“Yes, sir?”
“Was it hand-tailored?”
The salesman looked at him curiously for a moment, and then said, “May I see the label, please, sir?”
Buddwing unbuttoned his jacket. The salesman studied the label for what seemed like an inordinately long time. You are going to tell me in a minute, Buddwing thought. You are going to say, Yes, sir, this is one of our hand-tailored suits, and then you are going to consult your records and tell me the suit was made for that director at Central Islip. You are going to tell me I am Edward Voegler. Then I will know. Then it will be over.
“No, sir,” the salesman said. “This is one of our ready-to-wear garments, made for us expressly in England last year. It was part of our line last fall.”
“Last fall, I see,” Buddwing said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all, sir. Was there anything I could show you, something in a—”
“No,” Buddwing said. “Thank you.” He turned and walked out of the men’s department. He felt nothing at all. Nothing. Neither disappointment nor glee, happiness nor gloom.
Nothing but an overwhelming need to urinate.
He walked toward 49th Street rapidly, and then turned right off Fifth, going past the skating rink, and crossing the street, and continuing on past the RCA showrooms with idiot high school kids making faces on the see-yourself television, and then to the Rockefeller Center Garage where he made an abrupt left as though he had done this many, many times before. He went into the westbound waiting room, and past the newsstand — the afternoon dailies had picked up the story of the escaped madman and headlined it — and then past the cashiers’ booths, and the telephones, and the elevator leading to the ladies’ room upstairs, and the pay lockers, and then took the steps down to the men’s room. A man was washing his hands at the sink as Buddwing entered the room, and another man was at one of the urinals. Buddwing unzipped his fly and was reaching into his pants when the man standing beside him at the urinals turned and said, “This is a stickup, mister.”
The first thing that popped into his mind was the joke about the midget in the men’s room. Then, reacting instantly to the danger, he swung out at the man only to discover that the man had swung first and indeed had struck him on the point of the jaw. He found himself staggering back from the urinal and almost colliding with the sink, and then he remembered the other man who had been washing his hands, because this other man suddenly struck him on the back of the neck with what seemed like a sledge hammer. Okay, he thought, you want to get tough, huh? and the first man slugged him in the face again, and he almost went unconscious.
To him, there was something hilariously comic about the fact that his fly was open while these two assassins continued to batter him back and forth between them. He tried to strike out at each in turn, but whenever he did, it seemed the one behind him got in a blow at just the precise moment he himself decided to strike, so that none of his fierce attacks ever got further than the planning stage. He thought it was funny that General Sarnoff up there in the RCA Building had not the faintest notion that someone was getting his brains beaten out in the men’s room of the Rockefeller Center Garage, and he thought it especially funny that these two guys were exerting so much energy to knock him unconscious when he wasn’t even carrying a wallet, didn’t in fact have more than the single dollar that was all that remained from Gloria’s foundation grant. He also thought it would be comical when the police found him dead and bleeding on the floor of the men’s room with his fly open but without any other clue to his identity. While all these screamingly funny thoughts bounced through his head, his assassins continued to bounce him off the tiled walls of the room and the metal wall of one of the booths and the porcelain wall of one of the urinals, and he was amazed by his own resiliency, and amazed too that he was not out cold by this time. He was vaguely aware that his nose was bleeding, and he thought, All right, already, cut it out, but the two men showed no indication of cutting out anything but his heart perhaps, seemed determined in fact to slug him into oblivion if it took all day, which it seemed to be taking. He was about to throw in the towel, about to tell the referee there was one man too many in this ring, the fight was fixed; when all at once he heard a voice saying, “Hey, whut the hell’s you guys doin’?”
A fist caught him on the side of his head, forcing him to turn toward the doorway, and he saw a short squat man in a sailor’s uniform entering the room with his fists clenched. The image of the sailor blurred in that instant because another fist hit him on the other side of his head, and he fell backward and into the nearest urinal. He got up quickly, his trouser leg wet with a pine-smelling antiseptic, just in time to see the squat sailor hit one of the men on the bridge of the nose. Now we’re talking, he thought, and he sailed back into the fray to collide with the fist of the man who had been standing near the sink, and found himself falling right back into the urinal again. He got up with the seat of his trousers wet this time, and smelling even more of the aromatic antiseptic, and he was about to lend the sailor a helping hand when he saw that the sailor was in no need of a helping hand. The two men were lying unconscious on the tiled floor of the room, and the sailor was clutching at Buddwing’s jacket sleeve and whispering urgently, “Man, le’s get the hell out of here ’fore the shore patrol arrives.”
He followed the sailor up the steps, trying to cup his hand under his bleeding nose so that he would not stain the steps, reaching for a handkerchief in his back pocket, finding none, and then accepting the sailor’s handkerchief gratefully as they came past the pay lockers and into the waiting room. They walked directly into the street, the sailor setting the pace, Buddwing following. When they reached Sixth Avenue, the sailor stopped for breath.
“How’s that nose?” he asked.
“Fine,” Buddwing said, dabbing at it. He looked at the sailor now and saw him clearly for the first time. He was a boy of about twenty, with a square face and jaw, a spate of freckles across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were blue, and he spoke with a thick Southern accent. He had a huge barrel chest and short legs. He wore his hat on the back of his head, and his hair was straight and blond. The rating on his sleeve told Buddwing that he was a second-class signalman.
“Anything I can’t stand,” the sailor said, “it’s a unfair fight. Whut was they after?”
“My money, I guess,” Buddwing said. He pulled the handkerchief away from his nose and looked at it. The bleeding seemed to have stopped.
“Man, in this town you cain’t even take a leak ’thout some-buddy jumpin’ on you. You’re right lucky I happened along when I done.”
“I know,” Buddwing said. “Thank you.” He dabbed at his nose with the handkerchief again, and then handed it back to the sailor.
“Might’s well keep it,” the sailor said. “I stole it from the clothesline, anyways. Your fly’s open.”
“What?”
“I said your fly’s open,” the sailor said again, and then immediately added, “Mah name’s Jesse Salem, whut’s yours?”
Buddwing first zipped up his fly, and then took Jesse’s extended hand. He had a firm grip, and huge hands with large knuckles, the hands of an habitual street fighter.
“I’m Sam Buddwing.”
“Pleased t’know you,” Jesse said. “You know wheah we can find a head that ain’t got no holdup artists in it? I still got to go, man.”
“Me, too,” Buddwing said, smiling. “Up this way.” They turned left on Sixth Avenue and began walking downtown.
“What ship you off?” Buddwing asked.
“The Meredith,” Jesse said. “Tha’s a tin can.”