Memory (Hard Case Crime)

by Donald E. Westlake

  One of the women at a desk near the front looked up and noticed him, and made a motion with her arm for him to come forward. He pushed open the gate in the railing and stepped through; the gate was on springs, and snapped back into place after him. He walked through the desks to the one occupied by the woman, and she said, “Sit down.” When he was seated, she said, “This is your first visit?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for a job.”

  “Of course.” She smiled thinly. “Have you collected unemployment insurance at any time in the last two years?”

  “Yes. But not here, in New York.”

  “I see. And what is your occupation?” She had drawn a sheaf of forms toward herself, and now she picked up a pen.

  “Anything at all,” he said.

  But if she heard him, she made no sign. She said, “I’d better do this from the beginning. Name?”

  “Paul Cole.”

  “C-O-L-E?”

  “Yes.”

  “Social Security number?”

  “I don’t know. Wait.” He got out his wallet, and read his Social Security number to her.

  She said, “You should make a point of learning that. What if you lost your card someday, where would you be then?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “Your address?”

  He started to reach for his wallet again, to give her his New York address, but thought better of it, and said, “Wilson Hotel.”

  “I see. And your last employment?”

  “I was an actor. I was on tour with—”

  “Actor?” She put the pen down, and looked at him severely. “I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree,” she told him. “There are no openings for actors in this area, which means that you have removed yourself from the labor force. Moving to a location which has no openings for your type of employment is considered removing yourself from the labor force, and you are therefore unavailable for work, and cannot expect to collect unemployment insurance.”

  “I don’t want to collect unemployment insurance, I want—”

  “I’ll fill out these forms if you insist,” she said, “but I can tell you right now it won’t do any good. You’ll be rejected. You’ll have to demonstrate that you are making an honest and conscientious search for employment of a type to be found in this locality, and in which, by means of training or experience, you can reasonably expect to be considered acceptable by a potential employer.”

  “I want a job. I want—”

  “Protestations are not enough. You will have to bring us definite proof of an active search for employment. A record of job interviews, for instance. In the meantime, there is just no point in my continuing with your application.”

  “Listen,” he said. “Listen to me for a minute.”

  “I’m being frank with you,” she said, and smiled thinly. “I don’t know what your experience with the New York office may have been, but here we expect an honest and industrious job search, or you just can’t expect to collect.”

  “I don’t want to collect. I want a job.”

  “Just saying that isn’t enough. Can’t you understand me? You have to prove that you want a job.”

  “But that’s why I came here. It’s the Division of Employment—”

  “As I told you, there are no openings in this area for actors. Why you came here I have no idea, but you can’t expect to remove yourself from the labor force and then rest easy at the public trough.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. He was wondering if he could do any better with this woman if his memory weren’t hurt; but what did his memory have to do with this? They were just talking at cross-purposes, that’s all.

  He said, “I want a job. That’s why I came here. Don’t you have lists of jobs here?”

  “As I’ve told you repeatedly, we have no job openings listed here for actors.” She was getting impatient with him, as though he were trying to do something sneaky and was being insultingly obvious about it.

  He shook his head and got to his feet. He said, “Where do people go when they want to get jobs? Not acting jobs, just jobs.”

  “To the tannery,” she said promptly.

  “The tannery? Is that what makes the stink?”

  “We get used to it,” she said. She was colder than ever now.

  He said, “Do they have any job openings there now?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you have a list?”

  “The tannery has its own employment department. It doesn’t have to list with us.”

  “That’s stupid,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “This whole place is stupid.”

  He went back to the railing and through the gate, and it snapped shut after him. He went back outside, and started to retrace his steps. An elderly man was coming toward him, blinking in the sunlight and holding his mouth open as though he were about to ask for clarification. Cole stopped him and asked for directions to the tannery. The old man told him, at great length, and Cole thanked him and went on.

  It was beyond downtown. He walked past the movie theater where he’d gone last night, and down at the next corner there was a brick bridge over a narrow black stream between concrete walls. The stream moved fast, with little white froth bubbles eddying along over the black water.

  Beyond the bridge the tannery buildings began. They were old and brick, like pictures he’d seen of New England factories, and they were connected together by thick black pipes high up near the top of the walls. There was wire fencing around all the buildings, and around the parking lots between the buildings. The parking lots were blacktop, with diagonal yellow guidelines, and were only about half full, most of the cars being four years old or more and very dirty.

  Cole had to ask directions again, and then at last he found the sign that said Employment Office, with an arrow pointing to a concrete walk between two of the buildings. He went down that way and came to a green door that also said Employment Office, and went inside. There were wooden steps to climb, and then a small wooden room and a high counter. A young girl sat at a desk behind the counter, typing on an old Remington. She got to her feet when she saw Cole, and came over to the counter, saying, “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for a job.”

  “Oh.” She whisked a white form up from under the counter, and picked up a black ballpoint pen. Very quickly she asked him his name and age and Social Security number and address and telephone number and next of kin, but she was slowed down at almost every question, and stopped completely by the last two. He had no telephone number and no next of kin.

