This is nothing but the Establishment looking after its own,” said Reverend Bacon. He was leaning back in his chair at his desk and talking into the telephone, but his tones were official. For he was talking to the press. “This is the Power Structure manufacturing and disseminating its lies with the willing connivance of its lackeys in the media, and its lies are transparent.”

Edward Fiske III, although a young man, recognized the rhetoric of the Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Reverend Bacon stared at the mouthpiece of the telephone with a look of righteous anger. Fiske slumped down a little farther in his chair. His eyes jumped from Reverend Bacon’s face to the swamp-yellow sycamores in the yard beyond the window and then back to Reverend Bacon and then back to the sycamores. He didn’t know whether eye contact with the man was wise at this point or not, even though the thing that had provoked the anger had nothing to do with Fiske’s visit. Bacon was furious over the piece in this morning’s Daily News suggesting that Sherman McCoy might have been escaping from a robbery attempt when his car hit Henry Lamb. The Daily News intimated that Lamb’s accomplice was a convicted felon named Roland Auburn and that the district attorney’s entire case against Sherman McCoy was based on a story concocted by this individual, who was now seeking a plea bargain in a drug case.

“You doubt that they stoop so low?” Reverend Bacon declaimed into the mouthpiece. “You doubt they can be vile? Now you see them stoop so low, they try to smear young Henry Lamb. Now you see them vilify the victim, who lies mortally wounded and cannot speak for himself. For them to say that Henry Lamb is a robber—that’s the criminal act…see…That’s the criminal act. But that is the twisted mind of the Power Structure, that is the underlying racist mentality. Since Henry Lamb is a young black male, they think they can brand him as a criminal…see…They think they can smear him in that way. But they are wrong. Henry Lamb’s life refutes their lies. Henry Lamb is everything the Power Structure tells the young black male he is supposed to be, but when the needs of one a their own demand it…see…one a their own…then they think nothing of turning around and trying to destroy the good name of this young man…What?…Say, ‘Who are they?’…You think Sherman McCoy stands alone? You think he is by himself? He is one a the most powerful men at Pierce & Pierce, and Pierce & Pierce is one a the most powerful forces in Wall Street. I know Pierce & Pierce…see…I know what they can do. You heard a capitalists. You heard a plutocrats. You take a look at Sherman McCoy and you’re looking at a capitalist, you’re looking at a plutocrat.”

Reverend Bacon eviscerated the offending newspaper article. The Daily News was a notorious toady of the corporate interests. The reporter who wrote the pack of lies, Neil Flannagan, was a lackey so shameless as to lend his name to such a disgusting campaign. His font of so-called information—referred to coyly as “sources close to the case”—was obviously McCoy and his cabal.

The McCoy case was of no interest to Fiske, except as ordinary gossip, although he did know the Englishman who had first exposed the whole situation, a wonderful witty fellow named Peter Fallow, who was a master of the art of conversation. No, Fiske’s only interest was in how much Bacon’s involvement in it was going to complicate his task, which was to retrieve the $350,000 or some part of it. In the half hour he had been sitting here, Bacon’s secretary had buzzed in with calls from two newspapers, the Associated Press, a Bronx assemblyman, a Bronx congressman, and the executive secretary of the Gay Fist Strike Force, all concerning the McCoy case. And Reverend Bacon was now talking to a man named Irv Stone, from Channel 1. At first Fiske figured his mission was (yet once again) hopeless. But behind Reverend Bacon’s baleful orotundity he began to detect a buoyancy, a joie de combat. Reverend Bacon loved what was going on. He was leading the crusade. He was in his element. Somewhere in all of this, at last, if he picked the right moment, Edward Fiske III might find an opening through which to retrieve the Episcopal Church’s $350,000 from the Heavenly Crusader’s promiscuous heap of schemes.

Reverend Bacon was saying, “There’s the cause and there’s the effect, Irv…see…And we had a demonstration at the Poe projects, where Henry Lamb lives. That’s the effect…see…What happened to Henry Lamb is the effect. Well, today we gonna take it to the cause. We gonna take it to Park Avenue. To Park Avenue, see, from whence the lies commence…from whence they commence…What?…Right. Henry Lamb cannot speak for himself, but he’s gonna have a mighty voice. He’s gonna have the voice of his people, and that voice is gonna be heard on Park Avenue.”

Fiske had never seen Reverend Bacon’s face so animated. He began asking Irv Stone technical questions. Naturally, he couldn’t guarantee Channel 1 an exclusive this time, but could he count on live coverage? What was the optimal time? Same as before? And so forth and so on. Finally he hung up. He turned toward Fiske and looked at him with portentous concentration and said:

“The steam.”

“The steam?”

“The steam…You remember I told you about the steam?”

“Oh yes. I do.”

