I tried to think of something to say. I couldn’t. Neither could any of the others. I had a feeling that we were all trapped in a boiler that was slowly filling, but, as the encircling waters rose, nobody had the energy to get up and make an effort to save us. Finally, Jack stood up.
“I hate to run,” he said, “but I don’t want to start off with these boys by getting a bad mark for tardiness. Goodbye, Aunt Lillian, Uncle Seb. It was great seeing you. Mom, Pops, don’t wait up for me. I don’t know how long these things last, and there are probably a few guys ahead of me, so I may be late getting back.” He grinned and waved. “Come Donner, come Blitzen,” he said, “and to all a good night.”
He was out in the hall when it happened. Sebastian Roon jumped up.
“Wait, Jack!” he called as he ran out into the hall. “I’m coming with you.”
It was all over, including the slam of the front door, before I began to react.
I had been debating with myself whether or not I should offer to accompany Jack. “Pops,” he had said in the bedroom, “I want to win this on my own.”
I could feel the stirrings of a jealousy that I knew was unreasonable but was nevertheless intensely real. I looked at the girls. They obviously knew what was going through my mind. Lillian broke the tension with a laugh.
“It’s like the day after Walda Wexler Wait for Willie Wishingrad: Urgent!” she said.
“What are you talking about?” Elizabeth Ann said.
“That time back in nineteen thirty-one when we all had spaghetti at The Family Tricino and we all decided we were going to get a raise for Benny out of that old skinflint Ira Bern so Benny could go to law school. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that.”
“Of course not,” Elizabeth Ann said. “But what has that got to do with what just happened here?”
“Boy,” Lillian said, “you used to be quicker on the uptake when we were in that sketching class at the Y.W.C.A. It has this to do with it. When we had the whole thing worked out, and it came time for Benny to spring it, don’t you remember how Seb looked at Benny and then shook his head and said to me and to you Benjamin will never make it on his own?”
Elizabeth Ann’s face cleared. “My God, yes, now I remember,” she said. “And Seb turned back to Benjamin and said: ‘I’m coming with you.’”
I, too, remembered.
15
THE DAY AFTER HE said it, Seb met me in the lobby of 224 West 34th Street a few minutes after twelve, when I came down for lunch. We went across the street to Bickford’s for a sandwich and a final rehearsal.
“Right,” Seb said when we had finished both. “Everything looks tickety-boo. No, remember. Let me do all the talking.”
Even then, when I did not know him as well as I do now, I sensed that this was a pretty silly injunction. Sebastian Roon always did all the talking.
“Don’t worry about any interference from me,” I said. “Today I’m your audience.”
“Let’s go, then,” he said.
We crossed back to 224, and went up to the Maurice Saltzman & Company offices. Miss Bienstock peered out at us with her perplexed little frown as we passed the small window over the switchboard. I was sure she recognized Seb, but he had told me not to pause for anything so I waved to her and led Seb quickly across the reception room, into the corridor, and knocked on Mr. Bern’s door.
“Come in,” he called
He sounded a bit choked, but I knew the reason. When I opened the door Ira Bern, behind his desk, was finishing the last piece of pickle that had come with the hot pastrami sandwich I had brought for him from Lou G. Siegel just before I went down for my own lunch.
“Mr. Bern,” I said. “Look who I just ran into out in the reception room.”
Elizabeth Ann, who had written everything else, had also written this opening line for me. It was also my closing line. Sebastian Roon stepped forward with a smile and an outstretched hand.
“Mr. Bern!” he said. “What a great pleasure it is to see you again.”
“Likewise,” said Mr. Bern. He put out his hand to meet Seb’s, then snatched it back. “No, wait,” Mr. Bern said. “I got pickle juice all over me.” He snatched up a paper napkin, dried his hand, then thrust it out again. “So, Mr. Roon, how is the world treating you?”
“Superbly,” said Seb. “I trust the same is true of you, Mr. Bern.”
“I have no complaints,” Ira Bern said. “Firms are going bankrupt all day long, and we get our share of the audits, not to mention our list of clients, which is solid.”
“Could you make room in your solid list for another one?” Seb said.
