I Come as a Theif by Louis Auchincloss

guess."
    "I'm sure I don't know."
    After a pause, Jerry Lassatta's voice was the least bit flatter. "Guess."
    "Jerry, I've got a client waiting. Can I call you back?"
    "Are you kidding?"
    "No, seriously. It's a client I might get some money out of."
    "See that you do. I'll call back in an hour."
    When he hung up, Max was so frightened that he thought that he was going to vomit. Then he struck out wildly with his fists as if his fear were an antagonist that could be pushed away. He had to jump up when Miss Jordan came suddenly into the room with the mid-morning mail.
    "Get out!" he shouted.
    "Well! I certainly will!" she retorted. She would probably leave now. He didn't care. He didn't even mind alienating and losing a perfect secretary. He slammed his door after her and locked it.
    Fear nullified life, stripped out the lining and the color, made love and laughter mockeries. He remembered reading of a crewman in a bomber who had tried to jump from the plane under antiaircraft fire because he preferred death to the fear of death. How he understood that now. It had never occurred to him, when he had started borrowing from Jerry Lassatta, that he would ever be treated as the debtors of loan sharks are treated. He was too grand. Lassatta was too grand. For Lassatta, he had known from the start, was far more than the president of a truckers' local. That was only a front. Lassatta, whom he had met while canvassing labor leaders for Tony, was a power in the underworld, in the Mafia...
    "Guess," Lassatta had said.
    Would ugly, bullet-headed men be seen lurking about the house in Vernon Manor? Would Elaine be troubled with odd telephone calls, with strangers in the street who addressed her with unbecoming familiarity and asked her how "Maxy" was? Would he be tripped up at night and beaten to pulp? Would he be flung in the East River, his feet in a cement box? No, no, probably not—it was all too ridiculous—but how would he ever feel safe again, and what was life worth under the hair shirt of this hideous fear? Maybe he would be safe in Tony's apartment, with Tony. In Tony's arms. What an image! But now he was crazy, crazy with fear! Tony, of course, did not know what fear was. Fear might not exist in the presence of the fearless. Oh, why had Max been born such a miserable thing as a man, a man whom a boy had to grow into or die, a man who had to be always doing something or feeling something—or not feeling something, not feeling fear? Why could he not have been a girl, a pretty girl like Elaine, or like Lee, and turn from a terrible world into the wide, dark, enfolding embrace of Tony Lowder?
    Tony, Tony, save me!
    Miss Jordan's pouting voice sounded on the telephone. "That man's on the wire again."
    "Yes, Jerry?" he said into the instrument. "Can't you even give me an hour?"
    "I'm at Canal Street. Meet me at Gridley's Bar. Don't sweat. I've got a proposition."
    Half an hour later, from the doorway of the dark bar and grill, Max spotted Lassatta across the room. The latter did not seem to be watching for anyone. Indifferent, impassive, oddly gentle looking, he smoked a cigarette and stared straight ahead. He still looked the friendly soul he had once seemed, short and stout with round, bland face, stubby, curly black hair and eyes that were humorous when they were not suddenly opaque, remote. Jerry could talk on any topic in the world, but he talked like a man from Mars, not really concerned. He could be amused, cynical; he could be occasionally funny, but he never seemed to regard the subject—be it war, peace, prosperity, depression—as having anything essential to do with him, Jerry Lassatta, or with reality. Max closed his eyes and prayed for the Jerry he had first known.
    Then he walked across the room and sat down at the table. Jerry smiled.
    "Hi, pal," he said. "What'll you drink?"

6
    Tony had been silent for ten minutes, standing by the window in Max's office, looking down at the long, gray, slug-like bus