Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow & Jeffrey Eugenides

Author:Saul Bellow & Jeffrey Eugenides [Bellow, Saul & Eugenides, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Classics, Contemporary, Modern, Pulitzer
ISBN: 9780143105473
Google: eccfAQAAIAAJ
Amazon: 0143105477
Barnesnoble: 0143105477
Goodreads: 3231352
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1975-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

“I want no part of that. I’m not a juice man,” I said.

“Don’t be stupid. We’ve got to move fast.”

I glanced at Polly. She had warned me against Cantabile and Stronson and I checked silently with her. Her smile confirmed the caution she had given me. But she was highly amused by Cantabile’s determination to drive us into the Thunderbird, to cram us into the red leather upholstery of the throbbing open car. He made it seem like a kidnap. We were on the broad sidewalk in front of the Institute, and lovers of criminal legend could tell you that the celebrated Dion O’Banion used to drive his Bugatti at a hundred mph over the very spot where we were standing while pedestrians fled. I had in fact mentioned this to Thaxter. Wherever he went, Thaxter wished to experience the characteristic thing, the essence. Getting the essence of Chicago, he was delighted, he was grinning, and he said, “If we miss Bartelstein now we can stop in the morning en route to the airport.”

“Poll,” said Cantabile, “get behind the wheel. I see the squad car.” Buses were trying to squeeze past the parked Thunderbird. Traffic was tied up. The cops were already spinning their blue lights at Van Buren Street. Thaxter followed Polly to the car and I said to Cantabile, “Ronald, go away. Let me alone.”

He gave me a look of open and terrible disclosure. I saw a spirit striving with complications as dense as my own, in another, faraway division. “I didn’t want to spring this on you,” he said, “but you force me to twist your arm.” His fingers in the horseman’s gloves, skin-tight, took me by the sleeve. “Your lifelong friend Alec Szathmar is in hot trouble, or could be in hot trouble—that’s up to you.”

“Why? How come?”

“I’m telling you. There’s this pretty young woman—her husband is one of my people—and she’s a kleptomaniac. She was caught in Field’s pinching a cashmere cardigan. And Szathmar is her lawyer, dig? It was me that recommended Szathmar. He went to court and told the judge not to send her to jail, she needed psychiatric treatment and he’d see that she got it. So the court released her in his custody. Then Szathmar brought this chick straight to a motel and took her clothes off, but before he could screw her she escaped. She didn’t have more on than the strip of paper they stretch across the toilet seat when she streaked out. There are plenty of witnesses. Now this girl is straight. She doesn’t go for the motel bit. Her only bag is stealing. For your sake, I’m restraining the husband.”

“All I hear from you, Cantabile, is nonsense, more and more and more nonsense. Szathmar can act like a jerk, but he’s not a monster.”

“All right, I’ll unleash the husband. You think your buddy wouldn’t be disbarred? He would be—fucking-A-right.”

“You’ve hoked up all this for some goofy reason,” I said. “If you had anything on Szathmar you’d be blackmailing him right now.

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