On the uptown bus which he had chosen over the swifter, hotter, dingier subway, he tried to collect his thoughts. What on earth could he ever hope to remember about a drunken conversation, which would make any sense to anybody, let alone be worth money? “The Sources of the Nile,” the old man had said, glaring at him with bloody eye. Well, Shadwell knew the phrase, too. Maybe Shadwell knew what it meant, exactly what it meant, because he, Bob Rosen, sure as Hell didn’t. But the phrase did catch at the imagination. Martens had spent years—who knew how many?—seeking the sources of his particular Nile, the great river of fashion, as Mungo Park, Livingstone, Speke, and other half-forgotten explorers, had spent years in search of theirs. They had all endured privation, anguish, rebuffs, hostility…and in the end, just as the quest had killed Mungo Park, Livingstone, Speke, the other quest had killed old Peter Martens.
But, aside from insisting that there was a source or sources, and that he knew where, what had Peter said? Why hadn’t Bob stayed sober? Probably that fat blonde at the next table, she of the poisonously green drink and the rotten step-children, probably she retained more of the old man’s tale, picked up by intertable osmosis, than did Bob himself.
And with that he heard the voice of the waiter at the bar that noon: The lady left it … What lady? … The blond lady … Bob scrabbled in his pocket and came up with the note. On the sweaty, crumpled bit of paper, scrawled in his own writing, or a cruel semblance of it, he read: Ditx sags su Bimsoh oh—
“What the Hell!” he muttered, and fell to, with furrowed face, to make out what evidently owed more to Bushmill’s than to Everhard Faber. At length he decided that the note read, Peter says, see Bensons on Purchase Place, the Bronx, if I don’t believe him. Peter says, write it down.
“It must mean something,” he said, half-aloud, staring absently from Fifth Avenue to Central Park, as the bus roared and rattled between opulence and greenery. “It has to mean something.”
“Well, what a shame,” said Mr. Benson. “But how nice it was of you to come and tell us.” His wavy-gray hair was cut evenly around in soupbowl style, and as there was no white skin at the back of his neck, had evidently been so cut for some time. “Would you like some iced tea?”
“Still, he Went Quickly,” said Mrs. Benson, who, at the business of being a woman, was in rather a large way of business. “I don’t think there’s any iced tea, Daddy. When I have to go, that’s the way I want to go. Lemonade, maybe?”
“There isn’t any lemonade if what Kitty was drinking was the last of the lemonade. The Masons give you a nice funeral. A real nice funeral. I used to think about joining up, but I never seem to get around to it. I think there’s some gin. Isn’t there some gin, Mommy? How about a nice cool glass of gin-and-cider, Bob? Kit will make us some, by and by.”
Bob said, softly, that that sounded nice. He sat half-sunken in a canvas chair in the large, cool living-room. A quarter of an hour ago, having found out with little difficulty which house on Purchase Place was the Bensons’, he had approached with something close to fear and trembling. Certainly, he had been sweating in profusion. The not-too-recently painted wooden house was just a blind, he told himself. Inside there would be banks of noiseless machines into which cards were fed and from which tapes rolled in smooth continuity. And a large, broad-shouldered young man whose hair was cut so close to the skull that the scars underneath were plain to see, this young man would bar Bob’s way and, with cold, calm, confidence, say, “Yes?”
“Er, um, Mr. Martens told me to see Mr. Benson.”
“There is no Mr. Martens connected with our organization and Mr. Benson had gone to Washington. I’m afraid you can’t come in: everything here is Classified.”
And Bob would slink away, feeling Shoulders’ scornful glance in the small of his shrinking, sweaty back.
But it hadn’t been like that at all. Not anything like that at all.
Mr. Benson waved an envelope at Bob. “Here’s a connivo, if you like,” he said. “Fooled I don’t know how many honest collectors, and dealers, too: Prince Abu-Somebody flies over here from Pseudo-Arabia without an expense account. Gets in with some crooked dealers, I could name them, but I won’t, prints off this en—tire issue of airmails, precancelled. Made a mint. Flies back to Pseudo-Arabia, whomp! they cut off his head!” And he chuckled richly at the thought of this prompt and summary vengeance. Plainly, in Mr. Benson’s eyes, it had been done in the name of philatelic ethics; no considerations of dynastic intrigues among the petrol pashas entered his mind.
