Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [135]
“Listen at that nut,” Santa said. “Aw, Irene. You better ring up the Charity, honey.”
“We gonna give him another chance. Maybe he’ll hit the jackpot.”
“I don’t know why I bother talking to you, girl,” Santa sighed hoarsely. “I’ll see you tonight then about seven. Claude says he’s gonna come over here. Come pick us up and we’ll take us a nice ride out to the lake for some of them good crabs. Whoo! You kids sure lucky you got me for a chaperone. You two need one, especially with that Claude around.”
Santa guffawed in a voice huskier than usual and hung up.
“What in the world do you and that old bawd babble about?” Ignatius asked.
“Shut up!”
“Thank you. I see that things about here are as cheerful as ever.”
“How much money you brought in today? A quarter?” Mrs. Reilly screamed. She leaped up and stuck her hand into one of the pockets of the smock and pulled out the brilliant photograph. “Ignatius!”
“Give that to me,” Ignatius thundered. “How dare you besmirch that magnificent image with your vintner’s hands.”
Mrs. Reilly peeked at the photograph again and then closed her eyes. A tear crept out from beneath her closed eyelids. “I knew when you started selling them weenies you was gonna be hanging around with people like this.”
“What do you mean, ‘people like this’?” Ignatius asked angrily, pocketing the photograph. “This is a brilliant, misused woman. Speak of her with respect and reverence.”
“I don’t wanna speak at all,” Mrs. Reilly sniffed, her lids still sealed. “Go sit in your room and write some more of your foolishness.” The telephone rang. “That must be that Mr. Levy. He already rang up here twice today.”
“Mr. Levy? What does that monster want?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Go on, crazy. Answer that. Pick up that phone.”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to speak with him,” Ignatius thundered. He picked up the telephone, and in an assumed voice rich with Mayfair accents said, “Yus?”
“Mr. Reilly?” a man asked.
“Mr. Reilly is not here.”
“This is Gus Levy.” In the background, a woman’s voice was saying, “Let’s see what you’re going to say. Another chance down the drain, a psycho escaped.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Ignatius enunciated. “Mr. Reilly was called out of town this afternoon on rather crucial business. Actually, he is at the state mental hospital in Mandeville. Since being so viciously dismissed by your concern, he has had to commute back and forth regularly from Mandeville. His ego is badly bruised. You may yet receive his psychiatrists’ bills. They are rather staggering.”
“He cracked up?”
“Violently and totally. We had something of a time with him here. The first time that he went to Mandeville, he had to be transported in an armored car. As you know, his physique is rather grand. This afternoon, however, he left in a state patrol ambulance.”
“Can he have visitors at Mandeville?”
“Of course. Drive out to see him. Bring him some cookies.”
Ignatius slammed the telephone down, pressed a quarter into the palm of his still sniffling, blinded mother, and waddled to his room. Before opening the door, he stopped to straighten the PEACE TO MEN OF GOOD WILL sign that he had tacked to the peeling wood.
All signs were pointing upward; his wheel was revolving skyward.
Twelve
There had been a flurry of excitement. The wild blowing of the postman’s whistle, the chugging postal truck out on Constantinople Street, his mother’s excited screaming, Miss Annie’s calling to the postman that his whistle had frightened her — all had interrupted Ignatius’s dressing for the kickoff rally. He signed the postal delivery receipt and rushed back to his room, locking his door.
“What is it, boy?” Mrs. Reilly asked in the hall.
Ignatius looked at the AIR MAIL SPECIAL DELIVERY stamping on the manila envelope and at the little hand-written pleas, “Urgent” and “Rush.”
“Oh, my goodness,” he said happily. “The Minkoff minx must be beside herself.”
He tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter.
Sirs:
Did you really send me this telegram, Ignatius?
MYRNA FORM PEACE PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE