do. Wall Street would kick me out on my ass. But at my age I don't worry about money anymore. I've been reading Tolstoy. Every man feels he has a novel in him. He feels he has a novel and a Eurasian mistress. Tolstoy makes me want to write a novel. Your mother was ill a good deal of the time but she had something these bitches today couldn't touch. My secretary? Maxine? She has soap under her fingernails. Seven out of eight times I look at her fingernails I see little slivers of soap.
Compare that with your mother. At my age you come to realize that you did everything wrong. No matter who you are, everything you did was wrong. Maybe I'll turn Catholic.'
'I didn't know you were thinking along those lines.'
'There's something there,' he said to his elbow. 'I've been doing a lot of reading. I was never much for religion but there's something there. You know the Catholic church in Old Holly, Sacred Bones or whatever it's called? I called up the head priest one night, the pastor, and we had an interesting talk. Hell of a nice guy. He knew who I was. He told me all about the human soul. The soul has a transcendental connection to the body. It informs the body. The soul becomes aware of its own essence after it separates from the body. Once you're dead, your soul can be directly illuminated by God. I sent him a case of Johnnie Walker Red.'
'What time is it?' I said.
'Yeah, I have to get going. Listen, sport, see what you can find out about Stennis. Find out how much he makes.'
It was snowing again and people moved head-down, clutching their hats, shouldering into the wind. I walked across the wide gray lobby. In a far corner there was an exhibit of prize-winning war photographs. One of them was an immense color blow-up, about ten feet high and twenty feet wide. In the center of the picture was a woman holding a dead child in her arms, and behind her and on either side were eight other children; some of them looked at the woman while others were smiling and waving, apparently at the camera. A young man was down on one knee in the middle of the lobby, photographing the photograph. I stood behind him for a moment and the effect was unforgettable. Time and distance were annihilated and it seemed that the children were smiling and waving at him. Such is the prestige of the camera, its almost religious authority, its hypnotic power to command reverence from subject and bystander alike, that I stood absolutely motionless until the young man snapped the picture. It was as though I feared that any small movement on my part might distract one of those bandaged children and possibly ruin the photograph.
I continued across the lobby. Three network people, a few yards ahead of me, stamped their feet as they walked, trying to get the snow off their shoes. Just then Weede Denney emerged from an elevator bank and headed toward us, hat in one hand, suitcase in the other, wearing his Japanese smile. I moved up closer to the other three men and also stamped my feet.
'Gentlemen.'
'Weede.'
'Weede.'
'Weede.'
'Weede.'
There were nine or ten people on the elevator. Nobody said anything. There was a Christmas carol coming over the Muzak. When we reached the twentieth floor I took the emergency telephone out of its small tinplate compartment. But I couldn't think of anything funny to say and so I put it back. Binky wasn't at her desk. I went into the office and dialed Tana Elkbridge's extension. She was a secretary in the news division, married seven years. Our affair was a month old. It had begun at a party when she asked me if I would care to read some of her short pieces. I had no idea what she was talking about. Her short pieces turned out to be prose poems, the kind of thing student nurses write before they see their first amputation. Tana was dark and magnificently shaped and wore her hair in braids. Her boss answered the phone and I hung up immediately. I had done this at least a dozen times since joining the network. It is a debasing experience but when you are having an affair with a married woman, or when you yourself are married, it is better not to take chances. Her boss was a lean nervous man and I could imagine his irritation, the ungovernable mutiny of his starved features, as that inimical click went off in his ear. It gave me no pleasure. Quincy came in, closed the door behind him, walked slowly across the room and put one ample haunch on the corner of my desk, the upper part of his thigh flattening and spreading, and I thought of a science-fiction organism pulsating menacingly in some neglected corner of a laboratory. 'Was that Weede in here just before lunch?'
'No.'
'That was Weede,' he said. 'Listen, how come he's going to the Coast? People don't usually go on business trips just before Christmas. It must be something important. Did he say anything about it?'
'Quincy, I'd tell you if I could. But it's privileged material.'
'Come on, Dave. How long have I known you? We've come up through this thing together. You've seen my wife naked how many times?'
'I can't say a word.'
'Well, is he taking Kitty along with him at least? I can't believe he'd let his wife stay behind over Christmas. It can't be that important.'
'They're having marital problems,' I said.
'A lot of things are happening around here. Just before lunch I picked up my phone and I could hear voices. The wires must have got crossed. It was Walter Faye talking to somebody I didn't recognize. Walter was giving him the salaries of everybody in Weede's unit. Reeves Chubb makes more than we do.'
The door of Quincy's office was orange and his sofa was dark gray. Some of us in Weede's group had doors of the same color but sofas of a different color. Some had identical sofas but different doors. Weede himself was the only one who had a red sofa. Weede and Ted Warburton were the only ones with black doors. Warburton's sofa was dark green and so was Mars Tyler's door. But Mars Tyler's sofa was ecru, a shade lighter than Grove Palmer's door. I had all this down on paper. On slow afternoons I used to study it, trying to find a pattern. I thought there might be a subtle color scheme designed by management and based on a man's salary, ability, and prospects for advancement or decline. Why did no two people have identical sofas and doors? Why was Ted Warburton allowed to have a black door when the only other black door belonged to Weede Denney? Why was Reeves Chubb the only one with a primrose sofa? Why was Paul Joyner's perfectly good maroon sofa replaced by a royal blue one? Why was my sofa the same color as Weede's door? There were others who felt as I did. When Paul Joyner walked in to find a new sofa in his office he immediately started a rumor that he was being fired. But this sofa incident had taken place two years prior to the current rumor, the origins of which were never disclosed. He had not been fired; it was not that easy to find the connection. The connection was tenuous but I was sure it was there. At least a dozen times I had taken that piece of paper out of my files and tried to correlate a man's standing with the color of his door and sofa. There had to be a key. If only I could find it. What I would do when and if I found it was a question that did not disturb me. I would do something. I would change something. I would have protection. I would know the riddle.
'I had Mexican food for lunch,' Quincy said. 'I have to go to a meeting in Livingston-that-son-of-a-bitch's office in five minutes. Smell my breath, will you?'
He leaned over and exhaled.
'It's fine,' I said. 'Rose petals.'
'Tacos are hard to get off your breath. I brushed my teeth twice.'
'Okay,' I said. 'Now you smell my breath.'
He leaned over again.
'No problem,' he said. 'Not the slightest little inkling.'
We were both lying. Half an hour later Binky came in, hung her coat behind the door and went right out again. I dialed her extension.
'Miss Lister.'
'Welcome back to the animal farm,' I said. 'Are you mad at me? Wait'll you see what I'm getting you for Christmas.
You're the best secretary I've ever had. Cross my heart and piss in a ditch.'
'What was that all about?' she said. 'I didn't understand what you were trying to do. I went out and got stoned on bloody marys.'
'I'm sorry, Bink. I've been tense and neuralgic. I really have. I've been here seven years. It gets to you. Come in
