The Girls of Cincinnati

by Jack Engelhard

  She made up with her parents, which meant she didn’t need Harry’s Carpet City anymore.

  She could BUY Harry’s Carpet City, as Fat Jack kept reminding me.

  But she stayed. I asked her why.

  “Guess,” she said.

  The other girls took to her. She played no uppity games with them.

  Mona loved her.

  Fat Jack came up regularly, dragged us out into the hall, and said: “When are you two kids going to quit fooling around? Get married.” To Stephanie: “You love him, don’t you?”

  “You’re embarrassing her,” I said.

  “No he’s not,” Stephanie said. “Yes I do love him.”

  “So what’s your problem?” he said to me.

  Downstairs Fat Jack grabbed me by the tie. “Don’t let this one get away, you YUTZ!”

  But I did.

  Maybe I did.

  Chapter 26

  Fat Jack was telling the salesmen that if business didn’t pick up in a hurry there’d be no Christmas bonuses this year and there might not even be a Christmas PARTY. “Him and his CHRISTMAS PARTIES,” whispered Morris Silver. “We haven’t had a Christmas party here in ten years. TWENTY years. We NEVER had a Christmas party.”

  “So what are you complaining about?” said Phil Coleman.

  “Christmas party,” said Morris Silver.

  Fat Jack was saying, “Harry Himself is thinking of coming down to talk to you men. And you know what that means!”

  That means the earth will shake. There will be thunder and lightning. Trees will topple. Rivers and oceans will run backwards. Dogs will meow. Cats will bark. The birds will grow silent. Mountains will roar. Harry – like God – wasn’t seen anymore. Nobody saw him arrive. Nobody saw him leave. But we all knew he was here, UPSTAIRS, listening, watching, privy to everything, even our innermost thoughts. He was Harry Himself. There was none like him. Not on Vine Street. Not in Cincinnati and not in all of America. Harry Himself could sell anybody anything. He didn’t have to anymore. He was worth, according to Fat Jack’s estimate, maybe twenty million dollars – and still HUNGRY.

  Make that THIRTY MILLION and still HUNGRY.

  He had started the business selling REMNANTS door-to-door, operating from the back seat of a broken down Chevy. He got the remnants from GARBAGE cans, the scraps left over in the alleys by the department stores like Shillito’s and Pogue’s. Now, of course, he was a leading philanthropist. He was married and had one daughter, adopted, a girl named Sasha, now 24, who had married a wimp accountant, Stanley, a bean counter who would eventually take over the business, a sickening thought to Fat Jack. Stanley wasn’t a salesman. Accountants were inheriting the earth.

  I had once been to Harry’s office. He sat behind a tiny, tidy desk that had nothing not even a computer or a pencil on it, and there he sat so un-ferocious, so tame, so TIMID, so untrue to his legend. The office had obviously been designed by a woman for a woman and, in fact, his daughter Sasha was an interior decorator. The only thing he had going for himself here was an ashtray and a box full of cigars. One reason he stayed late was that his wife wouldn’t let him smoke those things at home. He asked me a few questions about how things were going, and thanked me for my time. He never mentioned the boiler room, which led me to believe he didn’t know what I did around here, or that he even had a boiler room. He thanked me several times. He seemed very tired, in a way to suggest that he had seen everything and nothing could ever surprise him, and there were even hints of disgust at the corners of his mouth to mean that people had disappointed him, that it wasn’t all roses at the top and that if he had to do it over again maybe he wouldn’t. He thanked me again. He was a NICE GUY. Which was a very disillusioning thing to know. You wanted him to be GREAT and POWERFUL and AWFUL. It took months of not seeing him and Fat Jack’s repeated invocations of the Harry legend to gradually build back the awe and terror in me.

  “We got a man here,” Fat Jack now continued to the assembled sales force, “who can barely WALK. He’s a CRIPPLE. And what’s he doing? He’s putting all the rest of you men to SHAME! He’s closing wall-to-wall jobs left and right. That’s right. I’m talking about Lou Emmett. That old cripple over there, that has-been, is going to make this year’s MILLION DOLLAR CLUB! Before anybody else! That’s right. Lou Emmett. He may be a cripple, but he’s ten times the salesman you men will ever be!”

  Later, upstairs, I said to Lou, “Well, what do you think of that? He made you feel like a million dollars.”

  “By calling me a cripple?”

  “Lou, why is it always the negative with you?”

  “He called me a cripple. In front of everybody.”

  “He also said you were ten times the salesman they’d ever be.”

  The wear and tear of being so great a salesman was beginning to show on Lou. His contract with that guy over in Northwood called for him to measure a house a day; close to 25 homes in all.

  “Why one a day?” I asked.

  “He’s in a hurry.”

  “Lou, you’re shaking.”

  “Something happened. Promise you won’t tell anybody.”

  “What happened?”

  “Promise.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m driving back from Northwood yesterday. I was very tired, Eli. I’d been measuring this house all day and I was very tired. I’m driving back. I’m someplace in Walnut Hills. A kid, this kid runs out in the middle of the street. Right in front of my car. I nearly ran him over. It was THIS close. I almost forgot to put on the brakes I was so tired. That really shook me up, Eli. I’ve had nightmares all night. I keep seeing myself slamming on the brakes, and nothing happens.”