“Well, now you gonna see the steam coming to a head. The whole city’s gonna see it. Right on Park Avenue. People think the fire has gone out. They think the rage is a thing of the past. They don’t know it’s only been bottled up. It’s when the steam is trapped, you find out what it can do…see…That’s when you find out it’s Powder Valley for you and your whole gang. Pierce & Pierce only know how to handle one kind of capital. They don’t understand the steam. They can’t handle the steam.”

Fiske spotted a tiny opening.

“As a matter of fact, Reverend Bacon, I was talking to a man from Pierce & Pierce about you just the other day. Linwood Talley, from the underwriting division.”

“They know me there,” said Reverend Bacon. He smiled, but a trifle sardonically. “They know me. They don’t know the steam.”

“Mr. Talley was telling me about Urban Guaranty Investments. He said it’s been highly successful.”

“I can’t complain.”

“Mr. Talley didn’t go into any details, but I gather it’s been”—he searched for the proper euphemism—“profitable right from the beginning.”

“Ummmmmm.” Reverend Bacon didn’t seem inclined to expand.

Fiske said nothing and tried to hold Reverend Bacon’s gaze with his own, in hopes of creating a conversational vacuum the great crusader couldn’t resist. The truth about Urban Guaranty Investments, as Fiske had in fact learned from Linwood Talley, was that the federal government had recently given the firm $250,000 as a “minority underwriter” for a $7 billion issue of federally backed municipal bonds. The so-called set-aside law required that there be minority participation in the selling of such bonds, and Urban Guaranty Investments had been created to help satisfy that requirement of the law. There was no requirement that the minority firm actually sell any of the bonds or even receive them. The lawmakers did not want to wrap the task in red tape. It was only necessary for the firm to participate in the issue. Participate was broadly defined. In most cases—Urban Guaranty Investments was but one of many such firms across the country—participation meant receiving a check for the fee from the federal government and depositing it, and not much more. Urban Guaranty Investments had no employees, and no equipment, just an address (Fiske was at it), a telephone number, and a president, Reginald Bacon.

“So it just occurred to me, Reverend Bacon, in terms of our conversations and what the diocese is naturally concerned about and what remains to be worked out, if we are to resolve what I’m sure you want to resolve just as much as the bishop, who, I have to tell you, has been pressing me on this point—” Fiske paused. As often happened in his talks with Reverend Bacon, he couldn’t remember how he had begun his sentence. He had no idea what the number and tense of the predicate should be. “—pressing me on this point, and, uh, uh, the thing is, we thought perhaps you might be in a position to shift some funds into the escrow account we mentioned, the escrow account for the Little Shepherd Day Care Center, just until our licensing problems are worked out.”

“I don’t follow you,” said Reverend Bacon.

Fiske had the sinking feeling he was going to have to think of some way to say it again.

But Reverend Bacon bailed him out. “Are you saying we ought to shift money from Urban Guaranty Investments to the Little Shepherd Day Care Center?”

“Not in so many words, Reverend Bacon, but if the funds are available or could be loaned out…”

“But that’s illegal! You’re talking about commingling funds! We can’t shift moneys from one corporation to another just because it looks like one of them needs it more.”

Fiske looked at the rock of fiscal probity, half expecting a wink, even though he knew Reverend Bacon wasn’t a winker. “Well, the diocese has always been willing to go the extra mile with you, Reverend Bacon, in the sense that if there was room to find some flexibility in the strict reading of the regulation, such as the time you and the board of directors of the Inner City Family Restructuring Society made the trip to Paris and the diocese paid for it out of the Missionary Society budget—” Once again he was drowning in the syntactical soup, but it didn’t matter.

“No way,” said Reverend Bacon.

“Well, if not that, then—”

Reverend Bacon’s secretary’s voice came over the intercom: “Mr. Vogel is on the line.”

Reverend Bacon wheeled about to the telephone on the credenza: “Al?…Yeah, I saw it. They’ll drag that young man’s name through the mud and think nothing of it.”

Reverend Bacon and his caller, Vogel, went on for some time about the piece in the Daily News. This Mr. Vogel evidently reminded Reverend Bacon that the district attorney, Weiss, had told the Daily News there was absolutely no evidence to support the theory of a robbery attempt.

“Can’t depend on him,” said Reverend Bacon. “He’s like the bat. You know the fable of the bat? The birds and the beasts were having a war. As long as the birds were winning, the bat says he’s a bird, because he can fly. When the beasts were winning, the bat says he’s a beast, because he got teeth. That’s why the bat don’t come out in the daytime. Don’t nobody want to look at his two faces.”

