A PARALYSIS of hate stiffened his limbs as the boss recited why “I must dispense with your services just at the present.” The boss made an efficient picture in his swivel chair, the photographs of the real estate he owned hanging on the wall behind him. Flanked by all these possessions, each of which symbolized so many regiments of dollars, the army of which he was the general, he naturally girded up his loins as the interview progressed. For some time he’d been a collection of newspaper headlines. DEPRESSION CONTINUES. INDUSTRY SLACKENS. PRESIDENT HOOVER COUNSELS AMERICAN SPIRIT. BANKS FAIL.
The light came back to where they were like an old man applying for a job. The boss had yellowish hands that went swell with what he had to say. Bill hated himself. How comical and cool he was, behaving just like the Mr. Meek and Mild of the comic strips! He could give the boss a headline. MAN FOUND IN TRUNK. Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it. He had to speak up. No use letting Stanger go on forever.
“I realize all you’re telling me, Mr. Stanger. What with foreclosures and tax sales we’re losing many collections. Business is punk. Conceded. But I’ll take a cut gladly.” He stared at the boss as if the boss were an animal in a trap. Stanger nodded. No use. The trap wouldn’t hold. “I’m sorry, Bill. But we must do without you entirely. Damn the times. Put yourself in my place. You know how the office’s been hit.”
“I wouldn’t have lost my job if it weren’t for that mess. I appreciate your reticence, but that cop did spoil it for me. I heard all about it, how he said we were maintaining a nuisance at 348 and I was wise to it. If that cop hadn’t found out, I’d still be here.”
“Well, we all know that houses down here in the west side are loaded with all kinds of joints, but, the point is, our knowing isn’t official. I’m not blaming you. Most rent-collectors tax these joints. Why not? With real estate shot to hell, nine landlords out of ten are damn glad a brothel or a crap joint’s paying rent for a flat that’d otherwise be empty. A rent’s a rent. But I can’t keep you now. If I did, the cops’d watch all my properties like hawks. They’d be out to hang up one of their nuisance signs. Therefore, if a collector of mine gets caught he must go.”
“That clears the ground.” He had an idea the boss was more glad than sorry. The damn hypocrite got a pleasure out of the mistakes of others, smirking now because he’d got it in the neck.
“I probably would’ve been forced to let you go anyway. The little landlords are getting squeezed out, and with their properties reverting to the banks and mortgage people, I’m losing out on customer after customer. And the decline in insurance. What would you do in my place but stifle all feelings, despite my friendship with your father. I can’t help it, Bill.” He was happier, his heart contained in the formula, sacking Bill the second time. He shifted his eyes towards the ceiling as if asking God to approve of his humanity.
“I guess so.”
Bill listened. What would McMann’ve done? Spit in his damn face. Oh for the guts to cry out: “The hell with your damn job and your damn fight talk. Shove both up.” But something might be gained from the boss, something might be gained yet. The million strangers in town wouldn’t help him with a dime. He felt suave, like a fellow everybody admires at a party. Where’d the calm come from? McMann couldn’t’ve been smoother. He put the job behind him. It was the edge, but he refused to jump off.
“If my father were in your place he’d act the same way.” That was it. Force some sentiment out of the dry man before him. Try, try until you succeed. “The times are against all of us.” He observed the effect of this with the scientific scrutiny of a kid waiting for the rocket to flare.
The boss lit a cigar and thought of Bill’s far-away father. He’d been dead fifteen years in time and many centuries in memory. “Your father was a fine man,” he conceded irritably as if speaking of George Washington, reluctant to make the admission, suspecting his ex-employee of some game.
“He spoke often of you. You were his best friend.” This was putting dart after dart into the boss’s conscience.
The boss trembled. He was like a woman resisting a ravishment, fighting memory. It was no use. He couldn’t order Bill to shut up. There was a Sunday code a fellow had to respect even if it hurt like hell. “Yes yes,” he said as if saying no no.
“He used to speak of your days at college, always sorry he couldn’t live in New York. When I finished college he was happy to send me here, away from home, to work for you.” He didn’t curse the hypocrite. He just tied him up. The boss couldn’t move a muscle and now Bill jabbed him with dose after dose of “memory” as if from a hypo. The boss fidgeted. Pink spots appeared on the ivory of his yellow cheekbones. It was a pleasure to contemplate his agony, for that’s what it was, the agony of someone in a hell, in a past irrevocable but still meaningful. It had held Bill’s father, an old friendship still holding some truth for the man Stanger had become. He stared the longest time at Bill, the smooth-shaven face smelling of lilac and talcum, the crisp jaw lines, the full mouth, the blaze of blue eyes balanced finely the straight nose. He was envious, and regret wrinkled his face. This Bill was a ladies’ man, and so young. So young and handsome. He thought of Bill’s father when he too had hummed with animal energy, had been a man. Wonderful to be young, needing no stimulus. He was sick to be reminded of the fertility pills he took, hating Bill for shoving him back into the world before the war. It was gone and no use haunting it. He suspected the young man was seeking for an advantage. It was all right for Bill to try to put one over with his talk of the past, but it would not be all right for him to be a sucker. He glanced at Bill as if he were a landlord asking for a loan he wouldn’t get in a million years. The boss felt better. “Since I didn’t give you notice and because of our connection, well, this envelope is a month’s salary.”
