Alphabet City has a certain LaBoheme atmosphere, with coffee shops and performance artists and poetry bars and the most minor of publications and the most marginal of theaters. Good Rep fit right in. It was in a corner building, six stories high, the tallest you can erect a building without an elevator in New York City, with a crumbling stone outdoor staircase leading up to a wide entranceway that looked as though it had been gnawed for many years by giant rats, which was probably true. To the left of the stairs, toward the corner, was a bodega crowded with inexpensive food in very bright packaging, and to the right of the stairs, with a marquee the size of a Honda hood, was Good Rep.
It was one slate step down to the tiny forecourt of the theater, which featured an enormous handmade poster for
Arms and the Man
, in which the gaudy uniforms, meant no doubt to be Ruritanian or Graustarkian, struck Josh as uncomfortably Kamastanish. There was no doorbell to be seen, so he tried turning the knob, and the door opened, just like that.
What he entered now was small, dark, and hot; you wouldn't expect much by way of air-conditioning from Good Rep. Posters of previous productions, along with professional shots of the actors involved, filled both side walls. Ahead, over a lumpy black linoleum floor, a box office window was at the right, a closed black door on the left.
Josh went over to look through the box office window at an empty shelf, a kitchen chair, and a black wall. Moving to his left, he tried the door, but this one was locked.
Knock, or shout? He tried both, knocking first and then, getting no answer, moving over to lean down and call through the arched hole in the window, "Hello! Hello?"
Nothing. He looked around, and on a small table just inside the entrance was an open cardboard box full of throwaway sheets describing the current production, with copy on only one side. He took a sheet, folded it with the print inside, and used the little ledge in front of the ticket window to write his note:
Dear Mitchell Robbie,
My name is Josh Redmont. I too have been getting United States Agent's checks the last seven years. If you haven't
"Box office opens at five."
Josh looked up, and in that narrow space back there had materialized a short very thin narrow-faced man with black hair slicked straight back. He wore a black turtle-neck and black jeans and a red-and-white bandana knotted gracefully around his throat He nodded briskly, having delivered his information, and started to sidle away.
Josh said, "Mitchell Robbie?"
Deep suspicion creased the man's face into a walnut shell. Peering intently at Josh, he said, "Does he know you?"
"No, but I need to—"
"About what?"
Josh met him, suspicious gaze for suspicious gaze: "Are
you
Mitchell Robbie?"
"I could take a message."
"I, too, have been receiving those checks every month from Uni—"
"
What
?" The man actually jumped up on tiptoe as he frantically patted the air downward with both hands. "Are you
crazy
?"
"Did they activate you?"
"I have absolutely—" More bewildered face-crinkling: "What?"
Josh said, "Did Mr. Levrin come here? Did he activate you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the man — who Josh was now certain was Robbie — said, "I think you want professional help, but you won't find it here. I suggest you leave."
"Take a look at this," Josh said, and slid the Van Bark clipping through the slot in the window.
Robbie didn't want to look at it. He didn't want to have to do anything about anything, but clearly he understood he had no real choice. Leaning far back, as though to lessen the possible contamination, gazing down along the line of his nose and his fully extended right arm with the fingertips on the shelf, he read the clipping, and partway through it his face crinkled with distaste. "What an ugly thing," he said. "But what is it to me? I mean, no man is an island, but
he's
an island, you certainly don't think I
know
that
It was one slate step down to the tiny forecourt of the theater, which featured an enormous handmade poster for
Arms and the Man
, in which the gaudy uniforms, meant no doubt to be Ruritanian or Graustarkian, struck Josh as uncomfortably Kamastanish. There was no doorbell to be seen, so he tried turning the knob, and the door opened, just like that.
What he entered now was small, dark, and hot; you wouldn't expect much by way of air-conditioning from Good Rep. Posters of previous productions, along with professional shots of the actors involved, filled both side walls. Ahead, over a lumpy black linoleum floor, a box office window was at the right, a closed black door on the left.
Josh went over to look through the box office window at an empty shelf, a kitchen chair, and a black wall. Moving to his left, he tried the door, but this one was locked.
Knock, or shout? He tried both, knocking first and then, getting no answer, moving over to lean down and call through the arched hole in the window, "Hello! Hello?"
Nothing. He looked around, and on a small table just inside the entrance was an open cardboard box full of throwaway sheets describing the current production, with copy on only one side. He took a sheet, folded it with the print inside, and used the little ledge in front of the ticket window to write his note:
Dear Mitchell Robbie,
My name is Josh Redmont. I too have been getting United States Agent's checks the last seven years. If you haven't
"Box office opens at five."
Josh looked up, and in that narrow space back there had materialized a short very thin narrow-faced man with black hair slicked straight back. He wore a black turtle-neck and black jeans and a red-and-white bandana knotted gracefully around his throat He nodded briskly, having delivered his information, and started to sidle away.
Josh said, "Mitchell Robbie?"
Deep suspicion creased the man's face into a walnut shell. Peering intently at Josh, he said, "Does he know you?"
"No, but I need to—"
"About what?"
Josh met him, suspicious gaze for suspicious gaze: "Are
you
Mitchell Robbie?"
"I could take a message."
"I, too, have been receiving those checks every month from Uni—"
"
What
?" The man actually jumped up on tiptoe as he frantically patted the air downward with both hands. "Are you
crazy
?"
"Did they activate you?"
"I have absolutely—" More bewildered face-crinkling: "What?"
Josh said, "Did Mr. Levrin come here? Did he activate you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the man — who Josh was now certain was Robbie — said, "I think you want professional help, but you won't find it here. I suggest you leave."
"Take a look at this," Josh said, and slid the Van Bark clipping through the slot in the window.
Robbie didn't want to look at it. He didn't want to have to do anything about anything, but clearly he understood he had no real choice. Leaning far back, as though to lessen the possible contamination, gazing down along the line of his nose and his fully extended right arm with the fingertips on the shelf, he read the clipping, and partway through it his face crinkled with distaste. "What an ugly thing," he said. "But what is it to me? I mean, no man is an island, but
he's
an island, you certainly don't think I
know
that
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