The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

Stunned by his animation she said, “Didn’t you know it, Walt?”

  Saying nothing, Bob Fox watched both of them intently.

  “You never can tell gray from brown,” she said. “That suit Mr. Lausch had on, that gray suit—”

  His lips read brown.

  Presently Fox spoke up. “I’d call Norm’s suit gray, for the most part. If you mean that one he had on when he was down here talking about the Pabst poster.”

  “Can I go now?” Sherry said.

  Her husband regarded her with an expression that she could not read. But she did not bother to try; she was late as it was.

  “Good-bye,” she said, turning and starting towards the door. “Wish me luck.”

  The expression was still on Walt’s face as the door shut and locked after her.

  The baseball game was a good one. Or at least, so everyone seemed to think. During the game neither Norm Lausch nor her husband paid any attention to her, although they sat on each side of her. They either cupped their hands and yelled at the pitcher, a tall thin man who spent most of the time fooling with a handful of dirt or his cap, or they yelled at the vendors who came through the stands selling food. Both men drank a lot of beer. She herself had several cups of hot bouillon and a hot dog. To her, the ballpark was terribly cold and drafty; she sat with her coat wrapped around her, her arms folded, trying to keep warm.

  But she enjoyed herself, despite the cold. Towards the end, a batter hit a ball directly towards their box. A player, running at tremendous speed while holding his glove out, crashed into the rail in front of them, half-fell onto them, and, with everybody screaming and jumping up and down, managed to snare the ball. The batter was out. For a long time she found herself unable to sit down; she could not remember when she had been so stirred.

  “Wasn’t it terrific?” she kept saying, as they moved slowly out of the park at the end of the game, along with countless other people all of whom seemed to be pushing and shoving against her. But she did not mind them; she was still elated. “That one play, where that player almost fell on top of us catching the ball.”

  Chewing his cigar, his hands in his pockets, Norm Lausch said. “Yep, that was a dilly.” Walt said nothing.

  When they had got out of the ballpark and onto the sidewalk, the two men decided that they wanted to stop at a bar. She did not particularly want to, but on the other hand she did not object. After all, it did seem as if they should celebrate. She certainly felt in the mood; she had been like that all day, and the game had added to it. Now she understood why baseball was so important in men’s lives. It stimulated them; it pulled them out of their depression. It was very much, she thought, like having a hundred or so dollars and being able to spend it for anything she wanted at any of the shops along Geary and Sutter.

  The bar, at a corner, was crowded with men who had been at the ballgame; she heard all of them talking loudly, with much animation, about various players. Norm, by wedging himself gradually forward, managed to get them a booth. Both men ordered drinks, but she only had beer. As she sat sipping her beer she thought, once again, that as yet they had not discussed the job. They had not got around to it on the way to the ballpark; there had been some technical business for Walt and Norm to settle. In that, she had not participated. And at the ballgame, of course, there was no opportunity for discussion.

  But now, she thought, the time has come.

  “Let’s talk about the job,” she said.

  Holding his cigar between his teeth. Norm Lausch eyed her and drank from his glass. Her husband stared down sightlessly, his glass on the table. He seemed to be off in meditation.

  “Isn’t now the time?” she said.

  Grinning, Norm reached out and patted her hand. “One more round,” he said.

  Both he and her husband had another drink. She stayed with her one beer. Her impatience had grown; she could hardly keep quiet. Why did they just sit, drinking and now and then saying something banal? Once, Walt started talking about some building material—she could have murdered him. And, whenever Norm started the conversation, it had to do with baseball. Before they left the bar, her enthusiasm for baseball had gone the way it had arrived.

  “All set, kids?” Lausch said, at last. Getting to his feet he loosened his belt, tossed down the last of his drink, and then moved through the crowd of people, away from the booth. She rose and started after him. Again, neither he nor Walt paid her any attention; she had to navigate her way out of the bar by herself.

  When she reached the sidewalk she found them standing together. They had beaten her out.

