The Broom of the System

15
1990
LOVE

The morning that Monroe Fieldbinder came next door to the Slotniks’ to discuss Mr. Costigan was a soft warm Sunday morning in May. Fieldbinder moved up the Slotniks’ rough red brick front walk, through some damp unraked clippings from yesterday’s first-of-the-season bagless mow, and prepared to press their lighted doorbell, one with a “Full Housepower” decal beneath it, just like the former decal on Fieldbinder’s former home, and then paused for just a moment to extract a bit of grass from his pant cuff.
The Slotniks sat in their dining room, in robes and leather slippers and woolly footmuffs, amid plates with bits of French-toast scraps loose and heavy with absorbed syrup, reading the Sunday paper, with maple stickiness at thumbs and mouth-corners.
The melody of the Slotniks’ doorbell took time. It was still playing when Evelyn Slotnik opened the front door. Fieldbinder stood on the stoop. Evelyn’s hands went involuntarily to her hair, her eyes to her feet, in woolly footmuffs, beneath unshaved ankles. And then context came in, and she looked away from herself, at Fieldbinder.
Fieldbinder was dressed to harm, in a light English raincoat and razor slacks, black shoes, subway shine. There was a briefcase. Evelyn Slotnik stared at him. All this took only a second. There was a sound of the newspaper from back in the dining room.
“Good morning Evelyn,” Fieldbinder said cheerily.
“Monroe,” said Evelyn.
When some more seconds passed during which Fieldbinder still stood outside, smelling the inside of the Slotniks’ home, he smiled again and repeated, louder, “Good morning, Evelyn. Hope I’m not...”
“Well come in,” Evelyn said, ailittle loud. She opened the door wider and stepped back. Fieldbinder wiped off the last of the dewy lawn clippings onto Donald Slotnik’s joke of a welcome mat, that read GO AWAY, and came in.
“Come on in, Monroe,” Evelyn was babbling, even louder. Her puffy eyes were wide and confused on Fieldbinder’s. “He’s home,” she mouthed.
Fieldbinder smiled and nodded at Evelyn. “By any chance is Donald home,” he said loudly. “I’m sorry to intrude. I need to speak to you and Donald.”
From farther in, there was a chair-sound. Donald Slotnik came into the living room, where Evelyn and Fieldbinder stood, looking past each other. Evelyn manipulated the belt of her robe. Donald Slotnik wore some sort of shiny oriental wrap over his pajamas. He had leather slippers, and the sports page, and a cowlick. From the dining room came the rustle of funnies, to which Scott Slotnik was applying Silly Putty.
“Monroe,” said Slotnik.
“Hello Donald,” said Fieldbinder.
“Well hello,” Slotnik said. He looked at Evelyn, then back at Fieldbinder, then at the easy chair Fieldbinder stood next to. “Please, have a seat, I suppose. You’ll have to excuse us, as you can see we weren’t really expecting anyone.”
Fieldbinder shook his head and raised a stop-palm at Slotnik. “Not at all. I’m the one who should apologize. Here I am, barging on a Sunday morning. I apologize.”
“Not at all,” Slotnik said, looking at Evelyn, who had her hands in the pockets of her robe.
“I’m here only because I really felt I should talk to you,” Fieldbinder said. “I felt a need to talk to you both. Now.” One of Evelyn’s hands was now at her collar.
“Well all right then, sure,” said Slotnik. “Let’s all have a seat. Honey, maybe Monroe would like some coffee.”
“No thanks, no coffee for me,” said Fieldbinder, taking off his coat, which Slotnik didn’t offer to hang up for him, and folding it onto the arm of his chair.
“Well I’d like some more,” Slotnik said to Evelyn. She went into the dining room. Fieldbinder heard Scott say something to her.
Slotnik sat on the love seat across from the living room window and Fieldbinder’s chair and crossed his legs, so that one leather slipper threatened to fall off. Fieldbinder refused to believe he saw tiny ducks on Slotnik’s pajamas.
“So,” Slotnik said. “How are Estates?”
“Estates are fine. How are Taxes?”
