by Peter Straub
“A long time ago,” I said. “A bit . . . odd, isn’t it?”
“Odd? That’s the most terrible story I ever read in my whole life! This dud gets a job in a law office and decides he doesn’t want to work. Does he get fired? He does not. This is a story? You hire a guy who won’t do the job, what do you do, pamper the asshole? At the end, the dud ups and disappears and you find out he used to work in the dead-letter office. Is there a point here? The next day I call up Arthur Jr., say could he explain to me please what the hell that story is supposed to mean? Dad, he says, it means what it says. Deacon, I just about pulled the plug on Harvard right then and there. I never went to any college, but I do know that nothing means what it says, not on this planet.”
This reflection was accurate when applied to the documents on my desk, for each had been encoded in a systematic fashion that rendered their literal contents deliberately misleading. Another code had informed both of my recent conversations with Marguerite. “Fiction is best left to real life,” I said.
“Someone should a told that to Herman Melville,” said Mr. Arthur “This Building Is Condemned” C——.
Mrs. Rampage buzzed me to advise that I was running behind schedule and inquire about removing the coffee things. I invited her to gather up the debris. A door behind me opened, and I assumed that my secretary had responded to my request with an alacrity remarkable even in her. The first sign of my error was the behavior of the three other men in the room, until this moment no more animated than marble statues. The thug at my client’s side stepped forward to stand behind me, and his fellows moved to the front of my desk. “What the hell is this shit?” said the client, unable, because of the man in front of him, to see Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff. Holding a pad bearing one of his many lists, Mr. Clubb gazed in mild surprise at the giants flanking my desk and said, “I apologize for the intrusion, sir, but our understanding was that your appointment would be over in an hour, and by my simple way of reckoning you should be free to answer a query as to steam irons.”
“What the hell is this shit?” said my client, repeating his original question with a slight tonal variation expressive of gathering dismay.
I attempted to salvage matters. “Please allow me to explain the interruption. I have employed these men as consultants, and as they prefer to work in my office, a condition I of course could not permit during our business meeting, I temporarily relocated them in my washroom, outfitted with a library adequate to their needs.”
“Fit for a king, in my opinion,” said Mr. Clubb.
At that moment the other door into my office, to the left of my desk, opened to admit Mrs. Rampage, and my client’s guardians inserted their hands into their suit jackets and separated with the speed and precision of a dance team.
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Rampage. “Excuse me. Should I come back later?”
“Not on your life, my darling,” said Mr. Clubb. “Temporary misunderstanding of the false-alarm sort. Please allow us to enjoy the delightful spectacle of your feminine charms.”
Before my wondering eyes, Mrs. Rampage curtsied and hastened to my desk to gather up the wreckage.
I looked toward my client and observed a detail of striking peculiarity, that although his half-consumed cigar remained between his lips, four inches of cylindrical ash had deposited a gray smear on his necktie before coming to rest on the shelf of his belly. He was staring straight ahead with eyes grown to the size of quarters. His face had become the color of raw piecrust.
Mr. Clubb said, “Respectful greetings, sir.”
The client gargled and turned upon me a look of unvarnished horror.
Mr. Clubb said, “Apologies to all.” Mrs. Rampage had already bolted. From unseen regions came the sound of a closing door.
Mr. “This Building Is Condemned” C—— blinked twice, bringing his eyes to something like their normal dimensions. With an uncertain hand but gently, as if it were a tiny but much-loved baby, he placed his cigar in the crystal shell. He cleared his throat; he looked at the ceiling. “Deacon,” he said, gazing upward. “Gotta run. My next appointment musta slipped my mind. What happens when you start to gab. I’ll be in touch.” He stood, dislodging the ashen cylinder to the carpet, and motioned his goons to the outer office.
4
Of course at the earliest opportunity I interrogated my detectives about this turn of events, and while they moved their mountains of paper, bottles, buckets, glasses, hand-drawn maps, and other impedimenta back behind the screen, I continued the questioning. No, they averred, the gentleman at my desk was not a gentleman whom previously they had been privileged to look upon, acquaint themselves with, or encounter in any way whatsoever. They had never been employed in any capacity by the gentleman. Mr. Clubb observed that the unknown gentleman had been wearing a conspicuously handsome and well-tailored suit.