  “No relatives?”

  It was easier to say no than to explain. This girl, like everyone else, asked him a lot of questions about himself, but, like everyone else, she really had no interest in him.

  She shrugged faintly, and said, “Skills?”

  “What?”

  “Skills. Have you ever worked in a tannery before?”

  “No.”

  “Unskilled labor,” she said, and wrote something on the form. “What was your most recent job?”

  “I was an actor.”

  “A what? An actor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you leave that employment?”

  “I was in the hospital.”

  “Is your health good now?”

  “Yes.”

  She hesitated, and then looked directly at him. “If you aren’t, you might as well say so. You have to have a physical examination before you can be employed here, and if you have any disabilities the doctor will find them.”

  For unskilled labors, the disabilities would have to be physical. He said, “I’m healthy now.”

  “All right.” She shrugged faintly again, and wrote some more on the form. She had long straight streamers of black hair on her forearms; it made her look like a zebra. Her black hair was untidily upswept onto the top of her head, and her neck was long and thin and pale, with vertical rop
es under the flesh at the sides. The top button of her white blouse was open, and the top of her chest was very white and very bony. Her hands were thin and long-fingered, and there were flakes of dead skin, like dandruff, on her knuckles. She was wearing colorless nail polish, which made her hands look as though they were trying not to show hysteria.

  She said, “Have you ever been in any trouble with the police?”

  “No.” He didn’t know if the business in the other town was trouble with the police or not, but too many disinterested people had been asking him personal questions. From now on, he would tell them as little as possible. “Name, rank, and serial number,” he said.

  She looked up from the form. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing.”

  She was willing to forget it. She said, “We may have an opening in the shipping department. Please wait.”

  He said he would. She went over to a filing cabinet and looked at things in it for a while, and then went over to the desk, carrying a five-by-seven file card, and made a telephone call. She talked softly, and Cole couldn’t hear what she was saying. Then she came back and said, “Do you have any limitations as to what hours you can work?”

  “No.”

  “Is the four-to-midnight shift all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Just take this form,” she said, snapping another white form onto the countertop from underneath, “and follow the directions on it.” She stapled it to the form she’d filled in before.

  “How much does this job pay?”

  She seemed surprised. She said, “I really don’t know. You’ll have to ask at the finance office. That’s on your list there.”

  He picked up the form she was pointing at, and looked at it. It was mimeographed and the reproduction was uneven:

  JEFFORDS LEATHER WORKS, INC.

  Instructions to New Employees

  Read Carefully!!

  Welcome to Jeffords Leather Works, Inc., a locally-owned and fully unionized leather working plant organized in our city in 1868! And, most particularly, welcome to the Jeffords ‘family’ of employees!

  For your convenience, we have arranged the ‘orientation’ of new employees in as simple and short a manner as possible. Merely follow the steps outlined below, and you should have no difficulty of any kind. All locations are listed on the map.

  Note: You have already completed step (1).

  _ _ _ _ _

  (1) Go to Employment Office and make your application. (You have already completed this step.)

  (2) Go to Finance Office in Building 4. Speak to Mr. Cowley.

  (3) Go to Union Steward’s Office in Building 1. Speak to Mr. Hamacek.

  (4) Go to Doctor’s office in Building 6.

  (5) Go to Shipping Dep’t in Building 3.

  (6) Return to Employment Office in Building 2, and give this form back to the clerk on duty.

  _ _ _ _ _

  He studied the instructions and the map, then he said, “I have to cross the street four times.”

  “There’s very little traffic this time of day,” she said.

  He looked at her, to see if she was making fun of him, but she wasn’t. She’d thought he meant the traffic would delay him. He didn’t say anything else, but went outside and stood in the thin sunshine, looking at the instruction form. He looked at the arrow by the legend You are here, and then he gazed around at where he was. The building he’d just left, Building 2, humped squat and square, dirty bricks, behind him. To his right was some scrubby ground, and a concrete wall, on the other side of which must be the Swift River. Ahead of him, not shown on the map, were the railroad yards. To his left was the long low brick shed that was Building 3, the Shipping Dep’t, where he would go for step (5).

  He turned to his left, went around the corner of the building, and down the concrete walk between Building 2 and Building 3. The wet cardboard stink was much stronger here in the middle of the factory than anywhere else in town. He breathed through his nose because when he opened his mouth the smell became taste.

  He passed between Building 1 and Parking Lot 1, and went by the Union Steward’s Office. He paused for a second, but the Union Steward’s Office was step (3), and he hadn’t done step (2) yet, and he was sure they wanted the steps down in order, so he went on, and crossed Western Avenue. He went down between Building 4 and Parking Lot 2, and midway along the brick wall of Building 4 there was a green door. He opened it and went up a half-flight of steps, and on the corridor wall at the top there was sign reading Finance Office, with an arrow pointing to the right. He went that way, and found the Finance Office.

  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.