Who He? - (17)

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 Vision!
    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 Showman
    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:
    OFFICE OF 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.
    Lennox entered with his mind intent on dinner. He permitted an attendant to take his coat, went into the bar on the street floor, nodded to the bookie and the neighborhood cop drinking beer in a corner, and ordered sherry. He began to laugh at himself. He recalled that no matter what he wanted to drink when he entered The Crystal Key, he always ended up ordering sherry. He gave the matter some thought, blamed the knee-breeches, and went upstairs to dine.
    It was fortunate there were no menus. Lennox could not have read a menu even if there had been enough light. He was served hors-d'oeuvres, mussel soup, saddle of lamb, pommes soufflés, a still burgundy, salade fatigué, and something in a covered dish which he was too hazy to investigate. His faculties were restored by the blinding discovery that the gentleman seated two table down from him was Mr. Thomas Bleutcher of Brockton, Mass. The young lady with him was not his daughter.
    "The scoundrel!" Lennox muttered. "The lecherous dog. He richly deserves a lesson."
    He perceived that there was a brandy inhaler before him with a half inch of cognac in the bottom. Quite defiantly, he drank the cognac off without ceremony and devoted himself to the problem of disciplining Mr. Bleutcher's morals.
    "How to chastise the heart of old Four-Buckle Arctics?" he asked himself. "Hit him in his carbohydrates? No. Where is his heart? In his boots. Very funny, Mr. Lennox. Oh, very funny indeed." He shook with laughter, slid under the table and began crawling on the floor toward Bleutcher. The maitre d'hotel rushed toward him in dismay. Before he could speak, Lennox lifted a finger to his lips and gave him an urgent look. The maitre d'hotel hesitated for a moment in perplexity. Lennox reached under Bleutcher's table and seized that unsuspecting man's feet. With a violent yank, he tried to pull Bleutcher's shoes off.
    Bleutcher disappeared under the table as if dropped through a trap door. The table went over with a crash, and the hostess toppled with it. Lennox arose triumphantly from the screaming and shouting with one black kid chiropractic oxford in his hand. He still had it, concealed under his coat, when he was deposited on the street outside The Crystal Key one minute later. It was fortunate for Lennox that the policeman had returned to his beat; otherwise he might have been seriously hurt.
    He weaved downtown, searching for a phone. In the forties he passed a theater, entered the lobby and politely requested to be directed to a booth. He was informed that the telephones were inside the theater. He puzzled this out and with a flash of logic that delighted him, reasoned that he needed a ticket to make the phone call. There were no tickets left but he was sold standing room admission. Lennox tip-toed into the theater, went down to the men's lounge and called The Brompton House. After some hanky-panky, Olga answered the phone.
    "Your father," Lennox said, "is a rogue."
    "My father," Olga replied, "is a pain in the ass."
    "No longer. You are revenged." Lennox described his triumph. Olga began to scream with laughter.
    "Does he know it was you?" she asked.
    "Couldn't say. What are you doing up in the hotel?"
    "Having dinner in the suite. I got so fed up with him I played sick. What are you going to do about it?"
    Lennox hesitated and then thought: "Oh, what the hell!" He said: "I was thinking of bringing his shoe back."
    "Lovely. Wait for me downstairs in the bar."
    "How long?"
    "I'll be able to sneak out an hour after he gets back."
    "He'll be back any minute.... Unless he's going to hop into New Year. Bunion and Over."
    "Metatarsal," she said and hung up.
    Lennox shook his head in disgust with himself. Then he brightened and went upstairs. There was a good broad arm-rest for standees in the back of the house. He leaned against it and tried to focus on the stage. Some kind of mood piece was in progress, filled with long, poetic pauses. Lennox napped comfortably until the applause at the end of the act woke him up.
    He was thirsty. He had two stingers in the saloon alongside the theater, one with green mint and one with white to determine whether his palate had lost its famed sensitivity.
    "I am happy to announce," he announced to the bartender, "that my palate has lost none of its famed sensitivity." He pointed to the glasses. "That is Spearmint '34. A very good year. That is Wintergreen '26. Its pert bouquet is unmistakable to a palate of famed sensitivity."
    Lennox walked east to The Brompton House. New Year's horns were beginning to blare in the streets with the sound that boys make when they blow through blades of grass pressed between their thumbs. Lennox paced massively. He had reached the Gibraltar stage of drunkenness, a mixture of Johnsonian gravity and pathological lying.
    In the bar of The Brompton House, jammed by the overflow of respectables from the grill room, he ordered a pitcher of French 75s and two glasses. Olga was nowhere in sight, but Lennox knew better than to trust to his sight. He tapped a handsome bald gentleman with leaden complexion and kindly features who was seated alongside him.
    "Would you be good enough to lend me your stool, sir? Just for a moment."
    The gentleman got off the stool. Lennox mounted it and teetered on top, four feet above the crowd. He whistled shrilly with two fingers, waited for Olga to notice him if she were present, and then climbed down again.
    "Thank you very much, sir."
    "May I ask why you did that?" the gentleman inquired. He looked exactly like a Roman Tribune and had a melodious southern drawl.
    "One if by land, two if by sea," Lennox answered significantly. "Our identification code. You wouldn't expect us to sing the Internationale for a signal, would you? Not here."
    The leaden-faced gentleman stared. Lennox nodded darkly, drank a 75 and offered a glass to his companion. "To the counter-counter-revolution," he said. "This year is yours. Next year is ours."
    "How do you mean?"
    "This country's been living in a dream," Lennox sneered. "Communists.... Tcha! They're our decoys. We use them for red herrings to conceal us. The real us. We are the danger."
    "Who are the danger?" the man asked intently.
    "Us. We.... Us."
    "Can you name names?"
    "Can I not? Lennox. Mason and Dixon. Mason and Slidell. Lewis. Clark. But above all, Lennox. Lennox is the man. He pulls the strings. He controls the Eastern Cell."
    "Cell!" the gentleman exclaimed.
    "Indeed yes. The movement is beautifully organized ... from here through Washington, London, Paris, Rome ... straight up to our central headquarters--"
    A pair of hands blindfolded him. "Guess who," Olga said.
    "Goody Twoshoes," Lennox answered. He removed her hands from his eyes and continued. "Our headquarters on Mars. We're all Martians. We're going to--"
    He stopped. The strange gentleman had already removed himself, Lennox searched dazedly and saw him in a corner, unaccountably scribbling in a notebook. He shrugged, flexed his right arm to feel for his own gimmick book, then contemplated Olga. She had, in truth, poured herself into an evening gown; or better still, someone had painted it on her body and only given it one coat. Lennox handed her a 75.
    "What's this?" she asked.
    "Paint remover," he said.
    She drank it cautiously, finished it with appreciation and held out her glass for more. They emptied the pitcher and went over to Beekman Place to look in on a party thrown by one of Olga's friends. It was in a square apartment house, in a square apartment, and it turned out to be a Square party ... the men in one room telling dirty jokes, the women in another room shrieking with laughter and pulling up their skirts as they loaded up on martinis.
    "This is from hunger," Lennox muttered to Olga. "Leave us blow."
    "We'd better," she giggled. "It's the wrong apartment."
    So it was. They went downstairs to the right apartment which was identically square. The party was also identically Square.
    "I liked the first one better," Lennox said.
    They left and went uptown to the West side where Johnny Plummer owned a house opposite the Museum of Natural History. His party was more party-line than anything else. They were required to pay five dollars each as they entered ... in aid of some nebulous cause. No scotch was served in order to boycott Great Britain. Everyone sat around in tweeds and dirndls and sang the songs of the People to the accompaniment of an accordion and a mandolin. Lennox tried to drink up his five dollars in straight gin, but Olga gave him the out sign within half an hour.
    "My turn now," she said and took him to the East side and a cosmopolitan-type party conducted in French, Dutch, Italian, Flemish and Swedish. This one, Lennox loved. He ate lobster stewed in absinthe, drank aquavit, learned Swedish massage, how to cut diamonds, when to hear an opera entitled "Teresa's Teats," where Kafka was buried, who was whose mistress at the party, and the particular sexual foibles of each of the guests. But Olga was party-hopping and impatient. She dragged him out.
    "I liked it there," he complained.
    "Too respectable. Where next?"
    They went to Charlie Hansel's place in the Village. It was filled with ballet dancers; fag boys doing petit point in corners, sway-backed girls waddling with duck feet like pregnant women. They all talked shop to each other. They talked to nobody else.
    "Out," said Lennox, yanking open the door and marching into a closet. Olga rescued him and guided him to fresh air. He was properly grateful and offered to kiss her in the taxi. She permitted this token of gratitude and startled him with her lips and tongue. He was relieved when the cab deposited them at the front door of a red brick converted stable, now a photographer's studio.
    "Do I know him or do you?" Lennox inquired as he lurched in. He stared around the giant studio and rubbed his eyes. "Must be getting bloodshot," he mumbled.
