She called out something else, but Mr. Levy’s roar drowned out her voice. Blue smoke settled over the stricken Plymouth and he was gone.
“Now you done it,” Mrs. Reilly was saying to Ignatius, her hands grasping the white smock. “Now we in trouble for real, boy. You know what they can do you for forgery? They can throw you in a federal prison. That poor man’s got a $500 thousand case on his hands. Now you done it, Ignatius. Now you really in trouble.”
“Please,” Ignatius said weakly. His pale skin was turning an off-white that shaded into gray. He felt really ill now. His valve was executing several maneuvers that exceeded in originality and violence anything it had done before. “I told you it would be like this when I went out to work.”
Mr. Levy picked the shortest route back to the Desire Street wharf. He sped out Napoleon to the Broad overpass and got onto the expressway, fired by an emotion that was a distant but recognizable version of determination. If resentment had really driven Miss Trixie to writing that letter, then Mrs. Levy was the person responsible for the Abelman suit. Could Miss Trixie write something as intelligible as that letter? Mr. Levy hoped that she could. He drove through Miss Trixie’s neighborhood quickly, flashing past the bars and the BOILED CRAWFISH and OYSTERS ON THE HALF SHELL signs that stuck out everywhere. At the apartment house he followed the trail of scraps up the stairs to a brown door. He knocked and Mrs. Levy opened it with, “Look who’s back. The idealist’s menace. Have you solved your case?”
“Maybe.”
“Now you’re talking like Gary Cooper. One word I get for an answer. Sheriff Gary Levy.” She plucked at an offending aquamarine lash with her fingers. “Well, let’s go. Trixie’s gorging on the cookies. I’m getting nauseous.”
Mr. Levy pushed past his wife into a scene he could never have imagined. Levy’s Lodge had not prepared him for interiors like the one he had just seen on Constantinople Street—and for this one. Miss Trixie’s apartment was decorated with scraps, with junk, with bits of metal, with cardboard boxes. Somewhere beneath it all there was furniture. The surface, however, the visible terrain, was a landscape of old clothes and crates and newspapers. There was a pass through the center of the mountain, a clearing among the litter, a narrow aisle of clear floor that led to a window where Miss Trixie was seated in a chair sampling the Dutch cookies. Mr. Levy walked down the aisle past the black wig that hung from atop a crate, the high pumps tossed on a pile of newspapers. The only aspect of the rejuvenation that Miss Trixie had apparently retained was the teeth; they gleamed between her thin lips as they knifed into the cookies.
“Suddenly you’re very silent,” Mrs. Levy observed. “What is it, Gus? Another mission ended in failure?”
“Miss Trixie,” Mr. Levy screamed into her ears. “Did you write a letter to Abelman’s Dry Goods?”
“Now you’re scraping rock bottom,” Mrs. Levy said. “The idealist fooled you again, I guess. You really fall for that Reilly’s line.”
“Miss Trixie!”
“What?” Miss Trixie snarled. “I must say you people know how to retire a person.”
Mr. Levy handed her the letter. She picked a magnifying glass from the floor and studied the letters. The green visor cast a deadly color upon her face, upon the Dutch cookie crumbs that rimmed her thin lips. When she put down the magnifying glass, she wheezed happily, “You people in trouble now.”
“But did you write that to Abelman? Mr. Reilly said you did.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Reilly. The big man with the green cap who used to work at Levy Pants.” Mr. Levy showed Miss Trixie the photographs in the morning paper. “That one there.”
Miss Trixie applied her magnifying glass to the newspaper and said, “Oh, my goodness. So that’s what happened to him.” Poor Gloria. He seemed to be injured. “That’s Mr. Reilly, is it?”
“Yes. You remember him, I guess. He says you wrote that letter.”
“He did?” Gloria Reilly wouldn’t lie. Not Gloria. True blue. Gloria had always been her friend. Miss Trixie tried hazily to recall. Perhaps she had written the letter. All sorts of things happened that she couldn’t remember anymore. “Well, I guess I did. Yes. Now that you mention it, I guess I did write that. You people deserve it, too. You’ve driven me crazy these last few years. No retirement. No ham. Nothing. I must say I hope you lose everything you own.”
