“Wake up, sir. We’re saved.”
Cooper did not answer; he had fallen asleep just as the rower turned and Ben’s gaze met a familiar face.
“Good morning, children,” the man said.
“Death,” whispered Ben.
And time stopped on the high seas.
“You know my name, Ben,” said Death. “I hope you don’t mind if I call you by yours.”
I’m going nuts, thought Ben. Where are the fires? The eternal torments?
“You’ve just passed through them,” said Death. “You really are a glutton for punishment, Ben.” He leaned into the raft and put his arm around Cooper’s shoulder.
“Captain Cooper, I’ve come for you. There’s plenty of room in my boat. You can leave your life jacket behind.”
“Plenty of room,” muttered Cooper and put his hand trustingly into Death’s. And Death raised him to his feet.
“Don’t go, sir!” shouted Ben.
But Cooper allowed himself to be led into Death’s spacious dinghy, and the moment he set foot there, he seemed to revive, to become a new man.
“It’s wonderful,” he whispered. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Plenty of room to stretch out, Captain,” said Death, and Cooper stretched himself out to his full length.
“It’s wonderful,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m not hungry.”
“You forgot your map, sir,” said Ben. He waved the life jacket in front of Cooper’s closed eyes. “You forgot your log.”
“I don’t need them.”
He lay perfectly still. Death drew a silver coin out of his pocket and laid it on Cooper’s left eye.
“The other one, please,” he said, holding out his hand. “Before I can do anything for you, Ben, I require my fee.”
Slowly Ben slipped the coin on its elastic thread from around his neck and gave it to him, and Death broke the thread and laid the coin on Cooper’s right eye. Then he looked up.
“You’re next, Ben.”
“You said you’d do something for me.”
“Of course. A little reprieve. Will you come with me now or will you starve here and meet me later?”
“If I go with you now,” said Ben, “can I ever come back?”
“Only one man ever came back in the flesh,” replied Death, “and His was a rather special case.”
The sea was as still as if someone had turned it off, and the silence as deep as if someone had turned it on.
“My dad told me if you make a bet with Death, he has to accept.”
“You want to make a bet with me?”
Ben nodded. “If you win, you can take me on the spot. If I win, I want to live to be a hundred.”
“The die is cast,” said Death, with a smile at his own joke. “I suppose you brought your own dice?”
“No.”
“A chess set? A deck of cards? I am the grand master of all games, but I don’t furnish the pieces.”
“I only know one game,” said Ben. “Baseball.”
“Baseball,” repeated Death. “I know the game. Never played it myself.”
“Could you get a team together?” asked Ben.
Death was still.
“Your team against mine. The South Avenue Rovers versus the Dead Knights.”
“I’m interested,” said Death.
“Of course I’ll need time to get the guys together. I don’t even know where they are.”
“I do,” said Death.
“George Clackett? You know where George Clackett is?”
“He’s on a destroyer in the Coral Sea.”
“And Louis and Tony?”
“Cruising off Honolulu,” said Death. “In a submarine,” he added.
“And Charley?”
“In the sky. Off the coast of Africa.”
“And Stilts?”
“Australia.”
“And Henry?”
“Thorney Island, England.”
“And Tom?”
“The Solomon Islands.”
“There’s no way to get us together,” said Ben, “unless you end the war.”
“I can arrange furloughs,” said Death. “Shall we set the game for June twenty-seventh?”
“We’ll need three weeks to warm up,” said Ben.
Death shook his head.
“Time is rationed. There are terrible shortages. I can only give you two.”
“Okay, two. How are you going to let everybody know?”
“Through the time-honored channel of dreams,” replied Death. “And a little finagling with current events.”
“We’ll need good weather,” Ben reminded him.
“That can be arranged.”
“And I’ll want a few extra men on the bench.”
“Agreed.” Death nodded.
“And an umpire.”
“Your choice,” said Death. “Living or dead.”
