“You wouldn’t have cared for him, trust me.”
We ate our cheeseburgers, which were decent enough, although frankly, they put me in the mood for ribs. After a decent interval, and half knowing what his response would be, I brought up the subject of money.
“Oh, my God,” he said in alarm, pushing back from the table. “You haven’t spent any of it, have you?”
“Actually, I did. Around $18,000.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that, Binny. After all, it’s not as if it was yours. You really didn’t do anything.”
“There wasn’t anything to do.”
“Yes, I suppose you could look at it that way. And I’m not minimizing your contribution, but it’s not as if you were hands on.
“Dear me,” he said, looking around, as if for help. “We do have a situation, don’t we? But you mustn’t be upset about it. I always work with people at least twice, and we can apply the money you’ve gone through to a new venture. And we’ll raise the fee for this next go-round to $250,000. How does that sound?”
I said it sounded good, which, of course, it did.
“Excellent. There’s just one other chap I work with in Rawalpindi who has some ability. But I’ve lost a bit of confidence in him, quite frankly. And my feeling is that you really should continue in this, Binny. You’re very good.”
I thanked him and decided that as long as we were on a roll, I would tell him about my idea for removing northern fowl mites from caged layer hens. I had always thought it was a surefire business opportunity, but I could never find anyone willing to invest in it.
“I believe in it with all my heart, Valentine,” I said, after I had described it in detail. “Even though it’s been a family joke for years. My poor wife would always say: ‘There goes Binns again with his crazy northern fowl mite scheme.’ I’d stop people on the street and tell them about it.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Peabody. “Now look here, don’t take this personally, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be any good at it. I just don’t have a feel for that sort of thing. It’s quite sound, I’m sure, and I suppose if it were further along, I might consider coming in on it. But I just know when things aren’t right for me. I’m sure you understand.”
I told him I understood entirely, but in truth I was tremendously upset. For one thing, his cool response had the effect of making me lose confidence in an idea that I had always believed in and felt would be of great interest to anyone in poultry. Then, too, I felt he had let me down. I had gone along with his scheme, and we had had a success together. (He was welcome to put an asterisk next to the “success” part, if he so chose.)
But now I had a proposal and he had turned me down flat.
I pretended to be cheerful as we finished up our dinner, but in truth I was angry if not enraged. And I knew it was the type of injury that I would carry around for years.
We made a date to meet at his office the following day, which I agreed to halfheartedly, feeling that I was being yanked around like a puppet. What I really wanted to do was take my idea to someone else—maybe Ted Feather up in Winnipeg—have it turn out to be a tremendous success and then quietly lord it over Peabody.
I returned home and found Lettie asleep in her bed, and still wearing the choker. Rather than take the chance of waking her, I decided to let her go ahead and sleep with the choker around her neck. Pretending I was a wizard, I made a whistling sound—and blew some imaginary sleep dust in her eyes—as was my custom each night when I tucked her in.
Then I went into the bathroom to wash up, and as I toweled myself down, I spotted an open box of tampons on the shelf—with two of them missing. The school nurse had warned me that something like that would happen, but I was a little thrown nonetheless. The new development must have come about while I was in Miami Beach, dealing with the Dickie Moué project, and I only hoped that the nurse and Lettie’s girlfriends had combined to see her through. She kept a copy of a book called, What Every Girl Should Know on her nightstand, and I imagined there was a helpful chapter in there as well.
Even if I had been there, I’m not sure what I could have done to help. Though I have enormous respect for women and applaud their recent and long overdue gains, I do not know that much about their internal workings. I had promised myself to brush up on the subject, but I had never gotten around to it. Having spent most of my life in poultry, I knew there were eggs involved, but as to ovaries and fallopian tubes and that type of thing, it is all a mystery to me. I still wasn’t sure what I could do for her other than to accept what had transpired manfully, give her extra hugs—as if such a thing was possible—and hope for the best.
I checked to make sure the rest of the money was still inside my Capons team jacket. It was, and though strictly speaking, it wasn’t quite mine—indeed one might argue that I was $18,000 in the hole—at least Lettie and I had some financial security for the difficult days ahead.
This in turn may have caused my anger at Peabody to subside. Maybe it had been too much to ask him to appreciate my northern fowl mite procedure. Though it was hard for me to admit it, I was aware of a flaw in the second stage of the application, and it was possible that Peabody, with that sixth sense of his, had smoked it out.
That would mean that I had gotten angry at him for my own deficiencies.
Once that became clear, I decided to get rid of any rancorous feelings I had toward the man and to show up for our meeting with a positive attitude and an open heart.
We got hit with an angry rain the next morning. There are those who would take that as a bad omen, but I am not among them. All it meant to me is that I would have trouble getting Lettie to wear her yellow raincoat.
“It makes me look fat,” she said. “And my generation doesn’t wear raincoats.”
“Well, my generation does,” I said. “So keep it on.”
It was amazing. She and Glo had gone after each other like cats and dogs. Yet Lettie and I had never had a cross word between us. Perhaps it was because I was the only game in town. Or maybe we just loved each other to distraction.
