Fletcher said, “I confess I didn’t think of that. It will be a help, of course, but I don’t think it will keep us from going into the money market to tide us over.”
“That’s where the second phase of my plan comes in,” Ellis said a bit blandly, and Fletcher cursed himself for not keeping his mouth shut, for forgetting that Ellis had mentioned two phases. “I was trying to think of all this,” Ellis continued, “from the point of view of K.C.I., who has the prime contract with the Quartermaster General. I can’t help but think that they’re anxious for Forman to take on this job. They know we have the plant, the personnel and the know-how to fulfill a subcontract that large on time, and up to specifications. I would say that they are anxious to have us take it on. Wouldn’t you say that, Mr. Forman?”
“From what I’ve seen the last few weeks, I’d say you’re right, Corban.”
“I’ve read of quite a few instances during the past year or so, Mr. Forman, where a prime contractor would arrange for an advance payment on the prime contract before deliveries had started, with it clearly understood that the advance payment would be passed along, in part, to a critical subcontractor. I believe that if we approached K.C.I. properly and perhaps arranged a conference with the Contracting Officer involved, such a deal could be worked out. It would give us an interest-free loan, in effect, and that, combined with unloading our stock of completed units, would give us enough so that I believe we could get by without having to arrange any short-term working capital loans, as outlined in Mr. Wyant’s report.”
The room was silent. Fletcher wondered if Stanley Forman was aware of how neatly and cleverly Ellis Corban had knifed him. He knew that Corban’s plan would work out. It solved a rather unpleasant little problem. And Ellis had made certain that there would never be any misunderstanding about the authorship of the plan. Let the man do that a few more times and Forman would wonder why he should keep deadwood at the top while Corban did all the creative brainwork.
Fletcher said, “I’m willing to say that if Mr. Corban had had enough time to discuss this with me, I would have insisted that he bring it up at this meeting. That’s the sort of thinking which has kept us in such good shape since the war.”
It was, at least, an attempt, but Fletcher was aware that it had gone over a bit flatly. And, he realized to his dull surprise, it did not seem to matter very much. It didn’t matter now if Elllis moved in on him and took the whole thing over. Funny how I always imagined this work was aside and apart from my marriage, that the satisfaction I took in it would continue no matter what. Now I can see how closely they were interwoven, how one cannot truly exist without the other.
“For God’s sake, Fletch! Are you asleep?”
He stared at Stanley’s frowning face. “I’m sorry.”
“I asked you for your opinion. As long as this was Corban’s plan, will you go along with sending him out to K.C.I. to see what he can swing?”
“Shouldn’t Mr. Wyant go?” Ellis asked quickly.
“I think it would be only fair, Stanley, to send him out there.”
“Done, then. Get off today if you can, Corban. Harry, you and Homer co-ordinate on getting those units out of here. Meeting dismissal.”
“Do you want that in the notes, Mr. Forman,” Miss Townsend asked plaintively, “about you asking Mr. Wyant if he was asleep?”
“No, for God’s sake!” Stanley exploded. The meeting broke up. Fletcher stopped for a drink of water. When he went through Miss Trevin’s office she said, “Mr. Corban is in there waiting for you, sir. And your wife wants you to call her.”
“Put in the call when Mr. Corban leaves, please.”
He shut the door behind him as he went into his office. He made himself smile, and he knew that this was precisely the right time to let Ellis know that one Fletcher Wyant was perfectly aware of the facts of life.
“Gosh, Fletch,” Ellis said, getting up quickly, “that was a tactical error and I realize it now. I should have kept my big mouth shut and talked it over with you after the meeting. It would have been simple enough to ask Mr. Forman to call another meeting after the two of us had kicked it around.”
Fletcher sat down behind his desk and leaned back, balancing his ankle on his knee. “Sometimes an idea is so hot you can’t keep still. Lucky you thought of it in time to present it at the meeting.”
“Yes, I guess it was. But, hell, you brought me in here. The last thing I’d want to do is make it look as though I was trying to go over your head and impress the boss.”