Mr. Bern’s little mustache twitched. This always happened if he tried to smile or speak too soon after he had finished a pastrami sandwich. He tried to do it without revealing his teeth, which were still stuck full of bits of meat.
“If it’s the right person,” Mr. Bern said, “I can always make room, and by me, Mr. Roon, for you there is always room, because by me the nephew of my old friend I. G. Roon is always the right person.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Seb said. “You see, since the death of my uncle and the bankruptcy of all his enterprises, I’ve been hunting about for something else, and on my recent visit to England I found it.”
“Oh, so that’s where you were,” Mr. Bern said. “I wondered what happened to you.”
“There are these chaps I’d known at school,” Seb said. “Their families are filthy rich, and one in particular staggeringly so. The family owns a chain of theaters throughout England.”
“Theaters?” Mr. Bern said.
He didn’t seem to be able to say more, and I knew why. Behind his tightly closed lips Mr. Bern was with his tongue working loose the last bits of pastrami from between his teeth.
“Quite,” Seb said. “I told them I was interested in helping them extend their operations to America, and asked them to provide the financial backing for an exploratory foray.”
“A what?” Mr. Bern said.
“A probing expedition,” Seb said. “They agreed to put up the money for me to come back here to America and try to find theaters they can add to their chain. I’ve been working at it for some time, and I’ve at last found one that looks like a promising start. My reason for coming to you, Mr. Bern, is that I need an accountant to guide me, and of course I thought of you at once.”
“Taking that from where it comes,” Ira Bern said, “I consider that a big compliment, Mr. Roon.”
“Please call me Sebastian,” Seb said. “All my friends do, and since this may grow into a rather large account, which could lead to your taking over the work of the British chain as well, I want to think of you as my friend.”
“You must, Sebastian, you must,” Ira Bern said. “It’s a very nice name, and you, you must please call me Ira.”
“It will be a privilege,” Seb said. “I have always been fiercely partial to Ira.”
“I only wish my mother was alive to hear that,” Ira Bern said. “My father wanted to call me Irving, but my mother said no. Ira or nothing.”
“Your mother was right,” Seb said. “Have I intruded on you at a bad moment, Ira?”
“Sebastian,” Ira Bern said. “How could a visit from you be an intrusion or even a bad moment?”
“My word, Ira, you are a gracious man,” Seb said. “Indeed you are.”
“I came from East Fifth Street,” Ira Bern said. “The way Benny, here, he comes from East Fourth Street. One thing we East Side boys are, we’re gracious. Right, Benny?”
I smirked. Elizabeth Ann had not written in a line for me to cover this.
“My reason, Ira, for asking if I’d popped in at a bad moment for you,” Seb said, “I wondered if you could come downtown with me right now to examine this property?”
“Could I come downtown with you right now,” Ira Bern repeated slowly. He gave it a moment of thought, and then that look came into his eyes. The look of the firmly decisive executive. He snatched up the phone. Into it he r
apped out, “Miss Bienstock, I’m going downtown.”
He slammed down the receiver and smiled. When they were not speckled with bits of Lou G. Siegel pastrami, Ira Bern had very nice teeth.
“See?” he said. He came out from behind his desk. “Come, Sebastian, we’re going downtown.”
“Do you mind, Ira, if Benjamin comes with us?” Seb said.
“Benny!” Ira Bern snapped at me. “You’re coming downtown with us!”
He grabbed my arm, took Seb’s a bit more gently, and marched us to the door.
“Oh, by the way,” Seb said. “I understand, Ira, you have in your employ a girl named Lillian Waldbaum?”
Mr. Bern paused at the door.
“Lillian Waldbaum?” he said. “Sure, Benjamin. She works out there with Miss Bienstock. Why, Sebastian?”
“I met her at a party the other night, Ira,” Seb said. “I was telling her about my plans, and when I said I was looking for an accountant she suggested you, Ira. After all, she said, for years and years Mr. Bern was your uncle’s accountant. Why shouldn’t he be yours, Miss Waldbaum said. You’ll never get a better man, she said. I agreed at once, of course, which is why I’m here today, and I thought it would be—how shall I put it, Ira—yes, it would be an augur of good fortune, so to speak, if she accompanied us downtown, don’t you think, Ira?”
