Memory (Hard Case Crime) (6 page)

It looked like the unemployment insurance office, but older and not so heavily windowed. And instead of fluorescent lights in rows there were big globe lights in rows. But the people looked like the same people, men and women. Instead of a railing, there was a counter, not quite as high as the one in the Employment Office.

A balding pleasant-faced man with steel-rimmed spectacles and no chin came up and asked if he could be of help. Cole handed him the instruction form and said, “I’m supposed to see Mr. Cowley.”

“Ah! You’re just joining us, eh?” It seemed to please him. “Come on with me.”

Cole went around the end of the counter and followed him. They went down past the rows of desks to a plywood-and-frosted-glass partition, and through the door there, and the balding man said to the man at the desk, “Mr. Cowley, a new employee, Mr. Paul Cole.”

“They phoned,” said Mr. Cowley. He was a heavyset man with a thick face; he made Cole think of fraternal organizations, the American Legion and the Masons and Kiwanis. He told Cole to sit down in the chair in front of the desk, and then there were more forms to fill out, tax forms and company forms. Cole had to sign his name to two of the forms. Mr. Cowley was dispassionate, doing his job. He looked at Cole when he asked a question, and down at the form when Cole answered it. Most of the forms were filled out in three or more copies, with carbon paper between.

When Mr. Cowley was finished with his forms, he used a paper clip to fasten some of the copies to the instruction form, and then signed his initials on the instruction form, next to the number (2). He gave the instruction form back to Cole, and then stood up and extended his hand, saying, “I’d like to welcome you to Jeffords.”

“Thank you.” It was meaningless, but Cole shook his hand.

Next, he went to the Union Steward’s Office, in Building 1. This was a small office, cut in half by a railing. In front of the railing was a desk with a girl sitting at it, and behind the railing was a desk with a man sitting at it. Cole gave the girl his instruction form, with the Finance Office forms paper clipped to it, and said, “I’m supposed to speak to Mr. Hamacek.”

“Just take a seat,” she said. She looked as though she might be related to the girl in the Employment Office.

Cole sat down, and the girl went through the gate in the railing, and it snapped shut after her. She gave Cole’s forms to the man at the desk back there, and then went to a filing cabinet and got more forms, and put these on the desk, too.

The man at the desk must have been Mr. Hamacek. He was short and broad and very hairy. He had a leathery face and a thick black moustache and thick black hair. There were black hairs protruding from his nostrils and ears. He was wearing a blue dress shirt and a maroon tie, and he was smoking a pipe as though he’d just recently switched from cigarettes.

Cole had to wait a while for Mr. Hamacek to complete whatever else he was doing, and to look at Cole’s forms, and then he glanced over at Cole and motioned for him. His eyes were like black buttons, and very bright. Under the thick moustache, his mouth was thin-lipped and bloodless.

Cole went through the gate and sat down in the chair beside the desk. Mr. Hamacek glanced at his form and said, “Paul Cole? Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a member of atwhee?”

“What?”

“Atwhee. Allied Tannery Workers International. ATWI.”

“Oh. No.”

“Jeffords is a one hundred percent union shop,” Mr. Hamacek said, and paused as though waiting for Cole to make something of it. He seemed defensive. He said, “In order to work here, you have to be a union member. You want to join?”

“I want to work here.”

“Then you want to join. Are you a member of any other union or craft guild or similar association?”

“Yes. Actor’s Equity and SAG and AFTRA.”

“What? What were they? One at a time.”

“Actor’s Equity,” said Cole, and Mr. Hamacek wrote it down. “SAG. That’s the Screen Actor’s Guild. And—”

“You’re an actor?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I need money. I want a job.”

Mr. Hamacek nodded. “Security,” he said. “You’re being sensible. There’s no security in things like acting, the bohemian life. I didn’t know actors had unions, but there’s still no security in it. Here, in an established firm, with a strong trade union, you’ve got a future. Stability and security. What was the other one?”

“What?”

“The other union. You mentioned three.”

“Oh. AFTRA. American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.”

