“… That’s no big offer, is it, for me taking such a big chance?”
“You’ve already taken forty-five dollars.”
“I didn’t take — you gave. You tried bribing me already.”
“Well—” he said, uncertainly, having still a third thought, “it was just as big a chance then.”
“And that’s why I don’t want nothing to do with it, you understand?”
“Look, yes or no? Fifty dollars.” He had nearly said a hundred.
“Twenty-five now, and twenty-five then?”
“Nothing now.”
“Nothing now never helped nobody’s troubles.”
“You’ve had forty-five already.”
“Jesus! I thought we were going to forget about that. Boy oh boy! First you tell me you’re going to forget it, and I say I’m even willing — and now you keep bringing it up again!”
In the morning Gabe had cashed a check so as to have money for the weekend, for the present, for dinner that evening. He had with him a little under a hundred dollars. What prevented him from handing it all over to Bigoness was only the word bribe. But fifty was surely not less of a bribe — and a hundred might do the trick. A hundred right now. No!
Nevertheless, he saw one door closing, saw it shut. Jaffe could no longer go into court and claim abandonment; a subsequent investigation would uncover Bigoness, uncover this moment. Deep, he had to go deeper. He could not now give Bigoness nothing; of course he couldn’t.
“—want to be surer, then fifty later too.”
“I don’t follow you.” He had to pretend an inability to comprehend, when in fact their two minds — one moving down, one moving up — had apparently met.
“—what I suppose is the best thing, for you to feel safe and me to feel safe, that we ain’t either going to get screwed, is you give me fifty now and then you hold out another fifty for then, see, and then …”
“I still don’t follow you.”
“More when it’s over,” Bigoness was saying. But his voice had dropped.
Gabe used Bigoness’s own phrase. “Are you done now?”
“Well … yeah, I’m done.”
“Didn’t you get a letter today, from Mr. Jaffe?”
“I don’t get no mail.”
“You got a letter telling you when and where to show up.”
“What do you think, that’s all I got to worry about?”
“What I’m asking is, do you know what’s wanted of you exactly — the place and the time?”
“I don’t know nothing.”
He took out his billfold. Bigoness sat up. Gabe took from it an old dry-cleaning receipt and wrote on the back the necessary information. He offered the slip of paper to Bigoness, continuing to hold his billfold in the other hand. “Take it,” he said. He pushed it in Bigoness’s direction; Bigoness extended his hand — and then it was fluttering to the rug. Gabe had opened his hand, but Bigoness had not closed his. Very faintly, Bigoness grinned.
“Pick that up.”
“Shit, that ain’t a fifty-dollar bill. Don’t look like it to me.”
“You know what it is. Pick it up.”
“Hey, what am I, a carpet sweeper to you? Huh? Your slave?” Bigoness sat down on the sofa beside his child, who moaned now in his sleep. He started tapping his fingers together before his mouth; inspired, he whistled “Here Comes the Bride.”
“Twice I’ve asked you to pick that paper up.”
Nothing.
“I thought you were concerned about your family.” Bigoness’s eyes were on his billfold; deliberately he had not put it away: had that been a mistake? “I thought you were a man who worried about doctor’s bills.”
“All dressed in white … da-da da-da-da …”
This stubbornness! This thick head! To think that he had put the idea of a bribe into this dumb ox’s head!
“Look, what kind of bastard are you—”
“Watch—” Bigoness began.
“We’re talking about a baby. Pick that money up!”
“It ain’t money.”
“Paper! Pick it—”
“I didn’t ask for this recession, Wallace, before you blow a gut. I never asked for hard times.”
“What kind of—”
“Ah shit, what kind are you? Huh? I’m taking the big risk, while you guys make thousands.”
“Can’t I get it into your head—”
Bigoness waved one hand. “Okay, you’re the happy father then, what do I care? I’m giving you a kid for the rest of your life. Don’t you appreciate that, Poppa? A little — what? Boy? Girl?”
“—beside the point.”
“Well, I got a right to know what it is. Here you keep telling me that kid really belongs to me, I got a right at least to know what it is.” He waited.
“A girl.”
“… Well, maybe I’d like another little girl around here. Just to even things up. Man, you give me a hard enough time, in the end I might just as well move the little bastard right in here with the rest of ’em.”
Gabe said nothing; no muscle moved.
“At least that’d be the legal thing, right? You got to consider that, don’t you?”
“Adoption is perfectly legal. Don’t be sly.”
Bigoness shook his head as though he knew better. “That may be and then it might not be, given the way things are. But if I’m willing to give up a little baby, seems to me you ought to have a little more respect. A hundred dollars more for a whole little baby — man, that’s not bad.”
“Either you pick up that paper or I leave. I didn’t make this recession either, don’t be a God damn fool. I didn’t give you your hard times. I’m sorry about all your marital difficulties, I’m sorry you’re out of a job—”
“Oh yeah, you’re sorry.”
“Either you pick it up—” He felt silly, picky, quibbling; he felt he was missing the point himself. Was everything to come down to this — his having his way? “Or I leave and you get nothing.”
No response.
“I mean that.” No word from Bigoness, no movement at all. No whistling. Without any clear impression of what would follow, Gabe took a step toward the door. And Bigoness ducked down; his hand swooped across the rug; he twisted the paper around in his fingers, then shoved it into his shirt pocket.
They were silent, however, as though it were not quite over. Bigoness said, “You’re getting me cheap, Mister. When a man is down,” he said sourly, “you sure do know how to make him crawl around for you.”
But even as Bigoness spoke, Gabe felt moved to thrust the entire billfold at him. Everything. Go all out. What was the difference? He just wanted it over! He looked at Bigoness, Bigoness at the billfold. Gabe thought: he only wants what I put it in his head to want.
Bigoness whined, “What about expenses?”
“I gave you forty-five—”
“Oh shit—”
“Here.” He did not think, did not reason. He jammed a bill into Bigoness’s hand. He hoped it would be a ten; it turned out to be a twenty. What difference? “The rest you get after you sign.”
“You ain’t going to subtract—”
“No. No!”
He turned, just as the little boy rolled over and woke up. Of course Bigoness had known that he had not been stealing the child. Yes, Bigoness was smarter than he was, smarter under pressure. Why shouldn’t he be? He moved through the door, so weary that he could not have put up much resistance had the extortionist, the thief, the miserable bastard chosen that moment to attack him from behind for the rest of the money. But no one laid a finger on him as he passed out the door and down the stairway. All the violent thoughts had been his own.
He emerged from the front door as a woman with a shopping bag was struggling up the porch steps, one at a time. He held the door open for her.