End of the Tiger (19 page)

On leaving the bank Ben was uncomfortably aware that interest alone on his debts was costing him a little over a dollar a day, and all reserves were gone.

That night he and Ginny had to drive into the city to attend a theater party that was a professional obligation. Three couples from National Directions, with Ben the junior in rank, and the president of a client firm in Dallas and his wife, a Mr. and Mrs. Blessing.

Sometimes such evenings turned out to be fun, and Ginny had enjoyed many of them. But this night Mrs. Blessing relayed her apologies through her husband to the people she had never met. She was confined to her hotel
bed. Something had upset her, possibly the New York City water. Mr. Blessing stated that Myrna was very sensitive about water. He was to go right ahead without her, and, clearly, he had been going ahead very effectively at the hotel bar.

Ben had been in conference with the man, and had admired the agility of Hank Blessing’s business brain. He was a big freckled man with a fringe of gray-red hair, small pale-gray eyes. In the present negotiations with National he was in the dealer’s chair and was capable of squeezing every last advantage out of it.

It astonished Ben that a man so coldly shrewd in conference could be such a total after-hours boor. Service at dinner before the theater was infuriatingly slow, providing a chance for Hank Blessing to proceed further with his self-inflicted paralysis of the cerebral cortex. He dominated the table with increasingly coarse tales of his homespun beginnings, while the three National executives and their wives sat with glazed smiles inadequately concealing acute distress. A man alcoholically convinced of his own irresistibility and charm will nearly always focus all of it on the nearest beautiful blonde. Ginny became Hank’s rebellious target.

They were late to the theater. Hank made a horrible racket in the aisle as they were finding their seats. He managed to plant himself beside Ginny and mumbled further exploits to her, ignoring the shushings, until he went soundly asleep. The play could have been excellent. The leading lady was sick. Her understudy ran through the part as though anxious to make a late date, drowning out her cue lines, yelling the tenderest passages.

Hank came up out of sleep at the final curtain, refreshed and ready to go. Ben was able to beg off, using the sitter as an excuse.

As they drove north on the parkway, Ben became aware of Ginny’s ominous silence. There had been other horrible evenings, to be sure, but they had always been able to make jokes on the way home.

“Charming guy, that Hank Blessing,” he said at last.

“Utterly.”

“We’ve been going around in a tight little circle with that guy. We ought to get it all locked up tomorrow.”

“And I went around in a tight little circle, too, darling,” she said hotly. “
Two
drinks he spilled on me. And I’m so tired of being pawed I could scream.”

“Come now, honey. You weren’t——”

She whirled in the seat to face him. “How could you keep track of what was going on? You were too busy thinking about how you’re going to … lock it all up tomorrow.”

“Honey, really now——”

“Don’t you really-now me, Ben Weldon. We used to go out together, a million years ago. Now when we go out, there’s an angle. I get dragged to town to prove that the young executive gets married just like ordinary people do. And I’m told that it’s my job. I’m helping you get ahead, or something. Well, I’ll keep right on doing it, because I suppose it’s part of the bargain, but you might as well know I consider it cynical and degrading, and I hate every minute of it!”

She flounced around and began to stare out her window at the night, as far from him as she could get.

“I wasn’t aware of the fact I was torturing you,” he said stiffly.

“What did that evening cost?” she asked in a small voice.

“What do you mean?”

“What did it cost? Total. Is that a hard question?”

“Tickets, dinner, drinks. Oh, I’d say about two twenty-five. But it’s a legitimate expense that can be deduc——”

“When do you have to go to Dallas?”

“It’s set up for next Tuesday.”

“First-class air out and back? The very best hotel? Room service? Bonded bourbon and steaks two inches thick and the biggest rental car on the lot——”

“It’s
always
that way. We can’t afford to give the impression of cutting corners. Actually it’s a public-relations and promotion expenditure, and I’m not exactly loafing, you know.”

