Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem Read Free Book Online

yourselves, I'll be right out,” and stepped into the living room, began rummaging among his possessions of which there certainly were plenty. It was a little depressing how full the once glorious apartment had gotten. Margaret cut him another piece of cheese and whispered, “Do you think he knows something?” “I can't know he seems so nice, well if not nice then harmless, hapless, but I'll judge his reaction to the video, watch him closely when the time comes—” grabbing more cheese quickly while he could and then the man in the robe was back. “Hello, friends, enjoying yourselves?” His robe had fallen open and they both stared but maybe it was just an example of his sloppiness. Certainly there was no polite way to mention it. There was something confusing about this man, who now went to the table and took the knife out of Margaret's hands and held her hand there for a moment and then snapped something—was it a bracelet?—around her wrist. Not a bracelet. Handcuffs. “Hey, wait a minute, that's no way to enjoy a nice glass of lager!” he heard himself say idiotically cheese falling out of his mouth jumping up as the man clicked Margaret's other wrist into the cuffs and he had her linked to the back of her chair. He stood to intervene and the man in the robe swept his feet out from under him with a kick and pushed him in the chest and he fell, feet sliding on papers, hand skidding in lumps of cheese, to the floor. “Thirsty!” he shouted, the more excited the more fervent the Advertising, apparently. “No! Beer!” as he struggled to get up. And Margaret was saying something desperate about Eiger fountain pens “—
self-refilling cartridge
—” The man in the robe moved quickly, not lazy and sloppy at all now and kicked away his satchel with the tape inside and bent over him and reached behind his ear to tear the patch away, another momentary sting. He could only shout “Beer!” once more before the twilight world of the One-Way Permeable Barrier surrounded him, it was everywhere here, even Margaret was on the other side as long as she wore the patch, and he felt his voice sucked away to a scream audible inside the space of his own head but not elsewhere, he knew, not until he was back outside, on the street where he belonged and why couldn't he have stayed there? What was he thinking? Anyway it wouldn't be long now because through the gauze he saw the man in the robe who you'd have to call the man half out of his robe now open the door to let the robot in, then as the naked man grinned at him steel pinchers clamped onto his arm and he was dragged out of the room, screaming inaudibly, thrashing to no purpose, leaving Margaret behind. And his tape besides.

The Spray
    T HE APARTMENT WAS BURGLED AND THE police came. Four of them and a dog. The three youngest were like boys. They wore buzzing squawking radios on their belts. The oldest was in charge and the young ones did what he told them. The dog sat. They asked what was taken and we said we weren't sure—the television and the fax machine, at least. One of them was writing, taking down what we said. He had a tic, an eye that kept blinking. “What else?” the oldest policeman said. We didn't know what else. That's when they brought it out, a small unmarked canister, and began spraying around the house. First they put a mask over the mouth and nose of the dog. None of them wore a mask. They didn't offer us any protection. Just the dog. “Stand back,” they said. They sprayed in a circle toward the edges of the room. We stood clustered with the policemen. “What's that?” we said. “Spray,” said the oldest policeman. “Makes lost things visible.”
    The spray settled like a small rain through the house and afterward glowing in various spots were the things the burglar had taken. It was a salmon-colored glow. On the table was a salmon-colored image of a box, a jewelry box that Addie's mother had given us. There was a salmon-colored glowing