Luther tried very hard to remember. He was successful. “He did mumble a name. I thought it was his doctor. What did you say your name was?”
“Mossberg. Mossberg Hats.”
“Hmmmm,” said Luther and he turned to Tiger. “Did Uncle Jack ever mention that we’d be sitting next to Mossberg Hats?”
Tiger deliberated. “Mossberg Hats. Hmmmm.” Then she leaned across Luther toward Mossberg. “You sure you’re at the right table, Mr. Hats?”
Mossberg grew more and more agitated. He pointed at the placard at the center of the table. “Table Number Nine. This is Table Number Nine.” He tapped his place card. “My card says Number Nine. My shoes are Number Nine. Everything in my life is Number Nine. Of course I’m at the right table! What kind of question is that to ask a person?”
Tiger kept her cool. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Uncle Jack gets very forgetful every now and then.”
Mossberg squinted at her. “And I’ll tell you something else, young lady. You don’t look like a Shelda Fleischman to me, you don’t.”
Tiger smiled. “My maiden name was Gottlieb.”
Mossberg was not a man easily taken in, and there was a noticeable rise to his voice. “Let me assure you, my St. Louis friends, I know your uncle a lot longer than you do. I know him from Rivington Street. One twenty-one Rivington Street. His mother and my mother went to school together. So if he’s sick, I should know about it.” He took a deep breath and asked the fateful question. “So how sick is he?”
The ball was bouncing around in Luther’s court. He drew himself together, hating to tell Mossberg the dire news, yet feeling in all fairness, that he must. “He…ah…called in his accountant.”
Mossberg, a businessman, knew what that implied. He straightened stiffly as though being informed of the death of Moshe Dayan. Then he related the grievous information to his wife. “Jack Bergman is very sick.”
Mrs. Mossberg shook her head and went, “Oh, tsk-tsk-tsk.”
And Mr. Mossberg told her the rest. “Called in his accountant.”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk, oh.”
The pall that descended upon the Mossbergs lay there throughout the remainder of the meal, including coffee and mints, giving Luther and Tiger ample time to finish their gluttony, dab their lips with double damask, and turn to listen to the Pledge Taker at the rostrum doing his stuff.
The Pledge Taker was a round man with red hair and great enthusiasm. He was perspiring heavily and was cheered when he removed his dinner jacket, tugged open his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. “All right, gang,” he chortled, “we’re moving along very well, forging ahead. We are now, if my figuring is correct”—he raised his fist like a cheerleader—“over the one-hundred-thousand-dollar mark!”
The crowd applauded as though Abe Ribicoff had just been announced the President-elect of the U.S.A.
The Pledge Taker spat imaginary spit into his palms, rubbed them together, and exhorted the crowd. “So let’s keep the ball rolling. And I think that what we need now is a really big pledge. No more penny-ante, but really big.” He went into his world-famous impression of Ed Sullivan. “A really big.” And the guests howled with laughter because it sounded more like Sam Levinson. Thus encouraged, the Pledge Taker plowed on. “So far our biggest single pledge is seventy-five hundred dollars. Can’t we do better than that? Not to diminish Sam Greenberg’s seventy-five-hundred-dollar pledge, but are we gonna let it stop there?” He saw a hand shoot up in the back. “Ah! Back there! Table Number Nine! Yes? And let’s really, really hear it!”
Luther stood up magnanimously, nodding to all and beaming an irresistible smile to the people at his table. For the truth was, when Luther smiled, the world was his. The world and all within it were his, forever, and further, and even longer, and double that. He faced the Pledge Taker and called out his pledge in a homey Midwestern manner, confidently but ingratiatingly. “Ten thousand dollars from Mr. and Mrs. Jack Bergman.”
There followed a ten-minute round of screaming applause, during which time Tiger stood and kissed Luther as though he had won an Academy Award. Others at Table No. Nine rose and congratulated him, for he was one of theirs, and theirs was now the premier table at the banquet. To hell with Sam Greenberg and Table No. Five! This was Jack Bergman and Table No. Nine! So hooray!