“This dress,” she said in a dreary voice. “I’ve put the hem up and down so many times I feel like I’m wearing an elevator. And we decided it would be so jolly and unusual
to just stay home for our vacation this summer. All I had to do was cook for five and keep house. No more cleaning woman one half day a week. I wonder how scraggly I dare let the lawn get before I hire Gus to cut it. You come home so bushed, I haven’t the heart to ask you. We can’t afford to entertain the people we
really
like very often, so we have to turn down invitations, which at least saves sitter money.” She sighed heavily. “It’s a double standard, that it is. You take trips and live like Aly Khan and then you come back to your well-mortgaged home and listen to your wife whine.”

“Ginny——”

“It must bore you stiff.”

“We have to hang on. That’s all. This is a bad time. We just have to get through it.”

She turned back toward him, this time with earnestness. “But don’t you see, darling, that there should be more to life than just ‘getting through it’? These are supposed to be the good years. We don’t have any
fun
. Neither of us sees enough of the kids in the right way. Oh, I know. You’re the fair-haired boy, and things will get fat in the future, but what if we’re so beat down by the time things do get good that it won’t mean much?”

“Should I quit?” he snapped.

“Typical,” she said in anger. “Typical! You get all defensive and won’t even talk about it.”

“I’ll talk about anything constructive you care to bring up.”

He knew he was driving a little too fast, and dared her mentally to make any comment about it. The grim silence threatened to continue all the way to the house, but a mile after they had made the turnoff toward Lawton, the motor began to make an odd sound, a combination of grinding and clanking. He slowed down quickly.

“Is that little red light supposed to be on?” she asked.

The very moment he noticed it was the oil-pressure light, the car acted as though he had stepped on the brake. He put it in neutral and used what was left of the momentum to coast onto the wide shoulder. The motor was dead. He tried the starter and the starter would not turn it over.

“What is it?” Ginny asked.

“No oil, I’d guess. I wasn’t watching the heat.”

He got out and opened the hood. The heat that came off the block felt much like that of an open fire.

“Do we have to get oil?” she asked.

“No, we do not get oil.”

“Don’t bite my head off. I just don’t understand these——”

“The moving parts were operating without oil. Friction created great heat. The moving parts expanded and that increased the heat. The main bearings were the last thing to go, and they didn’t go quick enough so I ran it too long and it heated up beyond the melting point of the moving parts, and now the motor is frozen.”

He looked at her face in the pale moonlight and the reflected glow of the headlights. She looked puzzled and blank.

“Frozen?” she asked. “But you can feel the heat coming off it!”

And that was the very end. He whooped and gasped and staggered, and the tears ran out of his eyes. After baffled moments she joined in. They clung to each other.

When he could catch his breath he said, “Ruined! Got to buy a new motor!”

“Luck of the Weldons,” she gasped, and they were off again.

While they were still fighting for control, a police car stopped and Ben arranged for them to send a tow truck back. The disabled car was given a $25 tow into Lawton, three miles away. They left it in the agency parking lot and took a taxi home, and sent the sitter home in the same taxi.

Ginny phoned him at the office early the following afternoon. She had been to the agency. They had checked the car. The motor was shot. The estimate for putting in a new one was $770. It seemed that something had bounded up off the road, possibly flipped up by a front wheel, and had with devilish neatness sheared the drain plug off the bottom of the pan.

“They said our insurance couldn’t cover a thing like that,” she said solemnly.

“No. It wouldn’t cover that.”

“Billy suggested we trade it, but he said he couldn’t give very much, the condition it’s in.”

“How much?”

“Seven hundred dollars.”

“What! That was a thirty-eight-hundred-dollar car eighteen months ago!”

“Well, that’s what he told me.”

“I better talk to them.”

“What am I going to do for a car, Ben? You know I run a taxi service with these kids. I have to have a car. Should I rent one?”

“Can’t you borrow one?”

“I asked Billy, but they have a rule. Something about their insurance. I could try Alice, though. Stu is away for the whole month, and she can’t use two cars. But I sort of hate to ask her.”

“Give it a try, will you, honey?”

“O.K. How did it go with … last night’s companion?”

“About the way he wanted it to go. I’d hoped he’d be guilty and hung over, but he came out strong.”