“Durkee,” said Ben quickly. “I want Durkee.”
“Durkee will do. He belongs to both of us now.”
“And I’ll need to get home right away.”
Death nodded. “I’ll send a boat to pick you up.”
“The U.S. Navy, please,” said Ben. “I don’t want to end up in a boat with you.”
“The contract, then,” said Death.
And he wrote on the air with one pale finger, which trailed a thin line of smoke.
Agreed this day, that Death and his team, the Dead Knights, shall play the South Avenue Rovers on June the twenty-seventh, 1942. The game shall be played for three innings. If the Dead Knights win, Death shall take the South Avenue Rovers. If the South Avenue Rovers win, Death shall give the members of this team a new lease on life. They shall live through the war and beyond it. If any of the South Avenue Rovers shall be unable or unwilling to play, their places shall be taken by their next of kin.
At the bottom, Death tapped out two rows of dotted lines.
“What’s this ‘next of kin’?” asked Ben.
“Life is so uncertain,” murmured Death. “One has to clarify the contingencies. Just sign on the dotted line.”
“But who are the next of kin?”
“In case of unforeseen circumstances, the fathers would take their sons’ positions.”
“My father is dead. And Louis and Tony’s father, too. You should know that.”
Death blushed faintly. “If the fathers cannot play for their sons, the mothers will play for them. Naturally, I don’t expect Teresa Bacco to play for both—”
“My mother? Holy God, Clare would pitch better than my mother!”
“That can be arranged,” said Death.
And he wrote below the fading letters of the contract:
At the request of Ben Harkissian, Clare Bishop shall take his father’s place. If Clare Bishop cannot play for Ben, his mother, Wanda Harkissian, shall take her son’s position, in accordance with the above agreement.
“If I’d known you were going to do this, I’d have asked for Willie,” said Ben.
Death’s eyes lit up with pleasure. “Never let it be said that Death was unfair.”
And he added yet another sentence:
Substitutes for the South Avenue Rovers shall include Mrs. Bishop, surrogate mother for Tony Bacco, and Willie Harkissian, who may play any position.
“Sign,” said Death.
Ben wet his finger and signed and turned to bid Cooper farewell. The boat was empty. “Where …?”
“Buried at sea,” said Death. “Quiet, dignified, cheap.”
27
Love and Money
FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life, Willie was setting free his money. He bought gifts at Arnoldson’s (for Marsha there was only one jewelry store in Ann Arbor, and she always checked the name of the store on the gift box), expensive showy trifles he knew she would like: sterling silver earrings, tragedy on one ear, comedy on the other. A silver Hershey bar for her charm bracelet. Nothing handmade, nothing useful or antique. Nothing that did not speak to her of a conspic
uous cash flow.
For himself he also bought presents: a silver pen and gold cuff links, visible tokens of affluence which somehow seemed necessary for his evenings with Marsha. Sitting next to her, he felt as if he owned some valuable piece of lakefront property and was now obliged to keep up appearances. All those statues in her stepfather’s house, all those books from the Limited Edition club, their pages uncut—he understood why people bought them, liked having them. He enjoyed the obsequious bows of waiters and the envious glances of other men. He had paid dearly for this property, and now he was ready to build on it, to move in. Marsha was beautiful. He knew it and she knew it, and he was determined to keep her. To keep her from Ben.
As they finished Sunday dinner at the Michigan Union, they turned to the newspaper and studied the movie listings.
“‘Moon over Miami, with Betty Grable and Robert Cummings,’” read Willie solemnly. “‘Yes, Boys and Girls, it’s Betty in love. In Miami. In a bathing suit. In Technicolor. With Paramount News.’”
“Where’s it playing?” asked Marsha.
“The Wuerth.”
“I know a girl who got lice at the Wuerth. Let’s see Bahama Passage at the Michigan.”