Reverend Bacon listened for a bit, then said, “Yes, I do, Al. There’s a gentleman from the Episcopal diocese of New York with me right now. You want me to call you back?…Unh-hunh…Unh-hunh…You say his apartment’s worth three million dollars?” He shook his head. “I never hearda such a thing. I say it’s time Park Avenue heard the voice of the streets…Unh-hunh…I’ll call you back about that. I’ll talk to Annie Lamb before I call you. When you thinking about filing?…About the same, when I talked to her yesterday. He’s on the life-support system. He don’t say anything and don’t know anybody. When you think about that young man, there’s no amount can pay for it, is there?…Well, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

After he hung up, Reverend Bacon shook his head sadly, but then looked up with a gleam in his eye and just a trace of a smile. With an athletic quickness he rose from his chair and came around the desk with his hand out, as if Fiske had just announced he had to leave.

“Always good to see you!”

Reflexively, Fiske shook his hand, at the same time saying, “But, Reverend Bacon, we haven’t—”

“We’ll talk again. I got an awful lot to do—a demonstration right on Park Avenue, got to help Mr. Lamb file a hundred-million-dollar lawsuit against Sherman McCoy…”

“But, Reverend Bacon, I can’t leave without an answer. The diocese has really reached the end—that is, they insist that I—”

“You tell the diocese they’re doing fine. I told you last time, this is the best investment you people ever made. You tell ’em they’re taking an option. They’re buying the future at a discount. You tell ’em they’ll see what I mean very shortly, no time at all.” He put his arm about Fiske’s shoulder in a comradely fashion and hastened his exit, all the while saying, “Don’t worry about a thing. You’re doing fine, see. Doing fine. They’re gonna say, ‘That young man, he took a risk and hit the jackpot.’ ”

Utterly befuddled, Fiske was swept outside by a tide of optimism and the pressure of a strong arm across his back.

 

The noise of the bullhorn and the bellows of rage rose up ten stories from Park Avenue in the heat of June—ten stories!—nothing to it!—they can almost reach up!—until the bedlam below seemed to be part of the air he breathed. The bullhorn bellowed his name! The hard C in McCoy cut through the roar of the mob and soared up above the vast sprawl of hatred below. He edged over to the library window and risked looking down. Suppose they see me! The demonstrators had spilled out onto the street on both sides of the median strip and had brought traffic to a halt. The police were trying to drive them back onto the sidewalks. Three policemen were chasing another bunch, fifteen or twenty at least, through the yellow tulips on the median strip. As they ran, the demonstrators held a long banner aloft: WAKE UP, PARK AVENUE! YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM THE PEOPLE! The yellow tulips fell before them, and they left a gutter of crushed blossoms behind them, and the three policemen came pounding through the gutter. Sherman stared, horrified. The sight of the perfect yellow spring tulips of Park Avenue falling before the feet of the mob paralyzed him with fear. A television crew lumbered along out in the street, trying to catch up with them. The one carrying the camera on his shoulder stumbled, and down he went, crashing to the pavement, camera and all. The mob’s banners and placards bobbed and swayed like sails in a windy harbor. One enormous banner said, inexplicably, GAY FIST AGAINST CLASS JUSTICE. The two s’s in CLASS were swastikas. Another one—Christ! Sherman caught his breath. In gigantic letters it said:

Sherman McCoy:
We The Jury
Want You!

Then there was a crude approximation of a finger pointing straight at you, as in the old UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU posters. They seemed to be holding it at an angle, just so he could read it from up here. He fled the library and sat in the rear part of the living room in an armchair, one of Judy’s beloved Louis-Something bergères, or was it a fauteuil? Killian was pacing up and down, still crowing about the article in the Daily News, apparently to buck up his spirits, but Sherman was no longer listening. He could hear the deep ugly voice of one of the bodyguards, who was in the library answering the telephone. “Stick it up your face.” Every time one of the threats came in over the telephone, the bodyguard, a small swarthy man named Occhioni, said, “Stick it up your face.” The way he said it, it sounded worse than any of the classic vulgarities. How had they gotten his private number? Probably from the press—in the open cavity. They were here on Park Avenue at the door below. They were coming in over the telephone. How long before they burst in, into the entry gallery, and came screaming across that solemn green marble floor! The other bodyguard, McCarthy, was in the entry gallery, sitting in one of Judy’s beloved Thomas Hope armchairs, and what good would he be? Sherman sat back, his eyes cast downward, fixed upon the slender legs of a Sheraton Pembroke table, a hellishly expensive thing Judy had found in one of those antique shops on Fifty-seventh Street…hellishly expensive…hellishly…Mr. Occhioni, who said “Stick it up your face” to everyone who called threatening his life…$200 per eight-hour shift…another $200 for the impassive Mr. McCarthy…double that for the two bodyguards at his parents’ house on East Seventy-third, where Judy, Campbell, Bonita, and Miss Lyons were…$800 per eight-hour shift…all former New York City policemen from some agency Killian knew about…$2,400 a day…hemorrhaging money…McCOY!…McCOY!…a tremendous roar from the street below…And presently he wasn’t thinking about the Pembroke table or the bodyguards anymore…He was staring catatonically and wondering about the barrel. How big was it? He had used it so many times, most recently on the Leash Club hunt last fall, but he couldn’t remember how big it was! It was big, being a double-barrel 12-gauge. Was it too big to get in his mouth? No, it couldn’t be that big, but what would it feel like? What would it feel like, touching the roof of his mouth? What would it taste like? Would he have trouble breathing long enough to…to…How would he pull the trigger? Let’s see, he’d hold the barrel steady in his mouth with one hand, his left hand—but how long was the barrel? It was long…Could he reach the trigger with his right hand? Maybe not! His toe…He’d read somewhere about someone who took off his shoe and pressed the trigger with his toe…Where would he do it? The gun was at the house on Long Island…assuming he could get to Long Island, get out of this building, escape from besieged Park Avenue, get away alive from…WE THE JURY…The flower bed out beyond the tool house…Judy always called it the cutting bed…He’d sit down out there…If it made a mess, it wouldn’t matter…Suppose Campbell was the one who found him!…The thought didn’t reduce him to tears the way he thought it might…hoped it might…She wouldn’t be finding her father…He wasn’t her father anymore…wasn’t anything anyone had ever known as Sherman McCoy…He was only a cavity fast filling with hot vile hate…

