The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike Read online

Taken aback, he stared at her. He could think of nothing to say. “What do you mean?” he said finally. “When did you call him? Why didn’t you discuss it with me first?”

  She shrugged. “You were driving in to work.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said the lines shouldn’t be doing this at this time. It’s a terribly bad sign. He’s coming over tomorrow morning as soon as possible to look at it. We may need a hundred more feet of line.” On her face, now, was a faint, mocking smile.

  “If you called him,” he said, having trouble speaking, “why did you ask me if it was serious? If you already knew? And how much did he quote? Or did you bother to ask?”

  “It runs about two dollars a foot,” Sherry said.

  After a moment he said, “Two hundred dollars, then.”

  “It’s a lot,” she said. “But I think it’ll probably have to be done, from what Arbarth said.” She seemed perfectly composed.

  As steadily as possible he said, “We—haven’t got two hundred dollars to spend on leach lines.”

  “I discussed that frankly with Arbarth. We can pay in four payments. Assuming we go ahead. But I also called Flores. I believe we should get as many estimates as possible.”

  “You should have discussed it with me,” he said thickly. “You should have told me and then I would have called Arbarth; it’s up to me, not you. I’m not going to shell out that much money—I’ll hire some high school kids from around there and get the pipe from Grandi’s and the gravel from over in Tocaloma—I’ll rent a dump truck!”

  “Arbarth said,” his wife said, “that probably it’s giving trouble because it wasn’t done right in the first place. It has to be done right.” Glancing at her watch she abruptly turned and hurried off. He caught a glimpse of Dolly Fergesson standing in the hall; she, too, was dressed up. Both of them anticipating the all-day shopping, the restaurant.

  As he stood staring after her, Quinn came up beside him, carrying his drawing. “I can’t see what she means,” he said, holding the drawing up, frowning.

  “Got your goat, did she?” Dombrosio said. “Don’t let her get you down—she’s a frustrated amateur painter. You know how they are. Housewives with nothing to do all day—they get bored.” But then, in a flash, he felt guilty at saying anything against his wife. “She’s got a lot on the ball,” he murmured. “You should see some of her stuff. She had an exhibit once at one of those supper houses down in Sausalito.” She could really have had a career, he thought. “But she decided to get married,” he said. “Instead. Like a lot of women.”

  Still in a daze, he returned to his desk; seating himself, he prepared to resume work. Two hundred dollars…

  He found himself unable to work for quite some time.

  At five-thirty that afternoon he stood in the cold garage, gazing up at his red Alfa Romeo on the rack.

  What if this costs a lot? he asked himself. In addition to the leach lines. The mechanic had gone off; he had not had a chance to tell Dombrosio what the Alfa had had done to it, or what it still needed.

  What if Charley can’t get it done by six? he asked himself. He wandered across the plank floor, hands in his pockets. Good god, suppose there’s some part he has to order? How’m I going to handle all this? How am I even going to get back home?

  This was not the first time that he had stood here in this empty cold barn, at the end of the working day, shivering and staring at his car, wondering how much it would cost—and then hoping only to get it back, forgetting the cost and merely praying that it would be back on the road.

  From the washroom the mechanic appeared, the tall, lean Negro who had worked on Dombrosio’s cars for so many years. Wordlessly, Dombrosio gazed at him.

  “It’s done,” Chuck Halpin said.

  Inside him, Dombrosio felt the burden slide away. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “That’s fine. What did you find?”

  “Nothing but dirty points,” Chuck said, drying his hands on a rag. He knelt down by the jack and began lowering the car to the floor.

  “I sure count on you,” Dombrosio said.

  Chuck said, “Someday I’ll give you a set of torsion wrenches and you can go into business for yourself.” But he was clearly pleased to hear Dombrosio say that. “I always get your car ready for you,” he said. “Almost always, anyhow.”

  Another mechanic came over. He said, “Charley had to drive to South San Francisco to get your points for you.” He indicated the ’49 Cadillac which Chuck Halpin owned; it was parked on the upramp, in gear. “He just got back a little while ago,” the other mechanic said.

