Hearts in Atlantis(145)

'All right,'' he says, closing the door to the storage room. 'Lookin good, trooper.'

He goes back to the closet for the red jacket, which is the reversible type, and the boxy case. He slips the jacket over his desk chair for the time being and puts the case on the desk. He unlatches it and swings the top up on sturdy hinges; now it looks a little like the cases street salesmen use to display their knock-off watches and questionable gold chains. There are only a few items in Willie's, one of them broken down into two pieces so it will fit. There is a sign. There is a pair of gloves, the kind you wear in cold weather, and a third glove which he used to wear when it was warm. He takes out the pair (he will want them today, no doubt about that), and then the sign on its length of stout cord. The cord has been knotted through holes in the cardboard at either side, so Willie can hang the sign around his neck. He closes the case again, not bothering to latch it, and puts the sign on top of it - the desk is so cluttery, it's the only good surface he has to work on.

Humming (we chased our pleasures here, dug our treasures there), he opens the wide drawer above the kneehole, paws past the pencils and Chap Sticks and paperclips and memo pads, and finally finds his stapler. He then unrolls the ball of tinsel, placing it carefully around the rectangle of his sign. He snips off the extra and staples the shiny stuff firmly into place. He holds it up for a moment, first assessing the effect, then admiring it.

'Perfect!' he says.

The telephone rings and he stiffens, turning to look at it with eyes which are suddenly very small and hard and totally alert. One ring. Two. Three. On the fourth, the machine kicks in, answering in his voice - the version of it that goes with this office, anyway.

'Hi, you've reached Midtown Heating and Cooling,' Willie Shearman says. 'No one can take your call right now, so leave a message at the beep.'

Bee-eep.

He listens tensely, standing over his just-decorated sign with his hands balled into fists.

'Hi, this is Ed, from the Nynex Yellow Pages,' the voice from the machine says, and Willie lets out a breath he hasn't known he was holding. His hands begin to loosen. 'Please have your company rep call me at 1-800-555-1000 for information on how you can increase your ad space in both versions of the Yellow Pages, and at the same time save big money on your yearly bill. Happy holidays to all! Thanks.'

Click.

Willie looks at the answering machine a moment longer, almost as if he expects it to speak again - to threaten him, perhaps to accuse him of all the crimes of which he accuses himself - but nothing happens.

'Squared away,' he murmurs, putting the decorated sign back into the case. This time when he closes it, he latches it. Across the front is a bumper sticker, its message flanked by small American flags, I WAS PROUD TO SERVE, it reads.

'Squared away, baby, you better believe it.'

He leaves the office, closing the door with MIDTOWN HEATING AND COOLING printed on the frosted-glass panel behind him, and turning all three of the locks.

9:45 A.M.

Halfway down the hall, he sees Ralph Williamson, one of the tubby accountants from Garowicz Financial Planning (all the accountants at Garowicz are tubby, from what Willie has been able to observe). There's a key chained to an old wooden paddle in one of Ralph's pink hands, and from this Willie deduces that he is looking at an accountant in need of a wee. Key on a paddle! If a f**kin key on a f**kin paddle won't make you remember the joys of parochial school, remember all those hairy-chin nuns and all those knuckle-whacking wooden rulers, then nothing will, he thinks. And you know what? Ralph Williamson probably likes having that key on a. paddle, just like he likes having a soap on a rope in the shape of a bunny rabbit or a circus clown hanging from the HOT faucet in his shower at home. And so what if he does? Judge not, lest ye be f**kin judged.

'Hey, Ralphie, what's doin?'

Ralph turns, sees Willie, brightens. 'Hey, hi, merry Christmas!'

Willie grins at the look in Ralph's eyes. Tubby little f**ker worships him, and why not? Ralph is looking at a guy so squared away it hurts. Gotta like it, sweetheart, gotta like that.

'Same to you, bro.' He holds out his hand (now gloved, so he doesn't have to worry about it being too white, not matching his face), palm up. 'Gimme five!'

Smiling shyly, Ralph does.

'Gimme ten!'

Ralph turns his pink, pudgy hand over and allows Willie to slap it.

'So goddam good I gotta do it again!' Willie exclaims, and gives Ralph five more. 'Got your Christmas shopping done, Ralphie?'

'Almost,' Ralph says, grinning and jingling the bathroom key. 'Yes, almost. How about you, Willie?'

Willie tips him a wink. 'Oh, you know how it is, brother-man; I got two-three women, and I just let each of em buy me a little keepsake.'

Ralph's admiring smile suggests he does not, in fact, know how it is, but rather wishes he did. 'Got a service call?'

'A whole day's worth. 'Tis the season, you know.'

'Seems like it's always the season for you. Business must be good. You're hardly ever in your office.'

'That's why God gave us answering machines, Ralphie. You better go on, now, or you're gonna be dealin with a wet spot on your best gabardine slacks.'

Laughing (blushing a little, too), Ralph heads for the men's room.

Willie goes on down to the elevators, carrying his case in hand and checking to make sure his glasses are still in his jacket pocket with the other. They are. The envelope is in there, too, thick and crackling with twenty-dollar bills. Fifteen of them. It's time for a little visit from Officer Wheelock; Willie expected him yesterday. Maybe he won't show until tomorrow, but Willie is betting on today . . . not that he likes it. He knows it's the way of the world, you have to grease the wheels if you want your wagon to roll, but he still has a resentment. There are lots of days when he thinks about how pleasant it would be to put a bullet in Jasper Wheelock's head. It was the way things happened in the green, sometimes. The way things had to happen. That thing with Malenfant, for instance. That crazy motherf*cker, him with his pimples and his deck of cards.