The Return of the Black Widowers

by Isaac Asimov

  "Not the brain," said Drake. "Sooner the heart. Better die of a heart attack than live on in senility."

  Levan thought a bit. "That's hard to disagree with, but we may treat and reverse senility a lot sooner than we are likely to be able to treat and reverse death."

  Gonzalo, frowning, said, "Come on, what's this subject we've latched on to? And on a full stomach, too. Hey, Tom, may I ask a question?"

  Trumbull said, "All right. Subject changed. Ask a question, Mario, but don't make it a dumb one."

  Gonzalo said, "Mr. Levan, are you a member of Alcoholics Anonymous?"

  There was a sudden silence about the table and then Trumbull, face twisted in anger, growled, "I said, don't make it—"

  "It's a legitimate question," insisted Gonzalo, raising his voice, "and the rules of the game are that the guest must answer."

  Levan, not smiling, and looking grim rather than embarrassed, said, "I'll answer the question. I am not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I am not an alcoholic."

  "Are you a teetotaler, then?"

  For some reason, Levan seemed to find more difficulty answering that. "Well, no. I drink on occasion—a bit. Not much."

  Gonzalo leaned back in his chair and frowned.

  Avalon said, "May we change the subject once again and try to find something more civilized to discuss?"

  "No, wait a while," said Gonzalo. "There's something funny here and I'm not through. Mr. Levan, you refused a drink. I was talking to you at the time. I watched you."

  "Yes, I did," said Levan. "What's wrong with that?"

  "Nothing," said Gonzalo, "but you refused it angrily.—Henry!"

  "Yes, Mr. Gonzalo," said Henry at once, momentarily suspending his brandy-pouring operation

  "Wasn't there something funny about Mr. Levan's refusal?"

  "Mr. Levan was a bit forceful, I believe. I would not undertake to say that it was 'funny.' "

  "Why was it forceful, do you think?"

  "There could be—"

  Drake interrupted. "This is the damndest grilling session I can remember. Bad taste all around. Whom are we grilling, anyway? Mr. Levan or Henry?"

  "I agree," said Rubin, nodding his head vigorously. "Come on, Jeff, you're the host. Make a ruling and get us on track."

  Avalon stared at his water glass, then said, "Gentlemen, Christopher Levan is a vice president of the largest bank in Merion. In fact, he is my personal banker, and I know him socially. I have seen him drink in moderation but I have never seen him drunk. I did not hear him refuse a drink, but somehow I'm curious. Chris, did you refuse a drink forcefully? If so, why?"

  Levan frowned, and said, "I'm on the edge of resenting this."

  "Please don't, Chris," said Avalon. "I explained the rules when you accepted my invitation, and I gave you a chance to back out. Nothing said here goes beyond the walls. Even if you were to tell us you were absconding with bank funds, we would be unable to tell anyone that—though I'm sure we would all urge you quite forcibly to abandon your intention."

  "I am not an absconder, and I resent being forced to make that statement. I don't take this kindly of you, Jeff."

  "This has gone far enough," said Halsted. "Let's end the session."

  "Wait," said Gonzalo, stubbornly, "I want an answer to my question."

  "I told you," said Levan. "I merely refused—"

  "Not my question to you, Mr. Levan. My question to Henry. Henry, why did Mr. Levan refuse the drink so vehemently? If you don't answer, this session might end prematurely, and that would be the first time it did so, at least during my membership in the club."

  Henry said, "I can only guess, sir, from what little knowledge of human nature I have. It may be that Mr. Levan, although ordinarily a moderate drinker, refused a drink this time, because in the near past he had suffered keen embarrassment or humiliation through drink, and, for a time at least, would rather not drink again."

  Levan had whitened distinctly. "How did you know that, waiter?" Gonzalo grinned with proprietary pride. "His name is Henry, Mr. Levan. He's an artist, too. The rest of us draw the ovals, and he adds the modifications and produces the final picture."

