The Last Collection

by Seymour Blicker

  Kerner grinned and nodded several times. “Okay, okay . . . so I had this land. It was a fair-sized piece which I’d originally bought for next to nothing. The really interesting thing about it though was . . .” Kerner was grinning broadly now. “. . . was that coincidentally it happened to be located in the same general area as Weisskopf and Mandelberg’s land.”

  Dr. Lehman’s face showed no emotion.

  Kerner became serious. “Anyway, I had decided to sell all these things, as you know. It was a hard decision. I mean, you know what I was going through. But to be honest, during the few days immediately after I had made that decision, things weren’t as bad as I had thought they would be. . . . The first day that the significance of my decision really hit me was the day when I last saw you.”

  “Yes, I remember you said very little at that last session,” Dr. Lehman commented.

  “I was bugged that day,” Kerner said.

  “Bugged?”

  “That’s right, bugged. . . . That morning I had a few meetings with various people who were interested in buying all of my art, sculptings, furniture, the whole works. The best offer I had was equal to about half of what it was all worth and it was obvious this would be the best price I could expect. That bugged me. It bugged me a lot. Then I began to think about my business. I knew it was a total write-off. I knew I could expect to get next to nothing for it. That bugged me too because it had been worth a lot. I had spent a lot of time building it up. I had put my guts into it. I had built up a tremendous amount of goodwill. I had fantastic contacts. That alone made that business worth a lot of money . . . a fortune. And it bothered me that because of my particular situation at that point in time, I’d end up getting next to nothing for it. That bugged me. It bugged me a lot. But I kept telling myself that I had made my decision to quit the whole rat race and I shouldn’t let all these things bother me. But they did. I started feeling ill. By the time I got to your office that day, I was really sick. As a matter of fact, I almost didn’t show up that day.”

  “So why did you then?”

  Kerner shrugged nonchalantly and smiled. “Who knows.”

  “You didn’t mention a word about how you felt that day,” Dr. Lehman said.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “In fact, you spent the last half-hour of that session without saying a word.”

  “Of course. How could I? You were too busy screaming at Mrs. Griff through your crazy microphone.”

  “I only spoke to her for about twenty seconds, Kerner. Don’t exaggerate. You had plenty of time to talk if you wanted to.”

  Kerner grinned and nodded. “That’s true. I just wasn’t interested in saying anything at that last session. As I said, I was feeling sick and by the time I left your office I felt even sicker. By the time I got to Weisskopf’s house that evening, I was afraid I was going to throw up on his dining-room table. That’s how bad I felt. Anyways, I finally left there about eleven with the plan, which I was going to deliver to their man the next day. I just wanted to get home and get to sleep. The minute I got to my apartment, I took a few tranquilizers and flaked out on my bed. . . .” Kerner paused. “Do you mind lighting a cigarette for me?”

  Dr. Lehman lit a cigarette and passed it to Kerner who took it between the two unbroken fingers of his left hand, the tips of which projected from the cast just enough to grasp the cigarette.

  “I’ll hold this,” Kerner said. He took a long drag and exhaled slowly through his mouth. “So I went to sleep. . . . Sometime during the night, I woke up. I was sweating and shaking as though I’d been having some kind of nightmare, but I couldn’t recall anything. I sat there trying to remember what I had dreamt. I had a feeling it was important for me to remember. Why? I don’t know. I just did. I thought and thought but everything was just one big blank. I started feeling sick again. I stood up and turned on the lights. I began walking through my apartment and looking at all my beautiful things, thinking that soon, in another day or so, they’d all be gone. The more I looked at them, the sicker I became, but in a way that was worse than ever before. Until that night, whenever I’d been ill it had been almost entirely a physical thing, but that night it was like a pain in my mind. It grew worse and worse. I thought I was going crazy. . . . There seemed absolutely no purpose to living. The whole world seemed absurd, useless.” A shadow passed across Kerner’s face. He dragged on the cigarette.

  Dr. Lehman sat motionless in his chair.

