So much for beer and art. I hate it when my nebulous plans are interrupted by tics, but I wanted to know what had become of Heigger & Associates. Here’s the thing though: I myself had packed up and fled enough cities to know that sudden disappearances were not implausible. Did I ever tell you about my “incident” in Albuquerque?
No?
Let’s keep it that way.
I drove west to Broadway, then tried to go south, but I couldn’t do it. Twenty minutes earlier I had made the mistake of putting myself in the mood for really bad movies, and I had calculated that I could visit Heigger & Associates, confess my sins, receive absolution, then head straight for the video store that is called—and I’m going to say this only once—Gandalf ’s. It seemed like every week the store stocked at least one new cinematic atrocity that was waiting to burn a hole in my VCR. And if there was nothing new, I could always rent Plan 9 From Outer Space, a reliable substitute for everything.
As I drove down Broadway though, I couldn’t bring myself to commit blasphemy by renting a movie that I knew I would only half watch because I would be pestered by the psychological tic of wondering where Mr. Heigger had disappeared to. I once tried to watch Glen or Glenda while waiting for a phone call from my Maw. Total washout.
I finally turned left off Broadway and cut east along 6th Avenue. I headed back toward my place. I didn’t even stop to buy beer. I started thinking that if I was a lawyer who wanted to get out of town fast and leave no footprints, I just might consider bribing a man who made a living sweeping office buildings. Maybe the “supe” had lied to me.
As I turned left and headed up Downing Street I thought about that guy. Except for the jeans with the practical fit, he didn’t look all that different from me. We were both blue-collar workers, and if his annual income held any resemblance to mine, there was a good possibility that he had about as much willpower as I did. Maybe Heigger had paid the superintendent a hefty sum to keep mum if anyone came nosing around. Heigger may have figured that the supe would hold out long enough to give him time to flee across the border, either north to Canada or south to Mexico—it’s irrelevant when the IRS is on your tail, believe me.
Five minutes later I pulled into the parking lot behind my crow’s nest. As I climbed out of the car I glanced at my wristwatch, but this was just a cabbie habit. On weekends I never care what time it is, especially in the daytime. I measure time on weekends like a caveman—if the sun is in the sky, the bars are open.
It was noon.
I was golden.
I climbed the fire escape and unlocked my door, stepped inside and glanced at the kitchen lightbulb as I knew I would for at least two more days. The bulb was off. I passed through the kitchen without stopping at the fridge for a beer.
I went into the living room and sat down in my easy chair and stared at the wall above my TV. That part of my wall gets a lot of attention when I have things on my mind. You would be surprised at the number of times I have had things on my mind. Or perhaps it might be better to say that you would be surprised at the things themselves—like stealing one hundred thousand dollars. But that’s all in the past and someday I might have a good chuckle over it.
I stared at the wall until I saw movies taking shape on the flat surface. One of the movies showed me meeting Mr. Heigger in his office, and then leading him to Diamond Hill.
The next movie showed me meeting Mr. Weissberger in Heigger’s office and driving him to Broomfield.
Before I shut down the projector I watched the movie about the woman whom I had driven to the Hyatt for the post office exam. I laughed when I watched her remove the license plates from her car. I was certain she had aced the letter-carrier test.
I shut down the projector. I was now engulfed in a psychological tic of mammoth proportions. Mr. Zelner had died in the backseat of my taxi, and now his lawyer had disappeared—and according to both the supe and the Denver telephone directory, Heigger’s office didn’t exist. Let’s see you watch Plan 9 with those bees in your bonnet.
I finally did something that I consciously and deliberately tried not to do very often, which was to make a phone call to Rocky Cab. Maybe Hogan could get Heigger’s number through RMTC’s insurance company. I was grasping at straws, my standard approach to everything.
I dialed the cage. The cage is like Step One in the board game of Rocky Cab. You start there and then get shunted on to other squares. You can’t just call Hogan directly, for the same reason that you can’t call me without going through my AudioMaster DeLuxe.
“Rocky Cab ... this is Stew.”
“Stew, this is Murph. Can you put me through to Hogan?”
“No can do, Murph. He’s gone for the weekend.”
I had forgotten that. Whenever the weekend arrives I try to forget everything that ever happened in my entire life. I have a success rate of only 17 percent, but I’m not giving up.
“Listen Stew, I have a kind of small ...” I started to say “problem” but I wasn’t really sure what to call it. I didn’t think Stew would have truly grasped the phrase “psychological tic.” “... question,” I finished, fielding my own fungo.
“Shoot.”
“I picked up a fare named Weissberger on Friday from a lawyer’s office called Heigger and Associates and I wanted to get in touch with this Heigger fellow, but I can’t find his office in the phone book. I drove over to Heigger’s office just now but the place is empty. I need to talk to Mr. Heigger. It has to do with the death of my fare last Wednesday, and I wondered if Hogan could tell me how to contact him.”
“You’ll probably have to wait until Monday, Murph. Hogan gets in at six a.m.”
“Yeah,” I said dolefully, the way you say yeah when the inevitable has firmly established its presence in your life.
