“All right, all right,” Mr. Yellow said. It was as if he were placating a grumpy child. “Water?”
“No, thank you. What I want is for you three to leave, so I’m going to be honest with you.” He wondered if Mr. Yellow understood the most basic rule of human discourse: when someone says they’re going to be honest with you, they are in most cases preparing to lie faster than a horse can trot. “My wallet is on the dresser in the bedroom. There’s a little over eighty dollars in it. There’s a ceramic teapot on the mantel . . .”
He pointed. Mr. Blue turned to look, but Mr. Yellow did not. Mr. Yellow continued to study Rothstein, the eyes behind the mask almost amused. It’s not working, Rothstein thought, but he persevered. Now that he was awake, he was pissed off as well as scared, although he knew he’d do well not to show that.
“It’s where I keep the housekeeping money. Fifty or sixty dollars. That’s all there is in the house. Take it and go.”
“Fucking liar,” Mr. Blue said. “You got a lot more than that, guy. We know. Believe me.”
As if this were a stage play and that line his cue, Mr. Red yelled from the study. “Bingo! Found a safe! Big one!”
Rothstein had known the man in the red mask would find it, but his heart sank anyway. Stupid to keep cash, there was no reason for it other than his dislike of credit cards and checks and stocks and instruments of transfer, all the tempting chains that tied people to America’s overwhelming and ultimately destructive debt-and-spend machine. But the cash might be his salvation. Cash could be replaced. The notebooks, over a hundred and fifty of them, could not.
“Now the combo,” said Mr. Blue. He snapped his gloved fingers. “Give it up.”
Rothstein was almost angry enough to refuse, according to Yolande anger had been his lifelong default position (“Probably even in your goddam cradle,” she had said), but he was also tired and frightened. If he balked, they’d beat it out of him. He might even have another heart attack, and one more would almost certainly finish him.
“If I give you the combination to the safe, will you take the money inside and go?”
“Mr. Rothstein,” Mr. Yellow said with a kindliness that seemed genuine (and thus grotesque), “you’re in no position to bargain. Freddy, go get the bags.”
Rothstein felt a huff of chilly air as Mr. Blue, also known as Freddy, went out through the kitchen door. Mr. Yellow, meanwhile, was smiling again. Rothstein already detested that smile. Those red lips.
“Come on, genius—give. Soonest begun, soonest done.”
Rothstein sighed and recited the combination of the Gardall in his study closet. “Three left two turns, thirty-one right two turns, eighteen left one turn, ninety-nine right one turn, then back to zero.”
Behind the mask, the red lips spread wider, now showing teeth. “I could have guessed that. It’s your birth date.”
As Yellow called the combination to the man in his closet, Rothstein made certain unpleasant deductions. Mr. Blue and Mr. Red had come for money, and Mr. Yellow might take his share, but he didn’t believe money was the primary objective of the man who kept calling him genius. As if to underline this, Mr. Blue reappeared, accompanied by another puff of cool outside air. He had four empty duffel bags, two slung over each shoulder.
“Look,” Rothstein said to Mr. Yellow, catching the man’s eyes and holding them. “Don’t. There’s nothing in that safe worth taking except for the money. The rest is just a bunch of random scribbling, but it’s important to me.”
From the study Mr. Red cried: “Holy hopping Jesus, Morrie! We hit the jackpot! Eee-doggies, there’s a ton of cash! Still in the bank envelopes! Dozens of them!”
At least sixty, Rothstein could have said, maybe as many as eighty. With four hundred dollars in each one. From Arnold Abel, my accountant in New York. Jeannie cashes the expense checks and brings back the cash envelopes and I put them in the safe. Only I have few expenses, because Arnold also pays the major bills from New York. I tip Jeannie once in awhile, and the postman at Christmas, but otherwise, I rarely spend the cash. For years this has gone on, and why? Arnold never asks what I use the money for. Maybe he thinks I have an arrangement with a call girl or two. Maybe he thinks I play the ponies at Rockingham.
But here is the funny thing, he could have said to Mr. Yellow (also known as Morrie). I have never asked myself. Any more than I’ve asked myself why I keep filling notebook after notebook. Some things just are.
He could have said these things, but kept silent. Not because Mr. Yellow wouldn’t understand, but because that knowing red-lipped smile said he just might.
And wouldn’t care.
“What else is in there?” Mr. Yellow called. His eyes were still locked on Rothstein’s. “Boxes? Manuscript boxes? The size I told you?”
“Not boxes, notebooks,” Mr. Red reported back. “Fuckin safe’s filled with em.”
Mr. Yellow smiled, still looking into Rothstein’s eyes. “Handwritten? That how you do it, genius?”
“Please,” Rothstein said. “Just leave them. That material isn’t meant to be seen. None of it’s ready.”
“And never will be, that’s what I think. Why, you’re just a great big hoarder.” The twinkle in those eyes—what Rothstein thought of as an Irish twinkle—was gone now. “And hey, it isn’t as if you need to publish anything else, right? Not like there’s any financial imperative. You’ve got royalties from The Runner. And The Runner Sees Action. And The Runner Slows Down. The famous Jimmy Gold trilogy. Never out of print. Taught in college classes all over this great nation of ours. Thanks to a cabal of lit teachers who think you and Saul Bellow hung the moon, you’ve got a captive audience of book-buying undergrads. You’re all set, right? Why take a chance on publishing something that might put a dent in your solid gold reputation? You can hide out here and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.” Mr. Yellow shook his head. “My friend, you give a whole new meaning to anal retentive.”
Mr. Blue was still lingering in the doorway. “What do you want me to do, Morrie?”
“Get in there with Curtis. Pack everything up. If there isn’t room for all the notebooks in the duffels, look around. Even a cabin rat like him must have at least one suitcase. Don’t waste time counting the money, either. I want to get out of here ASAP.”
“Okay.” Mr. Blue—Freddy—left.
“Don’t do this,” Rothstein said, and was appalled at the tremble in his voice. Sometimes he forgot how old he was, but not tonight.
The one whose name was Morrie leaned toward him, greenish-gray eyes peering through the holes in the yellow mask. “I want to know something. If you’re honest, maybe we’ll leave the notebooks. Will you be honest with me, genius?”
“I’ll try,” Rothstein said. “And I never called myself that, you know. It was Time magazine that called me a genius.”
“But I bet you never wrote a letter of protest.”