The telephone rang in the library. Sherman braced. Stick it up your face? But all he heard was the rumble of Occhioni’s normal voice. Presently the little man stuck his head into the living room and said, “Hey, Mr. McCoy, it’s somebody named Sally Rawthrote. You wanna talk to her or not?”

Sally Rawthrote? She was the woman he had sat next to at the Bavardages’, the woman who had lost interest in him immediately and then froze him out for the rest of the dinner. Why would she want to talk to him now? Why should he want to talk to her at all? He didn’t, but a tiny spark of curiosity was lit within the cavity, and he stood up and looked at Killian and shrugged and went into the library and sat at his desk and picked up the telephone.

“Hello?”

“Sherman! Sally Rawthrote:” Sherman. Oldest friend in the world. “I hope this isn’t a bad time?”

A bad time? From below a tremendous roar welled up, and the bullhorn screamed and bellowed, and he heard his name. McCOY!…McCOY!

“Well, of course it’s a bad time,” said Sally Rawthrote. “What am I saying? But I just thought I’d take a chance and call and see if there’s any way I might help.”

Help? As she spoke, her face came back to him, that dreadful tense nearsighted face that focused about four and a half inches from the bridge of your nose.

“Well, thank you,” said Sherman.

“You know, I live just a few blocks down from you. Same side of the street.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’m on the northwest corner. If you’re going to live on Park, I think there’s nothing quite like the northwest corner. You get so much sun! Of course, where you are is nice, too. Your building’s got some of the most beautiful apartments in New York. I haven’t been in yours since the McLeods had it. They had it before the Kittredges. Anyway, from my bedroom, which is on the corner, I can look right down Park to where you are. I’m looking down there right now, and that mob—it’s absolutely outrageous! I feel so badly for you and Judy—I just had to call and see if there’s anything I can do. I hope I’m not being out of place?”

“No, you’re very kind. By the way, how did you get my number?”

“I called Inez Bavardage. Was that all right?”

“To tell you the truth, it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference at this point, Mrs. Rawthrote.”

“Sally.”

“Anyway, thank you.”

“As I say, if I can be of any help, let me know. With the apartment, is what I mean.”

“With the apartment?”

Another rumble…a roar…MCCOY! MCCOY!

“If you should decide you want to do anything with the apartment. I’m with Benning Sturtevant, as you probably know, and I know that often in situations like this people sometimes find it advantageous to become as liquid as they can. Hah hah, I could stand a bit of that myself! Anyway, it’s a consideration, and I assure you—assure you—I can get you three and a half for your apartment. Just like that. I can guarantee it.”

The woman’s gall was astounding. It was beyond good and bad form, beyond…taste…It was astounding. It made Sherman smile, and he didn’t think he could smile.

“Well, well, well, well, Sally. I do admire foresightedness. You looked out your northwest window and you saw an apartment for sale.”

“Not at all! I just thought—”

“Well, you’re just one step too late, Sally. You’ll have to talk to a man named Albert Vogel.”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s the lawyer for Henry Lamb. He’s filed a hundred-million-dollar lawsuit against me, and I’m not sure if I’m free to sell a rug at this point. Well, maybe I could sell a rug. You want to sell a rug for me?”

“Hah hah, no. Rugs I don’t know anything about. I don’t see how they can freeze your assets. That seems totally unfair. I mean, you were the victim, after all, weren’t you? I read the story in the Daily News today. Ordinarily I only read Bess Hill and Bill Hatcher, but I was turning the pages—and there was your picture. I said, ‘My God, it’s Sherman!’ So I read the story—and you were only avoiding a robbery attempt. It’s so unfair!” She chattered on. She was fireproof. She couldn’t be mocked.

