“So what happens then? Insteada being smart like I should, I go nuts on account of I’m the guy who pays the bills, that Harvard up there pulls in the money better than any casino I ever saw, and you want to find a real good criminal, get some Boston WASP in a bow tie, and all of a sudden nobody listens to me! I’m seeing red in a big way here, Deacon, this is my uncle Vincente’s funeral, and insteada backing me up his mother is telling me I’m not helping. I yell, You want to help? Then go up there and bring back his wife and kids, or I’ll send Carlo and Tommy to do it. All of a sudden I’m so mad I’m thinking these people are insulting me, how can they think they can get away with that, people who insult me don’t do it twice-and then I hear what I’m thinking, and I do what she said and put a cork in it, but it’s too late, I went way over the top and we all know it.
“Arthur junior takes off, and his mother won’t talk to me for the whole rest of the day. Only thing I’m happy about is I didn’t blow up where anyone else could see it. Deacon, I know you’re the type guy wouldn’t dream of threatening his family, but if the time ever comes, do yourself a favour and light up a Havana instead.”
“I’m sure that is excellent advice,” I said.
“Don’t let the thought cross your mind. Anyhow, you know what they say, it only hurts for a little while, which is true as far as it goes, and I calmed down. Uncle Vincente’s funeral was beautiful. You woulda thought the pope died. When the people are going out to the limousines, Arthur junior is sitting in a chair at the back of the church reading a book. Put that in your pocket, I say, wanta do homework, do it in the car. He tells me it isn’t homework, but he puts it in his pocket and we go out to the cemetery. His mother looks out the window the whole time we’re driving to the cemetery, and the kid starts reading again. So I ask what the hell is it, this book he can’t put down? He tells me, but it’s like he’s speaking some foreign language, only word I understand is the, which happens a lot when your kid reads a lot of fancy books, half the titles make no sense to an ordinary person. Okay, we’re out there in Queens, goddamn graveyard the size of Newark, FBI and reporters all over the place, and I’m thinking maybe Arthur junior wasn’t wrong after all, Hunter probably hates having the FBI take her picture, and besides that little Hermione probably woulda mugged one of ‘em and stole his wallet. So I tell Arthur junior I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t really think you were going to put me in the same grave as Uncle Waffles, he says, the Harvard smartass. When it’s all over, we get back in the car, and out comes the book again. We get home, and he disappears. We have a lot of people over, food, wine, politicians, old-timers from Brownsville, Chicago people, Detroit people, L.A. people, movie directors, cops, actors I never heard of, priests, bishops, the guy from the Cardinal. Everybody’s asking me, Where’s Arthur junior? I go upstairs to find out. He’s in his old room, and he’s still reading that book. I say, Arthur junior, people are asking about you, I think it would be nice if you mingled with our guests. I’ll be right down, he says, I just finished what I was reading. Here, take a look, you might enjoy it. He gives me the book and goes out of the room. So I’m wondering-what the hell is this, anyhow? I take it to the bedroom, toss it on the table. About ten-thirty, eleven, that night, everybody’s gone, kid’s on the shuttle back to Boston, house is cleaned up, enough food in the refrigerator to feed the whole bunch all over again, I go up to bed. Arthur junior’s mother still isn’t talking to me, so I get in and pick up the book. Herman Melville is the name of the guy, and I see that the story the kid was reading is called ‘Bartleby the Scrivener.’ So I decide I’ll try it.
“What the hell, right? You’re an educated guy, you ever read that story?”
“A long time ago,” I said. “A bit… odd, isn’t it?”
“Odd? That’s the most terrible story I ever read in my whole life! This dud gets a job in a law office and decides he doesn’t want to work. Does he get fired? He does not. This is a story? You hire a guy who won’t do the job, what do you do, pamper the asshole? At the end, the dud ups and disappears and you find out he used to work in the dead letter office. Is there a point here? The next day I call up Arthur junior, say, could he explain to me please what the hell that story is supposed to mean? Dad, he says, it means what it says. Deacon, I just about pulled the plug on Harvard right then and there. I never went to any college, but I do know that nothing means what it says, not on this planet.”
This reflection was accurate when applied to the documents on my desk, for each had been encoded in a systematic fashion which rendered their literal contents deliberately misleading. Another code had informed both of my recent conversations with Marguerite. “Fiction is best left to real life,” I said.
“Someone shoulda told that to Herman Melville,” said Mr. Arthur ‘This Building Is Condemned’ C____________________.
Mrs. Rampage buzzed me to advise that I was running behind schedule and inquire about removing the coffee things. I invited her to gather up the debris. A door behind me opened, and I assumed that my secretary had responded to my request with an alacrity remarkable even in her. The first sign of my error was the behaviour of the three other men in the room, until this moment no more animated than marble statues. The thug at my client’s side stepped forward to stand behind me, and his fellows moved to the front of my desk. “What the hell is this shit?” said the client, because of the man in front of him unable to see Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff. Holding a pad bearing one of his many lists, Mr. Clubb gazed in mild surprise at the giants flanking my desk and said, “I apologise for the intrusion, sir, but our understanding was that your appointment would be over in an hour, and by my simple way of reckoning you should be free to answer a query as to steam irons.”
“What the hell is this shit?” said my client, repeating his original question with a slight tonal variation expressive of gathering dismay.
I attempted to salvage matters by saying, “Please allow me to explain the interruption. I have employed these men as consultants, and as they prefer to work in my office, a condition I, of course, could not permit during our business meeting, I temporarily relocated them in my washroom, outfitted with a library adequate to their needs.”
“Fit for a king, in my opinion,” said Mr. Clubb.
At that moment the other door into my office, to the left of my desk, opened to admit Mrs. Rampage, and my client’s guardians inserted their hands into their suit jackets and separated with the speed and precision of a dance team.
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Rampage. “Excuse me. Should I come back later?”