“I got a call from Saks a little while ago. They were checking the address to mail a gift certificate. They said I’ve got a two-hundred-dollar credit all of a sudden, and they wouldn’t say from whom. So I guess he remembered slopping drinks on my dress. What should I do about it?”

“Honey, you might just as well use it. Get a dress.”

“No, sir! I’ll use it, all right. I’ve got uses for it. Bras, slips, nylons, blouses, skirts. Next time you get me next to a tycoon, I’ll joggle his elbow, believe me. ’By, darling.”

Ginny was able to borrow the neighbor’s extra car, and as soon as Ben had a chance he went to the agency. They would not go a penny over $750 unless, of course, he wanted to buy their biggest model, loaded with extras. Then they might go a couple hundred higher. He shopped around briefly, but he was handicapped by not having the car to show. He could only describe it. He had just finished the payments on the disabled car. Without cash, his only option was either to have the car repaired, and then refinance it to pay the bill, or to trade it and finance the new one. Billy pointed out the significant difference in the equity of the two vehicles one year from date. He
said they would make a very special deal on a 1964 model.

Ben looked over the stock list and bought the cheapest ’64 station wagon in the warehouse. He dispensed with the usual extras—the only one he bought was the heater-defroster. It had been previously serviced and was ready to roll. They pushed the papers through quickly. Ben drove the gray wagon home, any pleasure in the new car well muted by the knowledge of being another $2200 in debt.

The third option, the one he had not let himself think about, was to purchase a good used car, something sturdy and reliable right off Billy’s used-car lot, for possibly $1200. It could be one year older than the disabled car. The $500 difference could be financed readily.

But at this station in life he occupied a certain recognized position. All public actions had to be consistent with this position. In so far as vehicles were concerned, he had already taken the risk of a slight inconsistency by owning only one. The house had a two-car garage. The typical Ridge Road family had one reasonably new Detroit product and a second car, usually an import, for the wife. It was not in good taste to have two spanking-new cars. The second car could be bought used, and it had character if it was slightly battered and noisy.

But Benjamin Weldon could not buy a used car as the family’s only car. It would indicate either an uninteresting sort of eccentricity, or serious money problems. Either conclusion was unpalatable. Everyone had problems. Everyone managed to get by, somehow, and keep up appearances. It was a test of both management and character, like dressing for dinner in the jungle.

Ben Weldon did not care about the opinions of Lawton. But of the two thousand men in the area who went down to the city every working day, at least fifty not only were in his age group and approximate earnings group, but were employed by organizations operating in the same areas as National Directions. Three men were, in fact, employed by National Directions, two junior to Ben and one senior to him. In any tensely competitive situation, trivia become excruciatingly important.

The fifty of the two thousand men who rode down to
the towers of the city each day were blandly cordial to one another. And without being able to state precisely why, they watched one another with minute care. They learned to read the small signs. They could pick out the overconfident ones who, through talking too loosely and readily, were slamming doors they might have entered. They saw the first signs of decay in the man who would be felled by liquor. They detected evidences of the marital rift or the destructive affair long before the gossip became public property. And they could tell, with an uncanny, unerring accuracy, the ones who were on their way up and out of this narrow routine.

It was all casual, with the desperation carefully hidden away, but each year a few dropped off, and newcomers closed the ranks. They went down or up, and in either case their houses went on the market, and they rode those trains no longer. And at the lunches in the city, and in the idle moments before meetings were called to order, the smallest departures from standard behavior were discussed.

“What’s with Weldon, buying a used car? I thought he was crown prince over there. They cut his pay?”

“Maybe he’s just smarter than you and me.”

“Maybe. Seems funny, though.”

“Maybe he guessed the market wrong, or he’s playing the horses.”

Ben Weldon knew exactly how the system worked. Yet he guessed that if he had less at stake, he would have gone ahead and bought the used car. But when you’re playing the game for the house limit, it is stupid to go around handing the world any kind of club to beat you with. It would not be a crime to buy a used car. The crime would be in giving the men who control your destiny any personal questions to ask about you that do not have obvious and reasonable answers.