As I drove her to school in the Trooper, I checked to see if there was any difference in her because of the tampons, but all I could detect was that she had become mushier and kept her head against my shoulder for the whole ride.
I was soaked to the bone when I arrived at Peabody’s office, which would not have bothered me if it hadn’t been for my wet feet. I told Peabody that I could not concentrate when I was in that state, and I asked if he’d mind my running over to the K-Mart to pick up a six-pack of dry socks.
“That’s out of the question,” he said curtly.
“But I can’t be at my best with wet feet.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” he said, taking me by the shoulders as if I was a disobedient child. “There’s a call coming through momentarily, and it’s tremendously important that you be here. If we lose this fellow, I’m not sure how we’d be able to proceed. Probably put off the operation until next season when God knows what we’ll all be doing.”
Despite his explanation, I was tempted to run over to the K-Mart anyway. I really do have trouble with wet feet, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I cited the example of Napoleon’s troops getting bogged down in Russia because of the same problem, but I might as well have been talking in a foreign language. He simply shook his head in silent exasperation and would not budge.
As a compromise, I got some Scott towels from the bathroom and dried my feet in front of him, making sure to get between the toes. He looked away as I did so, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same had he dried his feet flamboyantly in my presence.
When the call came through, my feet were freezing, and I was still uncomfortable, but at least they were dry.
“Kevin Kurosawa here,” said the voice on the phone. “How are you guys doing?”
“We’re fine,” said Peabody. “I have Binny with me, and I thought you two should have a chat before we get under way.”
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br /> “That’s fine with me,” said Kevin. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Binns. Val told me quite a bit about you and I understand you’re quite a guy.”
“I hear you’re quite a guy, too,” I said, taking some liberty here since Peabody hadn’t told me what kind of guy he was.
“Thanks,” he said, clearing his throat. “So you’re in the chicken business. Well, my wife and I eat a lot of chicken, and we can’t say enough about it. And by the way, what do you think of those Lakers!”
The question caught me off guard since actually I had not given any thought to the Lakers. Though I was familiar with the name and knew they were a basketball franchise, I did not take any particular interest in the sport and allowed as much on the phone.
“I don’t follow them,” I said.
“Oh,” said Kevin, who appeared to lose interest in the conversation.
I thought I had blown the deal, but to his credit, Peabody did not throw up his hands in frustration.
To the contrary, he looked on with amusement.
I made an attempt to recover by telling Kevin about Lettie’s great interest in basketball.
“I haven’t gotten around to it, but I plan to attach a hoop to the back of the cottage so she can see if she’s any good at it.”
That seemed to perk him up a bit and he recited some statistics on the growth of women’s collegiate basketball around the country.
“Women will never make it in the NBA, Binns. I have to be honest. They’re dead in big-time basketball. They are good though, I’ll give them that, and they enjoy the game, which in the final analysis is what really counts.”
“That’s all we can expect of them.”
“Exactly my sentiments. I could not have put it more succinctly. Have I used that word correctly?”
“I believe so.”
“Thank you, Binns. And I can see that you’re my kind of guy. If it’s all right with you, I’m ready to go at my end.”
“Binny and I are ready to go at ours,” said Peabody.
“Then we’re all set. And put up that hoop, Binns. Your daughter will like it. She’ll never make it in the NBA, and it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt real bad. You might as well get used to that. But she’ll benefit healthwise and you will not regret it.
“I’ll get on it as soon as I get back to the cottage.”
And that’s the note on which we concluded our conversation.
“How do you feel it went?” Peabody asked.
I said I thought it went well, which I did, apart from my minor gaffe about the Lakers and considering it was my first conference call.
“And what did you think of Kevin?”
“He seemed like a decent enough fellow.”
“I’m not so sure of him myself. He’s working for us on a temporary basis, and we’re trying to get him something over at CBS as a sportscaster, which is his true love. Did you feel any chemistry?”
“Not particularly,” I said. “But I didn’t feel any lack of it either.”
“Now look, Binny,” he said, taking me by the shoulders again and fixing me with his clear blue eyes. “It’s terribly important that you get along, since you and Kevin are going to be working closely. If you have any reservations, tell me what they are, although frankly I don’t know who else we can find at this late date.”
“We’ll get along fine.”
“I hope so,” he said without confidence.
He told me that the targeted individual was a Japanese industrialist named Matsumoto who lived in Tokyo and who had frustrated Thomas Gnu on a business deal at a delicate stage of his career.
“Gnu had vowed that he would have his first billion by the time he reached the age of forty. He and Matsumoto were part owners of a tool-and-die company in Peshawar. While Gnu was away at a tennis tournament, Matsumoto conspired with the other directors to have Gnu lose his seat on the board. As a result, Gnu fell short of his goal and had to wait two years before he reached it.”
“But he did get his billion,” I put in.
“When he was forty-two.”
“And that’s been eating away at him?”
“You don’t know Gnu. Have you been to Tokyo?”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot about it.”