Mr. Hamacek wrote it down. Then he said, “You’ll get your card in about ten days. Now, fill out these forms, and sign at the X’s.”

Cole took the forms, and the pen Mr. Hamacek gave him, and filled them out. While he was doing it, Mr. Hamacek said, “Dues are five percent of salary, automatically withheld.” He signed his initials next to (3) on the instruction form.

After Cole finished filling out the forms, Mr. Hamacek added one of them to the stack of paper clipped to his instruction form, and then he stood up and shook Cole’s hand and welcomed him to Jeffords. He told Cole again that he had made a wise move, and then Cole left and crossed Western Avenue again, and crossed Robert Street, and went to Building 6 and into the Doctor’s Office.

There was a stout gray-haired woman in a nurse’s uniform there. She took his form and told him, “Go through that door and strip. The Doctor will see you in a minute.”

He went into the next room. It was small and dim, with a venetian blind closed over the one window. There was a gray leather examining table, and a table with a milk glass top, and a white cabinet with locked doors, and a black kitchen chair. He took his clothes off and hung them on the chair and stood there naked, waiting. Five minutes later the door opened and a woman started in, carrying papers and looking preoccupied. She wasn’t the nurse, but she was about the same age and weight. She stopped short and said, “Oh! I
beg
your pardon!” She backed hurriedly out, and closed the door so hard it slammed.

Cole felt like crying, but he wasn’t sure why. He looked at his clothing all hung on the black kitchen chair, and wanted to put it all back on, but he told himself he couldn’t do it. He had to have this job, for money, to get back to New York.

He wanted to sit down, but there was only the one chair, and his clothing was all on that. The floor was black linoleum, and cold under his feet.

The doctor came in twenty minutes later, wearing a white smock. He was a brisk distracted man in his forties, with a look of impatience to him. He had all of Cole’s forms in his hand. He said, “Sorry to keep you waiting,” in a brisk and meaningless way, and looked at the forms. “You say you’ve been hospitalized recently. What was the complaint?”

“I was beaten up.”

“Oh. I see.” He nodded, and put down the forms, and got to work. It was a long examination, like the one before the Army. When it was finished, the doctor said, “Well, you’re in perfect physical shape, if you’d like to know.”

“Thank you.”

“Get dressed. The nurse will have your forms.”

He put his clothes back on and went out to the other office, and the nurse handed him the forms. There was a new one under the paper clip with the rest, and another set of initials on the instruction form.

Cole went to Building 3, the long shed by the railroad yards, and in through the front door. There was a door marked
Supply
. He went in there and asked the girl at the near desk where to find the Shipping Department. She told him, and it was midway through the building, at the end of a long corridor, solid double doors with
Shipping Department
written on them. He went through and found himself in a long open space, the whole rear half of the building, full of noise and motion and stacks of boxes. There was a glass-and-wood cubicle to his right. He went over there and inside. It was a small cubicle, crowded with two desks and a row of filing cabinets. One of the desks was unoccupied, and at the other sat a very fat man in a dirty white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a black tie. He looked up at Cole and said, “What can I do for you?” His right hand was fidgeting with a pencil stub, and his left hand was fidgeting with a cigar butt that didn’t seem to be lit.

Cole held out the stack of forms towards him, and the fat man dropped his pencil and took them. He glanced through them, grunting to himself, and then said, “Yeah. Ellie called. You’re Paul Cole, I’m Joe Lampek. You want to start work today?”

“All right.”

“Good. Show up here at four o’clock. I’ll have a timecard made out on you. You see that door over there?” He pointed to the right, through the glass of the cubicle.

Cole looked that way, and nodded. “Yes.”

“That’s where you come in. The time clock’s right next to it. Look for your card alphabetically. You lose half an hour for every five minutes you’re late.”

He’d forgotten to ask in the Finance Office about his pay, so he did it now. “How much do I get paid?”

“Straight dollar an hour the first forty hours. Dollar and a half the last two, that’s overtime. You work a six day week, Monday through Saturday, four to midnight, with dinner hour at seven-thirty. That’s seven work hours a day, forty-three bucks a week.”