    It was the reddest damned party he had ever seen. Everyone wore fireman red costumes, from Santa Claus down to a snake-like woman with tangled black hair who wore fireman red Dr. Dentons with a drop seat. She turned out to be the hostess. A small man with a guilty face whom Lennox surprised searching the pockets of the guests' coats was the host. There was an insidious brew called Fish-House Punch, composed of sugar, Jamaica rum and peach brandy in an enormous crystal bowl. Lennox had three glasses and was returning for a fourth when he saw the hostess unbutton her drop seat and bathe her bottom in the punch bowl.
    "Out!" he said to Olga.
    "It is out," she laughed.
    "I'm r'sponsible for your moral health. In colo parentis. Feel strongly this's no place for you."
    "No. I like it here. It's not too respectable."
    "Oh?" Lennox said. "You want disrespectable party? Come on. Got jus'place fyou."
    He took her to Kay Hill's apartment. Olga entertained him in the cab, and when he was able to focus on her he perceived that she was a damned beautiful girl. They took the elevator up and rang Kay's doorbell. There was so much noise inside that they had to ring three times.
    The door opened. Kay stood there wearing a fringed green stole and nothing else.
    "Come on in!" she screamed in honest Canarsie accents.
    She pulled them in, slammed the door, turned to the foyer table on which a dozen scotch bottles stood, and picked up a black grease pencil. She wrote JAKE across one white label and handed the bottle to Lennox. She wrote OLGA on another and handed it to Olga. They both had swigs. Kay led them down an endless Early American hall, past various doors, and into a Colonial bedroom. A naked girl was seated at the dressing table feebly trying to hook on her brassiere.
    "Coats there," Kay said, pointing to a black mound of clothes on the four-poster bed. She turned and left.
    Lennox reeled and looked at Olga. "Out?" he asked.
    She took off her coat and threw it on the bed. Lennox had no intention of losing his coat in that grab-bag. He lurched into the bathroom and carefully hung his burberry in the shower. As an afterthought, he turned the water on. When he came back to the bedroom, both girls were gone.
    He had a solid drink from his private bottle and wandered down the hall, caroming from wall to wall. He peeped into rooms. A seven-man poker game was in progress in various stages of undress. Three partially draped girls were decorating an oil painting with their lipsticks. Two couples in underwear and aprons were cooking something in the kitchen. Lennox investigated the pot. It contained onions, potatoes and a cookbook.
    The living room was insane. Some guests were dressed, some were naked, the rest were any stage between. Everyone carried an individual scotch bottle. Lennox searched for his charge. He spoke to three different women before he finally realized he was speaking to Olga. Then he realized he was having difficulty speaking. He was pleased to see that she had not undressed. He was relieved to see that her companion also was dressed.
    "What?" Lennox asked.
    "I said," Oliver Stacy repeated, "You're holding that bottle upsidedown."
    "Am I? Scout's Honor?" Lennox peered. "It's empty," he said with delight. He flung the bottle from him. "Who's that talking to Olga Bunion?"
    "I'm right here," Olga said.
    "I'm talking to her," Stacy said.
    "Could you excusr minute? Most say something utmust p'ortance. Utmust!" Lennox took Olga's arm and tacked up the corridor. She stopped him in a corner and pressed the body against him.
    "What did you want to say?" she asked.
    "Wanted warn you."
    "You wanted to warn me?"
    He nodded. "Men'll temptyr chastity t'night. Mustnt succumb whilem your chaperone. Your honors my honor. See?"
    She laughed and explored his mouth with her mouth. "You big old bear you," she said.
    "Listen," he said. "Listen. I'm rsponsible fyou but you maket pretty tough fme...."
    Lennox staggered around a door-jamb and fell backwards into a room, carrying Olga with him. They landed on a soft hooked rug. It was some kind of sewing room with a dress form, blanket chest and cutting table. It was empty. Lennox tried to get up.
    "Why do you keep running?" Olga asked. "Are you afraid of me?" She kissed him again. For the first time he returned the kiss. His hands got busy with the tight sheath of the dress, trying to expose the body.
    "Stop it," Olga said.
    Lennox grinned and continued his attempt to extract her body from the dress. She pulled his hands away.
    "I said stop it," Olga repeated. "Don't spoil it."
    "Don't worry. Won't hurt th'dress. Zit'zip or hook?"
    "You're making everything nasty. Stop!"
    "Oh no. Make everything lovely."
    "Stop pawing me like that. What do you think you're going to do?"
    "What comes natal to a fella." He kissed her again and slid his hands along her legs. She struggled violently, bruising his lips against his teeth. She was breathing heavily. Lennox pinned her arms back with his left arm while he gently slid her dress bodice down to her waist. She screamed and bit his hand savagely. He let her go and sat up in bewilderment.
    "Why allv sudden?" he asked faintly.