“The private sector,” said City Commissioner of Streets Druff, nodding and swallowing (who might have anticipated the trim modern furniture and spiffy light fixtures but never the crisp, rich Oriental rugs), a little miffed that a man of God, under, presumably, all the renunciative vows and dictates of the spiritual, could lord it over a man of Caesar like himself. Someone, Druff figured, was not living up to his end of the bargain. Not bothering to wait until the others arranged themselves — Druff, awarded pride of place, shown to the rabbi’s chrome and leather chair behind his big glass and wood desk, still in a mood and not, removed as he was from the streets he commissioned, yet rid of his nervousness, anxious to make a good impression before men who hadn’t known him when and despising himself for it, despising them, not just for their vigorous primes but for their blatant mockery, Ham ‘n’ Eggs’ languid Jazz Age impressions, Rector’s odd profanity — the commissioner began to speculate, idly to make more mouth news.
“Impressive,” he said. “He’s political, your rabbi? A captain of industry? He knows about downtown, I betcha, the colorful tantrums of Mafia and all the haunted houses where the bodies are buried? He knows who is in whom’s pocket? What the grand jury said?
“Is he up on all he needs regarding the other guy’s gridlock and monkeyshines, the kickbacks and setups and inside jobs, who was it hijacked the salt truck?
“Well, it’s common knowledge. Everything’s common knowledge these days. Hey, no offense. I mean to take nothing away from anyone, but there’s child porn stars on Phil, cousins of drunks on Geraldo. It’s as if everyone feels he has a duty to open up everyone else’s eyes — girls who make it with ponies, with ectoplasm in the fruit cellar.
“I think, you want to know, that everywhere there’s less than meets the eye. All that fooling around, all that graft, it’s only business. Making a living, enterprise. Somehow, well, frankly, there ought to be something personal, something malevolent.”
“Well, Commissioner,” Rector said, smiling widely, “sometimes there is.”
“You’re really something, Jerry. You know that? Wouldn’t you say so, Ham?”
“An absolute ‘must,’ a definite ‘positively,’ ” Hamilton Edgar said. Then turned to the commissioner. “It’s wonderful you came along today,” he said. “That you happen to have happened by.”
“It is. I did,” Druff said. “That’s how it happened.”
“Sure,” Jerry Rector said, “pure serendipity. This could be a breakthrough here. We could almost be discovering penicillin, finding AIDS serum.”
“We’d like to clear up this Su’ad business,” Dan said suddenly, startling the commissioner. “There might be some new terms for you to consider.”
“Oh, Dan,” Ham ‘n’ Eggs said, “shame on you. You’d trouble the man with business on the Shabbat?”
“Bunk and hooey,” Jerry Rector said. “Bunk, bunk, bunk. He’s the one talking malevolent. Dan was just reminded, is what.”
“Gentlemen, please,” said Ham ‘n’ Eggs.
“Just hold on a darned minute,” Druff said. “Let’s just hold our horses. You,” he said, indicating Hamilton Edgar, “I thought you were the one authorized to speak for the university. How many of you guys are there? You’re all lawyers?”
“Ham’s the lawyer,” Jerry said.
“I’m a banker,” Dan said.
“Well, I am too,” said Jerry Rector.
“Bankers,” Druff said. “What bank are you associated with?”
“You don’t have to tell him anything,” said Hamilton Edgar.
“Hey, I’ve nothing to hide.”
“We’re with the Bank of B’nai Beth Emeth,” Dan said, giggling. “We’re bankers in the temple.”
“Money changers,” Jerry Rector said, winking.
“You guys,” said Ham ‘n’ Eggs.
“Yar,” Rector said, “I’m yar.” If this were an era other than the one in which he pretended to hang out, he could have been saying I’m cool. Beyond that, Druff had an impression that all these guys, but particularly Dan and Rector, would hate themselves in the morning.
“All right,” Ham ‘n’ Eggs said, “but you’ll see. You’re just making him nervous.”
“That’s silly,” Dan said. “You said it yourself, he’s a trained politician. You heard him carry on about the rabbi. Shock a with-it guy like the commish? There’s just no way. You think he was born yesterday? This old man? He’s got bodies stashed in high places. He knows where the bimbos are buried.”
“New terms?” Druff said, who, to be frank, had only an unclear memory of the old ones. Not, as you may imagine, because — this he did recall — nothing had been in it for him — he really was a civil servant and executed, within the decent parameters of sanity, all the functions of his office without thought to private gain or personal favor — but because he hadn’t been able to make much sense of what he remembered of Ham ‘n’ Eggs’ earlier proposition. Druff’s impression, post-M. Glorio and all the knockdown, drag-out of a MacGuffin with which he’d lived on and off (counting from lunchtime to lunchtime) going on two days now, was that the university had made rather a point of its indifference to matching the expensive, distinctive campus limestone in the covered walkway Druff’s department was to build (this rather a point, too) above Kersh Boulevard. The poor old city’s point was that while it would pay its share of the costs, it refused to pay for anything put up on university property.
“Anything we can do,” Dan said, “to give the Su’ad kid’s soul some peace, a little belated quality time.”
“Dan!” Ham ‘n’ Eggs scolded.
“Steady there, Dan,” even Jerry Rector put in, “steady as she goes.”
Now he was alert. Perhaps he’d given Dan the wrong impression, shooting off his mouth, sending his with-it type signals, merely extending a tongue, which Dan, at least, had mistaken for a hand. Showing off for him, for all of them, not out of hubris — hubris? him? what did he have to be hubrid about? — but from mood and nervousness. But how were they to know? He’d been led by his doubts to meander along the margins of entrapment. It was good strategy.
“Funny your talking new terms,” said the City Commissioner of Streets. “Mr. Edgar practically blamed us for the accident. He said the city’s pedestrian-activated signal was an attractive nuisance.”
“Darned attractive,” said Jerry Rector, wriggling his eyebrows and pretending to tip an ash off an imaginary cigar.
“I guess I can only hope,” said Druff, “that you folks aren’t wired and that this ain’t some kind of sting operation. New terms?” he repeated.
“Well, he’s right,” Ham ‘n’ Eggs said. “We would like to clear things up.”
“I’m all ears,” the commissioner said. “Where’s the TV cameras? Is my hair all combed, is my tie straight? What do I look into?”
“You think we need cameras?” Dan demanded angrily. “You think we keep our goodies in a safe-deposit box? Live it up for once. Throw caution to the winds. Political scientist! Big public man! Go public, why don’t you?”
“Sight unseen?” Druff inquired coolly.
“What’s he mean now, I wonder,” the one playing Jerry remarked to the others.
“Quid pro quo, I guess.”
“The terms of the terms.”
“If he’d get out from behind that desk for a minute he’d practically be standing on them. Jeesh!”
“Dan?”
“What?”
“Shut up.”