After hanging up, Sherman returned to the living room.

Killian said, “Who was that?”

Sherman said, “A real-estate broker I met at dinner. She wanted to sell my apartment for me.”

“She say how much she could get you?”

“Three and a half million dollars.”

“Well, let’s see,” said Killian. “If she gets her 6 percent commission, that’s…ummmm…$210,000. That’s worth sounding stone-cold opportunistic over, I guess. But I’ll say one thing for her.”

“What’s that?”

“She made you smile. So she ain’t all bad.”

Another roar, the loudest yet…MCCOY!…MCCOY!…The two of them stood in the middle of the living room and listened for a moment.

“Jesus, Tommy,” said Sherman. It was the first time he had called him by his first name, but he didn’t stop to think about that. “I can’t believe I’m standing here and all this is happening. I’m holed up in my apartment and Park Avenue is occupied by a mob waiting to kill me. Kill me!”

“Awwwwww, f’r Chrissake, that’s the last thing they wanna do. You ain’t worth a goddamned thing to Bacon dead, and he thinks you’re gonna be worth a lot to him alive.”

“To Bacon? What does he get out of it?”

“Millions is what he thinks he’s gonna get out of it. I can’t prove it, but I say this whole thing is over the civil suits.”

“But Henry Lamb is the one who’s suing. Or his mother, I guess it is, in his behalf. How does Bacon get anything out of it?”

“All right.” Awright. “Who is the lawyer representing Henry Lamb? Albert Vogel. And how does Henry Lamb’s mother get to Albert Vogel? Because she admired his brilliant defense of the Utica Four and the Waxahachie Eight in 1969? Fuhgedaboudit. Bacon steers her to Vogel, because the two a them are tight. Whatever the Lambs get in a lawsuit, Vogel gets at least a third a that, and you can be sure he splits that with Bacon, or he’s gonna have a mob coming after him that means business. One thing in this world I know from A to Z, and that’s lawyers and where their money comes from and where it goes.”

“But Bacon had his campaign going about Henry Lamb before he even knew I was involved.”

“Oh, at the beginning they were just going after the hospital, on the grounds of malpractice. They were gonna sue the city. If Bacon could get it built up into a big deal in the press, then a jury might give ’em what they wanted. A jury in a civil case…with a racial angle? They had a good shot.”

“So the same goes for me,” said Sherman.

“I won’t try to kid you. That’s very true. But if you beat the felony case, then there’s no civil case.”

“And if I don’t win the felony case, I won’t care about the civil case,” said Sherman, looking very glum.

“Well, you gotta admit one thing,” said Killian in a cheer-up voice, “this thing has made you a giant on Wall Street. One freakin’ giant, bro. Juh see what Flannagan called you in the Daily News? ‘Pierce & Pierce’s fabled chief bond salesman.’ Fabled. A legend in your own time. You’re the son of ‘the aristocratic John Campbell McCoy,’ former head of Dunning Sponget & Leach. You’re the fabled investment banking genius aristocrat. Bacon probably thinks you got half the money in the world.”

“If you want to know the truth,” said Sherman, “I don’t even know where I’m gonna get the money to pay…” He motioned toward the library, where Occhioni was. “This civil suit mentions everything. They’re even after the quarterly share of profits I was supposed to get at the end of this month. I can’t imagine how they knew about it. They even referred to it by the in-company name, which is the ‘Pie B.’ They’d have to know someone at Pierce & Pierce.”

“Pierce & Pierce’ll look after you, won’t they?”

“Hah. I don’t exist at Pierce & Pierce anymore. There’s no such thing as loyalty on Wall Street. Maybe there once was—my father always talked as if there was—but there isn’t now. I’ve gotten one telephone call from Pierce & Pierce, and that wasn’t from Lopwitz. It was from Arnold Parch. He wanted to know if there was anything they could do, and then he couldn’t get off the telephone fast enough, for fear I’d think of something. Although I don’t know why I single out Pierce & Pierce. Our own friends have all been the same way. My wife can’t even make play dates for our daughter. She’s six years old…”

He stopped. He suddenly felt uncomfortable parading his personal woes before Killian. Goddamned Garland Reed and his wife! They wouldn’t even let Campbell come play with MacKenzie! Some utterly lame excuse…Garland hadn’t even called once, and he’d known him all his life. At least Rawlie had had the guts to call. He’d called three times. He’d probably even have the guts to come see him…if WE THE JURY ever vacated Park Avenue…Maybe he would…

“It’s damned sobering, how fast it goes when it goes,” he said to Killian. He didn’t want to say this much, but he couldn’t help himself. “All these ties you have, all these people you went to school with and to college, the people who are in your clubs, the people you go out to dinner with—it’s all a thread, Tommy, all these ties that make up your life, and when it breaks…that’s it!…That’s it…I feel so sorry for my daughter, my little girl. She’ll mourn me, she’ll mourn her daddy, the daddy she remembers, without knowing he’s already dead.”

