But five minutes later, he was snoring on the books. So loud he could hear himself. When Zifferblatt woke him by a violent shaking of the ledgers under his face, he was dreaming he had just signed a contract with old Meo Roth that would save the firm and his own as well, and Roth/Ziff had tears of gratitude in his eyes. "That's all right," Henry said, rearing up, "think nothing of it."
Bulging above Henry's desk, thick thumbs rammed in his belt, face white with astonishment and rage, and this time it was no act, certainly not, choking as though he'd just swallowed something big and heavy as a headstone, Zifferblatt was able only to open his mouth and close it. He jerked his jowls in the general direction of his office. Henry rose and followed. Watched by all.
Even in his office, Zifferblatt could not find his voice. He sat down abruptly behind his desk, glared once at Henry, then pulled out the company checkbook, proceeded to write out a check, his dewlaps and chins aquiver with energy and conviction.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Zifferblatt," Henry said. "I haven't been getting much sleep."
"I can understand personal problems," Zifferblatt sputtered, "but — but to disturb an entire office!"
"I know. It's inexcusable. I shouldn't have come today."
Zifferblatt grunted, worked his soft mouth back and forth, stared down at the check he had just written out, then dropped it on the desk in front of him and leaned back in his swivel chair. "Sit down, Mr. Waugh." Books with blood-red or pale green backs lined every wall but the one behind Zifferblatt's head. That one was hung with diplomas, certificates, photographs, mottos, clippings, charts, clocks, travel souvenirs, and a map of the city on which a red blot pierced by a green arrow indicated the house of DZ&Z. Under black-bordered photos of the late lamented Abe Zauber and Marty Dunkelmann, the inscription: They are with us still. "A young man, Mr. Engel said."
"Yes."
"An athlete."
"Yes, a baseball pitcher."
"Oh yes, baseball." Zifferblatt pressed bis stiff spatulate thumbs together over his round belly and pursed his lips as though to blow a kiss or spit. "The great American game." He paused, smiled — or perhaps it was only a gas pain, a tic just below the nose: "After business, of course." The pictures of his children were all taken in infancy… as though he hadn't let them live past that. "And, tell me, what do both baseball and business need, Mr. Waugh?"
"Somebody to keep the books."
"Well, humph, yes, but I was going to say hard playing, and above all, teamwork!" He socked his padded palm with a rolled fist, then squeaked forward in his chair. His eye fell on the check; he tore it up, saying: "One member not pulling his share, and the whole operation can be forced to liquidate. A lot of individual stars aren't enough, you've got to have organization and discipline, as well. You do see that, don't you, Mr. Waugh?" Henry nodded, though the movement intensified his headache and the crick in his neck. Ziff stood to make a point: "You're a man now of mature years, forty, fifty—"
"Fifty-six."
"Fifty-six! Nine years from retirement! And I'm asking you, do you wish to keep your job here, or do you not?"
"I do, but—"
"Well, then, accept a little advice, my friend. Accounting like baseball is an art and a science and a rough competitive business. Some make it and some don't. The ones who make it keep their heads up, their eyes open, their minds on their job, and pull their part without belly-aching. Wages are based on performance, Mr. Waugh, and what we want around here at DZ&Z is professionals!" He paced the room, getting worked up. "What we expect, we give. This is the American way, Mr. Waugh! Why, old Marty Dunkelmann here never quit till the moment he died! I can still remember how I came to the office that morning and found him in here, bolt upright in his chair, eyes rolled back, and one finger on an error in a column of accounts receivable. He'd showed me that mistake just the night before, the only one I've made in fifty years of accounting; we were partners but we expected just as much out of each other as we did from any employee; he must've died while I was walking out the door! I'd been sitting right where you— Waugh! Mr. Waugh! Wake up!"
Henry's head jerked up, but it was all he could do to open his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dunkelmann — Zifferblatt. I'd better—"
"I'll tell you what you'd better, Waugh, you'd better be here at 8:30 sharp on Monday morning and every morning hereafter, not one minute later, and not one single exception, and prepared to put in a full day's work, or your position with us is terminated! Have I made myself clear?"
Henry nodded and stood. Woozily. "Yes, sir."
"All right, you can go now. You're no good to anybody here today anyway — though I hardly need mention, you can't expect us to pay you for not working."
"I understand."
Ziff softened, lower lip fluttering forward in a kind of senile pout. "Now, get rested up, Mr. Waugh, and try to get over this other thing. We all suffer losses, but we must learn to live with them. Let's see if we can't make a fresh start next week. You used to be a great asset to our team here at DZ&Z, and I would like to believe you soon will be again."
"Yes, sir."
At his desk, putting away his books and materials, Henry realized his hands were shaking, his knees weak. Not anger really, just felt shot down. Ziff was right: he was getting disorganized. The old menace.
Lou in a passing whisper: "Henry! Is everything, are you…?"
"Yes. I'll be back Monday. Going home now to sleep. Thanks, Lou."
"Oh." Lou watched him close things up. "I was thinking maybe about, well, like I been saying about your eating, Henry, maybe Mitch's…?"
Lou's cure-all. "I don't know, I—"
"I was planning to go there tomorrow night… **
"Well, all right"
"Shall I come by?"
"I'll meet you there. About nine."
"Do you know where it…?"
"I'll find it."
"Monday morning!" lipped Horace Zifferblatt from his glass office, shaking his stubby index finger, then aiming it clockward, as Henry left.
Some people would look on his game, Henry realized, as a kind of running away. Lou, for instance, could not understand why he didn't see more movies or visit museums or join an interesting club or something, and though he could accept the idea of taking on outside work for extra money, he'd probably be astonished to learn about the game. But descending in the building elevator, urethra of his world prison, dropping dejectedly into a kind of private sinkhole, having to return to all that commitment and all that emptiness, Henry was aware that you could see it both ways: Roth's skylighting problems were, in a way, a diversion for him from his own. Sometimes, true, in the heat of a pennant chase, for example, his daytime job could be a nuisance, but over the long haul he needed that balance, that rhythmic shift from house to house, and he knew that total one-sided participation in the league would soon grow even more oppressive than his job at Dunkelmann, Zauber & Zifferblatt.
The elevator door yawned open, discharging him into the lobby, and thence, past the building directories and signs, into the street. A bright day, after all, though the sun's light was hard and cold. The streets, as always, were full of moving people, going going going, the endless jostling flow. They gave him somehow a vague and somber sense of fatality and closed circuits. Motion. The American scene. The rovin' gambler. Cowpoke and trainman. A travelin' man always longs for a home, cause a travelin' man is always alone. Out of the east into the north, push out to the west, then march through the south back home again: like a baserunner on the paths, alone in a hostile cosmos, the stars out there in their places, and him trying to dominate the world by stepping on it all. Probably suffered a sense of confinement there in the batter's box, felt the need to strike forth on a meaningful quest of some kind. Balls hurled down to him off the magic mound, regularly as the seasons: his limited chances. Or rather: not to him, but just to earth, passive, faintly hostile, deprecatory, masked— while he interposed himself heroically to defy the holy condition. . not knowing his defiance was merely a part of it.