— Good God! what a luxury you were!
Out in the street Fuller waited. He stood and breathed deeply. Then when the door behind him opened again and closed he spoke without turning, looking toward the sky, — Seem we have the moon waitin to light us upon the way. .
— The moon? the moon? where. . They both sought the sky for it.
— A moment ago. . Fuller commenced.
— Ah but it's all right, when we need it why, charms, yes charms can bring it down. . Fuller, here, listen, this money. Will you take some of it? I don't know how much there is, but, where are you going now?
— First I must seek a telephone, inform a friend of the condition of these we leave behind, requirin his professional services. Then I believe escape from this vicinity to be desirable for many reasons. And you sar?
— Yes, to go. To go, but first, even if… it didn't turn out like I thought'it would but, it turned out, it had its own design. Yes to go. where. But I have to get her first, you understand, you would understand, where I've been all this time. Fuller? the money. .?
— Oh no sar, Fuller started to retreat, a pale shaft of light yellowing the life of the streetlights full upon him. — I quite sufficiently provided for as it is: in a smile his pink tongue fled delicate and in danger, into the darkness of that donjon keep as he closed the gold portcullis of his teeth.
The moon, and other lustrous blisters of heaven, were gone. It had commenced to snow again when the cab drew into Central Park, and the driver looked up into his mirror to see the figure slumped in back suddenly pull himself up at the apparition of trees and stare out, as though alarmed and uncertain where he was in the dark wood, until they came out of it.
The cab slurred up in the slush and stopped, and the driver twisted round in his seat. — Now look, Jack, we been riding around an hour now, I already told you an hour ago you can't just go into Bellevue this time of the night without something like you got your throat cut. Haven't you got a home somewheres you want to go? Haven't you got some dame you could go visit? Me, I got to get all the ways out to Astoria yet. . what? Now you want to go back downtown? Horatio Street, that's down on the West Side? O.K., this is the last time, we'll go down, but this is the last time.
Above, windows were lighted, occasionally blocked by the shadows of incurious faces looking forth only in order not to look back, and her own back turned on this room of faded Edwardian elegance, motionless, heedless of the paper littering the carpet about her feet. The letter under her left foot opened, "I have written you a number of times now, and you have not answered me. ." and its lines were streaked and awash, where a drink had spilled. She stared out into the dark chasm beneath her high window, unable to make out its depths from the laceration framing her figure in light, and turning away, the breath drawn so slowly was expelled in resolution as she crossed the strewn carpet. A moment later, the pen moved in upright strokes of vicious indignation: "Dear Doctor Weisgall. It may interest you to know that my mother and the Pope. ."
Further down, in this concentric ice-ridden chaos, heavy wet snow was falling. The wind bellowed down fighting against itself in the dark gaping ruin where the building had been, and he turned slipping again in the slush, to see red lights streaming across the street further down, near the corner. He had to stumble round the dark edge of a pool to reach the bar, and even at that was forced to wait in the door, his entrance blocked by two beer barrels being rolled in opposite directions, meeting here head-on while the owner and the bartender swore at each other and rolled them back again. He came in muttering, felt for the sharp packet inside his coat, and ordered a drink. Someone ordered drinks all round. The place was foul-smelling, the floor awash and streaked with things spilled, and a clogged drain behind the door to the men's room. A small figure clutching a filthy dollar bill fixed him with a strabismic stare. He drank, breathing through his mouth to avoid the smell, and was trying to count the edges of the bills protruding from his inside pocket when a fight started and he withdrew, slowly for fear of being drawn in on their mud-spattered anger where they came on wildly at one another, hand and foot and a butting head which almost upset him before he recovered the darkness and the streets streaming red as though consumed with wet flame. The argument emerged behind him, as he set out to cross the dark lake. — Look, Leroy. . — Dis city… — Leroy… — Dis
Across the chasm, the mirror reflected a brightly lighted and harsh reality, which included, immediately, two drunks busy in conversation. One of them, speaking from a twisted face, trod backwards upon Mr. Pivner's foot, forcing him to move slightly closer to his own companion, at whom, every few moments, he stole glances in the glass behind the bar.
— You know what I am? demanded the drunk on the far side. They were enjoying their discussion very much, each finding the other intelligent, witty, in all, a good companion, for neither was listening to what the other was saying. — I'm a male nurse.
— Well I say anybody can make a million dollars. You just have to start out thinking that way, and if you keep on, if you keep right on, you get into the habit and you can't help it.
— Well let me tell you what we had today. We had a c.a., do you know what that is?
— After awhile, you can't help it, you can't help making a million dollars. You know what I am? I'm a fortune teller. Hands, cards, I can read anything.
Mr. Pivner had taken off his wet hat when they came in, looked round, and put it on again. He felt well, but a little giddy. Their conversation was not hurried, he responded alertly enough, but found himself far behind: while listening, even while speaking, he was still examining the words of three or four sentences before. Speaking, — Well, what are you studying now?… he was still weighing his own embarrassed greeting when they'd met in the street, — I was going home, but, why no, no I'm not really in a hurry. Hearing, — I'm not studying anything special yet. It's pretty expensive going to night school, it's just the books that run into money, you'd be surprised how much they can cost. These are mostly books on science, that's mostly what I'm interested in… he was still savoring, — Merry Christmas, gee, I'm glad to see you sir. I was just going to midnight Mass. . Savoring, again, — I'm glad to see you sir… he licked his lips, and looked to the mirror.
— This c.a., up in the hospital, you haven't never seen anything like it.
— Like a friend of mine, he's getting married, like I even foretold him he was going to. Tomorrow, Christmas, he's getting married. He was screwing this little Bronx girl regular, I foretold him he'd have to marry her.
— Now let me describe to you what a c.a. is.
— In a way you might say that this guy's lucky, in a way you might say maybe it's a good thing. A thing like that, when you put it off, after a wile you begin to get scared, but if it happens early like with this guy then there you are and you don't know no different, you get in the habit and you can't help it. Like I foretold him, I foretold him, you get in the habit and you can't help it. And with a step back, the fortune teller jostled the ribs behind him with an elbow.
There was already a similarity between their noses, so was the revelation in the glass; and if it were a negative one, that is, if neither his own, nor that which signaled the skinny face so close to his, was in any way exceptional, there was no time for such apprehension: it still seemed to be happening too fast. He heard himself speaking with the cordial restraint he had envisionedly prepared for his first conversations with his son; but it was a conversation.which he had anticipated in such detail, in so many rehearsals, that now each channel and bend was cherished, not to be lost in the mutability of chance exchange, but clenched: yes, for in this instant the truth of it was, that doubt abided in the actuality: that this actuality urged the doubt, a featureless transient until now so abruptly given quiddity and a carnal selfishness of its own. Speaking, — But what I mean is, if you'd like… I mean I'd like to get these books for you, because if I can… if you and I… His lip twitched, but instead of looking away as he would usually have done, Mr. Pivner looked straight at Eddie Zefnic's face. — I think we can manage, he said. He smiled, and his lip stopped twitching.