“Giddings,” Nat said. “Do you know where he is?”
“Charlie’s Bar on Third Avenue.” Letitia gave the address. “Next question?”
“If he calls in,” Nat said, “tell him I’m looking for him.”
“Shall I tell him why?”
Strangely, Nat thought, there was no need. On this problem, their previous frequent differences notwithstanding, he and Will Giddings saw eye to eye. “He’ll know,” he said.
Again he walked, without thought of the exertion, without any sense of physical fatigue, by the turmoil that was building in his mind compelled into activity. This time he noticed his surroundings.
Just in the years he had known it Third Avenue had changed. He had come too late for the El, which once had rocketed down through the Bowery, a summer-night excursion, he had been told, with open lighted tenement windows showing humanity in most of its usually private activities. But just in the last few years the change in the avenue seemed to have accelerated, and what once had been neighborhood was now impersonal shops and apartment buildings, sidewalks filled with strangers, hurriers-on, passers-through. Like himself.
Charlie’s Bar was a throwback: swinging doors with the name etched in heavy glass, heavy dark wood bar and booths and tables, the smell of pipe-smoke and malt, and the sound of quiet male talk. It was a bar where customers were known and a man could still while away a quiet afternoon over a few mugs of beer and talk. Zib, for all her Women’s Lib, Nat thought, would come in here and immediately twitch to get back out again though no word of unwelcome would be spoken.
He found Giddings at the bar, a shot glass of whiskey and a full mug of beer in front of him, and the bartender leaning on an elbow in friendly conversation.
Giddings was not drunk, but there was a glint in his eyes. “Well, well,” he said, “look who’s here. Wrong side of town, isn’t it?”
“You can do better than that, Will.” Nat gestured at the drinks on the bar. “I’ll have the beer, but not the shot.” Then, again to Giddings, “Let’s take a booth. Talk.”
“About what?”
“Can’t you guess? I’ve talked with Joe Lewis. His people are going to the computers. I’ve talked with a fellow named Brown downtown.”
“Tim Brown?” Giddings was alert now.
Nat nodded. He accepted the filled mug of beer, reached for his pocket.
Giddings Said, “No. On my check.” He slid down from his stool. “Charlie McGonigle, Nat Wilson. We’ll be over in the comer booth, Charlie.” He led the way, drinks in hand.
The beer was good, cool, not icy, soothing. Nat drank deep and set the mug down.
“Why Tim Brown?” Giddings said. He ignored the boilermaker in front of him.
It was beginning to sound like a record too often played or a word become meaningless. Nat wished it were. “Too many mistakes,” he said. “You’re an engineer. You understand that. Something goes wrong. It ought to stop right there because we’ve designed in safety devices that ought to function immediately.” He paused. “But suppose the safety device has been bypassed? Or it isn’t functioning because the fire department people or the inspectors let it go just for now?”
Giddings shook himself like a dog on a hearth. “Maybe,” he said. “But if you went to Tim Brown, you’re thinking fire. Why?” Bert McGraw’s mention of jinxed buildings was very much in his mind. He wished he could shake the thought.
“Electrical changes,” Nat said, “all of them. You can fuse steel with a hundred and ten volts. I’ve done it: a knifeblade shorted out in an electric toaster once.” Giddings’s nod was almost imperceptible. His eyes were steady on Nat’s face.
“We bring power into that building,” Nat said, “at thirteen thousand eight hundred volts, not a hundred and ten—”
“You’re thinking of whoever it was riding the elevators?” Giddings paused. “But why? Tell me, man, for the love of God, why?”
“I don’t know.” Simple truth, but the hunch that was almost conviction remained. “You’re a big man,” Nat said. “You ever been in a bar fight?”
Giddings smiled faintly, without amusement. “One or two.”
“Has it ever been because some little man was liquored up and looking to show what a ring-tailed wonder he was and he picked on you because you were the biggest man in the bar?”
Giddings was silent, thoughtful. “Go on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Nat said. “I’m an architect. I also know horses and I know mountains and I know skiing and—and things. I don’t think I know much about people.”
“Go on,” Giddings said again.
“I’m no shrink,” Nat said. “But if somebody can’t get anybody to pay attention to him even when he goes around like a freak, and decides that, say, a bomb is the only answer, where does he plant it? In an airplane—gets lots of attention—but they don’t plant bombs in little airplanes, do they? It’s always a big shiny jet. Or it’s a crowded airport that’s known around the world—it isn’t at Teterboro or Santa Fe.”
Giddings picked up the shot glass and set it down again untouched. “You’ve flipped,” he said. And he added, “I hope.”
“I hope so too.” Nat felt calmer now, almost resigned, which was strange. “That building of ours,” he said, “is the biggest. And today is the day everybody is looking at it. Look there.” He pointed to the color TV set mounted behind the bar.
The set was on, the volume turned down. The picture was of the World Tower Plaza, the police barricades, the temporary platform now partially filled with seated guests. Grover Frazee, a carnation in his buttonhole, smiled and extended his hand as more guests mounted the platform stairs. A band was playing; the music reached only faintly across the barroom,
“You didn’t want the opening,” Nat said. “Neither did I. Now I want it even less and I can’t say why.” He paused. “Look there.”
The television camera had swung from the platform and the guests to the crowds behind the barricades. Here and there a hand waved at the lens, but it was on scattered handheld signs that the camera focused. “Stop the War!” one sign read. “Stop the Bombing!” urged another. The signs waved angrily.
The camera moved on, paused, and then zoomed in to focus on a new sign: “Millions for this Monster Building! But How About Welfare?”
“All right,” Giddings said. “The natives are restless. They always are these days.” He picked up the shot glass and knocked the drink back, his good humor restored.
The camera had returned to the platform steps where the governor and the mayor paused to wave at the crowd. Watching, “I always have the feeling,” Giddings said, “that politicians will gather to dedicate a whorehouse if there’s publicity to be had.” He was smiling now. “But, then, whores vote too, same as anybody else.”
Nat said quietly, “Where did you get those change orders, Will?” He watched Giddings’s smile disappear.
“Are they real, do you mean?” Giddings said. There was truculence in his tone.
“You’ve shown me copies,” Nat said. “Where are the originals?”
“Look, sonny—”
Nat shook his head. “I told you: not that way. If you’re afraid to answer the question, just say so.”
“Afraid, hell.”
“Then where are the originals?”
Giddings turned the empty shot glass around and around on the table top. He said at last, “I don’t know.” He looked up. “And that’s the stupid simple truth. What I got in the mail yesterday was an envelope of Xerox copies.” He paused. “No return address. Grand Central Station postmark.” He spread his large hands. “No note. Just the copies.” He paused again. “It could be somebody’s idea of a joke.”