Appointment in Samarra (19 page)

Gee, I wish I knew. I guess let it ride for the time being. You were cockeyed, and that s one consolation. Maybe Charney will take that into consideration. Aw, what the hell. We ll get by. Don t take it to heart too much. I ll see you this afternoon around quitting time. I have to go to Collieryville now, but it ll work out one way or another. Shake?

Shake, said Julian. They shook hands and smiled, and Lute left, and Julian heard him telling Mary Klein that everything had been decided; they weren t going to handle automobiles any more; just airplanes. It isn t true, is it, Mr. English? What Luther Fliegler just told me?

What did he tell you?

That we were going to stop selling cars and sell airplanes instead. I don t think there s any market for airplanes around here.

Don t let it worry you for a couple of years, Mary, said Julian. You know Lute.

And how! said Mary Klein. It was one of those mornings when he could tell himself that he was up to his ears in work or that he had nothing to do, and either with equal honesty. His hangover did not bother him inordinately; he knew he could work in spite of whatever effect the night before still maintained. He wanted to work; the difficulty was in getting started. He wanted to work to put things out of his mind, and he tried to the extent of getting out some scratch paper and pencils with the idea of working out some sort of summary or recapitulation of the year s business of the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company. This was a good time to do that; when no salesmen would disturb him, and when there was nothing much else he could do. But the words, summary, recapitulation they made him think of Lute and how he had recapitulated and summarized his performance of the night before, including the consequences. The Quilty business well, he thought he knew what to expect there: O Dowd probably hadn t said a word to old Quilty, but when O Dowd did hear about Julian s throwing the highball at Harry Reilly, he would hotfoot out to Quilty and make the sale. O Dowd was a good salesman, and he knew how to handle a situation like this. Julian hated to lose that sale, too, because no matter how people joke about it, when you place a car with an undertaker, you have a pretty good advertisement. Undertakers keep their cars in the best of shape, black and gleaming and polished and clean. Julian knew this from his own reaction; he often had thought that if you had to die, it wouldn t be so bad to ride to the cemetery in Quilty s luxurious hearse, followed by Quilty s well-kept Studebaker sedans. Whenever he heard the tune, Saint James Infirmary, he always thought of old Quilty. And the sale would be for cash. That wouldn t be hard to take. It certainly made it hard to lose. He wondered if Harry Reilly had gone to work already. Harry was a very rich man and handling his investments and holdings was a full-time job, but he also managed to know what was going on in other people s businesses, and it would be just like him to know that old Quilty was thinking of buying a Cadillac. It was just the kind of thing he would know. After all, why shouldn t he know it? He had lent Julian twenty thousand dollars last summer, and that was a nice piece of change no matter how much Harry might be worth. It was enough to excuse any extraordinary interest Harry might be taking in Julian s business. Twenty thousand dollars! Why in God s name had he ever asked for that much? He knew perfectly well why he had asked for that much: at the time he needed ten thousand, but he figured he might as well get a good hunk while he was at it. Ten thousand had gone in no time: it cost, even with the cheap labor and construction costs of last summer, about eight thousand to build the inclined driveway inside the building, which he had calculated would mean eventually a great saving in electric power bills through decreased use of the elevator. So far it hadn t made much difference, if any. In fact, Julian would not have argued very long if someone suggested that the driveway was an ill-advised project. Then what else was there? Well, there were those two three-wheel motorcycles. The idea of them was a mechanic would ride the motorcycle to, say, the Davis garage, hook some kind of gadget on the Davis Cadillac, and drive the car, with the motorcycle trailing along behind, back to the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company for servicing or repairs. That was another idea that was going to make a saving, but the saving, Julian was sure, had failed to make a showing on the books. And why two motorcycles? One was enough. More than enough. Then there were the trees, those beautiful, slender trees. Julian had conditioned himself against ever seeing them when he passed them, but now he made himself think of them. There they were out there in the little strip of grass along the curb. Seven-hundred and sixty-six dollars and forty-five cents worth of them, including freight and planting. Julian knew to the penny what they cost, but he still was not sure of the name of them. They had been purchased while he was in a fine, naturalistic mood as an aftermath of a City Beautiful luncheon. There had been trees a long time ago where the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company now stood, and there had been trees along the curb, but they had been chopped down. Then one day Julian went to a City Beautiful luncheon and everybody got up and said a few words about trees and what they did for a residential section Julian s garage was in a residential section and by the oddest coincidence there chanced to be a man from a nursery at the luncheon, and Julian signed. And that about took care of the extra ten thousand dollars. The other ten thousand had gone for expenses, real ones, like payments on notes, payroll, and so on. Lute was right on another score: Ed Charney was a good customer. I m a good customer of Ed s, Julian reminded himself, but he s a better one of mine. Something ought to be done about Ed, but he supposed the best thing to do for the present was to lay off trying to fix it up. Yes, he certainly had loused things up last night: Ed Charney sore at him, Caroline well, he wouldn t think of that now; he was at work, and he would try to think of things only in so far as they affected his business. If Ed Charney got really sore but he wouldn t do that; he wouldn t throw a pineapple at the garage. This was Gibbsville, not Chicago. And after all, the English name meant something around here. No thanks to me, however, Julian said under his breath. Darn his buttons anyhow, said Mary Klein. What is it, Mary? said Julian. Luther Fliegler, she said. He makes out these slips when he gets gas, but you never can tell whether he means ten gallons or seventy gallons, the way he makes figures.

