“He does have a sense of humor, doesn’t he.”
The bumper sticker was large and bright-hued: “Be American—Buy American.” The car was a Datsun.
The lawns were the sort that in the spring would bloom with azaleas and rhododendrons. You’d probably see children riding their bikes along the shaded sidewalks. Northwestern University was close by; doubtless some of the deans lived here; it was an odd neighborhood for an executive like Childress who routinely was described by flacks as “towering” but Spalter had explained that Childress had been born and raised in the house and had never entertained thoughts of moving to a more expensive area. Paul wondered how it would feel to live with his roots as solidly implanted as that; he had spent his own life adrift from apartment to apartment, driven from neighborhood to neighborhood by the constant shifts in New York’s ethnic and economic boundaries. He couldn’t remember having had anything like a home in the apple-pie Hollywood sense. It wasn’t a lack for which he’d ever pitied himself but at times he was curious about it and the old-glove comfort of Childress’s Victorian house brought the feeling to the surface.
It was a center-hall house with matter-of-fact staircase and carpeting that had seen wear. A maid admitted them: she wore an aproned uniform that put him in mind of old movies. Gusts of laughter and talk came along the hall. Paul noticed the windowpanes were striped with electronic alarm tape.
Childress and Spalter appeared behind a woman in the far doorway; the three of them advanced smiling and there was a round of introductions and handshakes. The woman proved to be Childress’s wife. She was a middle-aged club-woman, inclined to fat, grimly corseted; Paul had a glimmer of the motivation behind Childress’s disapproval of corporate wives.
Childress’s red round face smelled of expensive aftershave. He was very happy to meet Miss Evans. “Come and meet the rest of my sycophants.” Childress’s humor had bite; it was his defense against whatever demons he had.
“You know Jim Spalter, of course. He lives around the corner, now, fourteen blocks from his house—community property, you know.”
The drawing room was larger than the exterior of the house had suggested. Against its defiantly staid musty furnishings there were vaguely erotic paintings and gay Japanese-style lights suspended at random levels from the ceiling; Paul was sure Childress had done it all with a straight face. As they entered the room Childress was buttonholed by a compatriot and waved them toward the bar as he turned his back; Irene said to Spalter, “My God, it he always like this?”
“You should see him at convention luncheons. You’ve never seen such an earnestly broad-minded prude. Anxious as hell to have everybody know he’s a regular fellow.”
“And sneering at them all the time out of the side of his mouth.”
“That’s the cross a genius bears.”
She said to Paul, “You’re going to have fun, if you don’t cave in.” She was twinkling.
“It’s a new and different experience,” he agreed drily. “I’ve never worked for a madman before.”
Spalter said, “What’ll you have?”
“A hangover, I expect,” Irene said, “but I’ll risk a bourbon and soda.”
“Paul?”
“Scotch and water, thanks.”
Spalter turned his back and pried his way to the bar.
An old man whose neck bulged with loose folds of fat came through the crowd beaming. He wore a grey striped suit, the baggy pants of which were cinched high around his chest like a mail sack. “Irene for Christ’s sake.”
“Harry—dear Harry, it’s been so long. Paul, this is Harry Chisum. He’s responsible for the abysmal breed of lawyers Northwestern turns out every year.”
“Not any longer, dear. Professor emeritus since September.”
“Oh Harry, no! They can’t put you out to pasture.”
“But they have.”
“Harry was my mentor,” she explained to Paul. “Major professor, goad and confessor.”
Paul said he was happy to meet Professor Chisum and the old man shook his hand warmly. “Imagine a pupil of mine descending to the primeval slime of a Childress orgy. My dear I’m dismayed.”
“And what are you doing here then?”
“Ah, I’m a perverted old lecher, didn’t you know? A closet degenerate.” He leered toward an enormous oil canvas of sated nymphs. “They sold those under the counter during the Italian Renaissance. Actually John Childress was one of my first students, you know. And still one of the best, although no one remembers he was a lawyer before he turned his talents to the machinations of commercial accounting. The best—which is to say the most evil—businessmen are lawyers.”
“And the worst lawyers are businessmen.”
“It’s not fair to throw an old man’s words back at him. You’ve altogether too good a memory.”
Spalter arrived balancing the drinks, distributed them and hovered. Irene said, “I can’t imagine you playing shuffleboard. What are you doing with yourself?”
“What do retired intellectuals do? They stay out of mischief by writing books.”
“Is it a secret?”
“Not from you. In any case it’s the same book everyone’s writing nowadays. I hope to offer a thing or two the others can’t match. It’s on crime.”
“I’m dying to read it, Harry.”
“I’d be delighted to have you pick holes in the manuscript. When it’s completed.”
“You know I’d be honored.”
Spalter said, “I hope you’ve got some solutions for us, Harry. We’ve had enough experts expounding on what the problem is.”
“I’m hoping that’s the little difference that will single out my modest tome. It’s not a book of questions. It’s a book of answers.”
Irene smiled her slow smile. “Harry, you can’t just let that one lie on the floor like a piece of raw meat.”
The old man was delighted. “You’ll just have to wait and read the book, won’t you.” He nudged Paul. “I’ve got a sure sale already, you see?”
“Harry,” she said firmly.
Paul said, “If you’ve got real solutions to the—”
“Answers, I said. Not solutions. A solution is that which provides actual resolve of a problem. An answer, on the other hand, may be mere theory or hypothesis.”
“You’re still wriggling, Harry.”
“The distinction is valid, my dear. My book can do no more than offer recommendations. They are recommendations which I’m certain the politicians and the public will find unacceptable if not repellent. They won’t solve the problem, because they’ll never be put into practice.”
“My goodness. You sound as if you’re going to propound something Hitlerian.”
“Perhaps it is—if only to the extent that anything smacking remotely of authoritarianism is equated these days with Hitler.”
“You can’t kid us,” Spalter joked, “we all know you’re the vigilante, Harry.”
Paul tried not to stiffen.
“That’s Harry’s secret solution,” Spalter confined to Paul. “The Final Solution.”
“Vigilantism solves no problems,” Chisum said.
“Well it seems to be doing a pretty snazzy job with our crime rate right now, you’ve got to admit that,” Spalter said.
Irene laughed in her throat. “I’m sorry. I’m just visualizing Harry skulking in a slum alley with two guns in his holsters. ‘Draw, you varmint.’”
Paul managed a weak smile.
Spalter said, “I’ll tell you one thing. Real or phony, this vigilante has stirred up the public consciousness like nothing you’d believe. Nobody talks about anything else. He’s got a lot of sympathy out there. You talk to people around town, you begin to realize their feelings about things. Right or wrong, this vigilante is making people feel there’s some kind of justice in the streets for the first time in memory. God knows it’s a sudden justice, but all the same it’s—”