The Thomas Berryman Number

As he came down the hill, Thomas Berryman smelled fish frying. Once again he noticed the black Marlboro cowboy.

He buttoned his green shirt and tightened the green and red Christmas tie. He waited until he got to the pink house itself before he slipped into the green Bond’s suitjacket.

Dressed the way he was, Thomas Berryman looked like a character out of James T. Cain.

Bert Poole answered the door wearing only blue-jeans and green wool socks.

He didn’t have a chest or stomach, just a straight plumb-line drop from his chin to his toes. His belly button was protruding like a small wart.

Loud music was coming from inside the apartment.

“I’m Marion Walker,” Berryman said. “Sorry to have to bother you on a holiday. I’m with the Cain-Sloan Department Stores.”

He handed Poole one of the business cards he’d been collecting around Nashville. It said

Marion A. Walker,

Cain-Sloan Co.

Bert Poole looked troubled and confused at first, then he started to smile.

“Damn,” he spoke in a soft, polite hippie’s voice, “they don’t even let you guys rest on a holiday, do they?”

Berryman shook his head. “No sir, they don’t. They been tryin to reach you all over the place I guess. People at home more on the holidays. That’s how the F.B.I. catches deserters, I heard.”

Poole started to look past Berryman into the street. Three little black kids passed the house on Easy Rider bikes. “Well, you got me,” Poole said. “I guess you want your record player and your chair?”

“Don’t know anything about a record player,” Berryman said—he’d only seen a bill for a chair when he’d visited the apartment. “I’m afraid you do owe us on a Naugahyde recliner though. Brown Naugahyde. You never did make a payment on that one.”

Bert Poole started to laugh. He crouched forward holding his bare arms, rubbing them up and down. “You’re taking that chair right now?” he managed.

Berryman scratched at the front of his short haircut. He shook his head.

“I don’t personally pick up any furniture,” he said. “Our men would like to pick it up today though.”

Bert Poole suddenly turned serious again. “Today’s out,” he said.

Berryman squinted distrustfully. “What’s the matter with today? You’re here, aren’t you?”

“I work for Mayor Horn,” Poole quickly said. “I can give you the chair right now. Either that, or you have to wait … I’m working with Mayor Horn from one-thirty until I don’t know what time today. That’s how come I’ve been too busy to pay. I really have the money.” Poole started to come apart before Berryman’s eyes.

Berryman started scratching his head again. The one thing he didn’t want to do was spook the young hippie. He smiled.

“Well, just fuck’m,” he said to Poole. “They can wait ‘til tomorrow for their chair. Fuck’m …” Berryman shook his head as though he was embarrassed. “I’m just sorry to have to bother you like this … on a holiday.”

“Well, I’m sorry you had … I’m sorry I made you come out here,” Bert Poole’s soft hippie voice returned. He was smiling now too. “It’s your holiday, too, isn’t it? Don’t forget about that.”

The two men shook hands on the porch and Berryman noticed the time. It was 11:45. Poole was going to be out of the house by one-thirty. It was getting very, very close, Berryman thought. It was all going to fall into place just about right.

Horn’s staff was trying to be careful. Conscientious and smart.

Right after his speech, they hustled the popular mayor out of Dudley Stadium like an unpopular Saturday afternoon football referee. A gray limousine was waiting, and the air conditioner had it ice cold. Big sweaty men pressed inside the car like sides of beef. Eight of them.

The mayor’s speech had gone extremely well; Santo Massimino had delivered on nearly all of his arrogance; but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the conversation.

Horn had been pushed in back between his advanceman Potty Lynch, an alderman, and a black secret service man named Ozzie. The mayor was squirming.

“What is … uh … going on here?” he kept projecting his soft voice into the front. He was clearly agitated by the unexpected state troopers at Dudley Field. Also by the state Cadillac. And by Ozzie. “Where’s the parade convertible?” he asked, “and what is going on?”

The chauffeur carefully guided the big car through the quiet stadium back lots. The limousine passed through rows of orange school buses. Through spotless alleyways. Under brick arches and hanging vines. The car glittered everywhere.

“No more convertibles.” Jap Quarry smiled at his friend’s question. “Parade’s over, baby.”

“They don’t make convertibles in Detroit anymore,” the alderman said.

Santo Massimino, New Yorker masquerading as Californian, was studying the windshield like it was an important map.

At that point, the chauffeur took two wheels of the Cadillac

bang-thud

over a hump of sidewalk.

Everyone thought

gunshot.

All eight men were disconnected for a minute.