"Just a minute, now," said Feffer. "I know you hate subways. Isn't there a switch here? I thought you were positively claustrophobic."
Feffer was extremely intelligent. He had been admitted to Columbia without a high-school certificate by obtaining unheard-of marks in the entrance examinations. He was sly, shrewd, meddling, as well as fresh, charming and vigorous. In his eyes a strangely barbed look appeared, a kind of hooking intensity. Sammler, the earlier Sammler, had had little power to resist such looks.
"It isn't because of the crook you saw on the bus, is it?"
"Who told you about him?"
"Your niece, Mrs. Arkin, did. I mentioned that before the lecture."
"So you did. And she told you, eh?"
"Yes, about the fancy dress, the Dior accessories, and all of that. What a terrific gas! So you're afraid of him. Why? Has he spotted you?"
"Something like that."
"Did he speak?"
"Not a word."
"There's something going on, Mr. Sammler. I think you'd better tell me about it. You may not understand the New York idiom. You may be in danger. You should tell a younger person."
"You confuse me, Feffer. There are moments when I am slightly not myself under your influence. I get muddled. You're very noisy, very turbulent."
"The man has done something to you. I just know it What's he done? He may hurt you. You may be in trouble, and you shouldn't keep it to yourself. You're wise, but not hip, and this cat, Mr. Sammler, sounds like a real tiger. You've seen him in action?"
"Yes."
"And he's seen you looking?"
"That, too."
"That's serious. Now what has he done to scare you off the bus? You told the cops."
"I tried to. Come, Feffer, you're involving me in things I don't like."
"It's being driven from the bus that should bother you, interference with your customs, your habits, and so on. Are you afraid of him?"
"Well, I was aroused. My heart did beat awfully hard. The mind is so odd. Objectively I have little use for such experiences, but there is such an absurd craving for actions that connect with other actions, for coherency, for forms, for mysteries or fables. I may have thought that I had no more ordinary human curiosity left, but I was surprisingly wrong. And I don't like it. I don't like any of it."
"When he saw you, did he chase you?" said Feffer.
"He came after me, yes. Now let's drop the matter."
Feffer was unable to do that. His face was flaming. Within the old-fashioned frame of the beard, it prickled with wild modern passions. "He followed you but he didn't say anything? He must have gotten his message through, though. What did he do? He threatened you. Did he pull a switchblade on you?"
"No."
"A gun? Didn't he point a gun at you?"
"No gun."
Had Sammler been in good balance he would have been able to resist Feffer. But his balance was not good. Descending to the subway was a trial. The grave, Elya, Death, entombment, the Mezviuski vault.
"But he found out where you live?" said Feffer.
"Yes, Feffer, he tracked me. He must have had an eye on me for some time. He followed me into my lobby."
"But what did he do, Mr. Sammler! For God's sake, why won't you say!"
"What is there to say? It is ludicrous. It is not worth discussing. Simply nonsensical."
"Nonsensical? Are you sure it's nonsense? You'd better let a younger person judge. A different generation. A different..."
"Well, perhaps you have a natural claim to these bizarre nonsensical things. Such a hungry curiosity about them. I'll make it brief. The man exhibited himself to me."
"He didn't! That's just wild! To you? That's far out! Did he corner you?"
"Yes."
"In your own lobby, he pulled his thing on you? He flashed it?"
Sammler would say no more about it.
"Stupendous!" said Feffer. "What the devil was it like?" He was also laughing. How marvelous, what a... a sudden glory. And If Sammler was any interpreter of laughter, Feffer was dying to see this phenomenon. To protect Sammler, yes. To guide him through the dangers of New York, yes. But to see, to meddle, to intrude, that was Lionel all over. Had to have a piece of the action--Sammler believed that was the current expression. "He yanked out his cock? Didn't say a word? Just flashed? Wow, Mr. Sammler! What the hell did he mean? How big a thing was it? You didn't say. I can imagine. It could be straight out of Finnegans Wake. 'Everyone must bare his crotch!' And he operates between Columbus Circle and Seventy- second Street in the rush hours? Well, what does one do about this? New York is really a gas city. And all those guys running for mayor like a bunch of lunatics. And Lindsay, just imagine Lindsay campaigning on his record. His record, no less, when they can't even send a cop to arrest a bandit. And the other guys with their record! Mr. Sammler, I know a guy at NBC television who has a talk show. It's really Fanny's husband. We ought to put you on that to discuss all this."
"Oh, come, Feffer."
"It would do everyone a hell of a lot of good to hear you. I know, I know, it's as the man said, it's not the mind of the viewer you'll reach but his backsides. You'll tickle his backsides with beautiful feathers of deep thought."
"Absolutely."
"And yet, Mr. Sammler, to have influence and power. Or just confronting the phony with the real thing. You should denounce New York. You should speak like a prophet, like from another world. TV should be used. Used by us--and you might like coming out of isolation."
"We did that at Columbia yesterday, Feffer. I came out of isolation. You've already turned me into a performer."
"I'm thinking only of the good you could do."
"You're thinking of the arrangements you could promote, how you could get a finder's fee from Fanny's husband, and how close you could bring together the TV and that person's genitalia." Mr. Sammler was intensely smiling. Another moment, and he would actually have been laughing, drawn out of his preoccupations.
"Very well," said Feffer. "I don't have the same ideals of privacy as you. I'm willing to drop it."
"By all means."
"I'll ride uptown on the bus with you."
"No, thanks."
"To make sure no one bothers you."
"What you want is to have me point him out."
"Really, I know how you dislike, you hate, subways."
"It's quite all right."
"Of course you've stirred up my curiosity, why should I deny it? I know you finally told me about him to get rid of me, and here I am pestering you still. You say he wears a camel's-hair coat?"
"I thought it was that."
"A homburg? Dior shades?"
"Homburg I'm certain of. The Dior is a guess."
"You're a good observer, I take your word for it. A mustache, also, fancy shirts and psychedelic neckties. He's a prince of some kind, or thinks he is."
"Yes," said Sammler. "A certain majesty is assumed."
"I have an idea about him."
"Let him be. Leave him alone, I advise you."
"I wouldn't actually tangle with him. I'd never do that. He wouldn't even suspect I was there. But cameras can be introduced anywhere. They even have photos of the child in the womb. Somehow they got a camera in. I just acquired a new Minox which is as small as a cigarette lighter."
"Don't be stupid, Lionel."
"He'd never know. I assure you. Wouldn't be aware. Pictures could be valuable. Catch a criminal, sell the story to Look. Do a job on the police at the same time, and on Lindsay, who has no business being mayor while running for president. A triple killing."
The low wall of Union Square, the raised green platform of lawn parted by dry gray pathways, and the fast traffic circling--the foul, reckless, stinking automobiles. Sammmler did not need Feffer's hand on his elbow. He drew away.
"I go down here."
"This time of day you can't get a taxi. The shift is changing. I'll ride uptown with you."