The Magician (18 page)

“Mr. Thomassy said I have to talk to you,” said Urek.

“Only if you wish.” Then, after a moment, “How would it be if we took a walk?”

“Where?”

“Oh, no place in particular, just some air and exercise.”

“They think I’d run if I got out of the house.”

“If you ran away, where would you go?”

“I’m not running away.”

“I believe you.”

“Yeah.”

“Why should I not trust you?”

The boy didn’t move.

“Would you
like
a walk? It’s not greatly cold, just brisk, quite nice.”

“I’ll get my coat.”

What if the boy did run? Thomassy had made a big point of that. The father appeared just before they left the house.

“It’s all right,” said Koch. “We’ll walk awhile and then come back here.”

Outside they both walked with their hands rooted in their pockets, the leftover snow crunching under their feet.

Urek didn’t know what to say, certain only that Koch’s silence was an invitation for him to speak.

They turned the corner. The sidewalk was less wide, and they were forced to walk closer together.

“How is it for you in school? Do you like it?”

Urek hated questions like that.

“What kind of answer do you want?”

“The truth.”

“Well…”

“Yes.”

“School’s a bore.”

“All the time?”

“Most.”

“Whose fault do you think that is?”

Urek thought. “The teachers’.”

“Are they all boring?”

“Some of the things are okay, but they do it in such a boring way, it’s hard to stay awake.”

“Do you sleep enough at night?”

Urek laughed. “Sure.”

“Boredom is man’s worst enemy.”

The boy looked blank.

“Is there any teacher who isn’t boring?”

“Look, I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“No one is going to repeat what you and I say together.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Can you tell me your first name?”

“Stanley. Everybody calls me Urek.”

“Stanley, do you know what a psychiatrist is?”

“Are you a shrink?”

Koch laughed. “Yes, sometimes.”

“You listen to people?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to talk to me?”

Be patient,
Koch told himself.
He is frightened.

“Have you ever gone fishing?”

“Sure, what’s that got—”

“You fish, hoping the fish—”

“I ain’t a fish.”

“No, no, Mr. Thomassy would call this a fishing expedition for ideas, hoping to find some that might be of help to him in defending you.” A moment’s silence as they slowed their walk. “We were talking about school.”

“Okay.”

“Which was boring to you because of the teachers. All of them?”

“Not all the time. Gym’s okay, but the teacher doesn’t talk much. There was one teacher who got sort of interesting.”

“A gym teacher?”

“No.”

“What subject was that?”

“Science.”

“Oh, are you interested in science?”

“What I mean is, the teacher made it sound like it was exciting, you know what I mean?”

“I think I do. Who was it?”

“Mr. Japhet.”

Dr. Koch didn’t want his surprise to show.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” asked Urek.

“No, no. How did you do in Mr. Japhet’s course?”

“He didn’t like me.”

“Why would he not like you?”

“Look, I could tell from the first day. Some of the kids he was chatty with, you know, the ass-kissers, the kids who get dressed up for school like it was church, when he came around the room looking into their notebooks he’d say, ‘Good, good,’ and crap like that.”

“Did he say, ‘Good, good,’ to you?”

“He said, how come you don’t use the English language right. I said what the hell did he think I was talking. He said I didn’t have a sentence right. I said I had studied the lesson, I dared him to show me where I was wrong, and he said it was wrong because it wasn’t literate, some shit like that.”

Koch stared at the boy.

“I didn’t mean to say ‘shit.’”

“That’s all right. You mean you had the content right?”

“Every fact was right out of the book he assigned. I had nothing wrong—”

“Except the words you put it in.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Did he tell you to take remedial English?”

“He gave me a flunk on the paper. So I cut his class.”

“Yes?”

“I mean, he asked me why I was absent when he saw me in the hall. I couldn’t say I was sick or anything. So I said the truth.”

“You said what?”

“I said he put me down. He acted surprised. Surprised! He said he wanted to see my mother or father. I told him my father worked and I didn’t want my mother to come to yessir him. He said I was insolent, I’ll never forget that word he used. I told him
he
was insolent. I didn’t even know for sure what it meant. I cut his class the rest of the week. That finished it. He sent the principal some kind of note that I wasn’t prepared to take a science course. Shit!”

Dr. Koch walked along with the boy in silence; then he said, “I would like to ask you about something difficult.”

“Like what?”

“Do you think you can talk to me about that locker-room business?”

Urek said nothing.

“Why don’t we turn around and walk back to the house.”

They walked uphill now, in silence. After a while Urek said, “The boys paid me a quarter a month. Everybody knows it.”

“How many boys did you collect from regularly?”

“Well, Mr. Chadwick, the principal, he exaggerated like hell. It was only sixty-one.”

Dr. Koch did the figures in his head. “That’s fifteen dollars a month.”

“Not even, because some of the kids owed it to me when they didn’t have it. It’s hard to collect from some of them, even though they promised to pay. I never beat a kid up for not paying.”

“Do you think you could have earned fifteen dollars a month by working?”

“That
was
work, doc. I had to patrol. I had to keep my guys in line. And did you ever see a hacksaw—it’s a lot of work.”

“Hacksaw?”

“To cut open a lock if they didn’t pay.”

