Chapter XII (1)

    By five o'clock Saturday morning, Lennox had walked himself to exhaustion. He slipped into the apartment in 33 Knickerbocker Square and went to bed. At nine o'clock he was shot out of bed as by a cannon. He dressed, went downstairs, picked up his mail and left the house. Two envelopes were from the Grabinett office. They contained his script fee and his royalty for the "Who He?" show of December 18th, a total of seven hundred and fifty dollars.
    The banks were closed on Saturday. Lennox went to a bookie he knew on 14th Street who also operated a check cashing office. There, he converted his checks into fifties and twenties.
    "Getting set for a big New Year's Eve, hey?" the bookie laughed.
    "No," Lennox told him. "I'm going to be murdered tomorrow."
    He stepped into the nearest saloon and had two brandy Alexanders.
    "Startin' early, hey?" the bartender laughed.
    "No," Lennox said. "I'm having my last fling. I'm going to be murdered tomorrow."
    On the way uptown he had a couple of more Alexanders and then breakfast at Androuet's on Persian melon, coffee, and Croque Monsieur Roquefort, which is a blend of Roquefort, Brie and cream, broiled on Virginia ham. It is usually taken with wine. Lennox finished a bottle of Muscadet and ordered another pot of coffee and a telephone. When the phone was plugged in at his table, he called the East River Airport and chartered a plane.
    "You are celebrating the New Year en l'air, M'sieur Lennox?" his waiter inquired in astonishment.
    "No," Lennox answered. "I'm taking a last trip home."
    It was cold and still on the East River. A heavy grey ceiling hung low in the sky. As Lennox climbed from the dock to the pontoon of the tiny Cub and then into the cabin, the pilot looked dubious.
    "There's fog coming in at Montauk," he said. "I hope we can beat it."
    He swung the Cub out into the river and taxied frantically toward the 59th Street bridge. Lennox wondered whether they were going under or over the bridge when suddenly the buffeting of the chop ceased and they shuddered their way sky-ward. Instantly The Rock was transformed into a make-believe city ... a toy on a table.
    They flew east over Long Island City and Jamaica and then northeast from Freeport up Great South Bay, past Amityville and Babylon to the Bay Shore Harbor where the Cub landed in Great Cove and taxied in.
    "I won't be an hour," Lennox told the pilot.
    He went to a white clapboard fish-house on the dock, phoned for a cab and waited in the bar. There was an enormous coal fire glowing in the fireplace grate and an enormous jolly proprietor glowing behind the bar. He looked like a benevolent wrestler.
    "If you were drinking your last bottle on earth," Lennox asked him, "what would it be?"
    "Irish," the wrestler answered promptly.
    Lennox sampled the Irish until the taxi honked its horn outside the fish-house. He got into the car and they drove through Bay Shore to Islip and then down a bleak road to the Champlin Marshes.
    "There's nothing down to the end of this road," the cab driver said, "It's a dead-end."
    "So am I," Lennox grunted.
    The road ended in a small circle of pits and ruts. Around it was half a mile of dry brown marsh reeds rustling listlessly in the light breeze. Beyond the marsh was the steel grey of Great South Bay. A rotting boardwalk led from the circle to a large shack built at the edge of a narrow creek that wound out through the marsh to the bay. The house was weathered silver, the windows had long since been burst in, the shutters had been blown away.
    Lennox got out of the cab and walked down the boardwalk to the shack. When he reached the door, his hand automatically lifted high to grasp the doorknob. His lips twisted at this memory of the childhood flesh. He lowered his hand, pushed the door open and entered. For a paralyzing moment he thought his dead father was standing inside the house. Then he looked closer and saw that it was a stranger, a tall, thin man with white hair, fussing with a camera on a tripod.
    "God has answered my prayers!" the photographer exclaimed. "Can I trouble you for just a moment, sir? Look here...." He pointed. The seaward wall of the house had collapsed. The marsh, the sea and the sky were framed in broken, silvery timber ends.
    "A perfect L composition. Verticals on the left; horizontals below. The eye is led in to the middle distance from any corner. Quintessential desolation. But there's a fundamental weakness on the right. You see it?" The photographer darted to a heavy square stud and rapped it sharply at the precise spot where Jake's slicker used to hang. "This must be broken. What I need is a shoulder. Someone outside, leaning against this post, staring out to sea. We don't see him, of course. Just the part of the back and the shoulder carrying the eye back to the center. You don't mind?"
