Acceptable Losses

by Irwin Shaw

  “I had lunch with Oliver,” she said. “He’s as worried about you as I am.”

  “All right,” he said. “Sit down. We have some talking to do. Quite a lot of talking.”

  Then, in the same words he had used at lunch to Elaine, he told her about the midnight telephone call. He also told her most, but not all, of what Elaine had said about making lists of people who might wish him harm. Out of fear of wounding her and making her feel he mistrusted her, he omitted Elaine’s advice to get Sheila to make her own private list. For other reasons he also omitted the name of the woman he had been involved with long ago, who had called him from Chicago recently and whose family or who herself might be tempted by the idea of revenge, either by violence or in cold cash.

  “I hate to ask this question, Sheil,” he had said after hours of discussion and speculation that went round and round and ended, as far as he could tell, in no decisions, “but is it possible that somebody has something against you and is getting at you through me?”

  “Did Elaine suggest that?” Sheila asked suspiciously.

  “Something of that kind.”

  “She would,” Sheila said bitterly. “Did she ask for money again?”

  “No. She has a rich boy friend now.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies,” Sheila said ironically. “Let me see if I can count my enemies. Yes, there’s a five-year-old boy in one of my classes who said he hated me because I stood him in the corner for ten minutes for making a little girl cry.” She smiled. “Ah, my head is weary and it’s late. Let’s go to bed and maybe things will look clearer in the morning.”

  But it was morning now, an ordinary working day and she was saying good-bye looking careworn and distressed, and he could tell that she had not slept well because of the lines under her eyes. He himself had not slept all that well either, and once more he had had the dream about his father standing at the marble balustrade holding the toy horse and smiling and waving invitingly to him.

  They kissed again, lingeringly, at the door and she said, “Take care,” and he said, “Of course,” and went down the stairs and out of the house into a howling cold spring wind. At other times he would have thought it bracing weather for the long walk uptown, but today he huddled into his raincoat, with the collar up around his ears and walked as fast as he could to try to keep warm. The faces of the people he passed looked pinched and hostile and if en masse the faces represented anything it was a generalized and all-encompassing hatred and an inner certainty that all men, or at least all New Yorkers, were their enemies.

  In the office it wasn’t much better. When Oliver came in, Damon shut the door that separated the room in which they worked from the outer room to keep Miss Walton from hearing what he had to say. Then, harshly, he said, speaking too loudly, “What kind of old lady have you become? Blabbing all over town. I thought we had an agreement that what goes on in this office remains in the office.”

  “Oh,” Oliver said, “Sheila told you we had lunch.”

  “She certainly did.”

  “Listen, Roger,” Oliver said, speaking calmly, although Damon could see he was hurt, “Sheila’s been mystified by the way you’ve been behaving since she came back from Vermont and so have I. A pistol, for God’s sake. You’ve been yelling for years about a gun control law, I’ve seen your name on dozens of petitions to congressmen.”

  “So—I happen to have changed my mind,” Oliver said, his voice still too loud. “That’s no excuse for blabbing behind my back.”

  “Roger, talking to your wife about a problem that has nothing to do with the office isn’t blabbing all over town,” Oliver said.

  “Why’re you so sure it has nothing to do with the office? Maybe it damn well does.” Even as he spoke Damon knew that he was being unfair, but he couldn’t stop himself. “And from now on keep your goddamn mouth shut.”

  As Oliver turned and went silently across the room to his desk, Damon thought. One more mark against me.

  They didn’t say a word to each other all morning and Damon could only make a pretense of working, shuffling papers irritably around on his desk. It was nearly eleven o’clock when his buzzer sounded.

  “Mrs. Damon on the phone,” Miss Walton said.

  Damon was surprised. Sheila made a point of never calling him at work. When she did call the office, it was around five o’clock, when she knew that he was getting ready to leave the office and she wanted him to pick up something on the way home or was uptown herself and thought it would be nice to meet for a drink near the office and have dinner and go to a movie.

  “Put her through,” he said.

  “Roger,” Sheila said, without preliminaries, “I’ve been thinking about what you said about my perhaps having enemies.”

  “Is it about the little boy you stood in the corner?” Damon said. “Has he turned vicious?” It was a bad joke and he knew it as he said it.

  “I’m glad you’re in such a good humor,” Sheila said crossly. “I’m not.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Something happened last term that I should have remembered. There was a man who took to hanging around the school and offering the kids candy and asking them could he take them with him for an ice cream soda. And you know, sometimes the mothers’re late to pick their children up, and the other teachers and myself are too busy to go out in the street and wait for the dear ladies to show up, and we give them strict instructions not to budge from the front gate, but there’s never any telling with four- and five-year-olds. It began to worry me and I went down one afternoon and told him I didn’t like him loitering in front of the school and talking to the kids. He was about fifty years old and well-enough dressed, but I didn’t trust him on sight. He pretended to be insulted and said he was a lonely, retired old man and liked children, and he was offended that I thought there was anything wrong in giving an infant a piece of candy. After that, he didn’t come around as often, but from time to time I would see him pretending to be just walking by when the classes were let out, and I told a policeman about it and the policeman found him and told him if he caught him hanging around the school again, he’d run him in on suspicion. I saw him only once more, by accident, on our street just in front of our house, and he glared at me and said, ‘Lesbian bitch. Now go tell the police that.’” She sighed. “I laughed at him and he walked away and I never thought of it again until this morning. But I was going through my desk just now and I found the piece of paper on which I’d written down the name the police gave me. Do you want it? Maybe it’s nothing, but who knows?”