“Kitty, are you going to make us some cold drinks?” Mrs. B. inquired. “Poor old Pete, he used to be here for Sunday dinner on and off, oh, for just years. Is that Bentley coming?”
Bob just sat and sucked in the coolness and the calm and stared at Kitty. Kitty had a tiny stencil cut in the design of a star and she was carefully lacquering her toenails with it. He could hardly believe she was for real. “Ethereal” was the word for her beauty, and “ethereal” was the only word for it. Long, long hair of an indescribable gold fell over her heart-shaped face as she bent forward towards each perfectly formed toe. And she was wearing a dress like that of a child in a Kate Greenaway book.
“Oh, Bentley,” said B., Senior. “What do you think has happened? Uncle Peter Martens passed away, all of a sudden, day before yesterday, and this gentleman is a friend of his and came to tell us about it; isn’t that thoughtful?”
Bentley said, “Ahhh.” Bentley was a mid-teener who wore jeans cut off at the knees and sneakers with the toes, insteps, and heels removed. He was naked to the waist and across his suntanned and hairless chest, in a neat curve commencing just over his left nipple and terminating just under his right nipple, was the word VIPERS stenciled in red paint.
“Ahhh,” said Bentley Benson. “Any pepsies?”
“Well, I’d asked you to bring some,” his mother said, mildly. “Make a nice, big pitcher of gin-and-cider, Bentley, please, but only a little gin for yourself, in a separate glass, remember, now.” Bentley said, “Ahhh,” and departed, scratching on his chest right over the bright, red S.
Bob’s relaxed gaze took in, one by one, the pictures in the mantelpiece. He sat up a bit, pointed. “Who is that?” he asked. The young man looked something like Bentley and something like Bentley’s father.
“That’s my oldest boy, Barton, Junior,” said Mother B. “You see that nice vest he’s wearing? Well, right after the War, Bart, he was in the Navy then, picked up a piece of lovely brocade over in Japan, and he sent it back home. I thought of making a nice bed-jacket out of it, but there wasn’t enough material. So I made it into a nice vest, instead. Poor old Uncle Peter, he liked that vest, took a picture of Bart in it. Well, what do you know, a few years later fancy vests became quite popular, and, of course, by that time Bart was tired of his (“Of course,” Bob murmured), so he sold it to a college boy who had a summer job at Little and Harpey’s. Got $25 for it, and we all went out to dinner down town that night.”
Kitty delicately stenciled another star on her toenails.
“I see,” Bob said. After a moment, “Little and Harpey’s?” he repeated.
Yes, that same. The publishers. Bart, and his younger brother Alton, were publishers’ readers. Alt had been with Little and Harpey but was now with Scribbley’s Sons; Bart had worked for Scribbley’s at one time, too. “They’ve been with all the biggest publishing houses,” their mother said, proudly. “Oh, they aren’t any of your stick-in-the-muds, no sirree.” Her hands had been fiddling with a piece of bright cloth, and then, suddenly, cloth and hands went up to her head, her fingers flashed, and—complete, perfect—she was wearing an intricately folded turban.
Bentley came in carrying a pitcher of drink in one hand and five glasses—one to each finger—in the other. “I told you to mix yours separately, I think,” his mother said. Taking no notice of her youngest’s Ahhh, she turned to Bob. “I have a whole basket of these pieces of madras,” she said, “some silk, some cotton…and it’s been on my m
ind all day. Now, if I just remember the way those old women from the West Indies used to tie them on their heads when I was girl…and now, sure enough, it just came back to me! How does it look?” she asked.
“Looks very nice, Mommy,” said Bart, Sr. And added, “I bet it would cover up the curlers better than those babushkas the women wear, you know?”
Bob Rosen bet it would, too.
So here it was and this was it. The sources of the Nile. How old Peter Martens had discovered it, Bob did not know. By and by, he supposed, he would find out. How did they do it, was it that they had a panache—? or was it a “wild talent,” like telepathy, second sight, and calling dice or balls? He did not know.