After each dinner, after each large purchase, he suffered pangs of regret. He didn’t need that pen; the salesman had gypped him— and what if he lost one of the gold cuff links? He was spending too much; he must pull in. He wrote down every purchase and the amount paid for it in a ledger bought especially for the purpose and realized that knowing where his money went did not keep him from spending it. He should be investing it, he told himself. He should not be taking money from Mr. Jackson at all. Tomorrow he would tell Mr. Jackson, “I’m through. Mr. Clackett is suspicious. I can’t work for you anymore.”
When had this work become so easy? When did he no longer feel as if he were committing a crime? At first he had simply pilfered bills, ration stamps, goods from the shelf: a bag of sugar … a bag of coffee … cigarettes from an open carton. Once, when Mr. Clackett was closing the register, he asked Willie if the crook had ever come back.
“Who?” asked Willie.
“That man who called me Roger. A bomb went off at the Salvage Collection Center last night and killed two people. The night watchman said a man had been coming around the last two or three nights asking for Harry. Sounded like your man, from the description of him.”
“Who is Harry?” squeaked Willie.
“Somebody who worked on the day shift except when he did overtime. He was doing overtime when the bomb went off.”
After that, for a while, Willie stole nothing. Then Mr. Jackson gave him the job of driving a vegetable truck to this building or that. On Mr. Jackson’s orders, he parked his car behind the Stafford Arms, which Mr. Jackson gave as his address, and he waited at the bus stop till the vegetable truck pulled up in front of the hotel, loaded with crates of beans and tomatoes and a set of scales for weighing them. The man who handed him the keys to the truck asked no questions and gave no instructions. Willie knew that he sold vegetables on the west side of town, and he supposed that under the veneer of carrots and cauliflowers lay tires, cigarettes, sacks of sugar and coffee, and boxes of butter. When Willie returned with the truck, emptied of its contraband, Mr. Jackson would ask him, “Have you got enough spending money?” and press on him ten, maybe twenty—never a set amount but always more than enough. He never asked Mr. Jackson about his personal life, but after he spied the initials BBL on his wallet, he wondered if Jackson was his real name. Nor did Mr. Jackson ask Willie about himself; yet he seemed to know a great deal.
One afternoon when Willie was returning the truck, Mr. Jackson said, “Why don’t you take Marsha to the Stafford Arms for dinner?”
Willie was surprised that he knew Marsha’s name, and when he did not answer right away, Mr. Jackson added, “The evening’s on me. Just tell the waiter. Or the man at the desk.”
Ben and Willie had once gone to the Stafford Arms at the suggestion of two girls they’d met on a blind date. The girls had ordered lobster thermidor. At Willie’s suggestion, he and Ben had retired to the men’s room and climbed out the window, leaving the girls to pay the bill. Now Willie wondered what scene had taken place after their escape was discovered. Would the manager remember him?
He went home and changed into a suit. Before he picked up Marsha, he always got the runs, and now he allowed time for sitting on the john and reading the newspaper. The Acquisition of Popularity recommended reading the newspaper (“The well-informed man will never be at a loss for conversation”). He skipped the war news (Marsha did not like to talk about the war) in search of more entertaining fare. On the first page of the local news section he found an item that held his attention. A waiter in the Lotus Garden had been arrested for harassing a beautiful young nurse. The waiter was Chinese, and he had seen Miss Eileen Stark at the restaurant and fallen under her spell. He had hired private detectives to inform him of her whereabouts at every hour of the day and night. When she waited for her ride in the morning, she saw him staring at her, standing several yards away. In the foyer of her boardinghouse, he would be waiting for her when she came home from work. He never spoke; he never raised a hand against her. He followed her up the stairs, never taking his eyes from her, and watched her enter her room, and he was waiting for her on the front steps the next morning.
