"You ever think about damnation, John? Fascinating concept, full of ambiguity. In heaven we lose our characters in the perpetual glorification of God, but in hell we continue to be ourselves. What's more, we think we deserve damnation, and Christianity tells us our first ancestors cursed us with it, Augustine said that even Nature was damned, and—" He dropped my arm and spun around. "Now where the hell is that bottle? Those bottles, I should say."
Empty Dewar's bottles stood against the splashboard of the sink counter, and a paper bag full of empty bottles stood beside the back door. Pizza delivery boxes lay strewn over the counters and tipped into the sink, where familiar brown insects roamed over and through them, scuttling across the crusty plates and upended glasses.
"Ask and ye shall receive," Brookner said, fetching an unopened bottle of Scotch from a case beneath the sink. He slammed it down on the counter, and the roaches in the sink slipped inside the nearest pizza boxes. He broke the seal and twisted the cap off. "Glasses up there," he said to me, nodding at a cupboard near my head.
I opened the cupboard. Five highball glasses stood widely scattered on a shelf that could have held thirty. I brought down three and set them in front of Brookner. He looked a little like a disreputable Indian holy man.
"Oh well, today I could use a drink," Ransom said. "Let's have one, and then we'll get you taken care of."
"Tell me where April is." Brookner gripped the bottle and glared at him out of his monkey face.
"April is out of town," John said.
"Investment poo-bahs don't go dillydallying when their customers need them. Is she at home? Is she sick?"
"She's in San Francisco," John said. He reached and took the bottle from his father-in-law the way a cop would take a handgun from a confused teenager.
"And what in Tophet is my daughter doing in San Francisco?"
Ransom poured half an inch of whiskey into a glass and gave it to the old man. "Barnett is going to merge with another investment house, and there's been talk about April getting a promotion and running a separate office out there."
"What's the other investment house?" Brookner drank all of the whiskey in two gulps. He held out his glass without looking at it. Liquid shone on his jutting lower lip.
"Bear, Stearns," John said. He poured a good slug of whiskey into his own glass and slowly took a mouthful.
"She won't go. My daughter won't leave me." He was still holding out his glass, and John poured another inch of whiskey into it. "We were—we were supposed to go somewhere together." He gestured at me with the bottle.
I shook my head.
"Go on, he wants one too, can't you see?"
Ransom twisted sideways, poured whiskey into the third glass, and handed it to me.
"Here's looking at you, kid," Brookner said, and raised his glass to his mouth. He drank half of his whiskey and checked to see if I was still interested in having a good time.
I raised my glass and swallowed a tiny bit of the Scotch. It tasted hot, like something living. I moved away from the old man and set my glass on a long pine table. Then I noticed what else was on the table. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay," Brookner boomed out in his disconcertingly healthy voice. "All the whores are in luck today." He sucked at his drink.
Next to my glass was a revolver and stack of twenty-dollar bills that must have added up to at least four or five hundred dollars. Beside that was a stack of tens, just as high. A taller pile of fives stood beside that, and about a hundred singles lay in a heap like a pile of leaves at the end of the table. I made some sort of noise, and the old man turned around and saw what I was looking at.
"My bank," he said. "Worked it out myself. So I can pay the delivery boys. This way they can't cheat ya, get it? Make change lickety-split. The gun there is my security system. I grab it and watch them count it out."
"Delivery boys?" John asked.
"From the pizza place, the one with the radio vans. And the liquor store. Generally I asks 'em if they'd like a little blast. Mostly they just take the money and run."
"I bet they do," John said.
"Uh-oh, my stomach feels bad." The old man palped his stringy belly with his right hand. "All of a sudden." He groaned.
"Get upstairs," John said. "You don't want to have an accident in here. I'll come with you. You're going to have a shower."
"I already had—"
"Then you'll have another one." Ransom turned him around and pushed him through the swinging door.
Brookner bellowed about his stomach as they went up a second staircase at the back of the house. The loud voice went from room to room. I poured whiskey over the roaches, and they scampered back into the pizza boxes. When I got tired of watching them, I sat down next to the piles of money and waited. After a little while, I began stacking the pizza boxes and flattening them out so that I could squeeze them into the garbage can. Then I squirted soap over the heap of dishes in the sink and turned on the hot water.
15
About forty minutes later Ransom came back into the kitchen and stopped short when he saw what I was doing. His wide, pale face clouded over, but after a moment of hesitation, he pulled a white dish towel from a drawer and began wiping dishes. "Thanks, Tim," he said. "The place was a mess, wasn't it? What did you do with all the stuff that was lying around?"
"I found a couple of garbage bags," I said. "There weren't all that many dishes, so I decided to take care of them while you hosed the old man down. Did he get sick?"
"He just complained a lot. I pushed him into the shower and made sure he used soap. He goes into these funny states, he doesn't remember how to do the simplest things. Other times, like when he was down here, he seems almost in control—not really rational, of course, but kind of on top of things."
I wondered what the other times were like if I had seen Alan Brookner when he was on top of things.
We finished washing and drying the dishes.
"Where is he now?"
"Back in bed. As soon as he was dry, he passed out. Which is exactly what I want to do. Would you mind us getting out of here?"
I pulled the plug in the sink and wiped my hands on the wet towel. "Did you ever figure out what that trip was that he kept talking about?"
He opened the kitchen door and fiddled with the knob so that the door would lock behind us when he closed it. "Trip? April used to take him to the zoo, the museum, places like that. Alan isn't really up for any excursion, as you probably noticed."
"And this was one of his good days?"
We went outside by the kitchen door and walked around the side of the house. The overgrown grass baked in the sunlight. One of the big oak trees had been split by lightning, and an entire side had turned black and leafless. Everything, house, lawn, and trees, needed care.
"Well, everything he said was coherent, as far as I remember. He would have been better if he hadn't been drinking for a couple of days."
We came out of the tall grass onto the sidewalk and began walking back to Ely Place. Prickly little brown balls clung to my trousers like Velcro. I pulled fresh moist air into my lungs.
"He's supposed to teach next year?"
"He made it through last year with only a couple of funny episodes."
I asked how old he was.
"Seventy-six."
"Why hasn't he retired?"
John laughed—an unhappy bark. "He's Alan Brookner. He can stay on as long as he wants. But if he goes, the whole department goes with him."
"Why is that?"
"I'm the rest of the department."
"Are you looking for a new job?"
"Anything could happen. Alan might snap out of it."
We walked along in silence for a time.