  Chuck Halpin said, “We could have had them ship the points by jitney, but they probably wouldn’t have got here until tomorrow.” As Dombrosio started to speak, he interrupted, “It’s on the bill; don’t worry.” With his pencil he began making out the bill.

  After a moment Dombrosio said, “Listen. I want you to do me a favor. Okay?”

  Chuck Halpin regarded him.

  “How about coming out to the house for dinner?” Dombrosio said. A rush of emotion in him made him go on. “I’ll drive you both ways. You can drive the Alfa, if you want. Remember the last time I was in? You said something about wanting to take it out for a spin, sometime.”

  Slowly, Halpin said, “I’ve driven it.”

  “Around the block, maybe.”

  Halpin scratched aimlessly with his pencil. “What would your wife say? You’re married, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll call her,” he answered. Going past Halpin he opened the door to the garage’s office. “Okay? Is it a deal?”

  Halpin, in a low voice, said, “If—you’re sure it’s okay.”

  “Fine,” Dombrosio said. Closing the door after him, he sat down at the phone, lifted the receiver, and dialed.

  Of course Sherry was not home, yet; she was on her way back with Dolly. But that did not matter. At least, it did not matter to him at this moment. In fact, in the back of his mind, he relished her surprise. Too bad, he thought, if she doesn’t like it. She can lump it. Do her good, he thought. Should learn to handle social situations like this. The proper hostess ought to be able to meet anybody socially.

  As he came out of the office, Halpin stood deep in thought. He now raised his head and said, “Listen, Walt. Are there any Negroes out in that town where you live?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. But he did know. There were none.

  Halpin said, “I don’t want to lower property values.” He smiled, and Dombrosio smiled back. “Of course, it’s dark,” he said. “We won’t get there until after dark.”

  Dombrosio slapped him on the back; he felt the slim back wince under his hand. “You got to not be sensitive,” he said. “All that stuff, it’s in the past. I mean, look at ball clubs, for instance; look at the Giants, with Willy Mays and that new first baseman, and Sam Jones, and the rest.”

  The mechanic did not ask if Dombrosio had got hold of his wife; apparently he assumed that he had. Now he began removing his work uniform, getting ready to leave the garage. His movements were retarded and fumbling; it took him a long time to get the buttons of his uniform undone. Dombrosio went over and sat patiently in the Alfa, waiting.

  3

  From the kitchen drifted a sound that Leo Runcible knew well. A pan on the burner, unattended, had begun to go dry. Soon the contents would boil off and the expensive steel pan with its copper bottom, part of a set, would be ruined. Janet had already ruined the new tea kettle; she had the habit of filling it, turning the knob to high, and then going into the bathroom and taking a long meditative bath, during which she read a book. Sometimes she drove down to town and shopped, leaving a pan of eggs hard-boiling on the stove; and once she had even left the electric oven, mounted in the wall, on broil. He had got home to find the house filled with the reek of burning wood; the wall itself had begun to char.

  He set down his newspaper. Where had his wife gone? A tinkle. She was fixing a drink. Getting up, he walked through the living room and l
ooked into the dining room. There, at the sideboard, she was deeply intent on the mixing of sugar and water and bitters. From where he stood he could tell that the Old Fashioned would be too sweet; grains of sugar coated the inside of the glass. Without saying anything to her he continued on into the kitchen.

  There, a small sauce pan bubbled; a layer of paste in the very bottom puffed like lava, showing the blackened bottom of the pan. Yes, the burner had been left at high. He took the pan off. The coils glowed a dangerous red, and he shut the burner off. Other pots and pans had been pushed from the burners, covered; the table was set, and evidently dinner was ready. As usual, Janet wanted one more drink before they sat down to eat. She would delay dinner, not telling him that it was ready, so that she could drink a little more. And if he said anything to her, told her how hungry he was, she would simply bring the drink to the table and have it with her meal. Instead of coffee or water.

  “What’s this sauce?” he said, re-entering the dining room.

