"The clothes, too," Glory continued. "All new, cheap, misfits, unidentifiable."
"Stolen maybe?" Adam suggested. "Or a charity handout? What's the second negative?"
"He had nothing in his pockets except a shopping list."
"But that could be a hot lead, Glory," I said.
"No way." She was still speaking only to Adam. "Not when you've seen this list," and she handed it over. Printed on a scrap of what I could have sworn was parchment was:
$HOPING PLEA$E
c .35
$i .25
Mn .25
W 11.00
cr 3.00
Fe 85.15
Underneath was a drawing of a hexagonal cruller and a Ping-Pong ball.
"I'll be damned," Adam wondered. "Mysteriouser and mysteriouser. Didn't you tell me you were the Yankee science type, Alf?"
"Uh-huh. Straight As at Brown."
"Ah? Rah-rah Brunonia. I suspected you were an Ivy League gent. So what is your scientific deduction, my dear Holmes?"
"Whoever put this list together was kind of weak on spelling and the letters C and S."
"But what do the letters stand for?"
"They're chemical symbols, Watson. Carbon, silicon, manganese, tungsten, chromium, iron. The numbers with them are percentages."
"All adding up to ... ?"
"The proportions of tungsten steel, the hardest tool steel known."
"My word, Holmes! Merely to make crullers and Ping-Pong balls?"
"Not quite, my dear Watson. He was shopping for tool steel nuts and ball bearings. What's more, he probably couldn't speak any of our languages, hence the graphic list to speak for him, and didn't know that he'd have to pay, no money of any sort on him. He's an alien from nowhere that we know."
"Brilliant, my dear Holmes!"
"Add him gnawing the bricks outside, Adam, and you've got a mystery on your hands that only Sam Katz can solve."
"Indubitably. Good old past, present, and future."
"When you bring him in we'll have him draw a picture of this bod and that'll tell all."
"Except for one hitch."
"What?"
"He won't come."
"Why not?"
"Didn't like my offer."
"Which was?"
"The vision of any famous artist in exchange."
"Oy. Wrong offer, Adam."
"How so?"
"Look, I've been dealing with artists and photographers all my professional life and I know that the one thing they want most is to make what we call a new sound—in their case, a new vision. They never want to do what's been done before."
"Proceed, Alf. Proceed cautiously."
"Go back and grab him with a new sight."
"Such as?"
"A wider vision of things as they are."
"But Picasso's done that, and Chagall, and Jackson Pollock, and—"
"That's just subjective. I'm talking about a wider physical vision, up into the ultraviolet, down into the infrared, even further if you've got it in stock from anything from anywhere."
"And I do. I do. Macavity the Mystery Cat's got everything. Alf, your boss was right. You're the science absolute. You've got to join us. In the meantime, mind the store. Let's go, Nan."
"I can't." Her voice was weak and she looked strangely pale.
He gave her a warm smile and said gently, "I see the change is on the way. Not to worry. Wait for us. We'll be back in a flash. Come on, Alf. I'll need you to help haul Van Ryn. If you're game just wish along with Mac the Cat."
"Right with you, old buddy," and I sang, "Alf on the rooftops, Alf on the tiles ..."
As Adam led me up the desolation that had been the Bronx's Grand Concourse, a man passed us on the street, staring, first at Adam, then—much longer—at me. He had on mirrorshades, mocs, sweatpants, a green and white polo shirt. Also studded leather wrist straps. His hair was red and nowhere over an inch in length. I remembered him from the shop, back when Adam was in the Hellhole with Mr. Tigab. At first the man looked as if he were going to speak, but after studying me again—neat beard and mustache, engaging smile, and all—he seemed to change his mind. He swung on by. I was about to point him out when Adam said, "Here we are."
Adam's brief description of the falling-down housing project had left out the horrors. The apartment complex stank of excrement and rot, and as we climbed to the top floor I saw dead bodies sprawled about, dead dogs roasting over open fires, naked kids who might as well have been dead. And the noise! The tumult!
The Katz-Van Ryn apartment was a relief. It had a locked door with a peephole and when at last it was opened for us the place looked clean and neat and smelled fairly fresh. The walls had been painted with bright abstracts and the broken flooring had been converted into what looked like charming labyrinth puzzles.
"You again." The artist growled.
"With a new sales pitch." Adam unleashed his leopard magnetism. "May I introduce Alf, my partner? Alf, this is Maitre Van Ryn."
We gave each other the once-over-light. I was wondering what he saw in me with his past, present, and future sixth sense. I know I was laughing at myself for what I saw. Because of his real name I'd anticipated a Borscht Belt character. He was closer to General de Gaulle, moustached, tall, and strong. Fortyish.
"Which would you like to be called?" I asked, friendly -like. "Sam or Van?"
"What the hell do you care?"
"Just getting acquainted. I've been an interviewer and feature writer most of my professional life, and I've found that a way of reaching people is through the name they prefer. I was doing a feature on a most distinguished Knight of the British Empire. Dame Judith. She was rather careful and standoffish until I asked her the same question. She did a take, laughed, and told me that when she was a kid her nickname was Frankie. We got along fine after that."
He laughed too. "When I was a hotshot they used to call me Rinso."
"Rinso it is."
"What's yours?"
"When I was a college jock they used to call me Blackie."
"Blackie it is." That seemed to ease him. "Now what's the new sales pitch he's talking about?"
Another gimmick in interviewing is to find a mutual enemy. In this case it had to be poor Adam. "Pay no attention," I said. "He can't understand creative professionals and never will, which is why I reamed him out and came to see you. I know you're blocked and what you're going through. I've been there myself."
"Blocked hell!" he growled. "I'm finished."
"Uh-huh, we always think so, which is why artists have to stick together and why I want to back you. You've got too much talent to waste, and we both know that everybody thinks they have talent—'I could write a great story if I only had the time'—but very few actually do."
He nodded. "They've all got delusions, Blackie."
"My very first girl, Veronica Renahen, a freckled redhead, used to cry herself to sleep nights because she was a genius only nobody would admit it. She was all of twelve."
He laughed, took my arm, and seated me alongside him on a bench, ignoring Adam, who quietly took a stool in the corner. "Did you bang her, Blackie?"
"Hell no. I wanted to but didn't know how."
He laughed again. "Same thing with me. I wanted to be a merciless mercenary but didn't know how."
There was a sidetable with neat, clean glasses and decanters. He poured two drinks, still ignoring the villainous Adam, and we drank together. It was a very nice peach cordial.
"Old Man Renahen ran a deli in our neighborhood," I chatted. "His favorite story was about a Jewish lady who came in and asked for liverwurst. He took a big one out of the cooler, stuck the open end in the slicer, and began cutting. After a dozen slices he asked 'Enough?' She said, 'Slice more.' After another dozen he asked, 'Enough?' She said, 'More. More.' When he was halfway through he said, 'Enough now?' She said, 'Now I'll take ten cents' worth.'"