Nightwork

'Downstairs. In the lobby. Have you had your breakfast?'

No.'

'I'll wait for you in the dining room.' He hung up before I could say yes or no.

* * *

He was drinking a cup of black coffee, alone in the neon-lit dining room. It was still dark outside. Henry had always been an early riser. It was another one of his virtues that my parents had praised. 'I'm sorry if I woke you,' he said, as I sat down across from him. 'I wanted to make sure I got hold of you before you left town.'

That's okay.' Half-remembering my dreams, I said, I wasn't particularly enjoying my sleep.'

The waitress came over to us and I ordered breakfast. Henry asked for a second cup of coffee.

'Listen, Doug,' he said, when the waitress had gone, 'last night, you said something. When you ... when you gave me all that money. Don't think that I'm not grateful...'

I waved my hand impatiently. 'Forget it,' I said. 'Let's not talk about it.'

'You said ... and I can't forget it... you said, if I needed it, there's more where that came from.'

"That's what I said.'

'Did you mean it?'

'I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it.'

'Did you mean as much as twenty-five thousand?' He flushed, as though the effort of getting the question out had been enormous.

I hesitated only a moment. 'Yes,' I said. 'I meant that. If you need it.'

'Don't you want me to tell you what I'm going to do with it?'

'Only if you want to tell me,' I said. I was sorry I hadn't left town last night.

'I want to tell you. It's not only for me, it's for both of us. It's a...' he began, then stopped, as the waitress came over with my juice and coffee and toast. He watched her tensely as she poured him a second cup. When she'd finished and moved off, he gulped a steaming mouthful. I saw that he was sweating.

'Here it is,' he said. 'There's an account I handle in the office. A small new company. A couple of very smart young guys. Two kids out of MIT. They're on to something. Something that can be very big. Big, big. They've got a patent pending for a new system of miniaturization. For all sorts of electronic systems. But they're just about busted. They need about twenty-five thousand to tide them over. They've been to the banks and they've been refused. I know their situation because I know their books inside out.. And I've talked to them about it. I can buy in. With a little pushing, for twenty-five thousand, I could have a third of the stock. And I could become an officer of the company, treasurer, to protect our interests. Once they go into production, they'd go on the board on Amex...'

'What's Amex?' I asked.

'American Exchange.' He looked at me oddly. 'Where the hell have you been all these years?'

'No place,' I said.

'There's no limit to how high the stock would go. I'd take a third of the thirty-three percent and you'd get two-thirds. Does that seem unfair to you?' he asked anxiously.

'No.' I had already kissed the twenty-five thousand goodbye. None of it was real to me anyway. Stacks of paper in a vault.

"You're noble, Doug, noble.' Henry's voice was quivering with emotion.

'Oh, cut it out. Hank,' I said sharply. I didn't feel noble. 'Can you be in New York Wednesday?'

'Sure.'

'I'll have the money ready for you. In cash. I'll call you at your office Tuesday and tell you where to meet me.

'In cash?' Henry looked puzzled. 'What's the matter with a check? I hate to carry that much cash around with me.'

'You'll just have to bear the burden,' I said. 'I don't write checks.' I could see his face working. He wanted the money - badly, badly - but he was an honest man and no fool and there was no doubt in his mind that whatever else the money was, it wasn't honest. 'Doug,' he said, 'I don't want you to get into trouble on my account. If it means. . .' He was pushing himself and I appreciated what it cost him. 'Well, I'd rather do without it.'

'Let me handle my end,' I said curtly. 'You handle yours. Just be in your office Tuesday morning for my call.'

He sighed, an old man's resigned, weary sigh, honesty too difficult a position to maintain. 'Baby brother,' was all he said.

I was glad to get out of Scranton and back on the icy road to Washington. At the wheel, I thought of the poker game that night and touched the silver dollar in my pocket.

I was stopped for speeding in Maryland, where the ice ran out, and bribed the cop with a fifty-dollar bill. Mr. Perris, or whatever his name really was, was spreading the wealth all through the American economy.

7

It was late in the afternoon when I arrived in Washington. The monuments to Presidents, generals, justice, and law, all the ambiguous Doric-American pantheon, were wavery in a soft, twilight Southern mist. Scranton could have been in another climate zone, another country, a distant civilization. The streets were almost empty, and the few people walking there in the quiet dusk moved slowly, peacefully. Jeremy Hale had said Washington was at its best on weekends, when the mills of government ground to a halt. In the capital, between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, it was possible to believe in the value and decorum of democracy. I wondered idly what the blonde lady whose taxicab I had shared was doing with her holiday.

There was no message for me at the desk of the hotel, and, when I went up to my room, I called Hale at his home. A child answered, her voice bell-like and pure, and I had a sudden, unexpected moment of jealousy because there was no child to answer for me and to call, with uncomplicated love, 'Daddy, it's for you.'

'Is the game still on?' I asked Hale.

'Good,' Hale said. 'You got back. I'll pick you up at eight.'

It was only five o'clock and I played with the idea of calling Evelyn Coates' number to see which one of the ladies was at home. But then what would I say? 'Listen, I have two hours to spare.' I was not that sort of a man and never would be. So much the worse for me.

I shaved and took a long hot bath. Lying there, luxuriously steaming myself, I counted my blessings. They were not insignificant. 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,' I said aloud in the clouded bathroom. I hadn't stuttered once in five days and nights. In a minor way it was like being able to throw down your crutches and stride away from the spring at Lourdes. Then there was the money in the vault in New York, of course. Again and again, I found myself thinking of it, the neat stacks of bills lying in the steel box, laden with infinite promise. The twenty-five thousand dollars I was going to give Hank was a small price to pay for freeing me from the guilt about my brother that had lain somewhere in my subconscious for so many years. And Evelyn Coates . . . Old man, I thought, remembering the flaccid body in the corridor, you have not died in vain.

I got out of the bath, feeling fit and rested, put on some fresh clothes and went down and had a leisurely dinner by myself, without liquor. Not before a poker game.

I made sure I had the silver dollar in my pocket when Hale came to get me. If there ever was a gambler, dead or alive, who was not superstitious, I haven't heard of him.

Silver dollar or no silver dollar, Hale nearly got us killed driving to the hotel in Georgetown, where the weekly poker game was played. He went through a stop sign without looking and there was a wild screech of brakes as a Pontiac swerved to avoid hitting us. From the Pontiac somebody screamed, incomprehensibly, 'Goddamn niggers.'

Hale had been a careful driver in college. 'Sorry,' he said. 'People drive like maniacs on Saturday night.' If gambling did that to me, I thought, I wouldn't play. But I didn't say anything.

There was a big round table covered by a green cloth set up in one of the small private dining rooms of the hotel, and an array of bottles, ice, and glasses on a sideboard, all under a strong light. Very professional. I looked forward to the evening. There were three other men already in the room and one woman, standing with her back to the door fixing herself a drink as we came in. Hale introduced me to the men first. I found out later that one of them was a well-known columnist, one a congressman from upstate New York, who looked like Warren Gamaliel Harding, white-haired, benign, falsely presidential. The last player was a youngish lawyer by the name of Benson who worked at the Department of Defense. I had never met a columnist or a congressman before. Was I going up or down on the social scale?