Are you nuts? Fil said.
Probably.
Because if you stay, you’re going to be presenting arguments to hizzoner in there until three in the morning. And then you’ll get to sit through the rebuttal, which should take you right through to breakfast.
Sounds like a good time to me, Tracy said.
You know he won’t set foot outside the building unless one of us tells him not to, not in weather like this.
I know, Tracy said. I know. What are we going to do about Erica?
What’s there to do? She’s done. Finis, Fil said.
How many times are we going to have to go through this?
Once. We’re getting him a muscle-head. A big dumb idiot. A big dumb idiot who doesn’t speak English.
Tracy nodded.
One of these days he’s just going to disappear, you know. He’ll turn into a nice old man who can’t remember his own name and he’ll do exactly what we tell him to.
I know.
And we can empty his accounts and retire to Bermuda, just as we’ve always planned, Fil said, grasping Tracy’s arm. We’ll finally have those matching minks and—and—and we’ll never think of home and we’ll drink martinis all day and laugh and laugh!
We’ll seduce the pool boys!
Oh yes, yes. One each.
Two each. And when we’re done with them, pffft, Tracy said, drawing a finger across her throat.
And we’ll flee to Monaco!
Poor Daddy, Tracy said. Murderesses for daughters.
You can’t say we don’t come by it honestly, Fil said.
Jesus Christ, Tracy said.
Alone in the oak-paneled den, among the piles of Barron’s and the Journal, the weekend’s cigar stubs leaning like drunk, fat little men against the ashtray’s marble walls, Albert reached for the Bakelite radio on his reading table, and his fingers tapped against the grille but he did not turn it on. His daughters’ presence was still draining from the room. People left no truly meaningful remnants; a person was either there or she wasn’t, and a photograph or old dresses or drawers full of her stockings and sweaters were only artifacts, triggers for memories, and memories were morbid things, confirmations of loss. He had nothing left but absence. So it was just as well that he go.
Once he became accustomed to the room’s silence, it was as if they’d never been there at all. Outside, the usual symphony of horns and sirens. The roar and scrape of the plow trucks.
Through the French doors he saw the baby grand in the corner of the living room, and from there his eyes drifted back to the sofa across from him, the rumpled basins left by his daughters’ behinds. The Oriental rug, turned up at the corner, and on the coffee table, his own empty scotch glass. A water mark. He supposed the girl would put some mayonnaise on it, but as he filled his lungs with air to bellow her name, he wondered why it mattered.
All the same, he called after her, repeatedly, in a harsh, barking voice. She didn’t answer.
Oh. Yes. The girl is gone.
He went to the sideboard, poured a scotch right up to the rim of the glass, and sat back down. He sat in his chair for another hour, the leather creaking when he shifted his weight, fingering the rivets at the end of each arm, not exactly thinking but allowing thoughts to skip across the surface of consciousness. The girls; vague screwball theories about commodity prices; images from a trip to Ireland he took with Sydney in 1966. His son, who never visited. He winced when he thought about his grandson, and he invited the memory to submerge him. All along, his mind was rummaging around for the plan.
How did it start, again?
Another hour passed. He nodded off, snapped awake, repeated the cycle. More snow slipped by the window. Intonations drifted from the heating grates. The pipes knocked in the wall. Night soil sliding down to the sewer. What causes the vibration of pipes filled with human waste? Something to do with vacuums, air pressure, he couldn’t exactly be sure, but now he had an image, all the waste behind all the walls of his apartment, the dark mass in transit, surrounding him, a prison of excrement. When he’d arrived a scholarship boy at Tolver in 1918, he’d never used an indoor toilet. In those days, one became a man at thirteen. Today one could make a good living playing sports or popular music, one could dress in a T-shirt and tennis shoes, eat at 21 wearing blue jeans. Money had superseded the refinements of the upper class. Did this mean anything to him? No, only an observation. In this era a man’s chief aim was to remain a child.
He sneered and exhaled through his teeth. Wasting time. He hated wasting time. Where was the girl? He consulted the small notebook he kept in his pocket. It was Monday. Was it Monday? Yes. His scotch glass was empty. He got up and refilled it.
The girl is gone.
He’d dismissed her, had he? Things would be different for her afterward. His daughters might file suit, but what could they take from her, sheltered as she was by poverty? Would she miss him? Unlikely that she’d ever visit his final resting place, or glance mournfully out at the river. If he failed to complete his task, he’d be institutionalized. He’d never see her again, either way.
The girl is gone. Good. So you’ve taken care of that.
He was trying to puzzle out what hospital to call when Erica appeared, an apparition floating down the hall like a whisper, turning the corner into his study with an imperceptible sigh. Efficient as ever, she moved to clean up the decimated Times scattered on the floor beside his chair.
I’m still reading that, he snapped.
She backed away.
You didn’t use a coaster, she said.
It’s my goddamn table. Put some mayonnaise on it.
Did you have a nice visit?
Yes, he said quickly before scrambling to recall who had visited.
Well, that’s good. Did Fil make you something to eat?
He looked around, in part to gather more information so that he might answer, in part because he meant to show her that he couldn’t see anything she couldn’t, and that the question was stupid.
Doesn’t appear so, does it? I need you to go out and get me something to eat, Albert said.
Albert, she said.
I’m hungry for sesame noodles.
You haven’t eaten anything? It’s late.
Is it? he said, though he was already looking at the clock. I was waiting for you, he said.
She laughed. Waiting for me to get your dinner, you mean. Albert, the snow. There’s a blizzard. Nothing’s open, not even Golden Palace.
You’ve confirmed this?
Albert, nothing’s open.
You’ve confirmed it? he said.
Their secret: Albert survived on General Tso’s chicken and cold sesame noodles. Four, sometimes five nights a week, she called in the order. Albert refused to let her tip more than fifty cents, but if the weather was bad, she added a quarter of her own.
I’m sure they’re open. But they won’t deliver. Not tonight, he said.
You’re just making things up now. Stop it.
Prove me wrong, he said.
Fine. Let’s call and see if anyone picks up.
I don’t want to call them! Albert was gripping the armrests like a man undergoing a particularly hairy dental procedure.
Fine, Albert. Do you want to look at the photo album? Erica said.
Now? Albert said.
One last time before you go, she said.
Fine, fine, Albert said. What had she meant by that? he wondered. Did she know what he meant to do?
Erica perched on the arm of his leather chair while he turned the cardboard pages, tapping his finger here and here, breezily reeling off locations and dates. His identifications were inventions, words spoken with an authority intended to convince himself that he could go on. He recognized only himself and Sydney. Even their children, though they were obviously the children, were unfamiliar to him, and he said, Here are the children, and from a background or a dirt road or a farmhouse in the photo he would construct a location in terms vague enough to sound correct. If there were mountains, he called them the Adirondacks; if he saw a boat or a fishing rod, the Finger Lakes; if a beach, Florida.