by Mark Harris
“Or her,” she said.
“Possibly,” he said. “From internal evidence it sounded like somebody that knew how things were arranged at the paper, but you can’t tell.”
“Somebody who works at the Chronicle possibly,” she said. “I’m beginning to think I’d like to see the complete text. Do you have the original?”
“I’ve got it home,” he said. “It really changed my life, I believe, and when something changes your life you save the original. It certainly saved my job. I’m going to take it and have it framed one of these days and hang it on the wall like a picture.”
“You or your supervisor?” she inquired.
“Well,” he said, “frankly, me.”
“I suspected so,” said Lala. “You were telling about yourself in the guise of telling about someone else.”
“It’s a defense mechanism,” he said.
“I do it myself sometimes, so I guess it’s all right,” she said.
“I’ll bring it and show it to you,” he said.
“Just drop it in the mail,” she replied.
“I’m going out that way anyway to a framing place on Market Street. Manasek. They’re in the next block from the Finnish Baths. They do excellent work and very artistically.”
“But you don’t dare come here,” she said.
“I can’t go on like this,” said James, his friendliness and his cordiality instantly vanishing. “I gave you all this time on the telephone, don’t you think the next step is a logical meeting face to face? This is a house of business. This is a company telephone. Thank you for phoning the Chronicle.”
“My mother is trying to get me anyhow,” said Lala.
“You expressed an interest in the text of the letter, madam. I’d rather show it to you than mail it.”
“Mail it,” she said.
“It’s too bad we don’t have Vista-Phone 150,” he said. “Then I could show it to you over the phone.”
“They’ll have it soon,” said Lala.
“Then you can see whom you’re talking to,” he said.
“It could be an awful disappointment,” she said, remembering from her girlhood the problem of sounding one way on the telephone and being another way in actuality — “in the flesh,” you might say — back in those dead (but not forgotten) days when she had been a fat girl with a beautiful voice, and on the telephone charged boys with the most intense desire to see her, who, when they came at last and saw her, found her to be a serious disappointment — not the fattest of the fat; not gross; not obese; but much too fat nevertheless, no “getting around it” (so to speak), no disguising it; and there was always that awful moment when disappointment made itself evident upon the faces of hopeful boys who only the night before clutched their pillows, calling them “Lala.”
Then along came Harold Ferne, for whom all this beef was a welcome eyeful — it could have been more, more, more, more for all of Harold; he loved weight, he loved things you could really smash up against. Why, for God’s sake, at twenty she was already as big and as fat as her mother, whereas a lot of girls didn’t even begin to pack on the poundage until they were thirty-five or forty.
“Of course it could,” said James, “that’s why this Vista-Phone 150 is going to prevent a great many false alarms, if you know what I mean. Did you ever see one in action? I saw a demonstration a couple months ago.”
“My mother is probably calling,” said Lala, rippling divinely, she couldn’t go on. “I’ve got so much to do. No sense torturing myself. I’ve got to pick up my husband’s bowling shoes.”
“My other lines are all ringing anyhow,” said James.
These simple lies they told! Somehow they needed to do so. Such are the ways of love. Why did Lala insist that her mother was calling, when in fact her mother’s schedule was erratic on Tuesday? Maybe your husband ran off with your dog. Maybe she ought to ignore her mother once in a while, just once in a while be gone or let the telephone ring and ring, and cry to the madly ringing instrument, “Ring on, mother, I’ll not answer you today.” Oh, but you can imagine how she’d hear from her mother next time: “Lala, I know you were there because you couldn’t have been anywhere else. . . .”
“Couldn’t have been anywhere else? Why couldn’t I have been anywhere else? I’m widely wanted, mother. I’m not fat any more.”
“You must have heard it ring. Why didn’t you answer it, Lala? What were you doing, may I ask?”
“Masturbating,” said Lala in her daydream. Oh, wouldn’t that be a little report for mother! Wouldn’t that stop mother from asking so damn many questions once in a while!
“Are you big on bowling?” James Berberick asked.
