over, shivering violently in every part, as though he had malaria. His head was bent slightly forward, and was also trembling.
Mackey frowned, amazed at the man. And what was that glinting on Griffith’s cheek? Mackey squinted, and it was a tear. Silently, steadily, Griffith was weeping.
His brow furrowed with thought, Mackey turned away and moved silently out of the house.
Five
Griffith awoke as the plane touched down on the runway. The first jounce startled him out of sleep, and the second reminded him where he was.
He sat up, amazed at himself, and stared out the window next to his elbow at Newark Airport in the rain. He never slept on planes, never, and yet he had slept away practically this entire flight.
It must be because he’d been sleeping so badly at home the last few nights. He was between lovers now, and he never did sleep very well with no one else in the bed, but more important than that was this problem of the robbery. He regretted the whole affair, deeply regretted it, but there was no longer any way out.
And if Renard turned him down again, there would be no way in, either. No way to do anything. No survival at all.
Renard couldn’t turn him down, it was as simple as that. The man
It was four-thirty in the afternoon; even on Saturday, not at all a good time to attempt to get into New York City. Griffith took the regular bus to the West Side Airlines Terminal, and phoned Renard again from there: “I’m in New York.”
“If you insist.” When irritated, Renard always sounded bored, his drawl getting longer and slower, his manner sleepier and more remote. Griffith had never heard him sound so totally bored as he did right now.
Griffith said, “I’m at the West Side Terminal.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’ll be right up.”
“Yes,” said Renard, in a jaundiced way. “I suppose you will.”
Griffith hung up, and took a cab to Renard’s place: a high terraced apartment on Central Park West, facing the park. Renard had once titled his apartment, as though it were a painting: “Renard Amid the Analysts.”
At home, Griffith usually felt like a cosmopolite in exile, but in New York he felt like a visiting provincial. He knew it put him at a psychological disadvantage, and he tried to ignore the feeling or overcome it, but he never quite succeeded.
And particularly not in the presence of Renard, whose manner was so condescending in any event. And disconcerting; he answered the door now wearing nothing but a baby-blue bathing suit and pink shawl tied with a bow at the neck. He was a tall man, but very flabby, with sagging breasts half hidden by the shawl, and rolls of flesh folding over the bathing suit at the waist all the way around. He looked like dough that had been allowed to rise too long, until it overflowed the rim of the bowl.
“Well, you are here, aren’t you?” Renard said, as though his own fatalism amused him. “You might as well come in, since you’ve ridden the elevator and all.”
Griffith stepped inside, feeling awkward and inept. It was as though he were the one improperly dressed, not Renard. “I didn’t want to talk on the phone,” he said.
Renard gave him a tired smile left over from some happier occasion. “Dear boy, I don’t want to talk to you at all, by any method. But my little desires go for naught. Come along, I’m gardening.”
Griffith followed him through the large cluttered expensive rooms of the apartment toward the terrace. Renard walked as though he were related somehow to some barnyard fowl—ducks or geese. And when he walked he held his hands up and out from his body, forearms parallel with the floor, as though he were carrying a very large invisible tray, or was about to point to interesting sights along the route.
The terrace was brick-floored and brick-railed, twenty feet wide and extending eight feet out from the building. Most of the available area had been given over to plants of various kinds, small trees and bushes, but no flowers. To Griffith, it was ridiculous to have all these plants in pots up here when the view was of all of Central Park, stretching away to left and right across the street. They were on the twelfth floor, and the view included practically the whole park.
But Griffith would never say anything to Renard about that. Renard cut away at him too much as it was, without provocation; provoke him, and God alone knew what would happen.
Renard had a thick piece of carpet he moved from place to place to kneel on when working on his plants. He now adjusted this, grunting and puffing as he bent over to move the carpet, and then lowering himself as gracefully as a camel, and Griffith permitted himself the luxury of sneering at Renard’s back.
Without turning around, Renard said, “I suppose you might as well say your little piece and get it over with.” He began poking in dirt with a little trowel.
“I need money,” Griffith said, trying to keep his voice calm and businesslike.
“No.” Renard half turned and gave a bright artificial smile. “There, that’s taken care of. So nice you could drop in. You can find your own way out, can’t you?”
“I can’t get the paintings without money first.”
Renard waggled the trowel in mild reproof. “We really have talked about all this,” he said. “Right from the very beginning. Bring me the paintings, I will give you the money.”
“I have people to do it, but—”
Closing his eyes, looking pained, Renard waggled the trowel more vigorously. “No no no, dear boy, no details. I