  The mood of the table had changed subtly. Even Trumbull seemed to soften, and there was an almost wheedling quality to his voice. "Mr. Levan, if something has happened that has left a lasting effect, it might help you to talk about it."

  Levan looked about the table. Every eye was fixed on him. He said in half a mutter, "The waiter—Henry—is quite right. I made a total fool of myself and, right now, I firmly intend never to drink again. Jeff told you he's never seen me drunk. Well, he never has, but he's not always around. Once in a long while I do manage to get high. Nothing in particular ever came of it until two weeks ago, and then—it hardly bears thinking of."

  He frowned in thought, and said, "It might help if I did tell you. You might be able to suggest something I can do. So far, the only one I've told is my wife."

  "I imagine she's furious," said Halsted.

  "No, she's not. My first wife would have been. She was a teetotaler, but she's dead now, rest her soul. My children would have been sardonically amused, I think, but they're in college, both of them. My present wife, my second, is a worldly woman, though, who is not easily shaken by such things. She has a career of her own; in real estate, I believe. She has grown children, too. We married for companionship—and out of affection—but not in order to impose on each other. The world doesn't crash about her ears if I get drunk. She just gives me good practical advice and that ends it."

  "But what happened?" asked Avalon.

  "Well—I live on a rather exclusive street—four houses. They're very nice houses, not extraordinarily large, but well-designed and comfortable: three bedrooms, a television room, three baths, finished cellar, finished attic, all-electric (which is expensive), backyards stretching to the creek, ample space between the houses, too. All four were put up by one contractor at one time about a dozen years ago. They're all identical in appearance and plan, and they were sold on ironclad condition that they be kept identical. We can't paint our house another color, or put on aluminum siding, or add a sun porch unless all four house owners agree to do the same. Well, you can't get agreement ever, as you can well imagine, so there have been no changes."

  "Is that legal?" asked Halsted.

  "I don't know," said Levan, "but we all agreed."

  "Can you make changes inside?" asked Gonzalo.

  "Of course. We don't have standardized furniture or wallpaper or anything like that. The agreement concerns only the appearance from the outside. The houses are called the Four Sisters. Right, Jeff?"

  Avalon nodded.

  Levan went on. "Anyway, I was out for the evening. I had warned Emma—my wife—that I might not be back till three in the morning. I didn't seriously intend to stay out that late, but I felt I might, because—well, it was one of those college reunions and at fifty-five, there's this wild urge for one evening to be twenty-two again. It never really works, I suppose.

  "I even thought I could carry my liquor, but by midnight I was pretty well smashed. I didn't think I was, but I must have been, because I can't carry my liquor well, and because several of the others tried to persuade me to go home. I didn't want to and I seem to remember offering to knock one of them down." He rubbed his eyes fiercely, as though trying to wipe out the mental image. Drake said, dryly, "Not the thing for a bank vice president?"

  "We're human, too," said Levan, wearily, "but it doesn't help the image.—Anyway, in the end, two or three of them helped me out to a car and drove me out to Merion. When they found the street in question, I insisted they let me out on the corner. You see I didn't want to wake the neighbors. It was a noisy car, or I thought it was.

  "They did let me out on the corner; they were glad to get rid of me, I imagine. I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere much trying to fumble my key into the lock. Besides I knew a better trick. There's a side door that I was pretty sure would be open. There's no c
rime in our section to speak of—no burglaries— and the side door is never closed during the day. Half the time, it's not closed at night, either.

  "So I made my way to it. I felt my way along the side of the house and found the door. It was open, as I thought it would be. I tiptoed in as quietly as I could, considering my condition, and closed it behind me just as quietly. I was in a small anteroom mostly used for hanging up clothes, keeping umbrellas and rubbers, and so on. I just made my way around the umbrella stand and sank into a chair.

  "By that time, I was feeling rather dizzy and very tired. The dark was soothing, and I liked the feel of the soft old padding under me. I think I would have gone to sleep right then, and might not have been found by Emma until morning, except that I became woozily aware of a dim light under the door that led to the kitchen.