“Bart said he was reading a real nice manuscript that came in just the other day,” observed Mrs. Benson, dreamily, over her glass. “About South America. He says he thinks that South America has been neglected, and that there is going to be a revival of interest in non-fiction about South America.”
“No more Bushmen?” Barton, Sr., asked.
“No, Bart says he thinks the public is getting tired of Bushmen. He says he only gives Bushmen another three months and then—poo—you won’t be able to give the books away.” Bob asked what Alton thought. “Well, Alton is reading fiction now, you know. He thinks the public is getting tired of novels about murder and sex and funny war experiences. Alt thinks they’re about ready for some novels about ministers. He said to one of the writers that Scribbley’s publishes, ‘Why don’t you do a novel about a minister?’ he said. And the man said he thought it was a good idea.”
There was a long, comfortable silence.
There was no doubt about it. How the Bensons did it, Bob still didn’t know. But they did do it. With absolute unconsciousness and with absolute accuracy, they were able to predict future trends in fashion. It was marvelous. It was uncanny. It—
Kitty lifted her lovely head and looked at Bob through the long, silken skein of hair, then brushed it aside. “Do you ever have any money?” she asked. It was like the sound of small silver bells, her voice. Where, compared to this, were the flat Long Island vocables of, say, Noreen? Nowhere at all.
“Why, Kitty Benson, what a question,” her mother said, reaching out her glass for Bentley to refill. “Poor Peter Martens, just to think—a little more, Bentley, don’t think you’re going to drink what’s left, young man.”
“Because if you ever have any money,” said the voice like the Horns of Elfland. “We could go out somewhere together. Some boys don’t ever have any money,” it concluded, with infinitely loving melancholy.
“I’m going to have some money,” Bob said at once. “Absolutely. Uh—when could—”
She smiled an absolute enchantment of a smile. “Not tonight,” she said, “because I have a date. And not tomorrow night, because I have a date. But the day after tomorrow night, because then I don’t have a date.”
A little voice in one corner of Bob’s mind said, “This girl has a brain about the size of a small split pea; you know that, don’t you?” And another voice, much less little, in the opposite corner, shrieked, “Who cares? Who cares?” Furthermore, Noreen had made a faint but definite beginning on an extra chin, and her bosom tended (unless artfully and artificially supported) to droop. Neither was true of Kitty at all, at all.
“The day after tomorrow night, then,” he said. “It’s a date.”
All that night he wrestled with his angel. “You can’t expose these people to the sordid glare of modern commerce,” the angel said, throwing him with a half-nelson. “They’d wither and die. Look at the dodo—look at the buffalo. Will you look?” “You look,” growled Bob, breaking the hold, and seizing the angel in a scissors-lock. “I’m not going to let any damned account executives get their chicken-plucking hands on the Bensons. It’ll all be done through me, see? Through me!” And with that he pinned the angel’s shoulders to the mat. “And besides,” he said, clenching his teeth, “I need the money …”
Next morning he called up his agent. “Here’s just a few samples to toss Mr. Phillips Anhalt’s way,” he said grandiosely. “Write ’em down. Soupbowl haircuts for men. That’s what I said. They can get a sunlamp treatment for the backs of their necks in the barber-shops. Listen. Women will stencil stars on their toe-nails with nail polish. Kate Greenaway style dresses for women are going to come in. Huh? Well, you bet your butt that Anhalt will know what Kate Greenaway means. Also, what smart women will wear will be madras kerchiefs tied up in the old West Indian way. This is very complicated, so I guess they’ll have to be pre-folded and pre-stitched. Silks and cottons… You writing this down? Okay.
“‘Teen-agers will wear, summer-time, I mean, they’ll wear shorts made out of cut-down blue jeans. And sandals made out of cut-down sneakers. No shirts or undershirts—barechested, and—What? NO, for cry-sake, just the boys!”
And he gave Stuart the rest of it, books and all, and he demanded and got an advance. Next day Stuart reported that Anhalt reported that Mac Ian was quite excited. Mac had said—did Bob know what Phil said Mac said? Well, Mac said, “Let’s not spoil the ship for a penny’s worth of tar, Phil.”