“You wrote that?” Mrs. Levy asked. “After all I’ve done for you, you wrote something like that? A viper in our own bosom! You can kiss Levy Pants goodbye, traitor. Discarded? You’ll get discarded!”
Miss Trixie smiled. That annoying woman was really getting excited. Gloria always had been her friend. Now the annoying woman would go to the poorhouse. Perhaps. But right now she was coming toward her, those aquamarine fingernails poised like talons. Miss Trixie started to scream.
“Let her alone,” Mr. Levy said to his wife. “Well, well. Won’t Susan and Sandra like to hear about this. Their mother tortures an old lady so much that the girls are in danger of losing all of their cardigans and culottes.”
“So. Blame me,” Mrs. Levy said wildly. “I stuck the paper in the typewriter. I helped her peck it out.”
“Didn’t you write that letter to get even with Levy Pants because you weren’t retired?”
“Yes, yes,” Miss Trixie said vaguely.
“To think I trusted you,” Mrs. Levy spat at Miss Trixie. “Give me back those teeth.”
Her husband blocked her grab for Miss Trixie’s mouth.
“Quiet!” Miss Trixie snarled, all of her white fangs gleaming. “I can’t even have a little peace in my own apartment.”
“If it wasn’t for your stupid, harebrained ‘project’ this woman would have been retired long ago,” Mr. Levy said to his wife. “After all those years of predicting things, you turn out to be the one who almost threw Levy Pants down the drain.”
“I see. You don’t blame her. You blame a woman of standards and ideals. If a thief broke into Levy Pants, I’d be to blame. You need help, Gus. Badly.”
“Yes, I do. And from Lenny’s doctor, of all people.”
“Wonderful, Gus.”
“Quiet!”
“But you’re the one who’s going to call Lenny’s doctor,” Mr. Levy said to his wife. “I want you to get him to declare Miss Trixie senile and incompetent and to explain the motivation for writing the letter.”
“This is your problem,” Mrs. Levy answered angrily. “You call him.”
“Susan and Sandra won’t like to hear about their mother’s little mistake.”
“And blackmail, too.”
“I’ve learned a few things from you. After all, we’ve been married for some time.” Mr. Levy watched anger and anxiety play upon his wife’s face. For once she had nothing to say. “The girls won’t want to know that their dear mother was such a fool. Now plan to get Trixie over to Lenny’s doctor. With her admission and any doctor’s testimony, Abelman doesn’t have an outside chance on this case. All you’d have to do is drag her into a courtroom and let a judge look at her.”
“I’m a very attractive woman,” Miss Trixie said automatically.
“Of course you are,” Mr. Levy said, bending down next to her. “We’re going to retire you, Miss Trixie. With a raise. You’ve had a lousy deal.”
“Retirement?” Miss Trixie wheezed. “I must say this is unexpected. Thank goodness.”
“You’ll sign a statement that you wrote that letter, won’t you?”
“Of course I will!” Miss Trixie cried. What a friend Gloria was. Gloria knew how to help her out. Gloria was smart. Thank goodness Gloria had remembered this magic letter. “I’ll say anything you want me to.”
“Everything is suddenly clear to me,” Mrs. Levy’s bitter voice said behind a pile of newspapers. “I’m blackmailed with my two darling girls. I’m pushed out of the way so that you can be a bigger playboy than ever. Now Levy Pants will be really down the drain. You think you have something on me.”
“Oh, I do
. And Levy Pants will be down the drain. But not because one of your games wrecked it.” Mr. Levy looked over the two letters. “This Abelman business has made me think about a lot of things. How come nobody buys our pants? Because they stink. Because they’re made from the same patterns my father used twenty years ago, the same fabrics. Because that old tyrant wouldn’t change a thing in that plant. Because he destroyed whatever initiative I had.”
“Your father was a brilliant man. Not another word of disrespect from you.”
“Shut up. Trixie’s oddball letter gave me an idea. From now on we make Bermuda shorts only. Less trouble, higher profits on lower expenditures. I want a whole new line of wash and wear swatches from the mills. Levy Pants becomes Levy Shorts.”
“‘Levy Shorts.’ That’s rich. Don’t make me laugh. You’ll go broke in a year. Anything to obliterate the memory of your father. You can’t run a business. You’re a failure, a playboy, a racetrack tout.”