  “But you did slam on the brakes on time.”

  “But I ALMOST didn’t. You’ll never know how close it was! What if it happens again?”

  “You don’t even have a license.”

  “You better not tell anyone about this.”

  “Lou, forget this Northwood deal. This guy’s asking too much. Who IS this guy?”

  “He’s the developer.”

  “WHO’S the developer?”

  “It really shook me up. All night I dreamed about hurting this kid. Running him over.”

  “This can’t go on, Lou.”

  “You know what scares me? Maybe I did run the kid over.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe I did. Hasn’t that ever happened to you? You hit a bump on the road and you wonder?”

  “Did you go back?”

  “Yes. I didn’t see anything.”

  “So there,” I said.

  “But imagine, thinking you may have killed somebody. Can you imagine?”

  Yes I could imagine.

  “How can a man live with himself?”

  He puts it out of his mind. Every minute of every day.

  “Don’t you dare tell Fat Jack I was tired.”

  “I promise.”

  “That’s all I’d need. He’d pull me off. I’d be finished. Are we pals?”

  “We’re pals.”

  * * *

  Fat Jack said I looked awful. “No I mean really awful,” he said. “Terrible.”

  We were down in the stockroom where miles of carpet were rolled up against the walls, arrayed like beautiful dead animals being skewered, a perfect spot to do some boxing. Fat Jack loved to spar. One time I opened a cut over his left eye and he bled all over a WHITE rug. We both laughed our heads off after we buried that bit of evidence that was worth around $18,000. Now he came to me and said, “You can’t TOUCH me.” Touch him? He was so open I could have floored him by just saying boo. But I never would, of course.

  “You’re not so tough,” he said after we traded harmless jabs for a few minutes, him doing all that dancing and prancing as if he were a prizefighter with the championship of the world on the line. Then he switched to wrestling, pulling me down in a headlock. Then he grabbed my tie and twisted it, saying, “I want to know what’s going on. So tell m
e.”

  So I told him. I told him Stephanie hadn’t been home for three days and three nights, ever since she’d met with Sonja. I was worried, worried sick that Sonja had harmed her. I called her home. Her mother had assured me that Stephanie was fine, staying at some friend’s house – but would tell me no more.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t think she’s with a friend.”

  “You think she’s been kidnapped?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That fucking Sonja.”

  “I never should have hired her. I never should have fired her.”

  People like that, you don’t know what to do. Whatever you did was wrong.

  Fat Jack comforted me by saying, “That’s what you get for being such a cockmaster…”

  “I never went near her.”

  “…going from one broad to another. One of them’s bound to be a lemon.”

  “I know it’s all my fault.”

  “Yes it is all your fault,” he said, offering further comfort.

  “If anything’s happened to Stephanie…”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Eli. Her own mother says she’s all right.”

  “Her own mother hates my guts. She lies.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Eli, except wait. Stephanie’ll call. She always does.”

  Chapter 27

  But she didn’t. Days turned into weeks. Always, it seemed, since the time I first met Stephanie, the purpose of my life was waiting in general and waiting for the phone to ring in particular, and now when it did ring and it wasn’t her, I turned nasty to whoever it was, especially if I was at home and some pre-programmed phone solicitor was trying to sell me magazines or tickets to the policeman’s ball or something – until I remembered that’s what I did for a living. MACHINES, in some cases, were now doing the soliciting, which didn’t bode well for my future in the business. I was in the wrong business anyway but still no phone call from New York, if ever. Give my regards to Broadway.

  Man dreams, God laughs, but it’s not funny.

  Marie, Fat Jack’s Monday afternoon delight on false pretenses, ended the boycott against me and said, “I’m not seeing him anymore.”

  I pretended like I didn’t know who what where when why.

  I gave her a dumb look.

  “You know, don’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “You don’t?”

  Another dumb look. If I pull this off, I AM an actor.

  “Of course you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “About me and…oh, you know. I know you know.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I know it doesn’t matter. To you. Nothing matters to you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Someday I’ll tell you why I did it,” she said.

  “All right.”

  “You don’t know women at all. If you did you wouldn’t have hired that witch.”

  “You’re right there, Marie.”

  “Some of the girls, we’ve been talking, and we decided we never seen you so miserable.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That ain’t no compliment. Where’s Stephanie?”

  “I don’t know, Marie.”

  “Mona thinks Stephanie…Stephanie’s hurt someplace.”

  “Mona?”

  “She’s worried. We’re all worried.”

  “That includes me.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” Marie asked.

  Now there, I thought, is character.

  “You’re something,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re okay.”

  “We’re all ready to help.”

  “If I think of something…”

  “Just say the word, Eli.”

