The Recycled Citizen (15 page)

“What happened to the slush shop?” Sarah asked him.

Bill shrugged. “Urban renewal.”

“Does she have a home? Where does she sleep?”

“Around, I guess. Phyllis has relatives, only she was always pretty independent.”

“Would you say she’s the kind who’d go wandering here and there as the mood struck her, or would she map herself out a territory and stick to it, as some of the other SCRC people do?”

Bill inched himself closer to Sarah and gave her the full beam of his big dark eyes. “Listen, in Phyllis’s shop you didn’t push up to the counter. You got in line and waited your turn. Before she’d ask you what you wanted, you had to hold up your hand with the three pennies in it. She’d have the four bottles of flavoring sitting in a row on the counter, always in the same order: yellow, orange, green, red. Whichever one you asked for, she’d begin with the yellow and say off the colors till she got to the one you wanted. Then she’d pick up a cup and scoop it full of ice. She’d set the cup on the counter, take the cap off the bottle, and pour out three glugs.”

Bill smiled. “She’d say it like that, ‘Glug, glug, glug.’ We’d all say it with her. Then she’d put the cap back on the bottle, take your three pennies, count them into her box one by one and give you your slush. Even if the next kid asked for the same color you got, she’d go through the whole performance again without missing a glug. If you tried to get sassy and hurry her along, she’d come around from behind the counter, pick you up by the back of the neck and the seat of the pants, no matter how big you were, and throw you out in the middle of the street. My guess is, Phyllis has picked herself out a route. If anybody tries to make her change it, she decks ’em.”

“Then if you wanted a messenger who’d be likely to reach a given point at a certain time and proceed from there to her next point by an established route, your feeling is that one could hardly do better than to trust this compulsively one-track Phyllis,” said Brooks.

“You’d have to know what she was like.”

“Surely, Mr. Jones. And you’d have to be fleet of foot enough to avoid getting decked. Would you happen to recognize any of these others?”

Brooks fanned out his bundle of photographs for Bill to inspect. “These are SCRC members who happened to be in the center when Theonia was there.”

“How did she ever manage to take them?” Sarah marveled.

“With Brooks’s Dick Tracy belt buckle camera.” Max was enjoying this.

“With a modified version of it,” Brooks replied modestly. “You may have noticed today that Theonia was wearing sunglasses with unusually wide and, I may say, unspeakably hideous sidepieces.”

“I wondered where she’d got them,” said Sarah.

“They once belonged to a former landlady of mine, who wore them when she insisted on my taking her boating on. Jamaica Pond. Through a regrettable accident the boat overturned. The incident led to an acrimonious parting.”

“Too bad,” said Max.

“Er—quite. Anyway, after I’d vacated her premises with strict orders never to return, I found the atrocious eyewear in a pocket of the jacket I’d been wearing at the time of the upset. Having been enjoined from any further contact with her and being, moreover, incensed by her having wantonly destroyed some slides of a water ouzel constructing its most ingenious habitation, which I’d managed to take by concealing myself up to the elbows in an oozy marsh and having an indignity committed on my head by an American bittern who thought I was a rock, I felt not the slightest compunction at keeping the revolting objects. I thought they might come in handy for something sometime.”

“So you built the camera into the glasses. Brooks, you’re incredible.”

“Actually I mounted it behind the right temple with the lens pointing out through an interstice in the decoration, if such it can be called. Theonia had only to turn her head slightly away from the person she wanted to photograph and activate the shutter by means of a plunger on the end of a slender black cord that ran down her coat sleeve. Should anyone have spotted the mechanism, which we deemed unlikely, she could have explained it away as a hearing aid. As far as she knows, it went unseen and we feel the results justified the slight risk. There are a few headless forms, as you see, but considering the restrictions under which she filmed, I think she did a commendable job.”

“They’re fantastic,” said Max.

Bill Jones was staring through Max’s reading glass at a minute but perfectly sharp photo of Ted Ashe with a doughnut in his hand. “This is a senior citizen?”

“He claims to be,” said Max. “We’ve been wondering about him.”

“Yeah-h-h.”

“He calls himself Ted Ashe. Do you know him?”

“Not as Ted Ashe, pal. How’d he get so dirty?”