  "Was Emma awake? Was she having a midnight snack? I was too far gone to try to reason anything out, but it seemed to me that my only chance of not embarrassing her, and myself, was to walk in casually and pretend I was sober. I was drunk enough to think I could do that.

  "I got up very carefully, made my way to the door with some difficulty, flung it open, and said, in a loud, cheery voice, 'I'm home, dear, I'm home.'

  "I must have filled the air with an alcoholic fragrance that explained my condition exactly, even if my behavior had been perfectly sober, which I'm sure it wasn't.

  "However, it was all for nothing, because Emma wasn't there. There were two men there. Somehow I knew at once they weren't burglars. They belonged there. Drunk as I was, I could tell that. And I knew—my God, I knew that I was in the wrong house. I had been too drunk to get to the right one.

  "And there on the table was a large suitcase, open, and stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Some of the stacks were on the table, and I stared at them with a vague astonishment.

  "I don't know how I could tell, gentlemen. Modern techniques can produce some damned good imitations, but I've been a banker for thirty years. I don't have to look at bills to know they're counterfeit. I can smell counterfeit, feel it, just know it by the radiations. I might be too drunk to tell my house from another house, but as long as I am conscious at all, I am not too drunk to tell a real hundred-dollar bill from a fake one.

  "I had interrupted two crooks, that's what it amounted to. They had neglected to lock the side door or just didn't know it was open, and I knew that I was in a dangerous situation."

  Levan shook his head, then went on. "They might have killed me, if I had been sober, even though they would then have had all the trouble of having to get rid of the body and of perhaps rousing police activity in an undesirable way. But I was drunk, and clearly on the point of collapse. I even think I heard someone say in a kind of hoarse whisper, "He's dead drunk. Just put him outside." It might even have been a woman's voice, but I was too far gone to tell. In fact, I don't remember anything else for a while. I did collapse.

  "The next thing I knew I was feeling a lamppost and trying to get up. Then I realized I wasn't trying to get up. Someone was trying to lift me. Then I realized it was Emma, in a bathrobe. She had found me.

  "She got me into the house somehow. Fortunately, there was no one else about. There was no indication before or since that anyone had seen me lying in the gutter, or seen Emma having to drag me home.—Remember your promise of confidentiality, gentlemen. And I hope that includes the waiter."

  Avalon said, emphatically, "It does, Chris."

  "She managed to get me undressed," said Levan, "and washed, and put me to bed without asking me any questions, at least as far as I can remember. She's a terrific woman. I woke in the morning with, as you might suspect, a king-sized headache, and a sense of relief that it was Sunday morning and that I was not expected to be at work.

  "After breakfast, which was just a soft-boiled egg for me, and several quarts of orange juice, it seemed, Emma finally asked me what had happened. 'Nothing much,' I said. 'I must have had a little too much to drink, and they brought me home and left me at the corner and I didn't quite make it to the house.' I smiled weakly, hoping she would find the understatement amusing, and let it go at that.

  "But Emma just looked at me thoughtfully—she's a very practical woman, you know, and wasn't going to act tragic over my being drunk for the first and only time in her acquaintanceship with me—and said, 'A funny thing happened.'

  " 'What?' I asked.

  " 'Someone called me,' she said. 'It was after midnight. Someone called and said, "Your husband is outside drunk or hurt. You'd better go and get him." I thought it was some practical joke, or a ruse to get me to open the door. Still I thought if it was true and you were in trouble, I would have to risk it. I took your banker-of-the-year award with me, just in case I had to use it to hit somebody, went out in the street, and found you.—Now who could have called me? They didn't say who they were.'

  "She stared at me, frowning, puzzled, and my memory stirred. My face must have given me away at once, because Emma—who's a penetrating woman—said at once, 'What happened last night? What are you remembering?'

  "So I told her and when I had finished she looked at me with a troubled expression, and said, 'That's impossible. There can't be any counterfeiting in this block.'

  "'Yes,' I said, 'I'm sure there is. Or at least someone in one of the other three houses is involved in it, even if the counterfeiting isn't actually taking place on the premises.'