“That is his custom,” I said.
“And I believe he smokes, sir, a noble high order of cigar,” said Mr. Clubb with a glance at my breast pocket. “Which would be the sort of item customarily beyond the dreams of honest laborers such as ourselves.”
“I trust that you will permit me,” I said with a sigh, “to offer you the pleasure of two of the same.” No sooner had the offer been accepted, the barnies back behind their screen, than I buzzed Mrs. Rampage with the request to summon by instant delivery from the most distinguished cigar merchant in the city a box of his finest. “Good for you, boss!” whooped the new Mrs. Rampage.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon brooding upon the reaction of Mr. Arthur “This Building Is Condemned” C—— to my “consultants.” I could not but imagine that his hasty departure boded ill for our relationship. I had seen terror on his face, and he knew that I knew what I had seen. An understanding of this sort is fatal to that nuance-play critical alike to high-level churchmen and their outlaw counterparts, and I had to confront the possibility that my client’s departure had been of a permanent nature. Where Mr. “This Building Is Condemned” C—— went, his colleagues of lesser rank, Mr. Tommy “I Believe in Rainbows” B——, Mr. Anthony “Moonlight Becomes You” M——, Mr. Bobby “Total Eclipse” G——, and their fellow archbishops, cardinals, and papal nuncios would assuredly follow. Before the close of the day, I would send a comforting fax informing Mr. “This Building Is Condemned” C—— that the consultants had been summarily released from employment. I would be telling only a “white” or provisional untruth, for Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff’s task would surely be completed long before my client’s return. All was in order, all was in train, and as if to put the seal upon the matter, Mrs. Rampage buzzed to inquire if she might come through with the box of cigars. Speaking in a breathy timbre I had never before heard from anyone save Marguerite in the earliest, most blissful days of our marriage, Mrs. Rampage added that she had some surprises for me, too. “By this point,” I said, “I expect no less.” Mrs. Rampage giggled.
The surprises, in the event, were of a reassuring practicality. The good woman had wisely sought the advice of Mr. Montfort de M——, who, after recommending a suitably aristocratic cigar emporium and a favorite cigar, had purchased for me a rosewood humidor, a double-bladed cigar cutter, and a lighter of antique design. As soon as Mrs. Rampage had been instructed to compose a note of gratitude embellished in whatever fashion she saw fit, I arrayed all but one of the cigars in the humidor, decapitated that one, and set it alight. Beneath a faint touch of fruitiness like the aroma of a blossoming pear tree, I met in successive layers the tastes of black olives, aged Gouda cheese, pine needles, new leather, miso soup, either sorghum or brown sugar, burning peat, library paste, and myrtle leaves. The long finish intriguingly combined Bible paper and sunflower seeds. Mr. Montfort de M—— had chosen well, though I regretted the absence of black butter sauce.
Feeling comradely, I strolled across my office toward the merriment emanating from the far side of the screen. A superior cigar should be complemented by a worthy liquor, and in the light of what was to transpire during th
e evening I considered a snifter of Mr. Clubb’s Bombay gin not inappropriate. “Fellows,” I said, tactfully announcing my presence, “are preparations nearly completed?”
“That, sir, they are,” said one or the other of the pair.
“Welcome news,” I said, and stepped around the screen. “But I must be assured—”
It was as if the detritus of New York City’s half dozen filthiest living quarters had been scooped up, shaken, and dumped into my office. Heaps of ash, bottles, shoals of papers, books with stained covers and broken spines, battered furniture, broken glass, refuse I could not identify, refuse I could not even see, undulated from the base of the screen, around and over the table, heaping itself into landfill-like piles here and there, and washed against the plate-glass windows. A jagged, five-foot opening gaped in a smashed pane. Their derbies perched on their heads, islanded in their chairs, Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff leaned back, feet up on what must have been the table.
