Or pleasantly delighted. As a salesman, Carney knew better than to make assumptions about a stranger’s tastes. He tried not to speculate what the objects were used for, or where. They hinted at a domain beyond the missionary, off his map. He removed Duke’s shoes as Zippo worried over his lenses and camera, and Laura plotted the order of events.
“Where’s that from?” Zippo asked. “I saw something like it in Crispus Catalog.”
“It’s from France,” Miss Laura said.
Pop. The flashbulb’s combustion was an unsettling crunch, the sound of a monster splintering bones. Miss Laura and Zippo’s mundane conversation—Hold his head up, Can you lift that leg—maddened Carney. Was this his normal world now? He pressed the lump under his eye until it hurt.
Pop. Carney traced the line between the Dumas reception early in the summer and this evening of lewd payback. The petty thieves, drunk burglars, and nutjob criminals he’d transacted with since he started selling the odd TV and gently used lamp were no preparation for his ragtag crew tonight. Is this what revenge looked like, the grotesque choreography underway in Miss Laura’s pad? Did it feel like revenge? It did not feel like revenge to him.
Zippo said, “He’s actually very photogenic.”
Pop. Miss Laura’s skin glowed. Now, she was what revenge looked like: fierce and full of purpose, alien to mercy. Humiliation: that’s the word Elizabeth had used to describe Carney’s Dumas rejection. Duke could do what he wanted because he held the money. Foreclose on your property, sit on your business loan, take your envelope and tell you to go fuck yourself.
Pop. That’s how the whole damn country worked, but they had to change the pitch for the Harlem market, and that’s how Duke came to be. The little man was the white system hidden behind a black mask. Humiliation was his currency, but tonight Miss Laura had picked his pocket.
“What I really want to get into,” Zippo said, “is movies.”
Carney ducked out after ten minutes and hung around in the hallway. When Zippo called him inside, the banker was asleep under blue satin sheets, the armoire shut and latched. Miss Laura had changed into blue jeans and a dark blue gingham shirt. A big red suitcase lay at her feet. Cheap Brucie had introduced her to Duke. When the banker woke, he’d complain to management. She surveyed the apartment and said, “This shit is done.”
Zippo finished packing his equipment. “I’ll make some nice, pretty prints,” he said. “And then bring them to the guy at the newspaper.”
“We’ll start there. See what happens.”
“And leave him up here like that?” Zippo asked.
Miss Laura made a dismissive noise.
“He can sleep it off like we discussed,” Carney said. “Sometimes you wake up and sleep has taken you to the darndest places.”
Zippo jetted off once the trio hit the street, rounding the corner to 142nd, softly crooning. “My truck’s over there,” Carney said. He reached for the suitcase but Miss Laura rebuffed him. She dropped it in the truck bed and clambered into the passenger seat.
Carney started up the truck and gave one last look at the apartment, at the window with curtains wide. Damn. We should have put a little Napoleon hat on him.
EIGHT
It was a warm, resplendent Saturday afternoon in September. Elizabeth’s plan was to fetch Carney at the store around noon and for the four of them to head to Riverside Park for a picnic. Unleash the kids upon the Claremont Playground. It’d be nice to do something together on a weekend for a change. “You’re the boss. The store will be okay.”
Carney checked his eye in the office bathroom. It was looking better. Good enough for the picture. When he came out the delivery men were ready for him to sign for the safe.
“Built to last, that one,” the foreman said.
“Outlast us, anyway,” Carney said.
The Hermann Bros. safe resembled a piece of military ordnance, lethal in its black imperturbability. He spun the five-spoke handle; it flowed like water. The shelves inside were bare, but if he wanted to get the walnut drawers lined with something soft, there was no shortage of places on 125th that would oblige.
It was in the perfect spot, describing a triangle with the Collins-Hathaway sofa and sling-back chair. Unlike those two, the Hermann was not going to be upgraded every year. It took weeks of searching until he found the dealer in Missouri who had two in the corner of his warehouse. Made the Ellsworth look like a pygmy. He gave the delivery guys a few bucks to take the old safe with them.