The Best Revenge (17 page)

The bedside phone exploded with a shattering clang.

“This is Sam Glenn,” the voice said. “Put Ben on.”

“It's two o'clock in the morning!” I said and hung up hard.

Ben was sitting up in bed. “Who was it?”

I put my hand on my lover's hand. “Nothing. Wrong number. Go to sleep.” I reached to take the receiver off the hook when the phone's ring resounded. And again. I had to lift the receiver to stop it, and heard his bellow: “Don't you fucking hang up on me, lady. Put the bastard on the line.”

Ben said, “It's Sam Glenn, isn't it?”

I nodded and handed Ben the phone.

13

Ben

I said, “It's the middle of the night, Sam.”

“You duck my daytime calls.”

“What's so urgent?” My never-changing image of Sam was from high school, the six-foot-four hulk who picked fights and used his stomach for butting.

“You didn't close the partnership, true or false?”

I sat up at the edge of the bed. “You want some additional units?”

“Are you fucking crazy? My money's still in escrow. I want it back.”

“The money's spent, Sam.”

Jane was now up on one elbow, watching me.

“You listen to me, Ben. You can't spend the first dollar till the last dollar comes in. You'll go to jail for fucking around with those funds.”

“Oh, Sam.”

“Don't oh-Sam me. You wouldn't last three months in the hoose-gow.”

“Sam, we've known each other a helluva long time. I'm sure if we sat down face to face and talked this over you'd understand.”

“I doubt it. If the production has used my money, just send me a personal check plus interest from the day of investment. That comes
to—”

“I don't have that kind of money anymore, Sam. Look, the middle of the night on the phone is no way to talk. Are you coming to New York anytime soon?”

“I got enough keeping clear of muggers in Chicago. I don't go to New York. I want a no-bullshit answer right now. Are you going to send me a check by Fed Ex or do I do what I have to do?”

“If I take a plane in the morning, Sam…”

Jane was shaking her head.

“…we could have lunch together…”

“I don't eat lunch. I'll expect you in my office by eleven o'clock. With a check.”

He hung up.

“Call him back,” Jane said. “Tell him you can't go.”

I lay back on the pillow, my hands under my head, staring at the ceiling. Chicago, once my town, was now enemy turf.

I could hear the clock across the room. “What time is the alarm set for?”

“Seven. Are you going to call him back?”

“Change it to six.”

In the fan of moonlight sneaking in between the slats of the blinds, Jane looked like a young woman. “Wasn't there once a time,” I said to myself, “when I could talk anybody into anything?”

*

On the plane I got a magazine from the stewardess. Even the ads seemed unreadable to me that morning. I closed my eyes, retrieved long-stored snapshots of Chicago. My mother's nervous warmth. Homebound by the impenetrable snow. The policemen who always seemed fake to me because of the silly black-and-white checkerboard bands around their caps. Why no snapshot of Louie? Where was he?

I'm right here. Where are you?

On my way to Chicago, Pop.

If you're going to Chicago, why don't you see Anna?

How do you know she's still alive, Pop?

I know.

How did you get on this plane, Pop?

He put his hand on my shoulder, gently. I opened my eyes. It was the stewardess waking me for breakfast.

*

In O'Hare's bedlam my eyes scouted for a public phone not in use. It was still early for my meeting with Sam.

I dialed information. “Addison, Anna,” I said. “I don't know the address.”

Maybe information wouldn't have a number for her.

How many Anna Addisons do you think there are in Chicago?

You here, too, Pop?

Where else?

A synthesized voice announced, “The number is…”

See. I told you.

Comment by Anna Addison

I have two links to the outside world: the grocery boy and the man who delivers for the cleaners. When that phone rang for the first time in two weeks, I thought it was probably a wrong number. Still, I went to answer it with all the eagerness of sixty years ago when Charles and I would phone each other at least once a day. Please don't hang up before I get there.

“Hello, hello,” I said quickly.