“What the hell you talking about?” said Killian.

“You’ve never been through anything like this. I don’t doubt you’ve seen a lot of it, but you’ve never been through it. I can’t explain the feeling. All I can tell you is that I’m already dead, or the Sherman McCoy of the McCoy family and Yale and Park Avenue and Wall Street is dead. Your self—I don’t know how to explain it, but if, God forbid, anything like this ever happens to you, you’ll know what I mean. Your self…is other people, all the people you’re tied to, and it’s only a thread.”

“Ayyyyy, Sherman,” said Killian. “Gimme a break. It don’t do any good to philosophize in the middle of a war.”

“Some war.”

“F’r Chrissake, whaddaya whaddaya? This story in the Daily News is very important for you. Weiss must be going crazy. We’ve blown the cover on this lowlife smokehead he’s got for a witness. Auburn. Now we’ve got another theory out there for the whole business. Now there’s a basis for people to support you. We’ve gotten across the idea that you were the intended victim of a setup, a robbery. That changes the whole picture for you, and we haven’t compromised you in the slightest.”

“It’s too late.”

“Whaddaya mean, too late? Give it a little time, f’r Chrissake. This guy Flannagan at the News will play as long as we wanna play. The Brit, Fallow, at The City Light, been beating his brains out with this story. So he’ll take whatever I give him. This fucking story he just wrote couldn’ta come out any better if I dictated it to him. He not only identifies Auburn, he uses the mug shot Quigley got!” Killian was hugely delighted. “And he got in the fact that two weeks ago Weiss was calling Auburn the Crack King of Evergreen Avenue.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It don’t look good. If you got a guy in jail on a major felony and he suddenly comes forward to give evidence in return for dropping the charge or knocking it down, it don’t look good. It don’t look good to a jury, and it don’t look good to the press. If he’s in on a misdemeanor or an E felony or something, it don’t make so much difference, because the presumption is, it don’t matter that much to him, the time he’s facing.”

Sherman said, “One thing I’ve always wondered about, Tommy. Why did Auburn, when he made up his story—why did he have me driving the car? Why not Maria, who was actually driving the car when Lamb got hit? What difference did it make to Auburn?”

“He had to do it that way. He didn’t know what witnesses might have seen your car just before Lamb got hit and just after he got hit, and he has to have some explanation for why you were driving up to the point where the thing happened and she was the one who drove away from there. If he says you stopped, and then you and her changed places and she drove off and hit Lamb, then the logical question is ‘Why did they stop?’ and the logical answer is ‘Because some lowlife like Roland Auburn put up a barricade and tried to take them off.’ ”

“What’s his name?—Flannagan—doesn’t get into any of that.”

“That’s right. You’ll notice I didn’t give him anything about a woman being in the car one way or the other. When the time comes, we want Maria on our side. You’ll also notice that Flannagan wrote the whole fucking story without even making any big deal about the ‘mystery woman.’”

“Very obliging fellow. Why is that?”

“Oh, I know the guy. He’s another Donkey, same as me, just trying to make his way in America. He makes his deposits in the Favor Bank. America is a wonderful country.”

For a moment Sherman’s spirits rose a calibration or two, but then they sank lower than ever. It was Killian’s obvious elation that did it. Killian was crowing over his strategic genius in “the war.” He had conducted a successful sortie of some kind. To Killian this was a game. If he won, terrific. If he lost…well, on to the next war. For him, Sherman, there was nothing to be won. He had already lost almost everything, irretrievably. At best, he could only keep from losing all.

The telephone rang in the library. Sherman braced once more, but soon Occhioni was at the doorway again.

“It’s some guy named Pollard Browning, Mr. McCoy.”

“Who’s he?” asked Killian.

“He lives here in the building. He’s the president of the co-op board.”

He went into the library and picked up the telephone. From the street below, another roar, more bellowing on the bullhorn…McCOY!…McCOY!…No doubt it was just as audible chez Browning. He could imagine what Pollard thought.

But his voice was friendly enough. “How you bearing up, Sherman?”

“Oh, all right, Pollard, I suppose.”

“I’d like to drop up and see you, if that wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.”

“You’re home?” asked Sherman.

“Just got here. It wasn’t easy, getting into the building, but I made it. Would that be all right?”

“Sure. Come on up.”

“I’ll just walk on up the fire stairs, if that’s okay. Eddie’s got his hands full down at the front door. I don’t know if he can even hear the buzzer.”

“I’ll meet you back there.”

He told Killian he was going back to the kitchen to let Browning in.

“Ayyyy,” said Killian. “See? They haven’t forgotten you.”

“We’ll see,” said Sherman. “You’re about to meet Wall Street in its pure form.”