“Taxes are one hell of a lot better than they were two months ago. Returns are all in, the worst of the post-deadline bitching is petering out ... thanks, honey.” Slotnik took a sip from a mug of coffee and put it on the coffee table in front of him. Evelyn sank into the little gap next to Slotnik on the love seat, opposite Fieldbinder. “You remember how seasonal Taxes tends to be,” Slotnik continued, smacking his lips a little over the coffee in his mouth. Slotnik had always struck Fieldbinder as the sort of man who enjoyed the taste of his own saliva.
“I remember all too well.” Fieldbinder smiled at Slotnik. “Fred’s not riding you too hard over there, is he?”
“Not at all. Not at all. Fred and I get along well. We played tennis just yesterday. Fred’s a fine man.”
“Fred rode us hard.”
“Maybe he’s mellowing.”
“Could be.”
The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of Scott doing something to a dish in the kitchen sink.
“So,” said Fieldbinder. “The reason I’m here. I was just next door, at Mr. Costigan’s. Been there since early this morning. Trying to do some inventory work, following through, item-reference, et cetera.” He looked at Slotnik. “You did know Costigan was a client.”
“Sure, poor guy,” Slotnik said, reaching for his coffee. “We helped him set up a little municipal bond shelter just last year. A good, tight little shelter. The man needed protection. Poor guy’ll never get to enjoy any of the advantages, now.”
“Right,” said Fieldbinder. “Well, Alan put me on his estate.”
“Really. Well we wondered who’d be doing it. We’ve had a look across, over the fence, to see if we saw anybody. Fred didn’t know who Estates was going to put on it.”
“Well, you’re looking at him.” Fieldbinder looked at Evelyn Slotnik and smiled. She smiled back.
Then her smile turned upside down and her hand went back to her collar. “Such an awful thing to happen to somebody,” she said. “We were so upset. We were stunned, really, is what we were. So scary that something in a person’s head can just ... pop, like a balloon, at any minute, and you’re gone. Veronica Frick two houses over told me he’d never had any sort of health problem before, at all, ever. It’s just so scary.” She snuggled in farther under Slotnik’s arm.
“He was an old man, honey,” Slotnik said, trying to keep Evelyn’s snuggling from spilling the mug of coffee in his hand. “These things happen. How old was he, Monroe?”
“He was fifty-eight,” Fieldbinder said.
“Oh.”
“Neither of us could get over to the service,” Evelyn said. “Donald was swamped at the office, and Scott was home sick with a sore throat. We sent flowers, though.”
“Nice of you.”
“Not at all,” Slotnik said. “He was a good neighbor. Quiet, took care of his place, let the kids play ball in his yard. Sometimes when we were going out of town he’d offer to come over, take in the mail, water the plants. We liked him.”
“Sounds like a nice man.”
“He was,” said Evelyn.
There was a moment of silence. Slotnik cleared his throat. “So then how’s his estate?” he asked.
“Relatively trouble-free, although I’m just starting.” Fieldbinder smiled and shook his head. “Not a problem at all, really. I’m only working on it today because I’m so behind in general, what with the house thing last week, and insurance people to deal with, fire department, red tape, et cetera.”
“Hey, listen, damn sorry to hear about that, Monroe,” Slotnik said. “That must have been a wrench. We didn’t want to bring it up unless you did, right honey? We thought you’d be upset, tired of talking about it.”
“It was just a house,” Fieldbinder said. “All my important papers were at the office. And lawyers tend to be insured to the hilt, as you doubtless know.” They all laughed. Fieldbinder looked at Evelyn. “I am sorry about my bird, though.”
“You had a bird?” Slotnik said.
“Yes. A lovely one. I could feed her off my finger.”
“Too bad,” Slotnik said, scratching his neck.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
There was more silence. Slotnik sipped coffee around Evelyn. Evelyn seemed to be looking at everything in the living room except Fieldbinder. The ducks on Slotnik’s pajamas looked to be mallards.
“How are the kids?” Fieldbinder asked.
Evelyn cleared her throat. “The kids are fine. Steven has final exams right now, along with baseball, so he’s busy. Scott’s had a cold, but he’s better now.”
“They around?”
“Scott was up for breakfast, believe it or not,” Slotnik said. “Scott?” he called. There was no answer. “He must have gone out back.”
“Steve’s still asleep,” Evelyn said. “He’s pitching this afternoon, Donald says.”