“You’ll join us in a drink, sir,” said Mr. Clubb, “by way of wishing us success and adding to the pleasure of that handsome smoke.” He extended a stout leg and kicked rubble from a chair. I sat down. Mr. Clubb plucked an unclean glass from the morass and filled it with Dutch gin, or jenever, from one of the minaret-shaped stone flagons I had observed upon my infrequent layovers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Mrs. Rampage had been variously employed during the barnies’ sequestration. Then I wondered if Mrs. Rampage might not have shown signs of intoxication during our last encounter.
“I thought you drank Bombay,” I said.
“Variety is, as they say, life’s condiment,” said Mr. Clubb, and handed me the glass.
I said, “You have made yourselves quite at home.”
“I thank you for your restraint,” said Mr. Clubb. “In which sentiment my partner agrees, am I correct, Mr. Cuff?”
“Entirely,” said Mr. Cuff. “But I wager you a C-note to a see-gar that a word or two of explanation is in order.”
“How right that man is,” said Mr. Clubb. “He has a genius for the truth I have never known to fail him. Sir, you enter our work space to come upon the slovenly, the careless, the unseemly, and your response, which we comprehend in every particular, is to recoil. My wish is that you take a moment to remember these two essentials: one, we have, as aforesaid, our methods, which are ours alone, and two, having appeared fresh on the scene, you see it worse than it is. By morning tomorrow, the cleaning staff shall have done its work.”
“I suppose you have been Visualizing.” I quaffed jenever.
“Mr. Cuff and I,” he said, “prefer to minimize the risk of accidents, surprises, and such by the method of rehearsing our, as you might say, performances. These poor sticks, sir, are easily replaced, but our work once under way demands completion and cannot be duplicated, redone, or undone.”
I recalled the all-important guarantee. “I remember your words,” I said, “and I must be assured that you remember mine. I did not request termination. During the course of the day my feelings on the matter have intensified. Termination, if by that term you meant—”
“Termination is termination,” said Mr. Clubb.
“Extermination,” I said. “Cessation of life due to external forces. It is not my wish, it is unacceptable, and I have even been thinking that I overstated the degree of physical punishment appropriate in this matter.”
“ ’Appropriate’?” said Mr. Clubb. “When it comes to desire, ’appropriate’ is a concept without meaning. In the sacred realm of desire, ’appropriate,’ being meaningless, does not exist. We speak of your inmost wishes, sir, and desire is an extremely thingy sort of thing.”
I looked at the hole in the window, the broken bits of furniture and ruined books. “I think,” I said, “that permanent injury is all I wish. Something on the order of blindness or the loss of a hand.”
Mr. Clubb favored me with a glance of humorous irony. “It goes, sir, as it goes, which brings to mind that we have but an hour more, a period of time to be splendidly improved by a superior Double Corona such as the fine example in your hand.”
“Forgive me,” I said. “And might I then request . . . ?” I extended the nearly empty glass, and Mr. Clubb refilled it. Each received a cigar, and I lingered at my desk for the required term, sipping jenever and pretending to work until I heard sounds of movement. Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff approached. “So you are off,” I said.
“It is, sir, to be a long and busy night,” said Mr. Clubb. “If you take my meaning.”
With a sigh I opened the humidor. They reached in, snatched a handful of cigars apiece, and deployed them into various pockets. “Details at eleven,” said Mr. Clubb.
A few seconds after their departure, Mrs. Rampage informed me that she would be bringing through a fax communication just received.
The fax had been sent me by Chartwell, Munster, and Stout, a legal firm with but a single client, Mr. Arthur “This Building Is Condemned” C——. Chartwell, Munster, and Stout regretted the necessity to inform me that their client wished to seek advice other than my own in his financial affairs. A sheaf of documents binding me to silence as to all matters concerning the client would arrive for my signature the following day. All records, papers, computer disks, and other data were to be referred posthaste to their offices. I had forgotten to send my intended note of client-saving reassurance.