  “Let’s see,” Norm said leisurely. “Where’s the car? Where is the car?”

  They had come in his enormous new Buick. There it was, up on the dirt by a railroad track. Looking around, she saw that they were in a deserted industrial section of San Francisco which she had never seen before. To her, the City was a place of shops and houses and restaurants and theaters and schools; she had never been here, south of Market, in the warehouse district. The closest she had come was the trip to Lausch Company, which was along the waterfront. But that was well-lit. Here, she saw almost no lights. Miles of dark streets. No stores or people. Only great opaque buildings, all of them apparently old.

  After he had unlocked the car, Norm held the door open for them; they all got into the front seat, and he walked around to the far side and got in behind the wheel. He started up the motor and soon they were driving slowly along one of the deserted streets.

  “So many railroad tracks,” she said, as the car bumped over a number of them together.

  “Yes,” Norm said. It did not seem to bother him. But the smell of cigar smoke, plus the beer and cold air and eyestrain, and now the bumping of the car over the train tracks, made her queasy and irritable.

  “Could we talk about the job now?” she said. She was surprised at how cross she sounded; and impatient as well. “Remember, Walt and I have to make the trip up to Marin County and across Mount Tam—we won’t be in bed until four A.M. as it is.” It almost seemed to her as if Lausch was driving nowhere in particular; they seemed to be going along one empty street after another, not getting any closer to Lausch Company and their own car.

  “Okay,” Norm said.

  “I’m anxious to get your decision,” she said. She glanced at Walt, but he did not speak; he still stared down, preoccupied. What was he thinking about? Experimentally, she touched his hand. He did not respond, and so she gave up trying to reach him.

  Removing his cigar, Norm put it on the lip of the dash board ashtray. “What do you say, Walter? I’d like to have her.”

  Walt said, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “You two didn’t come to any agreement?”

  “No,” Walt said.

  “There’s no agreement required,” Sherry said. “That I know of. I’m a free agent. I’m being hired on my merits, not on whose wife I am.”

  “There’s a lot of difficulty in having a husband and wife working together,” Norm said. “Especially if there’s some conflict already.”

  “If you hire her,” Walt said, “I’ll quit.”

  Norm turned towards him. “You’ll what? Quit?”

  Her husband nodded.

  “Why, you’re nuts,” Norm said.

  Walt shrugged.

  “What do you figure?” Norm said. “I can’t get along without you? You’re so god-awful original and inventive?”

  “That’s right,” Walt said.

  “Oh come on, kid,” Norm said.

  “What do you mean, come on?” her husband said, in a slow, deadly voice. She had never heard such a quality in his voice before; she sat absolutely silent, keeping out of it. Her heart labored with fright, and she drew away from both men, making herself as small as possible and wishing she were sitting in the back seat. How had this got started? “This hostess pitch of yours,” Walt said. “What’s that got to do with the price of apples? You have got some bug up your ass and you think it would be cute to hire some
doll to lead clients around and give them the treatment. The soothing, honeyed treatment. In a week you won’t even remember you had the idea. You’ll be on something else entirely. Like having us wear our names on our work-smocks. Stitched in red thread.”

  Norm said nothing. But she saw his face. It had swelled up so that his flesh protruded from his collar.

  “The package you fell for,” Walt said, “in spite of what you said to me, has a couple of cans in front and a nice flat fanny behind. And two long legs sticking out at the bottom. And a prestige voice. And prestige everything else. You’re the biggest sucker in the world for class. You’d pay anything to buy some of it because you know god damn well you don’t have any of it.”

  Without saying anything, Norm Lausch brought the car over to the curb. He stopped it, opened the door and got out onto the sidewalk. “Buddy,” he said. “Step out.” He threw his cigar into the gutter.