Bob demanded and received another advance. When Noreen called, he was brusque.
The late morning of his date-day he called to confirm it. That is, he tried to. The operator said that she was sorry, but that number had been disconnected. He made it up to the Bronx by taxi. The house was empty. It was not only empty of people, it was empty of everything. The wallpaper had been left, but that was all.
Many years earlier, about the time of his first cigarette, Bob had been led by a friend in the dead of night (say, half-past ten) along a quiet suburban street, pledged to confidence by the most frightful vows. Propped against the wall of a garage was a ladder—it did not go all the way to the roof: Bob and friend had pulled themselves up with effort which, in another context, would have won the full approval of their gym teacher. The roof made an excellent post to observe the going-to-bed preparations of a young woman who had seemingly never learned that window shades could be pulled down. Suddenly lights went on in another house, illuminating the roof of the garage; the young woman had seen the two and yelled; and Bob, holding onto the parapet with sweating hands and reaching for the ladder with sweating feet, had discovered that the ladder was no longer there…
He felt the same way now.
Besides feeling stunned, incredulous, and panicky, he also felt annoyed. This was because he acutely realized that he was acting out an old moving picture scene. The scene would have been close to the (film) realities had he been wearing a tattered uniform, and in a way he wanted to giggle, and in a way he wanted to cry. Only through obligation to the script did he carry the farce farther: wandering in and out of empty rooms, calling out names, asking if anyone was there.
No one was. And there was no notes or messages, not even Croatan carved on a doorpost. Once, in the gathering shadows, he thought he heard a noise, and he whirled around, half-expecting to see an enfeebled Mr. Benson with a bacon-fat lamp in one hand, or an elderly Negro, perhaps, who would say, tearfully, “Marse Bob, dem Yan-kees done burn all de cotton …” But there was nothing.
He trod the stairs to the next house and addressed inquiries to an old lady in a rocking-chair. “Well, I’m sure that I don’t know,” she said, in a paper-thin and fretful voice. “I saw them, all dressed up, getting into the car, and I said, ‘Why, where are you all going, Hazel?’ (“Hazel?” “Hazel Benson. I thought you said you knew them, young man?” “Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Please go on.”) Well, I said, ‘Where are you all going, Hazel?’ And she said, ‘It’s time for a change, Mrs. Machen.’ And they all laughed and they waved and they drove away. And then some men came and packed everything up and took it away in trucks. Well ‘Where did they all go?’ I asked them. ‘Where did they all go?’ But do you think they’d have the common decency to tell me, after I’ve lived here for fifty-four years? Not-a-word. Oh—”
Feeling himself infinitely c
unning, Bob said, offhandedly, “Yes, I know just the outfit you mean. O’Brien Movers.”
“I do not mean O’Brien Movers. Whatever gave you such an idea? It was the Seven Sebastian Sisters.”
And this was the most that Bob Rosen could learn. Inquiries at other houses either drew blanks or produced such probably significant items as, “Kitty said, ‘Here are your curlers, because I won’t need them anymore’”; “Yes, just the other day I was talking to Bart, Senior, and he said, ‘You know, you don’t realize that you’re in a rut until you have to look up to see the sky.’ Well, those Bensons always talked a little crazy, and so I thought nothing of it, until—”; and, “I said to Bentley, ‘Vipe, how about tomorrow we go over to Williamsbridge and pass the chicks there in review?’ and he said, ‘No, Vipe, I can’t make the scene tomorrow, my ancients put another poster on the billboard.’ So I said, ‘Ay-las,’ and next thing I know—”
“His who did what?”
“Fellow, you don’t wot this Viper talk one note, do you? His family, see, they had made other plans. They really cut loose, didn’t they?”
They really did. So there Bob was, neat and trim and sweet-smelling, and nowhere to go, and with a pocketful of money. He looked around the tree-lined street and two blocks away, on the corner, he saw a neon sign. Harry’s, it flashed (green). Bar and Grill (red).
“Where’s Harry?” he asked the middle-aged woman behind the bar.
The Avram Davidson Treasury Page 23
