by Jane Smiley
But Marcus had. The receptionist said, “Hey, Marcus!” with a grin, and Marcus said, “Hey, Dawn!” and then a door to one of the offices opened and out came George Sloan. He was dressed in a black funereal-type suit and a very white shirt, but he didn’t have a mournful air. Rather, he was grinning, and he had large yellow-gold cuff links. He too said, “Hey, Marcus! I was hoping you’d come in.”
“How’s it going?”
“Great! Say, Joe! Long time no see!”
It was as if our most recent interaction hadn’t ever happened. In fact, it was as if all our interactions hadn’t happened. The George Sloan I had taken around to house after house, the faintly exasperated, suspicious middle-aged guy who had transformed into the lovelorn trespasser had now transformed again into a chuckling, hearty, welcoming, even good-looking man. I said, “George! I thought you’d disappeared.”
“You thought I’d gone to jail, I’ll bet!” He guffawed.
“Well, they didn’t say anything in the paper—”
“Oh, I paid a fine.” He waved his hand. “But come into my office. I want to show Marcus something.”
He ushered us into a nice hard-edged office with severe black and gray décor, except that everything had bright gold accents. I said, “So, how long have you been in the gold business, George? I thought you were in business supplies or something like that.”
“I’ll tell you what happened. I came into some money, I won’t say how much, but enough to have redone that house if those restaurant people hadn’t bought it and gutted the downstairs to build the kitchens, so I was looking around for an investment, and I came over here—just a little research—and I got to talking to one of the partners, Simon Lever, you know him? And a couple of weeks later, here I was, and Simon said he’d teach me the business, and of course Marcus was in on it.” He glanced at Marcus. “But look.”
There was a lighted computer screen in one corner of the office, and numbers were scrolling across it.
“This is like minting money. The trade I made this morning has already earned four percent, and it’s only been—what?—a couple of hours. If it keeps going like this, I’ll be ready to buy a piece of land.” He looked at the computer screen admiringly.
“And I’ll be ready to buy an ingot of gold,” said Marcus.
“I keep telling you to get in.”
Marcus shrugged. “Simon Lever is a good prospect for us.”
“Look at me. I’m an idiot,” said George. “What have I been doing all my life? Glorified inventory. But this is making me rich. This is making me rich. All you need is a stake. Doesn’t even have to be a big stake. What I do is retire a certain percentage of everything I earn. I learned that from watching my father-in-law play blackjack in Vegas. He’d go out there with a stake, absolutely ironclad. If he was losing, well, so be it, but if he was winning he put money into his left pocket every winning hand, and he never took it out. Over the years, he’s one of the few guys I ever saw who made money gambling.”
“And paid his taxes,” said Marcus.
“Yes, he did. I told you that.”
“So he wasn’t as smart as he looked.”
We all laughed.
George put his hands in his pockets. “Fellas,” he said, “it’s lying around on the floor here, waiting for you guys to stoop down and pick it up.”
“Everything I got is tied up.” Marcus glanced at me. “I don’t know about Joe.”
I shook my head noncommittally.
“You know where I am,” said George Sloan.
As we went up the stairs to our office, I said, “Between you and me, it is quite a transformation. Like a personality transplant.”
“He got rich.”
“Well—”
“George Sloan is the first guy I’ve met around here who can take a dare.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
I went to bed before ten Sunday night. I thought I heard the phone ring; I was sleeping so soundly I couldn’t even begin to wake up and answer it, but when I got to work in the morning, Marcus was waiting in the parking lot for me again. The weather had turned especially cold overnight, below zero, and he was bundled up to the eyebrows. I almost didn’t recognize him. But he opened the door to my car as soon as I turned off the ignition, and said, “So, what do you think? Did you think about it over the weekend? I tried to call you last night but you didn’t answer.”
“I fell asleep early.”
“It’s fucking cold out here. Let’s go for a drive. Let’s drive out to the farm.”
“Okay. I’d like to see how Gottfried’s getting on, anyway.”
“He hasn’t done a thing except set up. It’s taking him forever to set up.”
“When were you out there?”
“Saturday. He wasn’t there. I didn’t touch anything. I wore gloves. I didn’t leave fingerprints. But he seems slow.”
“He isn’t fast, and he also takes a long time to set up and scope out the job. He always says, Well begun is half done. Believe me, you won’t see Gottfried running to the lumberyard for three two-by-fours and a package of screws he forgot to account for. Don’t worry about it.” We turned out of the parking lot and headed down the street. The car was warm, and Marcus unwound his scarf. After a moment, he unbuttoned the top button of his overcoat. He stared out the windshield. I could recognize that stare now. It was the worried stare, the what’s-going-to-happen-to-us stare. I didn’t say anything. I let Susan Webster come into my mind, the way she looked when we were dancing, bright and happy and pretty, just a little disheveled, pinning her hair up after a fast dance, then putting her head against my chest for the next slow dance.
Marcus said, “I think we have to do something on the side, something that the others aren’t involved in. I think we have to diversify.”
“What do you mean?”
“This thing George Sloan is into is a great thing. I hate to see it get away from us.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
He looked at me. “Neither does George.” We laughed.
