The Stochastic Man

“What does he want with me?”

“I said that’s all I know, Lew.”

“Is my time for sale to anybody who’s ever given five bucks to Qui

Lombroso sighed. “If I told you how much Carvajal gave, you wouldn’t believe it, and in any case, yes, I think you might be able to spare some time for him.”

“But—”

“Look, Lew, if you want more answers you’ll have to get them from Carvajal. Go on back to him now. Be a sweetheart and let me talk to the mayor. Go on. Carvajal won’t hurt you. He’s just a little puny thing.” Lombroso swung away from me and reactivated the phone. The mayor reappeared on the telephone screen. Lombroso said, “I’m sorry, Paul. Lew had a bit of a nervous breakdown, but I think he’s going to pull through. Now—”

I returned to Carvajal. He was sitting motionless, head bowed, arms limp, as if an icy blast had passed through the room while I was gone, leaving him parched and withered. Slowly, with obvious effort, he reconstituted himself, sitting up, filling his lungs, pretending to an animation that his eyes, his empty and frightening eyes, wholly betrayed. One of the walking dead, yes.

“Will you be joining us for lunch?” I asked him.

“No. No, I wouldn’t impose. I wanted only a few words with you, Mr. Nichols.”

“I’m at your service.”

“Are you? How splendid.” He smiled an ashen smile. “I’ve heard a good deal about you, you know. Even before you went into politics. In a way, we’ve both been in the same line of work.”

“You mean the market?” I said, puzzled.

His smile grew brighter and more troubling. “Predictions,” he said. “For me, the stock market. For you, consultant to business and politics. We’ve both lived by our wits and by our, ah, decent understanding of trends.”

I was altogether unable to read him. He was opaque, a mystery, an enigma.

He said, “So now you stand at the mayor’s elbow, telling him the shape of the road ahead. I admire people who have such clear vision. Tell me, what sort of career do you project for Mayor Qui

“A splendid one,” I said.

“A successful mayor, then.”

“He’ll be one of the finest this city’s ever had.”

Lombroso came back into the room. Carvajal said, “And afterward?”

I looked uncertainly at Lombroso, but his eyes were hooded. I was on my own.

“After his term as mayor?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s still a young man, Mr. Carvajal. He might win three or four terms as mayor. I can’t give you any sort of meaningful projection about events a dozen years from now.”

“Twelve years in City Hall? Do you think he’ll be content to stay there as long as that?”

Carvajal was playing with me. I felt I had been drawn unawares into some sort of duel. I gave him a long look and perceived something terrifying and indeterminable, something powerful and incomprehensible, that made me grasp the first available defensive move, I said, “What do you think, Mr. Carvajal?”

For the first time a flicker of life showed in his eyes. He was enjoying the game.

“That Mayor Qui

“Governor?”

“Higher.”

I made no immediate answer, and then I was unable to answer, for an immense silence had seeped out of the leather-paneled walls to engulf us, and I feared being the one to puncture it. If only the phone would ring again, I thought, but all was still, as becalmed as the air on a freezing night, until Lombroso rescued us by saying, “We think he has a lot of potential, too.”

“We have big plans for him,” I blurted.

“I know,” said Carvajal. “That’s why I’m here. I want to offer my support.”

Lombroso said, “Your financial aid has been tremendously helpful to us all along, and—”

“What I have in mind isn’t only financial.”

Now Lombroso looked to me for help. But I was lost. I said, “I don’t think we’re following you, Mr. Carvajal.”

“If I could have a moment alone with you, then.”

I glanced at Lombroso. If he was a

“Predictive insights?”

“Exactly. I don’t wish to intrude on your area of responsibility. But I might be able to make a suggestion or two that I think would be of value.”

I winced. Suddenly the enigma lay unraveled and what was revealed within was anticlimactically commonplace. Carvajal was nothing but a rich political amateur who, figuring that his money qualified him as a universal expert, hungered to meddle in the doings of the pros. A hobbyist. An armchair politico. Jesus! Well, make nice for him, Lombroso had said. I would make nice. Groping for tact, I told him stiffly, “Of course. Mr. Qui

Carvajal’s eyes searched for mine, but I avoided them. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ve put down a few things to begin with.” He offered me a folded slip of white paper. His hand trembled a little. I took the slip without looking at it. Suddenly all strength seemed to go from him, as if he had come to the last of his resources. His face turned gray, his joints visibly loosened. “Thank you,” he murmured again. “Thank you very much. I think we’ll be seeing each other soon.” And he was gone. Bowing himself out the door like a Japanese ambassador.

You meet all kinds in this business. Shaking my head, I opened his slip of paper. Three things were written on it in a spidery handwriting:

1. Keep an eye on Gilmartin.

2. Mandatory national oil gellation — come out for it soon.

3. Socorro for Leydecker before summer. Get to him early.

I read them twice, got nothing from them, waited for the familiar clarifying leap of intuition, didn’t get that either. Something about this Carvajal seemed to short my faculties completely. That ghostly smile, those burned-out eyes, these cryptic notations — every aspect of him left me baffled and disturbed. “He’s gone,” I called to Lombroso, who emerged at once from his i

“Well?”

“I don’t know. I absolutely don’t know. He gave me this,” I said, and passed the slip to him.

“Gilmartin. Gellation. Leydecker.” Lombroso frowned. “All right, wizard. What does it mean?”

Gilmartin had to be State Controller Anthony Gilmartin, who had clashed with Qui

“Not a word.”

“Are we preparing a batch of new taxes he won’t like?”

“We would have told you by now if we were, Lew.”

“So there are no potential conflicts shaping up between Qui

“I don’t see any in the visible future,” Lombroso said. “Do you?”

“Nothing. As for mandatory oil gellation—”

“We are talking about pushing through a tough local law,” he said. “No tankers entering New York Harbor carrying ungelled oil. Qui

“Not yet.”

“Not yet, no. Maybe it’s time. Maybe Carvajal is on to something there. And the third one—”