God Save the Mark

ONE Friday the nineteenth of May was a full day. In the morning I bought a counterfeit sweepstakes ticket from a one-armed man in a barbershop on West 23rd Street, and in the evening I got a phone call at home from a lawyer saying I'd just inherited three hundred seventeen thousand dollars from my Uncle Matt. I'd never heard of Uncle Matt. As soon as the lawyer hung up I called my friend Reilly of the Bunco Squad at his house in Queens. "It's me," I said. "Fred Fitch." Reilly sighed and said, "What have they done to you this time, Fred?" "Two things," I said. "One this morning and one just now." "Better watch yourself, then. My grandma always said troubles come in threes." "Oh, my Lord," I said. "Clifford!" "What's that?" "I'll call you back," I said. "I think the third one already came." I hung up and went downstairs and rang Mr. Grant's bell. He came to the door with a large white napkin tucked under his chin and holding a small fork upright in his hand, a tiny curled shrimp impaled on it. Which was a case of sweets to the sweet, Mr. Grant being a meek curled-shrimp of a man himself, balding, given to spectacles with steel rims, employed as a history teacher at some high school over in Brooklyn. We met at the mailboxes every month or so and exchanged anonymities, but other than that our social contact was nil. I said, "Excuse me, Mr. Grant, I know it's dinnertime, but do you have a new roommate named Clifford?" He blanched. Fork and shrimp drooped on his hand. He blinked very slowly. Knowing it was hopeless, I went on anyway, saying, "Pleasant-looking sort, about my age, crewcut, white shirt open at the collar, tie loose, dark slacks." Over the years I've grown rather adept at giving succinct descriptions, unfortunately. I would have gone on and given estimates of Clifford's height and weight but I doubted they were needed. They weren't. Shrimp at half-mast, Mr. Grant said to me, "I thought he wasyourroommate." "He said there was a COD package," I said. Mr. Grant nodded miserably. "Me, too." "He didn't have enough cash in the apartment." "He'd already borrowed some from Wilkins on the second floor." I nodded. "Had a fistful of crumpled bills in his left hand." Mr. Grant swallowed bile. "I gave him fifteen dollars." I swallowed bile. "I gave him twenty." Mr. Grant looked at his shrimp as though wondering who'd put it on his fork. "I suppose," he said slowly, "I suppose we ought to..." His voice trailed off. "Let's go talk to Wilkins," I said. "All right," he said, and sighed, and came out to the hall, shutting the door carefully after himself. We went on up to the second floor. This block of West 19th Street consisted almost entirely of three- and four-story buildings with floor-through apartments sporting fireplaces, back gardens, and high ceilings, and how the entire block had so far missed the wrecker's sledge I had no idea. In our building, Mr. Grant had the first floor, a retired Air Force officer named Wilkins had the second, and I lived up top on the third. We all three were bachelors, quiet and sedentary, and not given to disturbingly loud noises. Of us, I was at thirty-one the youngest and Wilkins was much the oldest. When Mr. Grant and I reached Wilkins&Westlake, Donald E. is the author of 'God Save the Mark ' with ISBN 9780765309198 and ISBN 076530919X.