A man's voice, deep as if from the bottom of some ocean, said, “May I speak to Mrs. Addison, please.” His voice seemed surrounded by a lot of Donald Ducks yammering in the background. I had to strain for every word.

“Yes, yes, this is Anna Addison. Who's calling?”

“This is…Ben Riller, Louie…and Zipporah's…son.”

Oh, how those names jumped out at me from memory! “Bennie, where are you?”

“At O'Hare. I'm glad information had your number.”

“If I could afford it,” I said, “my name would be in every city directory in the whole country! What are you doing in Chicago, did somebody die?”

Stupid thing for me to say. It must be thirty-five years since Louie died. Maybe twenty-five since Zipporah followed him. “I guess I should be the next one,” I said.

“If I remember you correctly,” Ben said, “you'll live forever.”

“That kind of lie I like to hear.”

“I'm in town,” he said, “for a meeting with one of my investors. My return flight's not till five. Can I pay you a visit early this afternoon?”

“Of course.” I repeated my address twice so he shouldn't make a
mistake.

“It's hard to know the exact time,” Ben said. “I'll call when my meeting's over.”

“Don't waste money on a call. I'll be here.” I saw my hand on the telephone receiver, my knuckles like small doorknobs. I've gotten so thin since Charles died. “I'll make us a lunch,” I said.

“Don't go to any trouble. I've got to run now.”

When he hung up, I held the receiver to my breast like a gift I didn't want to put down. Do I have a decent dress that fits me? What if I died in the next couple of hours, who would tell Bennie not to come?

Comment by Louie

That woman Anna always fussed about the way her hands looked. She used to say that she had the right hands for a woman and I had the right hands for a man, whatever that meant. Right in front of me she used to ask Zipporah things like did her bust look natural with some new brassiere she was wearing. I was tempted to say, How do I know if it looks natural if I don't get to see what the natural looks like?

Some of our friends in Chicago used to think it funny that Zipporah should have a best friend like Anna who wasn't Jewish. In the old country, there was us, and the rest were enemies, but in America, people are people, give them a chance. Our friends thought she was stuffy because she called her husband Charles instead of Charlie. She wasn't. When she talked, her soul steamed out of her eyes. She talked with her breath, like a woman on the verge. I thought of her as someone I should make love to, and I knew she knew, but we were always on good behavior, she for her Charles, and I for Zipporah. That woman, Anna Addison, taught me that whatever pulls a man and a woman together can also jump over the fence of centuries, that the days of Jews marrying only Jews would soon be over. When we met, and a kiss on the cheek in front of Charles and Zipporah was called for, Anna and I were as careful as kids in front of their parents. I never laid a hand on her except in my mind. When we left Chicago, leaving her was for me harder than leaving all those books with the stickers that said EX LIBRIS, LOUIS RILLER. Most of those books I had read. Anna I had not yet read.

Comment by Zipporah

Of course I knew that Louie had a crush on her, what wife doesn't know such things? But I loved her more. She was reserved the way I thought only older people were. Outside, her poise made her seem like a live statue, inside, a soft heart beat. If I loved her, why shouldn't Louie, who was flesh and blood? I sometimes imagined them making love together. I don't know when they would have had the opportunity. But in front of me, and Charles the husband sitting there, too, they sometimes talked to each other as if a secret perfume enclosed them both. Sure, the contact of flesh to unmarried flesh is forbidden, but the Devil knows that people do things in public that are more personal than sex in bed.

Comment by Anna Addison

My family has been Protestant since Luther. Why do I envy the Catholic widows? Because if their voices are still strong and their manners cleverly deceitful, they can flirt with the priest through the wire mesh, pretending he doesn't know they are in their eighties as I am. They can look forward to ring-around-the-rosie with Mary and Jesus and the Holy Ghost when it's over. What does a Lutheran lady of the same age have if she never had children and her husband is dead? None of the male parishioners of a suitable age are willing to risk more than the frailest friendship out of fear that anything else might require something they couldn't do, when I'd settle for an affectionate kiss.