“Damn right,” Slotnik said. “When your dad’s the coach, and you’ve got an arm like that kid’s got on him, you get to pitch sometimes.”
“Well, good,” Fieldbinder said.
“Right.”
“Right.”
Slotnik put down his mug. “So you said you wanted to talk to us.”
“Yes,” Fieldbinder said. Evelyn was staring out the big living room window at the bright green front lawn.
Slotnik looked as if he would have glanced at his watch, had he been wearing one. “So?” he said.
“So you didn’t know Mr. Costigan all that well, then, is the sense I get.”
“We were neighbors. We knew him fairly well for a neighbor. We spoke over the fence. You know how it is.”
“Sure,” Fieldbinder said. He looked at his hands, in his lap. “How about the kids. Kids know him well?”
Slotnik’s forehead became a puzzled forehead.
Evelyn cleared her throat again. “No,” she said. “Well, not any better than we did. They played in his yard, sometimes, when things overflowed from ours. We agreed to make the fence only between the houses, not the yards. He was nice about that. He obviously liked children. The kids liked him, I know, because he gave really good Halloween treats. Giant Hershey bars, that they couldn’t even eat all at once. He was nice, but he kept to himself.”
“As a good neighbor should,” Slotnik said.
“I don’t think the kids knew him any better than we did.”
“Especially Steve, I’m wondering about,” Fieldbinder said.
Slotnik’s forehead got worse. “Well, no, Monroe. What exactly seems to be the problem?”
Fieldbinder sniffed and reached down and popped his briefcase latches. He brought out a large photograph and handed it over the coffee table to Evelyn, all the time looking at Slotnik.
The photo was a color shot of a boy walking up the Slotniks’ brick walk, toward the front door, with a backpack over his shoulder. The boy was about thirteen, healthy, rather big and strong for the age of his face. He had short, dull-blond hair. The photo looked to have been taken from a distance. There were some maple trees in the way of the shot, partly. Fieldbinder himself could make out maple-leaf shapes.
“Now as I recall that’s Steve,” he said. “Right?”
The Slotniks looked up from the photo. “Yes.”
“What happened was I got it out of a room in Mr. Costigan’s house,” Fieldbinder said. He folded his hands in his lap. “Pretty clearly taken from over there, too, up high, with the maples out over the fence in the way.” He gestured through a side window above Evelyn’s head at some maple trees leaning over the fence, their new leaves looking extra green in the morning light. “Taken with a hell of a strong lens, too, as you can see. See the detail on Steve? Costigan had some really nice equipment.”
“Okay,” Slotnik said slowly. He made no move to give the photo back to Fieldbinder. “But I’m not sure I understand. We didn’t know Costigan was a photographer, but so what? It’s a good picture, you can see.”
“Yes. It is,” Fieldbinder said. He did something to a pant-leg. “So are the literally hundreds of other pictures of Steve I found in this particular room in the guy’s house.”
The Slotniks looked at Fieldbinder.
“Which pictures themselves were not all that hard to find,” Fieldbinder continued, “seeing as how this particular room in the house was wall-papered with them.”
Slotnik put down his mug again.
“And I mean floor to ceiling, Don.” Fieldbinder looked at Slotnik. Slotnik looked at Evelyn.
“Also in this room”—Fieldbinder cleared his throat—“this room on the second floor, with a window directly out of which I could see across the fence into a window in your home, a window with a ‘Go Phillies!’ pennant hanging in it, a window I’m going to assume, unless you tell me differently, is Steve’s ...” He looked at Slotnik, who said nothing. Fieldbinder sniffed. “Also in this room were”—he ticked off with his fingers—“who knows how many sketches, in charcoal and pencil, and some oils, really quite good, of someone who looks like ... no, quite obviously is Steve. Some equally quite good pieces of sculpture, in varied media, I couldn’t really tell, but again with just Steve as the subject, as far as I could see. Also some sort of video recorder set-up that’s rigged rather ingeniously to play a continuing loop of a certain tape, a tape of some games of football in your yard, in Costigan’s yard, of Steve raking some leaves, of Steve mowing the lawn, of Steve and Scott making a snowman, using what looked to me like a frozen sock for the thing’s nose. Sound familiar?” Fieldbinder looked up at the Slotniks. “Also some ... items, in a sort of very solid and expensive wooden box, that looks to me like a jewelry box, and is at any rate listed on Costigan’s personal-assets sheet as an antique.”
