by Orrie Hitt
I let my eyes wander over her body.
“Who wouldn’t want you?” I inquired.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah — I do and I don’t. You haven’t got anything to sell, baby. Why should I pay out good money for your crummy outfit when I can steal every bit of your business and it won’t cost me a thing?”
“You have a point there.”
“I guess I have.”
“So it would seem that I’m the buyer, Johnny. Let’s see your contract.”
I pulled it out of a drawer and tossed it into her lap. It was a simple agreement, straight to the roots of the matter and not spoiled with a lot of legal hedges. It gave me the right to sell my business to any licensed agency at any sum which I might be able to get.
“That part’s all right,” she said after a while.
“It’s a little different than the kind of stuff that you hand out.”
“You should always read what you sign, Johnny.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
“Now — how much are your renewals?”
“You ought to know,” I said. “I swiped them from you.”
“I know it’s quite a lot.”
“Forty thousand.”
“That sounds about right.” She crossed her legs again, more carefully this time. “And how much do you want for them?”
“Twenty,” I said. “Cash.”
She took a deep breath and it hung there in the silence. I guess it was about what she expected me to say.
“That’s quite a lot, Johnny.”
“Take it or leave it, baby.”
She got up and draped her coat over the back of the chair. Then she walked around the room, slowly, her arms folded across her breasts. She stopped at the window and stood looking down at the street for a long time. Then she turned around, still standing the same way, and I knew something was wrong. Her red lips curled away from her teeth and it wasn’t a smile at all. It was a sneer and the hate in it flared up into her eyes, freezing deep into the pupils.
“I’ll give you five,” she said.
I jammed the cigarette into an ash tray. Some of the hot end stuck to one finger, burning, but I didn’t pay any attention to that.
“Go to hell,” I said.
She began walking around the office again, every line of her body swaying.
“You’re a sucker,” she said. “I’m doing you a favor by giving you that much.”
“Don’t be so generous, baby. You might overdue it.”
She drifted over and stopped in front of me. She held her head up high and proud and the sardonic twist still spoiled her mouth.
“After all,” she said, “you only need seventy-five hundred. If I give you five you ought to be able to make it. You should get about a thousand for your car and — ”
“What!”
“You heard me, Johnny boy. I dropped in at the Connors Agency on the way up — thought you might be there — and I met the old boy himself. I told him what I wanted to see you about and he was nice enough to tell me why you should listen. Catch?”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. It had all looked so good, so possible, and now they were crowding me close.
“Yeah, I get it,” I said. “The rats are gnawing on my door.”
She laughed and I had an urge to rattle her teeth with five hard knuckles. But I didn’t. I had no reason to hate her. We’d been playing a fast and dirty game, the both of us, and now the end had come for one of us.
“So you think you’ll get it that easy,” I said.
“I know I will.”
“You know wrong, baby. It won’t work.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Johnny. If you don’t have that money to him by tomorrow morning he’s turning it over to the insurance department.”
“Stop scaring me,” I said.
“And that’ll mean the bonding company, Johnny. They’ll toss you in jail.”
Something else was in her eyes now besides the touch of victory. There was the shadow of a lonesome, inward fear that crept up into the blue.
“So what?” I demanded harshly. “They throw me in the can and I sit it out for a while. I don’t know, maybe I’ve got it coming. I’m fed up with this racket, anyway I should have stuck to a dumb job.”
“I’m offering you a way out, Johnny.”
“The door’s pretty narrow,” I told her. “I’ll get it slammed on my neck.”
“You can’t do anything else.”
“Oh, now, can’t I? Hell, baby, I can go to jail, just like I said, and have myself a little rest for a couple of weeks. It won’t take long for the renewals to build up enough to pay off a lot more than seventy-five hundred.”
“You’ll lose your license.”
“I was going to go into farming anyhow,” I said. “Or something else. It doesn’t make any difference.”
I knew I had her solid.
“And I’ll watch you go broke,” I said. “Cripes, baby, you’ll be out of business before I am. I’d like that. I’d like it fine.”
“I’ll give you seventy-five hundred,” she said, not looking at me.
“That’s a long ways from twenty.”
“I couldn’t do it, Johnny. Honest!”
“That’s tough.”
“Mr. Greene — he’s the man waiting out there — Mr. Greene said he’d go up to — ”
“How much?”
“Eight,” the said. “He hasn’t got any more than that.”
Before she could stop me I was out of the office and in front shaking hands with Mr. Greene.
“You going in this with Miss Noxon?”
His hand was like a piece of inner tube and his eyes were small and dumb.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And how much do you figure on paying?”
“Well.” He licked his lips with his tongue. “Well, she said she might get it for ten. I don’t know much about these things, but — ”
“Thanks,” I told him. “And lots of luck.”
I walked back to the office, wondering how long it’d take her to finish him off.
I went in and closed the door. She was sitting on the edge of the desk, swinging her legs back and forth, smiling at me.
“You just robbed me of two thousand bucks,” she said. “That ought to make you happy.”
“Yeah.”
“He told you ten?”
“He told me ten.”
“All right,” she said, getting down. “I’ll buy.”
The rest of it didn’t take very long. We drove down to a lawyer’s, the same one I’d talked to about the divorce, and he drew up a bill of sale. Greene didn’t have much to say but she insisted that I agree not to continue in the insurance business within a radius of two hundred miles. That part was okay with me and we stuck it in. After that we signed the original and some duplicates. She got the original and I stuck one of the carbons in my pocket along with the five thousand in cash and a certified check for another five which Greene had come up with. That Greene turned out to be a pretty regular guy. He even paid the lawyer.
I left them at the corner and walked back toward the office. I got a charge out of that clause she wanted put in the bill of sale. I had an extra list of all my clients and their addresses. If I wanted I could wander out west some place and set up shop. I had all these names and I could move right in on her again through the mails. I laughed and walked along faster.
That dumb dame didn’t know what it was all about.
CHAPTER XXIV
True Love
THE NEXT MORNING I checked out of my hotel room, tossed the luggage in the trunk of the Ford, and stopped at a diner just outside Waymart for breakfast. I wasn’t in any hurry.
I had some eggs, kidded around with the waitress for about an hour, and left her a dollar tip.
The road was icy, so I drove slow, not taking any chances. I wondered if I’d be driving back the same way. I guessed that I wouldn’t
.
Once in a while a guy gets tired of what he’s been doing and, if he gets a break, he can sit down and think it over. Like I was doing. Thinking. And feeling lucky.
Hell, I could have wound up in the can — or made a young fortune. It was quite as simple as that. Only, somehow, it didn’t seem to make much difference. It was done. Finished.
There was a place out west where a guy could go into the insurance business on a three cent stamp. There were farms up in the Catskills where a fellow could knock his brains out for the rest of his life and still not see the light of day. There were other things, too. Big things and little things. Good things and bad things. It was only a matter of choice.
I wondered, idly, if I ought to stop around and see the folks. Or, maybe, I could send them a check and write a short note. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t give a damn as long as they got some money.
And Julie? When you go away you say good-bye to the girl, don’t you? You call her a darling, or a whore, or whatever the case may be. You kiss her or you slap her silly and they both may mean the same thing. You’re telling her that you love her. But when you don’t feel much like doing either one of those things you ought to stay away. Right then I wasn’t quite sure how it stood with me.
And your wife. You either live with her or you don’t. If you’re living together you just try to sneak away and hope that the blonde in the next room at the next hotel won’t be too busy. But if you don’t live with her you can save yourself plenty of time. You just jump on your feet and let the dust fly.
And the girl you sold your business to. You feel a little lousy about that but in a way you’re glad. She’s got plenty of problems figuring all the time how to strangle the person in front. You don’t wish her any hard luck but you know that some day she’ll wake up with a truckload of grief. And she’s welcome. She can have it all for herself.
There’s the help, too — the people who worked for you and lied for you. You tell yourself to forget about them, but you don’t. You get yourself some checks and you sit up until three in the morning making them out. It’s strange that you feel so much better after they’ve been mailed.
The next morning you get ready to clear the rest of the wreckage away. If you owe anybody any money you stop around and make a big shot out of yourself by giving it to them. Or you confirm the fact that you might be a heel and stay away. But it doesn’t bother you any. It’s the end of it — or the beginning. You never know until it’s all clear and straight. Then, and only then, do you make your choice.
I drove down out of the hill country and onto the flats. The sun was up high and bright and the slush on the road slapped dully against the fenders. Ahead, the smoke from the tannery bored up into the sky and the tops of the buildings looked like gray bubbles stretched out on a white sheet.
I entered town, hit the lights just right and didn’t have to stop until I reached the office.
I was through the door before I saw her. She tried to turn away, to retreat, but the elevator was on its way up again and she had no place to go.
“Hello, you bitch,” I said.
There was nobody else in there and I pushed up against her, hard, slamming her into the wall. She winced and her eyes looked big and frightened.
“Where you going, Janet?”
“Please, Johnny.”
“Little tramp,” I breathed. “Stinking little tramp. What have you been up to now, baby?”
“Nothing.” She kicked me once in the shins, but I got my knee in there and she couldn’t do it again. “Please let me go, Johnny.”
“Where’s my money?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“That’s great,” I said. “You should’ve told me at the start that you were going to charge me over six thousand bucks for it. Only we wouldn’t have done business, kid. I can get the same thing any place else for five.”
“Oh, for God sakes, Johnny!”
“I want my coat back. You ran off with that, too. You can’t wear that, baby.”
She nodded and bit her lip.
