“You’re back again where you’re wanted and needed, darling.” Mrs. Levy spoke as if she were comforting a child. “And how you’ve been missed. Every day Mr. Gonzalez has been on the phone begging for you. Isn’t it wonderful to know that you’re so vital to a business?”

“I thought I was retired.” The massive teeth snapped like a bear trap. “You people have tricked me!”

“Now are you happy?” Mr. Levy asked his wife. He was walking behind them carrying one of Miss Trixie’s bags of scraps. “If she had a knife on her, I’d be taking you to the hospital right now.”

“Listen to the fire in her voice,” Mrs. Levy said. “So vigorous. It’s unbelievable.”

Miss Trixie tried to break away from Mrs. Levy as they entered the office, but her pumps did not give her the traction that she was used to with sneakers, and she only wobbled.

“She’s back?” Mr. Gonzalez cried heartbrokenly.

“Can you believe your eyes?” Mrs. Levy asked him.

Mr. Gonzalez was forced to look at Miss Trixie, whose eyes were weak pools edged with blue shadow. Her lips had been extended in an orange line that almost reached her nostrils. Near the earrings a few gray wisps of hair escaped from beneath the black wig, which was slightly awry. The short skirt revealed withered, bowed legs and small feet that made the pumps look like snowshoes. Whole days of napping under a sunlamp had baked Miss Trixie to a golden brown.

“She certainly looks fit,” Mr. Gonzalez said. His voice was false and he smiled a broken smile. “You’ve done her a wonderful service, Mrs. Levy.”

“I am a very attractive woman,” Miss Trixie babbled.

Mr. Gonzalez laughed nervously.

“Now listen here,” Mrs. Levy said to him. “Part of this woman’s trouble is that kind of attitude. Ridicule she doesn’t need.”

Mr. Gonzalez tried unsuccessfully to kiss Mrs. Levy’s hand.

“I want you to make her feel wanted, Gonzalez. This woman still has a sharp mind. Give her work that will exercise those faculties of hers. Give her more authority. She desperately needs an active role in this business.”

“Definitely,” Mr. Gonzalez agreed. “I’ve said that myself all along. Haven’t I, Miss Trixie.”

“Who?” Miss Trixie snarled.

“I’ve always wanted you to assume more responsibility and authority,” the office manager screamed. “Isn’t that correct?”

“Oh, shut up, Gomez.” Miss Trixie’s teeth clattered like castanets. “Have you bought me that Easter ham yet? Answer me that.”

“All right. You’ve had your fun. Let’s go,” Mr. Levy said to his wife. “Come on. I’m getting depressed.”

“Just a moment,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “I have some mail for you.”

As the office manager went to his desk to get the mail, there was a crash in the rear of the office. Everyone, aside from Miss Trixie who had begun napping on her desk, turned around and looked in the filing department. There an extremely tall man with long black hair was picking up a file drawer that had fallen to the floor. He stuffed the filing roughly back into the drawer and slammed the drawer into its slot in the files.

“That’s Mr. Zalatimo,” Mr. Gonzalez whispered. “He’s only been with us for a few days, and I don’t think he’s going to work out. I don’t think we’ll want to include him in the Levy Pants plan.”

Mr. Zalatimo looked confusedly at the filing cabinets and scratched himself. Then he opened another drawer and fumbled through its contents with one hand while the other scratched at his armpit through his threadbare knitted shirt.

“Would you care to meet him?” the office manager asked.

“No thanks,” Mr. Levy said. “Where do you find the people that work in this place, Gonzalez? I never see people like this anywhere else.”

“He looks like a gangster to me,” Mrs. Levy said. “You don’t keep any cash around here, do you?”

“I think Mr. Zalatimo’s honest,” the office manager whispered. “He only has trouble alphabetizing.” He handed Mr. Levy a sheaf of mail. “These are mostly confirmations on your hotel reservations for spring practice. There’s a letter in there from Abelman. It’s addressed to you and not the company, and it’s marked personal, so I thought you’d better open it. It’s been around for a few days.”

“What does that crack want now?” Mr. Levy said angrily.

“Maybe he wonders what happened to a brilliant, growing concern,” Mrs. Levy observed. “Maybe he wonders what happened since Leon Levy died. Maybe this Abelman has some words of advice to a playboy. Read it, Gus. It will be your work for Levy Pants for the week.”

Mr. Levy looked at the envelope, on which “personal” had been written three times in red ball-point. He opened it and found a letter on which some attachment had been stapled.

Mr. Levy turned cold as he flipped the page and read the Thermofaxed copy of the letter to Abelman’s. It was incredible. Who would go to the trouble of writing things like that? “Mr. I. Abelman, Mongoloid, Esq.”; “your total lack of contact with reality”; “your blighted worldview”; “you may feel the sting of the lash across your pitiful shoulders.” Worst of all, the “Gus Levy” signature looked fairly authentic. Abelman must be kissing the original right now and smacking his lips. To somebody like Abelman that letter was like a savings bond, a blank draft on a bank.

“Who wrote this?” Mr. Levy demanded, giving the letter to Mr. Gonzalez.

“What is it, Gus? A problem? Are you having a problem? That’s one of your problems. You never tell me your problems.”

“Oh, my goodness!” Mr. Gonzalez squeaked. “This is horrible.”

“Silence!” Miss Trixie snapped.

“What is it, Gus? Something you didn’t handle correctly? Some authority you delegated to somebody else?”

“Yes, it’s a problem. It’s a problem that means we could lose the shirts off our backs.”

“What?” Mrs. Levy grabbed the letters from Mr. Gonzalez. She read them and became a hag. Her lacquered curls turned into snakes. “Now you’ve done it. Anything to get back at your father, to ruin his business. I knew it was going to end like this.”

“Oh, shut up. I never write the letters around here.”

“Susan and Sandra will have to quit college. They’ll be selling themselves to sailors and gangsters like that one there.”

“Huh?” Mr. Zalatimo asked, sensing that he was being discussed.

“You’re sick,” Mrs. Levy shouted at her husband.

“Quiet!”

“And will I be any better off?” Mrs. Levy’s aquamarine lids were trembling. “What will become of me? Already my life has been wrecked. What happens to me now? Prowling in garbage cans, following the fleet. My mother was right.”

“Quiet!” Miss Trixie demanded, this time much more fiercely. “You people are the noisiest I’ve ever met.”

Mrs. Levy had collapsed in a chair, sobbing something about going out to sell Avon products.

“What do you know about this, Gonzalez?” Mr. Levy asked the office manager whose lips had turned white.

“I don’t know a thing,” Mr. Gonzalez piped. “It’s the first time I’ve seen that letter.”

“You write the correspondence around here.”

“I didn’t write that.” His lips were quivering. “I wouldn’t do something like that to Levy Pants!”