“I think you’ll like it. What I thought I’d do is pop over and see you, once you’ve finished up your business—and we would tool around the Ginza together, have a bit of fun.”
I said that ordinarily I’d enjoy that, but it was important that I get back as soon as possible so I could be with Lettie—although I didn’t say why.
“Probably got her period, eh?”
“How’d you know that?” I said sharply, annoyed by this invasion of our privacy and amazed that he could have gotten this information.
“It’s written all over your face.”
“Lettie’s period is written all over my face?”
“You’re such a child sometimes,” he said peevishly. “Very well, then, return to your precious daughter.”
“I haven’t even been to Japan yet.”
“Whatever,” he said, and began to shuffle some papers.
I was upset with him until I realized that despite his suave exterior and his vast global connections, Peabody was a lonely fellow, and I had hurt his feelings.
“Well, look,” I said, “if it’s really important to you, I suppose we could hang out for a bit—after I take care of Matsumoto.”
“No, no,” he said, picking up a little voice recorder. “And if you’ll forgive me, I have some reports to get out.”
He switched on the recorder and began to dictate in a whisper.
“It is the military-industrial complex that continues to influence the world markets. The Christian Coalition as well should be taken into consideration …”
I could see that he was involved in global affairs, and there was little for me to do at this point.
And so we parted on a cool note.
Chapter Ten
My itinerary and travel documents arrived as per schedule the next morning. Tucked into my passport was a form note that said I’d be expected to pay my own expenses—due to the substantial fees that I was to receive and the sky-rocketing cost of living in Japan. That threw me off momentarily. There was plenty of money left from the advances, but if I paid my own way, I’d be deeper in the hole—at least until I got the job done. This new development made me all the more determined to bring it off successfully; I only hoped that because of my Western features, I did not stand out too prominently in the country of Japan.
Lettie took the news of my trip calmly and asked if I could pick up an agent for her while I was over there, for her acting and producing. I said I’d see if I could find one, although I couldn’t figure out why she’d want a Japanese agent when there were so many American ones to choose from.
“Trust me,” she said. “It’s a good career move.”
I called Edwina’s mother and asked if Lettie and the cats could stay with her while I was away, and she said it was the least she could offer after all I had done for her daughter. I couldn’t think of exactly what I had done for Edwina, unless it was the compliment I had paid her on the new glasses she had to wear.
“Contrary to current thought,” I had told her, “men do make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
My comment caused her to giggle and come out of her slouch.
So maybe that was it.
Before I left, I stopped at the new mall and bought Peabody an expensive leather credit card holder, which I had sent over to his office in the hope that it would smooth over our mild contretemps.
After driving over to Dallas, I parked the Trooper at the airport and, as instructed, purchased a round-trip first-class ticket to Tokyo. An economy-class ticket would have been fine with me, but that’s not what they wanted, no doubt because of their corporate image.
The price of the ticket astonished me. If it was any indication of how much things cost in Japan, I could see I would
be broke by the time I got back.
The trip went smoothly enough and you would think I was royalty the way the attendants fussed over me. I peeked back at the economy section and saw that they were fussing over those passengers, too, although not half as much as they were fussing over me.
After we landed, I lined up at Customs and Immigration and got a little nervous over the way they treated the fellow in front of me. He was an older gentleman with close-cropped silver hair who carried a briefcase and was dressed in an elegant tweed suit. In sum, he was the picture of professorial elegance. Yet they could not have been more disrespectful to him. They poked at his chest, shouted in his face and finally carted him off somewhere, no doubt for some serious questioning. I thought to myself that if they could treat a distinguished-looking fellow like that so shabbily, I could just about imagine how they would deal with me. Yet to my surprise, they just waved me through with barely a glance at my documents.
Though, obviously, I was far from innocent in my intentions, something in my demeanor must have given off an impression of respectability.
So maybe I was cut out for this kind of work after all.
I was aware that the Japanese have been criticized for harsh trading practices and for occasionally striking out at their neighbors. But on a personal level, I found the average individual to be unfailingly courteous and polite. While I was waiting for the bus, I pulled out a slim cigar for the purpose of relaxation; no sooner had I brought it to my lips than several fellows came dashing forward to offer me a light, one of them insisting that I keep his lighter (which was not, incidentally, of the cheap throwaway variety). I protested, but finally put it in my pocket, taking note of his exceptional kindness.
Soon afterward, a little old lady with a knapsack on her back, asked me if she could practice her English on me, which I agreed to let her do. She was all over the map on her pronunciation and sentence structure, but who could fail to give her credit for taking on a new language at her advanced age.
How many Americans would do the same?
From the accounts I had read, I pictured the Japanese as being all bunched together, practically lying on top of one another. Yet judging from what I saw from the bus window, they had space to spare. There were fields and meadows along the highway, and you could have relocated a ton of them right there. There were also picturesque little farms and tiny factories, and here and there a giant red horse stuck out in the fields, all by itself, perhaps as a proud reminder of their imperial splendor in times gone by.
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