  Opening the door on his side, Walt stepped out onto the curb. No one else was in sight; it was another deserted block of closed-up warehouses. Sitting in the car alone she watched the two men standing facing each other on the sidewalk. The darkness, and the angle from which she watched, made it almost impossible for her to tell what was happening; in panic, she scrambled around the huge car, peering up, trying to make out what was going on between them.

  Lausch took off his coat and hung it over the hood of the car. Her husband did the same. Neither of them spoke. Suddenly her husband squared away; he drew his fists up, awkwardly, like some man in an old-time fight drawing. She saw him draw back. Norm Lausch also raised his arms and made fists, covering himself. Both men half-crouched, and then her husband punched Lausch on the shoulder. The sound of the blow was so loud that it startled her; she jumped and exclaimed.

  Waving his fists in circles, Lausch also drew back. Swinging his arm in a wide curve he smacked Walt on the neck. Walt fell back, stumbled, lost his footing entirely, and sat down on the pavement. He remained there, resting his palms on the cement and getting his breath. Then he got back to his feet. Again the two men faced each other, standing very close, their bodies almost touching, their fists up.

  “I’ll knock the shit out of you,” Lausch said.

  “Yeah?” Walt said.

  “You dumb shit,” Lausch said. “Get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t want you around.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” Walt said.

  They remained for a time, neither moving very much, still glaring at each other and making menacing gestures with their fists. Then, by degrees, they lowered their arms. They moved away from each other, stood. Walt rubbed his neck. Finally Lausch walked over to the car and retrieved his coat. He put it on and presently Walt took his coat, too. Carrying it, he opened the car door and got in again. As he slid in beside her she found that he was trembling. His whole body vibrated, and she saw that even his teeth were chattering.

  Coming around to the driver’s side, Lausch got in, slammed his door, and started up the motor. Without speaking, he drove the car off, out into the street, in the direction they had been going.

  Finally, when they had gone all the way across Market to the north side, and neither man had said anything, Sherry said, “I never saw anything so childish in my life.”

  The men remained silent. By now Walt had stopped shaking. He had not, however, put his coat back on; he held it wadded up.

  “Really childish,” she said. In her ears her voice sounded thin and alarmed, jumpy with fright.

  At last Lausch said, “It certainly was.”

  “I’ll pick up my stuff later in the week,” Walt said.

  “Okay,” Lausch said. “Any time you want.”

  “This is dreadful,” she said.

  “No it isn’t,” Walt said. “What’s dreadful about it?” His voice was hoarse; he cleared his throat violently.

  “You want to think it over?” Lausch said. “You can, as far as I’m concerned.” But he said it so formally that even she knew that it was only a ritual.

  “No thanks,” Walt said.

  When they had parked across from Lausch Company, behind the red Alfa, Sherry said to Lausch, “What about me?”

  Lausch said, “What about you?”

  “Because my husband loses his temper does that mean I’m required to carry the stigmata along with him? Whether I want to or not?”

  “Suit yourself,” Lausch said, without much emotion. “If you want to come to work you may, on a trial basis. The way we discussed.”

  “That’s very decent of you,” she said. “I admire you for it. For your fair behavior.”

  “Okay,” Lausch said. “That’s all, I guess. Happy driving across the mountain.”

  Walt had already got out and gone down the sidewalk to the Alfa. He sat in it now, his back to them.

  “Then I’ll call you,” she said to Lausch. “Tomorrow.”

  Lausch nodded.

  “Goodnight,” she said. Getting out, she shut the door and followed her husband to the Alfa. She got in behind the wheel, opened her purse, and searched for the car keys.

  The Buick passed them. Lausch did not look in their direction. Her husband did not stir; she started to wave and then changed her mind. Evidently it was not the thing to do.

  “What an evening,” she said, as she started up the Alfa.

  Sunk down in his seat, Walt did not reply.

  9

  From her bathroom window, Janet Runcible could see down the hill and into the backyard of the Dombrosio home. She could see the patio, the three sling green-plastic and iron chairs, the portable barbecue, a cup and saucer that had been left out. A tree cut off her view of the door leading out onto the patio. Shrubs, growing on the hillside, made it impossible for her to see into the back part of the house itself. But she could see the garage, which was attached to the house, on the side, off the patio.