“How much do you think he’s made?”
“Well, actually, I can tell you that, because he’s another one who can’t keep his mouth shut. His mother or someone left him about a hundred and twenty-five. He’s turned that into something like seven.”
“Seven hundred thousand dollars?”
“As of Friday.”
“This time last year, he was griping about how he was going to meet his sixteen-thousand-dollar down payment for his mortgage. Of course he was also stalking that hillside house, so I don’t know what was really going on with him. Maybe he was just griping in front of his wife, as a cover.”
“Well, I didn’t know him then, but I feel like the chance of a lifetime is getting away from me.”
“What about Jane?”
“Jane doesn’t have any money either. At least, not what she calls poker money. You know, my authority with Jane only goes so far and no farther.”
“I know that.”
“If I had fifty thousand bucks I could turn it into three in no time.”
“Three thousand?”
“Three hundred thousand, you idiot!” He started laughing. “And get this. Mike put two thousand with George. You might ask yourself where Mike got two thousand? Well, he’s saved it in a tin all these years. In a tin! When I met Mike, he thought a financial instrument was a money clip. They ran the two up to fifteen, and he went and bought some futures in soybeans, got it up to nineteen, then sold those and decided to try the currency market. He’s turned that two into twenty-three thousand dollars, and now he wants to buy a house. By the way, I meant to tell you to look for a house for Mike out there in Plymouth Township somewhere. First a suit, then a house. But, shit, they’re leaving me behind.”
“I’m feeling a little stodgy myself.”
“I am in a dangerous mood.”
“In what sense?” I looked him up and down.
“Well, I’m not going to do
you any bodily harm. But I’m sort of in a let’s-plunder-the-children’s-college-fund mood. I was the guy who got these guys into this! It’s driving me crazy, but I am so overextended!”
I thought of the eight hundred thousand but I didn’t mention it, not wanting to tempt him, if he was indeed in that sort of dangerous mood. I thought it was probably a good thing that the eight hundred thousand was still safely at the savings and loan. Moods tended to pass, didn’t they?
“I’ve got to get some money.”
I looked at him. We were on the highway now, and it wasn’t very crowded, so I looked at him for a long moment. Then I said, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you—I don’t know, desperate like this. Is this thing with George Sloan really the problem, or is it something I should know about but don’t really want to?”
“Like what?”
“Like something with the project.”
“Nah. The project is fine. I mean, fine enough. Slow. It’s so fucking slow. I didn’t realize it would be so fucking slow. But it’s still a sure thing. This is how I look at it. It’s 1983. My best guess is that 1985, or even 1986 are going to be the best times to be selling luxury homes. The longer we can hold on, the better off we’ll be. We don’t want to panic and sell and see our investment turn into gravy for the buyer. That’s the worst thing in life, to be on the buy-low end of the equation. My parents owned a house once, for about three years at the end of the sixties. All the kids were pretty much on their own, so they bought a brownstone pretty cheap. My mother was beside herself, she was so happy. She felt like she’d achieved a lifelong dream, but then my dad lost his job, and they were late with the mortgage payment, and she didn’t say anything to the kids because she was embarrassed. So anyway, someone offered her the same price they’d paid for the place three years before, and she took it, because she was afraid, even though the two of them had fixed the place up pretty well in the meantime. She said it was just too nerve-racking, worrying about the mortgage every month. Anyway, a couple of years later, when property values began to shoot up in New York, the guy who bought it sold it for twice what he’d given her. My father, who was the reason she sold in the first place, raged at her for months for being such a sucker. All he could think about was that free money he could have had if she hadn’t let the other guy get the best of her.”
We were silent.
He said, “So anyway. What was her mortgage payment? Maybe two hundred fifty a month or something like that. I always thought that was the worst thing that ever happened to her in a long life of bad things. Because it was the most unnecessary.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut and kept driving.
“You know what the rich have?”
“What?”
“Staying power. That’s all. They aren’t smarter or even better organized or morally superior or more ruthless or whatever. They just have the wherewithal to last longer.”
“How do you get that?”
“I was going to say luck, but really it’s just recognizing that that’s what you need. And I recognize that.” He sighed.
I admit that all through this conversation I had been thinking of my own savings account and my net worth. Did I have any “poker money”? Did I care that George Sloan and Mike Lovell, two guys I had no respect for, were busy making money hand over fist while I was playing it safe? I didn’t know, and since I didn’t know I didn’t say anything about my funds, but the temptation was full and pressing. Some natural caution held me back, but its hold on my tongue was slight, and driving through the countryside with Marcus came suddenly to seem like an unexpected dilemma or test. I knew this was true: that if I said anything at all, made even the slightest or most distant reference to my reserve funds, Marcus would have them out of me as he had had everything out of Gordon, out of Bobby, out of Jane. I was the only holdout.
The landscape was bare and cold. Even the entrance to the farm was uninviting—a chilly wall and an icy gate, a leaf-strewn driveway and all the trees bare and the vegetation dead. It was therefore especially nice to drive up to the house, see the lights on and the big doors cozily shut, and hear the sounds of hammering and drilling coming from within. Gottfried had gotten things set up and gotten to work. I said, “Gottfried is completely reliable and completely competent. He’s an asshole, but he’s an oasis of know-how in a world of idiots, and when he’s finished in the spring we’ll be on our way.”
