The Novels of William Goldman

by William Goldman

  The nearest pay phone was just across Kensington Gore, so Scylla forced himself into a casual walk as he approached it, because even though it was 3:45 in the morning, you could never tell who wasn’t asleep, and a running man at night meant trouble, so when there was trouble, you walked.

  He inserted the appropriate coins, dialed the appropriate number, and the first ring was all that was needed. “Removals.”

  “Scylla.”

  “Yes, Scylla.”

  “Two. Between the Albert Memorial and Lancaster Walk.”

  “Injuries?”

  “Hand.”

  “I’ll alert the clinic, Scylla.”

  Click.

  Scylla left the phone booth and waited. He didn’t have to, he could have just gone, but he always liked to be around for possible eventualities.

  Besides, he needed to think. Why had Chen tried to retire him? Someone had hired him—who? Why? For what happened back in the Los Angeles men’s room? Possible, but he really hadn’t done enough for the Arabs to kill him. They could have contacted the Russians easily enough, but the Russians would have tried sending one of their own men, not an Oriental from a country they despised. Scylla’s hand was starting to throb really very badly. He shook his head—whatever was going on, he didn’t know enough yet; insufficient data had been given the machine.

  In seven minutes, a proper-seeming ambulance entered Kensington Gardens. Five minutes after that, the ambulance exited. All very efficient, and, naturally, nothing of any kind would ever reach the papers.

  Scylla found a cab, took it to near the clinic, paid, and got out. He waited for the cab to leave; then he walked to where they would be waiting for him. His hand was worse, and he wanted to run, but running meant trouble, so when there was trouble, you walked.

  Dripping badly, Scylla made his slow way.

  At the clinic, everything was ready for him. They cleansed the wound, prepared a partial anesthetic.

  He told them curtly he was having none of it.

  The doctors assured him there would be pain.

  He assured them he had been there before.

  The doctor began, reluctantly, to repair the non-anesthetized hand. Scylla watched it all, every stitch. And he never made a sound.

  He was Scylla the rock. On his good days, anyway.

  5

  LEVY SAT ALONE IN a corner of the library, working on America in 1875. Not that specific date, actually; specific dates were garbage. His father had written, “For the pedant, dates are deities, worthy of worship, but for the true social historian, they are minutiae only, a shorthand, convenient reminders and no more. You do not ask a Titanic survivor, ‘Let me see now, just exactly when was that?’ You ask him this: ‘What was it like? How did you feel?’ And that is the job of the social historian: to make the past vibrant for the present; to emotionally involve those of us who were not there. And to make us understand.”

  America around 1875, Levy thought, lemmesee, lemmesee. (He had spent the previous hour on England, the one before that coupling Italy and France. Germany he was weak on, relatively, but that was because the Germans bored him so, no humor; it was almost as if back in the beginning He had ordained, “Okay, let’s get this earth going, all blonds to Scandinavia, all dummies to Poland, and get the gigglers out of Germany.”) Hmmm, Levy thought, 1875, 1875. Boss Tweed went to jail in New York City around then, which meant lots of big-city rulers around, Big Power men, to each town its own Dick Daley, and Christian Science began then too, old Mary Eddy and her nut notions, and when was the first Kentucky Derby? Same period, and the first telephone exchange began right almost exactly when Custer got his lumps at the Little Big Horn.

  Good, Levy thought, terrific double image, the first phone exchange and Custer getting blasted at the same time, what a country this was then, what a mother of a place it must have been, Melville over fifty and unknown, Twain around forty and going good, Joe Pulitzer a kid, twenty-five maybe, and Mrs. O’Leary’s cow had only just destroyed Chicago, and think of the inventions flying out of people’s minds: Remington hustling typewriters in the East and Glidden figuring out a barbed-wire maker to open up the West and Thomas Alva with his gramophone and Bissell with his carpet sweeper, what a fantastic time, a country on the make, that’s what we were, the toughest kid on the block, only we didn’t really know it, and besides, we didn’t want to know it, because being the toughest meant responsibility, leadership, and we were too busy hustling and humping to bother with taking over.