You realize after a time why the widows with pensions move to Arizona or California or Florida. In Chicago, without a body to get close to during the night, the winters get longer as the antifreeze drains out of your bones. When did I see Bennie Riller last? At
Zipporah's
funeral, twenty-five years ago! Oh how I miss that woman. I remember her sitting right here beside me. And the truth is I miss her husband more. Louie and I were virgins with each other, yet when did a week pass when I did not imagine his lips on my neck?

In the shower I caught myself singing a song of fifty years ago. Hoping my voice would not betray my age, I called the beauty parlor and asked could they give me a special appointment for a permanent this morning. I meant right away. They said, Sure, come on down, sweetie. Going outside for my appointment, Chicago suddenly looked like the most beautiful city in the universe. Ben is coming, sang the song in my head. Ben is coming.

14

Ben

Samuel Glenn, Inc., occupied the entire fourteenth floor of the Michigan Tower Building in the Loop. The reception-room chairs were occupied by men and women who tried to avoid looking at each other. Every few minutes a different young woman came in, called out a name, and then escorted whoever responded through a door into a huge room filled with desks and ringing phones like a broker's office.

I picked up
Business Week.
Every story seemed to be about Sam Glenn. I put the magazine down and stared at my fingernails like everybody else.

In high school Mr. Edwards kept Sam on the football team because Mr. Edwards understood that crowds find violence entertaining. Sam was expert at flinging his body against a running linebacker as if he was hoping to break bones in the process of bringing the man down.

While Sam played up his repulsiveness, I detected signs of loneliness. Something simple, like Sam saying, “I'd like to go out with you guys,” stuck in my head the way a piece of chewing gum can stick to the sole of your shoe. The more you try to get rid of it, the worse it seems to get. When Sam tried to be friendly, it came across like a threat, and the guys would head in the other direction. I went to the movies with him once and we had to stand until two seats opened up in the last row. Sam said if he sat anywhere else, he'd be blocking someone's view and it would end up in a shouting match. I suspect he was the only male virgin in our class.

I lost contact with Sam until maybe a dozen years later he phoned from Chicago and said he had what he called “a little loose change” and could he invest in one of my plays.

I said, “Sure.” To be polite, I asked what he was up to.

“A little of this, a little of that,” Sam said.

“I heard you went to law school.”

“You heard right, Ben.”

“You practice law?”

“Not really. I also got an accounting degree. I don't do that either.”

“How much do you want to invest?”

“Twenty-five.”

“It comes in units of thirty thousand. Want half?”

“I'll take thirty. Send me the stuff. Nice talking to you, Ben.”

He hung up, leaving me feeling like a clerk in a store.

That play made money, but I didn't invite Sam in again. It was easy enough to finance my productions with money from people who didn't go at everything as if it were a contact sport. Then one day I got a phone call from Sam, pushing money at me.

“I'm full up with old investors,” I told Sam. “Sorry.”

“I lent you two bucks in high school. That makes me your oldest investor.”

I gave him his laugh, but not a participation. When too many of my regulars stayed away from
The Best Revenge,
Charlotte dug out my backup list and there was Sam's name. I did my short-form pitch, and Sam said, “Don't do me favors, Ben. If you need my money, say so
.”

“So,” I said, which drew from him something like a snicker.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll take two units. That's about what I made the first time. See to it I don't lose it.”

*

I soaked in thought for nearly half an hour in Sam's waiting room before a bird-beaked woman called out my name. I stood.

“Follow me,” she said and led the way through a huge room filled with desks occupied by fast-talking people with phones on shoulder rests. Along two walls were glass-walled cubicles in which I could see people from the waiting room getting grilled. I followed the woman to the far corner, where she stepped aside to let me into a cavernous office with half a dozen huge potted plants—
trees
,
I thought—sized to Sam, who came from around his large desk with palm extended. I braced myself for a brutal handshake.