“I’d like to see a demonstration,” she said. This Vista-Phone 150 gave her ideas. If you had one in your bathtub you could really expose yourself in a big way. She had a kind of yearning for that. You could dial and dial and dial and if a woman answered hang up, but if a man answered, and if he was reasonably good-looking, you could just lie there and expose yourself by Vista-Phone 150. Don’t make the bath too sudsy. The trouble was, she never carried out such things. It was idealistic only. She was an awful idealist, she supposed, but she never had the courage of her convictions. True, this morning she directed a mild obscenity to the Chronicle operator, but that was as far as Lala had ever gone in the way of social action. You know, with Vista-Phone 150 they would need to add to the material up front in the telephone book:
Annoyance Calls. The laws of the State provide that whoever telephones another person and addresses to or about such other person any lewd, lascivious, or indecent words or language, or whoever telephones another person repeatedly for the purpose of exposing her body in any lewd, lascivious, indecent, and dirty manner such as showing off her breasts into the telephone or turning around and exposing her ass to the telephone shall be fined in any sum not exceeding $500, to which may be added imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months. . . .
Can’t you see Harold paying out that five hundred dollars? “You skinny bitch, you’re nuts,” he’d say, for he thought you should avoid being caught at nutty things. “You’re a mother of two little girls for Christ’s sake,” he’d say. “Do you expect them to grow up in that kind of illegal atmosphere?”
“Are you there?” James Berberick asked.
“You better take your other lines,” she said.
“It’s O.K., my assistants will take them,” he said, although he had no other lines, precisely. All lines were his, but none was his own. In Classified all ad-takers took all lines as the calls came in, or ran to the counter when the faces of customers appeared there — mythical lines, mythical assistants, mythical supervisor.
“I guess I wouldn’t mind Vista-Phone,” said Lala.
“You can dim it down if you want to,” said James, “in case for example you’re not quite presentable and don’t want to be seen.”
“It could be,” she said.
“I’ll bring you that letter,” he said.
“Mail it,” said Lala, “don’t bring it.”
“I’ll bring it or send it,” he said.
“All right,” she said.
“Your ad’s in,” he said, for even as they talked he completed the order form and dropped it in the box, and saw the boy clear the box, and dropped the first carbon copy into the proper box for first carbon copies, and James himself retained the second carbon copy, which bore Mrs. Ferne’s name, address, and telephone number, rolling it loosely into the shape of a tube and placing it carelessly in the breast pocket of his shirt, somewhat precariously, as a matter of fact, as if he were unconcerned whether it flew from his pocket and was lost. Let Fate decide, he felt.
Six
No sooner had Lala Ferne and James Berberick hung up than Brown awoke without opening his eyes, but his ears were open and he could hear silence. No dog barked across
the street. That was how things should be. Everything was blissful so long as Brown kept his eyes closed.
When he opened them, however, he saw upon the floor, where Luella had dropped it, an old copy of Life magazine whose cover bore a photograph of Walter Cronkite and the legend “A Visit With a Nice Guy.” Cronkite in color was steering some sort of boat with his hairy arms. Also visible was one hairy leg. How was he “nice”? He was the messenger of bad news. Worse than that, Brown felt, Cronkite was neutral toward the bad news he brought. How could moral indifference be nice? If Cronkite were better than morally indifferent then let him weep on national television at prime time, not for Junie’s death alone, but for all boys whose deaths he so calmly reported, reading the figures from a piece of paper. Brown closed his eyes again.
The trouble was, however, he could still hear dogs barking. True, they were no longer virtually beneath his window, as Paprika Ferne had been — they were at a distance; but they were real, and they were barking, and Brown was offended in principle. Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town. Those verses, too, with pickled peppers, Brown read with Junie in this very bed, and now he understood them at last: dogs barked against beggars, protecting the private property of the citizens, protecting wives and children, too, Brown supposed, opening his eyes to see Cronkite still there on the floor, still smiling, still steering, still hairy, and above his left ear a second legend, “How the U.S. Army spies on citizens.” Brown might read that, he thought, skipping Cronkite. It was a boat of some sort, yes, a little craft, a yacht, a sailboat, and behind him was a lady wearing sunglasses and staring off into another direction. No doubt the editor of Life thought Cronkite was a nice guy because he was so much like himself, you know. They were making a big show of it all, one grand entertainment, filling loose moments and blank pages between commercial announcements and full-page advertisements.
