Strottenger and the Mousy Fellow

"Who is he?" says Strottenger, peering through mini blinds to the outer office.

"Who is who?"

Strottenger raises an eyebrow at the woman. The woman sighs and walks across the room and looks out the window herself―sees a welterweight dark-haired man fumbling with a briefcase like it's the most awkward thing in the world as he attempts to retrieve office keys from an inhospitable pocket. "From the temp agency. Accountant I think. You'll likely not run into him while he's here. He's working in the records room."

"Records room. How do you know he's not a spy?"

"We have nothing to hide, I'm sure," she says, returning to her seat and beginning a search of the dark recesses of the desk drawer.

Strottenger narrows his eyes at the man. "Mousy-looking fellow," he says,
shifting an eyebrow in thought as he watches the man finally opening and disappearing through the door. “How's that?" says Strottenger pivoting his head round like an old barn owl.

The woman meets his gaze. "I didn't say a word. Have you ever considered a hearing aid, Mister Strottenger?"

Strottenger grunts and pretends not to have heard her and releases the mini blinds. He rakes across the room collecting static electricity from the carpet with his hard-sole shoes and pauses at the desk to collect a handful of documents. "Calls this morning?"

The woman's head pops up from one of the lower drawers. "None."

Strottenger nods and makes his way to his office. All the while thinking he's seen that mousy fellow before but can't quite place him. And the thought of it nagging him all morning. Needling him as he peruses the morning paper to where he cannot focus on what he reads. All the way through lunch to where he drives in the wrong direction and then misses the turn off for the restaurant where he is meeting a colleague for steak and he's a zombie through their conversation and doesn't touch his porterhouse. All because he can't place where he's seen the man.

He isn't given to distraction normally. He is normally a shark. Tactical in his decision making and charming in his dealings with others. He is a focused man. Normally.

. . .

“Balls,” he mutters to himself. He is sitting in traffic that isn't moving for one reason or another and he cannot stop thinking about the mousy-looking fellow. He's gone over it a million times already trying to plug the stranger into every aspect of his life. He's not a member of the country club. He isn't a childhood friend. He wasn't on the swim team with him at Yale. (doesn't look like a Yale man at all in fact) Doesn't recall seeing him during the war though there were lots of people during the war. He wasn't a client. Wasn't a business acquaintance. Never hunted or traveled with the fellow. And this goes on all the day long.

. . .

“Alright what's his name?”

“Whose name, Mister Strottenger?” she says, seemingly patient in her tone.

“You know who I mean. The mousy fellow.”

She blinks at him. (blinks! and then with such a blank look behind those eyes he thinks she must make an excellent poker player)

“From this morning,” he says civilly, humoring her at whatever game she's playing.

“Ah. The accountant.” She wheels around in her chair and ruffles through a stack of papers and holds one up at an angle to the light. “Morgan, Randal J.,” she says, “Went to Columbia University―that's probably your next question.” She keeps hold of the paper and awaits further questioning.

He picks at the end of an eyebrow and studies her face. “What I'm trying to do here, see, I'm trying to place this fellow. He's familiar to me somehow but―”

“―but you can't figure out why. I understand Mister Strottenger. I wish I could help but I've never seen him before and he's never worked in the building before today.”

He holds out a hand and she hands him the sheet. He reads every word. Measures the years listed with his own life. Jogs his memory in relation to every institution mentioned on the page. Finds no connection with the man and gives her one more studied look. (but he knows she isn't bluffing now―she isn't trying to hide anything or pull the wool over his eyes) “He still here?”

“No Mister Strottenger. Only scheduled to work this morning. He'll be back tomorrow though.”

“Very good,” he says without inflection, handing the sheet back to her, “I'll see you in the morning. I'm going home early today.” And he grabs his briefcase and hat and makes for the front door.

“I'll close up your office then?” she calls after him.

He waves a hand without stopping and reaches the door and opens it and goes home. (thinking, where do I know this mousy fellow from—why is he so familiar?)

. . .

It comes to him in the middle of the night as these things tend to do. He isn't sleeping anyway—the missus is sleeping, she never has trouble falling asleep (he doesn't either come to think of it—not normally) but he is staring up at the ceiling blinking at the giant spider-like shadow thing the ceiling fan has made and his mind is culling over this problem, this mousy fellow problem, when it comes to him. Morgan, Randal J.—wasn't that the man's name he met on vacation in Florida that time? Wasn't his name Randal Morgan? Maybe it was, he cannot recall. Mousy-looking fellow with a mousy handshake. (beautiful wife though, that's what stood out the most about the man then, how a man like that ends up with a woman like that)

And the rest comes to him too, the situation they got into together—Randal and he—that last night at the resort. He remembers too many drinks. Both of them. Wandering the beachfront terrace. That narrow boardwalk artificially lit with yellow sodium-vapor lamps, the kind that make you want to puke if you look into them directly. The mosquitoes and flies buzzing and angry. But Randal and he were buzzing too by then so they didn't mind. The two of them chumming around and leaning on one another and trading old war stories. Then Randal gets in an argument with some kid half his age who was also buzzing, the two of them as angry as flies. And then that kid pushes Randal, thinking this is a little man that can be pushed around. But because of the war stories or because of the buzzing Randal Morgan gets carried away and takes a swing at the kid which connects on the chin and lays him out flat on the deck in one swing.