    The photographer led Lennox to the stud, positioned him, and rushed back to the camera, chuckling and twittering. Lennox stood there, staring at the marsh, the creek, the remnants of the dock where his father's clam boat had been moored. He was filled with hatred and shame.
    "Thank you, sir. Thank you so much," the photographer called. "If you only knew how many weeks I've been waiting for this light. And then to have you come along just in time.... What brought you, h'mm? Are you an angel or a photographer?"
    "I was born and raised here," Lennox answered. "As a matter of fact, I think I own this place."
    "My dear sir! Am I trespassing?"
    "Yes," Lennox said. "We both are."
    He returned to the cab and drove back to the Bay Shore docks. There he sampled the Irish again until the pilot hurried him into the plane. He had been phoning up and down Long Island and the fog was closing in rapidly. By twelve-thirty when they were over The Rock again, it had covered the river.
    "We can't get in here," the pilot muttered.
    "What do we do? Head for Spain?"
    "I'll settle for the Coney Island station," the pilot said. "How about it?"
    "Why not?" Lennox said. Suddenly he began to laugh. "Do you know, I've never been to Coney Island in all my life? Why not now?"
    "It's dead now."
    "I'll be dead tomorrow. Why not catch up on everything I've missed? What the hell am I so damned gloomy for? I'm going to enjoy."
    The Cub circled and soared over the Upper Bay and sneaked down through breaks in the heavy nacreous blanket. There was no chop on the water off Coney Island, but there was a swinging groundswell as they taxied in to the small station. It made the brandy and Irish fume pleasantly inside Lennox.
    He paid off the pilot, parted from him genially, found a saloon, and requested to be served with "Dog's Nose," a drink he recollected from Dickens. He was now in the first, or literary stage of drunkenness. The bartender consulted his blue book and regretfully reported that no such drink was listed. Lennox settled for a pair of Boilermakers and wandered out to the desolate amusement park, empty, canvassed and boarded up.
    Lennox beamed. He took out his gimmick book and silver pencil, turned to a clean page and wrote: "Blessed be the man who sells joy. He is humanity's benefactor." He tore the page out, folded it and slipped it under the shutter of a dormant shooting gallery. He strolled to the ticket office of the roller coaster, wrote: "Better to be happy than wise," and tucked it under the window.
    To the Half Man Half Woman booth he donated "Pleasure is virtue's gayer name." To the 25 CANNIBAL BEAUTIES 25 he contributed "Life is not life at all without delight." And for the Giant Swing he wrote: "Pleasure is the sovereign bliss of humankind." As he was tucking this fond salutation under the door of the box-office, a thought struck him. He opened the slip, considerately wrote "Alexander Pope 1688-1744" under the quotation and replaced the message.
    He left the amusement park, bought a pack of cigarettes and hailed a cab. He told the driver to take him back to The Rock, and as they sped along the Belt Parkway, he opened the pack and lit up.
    "Look at me smoking. I'm intox'ated," he told himself, and laughed immoderately, thinking of the dear Shroff.
    The fog slowed the traffic and there was a slight jam as they approached the tunnel to Manhattan Island. The car behind them lost its temper and began an exasperating horn honking.
    "That's rude," Lennox muttered. He called: "Stop, driver!"
    The cab stopped its forward crawl, Lennox got out, went to the car behind them, bowed politely, opened the engine hood and pulled the wires off the horn. He marched back to the cab, got in, and with a grand air ordered: "Drive on, coachman. Drive on!"
    At Sabatini's he had three very dry Gibsons and entered the dining room where he ordered oysters, turtle soup, Shrimps Livornese, marinated asparagus, escarole and coffee. The dining room was half empty; very few of the people in the business are around on Saturdays, and fewer still on the afternoon before New Year's Eve. Lennox consumed his oysters and soup and allowed his gaze to relax on a couple at the next table. He didn't know the man, but the young lady was familiar.
    She was a blonde, with enormous blue eyes and an exquisite pouting mouth. She wore a black siren-type dress that exposed her neck, shoulders and altogether too much cleavage.
    "That's a Theda Bara dress," Lennox muttered in annoyance. "No ingénue ought to be wearing it."
    What annoyed him even more was the fact that the ingénue was behaving like a road-company Theda Bara. She pouted, she hooded her eyes, she undulated her shoulders and heaved her poitrine like the High Priestess of the Python.
