This was just the outline, of course, the stripped pattern of his life as he saw it, but it was the pattern that would mean something if anything at all meant anything worth knowing, and nothing seemed to. It gave him a very strange feeling to think that he had been dying since he was twelve years old, when he’d had the fever and the aches, but it wasn’t really so strange after all, when you thought about it a while longer, for everyone started dying the instant he was born. The only difference was that Joe Doyle had only been dying a little faster than most others. Anyhow, he had already passed the average that the doctor had mentioned, the thirteen to fifteen years, and this was somehow a monstrous deception, a kind of preternatural con trick to assure him that he was living, from a special point of view, a long life instead of a short one....
And now, lying in bed after the departure of Charity Farnese, he was thinking too much and becoming depressed. Getting up abruptly, he showered and shaved and dressed and went downstairs. He had not eaten since the middle of the afternoon yesterday, and it was past time to eat again, but he was not in the least hungry and knew that the sight and smell of food would only make him sick. What he needed was a couple of ounces of rye, after which he would feel better and possibly able to eat at least a sandwich, and where he might as well go to get both was the club where he worked. Besides, Chester Lewis would probably be there, or would come in later, and they could make a little talk with the piano and the drum before the bar opened at four.
When he reached the club, Chester wasn’t there yet, but Yancy Foster, the superior bartender, was. Joe sat down on a stool at the bar, and Yancy looked at him sourly.
“Hello, beautiful,” Yancy said.
“That was last night,” Joe said.
“You said it, it was last night,” Yancy said. “Did you find Milton?”
“Not a trace. I think Milton was someone who happened to her some other night.”
“Lots of others have happened to her other nights. Lots of others have been left over.”
“Sure, Yancy. Sure.”
“Oh, she had something, all right. Something special. I admit that. She drifts in here out of a black fog, looking like a delinquent angel and talking like a schizy intellectual, and you keep watching her and talking with her and wondering what the hell will finally become of her, and you wish that it wouldn’t.”
“Yeah. That’s right, Yancy. You keep wishing that it wouldn’t.”
“A man’s a fool. He thinks he’s got his immunity built up, and then some little tramp comes along and starts a fever in him.”
“You talking to me or yourself, Yancy?”
“I’m just talking, sonny. Anyone can listen who wants to. Probably nobody will. Not even me.”
“I’m listening, Yancy. Hanging on every word.”
“I can see you are. I can see you’re real interested. Well, what I say is, they’re all a little different from each other in one way or another, but the difference isn’t important, whatever it is, and what’s important is the way they’re alike. These fancy, crazy dames! They come here on the prowl from their plush nests on MacDougal Street or Park Avenue or wherever they happen to live, and they may have different faces and answer to different names and have different fancy names for the crazy things wrong with them, but what they all are without exception is more trouble than any man with any brains would ever want.”
“You’re eloquent, Yancy. You should have been a missionary or something.”
“Sure, sure. I know. You mean I should go to hell.”
“No, Yancy. What I mean is, I was with you before you started. I don’t need the lecture.”
“You don’t think so? Well maybe not. You need something, though, sonny. You look like the wrath of God.”
“I need a couple ounces of rye, Yancy. I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Like hell you need a couple ounces of rye. What you need is food. How long since you’ve eaten?”
“I don’t remember, Yancy. I eat when I’m hungry.”
“There’s some good beef. I’ll fix you a sandwich.”
“All right, Yancy. While you’re fixing the sandwich, I’ll drink the rye.”
Yancey poured the rye and handed it to him, and he sat hunched over the bar with the strong fumes rising into his nostrils. He looked ahead into the mirror at the reflection of the room behind him, the oppressive litter in stale shadows of tables and chairs on a worn tile floor still wet in spots from mopping, and it didn’t seem at that moment a particular misfortune that he was going to die before long.
Chapter 6
The morning of that day, Oliver Alton Farnese got up at eight o’clock. This could have been predicted by anyone who was aware of his habits. He got up at eight o’clock every day except Saturday, when he got up at nine, and Sunday, when he got up at ten.
After rising, he shaved and bathed and dressed. His clothes had been laid out for him in a particular place in a particular order, and he not only knew exactly what they would be for every change he made during the course of the day, but for every change for every day for the rest of the week, for he composed every Sunday night a detailed list of what he would wear for every occasion of the week following, and this list was deviated from only in emergency, and not even in emergency without specific authorization.
After shaving and bathing and dressing, he went to the dining room. On the way, he stopped in the hall outside the door of the room in which Charity sometimes slept, and he waited for about thirty seconds for the sound or sense of motion or static life in the room beyond the door, but nothing was heard or sensed, as he had suspected nothing would be, and then he went on to the dining room and sat down and had his breakfast of orange juice and bacon and toast and marmalade and coffee, which was served to him by Edith, the maid. He knew that his breakfast this morning would consist of these things, and that breakfast tomorrow would consist of certain other things, and breakfast of the morning of the day after tomorrow of certain others, for he planned his menus, as he planned his wardrobe, precisely and obdurately, every Sunday night, for a week to come.
“Did Mrs. Farnese come home last night?” he said to Edith.
“No, sir.”
“Did she leave any word for me?”
“No, sir.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No, sir. Mrs. Farnese never tells me where she’s going.”
“That’s right. She doesn’t. Do you know why, Edith?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course you do. It’s because she despises you. She thinks you’re an informer. Are you an informer, Edith?”
“I know where my first obligation is, sir.”
“That’s nicely put, Edith. Very delicate. You have no idea how much I appreciate your loyalty. You also know where your first advantage is, don’t you, Edith?”
“I think so, sir.”
“You are never a disappointment to me, Edith, You always say precisely the right thing. You know exactly when to lie and when to tell the truth.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Tell me, Edith. Where do you think my wife spent the night?”