Willie turned the page and read Reverend Carpenter’s “Thought for Today”:
A nation has as much religion as it can show in times of trouble. The men who were cast into the fiery furnace came out as they went in—except for their bonds. Their bodies were unhurt, their skin not even blistered, their hair unsinged, their garments not scorched, and even the smell of fire was not upon them. That is the way our nation will come out of the fiery furnace of trials—liberated from its bonds, but untouched by the flames.
He closed the paper.
As he drove to Marsha’s house, the waiter’s story spun various endings in his mind. What if Miss Stark went to the jail and gave herself to this man? What would he do? Nothing? Was he impotent? Crazy? Suppose he owned the restaurant instead of simply working there? Suppose he owned a chain of restaurants? Would she allow him to speak to her, would a friendship develop? Perhaps they would marry. How many women started out hating a man and ended up marrying him?
Marsha rustled into the seat next to his, and he climbed into the driver’s seat (he always opened the door for her now, though he had never done this for any other woman, including his mother), and his old shyness overcame him. She was all blue silk and bare arms and throat and shining blond hair, and yet her loveliness intimidated him less than the suspicion that she was smarter than he was, that she saw through him, might even be using him.
They drove down Main Street.
They passed South Avenue Park, where boys gathered in the early evening to play baseball. Darkness did not come on till nine.
They were the only customers in the dining room of the hotel; Willie remarked on this to the waiter, who replied that most of their customers dined later, around eight.
The menus were as tall as newspapers; Marsha read hers through very carefully and took out her pencil and corrected the French. Unlike Willie’s date of that earlier adventure with Ben, she did not choose the most expensive item on the menu but asked for the watercress soup and a fruit salad, which allowed Willie to do the same. Waiters made him feel powerless, but he had his own way of getting back at them.
“I’d like my soup prepared without salt,” said Willie.
“I’m sorry, sir, the soup is already prepared,” said the waiter. “What kind of bread would you like?”
He pointed to the back of the menu:
DINING IS DEFENSE when you dine on our health-and-morale-building victuals. Help to win by keeping fit! Strengthen nerves and resistance with the vital vitamins and minerals which you are assured in abundance in our finer selections of FRESH meats, vegetables, fruits, seafood, and dairy products, and our HOMEMADE bre
ads:
Rye, French, Italian, pumpernickel, sourdough, white with raisins, whole wheat, whole wheat with raisins.
Willie studied the list and raised his head.
“Do you have Russian pumpernickel?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, let’s have French bread,” said Marsha.
“One order of French bread for her,” said Willie. “Nothing for me,” he added, in injured tones.
The waiter bowed and retired, leaving them alone in the cavernous dining room. Really, it’s an ugly place, thought Willie. The hanging lamps threw a sallow light on the velvet drapes and the carpet, both a faded wine.
“What do you hear from him?” asked Marsha suddenly.
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
“Ben’s okay,” said Willie, wondering if he really was. No letter had come from him for a long time. “He’s stationed on an island in the middle of nowhere.” Willie was systematically eating his fruit salad, finishing each fruit in alphabetical order: bananas, grapes, oranges.
“What kind of island?”
“I don’t know. Some tropical thing.”
“But what’s the name of it?” Marsha persisted.
“He isn’t allowed to say,” answered Willie. “Why do you want to know?”
“It’s nice to know things like that,” she said.
He wanted to change the subject, so he told her about the Chinese man arrested for harassing the beautiful nurse. Marsha listened politely but without real interest.
“This hotel has seen better days,” he said, in case she was thinking the same thing.
“Oh, I love this hotel,” said Marsha. “When I was a kid I used to pretend I lived here. I was a princess and this was my palace. I used to ride the bus a lot and the bus was my coach. Everybody who got on worked for me, and I’d see who got on and decide who was my gardener, and who was my cook, and who were my ladies-in-waiting. When the bus stopped here, I’d pretend it was stopping just for me. The tower room was mine.”
“Were you ever in the tower room?” asked Willie.
“No. I’d love to stay there. My mother told me the maids leave a chocolate on your pillow at bedtime. That was before the war.”
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