Mr. Bern dropped our arms, hauled open his office door, and bellowed down the corridor: “Lillian, get your coat!”
Out on the sidewalk Seb started down 34th Street toward Seventh Avenue.
“Sebastian,” Ira Bern said. “Where are you going?”
“The subway,” Seb said. “It stops at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Seventh Avenue, which is half a block from the theater.”
“Sebastian,” Ira Bern said, “I’m surprised at you.”
Then he did something I had not seen, or heard, since I left East Fourth Street. Mr. Bern folded his pinky and middle finger down into his palm and held them flat with his thumb. The remaining two fingers he stuck into his mouth and blew a shrill blast that compared favorably with anything I had ever heard come out of a police whistle. I looked at Mr. Bern with admiration. I had a new feeling of respect for him. He was able to do superbly what I had never been able to do even adequately.
“When a client travels with Ira Bern,” he said, “it’s not in the subway, Sebastian.”
A cab pulled up to the curb. When it stopped in front of the Preshinivetz Playhouse, I had a moment of panic. My first visit to the theater had been at night. I had been aware that the building lacked the ornate, pointless, gargoyles-pasted-on grandeur of the Paramount or the Capitol or even Loew’s 180th Street, but the lack had not seemed important. Now, in the bright afternoon sunlight, it occurred to me that it could be crucial. In the bright sunlight the Preshinivetz Playhouse looked like a section from those photographs in my P.S. 188 history book that showed the streets of Verdun after the worst of the German shelling.
I took a quick look at Mr. Bern as we crossed the sidewalk. I could see that in his thinking a sudden gap had appeared between the bright promise of Seb’s words on 34th Street and the dismal reality of Fourteenth Street. Mr. Bern’s mustache was twitching.
“Let me just see about the lights,” Seb said when we came into the theater.
I thought this was a mistake. In the semi-darkness the interior of the Preshinivetz Playhouse looked somewhat better than its exterior. The rows of benches and the high ceiling and the crude stage up front did manage to convey the impression of a theater. Then Seb jumped up on the stage, snapped a switch, and I saw that he knew what he was doing.
What had come on was not the houselights, but the single overhead work light onstage. It gave the place a curiously professional air. Also, bathed in the beams from above, Seb suddenly looked more than handsome. He looked commanding.
“Now, then,” he called down to us. “One of the things we want to do this afternoon, Ira, is check the acoustics. So I’m going to ask you all to cooperate, if you will. Ira?”
“Yes?” Mr. Bern called up to the stage. He sounded the way I remember sounding in school when a teacher called my name unexpectedly from the desk up front of the classroom. A little scared. There was authority in Seb’s voice.
“Ira, would you mind coming down front here, and sitting in the center of the first row?”
“My pleasure,” Mr. Bern said. He came down to the front of the theater and settled in the middle of the first bench. His forehead was about two feet below Seb’s shoes, “Like so, Sebastian?”
“Perfect,” Seb said. “Now, Benjamin, please take the last seat in the far left corner at the rear of the theater.” I did so. Seb nodded, then said, “And you, Miss Waldbaum, would you be kind enough to take exactly the same position as Benjamin’s, but at the far right corner?”
“Okey-doke,” said Lillian, and she took her seat. “There, now,” Seb said from the stage. “That’s perfect.” He turned toward the shallow area at the right of the stage and called, “Is Miss Foster in the house?”
Elizabeth Ann came out on stage, squinting against the harsh glare of the work light. Seb crossed to her and took her hand.
“Ira, this is Miss Elizabeth Ann Foster, the author of the play currently on the boards here in this theater, Walda Wexler Wait for Willie Wishingrad: Urgent! Elizabeth Ann, Ira Bern.”
“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Bern,” she said. “Likewise, Miss Foster,” said Ira Bern. It sounded like a vaudeville routine by Gallagher and Shean.
“Now, Ira,” said Seb. “In order to put the acoustics of the theater to a professional test, I have asked Miss Foster to write a short play, just a skit, really, so that we can act it out in front of an audience. You, Ira, are part of that audience, plus Benjamin and Miss Waldbaum. I hope you don’t mind, Ira?”
