but watched. Unless he was greatly mistaken a man was scrutinizing him, pacing slowly with him as the line moved. "He seems to know me," he thought. Or was the man merely lounging there, was he only a bystander? Instantly Leventhal became reserved, partly as a rebuff to his nerves, his busy imagination. But it was not imagination. When he stepped forward, the man moved, too, lowering his head as if to hide a grin at the thin-lipped formality of Leventhal's expression. There was no hint of amusement, however, in his eyes--he was now very close; they were derisive and harsh. "Who's this customer?" Leventhal said to himself. "An actor if I ever saw one. My God, my God, what kind of a fish is this? One of those guys who want you to think they can see to the bottom of your soul." He tried to stare him down, only now realizing how insolent he was. But the man did not go. He was taller than Leventhal but not nearly so burly; large-framed but not robust. "If he starts something," Leventhal thought, "I'll grab his right arm and pull him off balance... No, his left arm and pull towards my left; that's my stronger side. And when he's going down I'll give him a rabbit punch. But why should he start anything? There's no reason." He was squared and resolute; nevertheless there was a tremor in his arms, and during all of it he felt that he himself was the cause of his agitation and suspicion, with his unreliable nerves. Then in astonishment he heard the stranger utter his name. "What, do you know me?" he asked loudly. "Do I? You're Leventhal, aren't you? Why shouldn't I know you? I thought you might not recognize me, though. We met only a few times, and I suppose I look a little different than I used to." "Oh, Allbee, isn't it? Allbee?" Leventhal said slowly, with gradual recognition. "Kirby Allbee. So you do recognize me?" "Well, I'll be damned," said Leventhal, but he said it rather indifferently. What if it were Kirby Allbee? And he certainly looked changed, but what of that? Just then several people in the line pushed against him. It was his turn at the spout and, as he took a swallow of the warm water, he looked sidewise at Allbee. The woman who had preceded him--she was painted heavily and looked like a chorus girl who had slipped out of the theater for a breath of air--was in Allbee's way, and while he was trying to step aside, caught in the circle around the spout, Leventhal walked off. He had never liked this Allbee, but he had never really thought much about him. How was it, then, that his name came to him so readily? He had a poor memory for names; still he saw the man and recognized him in a moment. "What a box, the mind," Leventhal thought with something approaching a smile. "You'd just as soon expect hair to grow in your hand as some of the things that come out of it." "Hey, wait!" Allbee was dodging through the crowd after him. "What does he want?" Leventhal irritably asked himself. "Wait, where are you going?" Leventhal did not answer. What business was it of his? "Are you going home?" "Yes, by and by," he said distantly. "Well, now you've found out that I still exist and you're going home, is that it?" He had a curious smile. "Why should I doubt that you exist?" Leventhal was smiling also, but without much mirth. "Is there any reason why you shouldn't? I'm afraid I don't get it." "I mean that you just wanted to have a look at me." "Pardon?" said Leventhal. He drew up his brows. "To have a look?" "Yes, I think you did want to, to see how I've made out. The results." "I came out to cool off a little." He was beginning to be really annoyed. "What makes you think you've got anything to do with it?" "Well, I didn't expect this," Allbee said. "Of course, I didn't know what to expect. I wondered what line you were going to take with me." He brought his lips together as if to hold back laughter, slightly jeering, presumptuous, and drew his hand down his cheek over the blond bristles, and all the while his deeply ringed eyes looked angrily into Leventhal's. He appeared to be saying that he knew perfectly well what he was saying and that it was effrontery and bad acting to deny it. "Just like a bad actor to accuse everyone of bad acting," thought Leventhal, but he was troubled nevertheless. What was he after? He studied Allbee more closely; until now he had not noticed how seedy he looked, like one of those men you saw sleeping off their whisky on Third Avenue, lying in the doorways or on the cellar hatches, dead to the cold or the racket or the straight blaze of the sun in their faces. He drank, too; that was certain. His voice was thick. He had fair hair parted in the center over his large forehead, moist in the lamplight. He wore a flimsy shirt of material that must have been imitation silk; it opened on the chest on the dirty hem of an undershirt; his light cotton suit was soiled. "The fact remains that you wanted to see me," he resumed. "You're mistaken." "Well, you got my letter, didn't you? And I asked you to meet me here tonight...?" "You wrote me a letter? What in the world for? I never got a letter from you. I don't understand this." "Neither do I; if you didn't get it, this would be quite a coincidence. But," he went on, smiling, "of course you're pretending you didn't get the letter." "Why should I pretend?" said Leventhal excitedly. "What reason have I got to pretend? I don't know what letter you're talking about. You haven't got anything to write me for. I haven't thought about you in years, frankly, and I don't know why you think I care