“Do you think so?”
“You know what? I do, I really do. The worst is over—or at least it will be over by early next year, when the permitting process is complete, the golf course is showable, and the clubhouse is done.”
“That is something, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Yes, it is. Let’s go find something to eat.”
“Don’t you want to go in?” I was pulled up in front of the door.
“Nah. The sound of hammering is enough for me.”
After our amazing date, it seemed obvious that I would take Susan to a big party that a developer we knew was giving to show off the house he had built for himself about ten miles south of Portsmouth—not exactly in our area, but worth seeing nonetheless. The guy’s name was Mack Morton. He had worked for a long time for the local branch of a big national outfit from Atlanta, then taken his crew and gone out on his own. He put up subdivisions of houses on the south side of Portsmouth that were fancier and bigger than Gordon’s, but not one of a kind, like Gottfried’s houses. I had had some good luck selling the Morton properties, but he had never used me as a listing agent and we weren’t particular friends. Nevertheless, I usually got invited to big Morton Land Company parties, and sometimes I went. This time the invitation said to bring swimming suits. I thought this was interesting. Not many people in our area had indoor pools.
Marcus had been hot to go. “If he wants to show off the house,” he pointed out, “and he’s inviting all his builder friends, it must be something special and we can get some ideas. Even if we can’t get any ideas, everyone will be there, and I for one am keeping my eye out for ways to put our crew together.” It did seem that we were going to have to raid other local contractors for building crews if we were going to put up a hundred houses, or four hundred, or six hundred, or however many.
The house must have been six thousand square feet. It was built on top of a hill, and you couldn’t help staring at it from at least half a mile away. Susan, sitting beside me, said, “Do you really think that’s it?”
I really did. The style was French country provincial, but expanded, as if built for exceptionally large people. It was basically L-shaped from the front, with a steeply pitched red-tile roof and stonework all along the façade to about five feet. Also leaded windows (which I later found out had come from a house in the Hudson Valley that was being torn down). The most charming or most ridiculous element, depending on your taste, was the three-story round tower that nestled into the crook of the L and formed the entry and the stairwell to the upper floors. We drove up the circular drive, and Mack’s sixteen-year-old son slouched over and stood outside my window. I rolled it down. He said, “I’m supposed to park all the cars? I’m being real careful, sir.” I handed him my keys.
The wind was pouring over the top of the hillside like a waterfall, and I realized as soon as I got out of the car why the kid looked blue. “My God!” said Susan, and huddled up against me. But the view was miles and miles in all directions. I had wondered why the party was starting so early, but now I could understand. Off to the northwest, you could see where the Nut River met the Blue. Off to the northeast, Portsmouth was just beginning to light up for the evening, and off to the south, the interstate came out of our hilly, woodsy region and entered a wider, more open landscape.
I said, “I wonder if you could see the farm on a clear day.”
“You can see where the mountains get higher. The farm is before that. But jeez. You need a lot of body fat to enjoy the view.”
“Got yo
ur suit?”
She nodded. Her hair was up, wrapped around what looked like a pair of elegant chopsticks, and I knew from when I picked her up that she was wearing a green silk dress with a vaguely oriental style to it—not like anything I had seen lately, but very chic. I was proud to be seen with her. She said, “I can’t believe we could swim!”
But the house and the pool room—with a full view of Portsmouth, which looked terrific from a distance—were plenty warm and, judging by the lighting and the trays of food and the buckets of wine and beer and the twenty or thirty people jumping around in the water, the conspicuous consumption on display was just exactly to the taste of everyone there, including Marcus and Linda, Bobby and Fern, Gordon and Betty (who I saw was diving off the high dive as soon as I came in), Jim Crosbie, Bart and his wife, and everyone else I knew, slightly or well. Laughter and shouting and splashing filled the space, bouncing off the surface of the pool and the windows and the tile pool deck. A few teenagers were standing by, rather quizzically gazing at the grown-ups’ antics.
“It’s a nice facility,” said Susan, with a smile.
I thought how cool she was, not cool in the popular sense, but in the sense of temperate, smooth, agreeable. I gave her a squeeze around the shoulders and we walked into the pool area. Mack Morton came up to me immediately and handed me a beer. He had a beaming smile on his face. I slapped him on the back. I said, “Hey, you’re supposed to sell this one, not keep it for yourself.”
“Shit, man,” he said. “Look at this fucking tile. It’s slate. See how it isn’t slippery? You can get a grip when it’s wet. I got these tiles from a place out in California! In spring and fall, they soak up the sunshine and heat the place up, but in the summer, the sun’s too far to the west to shine in here. And anyway”—he gestured over his head—“we put the skylights on electric openers and closers”—Susan and I looked up at the bank of skylights—“and when we open them up, they suck hot air out of here and bring in a northerly breeze from over there. It’s like a fucking flue!”
I sensed that Mack had had a few. “It’s a fabulous place, Mack, it really is!” I exclaimed.