“Just what sort of items?”
“Now you said Costigan would take care of your house when you were away.”
“Only sometimes,” Evelyn said. “Usually Mrs. Frick ...”
Slotnik ignored her. “What sort of items, Monroe?”
Fieldbinder made a bland face. “A few baseball cards. Some strands of hair, light hair, glued to an index card. A Popsicle stick, from an orange Popsicle. A couple of ... Kleenex.” He looked at Evelyn. “There was a tee-shirt, a white tee-shirt, Fruit of the Loom. Very neatly pressed, folded, but not laundered. An unclean tee-shirt. And tagged, with a date, sometime in August of last year.”
Evelyn twisted toward Slotnik. “When we were at the Cape.”
“Can you remember Steve maybe ever losing some clothes?” Fieldbinder said.
“Oh, he’s always losing things—they both are. You know how children are.” Evelyn almost started to smile.
“No,” Fieldbinder leaned forward in his chair, “the thing is, I really don’t.”
“What do you mean did Steve ever lose some clothes,” Slotnik said.
“Well Don the thing is that the tee-shirt wasn’t the only ... Fruit of the Loom item in Costigan’s box.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Basically it means size twenty-eight briefs, Don.” Fieldbinder looked at Evelyn, whose eyes were no longer quite focused. He took a tiny wrinkle out of the crease in his slacks with a thumbnail and refolded his hands in his lap. He looked back at Slotnik.
Slotnik stared into the air in front of him for a moment, trying to smooth his cowlick, which sprang right back up again. “I’m going to call the police,” he said quietly.
Fieldbinder made a wry smile. “Well, now, Don, and have them do what?”
Slotnik looked at Fieldbinder.
“Maybe what we should do first, if you want my opinion,” said Fieldbinder, “is have you two try to remember if there might have been any occasions when anything could have possibly happened.” He looked at the Slotniks. “Anything even remotely bad.”
Slotnik looked at the coffee table.
“Is Steve ever here alone? Without one of you around?”
“Neither of them, no, never without a sitter,” Slotnik said firmly. “And if they’re out, they’re either with us, or at school, or with friends, or we know exactly where they are.”
“That’s what I figured.” Fieldbinder bent over for a moment to reclose his briefcase. “Now but can either of you ever remember Costigan maybe doing or saying anything strange, having to do with Steve, when you were around? Did he ever say anything to him? Did he ever do anything out of the ordinary? Did he ever maybe touch Steve, at all?”
“Never,” Slotnik said.
There was silence.
“No, he did, once,” Evelyn said quietly, looking out at the lawn. “Just once.”
Slotnik turned uncomfortably to look at his wife under his arm. Fieldbinder looked at them blandly.
“It was so tiny I never thought to say anything to you, honey,” Evelyn said. “I never thought to even think about it. It wasn’t really anything.”
“I think I’d better be the judge of that,” Slotnik said.
Evelyn worked at closing the collar of her robe over her throat. She sniffed out at the lawn. “What happened was Steve and Scott and I were going out to the car. This was a long time ago, Scott was tiny, Steve was ten, I think. I think I was taking Steve somewhere, for something. The car was in the driveway, and Mr. Costigan was in his lawn on the other side of the drive. He’d been getting dandelions out of his lawn, I remember. He had a little wheelbarrow full of dandelions. Anyway, he was there.” Evelyn took a deep breath, and her robe fell back open. “And we stopped, and I said hello, and we made some small talk. He was saying how hard it was to get the whole dandelions out, roots and all, how stubborn they were. I don’t remember what else. And what he did ...” Evelyn’s eyes narrowed; she squinted at a memory. “What happened was that in the middle of the talking, for no reason, he just reached out a finger, very slowly, and touched Steve. With just one finger. He touched the front of Steve’s shirt. On his chest. Very carefully.”
“What do you mean, carefully? He touched our child carefully?” Slotnik looked down at Evelyn.