  Levy tilted back his chair and gave it a rest for a while. Not bad on America. Superficial, sure, but he wasn’t any nineteenth-century expert, hell, he was just kind of keeping his hand in, he was a modern-times guy if he was anything; still, you had to noodle these other periods around. The main thing was to know the world, every twenty-five years or so, back for a couple hundred years, and if you had that info handy, always there under your belt, then you could figure out the gaps. That was the way his father’s mind had worked. It wasn’t necessary to know it all or anything. Just most and the rest logic took care of. His father had loved logic, Levy too.

  There was a commotion now over at a table to his left; an attractive guy and an attractive girl, punching each other kind of, but you knew they were both more interested in softer contact. Levy watched them. It was really why he did his studying here, rather than in some cubicle in the stacks. He liked watching people.

  Liar.

  He liked watching girls.

  There were a couple of Barnard students that really took the old breath right away. I’m gonna have me one of them some day, Levy told himself. A looker. Please.

  He jerked around then, conscious that Biesenthal was watching him. Biesenthal indicated the pile of books in front of Levy. “Your charade fools no one,” he said. “You were ogling.”

  “Oh, no sir, it may seem that way, but I’m really doing a terrific lot of work.”

  “If you wanted to work, you’d get yourself a cubicle.”

  “I’m desperate to get one but there’s a shortage now, so I’m stuck here,” Levy said.

  “I always studied here,” Biesenthal said. “It was much better for girl-watching.”

  You watched girls? Levy almost said.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Biesenthal said. “I know that look—once I saw a student of mine, and I was in my car, driving along Broadway, and when I stopped at the light he stared at me dumbstruck. I asked him what was wrong, and all he could say was, ‘My God, you can drive.’ We are human, some of us, Levy. Try to let that penetrate. What were you, as you claim, doing a terrific lot of work on?”

  “1875,” Levy said.

  “Neglect not Glidden,” Biesenthal said.

  “Absolutely not, sir.”

  “You haven’t the least notion who Glidden was, admit it.”

  “Barbed wire, are you kidding, very important.” Hey, son of a bitch, you impressed him. Mark it on the calendar when you run home. “What’d’ya think about phones and Custer?”

  Biesenthal looked at him. “Custard, Levy? Your words are all running together.”

  “No—no, George Armstrong Custer, the last-stand idiot—the first phone exchange was going on when he got creamed, isn’t that a good image, isn’t that a terrific image for America, I think it’s terrific.”

  “As your father used to tell me, ‘Leave images for the poets.’ ” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost seven, I’m due home for dinner, walk me, Levy.” He crooked his finger. “Don’t bother bringing your debris. It’s just down to Riverside Drive.”

  Levy followed Biesenthal out of the large study room. He must not think I’m a complete fool, Levy decided. I bet he hasn’t asked the Riordan twins to walk him home. “I would invite you for supper, Levy,” Biesenthal began as they left the library. “Except that my wife—a genuine beauty in her time, Levy, and a wonderful mother for our children—is, alas, a totally dreadful cook; not only is the food mediocre, there’s never enough of it. Need I add
that we don’t entertain a great deal at home.” They moved on out of the campus toward Broadway and 116th. There was a book and poster shop near the corner, in the window Che and Bette Midler and JFK side by side. “Where were you when he died?” from Biesenthal.

  Levy followed him across the street. “Kennedy? I was in the high-school lunch room, and somebody—he was a football player; dumb? not to be believed—and he said, ‘Kennedy’s been shot,’ and together me and this other kid said, ‘What’s the punch line?’ and we laughed at both of us coming out with it at once until we saw this stupid guy’s face and we knew there wasn’t any.”

  “I meant your father,” Biesenthal said.

  “I was kind of around, I guess,” Levy said.

