Read The Intuitionist for Free Online Page A

obsequious nature, cultivated to exceptional degree during his time in the Department, had finally served him well. Holt had never spoken to him before and Pompey found him surprisingly affable. Holt offered him a cigar, the scent of which Pompey was well acquainted with, as it lingered in random pockets of the Department’s hallways and offices, marking where Holt had walked and surveyed, an acrid reminder of authority: bodiless, unseen, everywhere. Pompey brushed his tongue across the inside of his cheeks to forage the residue of the faintly cinnamon smoke, the very wisps of Holt’s esteem. He expected confidences; Holt told him he was going to kick him in the ass. Pompey laughed (this executive humor was going to take a little getting used to) and went along with the joke, even after Holt told him to bend over. Which he did. Pompey continued to chortle until Holt kicked him in the left ass cheek with the arrowhead of one of his burgundy wingtips (Pompey’s angle of vision precluded determination of exactly which shoe). Then Holt told him to leave his office. The next day a small memo appeared on Pompey’s desk informing him of his promotion to Inspector Second Grade. True, Holt didn’t first ask him to shine the shoe. And he got to keep the cigar.
    Lila Mae hadn’t heard the story until Chuck told her about it. Far from explaining Pompey’s animus toward her, the story merely obscured matters. Did Pompey resent Lila Mae for presentingthem with a more exotic token, thus diluting their hatred toward him, the hatred that had calcified over time into something he came to cherish and savor as friendship; or were his haughty stares and keen disparagements his attempt at a warning against becoming him, and thus an aspect of racial love? Pompey says now, “She’s finally getting what’s been coming to her for a long time now,” and Halitosis Harry smacks him on the back in agreement. Nobody’s spotted her yet except for the bartender, who’s too much of a pro to say anything. She’s not hiding exactly, but most of her body is secreted behind a pillar conveniently situated between the door and the crowd at the radio. The same leering leprechaun on the front door of O’Connor’s shimmies on the pillar in triplicate. Or maybe she is hiding. She’s not sure. She doesn’t know how to get Chuck’s attention. He’s been quiet through all of it. One of her colleagues lets fly a rolling rebel yell at something Chancre just said.
    “Is it true that the inspector was an Intuitionist?” a reporter asks.
    “Yes, the inspector of the Fanny Briggs building, a Miss Lila Mae Watson, is an Intuitionist. I’m real reluctant to turn this terrible affair into a political matter, but I’m sure most of you are well aware that my opponent in the election for Guild Chair is also an Intuitionist.”
    Lila Mae realizes that the time she spent thinking about how to navigate O’Connor’s would have been better spent listening to the radio or simply going up to Chuck and grabbing him out of the mob. That would have surprised them. But now she’s no more wiser than when she entered.
    “Do you think that Intuitionist methods, which in the past you have described as ‘heretical and downright voodoo,’ may have played a part in today’s crash?”
    “Right now Internal Affairs is looking into that very possibility. We have a copy of the building’s inspection report and believeme, we are scrutinizing and cogitating as I speak. Gentlemen, it’s just these very kinds of occurrences I have been trying to eradicate in my four years as Guild Chair, and I don’t think I’m being immodest when I tell you I think I’ve made a pretty good go of it. Our Department sedans are shiny as never before and morale has never been so high. It’s almost scary. Sometimes people ask me how I made this Department the crown jewel, the very pearl of city services. I tell them that sometimes the old ways are the best ways. Why hold truck with the uppity