— I cannot go off with them, mahn.
— But why? I mean, why not?
— It's that Mister Brown, mahn, sayin to me Fuller don't you bring any more of your God-damned corpse bouquets in at this house.
— But in your own room, I mean even in your own room you can't have them?
— No mahn, and he find out some way too if I try. Like the birds, I believe he even know about the birds. Somebody inform on me, I know, he added, looking at the poodle.
— What birds?
— I tell you about that another time, when we not under surveillance. But the gloves? You reserved another selection of gloves for me?
— Yes, I mean I have eight pairs. Eight of them, I mean sixteen. Sixteen gloves, eight pall-bearers I mean. He fetched the gloves, and Fuller looked them over carefully.
— These are very choice, Fuller said holding up one pair. — Very clean and immaculate. I suppose he don't carry the coffin, just walk alongside to be respectable.
— But doesn't he mind the gloves? I mean Mister Brown, he doesn't mind you wearing these gloves that were used to carry the, a… well I mean there's no harm in it but some people are peculiar, I mean to serve things wearing these?
— He think I purchase them, said Fuller. — That is how I managin to finance my trip mahn. The money I save.
— Your trip?
— Yes, I fear this is sayin farewell to you. Tomorrow I will be a distance away, goin to my home.
— To the Barbados?
— I plan departin tomorrow in the morning.
— But Fuller, I mean not like the other times, I mean you've started out other times.
— I plan departin in the morning, Fuller repeated firmly, speaking to the dog. He put the gloves under his coat. — You still have your Armenium?
— Oh yes, I mean always, he'll always be here.
— It remain a great pity his family cannot have him back, down in the Armenium where they reside, put him in the nice groung of his homeland where he belong to be.
— Seven years. He's been there, I mean, here, seven years. He was here when I bought this store, I mean the business. 1 write letters to his family, but they can't send money out of Armenia to pay the rent, I mean to pay his. my keeping him here like this. I'm not even sure there is such a country as Armenia any more.
— I wish some day I could aid him to return to his homeland, Fuller said, as he put out his hand. — Goodbye, he said. — I leavin you to God to watch over and proteck you. And the Armenium.
— Goodbye Fuller, come around Thursday night if you can, there's going to be a big… I mean. The little man had looked forward to the greatest day in his career when Fuller's master was given over to him for the last shave and costuming, and had no doubt Fuller would see that he got the commission. It had never been discussed between them. Nevertheless it was understood. Fuller had rehearsed the scene in his own impatient imagination many times. — Goodbye Fuller, he said, disappointment in his voice. — Send me a picture postcard, Fuller.
The black companions returned to hear their master's voice echoing the words God damn it down the halls. Fuller was greeted with the phrase when they appeared in the doorway.
— God damn it, Fuller. Do you know what time it is? The poodle ran up to his side, where it stood muzzling his hand. — You're late. Where the hell have you been? That God damn undertaker's? Fuller looked at the poodle, who was betraying him even as he stood there.
— I stop to say somebody hello, sar, he admitted.
— Bring in the glasses, Fuller. Then go to bed.
— But Mister Brown I don't mean to…
— Bring in the glasses, Fuller.
A few minutes later, Fuller entered, bearing the tray in white-gloved hands, With three glasses, two clean linen towels, and a bucket of ice. He put them on the bar across the room, behind
Recktall Brown and Basil Valentine who were sitting before the fireplace. He stood fussing at the bar. Then Recktall Brown realized that he was still in the room, waiting like a hopeful shadow to be assigned some attachment in the light.
— Before you go to bed you'd better give me that ticket, Fuller.
—^Ticket, Mister Brown?
— Give me that ticket you bought for Utica New York.
— Ticket please. Mister Brown?
— God damn it Fuller, give rne that ticket you bought this morning for Utica.
— But Mister Brown I don't mean to… Fuller was shaking.
— Fuller!
Fuller reached down into an inside pocket, and drew the ticket out slowly, handed it over. — Now go to bed. And no lights. Remember, no lights.
Fuller looked, at him- and then at the poodle, and turned to trudge up the stairs.
— Crazy old nigger's scared of the dark, Recktall Brown said. — He says he's "visited by the most terrible creatures in the whole of history," he laughed, tearing up the ticket to Utica. He threw the bits into the fireplace. — He thinks anywhere must be on the way to Barbados.
— Your occult powers are rather impressive.
— Occult? Recktall Brown grunted the word, and paused his cigar in the air between them abruptly so that its ash fell to the Aubusson carpet like a gray bird-dropping. He looked through his thick lenses and through the smoke: there were moments when Basil Valentine looked sixteen, days when he looked sixty. In profile, his face was strong and flexible; but, when he turned full face as he did now, the narrowness of his chin seemed to sap the face of that strength so impressive an instant before. Temples faintly graying, distinguished enough to be artificial (though the time was gone when anyone might have said premature, and gone the time when it was necessary to dye them so, instead now to tint them with black occasionally), he looked like an old person who looks very young, hair-ends slightly too long, he wore a perfectly fitted gray pinstripe suit, soft powder-blue Oxford-cloth shirt, and a slender black tie whose pattern, woven in the silk, was barely discernible. He raised a gold cigarette case in long fingers. Gold glittered at his cuff.
— How did you know, that he had a ticket for Utica?
— This morning he asks me very carefully, Mr. Brown, do they use United States of America money in a place called Utica? Recktall Brown laughed, and Basil Valentine smiled, took a cigarette from the case, and laid the case on the low table before him. There was a long inscription, worn nearly smooth, on the surface of the gold, and he ran a fingertip over it before leaving the case on the glass-covered painting, on the slender column separating the tableaux Avaritia and Invidia. He raised his eyes slightly when he lit his cigarette, to the table's center, and blew a stream of smoke toward the underclothed Figure there with its maimed hand upraised. — You keep it too warm in here, he said finally.
— I like it this way.
— Not for you, not for you. I wasn't thinking of you. The paintings, the furniture. This steam heat will warp everything you have.
— Not before I sell them. And what the hell? Whoever buys them puts them up in steam-heated places. Recktall Brown ground an Aubusson rose under heel, turning to cross the room toward the bar. It was a small hexagonal pulpit, furnished with bottles. The carved oak leaves, and the well-pinioned figure of Christ on its face (which gave him occasion to remark, — He was innocent, and they nailed him) were stained with tricklings of gin. — Gin?
— I'd prefer whisky. Basil Valentine did not look up from the magazine he'd drawn toward him and opened again on the table. He studied the reproduction on the two-page spread of the centerfold, and his lips moved. Then he pushed the open Collectors Quarterly away and stood abruptly, to demand: —Is he always this late? accepting the glass from the heavy hand mounting the two diamonds.
— Nervous? Brown laughed, a sound which stopped in his throat, and sank back in a chair. — With somebody like him you can't expect.