As for Mossberg Hats, he turned to his wife, and suppressing the rising lump in his throat and with tears forming in his eyes, he said of his old friend from Rivington Street, “From the grave he still gives.”
And Mrs. Mossberg said, “Oh, tsk-tsk-tsk,” only with more feeling than she had ever endowed the words with before.
It was a monumental moment all the way around. And the cheering and applause sustained until the orchestra leader received an invisible directive from some higher source to play, as only he could, a throbbing mambo.
Even as they danced their version of the mambo, and then the cha-cha, and then the merengue, Luther and Tiger could not avoid the congratulatory smiles, comments, and handclasps of other dancers. They were the undeniable hits of the evening, and they reveled in every moment of it, as who wouldn’t? And they were pleased to the eyeballs that they had proved so helpful in forwarding so worthy a cause.
But back at the immortalized Table No. Nine, Mr. and Mrs. Mossberg were standing and chatting heatedly with another couple that had just arrived—Mr. and Mrs. Jack Bergman, a decent enough pair whose car had blown a tire coming down the West Side Highway, causing them to be so dreadfully late at so vital an occasion.
Jack Bergman, upon hearing of his large pledge, bellowed, “What are you talking about, Mossberg? What ten-thousand-dollar pledge? With the state my business is in, I couldn’t pledge a bum check.”
Mossberg was no longer sure of anything. “But your nephew—he pledged it in your name.”
“My nephew can’t even spell my name. Besides, he’s in Chicago.”
“This is your nephew from St. Louis.”
“I have no nephew in St. Louis. Say, what is this?” Then he looked down at the used utensils and dirty dishes, and he picked up the place cards with his and his wife’s name clearly on them, and he looked at the placard with the big number nine on it. “This is Table Number Nine, no? And my card says Number Nine, right? So what’s going on around here?”
The citizens of Table No. Nine, though disappointed that their fame was swiftly flying, began to put two and two together and got fraud. Mossberg moved closer to Bergman. “Jack, something fishy is going on here.”
Bergman put it more plainly. “You bet your ass it is. I paid five hundred dollars for these plates, and all that’s left on them is a design.” He looked at his wife, who, like Mrs. Mossberg, was beginning to nod her head in the Orthodox incantation “Tsk-tsk-tsk.”
Mossberg spoke again, gradually arriving at an irrefutable conclusion. “Jack, you don’t have a nephew from St. Louis named Seymour Fleischman, do you?”
“The only man I know from St. Louis is Stan Musial. And unless he changed his name, he’s no Seymour Fleischman.”
“Nor does he have a wife named Shelda, does he?”
“Stan Musial?”
“Shelda Fleischman.”
“Who?”
“Your nephew Seymour.”
“I have no nephew Seymour! Mossberg, if this is your idea of a hilarious joke—”
Mossberg said no more. He just squinted his eyes and swiveled them in a slow traverse of the dance floor, like a U-boat commander with forward tubes ready. Mrs. Mossberg stood beside him, looking at Mrs. Bergman. Together the two matrons exchanged the clucking sounds of the Brazilian Tsk-Tsk Bird.
Luther and Tiger were returning to Table No. Nine when they saw the ominous tableau taking place between the Mossbergs and the Bergmans. Luther deftly executed a neat right-angle turn, and leading Tiger, he merengued across the dance floor to Exit No. Four. And even as they accelerated their terpsichore so that they more nearly resembled Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in a rousing finale, they were patt
ed on their backs by guests who envisioned them as some kind of dancing Jewish millionaires, definitely a new breed, a product of the seventies. Tiger kept dancing, her eye on the exit. Luther did likewise, but also managed to smile and accept the crowd’s plaudits. He even contributed a few encouraging remarks of his own. “Shalom aleichem…Keep ’em flying…Fuck Egypt.”
It was touch and go. Luther and Tiger evaded the fast-closing Mossberg-Bergman combine, who were by then exhorting the guests with: “Stop them! Stop, thief! Stop those Fleischmans!”
Astaire and Rogers segued into the anchor leg of the Olympic 440. They made it to the exit, reaching eventual freedom but by devious means—that is, climbing the fire stairs two flights, then descending to earth via the service elevator some forty-five minutes later. By default, Sam Greenberg’s pledge held up as the highest of the evening.
