Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories Read Free Page B

of Montez’s apartment, and then there were two of them, McCabe and Robinson, standing in a litter of broken laths and chunks of plaster, just the two of them, standing in the litter and staring at each other.
    McCabe looked up at me and said, “Stay back from the edge, because the whole lousy ceiling’s coming down. I called emergency. We’re going to empty the building, so tell that Gonzales woman to put on her coat and come downstairs.” Then he turned to Robinson. “You had to do it. You couldn’t stay up there. You had to show you’re an athlete.”
    To which Robinson said nothing at all.
    Back in the prowl car, later, I asked Robinson what he had seen.
    â€œIn Montez’s apartment? The man has a lot of books. You know, sometimes I say to myself I should have been a teacher instead of a cop. My brother-in-law’s a teacher. A principal. He makes more money than I do and he’s got some respect. A cop has no respect. You break your back and risk your life, and they spit in your face.”
    â€œYou can say that again,” McCabe said.
    â€œWe once pulled four people out of a burning building on One hundred fortieth Street—my own people—and some son of a bitch clipped me with a brick, For what? For saving four people?”
    â€œYou know what I mean. When you stood there on the grass and looked around you, what did you see?”
    â€œA lousy old-law tenement that should have been torn down fifty years ago,” said Robinson.
    â€œYou take a car like this,” said McCabe, “it’s unusual to you. You pull a few strings downtown, and they say, OK, sit in the car and write a story about it. For us it’s a grind, day in, day out, one lousy grind.” He took a call on the car radio. “Liquor store this time. West One hundred seventeenth, Brady’s place. You know,” he said to me, “they rip off that place every month, regular as clockwork.”
    The siren going, we tore up Amsterdam Avenue to 117th Street.

3
General Hardy’s Profession
    M iss Kanter was not quite certain whether she was in love with Dr. Blausman or not, but she felt that the privilege of working for such a man repaid and balanced her devotion, even though Dr. Blausman never made a pass at her or even allowed her that peculiar intimacy that many men have with their secretaries. It was not that Dr. Blausman was cold; he was happily married and utterly devoted to his work and his family, and brilliant. Miss Kanter had wept very real tears of joy when he was elected president of the Society.
    In her own right, Miss Kanter was skilled and devoted, and after five years with Dr. Blausman she had developed a very keen clinical perception of her own. When she took a history of a new patient, it was not only complete but pointed and revealing. In the case of Alan Smith, however, there was a noticeable hiatus.
    â€œWhich troubles me somewhat,” Dr. Blausman. remarked. “I dislike taking anyone who isn’t a referral.”
    â€œHe has been referred, or recommended, I suppose. He mentioned the air shuttle, which makes me think he is either from Washington or Boston. Washington, I would say. I imagine that it would make trouble for him if it got out that he was going into therapy.”
    â€œTrouble?”
    â€œYou know how the government is about those things.”
    â€œYou must have found him very appealing.”
    â€œVery good-looking, Doctor. You know, I am a woman.” Miss Kanter seized opportunities to remind Dr. Blausman. “But very desperate for help. If he is government and high government—well, that might be very meaningful, might it not?”
    â€œStill, he refuses to say who recommended him?”
    â€œYes. But I’m sure you’ll get it out of him.”
    â€œYou told him my fee?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œWas his face familiar?”
    â€œIt was one of those faces that seem to be. But I have