  I thought of something. I pulled Mona out into the hallway. I told her I had searched for Sonja in Covington at that address her brother Wayne gave me, and there was no such place. But I was convinced she was somewhere in Covington, probably with Stephanie. We had that Internet Criss-Cross section devoted to Covington, which we never called, because it was low-rent. But now might be a good time to solicit Covington, not for carpet but for Sonja. We’d use the familiar pitch for selling carpet, but just to get a response, to hear a voice. Sonja’s voice had a sharp twang to it, a slight shrill that was unmistakable when she got to talking, so that it would be important to get the people talking, at least saying a few words, before the usual hang-ups. Fortunately, for the new girls, we still had Sonja’s audition tape – thanks to the automation introduced by Fat Jack when he thought it might be wise to test the girls on tape before hiring them.

  “I know this will cut into your leads,” Mona…but just an hour a day. All the girls.”

  “Of course. I’m as anxious as you are.”

  “Fat Jack mustn’t know about this.”

  “I know.”

  We had thousands of names to cut into and it was slow-going at an hour a day, so I upped it to two hours, then three – until finally it consumed all eight hours of the working day. Through my extension I could listen in on any conversation, which I did whenever I got the hand signal that someone was HOT, and so many sounded almost like Sonja, but almost wasn’t enough.

  The enthusiasm in the boiler room was something to behold. Now the girls had a purpose. They were driven. On their own, they cut their lunchtime in half, cut out their breaks altogether, and suddenly there wasn’t all this going to the bathroom. They tore into the work with abandon and hit the high points of the script, which went something like this:

  “Hello.”

  Pause for response.

  “How are you today, Mrs. Blank?”

  Pause for response. First rule of salesmanship – get the other person to respond.

  “Isn’t this weather… wonderful… awful… (depending).”

  Second rule of salesmanship – get the other person in the habit of responding in the affirmative.

  “My name is Mona Waters (depending). I’m calling from Harry’s Carpet City. Have you heard about our sale?”

  Usually the answer is no. A desired response.

  “Well good, Mrs. Blank. This gives me an opportunity to tell you about our superlative savings on all our brand names. Of course that includes Bigelow, Karastan, Salem, Galaxy, Burlington Stain Resistant Plush, and even the finest Oriental makes, like Beaulieu of Belgium.”

  At this point the person says she’s not interested. But the solicitor doesn’t hear this.

  A good solicitor hears no discouraging words. She ploughs on. “Well Mrs. Blank, our field specialist (read: salesman, but a word that must never, ever be used) will be in your neighborhood all week (which wasn’t true) and he’d be glad to stop by…”

  Really, I’m not interested.

  “Will you be home tomorrow, Mrs. Blank?”

  I said I wasn’t interested.

  “Say around three, Mrs. Blank?”

  I said I WASN’T INTERESTED.

  “Mrs. Blank, this sale only lasts one week.”

  I don’t care.

  Now the good phone solicitor, having got this far, uses every weapon available.

  “You’re under no obligation.”

  I really have to go now. I have a crying baby.

  “Can you afford to pass up these savings? Don’t you owe it to your family?”

  I’ll worry about my family. Now I’m going to hang up.

  “Only a few minutes is all we ask. So can I put you down for three o’clock tomorrow?”

  “Let me just check your address…”

  I’m hanging up.

  As a last resort: “Look, my job is on the line. Please give me a break.”

  * * *

  Fat Jack didn’t know what was going on except that he was getting more leads than ever for his men, a happy development until it turned out that most of them were for LINOLEUM. Fat Jack ran up, looked around and asked me to join him downst
airs.

  “Something’s funny,” he said. “There’s trouble in Carpet City.”

  “What?”

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The girls. They’re so enthusiastic!”

  “That’s bad?”

  “Half hour lunches, no coffee breaks – no going to the john every five minutes.”

  “This is a complaint?”

  “No, but Covington is. Covington? Since when do we solicit Covington? They’re all hillbillies.”

  “I thought we’d give it a try.”

  “Yeah, and you’re doing very well – with LINOLEUM! Hillbilly carpet. LINOLEUM.”

  “All right…”

  “All right hell. You’ve got some of my best salesmen wasting valuable time on LINOLEUM.”

  “Well, now we know about Covington.”

  “We always knew about Covington! What’s going on, Eli?”

  “Going on?”

  “You think I’m STUPID?”

  “No I don’t think you’re STUPID.”

  “I’m not STUPID, Eli.”

  “I never said you were STUPID.”

  “You think Harry Himself would have made me manager if he thought I was STUPID?”

  “No, Harry Himself wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “You think HARRY is STUPID?”

  “No, Harry’s not STUPID.”

  “So what’s going on? I have a right to know. I pay the bills.”

  So I told him.

  I told him why we were calling Covington.

  He said this was a BUSINESS. This wasn’t a place for detective work. If I wanted to find Stephanie I should go to the police. I could get fired for this. Get all the girls fired, too, including Mona, who’d been here since CREATION. I was ruining people’s livelihoods, including mine and his. Harry Himself would have his head for this, if Harry ever found out. Harry would go through the ROOF. Using salaried employees for your own personal benefit was a disgrace, even unethical, even if the intent were honorable, as in saving a life. Saving a life was one thing, but this was DOLLARS and CENTS we were talking, which was bigger than life and death.