Well, I don t think he d be making out a slip for seventy gallons. A car doesn t hold that much gas, said Julian. Besides, that s not your headache. Let Bruce worry about it.

Mary turned to look at him. Sure, but you forget. You told Bruce he could go to Lebanon over the week-end. She spoke as a woman who was carrying on in spite of all injustice. Bruce Reichelderfer was the bookkeeper, and Julian had given him the week-end. That s right, I did. Well, let me see it.

She handed him the slip. She was right as usual; you could not tell from the figures whether Lute had meant 10 or 70. We ought to use the French seven, he said. Then we d always know. However, I guess we can take a chance that he meant ten gallons. He wouldn t be signing for seventy gallons all at once.

Well, I just wanted to be right on it. Sixty gallons of gas, that costs money, and we can t just

I know, Mary. You re right. Somehow her tone filled him with terror, the kind that he felt when he knew he was doing something bad. It was an old experience; he still thought of it in the terms of boyhood: when I m doing something bad. And it wasn t her tone alone; it was her manner, and it was not a new manner. For weeks, and probably months, she had behaved like someone, a school teacher, who was meaning to speak to him about his lessons or conduct. She was Right, and he was Wrong. She could make him feel like a thief, a lecher(although God knows he never had made a pass at her), a drunkard, a no-good bum. She represented precisely what she came from: solid, respectable, Pennsylvania Dutch, Lutheran middle class; and when he thought about her, when she made her existence felt, when she actively represented what she stood for, he could feel the little office suddenly becoming overcrowded with a delegation of all the honest clerks and mechanics and housewives and Sunday School teachers and widows and orphans all the Christiana Street kind of people who he knew secretly hated him and all Lantenengo Street people. They could have their illegitimate babies, their incest, their paresis, their marital bestiality, their cruelty to animals, their horrible treatment of their children and all the other things which you could find in individual families; but collectively they presented a solid front of sound Pennsylvania Dutch and all that that implied, or was supposed to imply. They went to church on Sunday, they saved their money, they were kind to their old people, they were physically clean, they loved music, they were peace-loving, they were good workers. And there they sat, with their back curved in at the small part, their oilcloth cuffs covering their sleeves, their fresh blouse as neat after five hours wear as Julian s shirt after two. And they were thinking what a pity it was that this wonderful business wasn t in the hands of one of their own men, instead of being driven into the ground by a Lantenengo Street wastrel. And yet, Julian made himself admit, Lute Fliegler is a Pennsylvania Dutchman and one of the swellest guys that ever lived. Thinking that over Julian returned to his old theory: it was possible, wasn t it? that Lute s mother had had a quick one with an Irishman or a Scotsman. A hell of a thing to think about that old Mrs. Fliegler, who still baked the best pie crust Julian had ever tasted. Every few minutes Julian would jot down some figures as they came into his head. All the time he looked very busy, and he hoped he was making a good impression on Mary Klein. The sheets of paper that lay before him were filling up with neat, engineering style lettering and numerals. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. & He did. What s the use of trying to fool myself? I know he did. I know he did and no matter what excuses I make or how much I try to tell myself that he didn t, I ll only come back to the same thing: He did. I know he did. And what for? For a dirty little thrill with a woman who oh, I thought he d got all that out of his system. Didn t he have enough of that before he married me? Did he still think he was a college boy? Did he think I couldn t have done the same thing to him, dozens of times? Did he know oh, of course he didn t know that of all his friends, Whit Hofman was the only one that I can truthfully say never made a pass at me. The only one. Ah, Julian, you stupid, hateful, mean, low, contemptible little son of a bitch that I hate! You do this to me, and know that you do this to me! Know it! Did it on purpose! Why? It wasn t only to get even with me. It wasn t only because I wouldn t go out in the car with you. Are you so dumb blind after four and a half years that you don t know that there are times when I just plain don t feel like having you? Does there have to be a reason for it? An excuse? Must I be ready to want you at all times except when I m not well? If you knew anything you d know I want you probably more then than any other time. But you get a few drinks in you and you want to be irresistible. But you re not. I hope you found that out. But you didn t. And you never will. I love you? Yes, I love you. Like saying I have cancer. I have cancer. If I did have cancer. You big charmer, you. You irresistible great big boy, turning on the charm like the water in the tub; turning on the charm like the water in the tub; turning on the charm turning on the charr-arm, turning on the charm like the water in the tub. I hope you die. I hope you die because you have killed something fine in me, sub. Ah hope you die. Yes-suh, Ah hope you die. You have killed something mighty fine in me, English, old boy, old kid, old boy. What Ah mean is, did you kill something fine in me or did you kill something fine. I feel sick, sick as a dog. I feel sick and I would like to shoot my lunch and I would like indeed to shoot my lunch but I will be damned if I want to move out of this bed, and if you don t stop being nasty to servants I said r. I said a word with r in it, and that makes me stop this silly business. I wonder why? I wonder why r? Oh, I guess I better get up. There s nothing to be gained by lying here in bed and feeling sorry for myself. It s nothing new or interesting or novel or rare or anything. I m just a girl who just feels like dying because the man I love has done me wrong. I m not even suffering any more. I m not even feeling anything. At least I don t think I am. No, I m not. I m not feeling anything. I m just a girl named Caroline Walker, Caroline Walker English, Caroline W. English, Mrs. Walker English. That s all I am. Thirty-one years old. White. Born. Height. Weight. Born? Yes. I always think that s funny and I always will. I m sorry, Julian, but I just happen to think it s funny and you used to think so too, back in the old days when I knew you in an Eton collar and a Windsor tie, and I loved you then, I loved you then, I love you now, I love you now, I ll always love you to the day I die and I guess this is what they call going to pieces. I guess I ve gone to pieces, because there s nothing left of me. There s nothing left for me of days that used to be I live in mem-o-ree among my souvenirs. And so what you did, what you did was take a knife and cut me open from my throat down to here, and then you opened the door and let in a blast of freezing cold air, right where you had cut me open, and till the day you die I hope you never, never know what it feels like to have someone cut you open all the way down the front of you and let the freezing blast of air inside you. I hope you never know what that means and I know you won t, my darling that I love, because nothing bad will happen to you. Oh, lovely Callie, your coat is so warm, the sheep s in the meadow, the cows in the corn. No, I don t think I ll get up for a while, Mrs. Grady.