Back in the big silent kitchen, with the door open, Sherman could hear Pollard clanging up the metal treads of the fire stairs. Soon he came into view, puffing, from his climb of all of two flights, but impeccable. Pollard was the sort of plump forty-year-old who looks tonier than any athlete the same age. His smooth jowls welled up from out of a white shirt of a lustrous Sea Island cotton. A beautifully made gray worsted suit lay upon every square inch of his buttery body without a ripple. He wore a navy tie with the Yacht Club insignia and a pair of black shoes so well cut they made his feet look tiny. He was as sleek as a beaver.

Sherman led him out of the kitchen and into the entry gallery, where the Irishman, McCarthy, sat in the Thomas Hope chair. The door to the library was open and Occhioni was plainly visible in there.

“Bodyguards,” Sherman felt compelled to say to Pollard, in a low voice. “I bet you never thought you’d know anybody who had bodyguards.”

“One of my clients—you know Cleve Joyner of United Carborundum?”

“I don’t know him.”

“He’s had bodyguards for six or seven years now. Go with him everywhere.”

In the living room, Pollard gave Killian’s fancy clothes a quick once-over, and a pained, pinched look came over his face. Pollard said, “How do you do?” which came out as “Howja do?” and Killian said, “How are you?” which came out as “Hehwaya?” Pollard’s nostrils twitched slightly, the same way Sherman’s father’s had when he mentioned the name Dershkin, Bellavita, Fishbein & Schlossel.

Sherman and Pollard sat down in one of the clusters of furniture Judy had arranged in order to fill up the vast room. Killian went off into the library to talk to Occhioni.

“Well, Sherman,” said Pollard, “I’ve been in touch with all the members of the executive committee, except for Jack Morrissey, and I want you to know you have our support, and we’ll do anything we can. I know this must be a terrible situation for you and Judy and Campbell.” He shook his smooth round head.

“Well, thank you, Pollard. It hasn’t been too terrific.”

“Now, I’ve been in touch with the inspector at the Nineteenth Precinct myself, and they’ll provide protection for the front door, so that we can get in and out, but he says he can’t keep the demonstrators away from the building altogether. I thought they could make them stay back five hundred feet, but he maintains they can’t do that. I think it’s outrageous, frankly. That bunch of…” Sherman could see Pollard ransacking his smooth round head for some courtly way to express a racial epithet. He abandoned the effort: “…that mob.” He shook his head a great deal more.

“It’s a political football, Pollard. I’m a political football. That’s what you’ve got living up over your head.” Sherman tried a smile. Against all his better instincts, he wanted Pollard to like him and sympathize with him. “I hope you read the Daily News today, Pollard.”

“No, I hardly ever see the Daily News. I did read the Times.”

“Well, read the story in the Daily News, if you can. It’s the first piece that gives any idea of what’s really going on.”

Pollard shook his head more woefully still. “The press is as bad as the demonstrators, Sherman. They’re downright abusive. They waylay you. They waylay anybody who tries to come in here. I had to walk a goddamned gauntlet just now to get in my own building. And then they were all over my driver! They’re insolent! They’re a bunch of filthy little wogs.” Wogs? “And of course the police won’t do anything about it. It’s as if you’re fair game just because you’re fortunate enough to be living in a building like this.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry about everything, Pollard.”

“Well, unfortunately…” He dropped that. “There’s never been anything like this on Park Avenue, Sherman. I mean, a demonstration aimed at Park Avenue as a residential area. It’s intolerable. It’s as if because this is Park Avenue, we’re denied the sanctity of our homes. And our building is the focus of it.”

Sherman experienced a neural alert as to what might be coming, but he couldn’t be sure. He began shaking his head in time with Pollard’s, to show his heart was in the right place.

Pollard said, “Apparently they intend to come here every day or stay around the clock, until—until I don’t know what.” His head was really going now.

Sherman picked up the tempo of his own head. “Who told you that?”

“Eddie.”

“Eddie, the doorman?”

“Yes. Also Tony, who was on duty until Eddie came on at four. He told Eddie the same thing.”

“I can’t believe they’ll do that, Pollard.”

“Until today you couldn’t have believed a bunch of—that they’d hold a demonstration in front of our building on Park Avenue, could you? I mean, there you are.”

“That’s true.”

“Sherman, we’ve been friends a long time. We went to Buckley together. That was an innocent era, wasn’t it?” He smiled a small brittle smile. “My father knew your father. So I’m talking to you as an old friend who wants to do what he can for you. But I’m also president of the board for all the tenants of the building, and I have a responsibility to them that has to take precedence over my personal preferences.”

Sherman could feel his face getting hot. “Which means what, Pollard?”

“Well, just this. I can’t imagine this is in any way a comfortable situation for you, being held virtual prisoner in this building. Have you considered…changing residence? Until things quiet down a bit?”