  “That’s for the cauliflower,” Janet said. Now she poured from the bottle of Cyrus Noble, the cheap bourbon that she brought home from the market. She smiled at him. “I’m making that cheese sauce that you like.” On the sideboard, in the puddle from the ice cubes, lay the open cook book which Janet used.

  The house stirred with things done wrong and not done at all. For instance, he could hear the hose running outdoors; she had left it, forgotten it. The wastebasket in the living room brimmed over with the envelopes of bills; she hadn’t emptied it in a whole week. What did she do during the day? Played Scrabble with her several friends, no doubt; he had found the Scrabble board still on the coffee table when he had got home at five.

  “Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

  “If you—” She seemed to have trouble thinking. “Maybe cut me some cheese.” She passed him on her way back into the kitchen. The sight of the sauce pan pulled from the burner did not interest her; she gave no sign of recognizing that he had removed it for her. “Are you anxious to eat right away?” she said.

  “The Wilbys are coming over,” he said.

  “Had you told me?”

  He did not answer. Standing in the kitchen, he looked here and there for something to do, some way to speed things up. But at the same time he did not want to put pressure on her.

  If he did, if he made her tense, she would become even more inefficient. She would break things. And when she tried to clean up the mess, the broken glass and ooze, she would become cross; without any warning her nervousness would switch over and become resentment at him. All at once she would accuse him of picking on her. And from then on she would refuse to do anything; she might even throw down the broom or the rag, whatever she held, go to the closet, put on her coat, and leave the house. If it was after dark she would invariably drive off. And so he would find himself in a littered kitchen with the meal half done, his wife gone, the job left for him to do. He would have to do it all.

  But what constituted pressure on her? When she had had a couple of drinks her perception became vague; she might fall to calling anything “pressure.” She might mistake the actual words said, or put totally unintended meanings on them. Even now, his standing here in the kitchen: suppose he shut off this burner or put that one on? He had taken the sauce off; even that might do it. He could not tell how much she had drunk, and that was important.

  Now, reflecting on this, he felt irritable himself. He felt ill-used. Why did he have to pussyfoot about in his own home? Especially when people of some consequence were coming? By rights, he should be thinking about his old friends, the Wilbys; he should not have to fritter his attention away on this problem, this perennial sensitivity of his wife when she had had something to drink.

  “What are you so quiet about?” Janet said, from behind him.

  “I want to make this a nice evening for Paul and Phyllis,” he answered. “A nice relaxed evening where we can sit and talk, and not have any friction. I don’t want you going off on any of your long rambling accounts about whatever happens to enter your mind at the moment.”

  She said, with no apparent ill-humor, “Dear, you don’t get it. When I’ve had something to drink—” She smiled at him, standing over by the doorway, and, it seemed to him, swaying slightly. “All the material is there, but I can’t seem quite to organize it.”

  “Well, you better organize it tonight,” he said. “I’m tired, and it’s a long drive out here for Paul.” He added, “And as you know, if things go okay, eventually I hope they’ll be moving out here.”

  His wife opened her eyes wide. “Really?”

  “I told you that. I told you they were interested in the McGuffey house.” He lapsed into silence, turning back to the stove and fretting at the knobs.

  His wife came slowly towards him. “I won’t mess things up,” she said, in a soft, intense voice. “I know how much it would mean to you.” He saw that her eyes shone wetly, and her hand, touching his shoulder, trembled. Nothing like a sentimental drunk, he thought. To be your burden in life.

  “Let’s just get dinner,” he said. “Okay?”

  Later, after they had eaten and were clearing the table, she asked if she could excuse herself as soon as the Wilbys came. She wanted to go lie down in the bedroom and either read or watch TV. Everything was prepared; she had water boiling for coffee, she had her wool robe, her glasses, her cigarettes, her lighter, ashtray, the heat in the bedroom was on, she had the box of Kleenex, and of course her book. It had come yesterday from their book club.

  He said, “They drive all the way out here from Tiberon, and you go to bed and read. Don’t you grasp how completely you’ve failed to give me the support I need? How can I do my work?”