5
What an abyss of shame I must now describe, at every turn what humiliation. It was at most five minutes past 6 P.M. when I learned of the desertion of my most valuable client, a turn of events certain to lead to the loss of his cryptic fellows and some forty percent of our annual business. Gloomily I consumed my glass of Dutch gin without noticing that I had already far exceeded my tolerance. I ventured behind the screen and succeeded in unearthing another stone flagon, poured another measure, and gulped it down while attempting to demonstrate numerically that (a) the anticipated drop in annual profit could not be as severe as feared and (b) if it were, the business could continue as before, without reductions in salary, staff, or benefits. Despite ingenious feats of juggling, the numbers denied (a) and mocked (b), suggesting that I should be fortunate to retain, not lose, forty percent of present business. I lowered my head to the desk and tried to regulate my breathing. When I heard myself rendering an off-key version of “Abide with Me,” I acknowledged that it was time to go home, got to my feet, and made the unfortunate decision to exit through the general offices on the theory that a survey of my presumably empty realm might suggest the sites of pending amputations.
I tucked the flagon under my elbow, pocketed the five or six cigars remaining in the humidor, and passed through Mrs. Rampage’s chamber. Hearing the abrasive music of the cleaners’ radios, I moved with exaggerated care down the corridor, darkened but for the light spilling from an open door thirty feet before me. Now and again, finding myself unable to avoid striking my shoulder against the wall, I took a medicinal swallow of jenever. I drew up to the open door and realized that I had come to Gilligan’s quarters. The abrasive music emanated from his sound system. We’ll get rid of that, for starters, I said to myself, and straightened up for a dignified navigation past his doorway. At the crucial moment I glanced within to observe my jacketless junior partner sprawled, tie undone, on his sofa beside a scrawny ruffian with a quiff of lime-green hair and attired for some reason in a skintight costume involving zebra stripes and many chains and zippers. Disreputable creatures male and female occupied themselves in the background. Gilligan shifted his head, began to smile, and at the sight of me turned to stone.
“Calm down, Gilligan,” I said, striving for an impression of sober paternal authority. I had recalled that my junior had scheduled a late appointment with his most successful musician, a singer whose band sold millions of records year in and year out despite the absurdity of their name, the Dog Turds or the Rectal Valves, something of that sort. My calculations had indicated that Gilligan’s client, whose name I recalled as Cyril Futch, would soon become crucial t
o the maintenance of my firm, and as the beaky little rooster coldly took me in I thought to impress upon him the regard in which he was held by his chosen financial planning institution. “There is, I assure you, no need for alarm, no, certainly not, and in fact, Gilligan, you know, I should be honored to seize this opportunity of making the acquaintance of your guest, whom it is our pleasure to assist and advise and whatever.”
Gilligan reverted to flesh and blood during the course of this utterance, which I delivered gravely, taking care to enunciate each syllable clearly in spite of the difficulty I was having with my tongue. He noted the bottle nestled into my elbow and the lighted cigar in the fingers of my right hand, a matter of which until that moment I had been imperfectly aware. “Hey, I guess the smoking lamp is lit,” I said. “Stupid rule anyhow. How about a little drink on the boss?”
Gilligan lurched to his feet and came reeling toward me.
All that followed is a montage of discontinuous imagery. I recall Cyril Futch propping me up as I communicated our devotion to the safeguarding of his wealth, also his dogged insistence that his name was actually Simon Gulch or Sidney Much or something similar before he sent me toppling onto the sofa; I see an odd little fellow with a tattooed head and a name like Pus (there was a person named Pus in attendance, though he may not have been the one) accepting one of my cigars and eating it; I remember inhaling from smirking Gilligan’s cigarette and drinking from a bottle with a small white worm lying dead at its bottom and snuffling up a white powder recommended by a female Turd or Valve; I remember singing “The Old Rugged Cross” in a state of partial undress. I told a face brilliantly lacquered with makeup that I was “getting a feel” for “this music.” A female Turd or Valve, not the one who had recommended the powder but one in a permanent state of hilarity I found endearing, assisted me into my limousine and on the homeward journey experimented with its many buttons and controls. Atop the town-house steps, she removed the key from my fumbling hand gleefully to insert it into the lock. The rest is welcome darkness.