They drank chianti and he talked. He told her about how it was to work at an advertising agency. He told her that it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to write, really write, the way it could be done.
She listened silently. Her eyes were darker than usual and sleepy and she looked bedraggled, but she listened.
He told her about how he felt when he read good writing. He explained how he felt when he read a novel by a man younger than he. He said there were so many things he wanted to do.
After he had talked and after the chianti was gone, they went home and slept.
The next night he came home excited. They had dinner and then he said he wanted to go out.
“Why?” she asked.
“I just need to get out.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Just out. Someplace wild.”
She looked down at her plate and didn’t answer.
“I want you to come with me,” he said.
“Where will we go?”
“Someplace wild. Someplace where people are.”
They went out together. They went on the subway and they didn’t dress well. He didn’t want to be watched, he wanted to watch.
They wandered. Finally there was a place, a bar, he liked. There was a name above the door, but he could not pronounce it. The windows were too dirty to see through. Inside, a juke box with broken glass was singing in Spanish. There were tables, to the left of the door, but no one sat there. They sat on stools at the bar, both men and women, and those who could not find stools, stood, leaning against the counter, drinking, talking to someone, or maybe just looking in the mirror that faced them.
When they went in, there was an almost imperceptible pause. They were seen, but Talent could not have pointed to anyone and said, “Why are you looking at me?”
The hum of conversation solidified and they were not being watched. They walked the length of the room and found one stool at the end. Helen sat on it and he stood beside her. The bartender drew two beers when they ordered, and cut the tops off with a spatula and slid them across. He stood there until Talent put a dollar on the bar and then he made change and went away.
“I’m afraid in here,” Helen whispered.
“Don’t be.” He sipped at his beer. “Just mind your own business and they’ll mind their’s. They just don’t like people who come slumming.” He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did.
There was a girl. She wore a blue rayon cocktail dress and plastic shoes that were meant to look like glass slippers. He thought about her, about the story of her. There were three men with her. He wondered whether they would fight for her, share her, or simply drift away because it was too much trouble.
He put down his glass and said he had to make a trip to the mens’ room. When he returned, a dark man who was handsome was talking to Helen. He was leaning with one elbow on the bar, talking quickly, smiling. Talent heard him say, “Come on. It won’t hurt you.”
“Please go away,” Helen said.
“You heard her,” Talent said.
The dark man leaned back flat against the bar and smiled. “Who are you?”
“I said to go away,” Talent said.
“Tell me who you are and we will talk about it.” The man spoke perfect English, but with a lilting accent.
“I’m with the lady.”
“She didn’t say so. She was alone.”
“I’m saying so. You heard me.”
The bartender pretended not to see them. People close to them began edging away, not looking at them directly.
“He’s my husband,” Helen said.
The dark man looked at her and then smiled. He seemed to bow even though he did not. “I’m sorry,” he said to Talent.
“Go on away,” Talent said.
“I said I am sorry. I did not know you were her husband.” He smiled again at Helen. “I did not know she was married.”
“I know what you said. Now get the hell away from us.”
The dark man smiled again, but he did not move.
“It’s all right, Paul,” Helen said.
“It’s not all right,” Talent said, looking at her. “I came back and found this punk trying to pick you up.”
“Punk,” the dark man said.
“You heard me,” Talent said.
The dark man stepped toward him. Talent took out the knife. The blade made a popping sound when it opened.
“Ah, no,” the bartender said.
“Now what?” the dark man said.
“Now you go,” Talent said.
The dark man smiled. “I don’t think so. I think you will go.”
“That’s what you think.”
“You have a knife.”
“Yes.”
The dark man had not moved after that first step. Now he reached into his back pocket and brought out a.gun. He smiled again. “Now compadre,” he said. “Now who will go?”
The knife blade was steady for another few seconds before it wavered and dropped. “Come on,” Talent said to Helen.
They walked the length of the room. Someone giggled quietly. Someone laughed out loud. By the time they reached the door, everyone was laughing. He turned, wanting to say something, but Helen took his hand. “Come on.”
They took a cab to the subway station at Times Square. While he was in the cab, Talent slipped the
knife from his pocket and stuffed it into the crack of the seat. He tried to hide what he was doing from Helen, but he thought she noticed it. She looked away and did not say anything.
When they got out of the cab, the wind was cold down Broadway and it burned his skin.
Retribution
by Michael Zuroy
Robert Dorp was a bank-teller and a lady’s man. The combination spelled “trouble.”
“You’re quite sure?” The president of the Chowder Falls National Bank stared unwaveringly at the auditor, his face expressionless. He was a large man whose features and bald head seemed formed out of one solid chunk of stone, unsoftened by the rigidly brushed and trimmed hair at the sides. The neat nameplate on the desk before him said in black and gold letters: Augustus Prescott, President.
“Quite sure,” said Mr. Tunney, the auditor, matching Prescott’s unemotional tone.
“Your figures show that something over forty thousand dollars is missing?”
“Exactly forty-thousand, two hundred and eleven dollars,” said Tunney, as though reading from a balance sheet Tunney was a crisp, spare man with cool eyes behind rimless glasses. One could not picture him in anything but rimless glasses.
There was a silence. When Prescott spoke again, it was with a heavy deliberateness, as though he intended to make absolutely certain of one point before going on to the next. “Your audit also proves that one of our tellers, Robert Dorp took the money?”
“That’s right.”
“There’s no question about it?”
“None.”
“Seems to me,” said Prescott, “a difficult thing for an audit to pinpoint the crook. Is that evidence conclusive enough to stand up in a court of law?”
“Absolutely.” Tunney left his seat alongside Prescott’s desk and strode to a long table, on which were spread out ledgers, balance sheets and work sheets. “These figures prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the shortage originated with Dorp. Any C.P.A. in the country would agree with that.”
“I don’t want to prosecute the man unless we’re certain.”
“I repeat, this evidence is indisputable.”
Prescott let out a weighty sigh, crossed the office and opened the door slightly so that the two men could look out at the banking floor. Dorp was at his cage several windows down, serving a woman depositor, smiling pleasantly. He was tall and lean with dark hair that held a trace of a curl.
“Fine looking man,” said Prescott.