  “What’s the name?”

  “McVane. I don’t have his first name. It happened so many months ago and it doesn’t seem possible …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Anything’s possible. Thanks, Sheil.”

  “I’m sorry to have interrupted your work, but I thought you’d like to know.”

  “I do.”

  “How’s it going in the office this morning?”

  “Swimmingly.”

  “You didn’t bawl Oliver out, I hope.” She sounded anxious.

  “There was a brief discussion.” He saw Oliver’s back, which was turned to him, stiffen, and was sure Oliver knew to whom he was talking and what the conversation was about.

  “Oh, dear,” Sheila said. “What a mess.”

  Miss Walton broke in then, “Mr. Damon,” she said, “there’s another call waiting for you, a gentleman who says his name is Schulter. It’s important, he says, and he’s calling from a phone booth and can’t wait.”

  “I have to hang up now, Sheila,” Damon said. “If I’m a little late getting home, don’t worry.”

  “Last bulletin to brighten your day,” Sheila said. “This morning the little boy said he loved me.”

  “As does all the world,” Damon said, then heard the click as she hung up.

  There was a moment of telephone noise as Miss Walton fiddled with the old-fashioned little telephone console in the outer office. Then a man’s voice said, “Detecti
ve Schulter.” The voice was gruff, reminding Damon of the noise a callused hand makes running over a rough piece of bark.

  “Yes, Sir,” Damon said.

  “Mrs. Sparman asked me to call.”

  “Who?”

  “Elaine Sparman.”

  “Oh, yes.” He had forgotten that Sparman was the name of her second husband. When he thought of her, it was as Mrs. Damon.

  “I’m near you. I’ll be at the big sandwich bar near you on Sixth Avenue. Could you come around?”

  “When?”

  “Right now. I’ve got some other individuals to talk to in the neighborhood and I’ve got to get to them before lunch.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes. How will I recognize you?”

  Schulter laughed. “I’ll be the only detective in the place and it sticks out all over me. Anyway, I’m wearing a gray overcoat and I’m carrying a copy of the Wall Street Journal.”

  “Got it. And thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I ain’t done anything for you yet. See you in ten minutes.”

  Damon sat for a moment staring down at his desk, trying to imagine what sinister business Mr. Schulter of homicide was engaged in with the other individuals in the neighborhood, as he called them, and if his acquaintance with Elaine had come about in the exercise of his profession. He also wondered just what kind of detective it would be who read the Wall Street Journal. Then he got up and without saying anything to Oliver went into the anteroom to get his coat, told Miss Walton to take any messages for him, he didn’t know when he’d be back, and went out. The elevator took a long time coming and he pushed impatiently at the button again and again. Mr. Schulter sounded like the kind of man who meant it when he said ten minutes. If he arrived at the eleventh minute, Damon had a feeling Mr. Schulter would be gone.

  But he wasn’t late and when he went into the bar, he saw a burly man in a gray coat reading the Wall Street Journal, sitting alone and drinking a cup of coffee.

  “Mr. Schulter?” Damon said, standing at the table.

  Schulter looked up. He had a square, monumental jaw, a bluish-black stubble of beard that looked as though it would destroy razors and small, mineral-blue eyes set in heavy pouches, the eyes permanently devoid of affection or confidence in the human race. When he looked up, Damon thought of the guns of battleships moving in their turrets, preparing a broadside. All this man understands, Damon thought, is duplicity and firing for effect.

  “Sit down.” The detective folded the newspaper carefully and put it down on the table beside him. He did not ask Damon if he wanted anything to eat or drink. He wasted no time on amenities. “Mrs. Sparman says you’ve been threatened on the telephone,” he said. He sounded bored, as though Damon should have known long ago that everyone was threatened in one way or another, that it was a fact of life, like the weather, and that there was little, if anything, to be done about it. “She told me the gist of what the individual said on the phone. It isn’t much to go on, unless you have some idea of who it was and why he called you at this particular time.”

  “Well,” Damon said, “I’m a literary agent and …”

  Schulter nodded, the guns elevating slightly. “Mrs. Sparman explained about your work.”

  “I made an especially profitable deal for an unknown author and it caused quite a stir in publishing circles and I’ve been interviewed and my name and photograph have been in the papers.”

  Schulter nodded again. “The goddamn newspapers,” he said. “Troublemakers. I’ve lost some open-and-shut convictions because they spilled the beans on cases before I could make my evidence hold up in court. So—this individual thinks he has something on you that you’ll pay him for to keep his trap shut. Does that sound reasonable to you, Mr. Damon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you any idea why the individual called you a bad boy?” Schulter stared coldly at Damon and Damon knew that he was looking for something in his face, a twitch, a change of expression that would reveal to the detective whether Damon was going to lie or not.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Damon said. There was no indication in the glacial blue eyes that the detective either believed or disbelieved him.

