Snatch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Robby remained as silent as possible throughout luncheon because he suspected that that which the vanWankles might think of as an accent on his part would cause questions for which totally inadequate answers would not be grasped as entirely satisfactory. Talk might turn uncivil. The vanWankles might discover they were feeding a homeless English boy at their table and quickly reason there was no profit in doing that. They were sowing their mustard pickle upon a destitute foreigner. Such a discovery on their part would imperil his having dessert.

  “That emblem you’re wearing,” Mr. vW said to Robby, referring to the Wolsley School crest. “That bull is shaking all the leaves out of that tree, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And shaking down fruit and nuts, too, I’ll bet,” he said with a good degree of spiritual satisfaction.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doubtlessly,” Mr. vW said respectfully, “that bull will make a pile.”

  “Doubtlessly, sir.”

  “I find all this very disturbing,” said Mrs. vW, properly introducing the main topic with the main course. “Representative Bradshaw actually came up to you in the main aisle of the church, as we were leaving, and said he wanted you to give him ten thousand dollars cash.”

  “He did,” confirmed Mr. vW.

  “To block passage of a bill forbidding us to sell blankets manufactured in Canada to the American military.”

  “Right.”

  She said, “It does seem corrupt of him. I mean, to want so much.”

  “You have to understand the figures,” said her husband, counting his sausages off the platter. “Pecuchet paid his congressional representative in Ohio ten thousand dollars to introduce the bill into Congress. He paid Jerry Bradshaw, our representative, five thousand dollars not to oppose the bill.”

  “But why did Pecuchet do that? Why did he pay Jerry anything?”

  “He knows I’ve been an active supporter of Jerry for years. Well, in fact, that Jerry’s in my pocket. He had to pay off Jerry not to oppose the bill.”

  “It all seems wrong, somehow.”

  “Actually, I’m very grateful to Jerry for coming to me. He could have just pocketed the five thousand dollars and kept quiet. I wouldn’t have known there was such a bill in Congress until it was too late to do anything about it.”

  “So telling you that he’s accepted a five-thousand-dollar bribe from Pecuchet earns him another ten-thousand-dollar bribe from you?” Mrs. vW was frowning at her souffle.

  Her husband shivered. “Don’t use the word bribe! Bribe is entirely the wrong word for it.” Mr. vW seemed entirely sure on that point. However, there was a long moment before he offered a word in substitute for bribe. “Political contribution,” he said. “These guys have to run for office every two years, you know. That takes money.”

  “A political contribution for something in return…” Mrs. vW hesitated on the brink of spoiling luncheon, or a marriage, or both.

  Mr. vW shook his knife at her. “A representative can’t pay for a political campaign out of his own pocket every two years. He has to have the help of his friends. And if he can’t help his friends be prosperous, then his friends can’t help him!”

  “Sounds perfectly reasonable, when you say it that way,” Mrs. vW admitted.

  “It’s the American system,” Mr. vW chortled. “How else could it work?”

  “But, Ralph. Our representative to Congress, Jerry Bradshaw, is getting a total of fifteen thousand dollars, the net result of which is nothing at all—a bill introduced to Congress and not passed.”

  “Would you rather see the bill passed?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Ten thousand dollars is cheap at the price. Pecuchet has spent fifteen thousand, and he gets nothing at all. See? Our representative is better than his representative.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said.

  “One of our most precious rights as Americans,” Mr. vW lectured his son, Roger, whose eyes were beginning to bulge with an unwanted intake of food, “is our right to pursue happiness. Which, in a system of free enterprise, can mean only one thing—our right to make a buck.” Roger’s freckles were running together in digestive strain. “Does this mean that simply because a man becomes a public servant he must give up his right to pursue happiness, his right to be enterprising, his right to make a buck?” Sweat rolled from Roger’s upper lip into his mouth. “It does not. When we vote a man into office, we are conferring upon him influence. And influence, like every other commodity—be it gold, silver, reputation, goodwill—has its value. Influence is the equity a politician develops during his career. Like any other equity, it can be sold, converted into cash, precisely as the politician sees fit.” Mr. vW turned his attention back to his wife, having lectured her, obliquely. “That’s all Jerry is doing.”

  Mrs. vW was impressed. Her eye shadow was stretched to the point of revealing pores. “Why, darling!” she sputtered. “That’s beautiful! Never in my life have I heard the political system explained so…so…so poignantly.”

  Mr. vW shrugged modestly. “Those dudes who wrote the Constitution knew what they were doing, all right. They all had families to support.” He laughed. “None of them ended up in the poorhouse!”

  “I certainly hope you boys have been edified by what you just heard,” Mrs. vW said.

  Roger swallowed reluctantly. “Yes, Mummy.”

  Robby said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How are you going to make this contribution to Jerry?” Mrs. vW asked her husband. “Is there a hurry about it?”

  Mr. vW looked at his watch. “He’s leaving for Washington on the four o’clock train. He’ll be standing outside the cocktail lounge in the Hotel Clemens at three-thirty.”

  “Ralph, you’re not going yourself?”

  “No,” he drawled. “I never have yet. But it is Sunday. All my lawyers are at home with their families. I have the money in the safe, of course. I keep myself prepared for weekend emergencies like this.”