“Oh, I’ve thought about it. Judy and Campbell and our housekeeper and the nanny are staying over at my parents’ now. Frankly, I’m already terrified that those bastards out there are going to find out and go over there and do something, and a town house is completely exposed. I’ve thought about going out to Long Island, but you’ve seen our house. It’s wide open. French doors everywhere. It wouldn’t keep a chipmunk out. I’ve thought of a hotel, but there’s no such thing as security in a hotel. I’ve thought of staying at the Leash, but that’s a town house, too. Pollard, I’m getting death threats. Death threats. There’ve been at least a dozen calls today.”

Pollard’s little eyes swiveled swiftly about the room, as if They might be coming in the windows. “Well, frankly…all the more reason, Sherman.”

“Reason for what?”

“Well, that you should consider…making some arrangements. You know, it’s not just yourself who is at risk. Everyone in this building is at risk, Sherman. I realize it’s not your fault, not directly, certainly, but that doesn’t alter the facts.”

Sherman knew his face was blazing red. “Alter the facts! The facts are that my life is being threatened, and this is the most secure place available to me, and it also happens to be my home, if I may remind you of that fact.”

“Well, let me remind you—and again, I’m only doing this because I have a higher responsibility—let me remind you that you have a home here because you are a shareholder in a cooperative residential venture. It’s called a cooperative for a reason, and certain obligations, on your part and the board’s part, proceed from the contract you executed when you purchased your shares. There’s no way I can alter those facts.”

“I’m at the most critical juncture in my life—and you’re spouting contract law?”

“Sherman…” Pollard cast his eyes down and threw his hands up, most sadly. “I have to think not only of you and your family but of thirteen other families in this building. And we’re not asking you to do anything of a permanent nature.”

We! We the Jury—inside the walls!

“Well, why don’t you move out, Pollard, if you’re so fucking terrified? Why don’t you and the entire executive committee move out? I’m sure your shining example will inspire the others, and they’ll move out, and no one will be at risk in your beloved building except the damnable McCoys, who created all the problems in the first place, right!”

Occhioni and Killian were peering in from the doorway to the library, and McCarthy was looking in from out in the entry gallery. But he couldn’t rein himself in.

“Sherman—”

“Move…out? Have you any idea what a pompous preposterous jerk you are? Coming in here, scared to death, and telling me the board in its wisdom deems it proper for me to…move out?”

“Sherman, I know you’re excited—”

“Move…out? The only one who’s moving out, Pollard, is you! You’re moving out of this apartment—right now! And you’re going out the way you came—out the kitchen door!” He pointed a ramrod arm and forefinger in the direction of the kitchen.

“Sherman, I came up here in good faith.”

“Awwwwww, Pollard…You were a ridiculous fat blowhard at Buckley and you’re a ridiculous fat blowhard now. I’ve got enough on my mind without your good faith. Goodbye, Pollard.” He took him by the elbow and tried to turn him toward the kitchen.

“Don’t you put a hand on me!”

Sherman took his hand away. Seething: “Then get out.”

“Sherman, you’re not leaving us any choice but to enforce the provision concerning Unacceptable Situations.”

The ramrod pointed to the kitchen and said softly: “March, Pollard. If I hear one more word from you between here and those fire stairs, there’s gonna be an unacceptable situation sure enough.”

Pollard’s head seemed to swell up apoplectically. Then he turned and strode rapidly through the entry gallery and into the kitchen. Sherman followed him, as noisily as he could.

When Pollard reached the sanctuary of the fire stairs, he turned and, furious, said: “Just remember, Sherman. You called the tune.”

“ ‘Called the tune.’ Terrific. You’re a real phrasemaker, Pollard!” He slammed the kitchen’s old metal fire door.

Almost immediately he regretted the whole thing. As he walked back to the living room, his heart was beating violently. He was trembling. The three men, Killian, Occhioni, and McCarthy, were standing about with a mime-show nonchalance.

Sherman made himself smile, just to show everything was all right.

“Friend a yours?” said Killian.

“Yes, an old friend. I went to school with him. He wants to throw me out of the building.”

“Fat chance,” said Killian. “We can fucking tie him up in knots for the next ten years.”

“You know, I have a confession to make,” said Sherman. He made himself smile again. “Until that sonofabitch came up here, I was thinking of blowing my brains out. Now I wouldn’t dream of it. That would solve all his problems, and he’d dine out on it for a month and be damned sanctimonious while he was at it. He’d tell everybody how we grew up together, and he’d shake that big round bubble head of his. I think I’ll invite those bastards”—he motioned toward the streets—“on up here and let ’em dance the mazurka right over his big bubble head.”

“Ayyyyyy,” said Killian. “That’s better. Now you’re turning fucking Irish. The Irish been living the last twelve hundred years on dreams of revenge. Now you’re talking, bro.”

Another roar rose from Park Avenue in the heat of June…McCOY!…McCOY!…McCOY!