Commonwealth(33)

He shook his head. “Don’t be slippery. I asked you a question.”

“I’ve never been to Iowa City.”

He took another sip to see if his drink had improved now that he had a cigarette, and obviously it had. “It’s not the kind of place you go unless you have specific business there. If you grow corn or trade in pigs or write poetry then you go to Iowa City.”

“That’s why I haven’t been.”

He nodded. “The bars are full of students. It wouldn’t be my choice to drink in a bar full of students, but that isn’t the real problem.” He stopped there. He was waiting for her. Leo Posen liked a straight man.

“What’s the real problem?”

“It turns out the ice in the drinks contains a certain amount of herbicides—herbicides, pesticides, and what I think must be liquid fertilizer. You can taste it. It’s not just the ice in the bars, of course, it’s in all the water, all the water that doesn’t come from France in bottles. I’ve heard it actually gets much worse in the spring when the snow starts to melt. There’s a higher concentration. You can taste it on your toothbrush.”

She nodded. “So you come to Chicago to have a drink because the ice in Iowa has agricultural chemicals in it.”

“That and the students.”

“You’re teaching there?”

He took a casual pull off his cigarette. “One semester. It was a mistake I made. It sounded like a lot of money at the time but nothing’s a lot of money when you weigh it out against the costs. Nobody sits you down and explains the situation with the water before you sign the contract.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to make ice at home? Use the water from France. You can brush your teeth with it, too.”

“In theory, yes, but there’s no good way to implement it. Either you have to carry your ice bucket with you to the bar or you have to drink at home by yourself, which I don’t do.”

“So come to Chicago and have a couple of drinks,” Franny said, because she was glad he was there, she didn’t care about his reason. “It’s good to get away.”

“Now you’re seeing it,” he said, slapping the bar with his open hand. “Cedar Rapids doesn’t solve the problem.”

“Des Moines doesn’t solve the problem.”

“You’re shorter again.”

“You told me to take my shoes off.”

“Are you saying that I told you to take your shoes off and you did it?”

“I’d rather have them off.”

He shook his head, though whether to marvel or despair she didn’t know, then he crushed what was left of his cigarette into the small glass ashtray. “Did you ever want to be a writer?”

“No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.”

He patted the top of her hand, which she had left close by on the bar in case he needed it. “I appreciate that. I’ve come a long way so that I could have a drink and not be anywhere near another writer.”

“Can I get you another drink?”

“You’re a great girl, Franny.”

The problem, and it was one she took seriously, was that Franny didn’t know how long Leo Posen had been sitting at the bar before she saw him, how long Heinrich had been doing his job before she took his job away. Because while Leo Posen appeared to be perfectly sober, she would bet that he seemed that way regardless of how much he had drunk. Some men were like that. They went from sober to more or less dead without intermediate steps. “Are you staying here at the hotel?” she asked, her voice gone small.

He tilted his head ever so slightly and waited, his face full of benevolence.

Franny shook her head. “It’s only because if you were to get in your car and run someone down on your way back to Iowa tonight I might have to go to jail.”

“You’d go to jail? That hardly seems fair.”

“Dram shop civil liability, state of Illinois.” She held up her hand to demonstrate seriousness.

“‘Dram shop’?”

“They should update the name.”

“Are the other dispensers of dram aware of this?”

Only the ones who had dropped out of law school, she wanted to say, but nodded instead.

“Well, not to worry. I only have to get to the elevator.”

Franny brought back the bottle of scotch. “What happens in the elevator is your own business.” Just then the lights came down two settings. Heinrich always shut down the night too abruptly, turning the lights so low so fast that it felt like a straight fall into darkness. Every time it happened she had a split second of wondering if something small and important had ruptured inside her head.

“It’s a sign,” Leo Posen said, looking up at the ceiling. “Make it a double.”

After bringing out a larger glass to hold twice the scotch, Franny stepped into her shoes and went to settle up with her two tables. She felt sheepish about asking them for money when she had abandoned them so long ago, but neither table seemed to hold it against her. One gave her a credit card and the two businessmen handed her a mysteriously large amount of cash and then pulled on their coats to leave. When she came back to the bar, Heinrich was putting plastic wrap over the stainless-steel garnish bins, tucking the maraschino cherries into the refrigerator for the night.