"It didn't feel that way," Driscoll said. He addressed the words to Norman, but he was still staring at his wife.
"Don't let him scare you," Norman said. "All you have to remember is that McIntyre isn't an idiot. He'll see this as clearly as the rest of us do."
"Mmm," Driscoll said.
"I'll tell you how I know you didn't steal that play."
"How?"
"The patterns."
"Meaning?"
"The play and the book have entirely different patterns," Norman said, completely aware that neither of them were the least bit interested in what he was saying, but convinced he had to say something, anything, to avert a homicide right here at the table, and then perversely deciding he would ask Mrs. Driscoll whether she still had that cute little crescent-shaped scar on her thigh, and then deciding against it. I know, Dr. Maloney, I'm chicken, I'm afraid of the white man. Has it ever occurred to you, Dr. Maloney, that you are a white man and that I am paying you for the privilege of informing you about how a Negro feels about white men like yourself? I know, I know, I'm paying you because I'm afraid of you too, man, you can't win. He sighed and said, "The patterns are obvious to anyone who's read both works carefully."
"Have you read them carefully, Mr. Sheppard?" Ebie asked.
"I read them both twice."
"And they're both about war, aren't they?" she asked, and looked up at her husband.
"Yes," Norman said, "but that's only the superficial pattern. I'm talking about something else. Look, there's a pattern to a bullfight, too. It never changes, it's always the same, it's timeless. But the bulls are different, and the men are different, and what happens each time is different from what happened the time before, even though the sequence of events may be identical. Or take a trial, for that matter, take any court case. Nothing changes there, does it? All rise, and the judge comes in, and the clerk tells us who the plaintiff is and who's defending, and the witnesses come up, and are sworn in and examined and cross-examined, all prescribed and tight, all according to strict rules and regulations — a pattern conceived and executed by men. It's my personal theory that all the civilized structures men create have to be patterened because life itself is so formless."
"I don't agree with that," Driscoll said.
"You don't think life is formless? Coincidental? Even inconclusive?"
"It's certainly not inconclusive. It ends."
"Who says an end is a conclusion?"
"Webster."
"What the hell did he know? All he did ws give us a formal pattern for our language, which is exactly what I'm talking about. We have to have these patterns. Life would be unendurable otherwise. Look, the logical conclusion for life is death, isn't it — formless, mysterious, inexplicable? But do we accept it? No. We invent another pattern, an afterlife, a complex of heaven and hell, thereby extending life, and creating a concept we can hope to understand. We set up rules and regulations for everything, the same way you did when you were writing your novel, the same way Constantine did when he was writing his play. A pattern. A logical structure. You even went a step further by laying out a timetable for yourself, target dates and word goals, superimposing a second pattern upon the pattern already established for your novel. You had to know that at least the task would be conclusive."
"What do you mean?"
"The pattern you'd established for your book was inconclusive, Jimmy. You know that. The novel simply ends."
"It's conclusive, all right," Ebie said. "Perhaps you didn't understand it."
"I think I understood it."
"Perhaps not," she said. "In many respects, you see, The Paper Dragon is a mystery."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that it's a mystery," she said, and shrugged, and glanced at her husband.
"Any good novel is a mystery," Norman said.
"I don't mean a mystery story," Ebie answered.
"What do you mean?" Driscoll asked sharply.
"A book with a key."
"Like a diary?" Norman asked, and smiled.
"Yes," Ebie answered unsmilingly. "Like a diary."
"I wish my diary could earn as much money for me," Norman said.
"I think my wife is trying to say that all fiction is personalized fantasy. In that respect…"
"No, that's not what I'm trying to say."
"But that's it precisely," Norman said, leaning forward. "That's why the two works are so very different, because one is exclusively Constantine's fantasy, and the other is exclusively yours. The patterns are as different as your fingerprints."
"What about the 105th?" Ebie asked, and the table went silent again.
"Patterns are created by humans," Norman said at last. "The 105th is a human coincidence, pure and simple."
Ebie's eyes met her husband's, but she said nothing.
Sidney Brackman ate quickly and alone, and then went out into the street to rehearse his plan, deciding again to go ahead with it, and then deciding almost immediately that he was behaving foolishly again and in a manner that could only incur Chickie's wrath. She had said it last night, of course, and she'd been absolutely right, was he going to distrust her even after they were married? What kind of foundation was that, how could two people live and grow together if they did not trust each other?
He supposed there was a Jerome Courtlandt, and he supposed the agency really was planning a trip for him, but it seemed very coincidental to him, well, what the hell, life was full of coincidences, still it seemed very coincidental to him that Jerome Courtlandt in his tan Cadillac just happened to be on the way to the agency at closing time, just happened to pick up the two girls and, according to Chickie's testimony, drop them off at a restaurant. Well, why not? It had been a bitter night, thank God the temperature was a little milder today, it looked like rain, and how was Courtlandt to know what time the agency closed? Still, it was rather late to be heading there, well no, not if he thought the agency was open. And she had, after all, told Sidney about this Courtlandt fellow, she wouldn't have mentioned his name if there were anything funny about it, would she? Of course not. So why had he conceived his ridiculous plan, and why was he intent now on putting it into action? He either believed the girl or he didn't, trusted her or didn't. And why would she jeopardize their very good relationship, that could only get better once he won the case, once he came into his share of what the Court awarded Arthur, once they were married, he would have to call.
No, don't, he thought. Don't ask for trouble. Leave well enough alone. You're going to marry this girl, leave well enough alone.
He found a telephone booth in the drugstore on the next corner. He lingered outside the booth while a woman chattered interminably with someone she kept calling "Boondy," and then went to the Manhattan directory only after the woman had vacated the booth. He hesitated before opening the book, turned to the C's and hesitated again, closed the book and walked directly out of the drugstore and into the street, it still looked like rain.
I'm doing the best thing, he thought. Why would I want to check up on her, for God's sake, she told me what it was all about, didn't she, she even told me the mans' name, Jerome Courtlandt, would she have given me his name if there'd been anything to hide? He spotted a bar in the middle of Murray Street, quickly turned right, and went into it. There were a lot of colored girls scattered at the tables, eating lunch and drinking beer, girls who worked in the various municipal offices in the area, he supposed — what would New York City do without its colored civil service employees, sink into the ocean, that's what. The juke box was playing a lovely melody, he could not place it, one of the new things. He had stopped remembering the tunes or words to songs when he was eighteen, and had always considered it a loss. The phone booth was at the end of the bar. A lighted sign above it advertised Miller's High Life. By the light of the sign, he searched the Manhattan directory and found a listing for Courtlandt, Jerome, on East 36th Street, well, he exists, he thought, and closed the book. He stood undecided for a moment. The bartender was watching him. He opened the book again, found the listing again, memorized the number, and went into the booth to dial it.