“Vinnie, Vinnie, don’t be blind. They’re sugar-coating the pill. Sure you’re making eleven-five this year and next year when you pick up the other theaters, they’ll buck you up to maybe fourteen thousand. And there you’ll be twelve years from now, when you can’t buy a lousy Coke for thirty cents. Gofer that new carpeting, gofer that consignment of theater seats, gofer those reels of film that got sent across town by mistake. Do you want to be doing that shit when you’re forty, Vinnie, with nothing to look forward to but a gold watch?”

“Better than what you’re doing.” Vinnie turned away abruptly, almost bumping Santa, who said something that sounded suspiciously like watch where the fuck you’re going.

He went after Vinnie. Something about the set expression on Vinnie’s face convinced him he was getting through, despite the defensive emplacements. God, God, he thought. Let it be.

“Leave me alone, Bart. Get lost.

“Get out of it,” he repeated. “If you wait even until next summer it may be too late. Jobs are going to be tighter than a virgin’s chastity belt if this energy crisis goes into high gear, Vinnie. This may be your last chance. It-”

Vinnie wheeled around. “I’m telling you for the last time, Bart.”

“You’re flushing your future right down the john, Vinnie. Life’s too short for that. What are you going to tell your daughter when-”

Vinnie punched him in the eye. A bolt of white pain flashed up into his head and he staggered backward, arms flying out. The kids who had been following Santa scattered as his packages-dolls, GI Joe, chess set-went flying. He hit a rack of toy telephones, which sprayed across the floor. Somewhere a little girl screamed like a hurt animal and he thought Don’t cry, darling, it’s just dumb old George falling down, I do it frequently around the house these days and someone else jolly old Santa, maybe-was cursing and yelling for the store detective. Then he was on the floor amid the toy telephones, which all came equipped with battery-powered tape loops, and one of them was saying over and over in his ear: “Do you want to go to the circus? Do you want to go to the circus? Do you…”

The shrilling of the telephone brought him out of a thin, uneasy afternoon sleep. He had been dreaming that a young scientist had discovered that, by changing the atomic composition of peanuts just a little, America could produce unlimited quantities of low-polluting gasoline. It seemed to make everything all right, personally and nationally, and the tone of the dream was one of burgeoning jubilation. The phone was a sinister counterpoint that grew and grew until the dream split open and let in an unwelcome reality.

He got up from the couch, went to the phone, and fumbled it to his ear. His eye didn’t hurt anymore, but in the hall mirror he could see that it was still colorful.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Bart. Tom.”

“Yeah, Tom. How are you?”

“Fine. Listen, Bart. I thought you’d want to know. They’re demolishing the Blue Ribbon tomorrow.”

His eyes snapped wide. “Tomorrow? It can’t be tomorrow. They… hell, it’s almost Christmas!”

“That’s why.”

“But they’re not up to it yet.”

“It’s the only industrial building left in the way,” Tom said. “They’re going to raze it before they knock off for Christmas.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. They had a news feature on that morning program. ‘City Day.’”

“Are you going to be there?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “Too much of my life went by inside that pile for me to be able to stay away.”

“Then I guess I’ll see you there.”

“I guess you will.”

He hesitated. “Listen, Tom. I want to apologize. I don’t think they’re going to reopen the Blue Ribbon, in Waterford or anyplace else. If I screwed you up royally-”

“No, I’m not hurting. I’m up at Brite-Kleen, doing maintenance. Shorter hours, better pay. I guess I found the rose in the shitheap.”

“How is it?”

Tom sighed across the wire. “Not so good,” he said. “But I’m past fifty now. It’s hard to change. It would have been the same in Waterford.”

“Tom, about what I did-”

“I don’t want to hear about it, Bart.” Tom sounded uncomfortable. “That’s between you and Mary. Really.”

“Okay.”

“Uh… you getting along good?”

“Sure. I’ve got a couple of things on the line.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Tom paused so long that the silence on the line became thick, and he was about to thank him for calling and hang up when Tom added: “Steve Ordner called up about you. Called me right up at my house.”

“Is that so? When?”

“Last week. He’s pissed like a bear at you, Bart. He kept asking if any of us had any idea you had been sandbagging the Waterford plant. But it was more than that. He was asking all sorts of other things.”

“Like what?”

“Like did you ever take stuff home, office supplies and stuff like that. Did you ever draw from petty cash without putting in a voucher. Or get your laundry done on the company clock. He even asked me if you had any kind of kickback deal going with the motels.”

“That son of a bitch,” he said wonderingly.

“Like I say, he’s hunting around for a nice raw cob to stick up your pump, Bart. I think he’d like to find a criminal charge he could get you on.”

“He can’t. It’s all in the family. And the family’s broken up now.”

“It broke up a long time ago,” Tom said evenly. “When Ray Tarkington died. I don’t know anyone who’s pissed off at you but Ordner. Those guys downtown… it’s just dollars and cents to them. They don’t know nothing about the laundry business and they don’t care to know.”

He could think of nothing to say.

“Well…” Tom sighed. “I thought you ought to know. And I s'pose you heard about Johnny Walker’s brother.”

“Arnie? No, what about him?”

“Killed himself.”

“What?”

Tom sounded as if he might be sucking back spit through his upper plate. “Ran a hose from the exhaust pipe of his car into the back window and shut everything up. The newsboy found him.”

“Holy God,” he whispered. He thought of Arnie Walker sitting in the hospital waiting room chair and shivered, as if a goose had walked over his grave. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah…” That sucking noise again. “Listen, I’ll be seeing you, Bart.”

“Sure. Thanks for calling.”

“Glad to do it. Bye.”

He hung up slowly, still thinking of Arnie Walker and that funny, whining gasp Arnie had made when the priest hurried in.

Jesus, he had his pyx, did you see it?

“Oh, that’s too bad,” he said to the empty room, and the words fell dead as he uttered them and he went into the kitchen to fix himself a drink.

Suicide.

The word had a hissing trapped sound, like a snake squirming through a small crevice. It slipped between the tongue and the roof of the mouth like a convict on the lam.

Suicide.

His hand trembled as he poured Southern Comfort, and the neck of the bottle chattered against the rim of the glass. Why did he do that, Freddy? They were just a couple of old farts who roomed together. Jesus Christ, why would anybody do that?

But he thought he knew why.