'This girl I used to know's brother.”
'She was with the firm, or he was, I guess.”
'He used to be in the stock market but not our company.”
'Maybe I know him.”
'I don't know,' she said.
'What's his name?”
'George Sedbauer.”
'You see me pause,' he said. 'That's the guy got shot.”
'I know.”
'His sister was a friend of yours and you met George through her and then he more or less recommended you or gave your name to someone.”
'He told me who to see and all.”
'Did you know him well? I didn't know him at all but a friend of mine knew him and we talked about it after it happened, Frank McKechnie, in this bar right there.”
'I met him at a party type thing. We were introduced. His sister Janet. He was very nice. I used to laugh.”
'How long ago was this?”
'Two years? I don't know.”
'But you had time to get to know him fairly well.”
'I liked his macabre humor,' she said. 'George could be very macabre.”
Briefly he envied Sedbauer, dead or not. He always envied men who'd done something to impress a woman. He didn't like hearing women mention another man favorably, even if he didn't know the man, or if the man was disfigured, living in the Amazon Basin, or dead. She turned her head to exhale. The waiter came out of the kitchen, talking.
'What about something to eat? I'd like to hear more. We can go somewhere decent. I just thought this place was convenient and not the big cocktail hour with huge swarms.”
'I can't stay.”
'Another drink then.”
'This one's full.”
'I'd like to hear more, really.”
'About what?”
'You, I guess. I think it's interesting you knew Sedbauer. I was a few yards from the body when I guess he died. The man who did it was George's guest that day. Did you know that?”
'Yes.”
'I think it's interesting. I wonder what happened between them. George was in trouble with the Board, you know. Did you know that? The Exchange Board of Directors. George was apparently a little this way and that. Not quite your run-of-the-mill dues-paying member. I wonder what he was doing with this guy wearing a guest badge and carrying a gun. We go through all those days not questioning. It's all so organized. Even the noise is organized. I'd like to question a little bit, to ask what this is, what that is, where we are, whose life am I leading and why. It was a starter's pistol, adapted. Did you know that?”
'Yes.”
'Yes, she said. You are well informed, he exclaimed. Where is the check, they inquired.”
She smiled a bit at that. Progress, he thought. It wasn't macabre, perhaps, but it had a little something all its own.
6
Pammy was writing a direct-mail piece on the subjects of sorrow and death. The point was to get people to send for a Grief Management brochure entitled 'It Ends For Him On The Day He Dies-But You Have To Face Tomorrow.' The brochure elaborated on death, defined the study known as grief management and offered a detailed summary of the company's programs ('Let Professionals Help You Cope') and a listing of regional offices. It cost a dollar.
Pammy had written the brochure months earlier. Ethan, in one of his moments of feigned grandeur, had called it 'a classic of dispassion and tact.' There were others in the office who considered it too 'nuts-and-boltsy,' like a four-page insert for radio condensers in some dealer publication.
'Death is a religious experience,' Ethan had said. 'It is also nuts-and-boltsy. Something fails to work, you die. A demonstrable consequence.”
In a context in which every phrase can take on horribly comic significance, she thought she'd done well. Her job, in the main, was a joke, as was the environment in which she carried it out. But she was proud of that brochure. She'd maintained a sensible tone. There was a fact in nearly every sentence. She hadn't let them print on tint. If people wanted to merchandise anguish and death, and if others wished to have their suffering managed for them, everybody could at least go about it with a measure of discretion and taste.
'Say it, say it.”
'Maine.”
'Again,' he said. 'Please, now, hurry, God, mercy.”
'Maine,' she said. 'Maine.”
There was activity on the floor. Lyle left post 5 and stopped at the Bell teleprinter. A young male carrier went by, blond shoulder-length hair. Lyle pressed the E key, then GM. Feed him to Ethan. Paper slid along the floor before settling. There was a second level of noise, very brief, a clubhouse cheer. He stepped back to get a look at the visitors' gallery. Attractive woman standing behind the bulletproof glass. He looked at the print-out as he walked back to his booth. Range for the day. Numbers clicked onto the enunciator board. Eat, eat. Shit, eat, shit. Feed her to us in decimals. Aggress, enfoul, decrete. Eat, eat, eat.
V.R. GM-12.33 2524
106.400 10.10 69 12.30 70 10.12 68% 12.33 +70+ i%
He went to the smoking area, where he saw Frank Mc-Kechnie standing at the edge of a noisy group, biting skin from his thumb. Lyle isolated two members of the group and began doing a routine from a comedy record he'd recently bought. It was something he felt he did particularly well. It suited his careful stance, the neutral way his eyes recorded an audience. He could read their delight at his self-containment, the incongruity of enclosed humor. They began to lean. They actually watched his lips. When a third member of the group edged in, drawn by the laughter, Lyle ended prematurely and went over to McKechnie, who looked off into the smoke that rose above the gathering.
'So where are we?”
'Who knows?”
'We're inside,' Lyle said.
'That's for sure.”
'It's obvious.”
'It's obvious because if we were outside the cars would be climbing up my back.”
'The outside world.”
'That's it,' McKechnie said. 'Things that happen and you're helpless. All you can do is wait for how bad.”
Lyle didn't know exactly what they were talking about. He exchanged this kind of dialogue with McKechnie often. He'd watch his friend carefully throughout. McKechnie seemed to take it seriously. He gave the impression he knew what they were talking about.
'I want to ask you about this man who shot Sedbauer.”
'Huge page in today's paper.”
'Sedbauer's guest.”
McKechnie made a motion with his thumb and index finger, indicating a headline.