3
Luther’s pad was large and white and pleasant, with high ceilings and beams and trimmings; it was in an old but well-kept building. The furniture was serviceably spartan, and yet there were a few things—some touches and pieces—that had obviously been selected with affection and set about the apartment with taste. The building was a walk-up brownstone in the East Sixties.
Luther was at his worktable, involved in his hobby, the collection and repair of old toys, most of which were of the Victorian period. The toys barely qualified for the term “antique” because most of them were little more than throwaways: a doll, a tangled marionette, a miniature wrought-iron horse and wagon with a decapitated driver. Still, Luther lavished great attention upon these discarded articles of another time. He was good at it. He could make them sit up, and smile, and look happy and new. It was more than he could do for Tiger.
Tiger was off in another area of the sprawling apartment, uninvolved with anything in particular, but aware. Aware of the weird emptiness to their relationship, the undefined anxiety that always seemed to sweep over the pair of them whenever they were left to themselves with no third party to play off. And often she could hear the voice of Cool Hand Luke: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” They were not good at being alone with each other. And outside of an occasional game of Monopoly, which Luther was gradually cannibalizing by giving away the Take a Chance and Community Chest cards, they seldom even sat opposite each other in the apartment, except at an occasional breakfast.
She glanced over at Luther, who seemed fifty yards away. He looked like a Belgian diamond cutter, hunched over his workbench, performing major surgery on a gem smuggled in from Lisbon. He was almost thirty years old, but he was also seven. He was also a hundred and ninety-three. He was enigmatic, elemental, explosive, unrealistic, and unpredictable. He operated on whim and instinct. He was crafty and could fire a dancing smile without reason and it would melt steel. Yet he always had reasons; she just never knew what they were. He was open, attractive, physical. And selfish, and narrow, and mad. He was Luther. One of a kind. An original. And there’d be no more of him passing by. He was Luther the First, Luther the Last, Luther the Only.
She thought about herself and what she was and why. With proper humility she could still believe that she was intelligent and intuitive. Thoughtful and nonexplosive. Not apt to make quick decisions and less apt to change course. She was vulnerable, very. Yes, and pretty. A little to the thin, and a mite to the minus in the bust, but pretty. And she was easily as bright as Luther. No, damn it, brighter. And she was also in possession of her proper senses. Yet if all that were really true, then why was she without ballast and purpose and direction? Unable to function except as the tail to Luther’s kite? It was a puzzlement compounded by self-deception. It was also painful and a bore.
She looked out the window at the cars going by five floors below. What if she could be in one of them? That one. No, that one. Where would it take her? How many cars would stop and pick her up if she did the Claudette Colbert bit with the skirt raising? One out of four? Five? If she yanked her skirt higher, how many? If she put her skirt so high over her head that she couldn’t see at all—and if she just stood there as a pair of legs—how many people? She had good legs. In proportion to the rest of her body they were long. And willowy. And well shaped. Slender ankles, tapering calves. How many cars would stop at the sight of her bare gams? Perhaps three out of five. Perhaps also a police car.
It was all an absurd train of thought. And yet, in a sense, wasn’t that how she had met Luther? At that absurd party of…what was his name? Pothead Artie. She had been doing her usual bit of sitting in a corner, combing her hair like Rapunzel, when Luther came over and held out his hand and said, “Take my hand.” And she took it. And she left with him, never even having exchanged one word with him. Not knowing, really, whether he sounded like Tiny Tim or Lee Marvin. And she went with him, to his pad, here. And they went to bed as if they’d been doing it forever. And because it was so damned impersonal, she stayed. And that was close to a year ago. And they’d been meandering through life ever since, establishing a life rhythm that few people ever achieved and even fewer were born with. It was safe with Luther. He took care of her. He fed her, and clothed her, and loved her. He’d kill for her. She knew all that, but there was a small clock ticking and growing louder. And she wondered when it would go off and what it would signal. Probably that it was time for her to be taken away and locked up. Then she could sit in a corner in a cell somewhere and comb her hair until it all came out. Hello, Mother. Hi, Dad. You came to see me, how nice. Yes, I’m fine. See my nice hair? See how I comb my nice hair? Isn’t my nice hair pretty? See daughter comb her pretty nice hair.