“Balls,” says Strottenger, pouring himself a finger of scotch. The grandfather clock on the wall chimes and Strottenger sees that it's three in the morning. He polishes off the drink and turns out the lights.

He sits in the dark in his favorite mocha leather wingback and remembers the rest. How Randal seeing the kid splayed out flat under the yellow light breaks into laughter then begins hacking up a lung then leaning way out over the white wood railing of the boardwalk empties his stomach of half its contents. And how Strottenger—seeing the kid's eyes roll back nautically in their sockets and seeing that pale body of his tremble on the deck like a giant carp out of water struggling for air—has the presence of mind to check that they are all alone and that no one has seen what's happened. (and they are alone! and no one has seen! and how fortunate for them!) And how Strottenger leads the mousy-looking fellow by the elbow unsteadily back to the lobby where they part ways never to set eyes on each other again. Best thing that could have happened, thinks Strottenger, considering. Next morning he isn't surprised to see investigators in the lobby of the resort. (that kid all splayed out flat like that hadn't looked much alive to him the night before) The manager at the front desk checks the Strottengers out quickly and whispers that they should leave before the police harass them about where they were last night—he seems disgusted by the fact that there's an investigation going on at all in his hotel and wonders why they can't just leave his guests alone—Strottenger doesn't argue with the man though any other day he might have on principle. (he's always had great respect for people in uniform)

All in all he is eager to leave the thing alone. Let it all remain in the past, a foggy memory of a night that went too far—he is after all an accessory after the fact or something like that. Not that he loses much sleep over it, he's played many roles in his life.

His eyelids are heavy now. At long last. He shuffles back to the bedroom and climbs into bed.

The missus stirs on her side and clears her throat to speak. Her voice is a fragile whisper beside him in the dark: “Had a dream we went out dancing like we used to do. Like, like we used to.” Her voice trails off. She takes a deep breath as if waking again and whispers, “What time is it, Dear?”

“It's late,” says Strottenger, “Quarter after three at least.”

She doesn't reply and the silence nearly overtakes the moment but he whispers again, staring up at that spider-like shadow once more, “I was trying to think, what were the names of that couple we met in Florida a few years back. That vacation trip we took to Florida.”

But no words come back from the dark. He hears her hollow breath deepening and he closes his eyes and falls asleep along side her.

. . .

He never listens to the radio in the car. Music doesn't interest him. He sits with the car running and enjoys instead the steady purring of the engine. He catches sight of his inspection sticker, showing backward in the top corner of the windshield—three months until it expires.

A flash of light catches his attention as the office door swings wide and he sees the mousy-looking man walking out squinting in the new sunshine of late morning.

Randal Morgan walks slowly, morosely, out into the parking lot and climbs into his late model Camry and drives away.

Strottenger furrows his brow. He turns off his engine and walks up to the front door, enters and breezes through to the inner office ignoring the two or three different hellos and good mornings from his staff.

“I suppose you have your reasons, Mister Strottenger,” she starts in on him, standing at her desk with doe eyes and her fingers interlaced the way she does when her hands are empty.

“I do, but it's a long story. Any calls this morning?”

She hesitates and says, “No, Mister Strottenger.”

He nods. “Make time on the schedule for a new inspection sticker for my car would you. Anytime in the next couple of months.” He closes the door behind him and unbuttons his suit coat and reaches for the phone on his desk.

. . .

“Hello?”

“Morning. I was trying to remember, Dear, whatever were the names of that couple we met in Florida a few years back? At the resort.”

“Yes, at the resort,” she says, “Oh, what were their names—nice folks—Janice and Walt wasn't it?”

“His name was Walt? You sure?” He hears her sigh and there's noise over the receiver like she's moved hers to the other side of her head. (she's probably still lying in bed)

“Yes. Janice and Walt Mosley, from Phoenix,” she says.

“Balls,” says Strottenger.

“What was that?”

“Mousy-looking fellow,” says Strottenger.

“He was a mousy-looking fellow,” she says, “come to think of it.” And there is a beat of silence and she sighs again and says, “I thought she could have done much better than him, tell the truth.”

He nods though she can't see him nod and he says, “Hope I didn't keep you up last night. I just couldn't get to sleep.”

“Darling, you work yourself into knots sometimes.”

“Do I?”

“We should take another vacation soon, do you think?”

“Perhaps we should. Indeed.”

THE END