  Kerner shifted his body slightly, grimacing with pain. “Then I went back into the bedroom. I had to lie down or pass out. I lay down on my bed. Something in my mind kept pushing at me to remember what I had dreamt. I had a feeling it was a key that could help me unlock some secret that could help me solve my predicament. I kept thinking about a plan. A plan. A plan. This idea kept passing through my mind. I sat up on my bed. Something told me I was close to finding the key. . . . And then I looked down towards the end of my bed. Lying there was the architect’s cylinder containing the plan of Weisskopf and Mandelberg’s land.” Kerner paused and began to laugh. He took another drag of his cigarette and then dropped it beside the bed. “Do you mind stepping on that,” he said.

  Dr. Lehman put his foot over the cigarette and ground it into the tile floor.

  “Do you remember the day you came down to La Galerie d’Or and I threw up on that sculptor?”

  Dr. Lehman nodded slowly.

  “Afterwards when we were back at your office you said I was on my way towards beating my sickness. You said something had obviously clicked inside me and I was going to be all right.”

  Dr. Lehman remained silent and motionless.

  “Well, at the time you said that, I didn’t recall anything having clicked inside me, but on the night I’m telling you about now . . . on that night, something did click inside my head. I could actually hear it and feel it, as though a switch had been released somewhere inside there, inside my brain. It was as though my real personality had been hidden, locked away somewhere deep inside me . . . and when that switch went click, it was suddenly liberated . . . and everything about me fell into place. In one instant, I saw everything exactly the way it was. I knew I had been fooling myself with the idea that I would change my way of life, sell everything and live on a kibbutz. I realized it was insanity. I suddenly knew I could have everything I wanted and that was how I should live . . . getting everything there was to get. Everything. There was nothing to stop me. I knew for the first time in my life that I didn’t owe anything to anyone. That morality doesn’t exist. That we’re just animals that can think. That we’re not on this earth for long and that while we’re here we should do everything we can to satisfy ourselves. I realized that it’s only guilt that screws people up and that it’s only the weak who feel guilty. I realized without the slightest doubt that there was no reason for anyone to have to feel guilty about anything . . . and I mean anything!

  “I saw the whole picture. It was so clear that there was no doubt in my mind. It’s dog eat dog in this world. Nobody gives a shit for anyone, anyways. Everyone’s out for their own ass. I thought about Weisskopf and what you had said about him in that last session. You said that maybe he had intended to use me from the first minute he’d met me. I realized you were probably right; and even if he wasn’t using me for his own purposes he still wasn’t doing me any favours. When he let me off paying that five thousand dollars, he didn’t let me off for my sake. Maybe he did it to set me up for the telephone gaff; but if that wasn’t the reason, then he did it for some other ulterior motive. Maybe he felt guilty about things he’d done in the past and wanted to ease his conscience through me. I saw that very clearly. It was obvious that I hadn’t wanted to see that before. I wanted to imagine that the world was like a Walt Disney film. But after that switch moved and clicked, I saw it all. It all came to me in a flash. I saw the whole picture. I saw it clearer than I had ever seen anything in my life.

  “I knew what it was all about. I knew what I was, what I should do, what
I wanted to do. I owed nothing to no one. I had, you might say, a secret answer. I knew I had to have everything. To take everything I could get. It was all there waiting to be taken. I was going to get it. Everything! Why not? What else was there? What was there to stop me? Nothing. I could do anything and not worry about guilt. It was just a matter of being careful. Careful about the laws made by weak, frightened people. It was easy to be careful and I knew I wasn’t afraid. What was there to be afraid of? People were afraid because of guilt. I wasn’t afraid. I could do anything and not worry about it.

  “I saw everything. I saw exactly who I was, what I was, the way things really were. I knew a person could rule the world with the understanding that I had. I knew what I was going to do.” The words had come out in a gush and Kerner was now breathing hard.

  Dr. Lehman looked down at him, showing no expression.

  “So what do you think?” Kerner asked.