Cole nodded. He’d only have to work here one week, and he’d have money left over.

Lampek said, “Payday is Friday, and you’re paid for the week before. This Friday you don’t get anything. Next Friday you get your first pay. Starting today, you’ll only have five days in this week, so there won’t be any overtime.”

“I won’t get any money till next week?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t have any money at all.”

Lampek shrugged. “Not my problem,” he said. “Take it up with the Employment Office.” He scribbled his initials on the instruction form, and handed all the forms back. “Be here at four o’clock.”

Cole took the forms, and went out the door next to the time clock, which led him to Parking Lot #1. Building 2, containing the Employment Office, was to his left. He went there, and back into the Employment Office, and put his stack of forms on the counter.

The girl was talking on the telephone. She motioned to him to wait, and kept talking. He stood leaning on the counter, watching the movement of her dry mouth, and after a while she hung up and came back to him. She tried for a real smile and missed, and said, “Well, now. All done?”

“Yes.”

She went through the forms, looking them all over, and nodding to herself. When she was done, she said, “That’s fine. You’re all set.”

He said, “They told me I won’t get any money till next week.”

“That’s right. You’re paid the Friday after each pay period.”

“I don’t have any money. I’ll need money for food and rent.”

“It’s possible you’ll be able to arrange a loan somewhere. From one of the agencies in town, or from a friend.”

“I don’t know anybody here.”

“Company policy forbids making advance payments.”

“Then pay me tomorrow for the work I do tonight.”

“As I say, company police forbids making advance payments.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want an advance payment. Pay me tomorrow for the work I do tonight.”

“That would be considered an advance payment, and company police forbids it.” She shrugged slightly. “I don’t make the rules,” she said.

He was going to argue some more, but instead he closed his mouth and looked at her. It was true what she said, she didn’t make the rules. She had no responsibility, she could not be held responsible.

He felt sad again, and felt a mute pity for her, but he didn’t know why. He only knew it was cruel to stand here and badger her about her enforcement of rules she hadn’t made. He said, meaning it deeply, “I’m sorry.”

She looked surprised, and then annoyed, and he realized she thought he was being flippant, because that was supposed to be
her
line. She was supposed to say
I’m sorry
, and he was supposed to answer
That’s all right
.

“That’s all right,” he said. He turned and walked out of the Employment Office. He went back out to Western Avenue and turned left and walked across the small bridge into the downtown section. It seemed to him that the tannery smell was less strong, but then he understood he was beginning to get used to it.

He was very hungry. He stopped in at the restaurant where he’d eaten last night, and spent seventy cents on lunch. Then he went back to the hotel.

He started on by the Dutch door and the young man with the sharp guilty defiant face, the clerk, but the clerk said, “Oh, no you don’t! Where do you think you’re going?”

Cole didn’t understand him. He said, “Up to my room.”

“You don’t have a room.” He pointed. “There’s your stuff.”

Cole looked, and saw his suitcase and canvas bag on the floor near the door. He said, “What’s that for?”

“I told you checkout time was one o’clock.” The clerk was making no effort to keep the triumph out of his voice.

Now that the clerk had reminded him, he remembered the conversation this morning. He looked at his watch, and it was quarter after two. He shook his head, and said, “You saw my luggage there. You knew I’d be coming back.”

“I told you this morning, checkout time is one o’clock.”

“Where’s the owner?”

The clerk laughed. “City and County Trust,” he said. “Two blocks over.”

“The manager, then.”

“As far as you’re concerned,
I’m
the manager.”

There was silence then, while Cole tried to think. He had always been sure of himself, all his life, but this business about his memory was affecting him other ways, making him less sure of anything, less sure of himself. He said, “Why do you have to be like this?”

“We don’t want no deadbeats around here.”

Cole shook his head. “In this place? What else could you get here? What are you?”

“Just take your stuff and scram. Or, if you want to stay another night, cash in advance.”

“The hotel is cheap and shoddy, and you’re cheap and shoddy. What can you expect?” But the last sentence was directed at himself.