  "'Well, which house were you in?' she wanted to know. But how could I tell? I didn't know.

  "'Which house did you find me outside?' I asked.

  " 'Our house,' she said.

  "'Well, then, they just took me outside and put me in front of our house. That means they knew which house I belonged to. It's one of our neighbors.'

  "'It can't be,' she kept repeating.

  "But that's the way it is, just the same. I haven't the faintest idea which wrong house I'd gotten into, and I don't know who is involved in counterfeiting. And I can't report it."

  "Why not?" asked Gonzalo.

  "Because I would have to explain that I was falling-down drunk. How else could I account for the fuzziness of the information?" said Levan. "I don't want to do that. I don't want to look like a fool or a drunken idiot and, frankly, I don't want to lose my job. The story would be bound to get out and it wouldn't look good at the bank.

  "Besides, what would the police do? Search all three houses? They would find nothing, and three householders, two of whom would be completely innocent, would be outraged. We would have to sell our house and leave. Life would become unbearable, otherwise.

  "Emma pointed all this out carefully. In fact, she said, there would be a strong presumption that I had fantasized it all; that I was having D. T.'s., I'd be ruined. Emma's a bright woman, and persuasive.

  "Yet it eats at me. Counterfeiting! That's the banker's nightmare; it's the crime. I had stumbled onto something that might be big and I could do nothing about it.—I haven't touched a drink since, and I don't intend ever to, and that's why I was a bit vehement when Henry asked me, for the second time, if I would have one."

  There was a silence about the table for a time, and then Avalon, drumming his fingers lightly on the tablecloth, said, "I know where you live, Chris, but I don't know your neighbors. Who are they? What do they do?"

  Levan shrugged. "All well on in years. All in their fifties and beyond. Not a small child on the street. And all beyond suspicion, damn them.—Let's see, if you're facing the front of the four houses, the one on the left holds the Nash couple. He's an insurance agent, and she's arthritic; a nice lady, but a terrible bore. She's the kind you say hello to when you pass her, but keep on walking. The merest hesitation would be fatal.

  "The second house holds the Johnstones. He's in his seventies and she's perhaps two or three years younger. He's retired and they're supposed to be quite wealthy, but they don't bank in our bank and I have no personal knowledge of the matter. They sort of shuttle between Maine in the summer and Florida in the winter, but they h
ave a bachelor son, about forty, who stays in the house year-round and is not employed.

  "The third house is ours, and the fourth belongs to two sisters, one a Mrs. Widner and the other a Mrs. Chambers. Both are widows and they seem to cling to each other for warmth. They're in their fifties and very wide awake. I'm astonished they weren't aware of my being picked up at the lamppost. They're light sleepers and have a sixth sense for local catastrophe.

  "Across the street, there are no houses but only a large lawn and a stand of trees belonging to the Presbyterian Church which is a distance off.—That's it."

  He looked about helplessly, and Rubin cleared his throat. "If we go by probabilities, the obvious choice is the bachelor son. He has the house to himself for a couple of months at a time and has nothing to do but work at his counterfeiting, with or without the knowledge of his parents. If the Johnstones are mysteriously wealthy, that may be why. I'm astonished you overlook this."

  "You wouldn't be if you knew the boy," said Levan. "Even though he's middle-aged, it's hard to think of him as a man. He's boyish in appearance and attitude, and without being actually retarded in any way, is clearly unequipped to make his way in the world."

  "He's capable enough," said Rubin, "to take care of the house for a couple of months at a time."

  "He's not retarded," repeated Levan, impatiently. "He's emotionally immature, that's all. Naive. And good-hearted in the extreme. It's impossible to think of him being involved in crime."

  Rubin said, "It might be that he's acting. Perhaps he's clever enough to appear incredibly naive so as to hide the fact that, actually, he is a criminal."

  Levan pondered. "I just can't believe that. No one could be that good an actor."

  "If he were innocent and childlike," said Rubin, "it might make it all the easier for him to be used by criminals. He might be an unwitting pawn."