  “You can’t go yourself. Someone might see you.”

  “Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Someone might see me slip an envelope to a congressman in a hotel lobby the week before a bill important to my business comes up before Congress…”

  “Not everyone understands the political system as well as you do.”

  “It would be just the time some nosy person would be passing by, recognize the two of us, put two and two together… Why,” he said, “it would mean another bribe!”

  “You can’t send Cabot,” she said. “I have the Ladies’ Committee from the Church coming to tea, to discuss those buildings the Church owns in Harlem. You know how the residents there keep demanding light bulbs in the hallways, if you’d believe it, when they really ought not to go out at night!”

  “I need a courier,” admitted Mr. vW. “I’d sorely miss the opportunity to say hello to the Ladies’ Committee. They do such good work.”

  “Maybe,” speculated Mrs. vW, wriggling her eyebrows at Robby in such a way Robby wasn’t supposed to notice, “we can think of someone who would be happy to run a little errand for us.”

  “Maybe so,” agreed Mr. vW, immediately brightened by a solution which would permit him to say hello to the Ladies’ Committee instead of his congressional representative.

  “Robby, darling.” Mrs. vW laid her forearm on the table in a supplicating manner. “Would you mind terribly doing us a little favor?”

  “No, ma’am.” Dessert hadn’t appeared yet.

  “We’ll send you back to the Hotel Mayfair in the car with Anton if you’ll stop off at the Hotel Clemens on the way and give an envelope to a man standing at the door of the cocktail lounge in the lobby. Will you do that for us?”

  “Of course, ma’am.” Robby knew that nothing was for nothing in the vanWankle household. He had attended their church.

  Dessert was chocolate ice cream and vanilla wafers. Roger barely survived it.

  * * *

  The clock in the a
labaster lady’s Venus mount was striking three when Cabot helped Robby into his freshly brushed coat in the vestibule of the vanWankles’ apartment.

  Mr. vW had given Robby a sealed envelope and repeated his instructions again in the greatest detail. Robby was to be sure the man to whom he gave the envelope answered to the name Bradshaw.

  Robby had left the senior vWs lurking in the living room.

  Of the vanWankles, only Roger stood in the vestibule to say goodbye. And he did not stand well. His necktie was down, his shirt collar unbuttoned. His face was flushed from food. His legs bent just enough to indicate they no longer wanted to carry around such a big lunch.

  “See you in church,” Robby said to him.

  “Wait a minute,” Roger said. “You owe me something.”

  “Of course,” Robby said. “What?”

  “You promised to give me a stock tip.”

  “Not a stock tip,” said Robby. “A piece of advice.”

  “Okay,” Roger said impatiently. “A piece of advice. What is it?”

  Robby looked up at Cabot, and then stepped nearer to Roger and whispered in Roger’s ear, “Steer clear of becoming a duke.”

  Roger drew back. “What?!”

  “’Bye. Thanks, Cabot!”

  Anton awaited Robby on the curb with the back door of the Cadillac limousine open. Robby crossed the sidewalk with dignity and got into the car.

  Despite his seeing, halfway down the block, apparently studying the architecture on Park Avenue, Tony Savallo.

  21

  Pushing and Shoving

  Oozing down Park Avenue in the back of the vanWankle limousine, Robby knew the slight peace of the moment and the heavy trepidation of the future. It had been only three meters from the door of the apartment house to the car and during that trudge Robby had been escorted, somewhat shielded, by the huge doorman. Tony Savallo could have shot Robby in the instant Robby crossed the sidewalk only if he had had his gun drawn and half-aimed while dawdling on the sidewalk admiring the architecture. Toying with a handgun while apparently engaged in esthetic pursuit would establish an irony anyone, such as a doorman or a chauffeur, might observe and question. Thus reasonably unprepared, Tony Savallo missed his chance to shoot Robby Burnes through the head outside the vanWankles’ apartment house. Anton closed the back door on Robby the instant Robby scurried into the backseat.

  Through the windows, as the limousine went in a U-turn around the mall to head downtown, Robby saw Tony Savallo getting into a taxi. Anton had his instructions, first to the Hotel Clemens to wait for Robby while he gave ten thousand dollars to a member of the House of Representatives, then to take Robby to the Hotel Mayfair, where Robby didn’t live, but someone named Clara Bow might have, once. All the way down the avenue and through a cross street the silhouette of Tony Savallo’s head remained steady in the backseat of the taxi behind them.

  Robby didn’t wait for Anton. He leapt out of the car as soon as it drew up to the curb in front of the Hotel Clemens. He brushed by the hotel doorman, who was dressed in the uniform of a riverboat captain. He threw himself at a door shaped like a vertical paddlewheel and flooded through it. He jumped up three or four stairs.

  At the top of the stairs standing near the wall stood a man in a Chesterfield coat. A Boston bag was on the floor at his feet. Near him was a door decorated with the outlines of champagne glasses and beer tankards. The sign over the door said the bridge. With glassy eyes the man was watching the revolving door as if it were a roulette wheel about to turn up his fortune.