  They slowed the pace as they began the sharp decline toward Riverside. “I’ve wanted you to know something,” Biesenthal began. “No reason, I just did, I’m telling you for my good, understand that.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m going to tell you a great secret, Levy—this could destroy my career, shatter it overnight if it became common knowledge—if I were a closet queen and the Times made it a banner headline, it would be nothing compared to what I am about to let drop now, so pay attention: I’m a baseball fanatic, Levy. Not the Mets or the Dodgers or Aaron or Mays—I love it all. I covet box scores. I still, approaching senility, sneak into the bathroom Sunday morning with the sports section and lock the door, pretending to bathe while I’m actually memorizing batting averages. All right—use your wondrous brain, Levy. For a man with my fetish, what is the most important single annual event in the universe, greater even than the Miss America Pageant?”

  “The Series?”

  “Correct. The World Series. And for a man in my position, nothing could be worse, because there are occasions, many of them, when I am forced to teach during a Series game. Do you know what I do when this happens?”

  “No sir.”

  “I have had a secretary for over thirty years, and she is brilliant. I have given her the finest portable radio, and after each inning, when I am in class, I have trained her to put a most distraught expression on her face, as if the ultimate cataclysm has just occurred, and she comes into class and says, ‘May I speak to you a moment, Professor Biesenthal?’ and I say, testily, ‘What is it, what is it, can’t you see I’m busy?’ and she takes me aside and while I nod with a most serious mien, she whispers, ‘Oakland’s gone ahead two to one in the sixth, Seaver’s still in for the Mets but he may be tiring, they’ve got McGraw warming up.’ I hesitate, as if undecided as to the proper action, then return to my students, all of whom feel honored that I have kept my time with them sacrosanct, no matter how terribly important the outside world’s intrusions might be.”

  They started up Riverside Drive, heading toward 118th. “Your father died in March—”

  “The thirtieth—”

  “—and I was in class, and in she came, my wondrous secretary, even fifteen years ago she was that, and I’ll never forget that same cataclysmic look on her face, and I remember thinking, ‘It can’t be the Series already, they haven’t even started the season yet,’ and then I thought, but what else can it be, what can be so terrible she interrupts with that face, and I went to her not knowing if I was indeed senile and I’d lost half a year, and fifteen years ago it was Milwaukee with Burdette and Aaron against the Yankees with Mantle and Ford, and I was getting all the names straight, trying to figure what was happening, but she didn’t use a name, she said, ‘He’s dead,’ and then she left the room.

  “I was so relieved—I hadn’t gone senile—I remember actually smiling, and I went back and sat down with the students, and then it must have hit me, because I said, ‘You must all leave. You must all go now.’ They left, and an hour or so later my secretary came in with my coat and hat, and I asked how, and she said cerebral hemorrhage. ‘Good,’ I said, ‘good, I hope he went quickly, I hope he didn’t suffer,’ even though I knew how dreadfully he did suffer, and I also suspected it wasn’t any cerebral hemorrhage.”

  “That was just a first attempt to keep it quiet. Pretty feeble. It was in the papers the next morning that he blew his head off.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In the house, down the hall. I was ten, and I’d gotten a terrific grade on a paper he’d helped me with—sometimes he was sober enough to kind of teach me. Some paper, it was this drippy page I’d written on wool, and he knew everything, I don’t have to tell you that, and I thought I should let him know how well we’d done, but then I thought if I did that, it might be tough sledding, getting through supper with nothing to talk about, so I decided to save it, and then the shots came, and I remember standing in the doorway to his room, and he was out of sight from me on the floor behind a bed, but the blood wasn’t, there was like a little river of it, a stream, kind of, and I remember thinking, ‘Thank God it wasn’t me spilled the paint,’ and then I saw how pretty it was, how it helped the room, made it more colorful and everything. I don’t know how long I stood there, but finally I quit the crapping around and walked to the phone and called the cops, and when they came I asked for the gun, and they said, no, it was evidence, and I said, okay, but I want the gun when you’re done with it, and they said, we can’t give a gun to minors, but I’m a very persistent fella sometimes, and you better believe I’ve got that gun now. My brother got it for me when the cops were done with it—he was twenty—and when I was legal I practiced with it and practiced with it. I’m dead with it, really I am.”