    "Now where have I seen that corn-ball playing that routine before?" Lennox asked himself. Suddenly he remembered. An ingénue in a velvet gown trimmed with miniver, batting her eyes at Oliver Stacy over a champagne glass. He began to laugh. The girl looked up, caught his eye, and gave him a slinky undulation. Lennox arose and bowed. Then he reached into his water glass, took out a lump of ice and dropped it into her cleavage.
    He didn't have to pick himself up off the sidewalk, but there was no doubt he'd been thrown out of Sabatini's.
    "Live dangerously," he chuckled and was afflicted with thirst. He quenched it with a bottle of stout at the saloon in the network building and then wandered upstairs to visit the studios.
    He poked his head into rehearsals and waved affectionately to friends and strangers. The last studio down the corridor was on the air with some kind of radio mystery. Lennox tip-toed in, waved, and placed himself alongside the sound table where the soundman stood with a gun poised in his hand while a couple of gangster-type actors snarled at each other on mike. Lennox watched the script over the soundman's shoulder, and as the gunshot cue came up, on sudden impulse he snatched the gun out of the soundman's hand.
    The director behind the glass waved frantically. The actors shook their scripts at him. The soundman struggled to get hold of the gun.
    "Bang!" Lennox shouted. He beamed, put the gun down quietly and tip-toed out.
    "My girl doesn't approve of violence. Guns and such," he confided to the bartender in the Greek's.
    "The peaceful teep, huh, Jake?"
    "A veritable dove of peace." He considered. "Chris.... What's the difference between doves and pigeons?"
    "There ain't no difference, Jake."
    "There has to be. Otherwise wouldn't have two different names," Lennox said. "That's relentless logic."
    "No," Chris said. "I keep 'em. I ought to know. Doves is white pigeons. You sure you want all this garbage in your old fashioned, Jake?"
    Lennox nodded. "My system needs ascorbic acid. Where could I buy some doves, Chris?"
    "Down to the poultry market. Just ask for white pigeons," Chris added stubbornly.
    Lennox took a cab down to the poultry market which adjoined the Chambers Street Food Market. In the former he purchased twelve doves (white pigeons). In the latter he consumed six banana fritters and a quart of a dangerous brew called Still Ale. The doves in their cage refused the fritters and the ale, but they partook of breadcrumbs with joy.
    He carried them up to Greenwich Village, found Gabby's apartment house and rang the downstairs bell. There was no answer. He located the superintendent, bribed him, and was escorted up to Gabby's apartment by that careful man to leave the cage within. Lennox was not permitted to enter more than three steps where he was directed to put the cage down. He did so, but opened the door. He was gratified to see the studio living room fill with doves.
    "Make her happy," he chuckled. "Make em all happy, huh? How?"
    He thought it over in a basement bar where he drank Moscow Mules not, he explained to the bartender, because he was sympathetic to the Soviet cause, but because he admired the copper mugs. How to spread joy? Three Mules led him to the light.
    He went back to Sixth Avenue and entered the premises of a sign painter. To him he entrusted four sheets of notebook paper on which he had printed carefully.
    "Want four signs in an hour," Lennox beamed. "Make 'em six feet by three feet in black and red. Just do 'em freehand. Yes? Rush job for very special friend of mine. Back in one hour."
    He crossed Sixth Avenue to a large photographer's supply store and bought one hundred flash bulbs which were packed in a large carton for him. He took a cab up to Mason's apartment house. He phoned from the corner. Irma answered.
    "Irma," Lennox said urgently. "Mig wants you down at the theater right away. He wants everybody. Hurry up!"
    He waited. Ten minutes later Irma, her brother and his wife emerged from the building and hurried off. This was not the first time they had been summoned to attend Mig, but it was the first time that Mig hadn't done the summoning.
    "Chances are he'll be grateful I remembered for him," Lennox murmured. "That is, if he remembers he didn't call 'em himself."
    He went up to the Mason apartment and entered. There was no one there. Carrying the carton with him, Lennox kindly removed all the light bulbs and jammed a flash bulb into every socket in the apartment.
    "Oh, it'll be a sunny New Year for Mig all right all right," Lennox laughed. He returned to Sixth Avenue, poked his head into the sign painter's to urge him on, then went to a large hardware store where he purchased one hundred pounds of moth balls.
    "What the hell do you want with so much?" the hardware man asked in amazement.
    "Not for me," Lennox explained patiently. "For a friend who's all the time worrying about his property. Can't protect it enough. I'm afraid he's forgot about moths."
    "Crazy! Where you want this shipped?"
    "Want to take it myself. Can I hire your assistant? Pay five dollars for five minutes."
    "I guess so. Alfred!"