  Hand clutching the envelope in his pocket, Robby approached the man. “Please, sir?”

  The man’s eyes barely flickered from the entrance to the hotel. “Go along now, sonny. Your mother’s looking for you.”

  “Please, sir, are you Mr. Bradshaw?”

  “Yes, yes, but I can’t do autographs now. I have a train to catch.”

  “Mr. vanWankle sent me, sir.”

  “vanWankle?” Bradshaw’s glazed eyes popped fully surprised in Robby’s face. “vanWankle sends children to do his dirty work now, does he?”

  “Dirty work, sir?”

  “Dirty enough. Either I take ten thousand dollars from him or he gives thirty thousand dollars to the scoundrel campaigning against me next election. Don’t you call that dirty?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, I do. It’s not the Congress of the United States that’s corrupt, young man. It’s the citizens of the United States. Won’t let a politician do his job properly. Always threatening him this way and that.”

  “He said to say something about blankets, sir,” Robby said, looking anxiously at the hotel entrance as the revolving door kept dispensing people toward the steps. “He said to say something about keeping you warm at night.”

  “Blankets!” huffed Bradshaw. “What do I care about blankets? Tell me that!”

  Robby considered the question seriously. “We all like blankets, sir.”

  “What I care about are my constituents! The honest ones!” The Congressman belched. “The hard-working, God-fearing honest people of this district who elected me to represent them in Congress!”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sure, sir.”

  “In order to serve the good people I have to put up with the pushing and shoving of the vanWankles and the Pecuchets of this land! Do you understand that?” Bradshaw looked over Robby’s head, as if addressing more of an audience than a small boy. “Does anyone understand that?”

  “I’m sure someone understands that, sir.”

  “Threats!” Bradshaw squeezed his eyes closed, wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Some calls ’em bribes. I calls ’em threats!”

  “Sir? I’m in somewhat of a hurry myself—”

  “Either I play ball with those what got the money or I get thrown out of the ball park, retired for lack of funds, never again able to stand up at bat for issues important to me, vital to my constituents!”

  “But you sleep warm at night, sir?”

  “Bah!” Bradshaw swayed. “Blankets!”

  “Yes, sir, blankets.” Robby held the envelope out to Bradshaw but the man’s eyes remained closed. The fingers of his right hand pressed the spot between his eyebrows as if to force individuation of the thoughts which swirled within. “Sir!”

  In the revolving door Tony Savallo was behind a woman in a mammoth fur coat.

  “Sir!”

  “Blankets,” moaned the people’s representative to Congress. “Oh, my God—blankets!”

  “Sir!” Robby tried to place the envelope in the pocket of Bradshaw’s overcoat, but the pocket was too full. “Whup!” screamed Robby as Tony Savallo got through the crowd to the bottom of the stairs.

  Stuffing the envelope back into his own pocket, Robby ran through the crowded hotel lobby. “Whup!”

  From behind him he heard the bellow of an enraged man. Robby looked back as he ran. Bradshaw had picked up his Boston bag and was staggering with it into the crowd of the hotel lobby. Tony Savallo had passed Bradshaw and was much nearer Robby.

  “Scamp!” the people’s representative was bellowing in a well-practiced aggrieved voice. “Come back here! You have something of mine!”

  * * *

  Hotels, at least those in the august class of the Hotel Clemens, by presenting thick carpets and thick drapes, heavy chairs and divans awkwardly placed, all decorated in amoebic patterns, attempt to impose standards of subdued behavior upon their guests, which imposition permits the hotel to present its guests with larger bills. One is not expected to be raucous in front of an oversized landscape of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, or to perceive purple and yellow divans as common hurdles to be vaulted.

  On that Sunday afternoon with Tony Savallo a few steps behind him, trying to yank something out of the pocket of his windbreaker as he ran, Robby abandoned dignity and presented the management of the Hotel Clemens with behavior shocking to any decor. When he looked back at the bellowing Bradshaw Robby bumped an end table, sending
the lamp on it to crash on the rug. Two divans were back to back, holding two different sets of people who were holding two different sets of conversations under their hats. Robby jumped on one divan, over the backs of both, and down the other, bouncing the people on both divans and elevating their polite murmurs to angry shouts. He gave not a glance at the large painting of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Passing the hotel desk he knocked over several upright suitcases, scattered three overnight cases, and caused one agitated lady to knock her own hat off.

  The dining room had only a few late lunchers in it. Forgetting for the moment the negotiations he’d had to endure, the concessions he’d had to make to secure his own lunch, Robby went under the table of two late lunchers, a man and a woman dawdling bored over their coffee as if waiting for a fashion magazine photographer to come by looking for just the right illustration for an article entitled “Weekend Fun in the City.” Their table still had a long tablecloth. The bored couple became active immediately and began to kick at him with four feet. Her fashionable slipper got Robby on a cheekbone; his pliant black got Robby between two ribs. Deciding that under their table was not a good place to hide shortly after the feet began to kick, Robby scurried out and became upright again. He spotted a swing door to the kitchen and headed for it. A waiter carrying a tray on one hand came through the swing door. Gracefully he stood aside and held the door open for Robby, and said, “Yes, sir.”