  Through the window of the garage she could make out the sight of Walt Dombrosio. The time was eleven in the morning. The day, she discovered by checking with last night’s newspaper, was Wednesday. He had been home the day before, too; she had watched him then.

  Had he lost his job in San Francisco? Had he quit? Or was he ill? Or was this his vacation?

  But the sports car still started out in the early morning, she still heard it going down the hill about five forty-five. And it came back up the hill in the evening. The same time as always.

  So, Janet decided, Mrs. Dombrosio was going off by herself. And at exactly the same schedule that her husband had been on.

  It had to be Sherry driving the sports car because there were only two people in the Dombrosio family. And she had not seen Sherry during the day, only her husband.

  In the silence of midday the scraping noise of a saw lifted up and floated to Janet. He was sawing. Walt, in his workshop in his garage, was doing something with wood.

  Puttering in his workshop in the middle of the day, she decided. He must be out of a job. Unless, she thought, there’s some job they have him working on at home. But that did not seem likely.

  However, it did not seem likely that he had lost his job and that his wife had got a job immediately, that took her into San Francisco at exactly the same time and brought her back at exactly the same time. The whole thing was perplexing.

  Giving up, Janet left the bathroom and returned to the living room, where her cigarette had burned itself out in the ashtray on the coffee table.

  Suppose, she thought as she seated herself on the couch, he lost his job because they took away his driving license? But—good god. God in heaven. That would mean that Leo was responsible for him losing his job, because her husband was responsible for him losing his license.

  Now she felt so distraught that she could not sit down. Rising, she paced about the living room, her hands pressed together until her nails dug into her palms. Oh dear god, she thought. I prayed this wouldn’t happen but I knew it would. This is what I feared.

  From far below, the sound of the saw reached her. I can hear
him, she thought frantically. Here in my own living room I can hear him at work in his garage. What is he doing? She put her hands to her ears. Is that going to go on all day long? Will I be stuck here in the house forced to listen to it? I’m not the one who called the police; it was Leo. But, she thought, Leo doesn’t have to hear that sound. He’s at his office. He’s safe and sound and out of here, at Runcible Realty. Insulated, protected.

  I’m the one, she thought, who has to pay for what Leo did. It’s always that way. The guilty party never pays. It’s the innocent. That’s the real meaning of Christianity.

  Going to the bookcase she got out the King James Bible and then, for good measure, Leo’s Jewish bible. Opening both books at random she closed her eyes and picked a spot within each. The hell with this, she thought as she read lines of text which meant nothing to her; they could not conceivably apply. There must be some way to tell what to do, she said to herself. To know what is the right thing.

  At the end table she knelt down, then seated herself on the rug. From the rack under the table she dragged out newspapers and began sorting through them until she found the copy of This Week magazine that had come with the Chronicle earlier in the month. There was an article in it that she remembered; at the time it had impressed her as profound, and now she needed it for what moral guidance it could give.

  She did not find the article she wanted, but in another magazine she found an article she had not before noticed; it was by a young new disc jockey—his picture was included and he looked like a nice, honest, reliable person—and in it he gave advice to the perplexed world. His advice, of course, was aimed primarily at teenagers, but, reading it, she saw that it had a wider application. If a thing is true, she thought, if it’s right for one person, it’s right for everyone else. No matter what age.

  For a long time she studied the young disc jockey’s various pieces of advice, and in the end she still faced what she had known from the start. A person’s first loyalty is to their husband. They have to stick by him, no matter what he does; he’s still their husband. Leo had stuck by her when she had had her terrible crackup in 1958, after the period in which she had tried to work at the office. He had suffered as much as she had. And he had lost the help that she could have given him; he was married to a woman who couldn’t pull her share of the weight, and yet he hadn’t deserted her.