  They stopped in front of a fancy building with a doorman. Biesenthal waved him away. They stood alone on the sidewalk. “Why?”

  “I don’t know—I kept hoping McCarthy would be found alive somewhere. Then I just thought, see, I’m not all that strong physically, I’m no heavyweight contender, and I thought wouldn’t it be terrific to nail some bad guys before I was done. Now I just keep it because it’s mine, because it was Dad’s, I don’t know why I keep it. Good night, Professor Biesenthal.” Levy started away.

  “Tom?”

  My God, he called me Tom. Levy turned. “Sir?”

  “Why didn’t you answer the Locksley Hall Sixty Years After quote? It was so obvious from your face you wanted to.”

  “Scared.”

  Biesenthal nodded. “I do frighten people, I’ve worked very hard for the effect. My youngest daughter calls me Ebenezer ...” His voice trailed off.

  Levy looked at Biesenthal. He’s embarrassed over something, Levy thought; he’s stuck.

  Then the words came in a burst: “I wept when he died, I wanted you to know that.”

  “It wasn’t a good day for any of us,” Levy said.

  6

  SCYLLA STOOD AT THE entrance to the Castle and stared down at Princes Street. It was growing dark quickly, but Princes Street remained the most beautiful thoroughfare imaginable; nothing else in Edinburgh compared with it, nothing else in Scotland, nor Britain nor Europe nor this or any other world. It was a gift from the Almighty, as if someone had taken all the finest shops on Fifth Avenue and set them across from Central Park but then, instead of having it just be any old greenery, had made a great hill hundreds of feet high, topped off by a mighty gingerbread castle. If you had to pick a street to die on, you couldn’t beat Princes.

  Stop thinking about dying.

  But he couldn’t help it. He stood in the chill air watching the lights in the lovely stores, Forsyth’s and Lilywhite’s, mainly pondering mortality, or, rather, the lack of it. His right hand throbbed, the stitches on fire. It was his own fault; he was closing his fists too frequently, rubbing his hands too often.

  Just because Robertson was late.

  If it had been anyone else, no cause for worry. But Robertson was legendary for his promptness. If you were in Beverly Hills and he called from Beirut saying, “Meet me Tuesday on Mount Everest, the north wall, halfway up, two thirty,” well, you had better have one hell of an excuse if you got there at twenty of three.

  Look on the bright sid
e—it might just mean that his car got held up in traffic or a tire went flat. Logical, except Scylla could see the traffic on Princes, and it was moving smoothly, and more than that, if Robertson had gotten a flat, he wasn’t the type to fix it—he’d just pull to the curb, hail a taxi, and arrive, as always, precisely when he said he would.

  There was no bright side.

  Robertson was late because he was dead. The question was, did he fall or was he pushed? God knows, with his history of heart disease, he could have toppled over anytime. Not only was he overweight, he smoked heavily and drank too much and ate only rich foods, so, logically, a stroke made sense.

  But strange things had been happening, most recently the business with Chen, so it was possible Robertson had died violently. Scylla hoped not. Even though theirs was strictly a business relationship and at least in part illicit, having nothing to do with Division and Scylla’s regular work, he still hoped that Robertson had gone in his sleep, shortly after finishing his favorite meal of a double order of smoked salmon and an underdone entrecôte steak on a plate with almost any vegetable, just so it was smothered in hollandaise, and an extra large portion of profiterole for dessert.

  Scylla hesitated. Robertson owed him money from their prior transaction, perhaps twenty thousand dollars, but Scylla knew he had been in Edinburgh too long already, he ought to get the hell out and on to Paris; these extra side trips up from London had to be quick, so Division wouldn’t get particularly interested.