The rat on fire

19

Wilfrid Mack stood up as Leo Proctor came out of Fein’s private office at a measured pace, nodded at Lois Reynolds and left.

“I hate to be a nuisance about this,” Mack said, after Proctor had shut the door, “but I am in sort of a hurry. Can I see Mister Fein now?”

“If you’re in a reckless mood,” she said. “Want to chance it?” She grinned.

“Difficult client?” he said.

“Not a bit,” she said. “Mister Fein likes seeing him almost as much as I’d enjoy finding a big spider in my bed.”

“I’ll take a shot at it,” he said, grinning back.

Fein was irritable but composed when Mack entered his office. He stood and they shook hands.

“Counsellor,” Mack said, “I know your problems. I’ve got the same kind myself.”

“I doubt it,” Fein said.

“Oh, yeah,” Mack said. “I only spend part of my time in the Senate. The rest I spend dealing with difficult clients. I hope you come out of the wringer better’n I usually do. Must be awful, dealing with those show-biz types. All I have to do is get young punks out of jail on car-theft charges, after they’ve stolen police cruisers. What’s that guy do, anyway, wrassle alligators?”

“He is an alligator,” Fein said. “Son of a bitch. No, he’s sort of a general-purpose roustabout that I got to know years ago, and if I’d’ve known what I was getting to know, I wouldn’t’ve got to know him. What can I do for you?”

“I don’t know as you remember me,” Mack said. “We met at a dinner, some time ago, and I thought maybe we could talk.”

They both sat down. “Senator,” Fein said, “I don’t doubt we met at a dinner. I have met half the world at dinners. If what we are going to talk about is dinners, the answer is: No, we probably can’t talk. I’ve been to so many dinners that cost at least a hundred a plate that I am almost busted out, and the thing of it is, I never get anything to eat. The chicken population is about a third of what it was when I started going to dinners, and I think I saw some feathers starting to grow on my wife Pauline and me, but I just can’t afford this kind of high living. Not any more. What is it this time, the NAACP?”

Mack laughed. “Nothing to do with organising,” he said. “The reason I’m here, I’m not looking for a contribution or anything like that. I represent the Bristol Road neighbourhood, and I’ve been getting a lot of heat from some people who live in those buildings.”

“Who’ve been telling you that I don’t give them any heat,” Fein said.

“Look, Mister Fein,” Mack said, “hear me out, okay? Believe me, I don’t want to make your life more difficult. It’s just that these people came to me and I said that I would come and see you. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that these are my constituents and I have to listen to them.”

“You ever tell them anything?” Fein said.

“I told them that I’d see you, and see if we could reach some sort of understanding,” Mack said.

“Well,” Fein said, “let’s try. Let’s try to do that, reach some understanding. And if we can do it, my friend, I will be a lot happier man.

“The first thing,” Fein said, “is that I would like your constituents that are my tenants to stop tearing the copper piping out of the walls and selling it to junkmen. I would appreciate that. It plays hell with the plumbing when your constituents tear the pipes out. You got no idea how hard it is to get water around a building where the pipes’ve been ripped out and sold for scrap.”

“These people complain that the premises suffer from rodent infestation,” Mack said.

“And they do,” Fein said. “I don’t doubt that for a minute. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that had something to do with the habit your constituents have of throwing the garbage in the yard. You think that might have something to do with it?”

“Perhaps if there were adequate facilities for disposal,” Mack said.

“Mister Mack,” Fein said, “those buildings are rent-controlled. I am allowed to charge one hundred and thirty-five dollars a month for five rooms. The buildings are not tax-controlled, and they are not controlled in the cost of heat in the winter. I have provided the best disposal system I can afford, which is barrels. No, that’s wrong – I can’t even afford the barrels. I can’t put in chutes – those buildings’re over a hundred years old. I’d have to rip the place to shreds. And if I did it, I couldn’t afford to install the incinerator. I can’t put in sink units – your constituents rip the pipes out, and those pipes’re necessary to conduct the water. All they have to do is bag the garbage and cart it downstairs and put it in the barrel and put the cover on the barrel and tie the cover down. But they won’t do it.”

“Oh,” Mack said.

“And there is another thing they will not do,” Fein said, “which is one of the reasons that I cannot accomplish a lot of the things that they would like me to do, and that is this: your constituents will not pay their rent.” Fein came out of the chair and started waving his arms. He was not quite screaming, but he was close.

“Senator,” he said, “they refuse to pay their fucking rent. They want me to run the fucking Ritz Carlton for them, at a hundred thirty-five a month, and when they find out that I cannot run the fucking Ritz for them for that money, they get mad at me. So they do not even pay me the hundred thirty-five. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? Am I running a goddamned seamen’s mission over there? Is that what the goddamned hell I am doing?

“I tell you, Senator,” he said, “I can’t afford it. I didn’t know that was what I was going to be doing, when I bought into that real estate. I thought I was going to be renting apartments to people who would be pleased to get an apartment. I thought maybe they would not go around knocking holes in the walls and throwing garbage in the yard, and stuff like that. You want to know from exterminators? I ought to adopt one. I get the rats out. The rats come right back, and I don’t blame them. Any rat that would stay around some other building, when he could stay around my building, is nuts. No self-respecting rat would go anywhere else. ‘You got any sense, Rat, go over Bristol Road and eat like you were a king. Just bug out when you see the exterminator truck. Then come right back.’

“Which,” Fein said, “is exactly what the fuckers do. Because your constituents, who do not pay the rent, throw the garbage out in the yard.”

“The woman who asked me to talk to you,” Mack said, “is Mavis Davis.”

“Mavis is different,” Fein said immediately. “Mavis is a hardworking woman. What I said don’t apply to her. She was living in that building when I bought it, and I have never had any trouble whatsoever with her. I wished I had a hundred like her. Her fuckin’ kid I could do without.”

“Alfred,” Mack said.

“I don’t know what his name is,” Fein said. “I met him once and I was completely satisfied. He is a nasty little prick which the world would be better off without.”

“I don’t think I want to comment on that,” Mack said. “Do you believe you could do something for your tenants that would maybe get them off my back? I hate to impose.”

“Like what?” Fein said.

“If you could just get rid of the rats,” Mack said.

“As a personal favour,” Fein said, “as a personal favour, I will do my best.”