whether you exist or not. What, are we related?" "By blood? No, no... heavens!" Allbee laughed. Leventhal stared into his laughing face and then began to walk away, whereupon Allbee thrust his arm straight before him and held him back. Leventhal grasped it, but he did not jerk according to his plan. He felt no resistance to his grip. It was he rather than Allbee who was off balance, and he removed his hand; he appeared to scowl--in reality he was clearing his throat--and he said, not at all loudly, "What do you want?" "Oh, that's more sensible." Allbee straightened his shoulders and pulled down his cuffs. "I don't want to wrestle. I'm probably no match for you. I wanted to talk. I didn't think there would be any physical violence. That's not how you people go about things. Not with violence." "What people are you talking about?" asked Leventhal. Allbee did not reply to this. "I wanted to take up a few things with you, which is why I wrote," he said. "I tell you again, I never got a letter from you." "So you're sticking to that." Allbee smiled deprecatingly as though wondering why Leventhal refused every opportunity to get rid of this clumsy pretense. "Then why are you here? You wanted to see but not be seen, and you're mad because you got caught." "I'm here because I live down the street a way. Why don't you own up instead that you wanted to catch me. God only knows what for and what you've got to say." Allbee moved his large face from side to side in denial. "It's the other way around. You knew I was here... well, it's immaterial. As for what I have to say to you, I've got plenty to say. But you know that." "That's news to me, too." Allbee grinned at him with an intimation of a shared secret that aroused and vexed Leventhal, and sickened him. "Let's sit down," Allbee proposed. "Damn him, he's got me, he's got hold of me," Leventhal thought. "He's become some kind of a crank. I shouldn't have gone out. I should have tried to sleep, after the day I've had." They found a place on a bench. "I haven't got much time. I get up early. What do you want?" Allbee regarded him. "You've become stouter," he said. "Darker, too. How much do you weigh?" "About two hundred and ten." "That's too much. It's bad for your heart to carry so much weight. Don't you feel it in this weather? I'll bet your heart takes a beating from it. You have a lot of stairs to climb." "How do you know that?" "Oh, I happen to know that you live on the fourth floor." "How do you know?" Leventhal insisted. "I just happen to. Is it some kind of a secret? Isn't anybody allowed to know that you live on the fourth floor?" "What else do you know about me?" "You work for the Burke-Beard people. You put out one of their sheets." "Any more?" "Your wife is away. She is..." he glanced over as though to see if he was entirely right, "down South. Went a few days ago. These things aren't hard to find out." "Did you ring my bell before?" "Did I ring it? No, why should I?" Leventhal grimly looked at him in the light that came through the leaves. He had been spying on him, and the mystery was why! How long had he been keeping watch on him and for what reason--what grotesque reason? Allbee returned his look, examining him as he was examined, in concentration and seriousness, his lower jaw slipped to one side, his glum, contemplative eyes filled with a green and leaden color. And in the loom of these eyes and with the warmth of the man's breath on his face, for they were crowded together on the bench, Leventhal suddenly felt that he had been singled out to be the object of some freakish, insane process, and for an instant he was filled with dread. Then he recovered and told himself there was nothing to be afraid of. The man was a crank and irritating, and certainly it was creepy to think of being observed secretly. But there was nothing so alarming about this Allbee. He had become a bum and a drunk and he seemed to have an idea or a twist about him, a delusion; perhaps it was even invented. How could you tell about these drunks? There must be reasons, but they were beyond anybody's ability to find out--smoky, cloudy, alcoholic. Allbee had taken him by surprise. It was surprising. And in his present state of mind he was, moreover, easily carried away by things. He felt unwell, and that didn't help. He gave a steadying, wary pull to his shoulders. Still looking at him, Allbee said, "It's hard to know what kind of a man you are, personally." "Oh, it's me you want to talk about?" "Now, you see? There's an example. You're outspoken, but are you leading away from the main thing? You are. It's a maneuver. I don't know whether you're smart or crude. Maybe you don't even care much about the main thing." "What don't I care about?" "Ah, come on, drop it, Leventhal, drop it! You know what it is." "I don't." There was a pause; then Allbee said with an effort at patience, " Well, if that's the way it's got to be--I guess you want me to go over the whole business. I thought it wouldn't be necessary, but all right. Dill's Weekly. You remember Dill's Weekly? Mr Rudiger?1 "Of course I do. Sure. Rudiger. I have it written down in an old appointment book I've been hoping to run across; his name keeps getting away from me. Oh, Rudiger," he said reminiscently and began to smile, but with a line of constraint about his mouth. "So you do remember?" "Naturally." "Now what about the rest of it? No, you won't go on to the rest of it. You'll make me do it. Okay, I will. It was through Rudiger that you got at me." "Got at you?" said Leventhal, astonished. He turned his hot face to Allbee, and his scalp seemed to descend toward his brows. "Got back at me. Got even with me," Allbee said with great distinctness. His lower lip came forward, it was dry and cracked; his nose looked swollen, all at once. His eyes were open to the full. "No, no," Leventhal muttered. "You're mistaken. I never did." Allbee passed his hand before him in a movement of denial and shook his head slowly. "I couldn't be mistaken about this." "No? Well, you are." "Did I get you an appointment with Rudiger? I fixed you up with an interview, didn't I?" "Yes, you did. Yes..." "Then you went in and deliberately insulted Rudiger, put on some act with him, called him filthy names, deliberately insulted him to get me in bad. Rudiger is hot blooded and he turned on me for it. You knew he would. It was calculated. It worked out just as you thought it would. You were clever as hell. He didn't even give me a week's notice. He turned me out." "That's all wrong. I heard you weren't with Dill's any more. Harkavy told me. But it couldn't have been my fault. I'm sure you're mistaken. Rudiger wouldn't blame you for the run-in we had. It was his fault, too." "Rudiger did," said Allbee. "He was plenty clear about it. He almost killed himself blowing his top at me. And that was what you wanted." "All I wanted was a job," Leventhal declared, "and Rudiger was tough and nasty. There's something wrong with that man. Hot blood isn't the word for it. He's vicious. I didn't exactly keep my temper down. I admit that. Well, if that's the reason I may be to blame in a way, indirectly. But you say..." "I say you're entirely to blame, Leventhal." He opened his mouth and appeared to hold his breath an instant as he smiled. Leventhal's attempt to keep a clear head came to nothing; he felt himself slipping into confusion. "And why did I do it, do you say?" "For revenge. Damn! You want to go over the whole thing to make sure that I'm really on. I really am on, Leventhal. Jesus, do you think I still haven't figured it out? Give me a little more credit than that; I was on a long time ago. But if you want me to pull it all out, I'm willing. I'll start farther back: Williston's house. There was a party." "Yes, that's where we met, at Williston's." "Ah, well, you recall it. I thought you'd balk all along the line and refuse to remember. Fine. Your friend was there too, another Jewish fellow--you mentioned his name before." "Harkavy." "That's the one, Harkavy. We're making headway." He laughed aloud. "Well, that's the key. A Jewish fellow. Lord, you want to draw the whole business out. Does it have to be drawn out? I suppose it has to. You were sore at something I said about Jews. Does that come back to you?" "No. Yes, it does. It does, too," he corrected himself, frowning. "I also remember that you were drunk." "Wrong. I was liquored up but not drunk. Positively not. You Jews have funny ideas about drinking. Especially the one that all Gentiles are born drunkards. You have a song about it--'Drunk he is, drink he must, because he is a Goy... Schicker.'" He had ceased laughing; he looked morose. "Bah!" Leventhal said contemptuously. He pushed at the bar of the bench and got to his feet. "Where are you going?" "I had nothing to do with your losing that job. It was probably your own fault. You must have given Rudiger a plenty good reason to fire you, and I can imagine what it was. I'm not the sort of man who carries grudges. It's all in your mind. I remember all about that night at Williston"s, but you were drunk and I didn't hold it against you. Besides it was a long time ago, and I don't see your object in looking me up just to remind me of it. Good night!" He walked away. Allbee stood up and shouted after him, "You wanted to get even. You did plan it. You did it on purpose!" People turned to look at them, and Leventhal increased his pace. "If he follows me now I'll punch him in the jaw. I'll knock him down," he thought. "I swear, I'll throw him down and smash his ribs for him!" He opened the mailbox when he got home and found the note. It was signed "Sincerely, Kirby A." and said that he would be in the park at nine. Why the park? Well, why such an accusation? What an idea! The one made about as much sense as the other. There was no stamp on the envelope; Allbee must have delivered it himself. Chances were it was he who had rung the bell. "Some judge of time, that Nunez," Leventhal growled, starting up the stairs.