“You’ll get your damn coat,” she said.
The outside door rattled and opened. An old woman in some rags came in and stared at us.
“Okay,” I said to Janet. “Hit the road.”
She went out like she’d heard me.
The old lady didn’t know how to work the elevator so she rode along. I told her how it had been with me, the first time, going down into the basement and she got a big jolt out of that.
“I should have stayed there,” I told her.
We got off and my passenger started yelling about a policy she wanted to turn in.
“Well, huckleberry!” I said to the glasses and the teeth that looked at me.
“Hello, Mr. Reagan.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So they got you back?”
“Mr. Connors wanted somebody steady,” Miss Fisher told me stiffly.
“I don’t know what I’m yacking about,” I said. “He’s the guy that’s stuck.”
“Always fresh, aren’t you?”
“Sure. The old b — the old boy around?”
“I’ll tell him you’re here.”
“Look,” I said. “In five minutes I’m going to do a disappearing act. You might tell him that, too. I haven’t got all day.”
She trucked off, her snoot up in the air, and went around to his office.
The five minutes had almost run out when Moss Collins came over to me.
“Mr. Connors will see you now.”
“How are you doing, Moss?”
He shrugged.
“We’re flying straight again, Johnny.”
I didn’t say anything. Straight or crooked, I didn’t give a damn how they were doing it.
“You made quite a rumble,” he said. “Until it petered out.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t feel sore at you, Johnny — for firing me, that is.”
“I don’t care whether you are or not.”
He pushed the door open and I went on inside. Connors sat behind his desk chewing a big cigar.
“Good morning,” he said.
“I made it.”
“I see that you did.”
I yanked out twenty-five hundred bucks, added it to the certified check which I’d already endorsed, and dropped it in a pile in front of him.
“Count it,” I said.
He did.
“It’s all there, Johnny.”
“He even gets a bonus,” I said. “I already sent him a hundred bucks but he can have it for the wear and tear on his nerves. Now, give me a receipt.”
He made out an official one and I stuffed it in my wallet.
“I didn’t think you’d get it,” he said.
“Well, you’re not alone.”
“Who did you swindle this time?”
“Nobody.”
“That’s difficult to believe.”
“I sold out,” I told him, getting a little sore. “You had my backside on a thistle bush and I had to get off. What more do you want?”
“Nothing, I guess.” He tried to light the cigar but it was too wet, so he threw it away. “What plans have you got, Johnny?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I’m still your father-in-law.”
“Don’t let it keep you awake,” I said. “I won’t tell anybody.”
“I’ve sent Beverly to Las Vegas,” he said. “You won’t fight anything, will you?”
I’d wanted her out of my life and now that she was going I felt a small hollow inside my belly. There’d never been anything for us, never could be, and maybe that’s the reason it seemed so unreal and stupid.
“No,” I said. “I won’t mess it up.”
“That’s good. I’d worried about that some.”
If I’d never liked him before I started doing it right then. He was a good man, a plain man — simple, honest, direct. He was worrying about me giving him a hard time about something l
ike that, when all along he could have had me sacked and thrown in the bastille.
“No,” I repeated, “there won’t be any trouble. None at all.”
“It’s too bad it didn’t work out, Johnny.”
“Those things happen.”
“We make them happen,” he said quietly. “Don’t ever mistake that.”
“Sure.”
“You don’t know what you cost yourself, Johnny. I had plans for you, Johnny — big ones. When I got back I was going to take you in as a partner, build you folks a real house, do a hell of a lot of big things for you.”
No one had ever given me anything except a slap in the mouth when I was a kid. And I didn’t want anything from him. Nothing.
“I guess I’ll shove off,” I said.
“Try to play it straight, Johnny.”
“Yeah.”
“You haven’t done anything so awful wrong,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “A lot of people would say that what you did was dishonest. I don’t know. Sometimes folks learn by doing things wrong and they make sure that it doesn’t happen again. That’s what counts.”
I edged off toward the door.
“Okay,” I said.
“There’s one other thing you ought to know, Johnny.”
“What’s that?”
He got up and shuffled around the desk.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Then, keep it to yourself,” I said. “Remember Janet — the little girl who introduced us?”
I pushed the door closed again.
“Drop it,” I told him. “I don’t want to hear anything about her.”
“She’s in love with you,” he said. “Deeply in love.”
“Yeah?”
“She was just up here.” He fumbled around and found another cigar. He looked straight at me while he was lighting it. “I gave her sixty-four hundred dollars of your money, Johnny.”
‘What!”
“Well, I say it was yours. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. A couple of days after you and Beverly were married I got a long cable from her. Said she had some money that belonged to me. I couldn’t make head nor tail to it so I had my attorney look her up. She finally told the whole story, how she was in love with you and that she was afraid you’d be short in your accounts.”
“She made me short enough,” I said, remembering that day at the bank.