“Thanks. I’ll be needing it. My young brother’s in town. We’ll need it to live on.”
“Joe in town? Why?”
“It hasn’t been so good for him since my mother died. You know how it is. Living in a small town like Easton. It was no go. He’s a proud kid and couldn’t hit it off with our cousins. Without parents, well …” He was heaving his darts openly, shameless, stabbing sympathy into the boss. He could imagine the boss thinking: The two poor kids, no father no mother, orphans orphans orphans in the cruel world. Bill quivered, gloating at the reactions of his target. Say “orphan,” and the boss’d react one way. Say “whore,” he’d react another.
“But couldn’t you two go home where you have relatives? If I weren’t tied up I’d like to do something. But I’m in the red and this is a rotten town to be in without a job or family.”
“Impossible. We’d rather starve or sleep in the park than go home.” The boss sighed, his eyes sad and tragic. He became limp like a woman who has fought her attacker and at last surrenders. It was a rape. “I’m sorry, Bill. If I could help — ”
“You can help. You’ve many properties full of empties.”
“Well?”
“My brother and I could stay in one until we got work. It’s a nerve, but I’m remembering your friendship for my father and my family. Why, Joe’s always regarded you as an uncle.” He felt cheap, ashamed at his peddler’s psychology.
“Taxes and interest are sky-high.”
“We don’t want to move into one of your good houses where you’ve a chance of renting.”
“Yes?”
“How about those properties of yours off the El, near Greenwich Street? The houses on Leroy that are always empty? I’ve heard you say a thousand times they’re worthless.”
“You’d move into one of those?”
“Better than sleeping in the park.”
“Hell, if you’re willing to live down there you can stay as long as you want. You’re kidding?”
“No. They’re better than the park or a flop-house.”
The boss was plaintively eager to shy away from talk of money. “For the sake of our special connection — Why, Bill, only too happy.” He seemed cheerier, hearing himself recite to friends what he did for the sons of his old crony. “The best of the lot’s one on Leroy, between Greenwich and Hudson. A slum neighborhood, but it’s a clean house. Stay there as long as you want. It’s a roof at the least. Maybe something’ll turn up.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stanger. Thanks awfully. It’s swell. My father couldn’t’ve been more decent.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more. The janitor’s a Mrs. Gebhardt. Have her phone me for instructions.” He smiled, admiring Bill. “You’re a conniver working me up to a free apartment. But I don’t regret it. Not in the least. I owe something to the sons of my best friend.” He paused as if about to add: Remember me to the folks. “You and Joe drop around for lunch any time. No need to go hungry. Come up for dinner, any time at all.”
“Good-by and thanks.”
“Good-by.” He fumbled with a letter, a dodge he always resorted to to end an interview.
Bill shut the door, smiling at the outer office. He had the sack. What a skunk he was to rake up his father’s bones for charity! But a fellow had to live. None of the other collectors were around. They were all out hounding tenants, shaking down joints. The three stenographers, with the wisdom of those whose jobs are still solid, guessed he’d got it between the eyes. Their faces were three pennies.
Hell, if he wore a brassiere and rouged up like a fast number or a dame ready to be convinced, he’d be set too. Stinky Stanger and the damn stenos. He was sorry for them. “So long, kids. Best of luck. I’m out in the snow and got to find a dame to keep me.”
Miss Tassio laughed. The lean redhead who always looked hungry stared straight at him. Miss Kornitz, who lived over on Avenue A, hung her head, ashamed. He patted her shoulder. “Don’t mind me, kid. It’s a lousy world, and no one can help what they’ve got to do. People got to eat.”
The dust roared up the street. The New Year was just entering people’s consciousness. Although Christmas hadn’t tinseled into sight, he seemed to feel the New Year. Ring the bells. It’s coming. Hoorah! The stenos were watching him through the plateglass window. Then they began to work. Typewriters clicked. He laughed. Time must go on, and Progress. What grand sayings! He studied his reflection in the glass, the camel coat and snapbrim felt. That was a good build he saw, handsome face. It was himself and it wasn’t. This reflection was a ghost bidding him good-by from the office. The Bill walking away was his new self, mysterious, strange to him. He’d been newborn. The old was dead. His new life was undetermined, unlived. Maybe Paddy’d get a job for him. Easy dough wasn’t bad. A fellow had to live. Life must go on. You bet. He thought about his brother, Joe. What a lie! Joe wasn’t due in New York until after New Year. Joe and the pup. By New Year he might be in the dough. You never could tell. One thing, he was going to get his hands on dough, he didn’t give a damn how.
He had forgotten completely about the murder at Paddy’s. And really there was no reason to remember it. It was just another one of those things that never make the papers and leave no impress on the minds of the performers. The star of the show is got rid of, and that’s all. When he thought of it, it was simply an unimportant accident that had caused the loss of his job. It was a banana peel and he had slipped.