“Rose Helen,” Druff said.
“What is it?”
“The chain isn’t on?”
“Mike hasn’t come back.”
“Please,” Druff pleaded, “put the chain on.”
“He isn’t home.”
“MacGuffin’s outside.”
“Does he have a key?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, there you are then.”
“Yes, but you don’t know my MacGuffin. He’s pretty slippery.”
“Good night,” Rose Helen told her sleeping husband.
“Sure,” he said, “run off just when I need you.”
“What do you need me for? I gave you your dinner.”
“I need you because.”
“I’m going up. Good night.”
“God damn it, Rose Helen, I’m not crazy. You think I talk to myself? I don’t talk to myself. I don’t talk to myself when I’m dreaming. I’m not sure I could do this if no one was there.”
“Good night,” she said, and Druff, in his sleep, could hear her going upstairs.
He was quiet. He felt as if the cat had his tongue. Well, he dreamed to himself, that’s that. That’s that, then. A politician to the last. He needed his audience, he supposed. With Rose Helen gone, there was no one to hear him. Now he’d never be able to work it out, all the linkages. All that complicated family tree of corruption and caper, the linchpin hidden in its leaves. Because I’m not crazy, he dreamed, thought, subconscioused — whatever. Because I’m not crazy. On the contrary, I’m a very decorumed, decorous guy. I have my flaws, I’d be the first to admit it. Oh, sure, he sleep-mulled, I’m no more perfect than the next fallen fellow. Well those surgeries. Well those collapsed lungs. Well that zippery leg where they took out my vein. Well that impotence. Well my itty-bitty paranoia, well my dreamspeak. But I have my principles. No talking aloud if no one’s in the forest to hear me. Mum’s the word, but you won’t catch me saying it!
In his sleep he heard a noise.
“MacMikey?” he mumbled.
MacGuffin.
You don’t have a key.
I have the key to your heart.
The chain’s up.
I’m pretty slippery. I’m slippery dickory dock.
Amscray, will you?
Otway orfay?
Who needs you?
Well, unless I’m much mistaken, you do.
Do not.
Do too.
This is ridiculous.
This is ridiculous? This is? You invoked me.
When did I do that?
Oh, please, Druff. You can fool some of the people some of the time and part of the people all of the time.
Druff waited for it to go on, but evidently it had finished.
Well, Druff went, as long as you’re here. This is my thinking on the thing. I can place Su’ad with our Mikey. I can place Dick with our Mikey. I think I can place MacMikey and Dick with MacMeg. I think, from something MacDoug said, I can place him with all three. I’ve got MacDan with the concierge, I’ve got him with MacGlorio. It’s all pretty circumstantial, but the world’s pretty circumstantial, too.
Now, MacDruff went, where was I? MacDick with MacMikey. MacMikey with Dick and the buyer. The buyer with the MacConcierge. The concierge with Dan. MacDan with Ham ‘n’ Eggs and MacRector. Did I say Doug with MacMacklin? Right then, Doug with MacMacklin. Mrs. MacMack with Mr. MacMayor. And Doug with the mayor, too, of course. And obviously MacDoug with MacDick. So MacDick with MacMayor. So Dick with Mrs. Macklin. So Mrs. MacMacklin with Mr. MacMacklin. So why not Mr. MacMacklin with Su’ad? So why not MacMikey with Mr. Macklin? Am I pulling it all together, or am I pulling it all together? Am I way ahead you? Are you eating my dust?
Hey, goes MacGuffin, I’ve been there and gone. Are you psycho, or what? You fair give me vertigo. Until you’ve walked thirty-nine steps in my macmoccasins, kiddo, don’t you go be comin’ up in my face like you be some man who know too much.
Why?
Cause it give me the frenzy.
It do, do it, Mr. Bones?
Without a shadow of a doubt, Rebecca.
Well, I’ll be spellbound, Druff went on.
You will, will you? goes MacGuffin.
Didn’t I say so?
Yeah, you said so all right, but between you, me and the lamppost I say you’re for the birds!
Oh yeah? Oh yeah? A bunch of rugs mysteriously shows up on a bunch of floors and the lady just vanishes?
I’d say so.
Su’ad and my son. That’s where they met, in that night-school art class.
Mnh hmn.
She was a Shiite Muslim. Do you know all the trouble they get into?
So?
So she used Mikey’s paints.
So?
Don’t you get it? She drew Oriental rugs. Iranian carpets, yes? The Iran-Lebanon nexus? The Iranian-Lebanese-Syrian one?
Mnh hmn.
Su’ad was a smuggler! She not only brought carpets out of her country but got commissions for designs she worked out in night school in to her weavers. She used the place as her studio. She used their light. She used paints and swatches of canvases I paid for!
Ho hum.
What’s that, ho hum?
Come on, MacGuffin goes, you ain’t telling me nothing. Nothing. Zippo. Not a thing.
Wait up. Hold on. There were certain conversations in the synagogue. I’d made a reference to rugs. Dan, somebody, said I was warm. Other stuff was said. Double entendres, very cryptic shit about bankers. Macklin was a hardened banker. I asked MacMayor. He said it was none of my business.
Bankers.
And one of them said something about psychiatrists writing prescriptions for pianos, dinette sets. I don’t know, whatever the traffic will bear.
I put it to you again. So?
Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? Whatever the traffic will bear! I’m City Commissioner of Streets. I’m in traffic! Who more than? Traffic’s the key!
Again with the traffic, again with the key. Metaphors. Puns.
Have you got a better explanation?
What, are you kidding me?
There’s already a question on the floor.
All right then, yes. Sure. The little red dot in the middle of the Hindu woman’s forehead.
Little red dot? Hindu woman’s forehead? I don’t…
It’s a microchip, silly. With the plans.
The plans.
No? All right. Say it’s wartime. Say there’s this Lord Haw-Haw type with a slight but very distinct stammer who broadcasts this very seductive, very seditious, very traitorous garbage on the shortwave back to our boys in the foxholes. We’re losing the war. This is just insult to injury. Fucks morale on all fronts. A major puts a commando team together to take the son of a bitch out. Very do-or-die mission. We’re looking for a few good men. Montage of serious training. Cut to guy who splits his nuts open on the confidence course. To guy whose character ain’t in it and he loses it. Okay, commandos finally get through. Countercommandos go after them. Armageddon. Heavy losses all around…
Commandos? Countercommandos? What are you…
Jerk, the stammer was a code!
A code.
Da dit dit dot. He was sending inside hush-hush on the enemy’s secret plans and high doings. The major was just out of the loop.