Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [165]
“That’s what my wife says, but I never believed her. After all, Miss Trixie is so old. I wouldn’t think she could write a grocery list.”
“Old?” Mrs. Reilly asked. “Ignatius! You told me Trixie was the name of some cute girl worked at Levy Pants. You told me you two liked each other. Now I find out she’s a grammaw can’t hardly write. Ignatius!”
It was sadder than Mr. Levy had thought at first. The poor kook had tried to make his mother think he had a girlfriend.
“Please,” Ignatius whispered to Mr. Levy. “Come into my room. I must show you something.”
“Don’t believe a word Ignatius says,” Mrs. Reilly called after them as her son dragged Mr. Levy through the door into the musty chamber.
“Just let him alone,” Mr. Levy said to Mrs. Reilly somewhat firmly. This Reilly woman wouldn’t even give her own child a chance. She was as bad as his wife. No wonder Reilly was such a wreck.
Then the door closed behind them and Mr. Levy suddenly began to feel nauseated. There was a scent of old tea leaves in the bedroom that reminded him of the teapot that Leon Levy had always had near his elbow, the delicately cracked china pot in whose bottom there was always a residue of boiled leaves. He went to the window and opened the shutter, but as he looked out his eyes met those of Miss Annie, who was staring back at him from between the blinds of her shutters. He turned from the window and watched Reilly thumbing through a loose-leaf folder.
“Here it is,” Ignatius said. “These are some notes that I jotted while working for your company. They will prove that I loved Levy Pants even more than life itself, that my every waking hour was spent in contemplating means of helping your organization. And often at night I had visions. Phantoms of Levy Pants flitted gloriously across my slumbering psyche. I would never write a letter like that. I loved Levy Pants. Here. Read this, sir.”
Mr. Levy took the loose-leaf folder and, where Reilly’s fat forefinger indicated a line, he read, “Today our office was at last graced by the presence of our lord and master, Mr. G. Levy. To be quite honest, I found him rather casual and unconcerned.” The forefinger skipped a line or two. “In time he will learn of my devotion to his firm, of my dedication. My example, in turn, may lead him to once again believe in Levy Pants.” The guidepost of a forefinger indicated the next paragraph. “La Trixie still keeps her own counsel, thereby proving herself even wiser than I had thought. I suspect that this woman knows a great deal, that her apathy is a façade for her seeming resentment against Levy Pants. She grows most coherent when she speaks of retirement.”
“There is your evidence, sir,” Ignatius said, snatching the folder from Mr. Levy’s hands. “Interrogate the Trixie jade. The senility is a guise. It is part of her defense against her work and the company. Actually, she hates Levy Pants for not retiring her. And who can blame her? Many times when we were alone, she would babble for hours about plans to ‘get’ Levy Pants. Her resentment surfaced in the form of vitriolic attacks upon your corporate structure.”
Mr. Levy tried to assess the evidence. He knew that Reilly had really liked the company; he had seen it at the company, the woman next door had told him, he had just read it. Trixie, on the other hand, hated the company. Even though his wife and the kook claimed that the senility routine was a front, he doubted that she would be able to write a letter like that. But now he had to get out of the claustrophobic bedroom before he possibly got ill all over the tablets that covered the floor. When Mr. Reilly had been standing next to him pointing out the passages in the notebook, the scent had grown overpowering. He felt for the doorknob, but the Reilly kook threw himself against the door.
“You must believe me,” he sighed. “The Trixie trollop had a fixation about a turkey or a ham. Or was it a roast? It was all