“Fine clear evening, ma’am,” Tom said. Though it rained, or the city was smothered with fog or mauled by a desert wind, the evenings were always fine and clear to Tom. He stayed inside, slept in the basement, and ate his meals sitting on an upright chair in the broom closet while he read the Bible, or at least held it open on his lap. (“He can’t read,” Lewis had told her once, in front of Tom. “But he’s very religious and he likes to pick out the words he knows, like God and heaven.” “God and heaven is fine words,” Tom said with dignity.)
“Tom...”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is — have you seen Mr. Ballard tonight?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t r’lect seeing him.”
“There’s a light in his office.”
“Might be. I didn’t r’lect to turn it off.”
“I’ll go up and see.”
“Elevator’s closed, ma’am. Have to walk up.”
“That’s all right, Tom.”
“Steps is wet, you walk easy.”
“I will.”
The corridor upstairs was dim, and smelled of soap and chlorine. The door to Lewis’ office was half open and she could see part of the reception room — the luxurious gold satin love seat and the tropical aquarium that had been built into the wall. The aquarium lights were on, and the miniature fish moved silently behind glass, striped angel fish and velvety black mollies and brilliant neons as tiny as tacks.
She knew, as soon as she saw that the aquarium lights were on, that it couldn’t be Lewis in the office. He paid no attention to the fish; they belonged to Vern Johnson who fed and fussed over them with the same care Miss Schiller gave her cat.
She rapped on the door and said, “Vern?”
“Who is it?”
“Charlotte.”
“Well, come in, come in, Charley.”
She went in and closed the door behind her. Vern Johnson was a big moon-faced man with thick horn-rimmed glasses that gave his face a false aspect of vagueness. She had known him for years, had gone to school with his sister, and turned down his somewhat boozy and brotherly proposals. It was at one of his parties that she had her first personal talk with Lewis, a week after Gwen had introduced him to her. “You know, I asked Vern to invite you, Miss Keating.” She didn’t like the approach. She said distantly, “Did you?” “Yes. I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been planning for two days what I’d say but now I’ve forgotten all of it. The general idea, though, was to impress you with my mind.” “Why should you want to do that?” “Damned if I know, except that you look so competent and superior I’d like to show you that I’m competent and superior, too.” He spoke with a kind of rueful candor. “And are you, Mr. Ballard?” “I’ve always thought so.” She changed the subject, then, with deliberate abruptness. “Mrs. Ballard’s not with you tonight?” “No.” “I hope she’s not ill.” “No, she’s not ill.” He turned and walked away, and a little later Vern came and told her that Lewis had left. “What did you say to him, anyway?” “Why, nothing, nothing at all.” “He’s a hell of a good guy, Charley. Which is a miracle, considering his wife.”
“Sit down, Charley,” Vern said.
“Thanks.”
“Looking for Lewis?”
“I... Yes.”
“That makes three of us. Gwen’s been calling all day.”
She didn’t sit down. She said, “I won’t disturb you if you’re busy, Vern.”
“I’m not busy.” He picked up a small glass bowl from the table and held it up to the light. It contained a single black mollie, no more than an inch and a half long. “See this little lady? She doesn’t look much like it but she’s about to become a mother. The trouble is, her feeding instincts are considerably stronger than her maternal instincts, so I have to wait around and see that she doesn’t eat her offspring.”
“Vern — when did you see him last?”
“Three days ago.”
“Hasn’t he phoned?”
“Yesterday morning. He was drunk.”
“Drunk?”
“Sounded like it.” He put the glass bowl back on the table, but he kept his eye on the mollie as he talked. “What gives with Lewis, anyway?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Won’t tell me.”
“Both.”
“Top secret, eh? My guess is that Gwen is kicking up a row because she’s found out about you and Lewis. Our Gwen isn’t as dumb as she looks. She’s nutty as a fruitcake, but she’s not one hundred percent dumb.”
“She hasn’t found out. This has nothing to do with Gwen. It’s more — serious.”
“I see.”
“Vern, when he phoned did he tell you where he was?”
“No. All I know is that it was a local call and that he wasn’t phoning from a booth. There was a lot of noise in the background, people talking and dishes rattling, and the sound of a cash register. He must have been in some café or bar where they had no private phone booth.”
“Didn’t you ask him where he was?”
“Certainly. He didn’t answer. Apparently he’d had some land of quarrel with Gwen, because he asked me to call her up and tell her he was sorry but not to try and find him. I called her, but by that time she’d already phoned the police. Gwen has a pretty talent for doing the wrong thing.”
The mollie dropped her first offspring. It looked like a quarter of an inch of narrow black velvet ribbon, but it was alive and it was complete. It began immediately to swim around the bowl, as indifferent to its mother as she was to it; spending its first moment of life as it would spend its last — in the pursuit of food.
Vern’s face was excited. “Well, here we go again. By God, isn’t he a cute little fellow? You know, last time she had twenty-two of them. It took her over four hours.”
She looked at the mollie who had just demonstrated with the bored ease of an expert the miracle of birth. She thought of a human baby, itself a fish, but helpless, boneless, blind and deaf and fed through a cord — its growth slow; its birth cruel. And between the two violences, the shock of birth and the shock of death, its life was incalculable.
The mollie spotted her offspring, circled it, and lost interest because she had already eaten.
“Charley,” Vern said.
She looked up at him, wearily.
“Charley, for nearly a year, off and on, I’ve been thinking that I should apologize to you.”
“Why?”
“I guess I shouldn’t have fooled around playing cupid. Remember the first night you met Lewis at my house?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think things would turn out the way they have.”
“No one did.”
“I thought — well, damn it, I’m so fond of you both, and I wanted you to get together. You seemed a natural, you know? And I hoped — well, I guess what I really hoped was that Gwen would drop dead or something. What a dreamer I am, eh?”
“I’ve had a happy year,” Charlotte said. “I should thank you for it.”
“Well, don’t,” he said sharply. “I feel responsible.”
“You shouldn’t. I was ready to fall in love and I did. I had never loved anyone before.”
He smiled then, a friendly, but rather sad little smile. “Not even me?”
“No.”
“My trouble is that I’ve got to wait around for a woman who likes fish, or who likes me well enough to get to like fish.” He saw her glance towards the door and said, “Don’t leave yet.”
“I have to.”
“If he doesn’t want to be found, don’t look for him, Charley. He may have reasons.”
“I have reasons, too.”
“In that case.” He opened the door for her. “Good luck, anyway.”
“Thank you, Vern.”