    Alfred shambled out of the back of the store and helped Lennox carry the mothballs to the building where Tooky Ween had his office. They went up on the freight elevator but were dismayed to discover that Ween's office was closed for the day and locked.
    "What we gone do now?" Alfred asked.
    "Never admit defeat," Lennox said. "Go back to freight elevator. Was a big piece cardboard there. Bring it."
    Alfred brought the sheet of corrugated board. Lennox twisted it into a funnel and inserted the narrow end into the mail slot in Ween's office door.
    "Now open the boxes," Lennox beamed.
    Carefully and kindly, they funneled one hundred pounds of mothballs into Ween's office.
    "Won't have to worry about his property again," Lennox said.
    He accompanied Alfred back to the hardware store where he purchased a stapling gun. Then he paid for his four signs, rolled them up and carried them to Grabinett's office. He nodded to the receptionist, breezed past her and entered the twisting halls of the rat-nest. There was no traffic. Lennox stopped, measured with his eye, and stapled the first six by three sign to the wall. In garish red and black letters it read:
    40 FEET 40
    TO THE OFFICE OF
    MELVIN GRABINETT
    The Man
    of
    V*i*s*i*o*n*!
    Lennox went ten feet down the hall and stapled the next sign to the wall:
    ONLY 30 FEET MORE
    TO THE OFFICE OF
    MELVIN GRABINETT
    The Showman's
    S*h*o*w*m*a*n
    At the corner of the hall he stapled:
    NEXT RIGHT TURN
    TO THE OFFICE OF
    M — G
    E — R
    L — A
    V — B
    I — I
    N — N
    E
    T
    T
    Alongside Grabinett's door he affixed the last sign:
    O*F*F*I*C*E
    O*F
    MELVIN (BLINKY) GRABINETT
    "Secret acts of kindness performed by stealth," Lennox murmured and returned to the hardware store. "I need Alfred again," he said.
    "What! More mothballs?"
    "No. Got a hungry friend needs taking care of. Give me Alfred."
    "He ain't gonna eat me, is he?" Alfred inquired.
    Lennox beamed, patted Alfred and gave him another five dollars. He also gave him the stapling gun, warning him that it was loaded. Then he took him to a grocers and bought every package of Jello in the store. They were packed into a carton which Alfred carried behind Lennox who conducted him to the network building and up to the twentieth floor. It was empty. They went into Audibon's office and put the carton down.
    "They sure let you in easy," Alfred said.
    Lennox nodded complacently and opened the door to Audibon's private bath. He ran the hot water in the wash basin until it came out scalding.
    "What flavor would my hungry friend like in his toilet, Alfred?" he asked genially.
    "Strawberry?" Alfred ventured.
    "And strawberry it shall be."
    They plugged Audibon's toilet and filled it with strawberry gelatine. They filled the floor of his enclosed shower with lime gelatine. "The only specific for athlete's foot," Lennox insisted. They mixed a potpourri of gelatine and filled his ink-stands, his Dresden china, the glasses in the bar, the hollow globe of his ceiling light, and last of all, the wash basin.
    "I'm not given to boasting, Alfred," Lennox pronounced, reeling slightly, "but I will venture to predict that my very good friend will never be hungry again."
    He offered to buy Alfred a malted, but Alfred had a New Year's date and was anxious to get back to the store to finish work.
    "So have I got a date," Lennox said, and parted wistfully from his friend.
    He walked home without incident except for a car which stopped for a traffic light directly in the path of the pedestrians' crossing. Lennox would have none of that. Refusing to detour around the car, he opened the rear door, climbed through the back, opened the opposite door and continued on his way.
    He entered the apartment prepared to greet Cooper with brotherly affection, but Cooper was not home. Lennox gave the Siamese and the mink-dyed skunk a holiday meal of canned crabmeat, then bathed, changed to dinner clothes and demolished the Canadian whiskey in the bar. He stole a pack of cigarettes from Sam's cache in the storage closet, put on his burberry and decided to have dinner in The Crystal Key.
    The Crystal Key is a private house in the West Fifties which caters both to Hipsters and Squares. It has a butler who looks like a magazine advertisement. It has footmen in knee-breeches, waiters, French chefs, a wine steward and even a cellar to go with the steward. It has a resident book-maker. It employs a slightly known chanteuse who entertains on the second, or dining floor. It provides a dozen young hostesses who will drink, chat and dance intimately on the third or supper room floor. It has a fourth and fifth floor for personalized entertainment.