Luella’s old Life, her morning Chronicle, her coffee, her nightgown, her slippers — it was a trail of pure Luella across the room. She’d had the television on low, he could tell, for the set was warm — she liked to watch the gentleman exercise — and Brown loved the smell of her, the warmth of her. She’d left a little early to vote. He’d vote, too, and cancel hers, innocent thing she was, deceived by a handshake: McGinley shook her hand and called her “my pretty lady.” But although Brown’s eyes and ears were open, he had not yet moved his body. His eyes gazed at his own favorite headline, cut from the Chronicle several years ago, framed by Manasek on Market Street, and hung upon the wall between the windows:
“With Relish”
Boy Eats 55 Hamburgers in Contest
Brown had written thousands and thousands of headlines, but he recalled only a few. Such was his life, down the drain mostly, all his little skill poured into headlines thrown out with the trash the next day. Yet he had been the outstanding writer at Faith Calvary Central.
Yes, he must vote. He stirred his body a little. A vote against McGinley is a vote for the preservation of the language of the Constitution in the order it was written by the Founding Fathers, without scrambling or distortion. Brown thought he might branch out from Paprika Ferne across the street to all dogs within earshot, producing a perfect silence by kidnapping all dogs, as he had kidnapped Paprika in the dead of last night. That was no dream. It was real. And now, by the light of this day, Brown was alarmed by his having taken such a bold action. In a single night he had boldly acted twice — once telephoning a bomb scare from McGinley headquarters, and then kidnapping Paprika. Was he going too far in these matters? Were these the actions of a man with “a sophisticated moral code”? So Junie had described him to Officer Phelps. Little wonder that Officer Phelps would hardly suspect Brown of telephoning a bomb scare! Brown needed to get hold of himself, he felt. Things were going too far. He was losing control, perhaps. If he weren’t careful things would erupt, for by the commission of acts however harmless, or even by the private invisible commission of thoughts themselves, vibrations emanate and become suggestions. Someone should stop him. Lock up the Suggestion Box. He remembered Heirens in Chicago years ago killing girls and stuffing them down sewers and going about scrawling on walls and mirrors, “Stop me.” It was a feast for the newspapers. Oh, that hairy Cronkite leg! No doubt the other was just as hairy. Hairy legs, hairy arms, hairy mustache, the man was nothing but a bundle of hair.
The watch upon Cronkite’s wrist appeared to say eleven thirty, but here where Brown lay it was luckily earlier and he was rising, his head now for the first time this day clear of his pillow, but his consciousness already populated by crowds and swarms and hordes of people and dogs moving in upon him, challenging his love and his temper, occupying his mind. He was never alone. Luella, Cronkite, Cronkite’s lady, Junie, boys at war, Paprika, dogs at a distance, McGinley, Officer Phelps, Manasek, hamburgers, the Founding Fathers, the mad boy Heirens — all had invaded him, moved in upon him. He was never free of irritation, and if the truth be known he couldn’t blame it on the dog across the street, either, because — notice! observe! Brown tried to be honest with himself! — no barking was occurring now, and yet Brown was filled to his customary level of irritation without yet having set his foot upon the floor. Unfair to dogs, he thought, for Paprika was gone, as he could see, setting foot upon the floor at last and walking to the window and raising the shade and observing across the street, at Paprika’s gate, Mrs. Ferne and her stout mother and a policeman in uniform whom Brown did not yet recognize as Officer Phelps.