  “I don’t think anything, Mr. Kerner.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you surprised at my new outlook?”

  “Thoughts are one thing, Kerner, deeds are another,” Dr. Lehman replied.

  Artie Kerner chuckled slyly. “Oh, I know that, but I’m not finished telling you my story. Let me fill you in on what happened next and how I translated my ideas into actions.”

  “Go ahead,” Dr. Lehman said, gesturing with his hand.

  “All these thoughts were flashing through my mind. I don’t know exactly how long I sat there on my bed thinking. It was probably about an hour or two but it seemed much longer. In a way it was like both an eternity and an instant. Then I realized there was no way I was going to live on a kibbutz. There was no way I was going to give up anything. I was going to keep everything and get more. I was going to get whatever I wanted. The first thing I had to do was get my hands on some money. As I thought this, I realized I was staring at the red cylinder lying at the foot of the bed. Then it hit me that I had the solution to all my problems. It was right there in front of me. It was as though I had somehow known it all along.

  “It was so simple, it was unbelievable! It all fell into place in an instant. I would replace the plan of Weisskopf and Mandelberg’s land with the plan of my land. As I mentioned, my property was in the same general area as theirs. In fact, it was about eight miles away.

  “At seven-thirty in the morning I called up a draftsman I knew. I offered him a hundred dollars for an hour of his time. He was over at my place by eight-fifteen. By nine-thirty he had redrafted a large official-looking plan from my own small plan of my piece of land. I replaced Weisskopf’s plan in the cylinder with my own.

  “Now my piece of land was registered in the name of the farmer who still lived on the property. But, the same as Weisskopf and Mandelberg, I had a deed signed by the farmer testifying to the fact that he had sold the land to me. I took the cylinder to Lemay. It was in his hands by noon that day. Then I drove over to see the farmer on my land. I told him that he might soon be approached by someone who wanted to buy the property. I told him to ask eighty-five thousand for it and to carry on as though he owned it. I promised him five thousand if everything went well.

  “Then I waited. Everything came off perfectly. Hankleman came to see Lemay. Lemay sold him my plan without ever knowing it. Hankleman’s notary approached my farmer. My farmer told them what he wanted. They checked out the deed. They bought the land. I got the eighty-five thousand. I gave the farmer a hundred bucks.”

  “A hundred bucks?!”

  “That’s right,” Kerner said, laughing. “You think I’d give him the five thousand just because I promised it to him?”

  Dr. Lehman made no reply.

  “I’d have to be crazy to do that. What’s the point? What could he do—sue me? Oh, he raised shit when I gave him the hundred. He wasn’t happy. But what could he do?” Kerner laughed. “I came away with a clear profit of fifty-eight thousand dollars. Then I had to do something about my business. I couldn’t declare bankruptcy because when they investigated the company, they would find out I had been pulling funds out illegally; but there was no way I was going to pay off the debts I owed to those leeches. So I began to think. And I’ll tell you, it’s amazing how clearly a person can think when his mind isn’t obstructed by guilt. You see a million ideas that you could never think of. It didn’t take me long to come up with a good one.

  “I found a guy who owned a big warehouse. I asked him how much he wanted to rent it for six months. He told me four hundred a month. I told him to make up a lease, setting the rent at a thousand dollars a month. I told him that the rent would be paid and that, out of the thousand, he could keep five hundred and he would give me back five hundred. I had him sign a document to that effect.

  “Then I went out and invested a few hundred dollars in several thousand old burlap sacks. I had these filled with a combination of sawdust and shit from various renderers. I had these sacks stored in the warehouse. Then I contacted my creditors and told them I was broke but indicated I had various goods stored in this warehouse. There was a mad rush to the courts by all my creditors for first crack at my goods. While the courts were involved with deciding who gets what and when, they of course declared the goods in the warehouse frozen. No one could even step inside the warehouse. They were all convinced that there was a fortune of chemicals in those sacks.