It was inevitable that every time Al Grecco went to the garage in which Ed Charney kept his private cars, be should think of a photograph one of the boys from the west had shown around. Probably a great many men and the women of those men in Al Grecco s line of work had the same thought, inspired by the same photograph (there were thousands of copies of the photograph), whenever they looked inside an especially dismal garage. The photograph showed a group of men, all dead, but with that somehow live appearance which pictures of the disfigured dead give. The men were the victims of the St. Valentine s Day massacre in Chicago, when seven men were given the Mexican stand-off against the inside wall of a gang garage. It d be a nice wall for it, Al said, as he opened the garage door. He went upstairs and lugged a case of champagne down the steps. Then he went up again and lugged a case of Scotch down, and then he lifted them into a dull black Hudson coach, which was used for deliveries. He backed the car out into the street, Railroad Avenue, and then got out and slid the garage doors shut. He took one more look at that blank wall before he finally closed the door. Yes. It sure would be a nice wall for it, he said. No man could call him what Ed Charney had called him and get away with it. Not even Ed Charney. He thought of his mother, with the little gold earrings. Why, he could remember when she didn t own a hat. She would even go to Mass on Sunday with that scarf over her head. Often in the far past he had told her she was too damn lazy to learn English, but now, thinking of her, he thought of her as a good little woman who had had too much work to learn much English. She was a wonderful woman, and she was his mother, and if Ed Charney called him a son of a bitch, all right; if he called him a bastard, all right. Those were just names that you called a guy when you wanted to make him mad, or when you were mad at him. Those names didn t mean anything anyhow, because, Al figured, if your mother was a bitch, if you were a bastard, what was the use of fighting about it? And if she wasn t, you could easily prove it. What was the use fighting about it? But this was different, what Ed Charney had said: Listen you God damn dirty little guinny bastard, I sent you up there last night to keep an eye on Helene. You didn t have to go if you didn t want to. But what do you do? You double-cross me, you son of a bitch. I bet English gave you a sawbuck so he could take her out and give her a jump, and you sit back there collecting fifty bucks from me becuss I m sap enough to think you re on the up-and-up with me. But no. Not you. Not you. Why, you small-time chiseling bastard, you. You dirty lousy mother bastard. And more like that. Automatically Al had tried to explain: all she did was dance with him; she wasn t outside long enough to do anything with English ( You re a dirty liar. Foxie told me she was out a half an hour. ); English was stewed and not on the make ( Don t tell me about English. I m not blaming him. I m blaming you. You knew she was my girl. English didn t. ), and so on. In his heart Al wanted to tell Ed the real truth; that he could have made Helene himself if he hadn t been on the up-and-up. But that wouldn t do any good now. Or it wouldn t do enough harm. Ed was crazy mad. He was so crazy mad that he said all these things to Al over the telephone from his own house, most likely in front of his wife. Oh, positively in front of his wife. If she was in the same house she couldn t help hearing him, the way he was yelling into the telephone. So Al just stood there at the phone and took it without making any real comeback. At first he had been stunned by the accusation of being a double-crosser. But in Al s and Ed s line of work it is never wise to call an associate a double-crosser; if the associate is guilty, the thing to do is punish him; if he isn t guilty, it puts the idea into his head. And then when he remembered the bad thing that Ed had called him, that began to put the idea into Al s head. He hadn t made any plans about what he was going to do. Not yet. But something would have to be done. I guess it ll be me or him, he said, thinking of that wall. But meanwhile he had his work to do. Little jobs here and there. Odds and ends, daily routine work. Ed had been in such a rage, so burnt up, that he had forgot to fire Al, and despite everything he had said, he had not indicated that he intended to fire Al. In their line of work it was one thing to have a scrap, a mouth fight, or to be angry for a day or two at an associate. But to fire a man was something else again. You didn t just fire a guy like that (finger-snap). Not even in Gibbsville, which was not Chicago. That was the trouble, in a way. In a way maybe it was a break that it wasn t Chicago, because out there they knocked each other off with less excuse than a fight over a dame. But in another way Al was sorry it wasn t Chi. In Gibbsville they never had a gang war, because Ed Charney simply didn t have any competition. Whereas on the other hand, in Chi they did. They had gang wars all the time. They were used to it. In Chi you could get away with it. In Gibbsville it would be just a murder, and they would have to make a pinch and have a court trial and all that, and the juries around here were so screwy, they might even send you to the chair. That Rock View, I don t want any part of that, said Al. So now he had a nice little job to do. A little odds and ends. He had to take this champagne and this Scotch out to where English lived. English, the mugg that caused all the trouble in the first place. Although as he drove along he could not stir up any very strong hatred of English, because the truth of the matter was, if you wanted to know who was responsible, it wasn t English or it wasn t even Helene with her hot pants. It was Ed Charney himself. A married man with a kid, and absolutely haywire on the subject of another woman not his wife. That was where the trouble was. He wanted everything, Ed did. Well, that remains to be seen, as the elephant said. I m above this kind of work, Al said, as he lifted first one case, then the other, out of the Hudson and laid them down on the kitchen porch of the English house. He rang the bell. How much is it? said the old woman. You don t have to pay me, said Al, who knew that English had credit with Ed. I said how much is it? said the old woman, the cook, he guessed she was. A hundred and seventy-five. A hundred for the champagne, seventy-five for the Scotch.