“Listen,” I said, “could you check the records and see if there’s a phone number for Heigger and Associates on file somewhere.”
“I can’t check but I can put you through to the dispatcher.”
I won’t drag you through the entire quagmire—we’ll take the magical bridge. I talked to the Channel 4 dispatcher and explained about my personal on Friday. He checked the records and found a phone number. He said he would try it. He put me on hold. A minute later he came back and told me he had gotten the world-famous woman’s voice that said, “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed has been disconnected.”
I thanked the dispatcher and hung up thinking about the deluded optimism of Alexander Graham Bell.
I felt exceptionally doleful now because Monday was the day I had scheduled to recover from the psychological tic related to my kitchen lightbulb. But now I had at least one other tic lined up in the queue: I wanted to find out where Heigger’s office had disappeared to. The way things were shaping up I was destined to suffer psychological tics clear into the middle of next week.
I sat there staring at the wall above my TV. Unfortunately I still had my hand on the telephone and it suddenly rang, which scared the hell out of me.
I yanked my fingers away from the jaws of the grizzly and immediately entered the panic mode. I didn’t want to answer it, yet I did want to because I felt there was the thinnest chance that it might be Heigger—I know what you’re thinking: save it for the Colorado lottery.
On the fourth ring I snatched up the receiver and said, “Yeh” without pinching my nose.
I heard a few clicks, but otherwise silence.
Have I ever told you how little it takes to make me go ballistic? It’s not something I’m proud of, and I don’t like to talk about it much because it not only causes me embarrassment, it sometimes scares me. But if somebody pushes the right button, my entire brain seems to fly right out the window.
“Hello!” I said loudly.
I was tired of hearing clicks and silence coming from the plastic delusion in my hand.
“Who’s calling!” I barked. Nothing.
I slammed the receiver onto the cradle and sat there fuming. I don’t know about you, but I like fuming. I also like WWI movies with aerial dogfights.
The next thing I knew I was unhooking the AudioMaster from my phone. Then I disconnected the telephone itself from the cord that led into the wall. I set the two bastards on the phone book beneath the table. I sat back in my chair, took a deep breath, and exhaled with pleasure. I felt like the WWI ace who had shot down the Red Baron. Baron von Richthofen had an uncle who once owned a large estate in east Denver. The mansion is still there. It’s called the Richthofen Mansion. The guy who named it was a goddamn genius.
I suppose it’s not necessary to explain to you that I now felt like I had completely disconnected myself from the entire planet earth. Nobody could get at me. The earth would have to wait until I plugged it in on Monday, assuming I decided to do it again. As I sat there fuming I began to wonder why the hell I owned a telephone. After I left Wichita and began traveling around the country, I rarely had telephones in the apartments and rooms that I rented. I made calls over pay phones more often than private phones. But back then I was young and stupid and thought it was cool when I did have a phone of my own, although nobody ever called me—not in Cleveland anyway. I do remember getting a few phone calls in Cincinnati, and one in Philadelphia, although that was a wrong number.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why I bothered to waste money every month paying a bill for an electronic device that I loathed. There was a pay phone down the block from my crow’s nest—I could use that whenever I needed a pizza.
But I remembered that my Maw called me every now and then. Believe me, brother, that did not motivate me to plug the phone back in. But I foresaw something even worse than a phone call from Maw, which was a longwinded explanation through the mail. I already knew what Maw would write to me about not owning a phone: “Supposing yeh accidentally slashed yer wrist on a broken window and needed to call an ambulance, boy-o?”
“Hey Maw, the day I slash my wrist it won’t be an accident,” I would write back—but she probably wouldn’t laugh. There are two things that my Irish/Catholic mother takes a very dim view of: suicide and gold-digging floozies. These have to do with shadowy events on her side of the family that date back to the Potato Famine.
To hell with it. I would leave the phone unplugged until Monday and then decide whether or not I wanted to continue paying loathsome bills. I had learned long ago that it was not a good idea to make a crucial decision after going ballistic. It takes a few hours for my brain to come back through the window, and by then I’m usually watching TV and don’t even notice its return.
I put a final flourish on my ballistics by going into the kitchen and unscrewing the lightbulb and placing it in the cupboard next to my plate. I did this to pull the rug out from under the psychological tic that made me glance “up” whenever I entered the kitchen. Maybe it wouldn’t stop me from glancing “up” in the future but at least I would have the satisfaction of wiping the smug smirk off its bulb.
As I closed the cabinet door I whispered, “Have a nice life, Rollo.” I cannot tell you how good that made me feel.
I walked back into the living room wondering if there was a method to my madness, assuming that “personification” could be defined as an “element” of a method. I don’t have much experience with methods. I’m more of a “wing-it” personality. I often incorporate winging-it when I write novels, go on dates, or avoid responsibilities.
But maybe “winging-it” itself was a method. I hoped not. I would hate to think that my rejection slips were the results of volition, not to mention my dates. Rejection was frequently an “element” of my dates, although I had never received a formal rejection from a woman. Conversely, I had never been kissed by a book editor. And the future wasn’t looking very bright.