  “Of course, to have any legal claim to the goods, they had to keep paying the rent on the warehouse. When they checked the lease, they saw it was a thousand dollars a month. So they paid it. They’ve already paid it for two months now, which means I’ve gotten back a thousand dollars from the landlord so far. My creditors are so greedy to protect their own interests that they’ve each hired their own guard to make sure no one else takes off with those sacks! By the time the courts decide what to do with those sacks, it could be another six or eight months at five hundred a month for me and in another few months my creditors will have forgotten all about me. By the time they get to see what’s inside those sacks, they won’t even remember who they belonged to.” Kerner began to laugh.

  “I’m glad to see you can still laugh after two months in the hospital.”

  “Why not? It’s funny. It’s hilarious. I ripped them all off . . . and you know something? . . . I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I made a bundle on my piece of land. I fucked my creditors good and I didn’t pay back Hankleman a cent. . . . Oh yes, and one other thing . . . I also fucked Weisskopf’s daughter and . . . Mrs. Griff.”

  “It seems like you fucked everyone, Mr. Kerner,” Dr. Lehman said.

  “Yes, that’s what I did,” Kerner replied, grinning.

  “And so what did it get you?”

  “It got me a lot of money and a lot of satisfaction.”

  “You call being in the hospital for two months, satisfaction?”

  “It’ll be four months or five by the time I get out, but so what? When I get out, I’m really going to enjoy myself. Besides, it’s a good rest. They take very good care of me here. I have everything. I even get blow jobs from one of the nurses whenever I want. They do everything for me.”

  “It’s sort of like being a little baby again, eh, Kerner?”

  “You can call it whatever you want but, believe me, it’s not all that bad.”

  Dr. Lehman gave a whimsical shrug. “And how about your buying habit?”

  “I’ve got it under control. It’ll never rule me again but eventually I’ll be able to buy anything I want. I figure in a year or two from now I’ll be a millionaire. There’s nothing that can stop me.”

  “No, I don’t imagine there is,” Dr. Lehman said softly. “Unless, of course, you run into someone like Hankleman again.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be a lot more careful in the future. And, besides, it wasn’t him who did this to me.”

  “No? Then who was it?”

  “It was Weisskopf and his partner.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Before the
two goons started working me over, they said, ‘Here’s a message from the Hawk and Big Moishie.’ I guess when they saw that nothing was happening with their land, they must have put two and two together and figured out that I had screwed them somehow.”

  Dr. Lehman nodded slowly. “One last question before I leave, Mr. Kerner.”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you call me down here?”

  “Why? Because I wanted to show you how full of shit you are.”

  “Oh, really? Why? Because I had a bit of faith in you? Because I really believed there was a chance for you to be a mensch? I actually did, Kerner. I actually had faith in you.”

  Kerner began to laugh. “That’s what I mean. I wanted to prove to you how full of shit you are. How futile your whole shrink bit is.”

  “By telling me what you did, by showing me what you are now, you don’t prove anything to me at all. I have no illusions about my abilities as a psychiatrist. I do the best I know how. I can live with myself.”

  Kerner was still laughing. He was staring up at the ceiling and cackling.

  “The only thing you’ve proved is that I was right in calling you what I did that first day when you ran out of my office. You’re a shlepper, Kerner.”

  Dr. Lehman turned and walked away. He headed out the door and walked along the corridor. He could hear Kerner laughing in the room. The sound echoed along the hallway like a cry.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Solly the Hawk was seated at his desk. Big Moishie was standing next to him. The Hawk picked up the telephone receiver and began to dial.

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Marvin Saltpeter,” the Hawk said.

  Big Moishie dragged on his cigar.

  “Hello, Marvin . . . Yeah, it’s Sol Weiss speaking . . . Yeah . . . Not too bad . . . yerself? . . . Good. Good. . . . Lissen, Marvin, I finally got it set up wid dis guy from de Roads Department. . . . Yeah, yeah, I know. It took a long time. But it’s all set. . . . Oh, you’re ready to shmear. . . . Good, good. Okay, lissen, here’s what you gotta do . . .”