Luther fixed the wheel on the little wrought-iron wagon, and it rolled again as in days of yore, though the headless rider would never see it. “Ha!” exclaimed Luther. “Ha! I have invented the—what shall I call it? The wheel! Ha!”
Tiger could only smile because it was now the Children’s Hour. She came over to him and stood behind his chair, running her fingers down his shoulders and across as much of his chest as she could span. Then she rested her chin in the thick hair on his head until all the world was a jungle movie. They hadn’t really said a word to each other since escaping the UJA. “Luther? How do you think Jack Bergman feels about pledging all that money?”
Luther squirted oil onto the little iron wheel. “Some men are born to greatness; others have it thrust upon them.”
“He’s some fast runner.”
“We’re faster.”
“Certainly was a fine meal. And you fit in so well. You sure you’re not Jewish?”
“It’s always possible. Maybe my parents lied to me about my circumcision. Maybe it wasn’t an accident.”
She looked over his head and down at the wagon that he was pushing back and forth. “You fixed it.”
“Yes. If I push it, I can get a thousand miles to the gallon.”
“Or if you only drive it downhill.”
“Yeah. That’d do it.”
Her hands were all about him, twin snakes on an oak trunk, and she nibbled at his ears and kissed the nape of his neck and generally sent out the signal that she was at home and was receiving callers.
Luther gave the little wagon a short shove, and it rolled the length of his worktable, where it socked into a fat Raggedy Ann Doll that was still recuperating from a frontal lobotomy. “Officer,” he said, “get the number of that wagon. And fireman, save my child.” Then he stood up; and standing behind him with her hands still clasped about his neck, she was astounded to see her feet come off the floor. She felt like a knapsack. He removed the knapsack, turning her in midair, never letting her toes touch earth, and he kissed her.
It was a sweet kiss, innocent, yet intimate. And it triggered that response in her that she wanted to have triggered. She became more fervent as his arms closed more tightly about her. It was just possible, she thought, that she might never come down. And that would be fine. But the kiss suspiciously transformed into something else, something sinister and unsettling. Still holding her, Luther withdrew
his mouth from hers and looked into her face with widening eyes. She could see the pupils dilating, the eyeballs just this side of spinning. His brow slowly curled into an evil knot. A bizarre grimace took shape upon his face, his lips turning under, baring sharp and threatening teeth.
Tiger turned almost rigid as she watched him go through the horrible metamorphosis. And she gasped when the drool escaped from the corner of his mouth. Then his face swooped slowly down, a lazy vulture, and his mouth clamped tightly on her neck, and she felt the sucking there. She knew that her pulsating jugular was exposed, and she could feel his teeth searching out its dimensions. She knew that she was dying. She could feel the blood rushing through the rising purple vein. Slowly his mouth leeched suckingly harder to her lifeline, and she went limp, her eyes frozen open, staring unblinkingly at the white shimmying ceiling. She felt herself being lowered to the floor. Gently, gently. He let her slide from his arms and from his mouth.
She lay on the floor, supine and seemingly lifeless, her breath totally suspended. He knelt beside her and closely examined the red welt on her neck with a curious, yet professional demeanor. And when he spoke, his voice was tinged with the timbre of dispassionate science. “Odd,” he said, “no signs of violence except for these two almost invisible needlelike punctures. I suspect that what we’re dealing with here is beyond the ken of science.”
Tiger could say nothing. She still stared with uncomprehending eyes. Slowly her breathing returned, in short spastic puffs at first, then gradually in long and liquidy gasps. It took her a bare few moments more to realize that Luther had only been doing a shtik.
Seeing the terror still lingering about her, Luther smiled his usual ingratiating beacon and caressed the fair face and the lovely hair. He hadn’t intended to frighten her to that degree. “Hi,” he said. “I love you.”
A Glimpse of Tiger Page 2