“Quiet! I must say you people are a nuisance. If this is retirement, I’d rather be back at that Levy Pants.” Miss Trixie raked at them with her cookie box. “Now get out of my house and mail me my check.”
“I couldn’t run Levy Pants. That’s true. I think I can run Levy Shorts.”
“Suddenly you’re very smug,” Mrs. Levy said in a voice that bordered on hysteria. Gus Levy operating a company? Gus Levy dominant? What could she say to Susan and Sandra? What could she say to Gus Levy? What would happen to her? “The Foundation goes down the drain, too, I guess.”
“Of course not.” Mr. Levy smiled inwardly. At last his wife was rudderless, trying to steer some sort of course on a sea of confusion, asking him for directions. “We’ll make an award. What were they supposed to be for, meritorious service and bravery?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Levy said humbly.
“Here. This is brave.” He picked up the newspaper and pointed to the Negro who stood over the fallen idealist. “He gets the first award.”
“What? A criminal with dark glasses? A Bourbon Street character? Please, Gus. Not this. Leon Levy is dead only a few years. Let him rest in peace.”
“It’s very practical, the kind of maneuver old Leon would have made himself. Most of our workers are Negroes. Good public relations. And I’ll probably need more and better workers before long. This will make for a good employment climate.”
“But not to that.” Mrs. Levy sounded as if she were retching. “The awards are for nice people.”
“Where’s the idealism you’re always coming on so strong for? I thought you had an interest in minority groups. At least you’ve always said so. Anyway, Reilly was worth saving. He led me to the real culprit.”
“You can’t live the rest of your life on spite.”
“Who’s living on spite? I’m doing some constructive things at last. Miss Trixie, where’s your telephone?”
“Who?” Miss Trixie was watching a freighter from Monrovia depart with a dockful of International Harvester tractors. “I don’t have one. There’s one at the grocery on the corner.”
“Okay, Mrs. Levy. Go down to the grocery. Call Lenny’s doctor and call the newspaper to find out if they know how we can reach Jones, but those people usually don’t have telephones. Try the police, too. They might know. Give me the number. I’ll call him personally.”
Mrs. Levy stood staring at her husband, her colored lashes motionless.
“If you’re going to the store, you can just get me that Easter ham,” Miss Trixie rasped. “I want to see that ham right here in my home! I don’t want any double talk this time. If you people want a confession from me, you’d better start paying off.”
She snarled once at Mrs. Levy, flashing her teeth as if they were a symbol of something, a gesture of defiance.
“There,” Mr. Levy said to his wife. “You have three reasons for going to the grocery now.” He handed her a ten-dollar bill. “I’ll wait for you here.”
Mrs. Levy took the money and said to her husband, “I guess you’re happy now. Now I’ll be your maid. You’ll hold this over my head like a sword. One little misjudgment and I suffer all this.”
“One little misjudgment? A libel suit for half a million? What are you suffering? You’re just going to the corner grocery.”
Mrs. Levy turned and found her way along the aisle. The door slammed and, as if a weighty problem had been lifted from her, Miss Trixie fell into a juvenile slumber. Mr. Levy listened to her snoring and watched the Monrovian freighter moving out into the harbor and turning downstream toward the Gulf.
His mind grew calm for the first time in several days, and some of the events surrounding the letter began passing in review through his consciousness. He thought of the letter to Abelman, and then his mind was recalling another place where he had heard similar language. It was in the Reilly kook’s yard just an hour ago. “She must be lashed.” “Mongoloid Mancuso.” So he had written it after all. Mr. Levy looked tenderly down at the little accused party snoring over her box of Dutch cookies. For everyone’s sake, he thought, you will have to be declared incompetent and confess, Miss Trixie. You are being framed. Mr. Levy laughed out loud. Why had Miss Trixie confessed so sincerely?
“Silence!” Miss Trixie snarled, snapping awake.
That Reilly kook had really been worth saving after all. He had saved himself, Miss Trixie, and Mr. Levy, too, in his own kook way. Whoever Burma Jones was, he deserved a generous award…or reward. Offering him a job at the new Levy Shorts would be even better for public relations. An award and a job. With some good newspaper publicity to tie in with the opening of Levy Shorts. Was that a gimmick or wasn’t it?