“Mind?” said Mr. Bern. “Listen, Sebastian, how often does a man get invited to a free show?”
“If our plans work out, Ira, and I think they will,” Seb said, “I assure you of a steady stream of free invitations to all our shows. Right now, you are our guest at the first one. It is called—Elizabeth Ann, please, what is the title?”
She drew a deep breath and said, The Reform of Scrooge Without Having To Sit Through All That Nonsense About the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future.” She gasped.
Seb laughed. “Good girl,” he said.
“Miss Foster sure likes long titles, doesn’t she, Sebastian?” Ira Bern said.
“So long as they don’t have to go up in lights,” Seb said, “I don’t mind. Ready, Ira?”
“My ears are flapping, Sebastian,” Ira Bern said.
He chuckled. He made very few jokes. It seemed only fair not to frown on his admiration for the few he did make.
“Very well, Elizabeth Ann,” Seb said.
He pulled from his breast pocket two batches of white sheets of paper. He handed one to Elizabeth Ann, unfolded the second batch, and scowled down at the top page of his batch.
“Oh, by the way, Ira,” he said, “this is a two-character play. It takes place in a business office somewhat like yours, Ira. Do you mind?”
“Mind?” Mr. Bern said. “I’m flattered, Sebastian.”
“Good-good.” Seb said. “One more thing. One of the characters is an older man, a boss. The other character is a lad of—oh, say eighteen, pushing nineteen. He is the older man’s office boy. Just to give the whole thing a bit of verisimilitude.”
“How’s that again, Sebastian?” Mr. Bern said.
“The ring of truth, Ira,” Seb said. “Reality, as it were, if you know what I mean, Ira?”
“I catch,” Mr. Bern said.
“To make it seem real,” Seb said, “which after all, Ira, as you undoubtedly know, is the only way to check acoustics properly, we have decided to call the boss Ira Bern, and the office boy Benjamin Kramer. Do you mind, Ira?”
“Mind?” Mr. Bern said. “Sebastian, I’m flattered.”
“And you, Benjamin?” Seb called out into the dark theater. “Okay with you?”
“Absolutely,” I called back.
It wasn’t really a line. The script had indicated that I was merely to register approval. So Elizabeth Ann had allowed me to choose my own word.
“And one final point,” Seb said. “I will play the part of Ira Bern, and Miss Foster will play the part of Benjamin Kramer. All clear, Ira?”
“Like a bell,” said Mr. Bern.
“Very well, then, Ira, we will begin,” Seb said. He began to read from the pages he was holding. “Time: the present. Place: the private office of Ira Bern on West Thirty-fourth Street in Manhattan. At rise: Ira Bern is seated at his desk eating a hot pastrami sandwich. Ira Bern is one of the most prominent, successful, and wealthy certified public accountants now practicing in New York City, some say the finest C.P.A. in all of America. This is obvious from the way Mr. Bern eats his hot pastrami sandwich. A moment after the curtain goes up, and he is in the midst of taking a huge bite out of his sandwich, there is a knock on the door.
BERN (Seb) [His voice muffled by a mouthful of bread and pastrami] Woomph!
[Door opens. Enter BENNY (Elizabeth Ann)]
BENNY (Elizabeth Ann) Excuse me, Mr. Bern.
BERN (Seb) [Chewing mightily] Woomph!
BENNY (Elizabeth Ann) I beg your pardon?
BERN (Seb) I said woomph!
BENNY (Elizabeth Ann) Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Bern. I thought you said come in.
[BENNY (Elizabeth Ann) turns and goes back to door. BERN (Seb) manages to swallow his mouthful of hot pastrami sandwich]
BERN (Seb) Where you going?
BENNY (Elizabeth Ann) I’ll wait outside, Mr. Bern, until you finish your sandwich.
BERN (Seb) Benny, why? Don’t you like the way I eat a hot pastrami sandwich?
BENNY (Elizabeth Ann) Mr. Bern! How can you think that? I admire the way you eat a hot pastrami sandwich. I think you eat a hot pastrami sandwich with more style, more class, more élan than any other certified public accountant now practicing in New York City, possibly in all of America.
BERN (Seb) Benny, what’s élan?
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