  “The individual, this Mr. Zalovsky, didn’t mention any sum of money?”

  “No.”

  “But he said that you’d have to pay for being a bad boy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Payment doesn’t always have to mean money. Revenge comes to mind.”

  “I thought of that.”

  “Have you any idea?”

  “Not really,” Damon said.

  “What does that mean?”

  Damon had the feeling, from the harsh, demanding tone of Schulter’s voice, that when the detective finished quizzing him, he would take out a pair of manacles and march him off to the police station. “It means,” Damon said, “that just about everybody has known people who think you’ve injured or insulted them in some way.”

  “Would you give me an example, please? From your own life.”

  “Well, not exactly from my own,” Damon said. “My wife remembered something this morning and spoke to me about it on the phone just before you called.”

  “Your wife,” the detective said. “Mrs. Sparman mentioned her. What did she remember?”

  Schulter was looking at his watch and Damon told him as briefly as possible about the man hanging around the school and Sheila’s going to the police and the encounter in front of their house and the man calling her a lesbian bitch. “She found his name on a scrap of paper in the drawer of her desk,” Damon said. “McVane. No first name.”

  Schulter snorted, sounding disgusted with the criminal carelessness of the people with whom he was forced to deal. “Does she know the name of the police officer she complained to and who allegedly warned the individual?”

  “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t,” Damon said apologetically.

  “The badge number?”

  “I’ll ask her, but I’m just about certain she doesn’t have it.”

  Schulter shook his head irritably. “If only people would learn that they have to help the police if they want them to protect them …”

  “Neither my wife nor myself,” said Damon, showing irritation himself, “have had anything to do with the police before this. We’re complete amateurs in crime.”

  “There’s always a first time,” Schulter said. He said it as though from now on Damon and his wife could expect a series of events that would force them into a more professional approach to criminal behavior. “Anyway, I’ll put McVane’s name through the computer and see what comes up. Probably nothing.” He gazed reproachfully at Damon. “Anything else?”

  Damon hesitated, took a long breath. “I got a call from Gary, Indiana, about two months ago,” he said. “From a lady. In my office. I haven’t said a word about it to anyone and I don’t want my wife to know about it. I’d like you to promise me you won’t say anything about it that might get back to her …”

  “You’re the one who’s being threatened, Mr. Damon,” Schulter said coldly. “Nobody’s threatening me. I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. But if you want protection, you’d better tell me.”

  It was warm in the restaurant and Damon took out his handkerchief and wiped off the sweat on his forehead. The detective had not taken off his heavy coat, but there were no signs that the heat was bothering him or that any extremity of climate would ever make the slightest difference to him. Damon looked around to see if there was anyone near enough at any of the tables to overhear what he was going to say. “It’s a girl,” he said, dropping his voice so that he was almost whispering, making Schulter lean toward him to hear what he was saying. For the first time, there was a look of interest, almost of pleasure, on the detective’s face. “A girl,” Damon went on, “a young woman really, married. I had an affair with her. Her husband was the coach of a high school football team in Gary, Indiana. She was in New York to see her parents and I met her. She—well
, she became pregnant. By me. They hadn’t been able to have any children. They tried, she told me, but nothing worked. She wouldn’t have an abortion. She was going to keep the child, she said, and let her husband believe it was his.”

  “Ah,” Schulter said, with satisfaction, “you have been a bad boy.”

  “I don’t feel guilty,” Damon said. “She used me instead of artificial insemination, that’s all.”

  “It wasn’t as artificial as all that.” For once, there was a glint of amusement in the detective’s eyes. “Do you want to tell me her name?”

  “I suppose I should. Mrs. Julia Larch.”

  “There might be a connection there,” Schulter said thoughtfully.

  “She lives in Gary. The caller said he was from Chicago.”

  “Gary isn’t far from Chicago. Let’s go on a little. How do you know the child was born?”

  “She wrote me a letter to my office.” Damon closed his eyes, seeing the letter once more, the backward slanting handwriting on scented blue paper. Congratulations, he had read, wrinkling his nose a little because of the scent of the heavy paper, you are now the father of an eight-pound boy. He remembered the mixture of shame and elation as he had torn up the letter and the envelope and dropped the scraps into the wastebasket. He and Elaine, sensing from the beginning that their marriage would not last, had been careful to avoid pregnancy. Sheila had wanted children but their efforts had been without result. They had spared themselves the pain of discovering whose fault it was. Now he knew that he, at least, was fertile. An only child himself, ever since his older brother, Davey, had died of leukemia at the age of ten, he finally had a son, even if he didn’t know his name and probably would never see him. His blood would be carried on.

  Schulter was asking him a question and he opened his eyes. “How is it,” Schulter was saying, “that suddenly, so many years later, out of the blue, you might say, she happened to call you?”

  “About a year ago she wrote me again. She was coming to New York with the kid and she wanted me to meet her and him. She gave me the address of a friend of hers where I could write her safely.”