Mr. Levy watched the freighter cross the mouth of the Industrial Canal. Mrs. Levy would be on a ship soon, destination San Juan. She could visit her mother on the beach, laughing and singing and dancing. Mrs. Levy wouldn’t really fit into the Levy Shorts plan.
Fourteen
Ignatius spent the day in his room napping fitfully and attacking his rubber glove during his frequent, anxious moments of consciousness. Throughout the afternoon the telephone in the hall had been ringing, each new ring making him more nervous and anxious. He lunged at the glove, deflowering it, stabbing it, conquering it. Like any celebrity, Ignatius had attracted his fans: his mother’s jinxed relatives, neighbors, people Mrs. Reilly had not seen for years. They had all telephoned. At every ring Ignatius imagined that it was Mr. Levy calling back, but he always heard his mother say to the caller the lines that were becoming tearfully standard, “Ain’t this awful? What I’m gonna do? Now our name is really ruint.” When Ignatius could stand it no longer, he would billow out of his room in search of a Dr. Nut. If he chanced to meet his mother in the hall, she would not look at him but rather study the fleecy spheres of lint that drifted along the floor in her son’s wake. There seemed to be nothing that he could say to her.
What would Mr. Levy do? Abelman, unfortunately, was apparently a rather petty person, a man too small to accept a little criticism, a hypersensitive molecule of a human. He had written to the wrong person; the militant and courageous broadside had been delivered before the wrong audience. At this point his nervous system could not manage a court trial. He would break down completely before the judge. He wondered how long it would be before Mr. Levy descended upon him again. What senile conundrums was Miss Trixie babbling to Mr. Levy? An infuriated and confused Mr. Levy would return, this time determined to have him incarcerated at once. Now waiting for this return was like waiting for an execution. The dull headache persisted. The Dr. Nuts tasted like gall. Abelman certainly wanted a great deal of money; that sensitive plant of an Abelman must have been greatly offended. When the true author of the letter was discovered, what would Abelman demand in lieu of $500 thousand? A life?
The Dr. Nuts seemed only as an acid gurgling down into his intestine. He filled with gas, the sealed valve trapping it just as one pinches the mouth of a balloon. Great eructations rose from his throat and bounced upward toward the refuse-laden bowl of the milk glass
chandelier. Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen. Everywhere there lurked pitfalls like Abelman, the insipid Crusaders for Moorish Dignity, the Mancuso cretin, Dorian Greene, newspaper reporters, stripteasers, birds, photography, juvenile delinquents, Nazi pornographers. And especially Myrna Minkoff. The musky minx must be dealt with. Somehow. Someday. She must pay. Whatever happened, he must attend to her even if the revenge took years and he had to stalk her through decades from one coffee shop to another, from one folk singing orgy to another, from subway train to pad to cotton field to demonstration. Ignatius invoked an elaborate Elizabethan curse upon Myrna and, rolling over, frantically abused the glove once more.
How dare his mother contemplate a marriage. Only someone as simpleminded as she could be so disloyal. The aged fascist would conduct witchhunt after witchhunt until the formerly intact Ignatius J. Reilly was reduced to a fragmented and mumbling vegetable. The aged fascist would testify for Mr. Levy so that his future stepson would be locked away and he would be free to satisfy his warped and archaic desires upon the unsuspecting Irene Reilly, to perform his conservative practices upon Irene Reilly with free enterprise. Prostitutes were not protected by the Social Security and unemployment compensation systems. No doubt the Robichaux roué was thus attracted to them. Only Fortuna knew what he had learned at their hands.
Mrs. Reilly listened to the squeaking and belching emanating from her son’s room and wondered whether, on top of everything else, he were having a fit. But she didn’t want to look at Ignatius. Whenever she heard his door opening, she tried to run to her room to avoid him. Five hundred thousand dollars was a sum she could not even imagine. She could hardly imagine the punishment given someone who had done something bad enough to be worth five hundred thousand. If there were any cause for suspicion on Mr. Levy’s part, there was none on hers. Ignatius had written whatever it was. Wouldn’t this be fine? Ignatius in jail. There was only one way to save him. She carried the telephone as far down the hall as she could, and for the fourth time that day, she dialed Santa Battaglia’s number.