“My wife is of the opinion that he greases his face with salad oil every morning, then rubs it in a flowerpot,” Brooks offered. “You agree, then, that his filthiness is not the result of gradual accumulation?”

“I saw him three nights ago at the Golden Garter. They were having some kind of benefit for the Hangnail Association. He was emcee, wearing a pink dress suit and a purple cummerbund. The week before that I bumped into him at a cocktail party given by the Wilton-Rugges. That’s a rich real estate guy my brother knows. He looked sharp enough then. Country gentleman getup. Suede jacket, Gucci loafers, LaCoste shirt, the whole bit.”

“The Wilton-Rugges?” said Sarah. “Their daughter’s the girl Eugene Porter-Smith is engaged to. Eugene was saying last night that Ashe claims to have been the bookkeeper in a meat packing plant, but he turned vegetarian and they threw him out.”

“Maybe he was,” Max answered. “Obviously the guy gets around.”

“He calls it collecting material,” said Bill Jones.

“For what?” said Max.

“You know that tabloid
Syndicated Slime
?”

“I’ve seen it around. You mean he writes for that rag?”

“Under six different names, from what I heard. Wilbraham Winchell’s the one I heard at the party. I didn’t get his real name, but I’ll bet it’s not Ted Ashe. He’s been doing a series of exposés of corruption inside allegedly honest charitable organizations.”

“What if he can’t find any?”

Bill shrugged. “That guy would find some.”

“You don’t mean he’d create a scandal just to get copy?” cried Sarah.

Bill shrugged again, one of his more wholehearted efforts.

Brooks Kelling sniffed. “Smear and smirch. No wonder Ashe chose to make himself filthy. It’s all based on self-hatred, you know. ‘I’m so rotten that everybody must despise me, so I’ll make you despicable, especially if you’re one of those goody-goodies who actually try to make things better for others.’ I can see where Dolph and Mary would be tempting targets for someone who sees life as a can of worms and thinks he can elevate himself by becoming a snake in the grass.”

“Yes, but attacking them would be like using a cannon to shoot a partridge,” Sarah objected. “The SCRC is only a small local charity, and
Syndicated Slime
is a nationally distributed publication. If Ted Ashe is doing some kind of sting operation with boys in purple kicking cans full of heroin around, it seems to me he’d be taking a terrible risk for a story that I shouldn’t think many people outside Boston would find particularly interesting. Unless he’s planning to hang it on Eugene Porter-Smith and blackmail Cousin Percy.”

“Who’s Cousin Percy?” Bill Jones asked her.

“He owns an accounting firm in which Eugene’s just been made a junior partner. They do handle some awfully big accounts, so Ted Ashe might suppose they wouldn’t care for that kind of publicity.”

“Would Cousin Percy pay?”

“Heavens, no. Would you say so, Brooks?”

“A Kelling part with good money to a smut-scribbling rotter? Don’t make me laugh. Percy would ring for some clerk to toss Ashe out on his ear, then tell his secretary not to let in any more blackmailers because he’s a busy man and can’t be bothered listening to fairy tales.”

“But Winchell wouldn’t know that,” said Bill.

“Then Winchell or Ashe or whoever he is will get a rude awakening, assuming the blackmail hypothesis is a tenable one.”

“Could we lay off the hypotheses for a while?” said Max. “What we need is to get hold of one of those purple cans and find out what’s really in it. If this bird—I think I’ll stick to Ashe—is pulling a fake drug-running operation just to get himself a story, he may be filling the cans with baking soda or some damn thing.”

“That wasn’t baking soda you found in Chet Arthur’s bag,” Sarah reminded him.

“I grant you that, but we have no proof Chet was carrying a purple can or that the heroin came out of it if he was. All through looking at those pictures, Bill? Nothing more you can tell us?”

“This guy.” Bill picked up the photo of the neat elderly man whom Sarah had first noticed reading the church magazine.

“Harry Burr,” she said. “He’s some kind of lay preacher, I believe.”

“That’s right,” said Max. “He conducted the service for Chet Arthur.”

“Last time I saw him,” said Bill, “he was tending bar at the Broken Zipper.”

Sarah’s first thought was, “Oh, poor Mary!” But she didn’t say it. “He could just have been filling in for the regular bartender. Annie Bickens might have recommended him. She still goes over there sometimes to see her old pals.”