“Did you have to do that often?”

“Till they caught on it’s cheaper to
pay than to buy a new lock. That Japhet kid, he paid five dollars and seventy-five cents for that tempered lock I couldn’t get through, isn’t that crazy? I figured out he could have bought twenty-eight months of protection for that money. Nine months to the school year, he’d of graduated and been ahead of the game if he wasn’t so stubborn.”

“I see. If you got a job in a grocery store on Saturdays, or mowed lawns in spring and summer, or did something regular after school for a storekeeper, swept up, anything, deliveries, couldn’t you have earned a lot more per month?”

“Yeah.”

“What does that mean?”

“I
tried
it.”

“Well?”

“You know how lousy people are when you work for them, do this, do that, never say nothing when you do something right, they don’t tell you how they want something done, they criticize you if you do it wrong. I worked for Pete’s Hardware, and they accused me of stealing parts!”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“I was going to pay for them out of my pay. I was just putting them aside because my father was fixing up the downstairs bathroom, and he told me the parts he needed. My father would have paid me back. They had no business accusing me of cheating. You know, Pete told the employment office at the school on me so it’d be impossible to get another job? What was I supposed to do, go on relief, they wouldn’t give me relief. I’m sixteen! They give niggers relief, and I wanted to work!”

“I understand what you are saying.”

“You don’t think I did something wrong?”

“That is not for me to say.”

“I’ll tell you something. It wasn’t the fifteen bucks, it was being my own boss. But every time I passed Japhet’s locker with that tempered lock on it, I would get so mad I could have—I’m saying too much.”

“It’s all right.”

They were in front of the house, about to go in. He’d better finish before they got back inside.

“How would it seem, how would you feel, to have had Mr. Japhet as a father?”

“I got a father.”

“Yes, but just suppose circumstances were different.”

“I don’t get it. I like my old man.”

“Of course.”

“Mr. Japhet hated me.”

“I’m sure he didn’t hate you.”

“How would you know?”

“He doesn’t seem like a hateful man.”

“He didn’t give me a chance.”

“Why did you resent Ed Japhet’s magic show so much?”

“What do you mean, ‘resent’?”

“You had your fight with him right after the show.”

“Listen, that kid is worse than his father. He thinks he’s king or something just because he knows some tricks. There’s a lot of things I know he don’t. He never had a piece in his life. He can’t weight-lift. I seen him try in the gym, what a laugh!”

“If he was inadequate in some ways, didn’t that make you feel good?”

“He—”

“Yes?”

“He—the—son of a bitch!”

“We have to go inside now. I think your mother and father would be upset if they thought I had upset you.”

“You don’t upset me, I just can’t stand thinking of that kid.”

Dr. Koch wanted to put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Even if Japhet is completely wrong, your feeling toward him has hurt you more than it has hurt him. Yes, you had a bad fight, and he was in the hospital. I have talked to him, too. He may not be as bad as you think. I don’t want to change your mind about him, just to ask you, would
you
not be better off if you put him out of your mind?”

Dr. Koch realized that he was asking the impossible.

Inside the house, he accepted Mrs. Urek’s repeated offer of coffee, and the four of them sat in the living room. Finally Mr. Urek suggested that his son go upstairs, and then he said, “Mr. Thomassy said you might be able to help get the boy off.”

“Yes. I’m afraid I don’t think I have heard anything today that could be very helpful.”

Mr. Urek rose. “If that kid was smart-alecky to you—”

“No, no, Mr. Urek, he said nothing wrong. It’s just that the only way the testimony of a psychiatrist can sometimes be helpful is if there is a question as to the sanity of a defendant. Your boy is not insane, I assure you.”

“You’re damn right he’s not! If I knew that was what Thomassy was up to—”

“Please be calm. Mr. Thomassy is trying to help you.”

Mrs. Urek came over to stand behind her husband’s chair. Dr. Koch felt he should go. He asked them could they please telephone for a taxi. It took exactly seven minutes to arrive, and in that time not a single word passed among them.

Chapter 19

Thomassy parked his car a block away from the small, sad-looking house he thought was Alice Ginsler’s. The gray-green paint reminded him of the colors one saw in the stairwells of institutions. The outside of the house must have seemed dreary even before it had weathered and flaked. He checked the number on the front against the one he had found in the phone book. It was the right house. There were lights on wherever there was a window. Was she alone, or were there others inside? He looked in vain for figures in the windows. Thomassy walked up the path to the front door. The nameplate under the bell was empty.

The door was answered by a man of about thirty or so, in his undershirt, not bad-looking. His long hair was a bit wiry and his lips thick. Some black blood somewhere along the line, thought Thomassy.

“Mr. Ginsler?” he asked.

“We’re not buying anything.”

“I’m not selling anything, Mr. Ginsler. My name’s Thomassy.” He handed the young man one of his “B” calling cards, which gave only his name and the business address.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve been asked to investigate the incident at the hospital the other night, Mr. Ginsler. May I come in? I tried to phone first—”

“It’s disconnected. We don’t like being bothered.”

Thomassy wondered if the faint smell coming through the open doorway was pot.

“It’s okay,” said Thomassy, smiling, “I’m not a cop.”

“You don’t look like a cop.”