They were examining Paprika’s gate. How could Paprika possibly have escaped unless someone had come and let him out? He couldn’t have opened the gate himself. Not dumb Paprika. Upon that fact Lala Ferne and her mother were agreed, and Officer Phelps, too, upon their authority. “You know the dog better than I do,” he said. He hadn’t come upon that errand at all, but upon another — to call upon Luella, as it happens — but he had been attracted to the present investigation by the sight of Lala in her pink robe wandering up Yukon Street calling for Paprika. One door of his police car hung open.
Since one of the doors of Iris McCoy’s chocolate Fleetwood Cadillac also hung open an impression of emergency existed, although Brown knew from his window that the emergency was past, that the dog was gone, and that all anyone now could do, with or without the aid of the police, was to discover where. He felt himself to be on the side of the seekers. To them his heart went out against his own crime. He wished for the safe return of the dog, almost as if, nine hours before, he had not willed the dog’s absolute extinction. His having spirited Paprika to Mount Davidson had dissipated Brown’s anger, and he now wished to retrieve Paprika, especially for the sake of the Fernes’ children.
As one, Lala, her mother, and Officer Phelps turned their attention from Paprika’s gate to Brown’s house, for Officer Phelps had asked, “Have you spoken to any of your neighbors? Have you spoken to my old friends the Browns?” Phelps had gone sleepless half last night, hearing over and over the simplest exchange between Luella and himself. “May I give you a small kiss?” he repeatedly asked, and she repeatedly replied, “I’d like that,” and he reviewed, too, in his sleeplessness, his last conversation with Junie, the two of them leaning on their elbows on the table at Station G.
Brown, at the window, withdrew himself without haste from their view. Whether they had noticed him he could not know, but he acted upon the probability that they had, rapidly dressing, and descending to the street in the spirit of normal curiosity. He crossed Yukon to join them. He had dressed casually, clean white shirt but no tie. He could feel that he had tied his shoes insecurely. He had not shaved. He carried Life rolled, and Luella’s tube of money. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon again,” he said to Officer Phelps.
“I was on my way to see you,” the young officer said.
“Our dog is gone,” said Lala.
“I’m Mrs. Ferne’s mother,” said Iris McCoy, who pronounced the name Fer-nay, as if it were a Frenc
hman, not a plant.
“I’m awfully pleased to meet you,” said Brown. “I’m sorry we haven’t become as acquainted with your daughter as we should be.”
“Did you see anybody let their dog out?” Officer Phelps inquired.
“You’ll have to pardon me for not shaving,” said Brown to the ladies. “I sleep late some days. I just got up. I’m a day sleeper.”
Day sleeper! Could Lala believe her ears? Did he say “day sleeper”? She was aroused. She had once received a distressing anonymous letter signed “Day Sleeper,” and she intended now to keep her ears wide open. “Such as somebody opening this gate?” she asked, offering a footnote to Officer Phelps’s question.
“I have been sleeping,” Brown said. “I wish I saw something helpful. If I were a dog where would I go? I’m positive he’ll come back.”
“This is a nice quiet street,” said Officer Phelps.
“That’s why they took him away,” said Lala. “I saw your wife in the voting garage.”
“Doing her civic duty,” said Brown.
Mrs. McCoy was a large, broad woman. Wide might be the word, Brown thought. Inquiry widens. Headlines writers often stooped to puns.
Inquiry Widens
Broad Search Begins
For Missing Paprika
But her fat face was pleasing, too, with shining cheeks and bright blue eyes. Brown could see Lala’s petite face in her mother’s. Mrs. McCoy was enormous behind. Brown couldn’t help noticing. How did such a person sit on the toilet? Perhaps toilets are larger than they appear.
“Did he bark a lot?” asked Officer Phelps.
“He barked all the time,” said Brown, “that’s probably why somebody took him away.”
“Don’t you work at the Chronicle?” Lala asked. “I just put an ad in.”
“For the dog?” Brown asked.
“That’s really about all you can do,” said Officer Phelps, “unless there was a rash of it throughout the neighborhood, a whole series of episodes, then we could be sure somebody was up to something. But in this case it looks like an isolated case, if you know what I mean. I believe Mr. Brown is correct: somebody’s objecting to the barking; somebody’s trying to tell us something.”