“Yeah,” said Bill. “Well, I’d better be moving.” He gave Sarah a particularly wistful smile, nodded to the men and slunk down the stairs into the night.

“W
HAT’S ON YOUR AGENDA
for today, dear?” Sarah was up, dressed and ready to go. Max groped for his coffee and turned on
Morning Pro Musica.
Robert J. Lurtsema was drawling out the news of the latest disaster at the rate of about a syllable a second, as was his wont, giving the listener a comforting feeling that Robert J. had given the matter sage consideration and decided it was nothing to get all hot and bothered about. The Bittersohns were grateful to Robert J. for taking the matter out of their hands, as they had troubles enough of their own just now.

Max listened until their favorite radio impresario announced that since this was the anniversary of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s sister-in-law’s cousin Ludmilla’s. birthday, he was going to play the Sinfonia Concertante in D by Carl Stammitz, who’d no doubt have taken to Ludmilla right away if they’d ever happened to meet. He then addressed his wife’s question.

“Today? First I have to call Pepe. Then I thought we might go to look at some real estate.”

“We already have real estate,” Sarah replied, much surprised. “Do you mean you want us to drive out and see what’s happening at Ireson’s Landing?”

“I know what’s happening. My father’s about to have another quiet chat with the architect.”

The elder Mr. Bittersohn, as much an authority in the building trade as Mr. Lurtsema in the field of music, had his son’s house well in hand. As a builder of the old school, he did not always see eye to eye with designers of new houses. Their discussions were never acrimonious, for Isaac Bittersohn was a man of peace. However, they always wound up with the architect humbler and wiser and Isaac going quietly off to straighten out another of those whom he always referred to as his helpers even when they weren’t being helpful.

“The real estate I had in mind,” Max explained, “is that warehouse of Dolph’s.”

“Oh good,” said Sarah. “I’m curious to see it, myself: Can we get in?”

“Probably not. I’ll be with you as soon as I run a quick check to see how Pepe’s making out.”

Knowing Max’s quick checks, Sarah had got the apartment presentable and done a few preliminary things about dinner by the time he announced himself ready to roll. Then they were held up by a visit from Brooks.

“I just spoke with Mary. She says she’s been trying all morning to reach you and the line’s been busy. She wonders if either or both of you could possibly go out to Chestnut Hill and help her and Dolph decide what they should put in the auction. They’ve taken the day off from the center to work on it, but Dolph’s all confused, time’s running out and Mary sounds as if she’s beginning to panic.”

“I don’t blame her,” said Sarah. “I’ll go. Can you, Max?”

“Sure. We’ll swing by the warehouse on our way over. Care to join the party, Brooks?”

“I should like to very much, but duty in the guise of my beloved wife is whispering low, ‘Thou must.’ Charles has an audition today that bodes no good for our domestic economy, Mariposa woke up with a toothache and is off to the dentist and of course Theonia and I were out of the house all day yesterday, so there’s no way we can escape today. She’s making the beds and I have the fun of cleaning the bathrooms.”

Now was as good a time as any to bring out the plan Sarah had been mulling over. “Brooks,” she said, “how sick are you and Theonia of running that boarding-house?”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

“Yes, but not necessarily this minute. Let me tell you why I ask. You know Max and I will be giving up this apartment and moving out to Ireson’s as soon as the house is ready, but I’m sure we’ll need a place to sleep in Boston sometimes. Since you’re getting all that money from Uncle Lucifer, I was wondering how you’d feel about staying on in the house. I thought perhaps we might turn the place into a sort of family commune and split the expenses. You and Theonia could always come out to Ireson’s and stay in the carriage house when you want a change of scenery. See what Theonia thinks of the idea, and we can discuss the particulars when we have time. Oh, and please let Mary know we’ll be there in a while.”

“I didn’t know you were thinking of shutting down the boardinghouse,” Max remarked as they were walking down to the garage.

“The idea only popped into my head a day or so ago, and since then we’ve had too much else to think about. But the place has served its purpose, and Brooks and Theonia are getting a bit past it, I think. It seems silly to get rid of the house when we own it free and clear.”

“You own it.”

“Darling, you don’t have negative feelings, do you? I used to, but I don’t any more. It’s been—depersonalized, I suppose, with so many strangers coming and going.”