  At that she blanched. Once, for half a year, she had worked down at the office, doing typing, answering the phone, giving out keys to clients. She had saved him the cost of a secretary. But the strain had been too much; at nights she had not slept, and it was during this period that her drinking had first got out of hand. Before that she had drunk as he did: only socially, with perhaps a martini or two before dinner, an Old Fashioned afterwards, and of course more at parties. But in the last year or so she had begun drinking alone, while he was at work. When he came home at six, he usually found her well on the way. The responsibility of helping him at his work had been too much for her, but he could not make out why. He had never asked anything more than minor office help from her, the paperwork, the phoning. In no sense had she had responsibilities. But even in the giving out of the keys she had become apprehensive. As if she was convinced that she would do something wrong.

  Perhaps, too, she did not want to help him; he felt that all along. She resented being asked to contribute her time and help, but she did not recognize it consciously. On the surface she thought she wanted to help him. And yet she did not help him. He reasoned, if she really wanted to, then why couldn’t she? There had to be a reason why she fouled everything up. Incompetence in an intelligent person did not make sense unless there was motive. He saw motive, there. The desire to thwart him, possibly out of sense of jealousy. She resented his drive and ability. Or, like most women, she resented men in general. The whole masculine world, in which she had no part.

  And if she did have no part, whose fault was that? Who kept her from accomplishing anything? Suppose she was no more than a housewife and mother. When she was offered a chance to participate, she shrank back; she muffed it. Here, he thought, is an example; she can’t even go through the motions of social politeness and stay up on her feet to greet Paul and Phyllis. Old friends and possible clients, too.

  He said, “God damn it—you know what it would mean to me if they located here.”

  “Yes,” she said readily. “You’d finally have somebody you could talk to. You wouldn’t be so lonely.”

  “I’m not lonely,” he said.

  “You and Paul could talk about boats.”

  Paul Wilby had for years been an amateur sailor. He owned a star class sailing boat, a
nd entered it in races. In fact Runcible had met him at the Carquinez Yacht Club. But that was not it. He did not need to import anyone to discuss boats; this whole area was full of people who owned sloops and skiffs and yawls. Beach property, little summer and weekend cabins, littered the shore. The grocery store sold fishing licenses, bait and tackle. The post office put up notices of quarantined mussels. Even the local cars had hitches for pulling boat trailers.

  “The hell with boats,” he said.

  For years Paul Wilby had been a successful contractor in Southern Marin County. He had worked with some of the top architects in the area, built fine forty thousand dollar homes up in the hills, and, in addition, he had got in with the subdividers. A number of the tracts along Highway 101 had been put together by his firm.

  “I want to go into business with Paul,” Runcible said. “There’s lots of cheap land around here, still, but it’s in big hunks. Two and three hundred acres.” All the smaller lots had been sold off. And no subdividers had come in, yet. None had crossed the mountain. Sooner or later it would happen; the well-to-do ranchers who had land to sell would make their deals. Right now, he knew, old Bob Hanson had begun nosing around for a buyer for his Bear Mesa Ranch. In fact Hanson had bulldozed out ten or twenty acres of reasonably flat land along both sides of a county-maintained road, in order to attract subdividers. During the day the sound of the ’dozer could be heard in town, and everybody who cared had already figured out what was up.

  Hanson’s land, however, was not cheap. He seemed to want in the neighborhood of six hundred an acre. So that meant his buyer would need roughly twenty thousand dollars cash in hand. That was a lot of glue, and that covered only buying the land; in order to subdivide, the buyer had—according to county law—to put in roads. And that cost a fortune. And that still left the actual building undone; roads had to go in simply to break up the parcel of land into, say, hundred by sixty lots. Each lot had to be accessible by road, and a good deal of the land was hilly. The buyer, to make anything, had to have his own machines; if he hired the job out, he would probably lose. It might take years to sell off a hundred acres in the form of lots. And to attract people it would be necessary to provide a model home and an account of building costs. But now take Jancuzzi’s property, for instance…