“It was like ...” Evelyn looked at Fieldbinder. “It was like, sometimes when you’re standing in front of a clean window, a very clean window, looking out, and the window is so clean it looks like it’s not there. You know? And to make sure it’s there, even though you know it’s there, really, you’ll reach out and just ... touch the window, ever so slightly. Just barely touch it. That’s what it was like. And Steve didn’t do anything, I don’t think he even noticed. I think he thought Mr. Costigan was just getting something off his shirt. But he wasn‘t, I know. It was strange, but it was so ... tiny. I forgot all about it. I don’t think I ever even put it in words to myself.” She looked at Fieldbinder. “That was the.only thing, just that one time, and it was so long ago.”
“I see,” said Fieldbinder.
The Slotniks didn’t say anything.
“So you can maybe understand why I thought it was worth barging,” Fieldbinder said. “I just thought you ought to know, at some point, and I figured now was as ... well, better than some point.” He made a small smile.
“Good of you,” Slotnik said quietly.
“Listen,” Fieldbinder said, “if you care to hear my advice, from having been next door, I think all you need to do is have a talk with Steve. Not to make a big fuss about anything, but simply to make sure nothing has ever happened, that might have upset him.” He looked at Evelyn. “Which I’m sure hasn’t. It just doesn’t sound like that sort of thing. But of course naturally you’ll want to just ... talk to him.”
“I’ll go wake him up right now,” Slotnik said. He rose. Fieldbinder and Evelyn rose. Fieldbinder picked up his raincoat and unfolded it, smoothing the wrinkles out.
“Probably a good idea, Don,” he said. “Probably a good idea just to have a little talk. I personally think that’s all you need to do. And Don, if you want to come over and have a look at ... everything, I should be next door for about another hour.”
“Not a chance in this world,” Slotnik said. “We’d appreciate it if you’d have your crew just dispose of it. I don’t want to see any of it.” He attacked his cowlick. “If he’s laid one hand on that child, I’ll kill him.”
A moment passed.
“Anyhow,” Fieldbinder said, “I’m off. I hope I did the right thing, coming over. And I’m sorry if this upset you. I just thought you ought to know the story.”
“Monroe,” Slotnik said, “you’re a good friend. We appreciate it. You did the right thing. We appreciate it more than we can say.” He extended a sticky hand, which Fieldbinder shook, smelling syrup. Slotnik whirled on his slippers and headed for the stairs.
Evelyn showed Fieldbinder to the door. She didn’t say anything.
At the door Fieldbinder turned to her. “Listen,” he said. He looked up the staircase. “I’ll understand if this isn’t the right time.” He smiled warmly. “But I’d like to see you, and I’ll just tell you that I’ll actually be next door all day. I’ve got to get it all finished today, I’m so behind. But all day, is the thing. Although the crew’s coming at three. So I’m just telling you. Do what you want, of course. But if you get a chance, feel like it, while they’re at baseball ...”
Evelyn didn’t say anything. She had opened the front door for Fieldbinder. She was seeing something past him, in the lawn. Fieldbinder turned to look.
“Well there’s Scott!” he said. “Hello, Scott! Remember me?”
Scott Slotnik was bouncing a tennis ball on the bricks of the front walk, out by the street. The ball made a dull sound as it bounced off the lawn clippings that lay on the walk. At Fieldbinder’s call, Scott looked up.
There was a silence, except for the chatter of a hedge trimmer across the street. Evelyn stared at Scott, past Scott. Then she seemed to give a start. “Scott!” she called sharply. “Please come in here right now!”
Fieldbinder turned back to look at Evelyn. He smiled and put a soft hand on the arm of her robe. “Hey,” he said gently. “Come on.”
Evelyn looked at Fieldbinder’s hand, there on her arm, for a moment. Scott had begun coming toward the door. She looked back out at him. “It’s all right, sweetie,” she called. She made a smile. “Stay and play, if you want.”
Scott looked at Fieldbinder and his mother and then at the ball in his hand. .
“Anyhow, the point is just know I’m here, is all; I’m there, all day, till three,” Fieldbinder was saying.
“Yes,” Evelyn said. She went back in from the door, leaving it open.
Fieldbinder moved down the rough brick walk toward Scott Slotnik.
Through the living room window, Evelyn watched Fieldbinder stop and smile and kneel down to say a few words to Scott Slotnik. Something he said made Scott smile shyly and nod. Fieldbinder laughed. Evelyn tried to smooth her morning hair back over her ears. Her sticky thumbs pulled at her hair.