“I don’t think you have to worry, Ellis. I’ll tell Stanley that you thought better of opening your mouth after you started to speak.”
“Well …” Ellis said uncertainly, “I guess the harm is done, if any.”
“I don’t think any harm has been done. You worry too much, Ellis.”
“That’s damn white of you, Fletch. To take it like this, I mean.”
“Take what? If my department comes up with a bright idea, it’s to my credit, isn’t it? I mean you are working for me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, certainly. But you know … I mean the way most companies are … I’d hate to have you think I’ve got any disloyalty in my system.”
“Now you’re joking, of course,” Fletcher said evenly.
Ellis looked faintly uncomfortable. “Uh … I don’t see what you mean.”
“Just that if I should think for one minute that you’re trying to cut the ground out from under me, I’d have you fired before you could get strong enough to make a fight of it.”
The two men faced each other. Fletcher stood up slowly. Now they knew precisely where they stood. It was fair warning to Ellis. A warning he couldn’t very well disregard.
“I guess I can get off today all right,” Ellis said. “Any special instructions?”
“I think you’re capable of handling it. Just one thing, though.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t try to move too fast. Don’t be too eager. Take a few days over there. Give the impression we’re not too terribly anxious to land the subcontract.” He allowed himself a smile. “That’s why I insisted you go, Ellis. If I’d gone, they might think we are placing too much importance on it.”
Ellis flushed. “I see what you mean. I’ll get in there tonight and go over to their offices first thing in the morning. I won’t rush it.”
“If you get back Thursday, that’s soon enough. Friday is the Fourth of July.”
They shook hands and Fletcher wished him luck. Ellis turned with his hand on the doorknob. “By the way, will this be all right with you? My car needs a lot of work, so I think I’ll put it in the garage. I’d like to tell Laura that if she needs anything, she can call you. Okay?”
“Certainly.”
“That was quite a party yesterday.”
“Wasn’t it.”
“Glad you asked us, Fletch. Laura will probably give Jane a ring sometime today.”
He sat at his desk after Ellis had gone. Miss Trevin told him Jane was on the line. “Hello?”
“Fletch? I tried to get you before when you were in the meeting.” Her voice was crisp and formal. “It’s about the children.”
“What about them?”
“I don’t think it would hurt if they were away for a few days. Say until the Fourth. We promised them we’d take them to the fireworks at the club Friday night, you know. I could take them.”
“I’ll be glad to. It would be good for them to … get out of the heat for a few days, I guess. But the camp doesn’t start until …”
“I realize that. The Trumbulls asked me over a week ago if Judge and Dink could visit them at their camp at Lake Harrison. Their boy and girl are almost exactly the same age you know, and Madge said they had no one to play with up there, and she has help this year, and she’d be glad to have them. I said no at the time because of them going away to camp so soon. She said if I changed my mind, to bring them up any time.”
“I guess that would be okay. What do the kids think?
”
“They liked the idea, I guess. They seem … a little odd today. It’s hard to tell what they’re thinking.”
“It’s fine with me. I think it’s a good idea, in fact.”
“We can leave here right after lunch. I have my keys. I thought we could taxi down and take the car, if that’s all right with you.”
“Fine.”
“It’s not a good road and traffic is usually heavy and it’s a hundred miles, so I thought if she asks me, I’ll stay over tonight.”
“Do as you please.”
“If I’m not home by nine, then I’m staying over. I’ve told Anise not to come this week.”
“I don’t plan to get home before then anyway.”
“Oh, I see.”
He held the line for a few seconds and said, “Well, is that all?”
He heard the soft click as she hung up. He shut his hands so hard his knuckles hurt. He wanted to smash things, overturn the desk, kick out the window. Instead he waited until his breathing was normal, and then, tried to lose himself in his work. It was a formula that seldom failed. On this day the effort was useless. Evil figures crawled through his brain. He kept thinking of the good days, and he wanted to cry like a child. He remembered the days when Dink was one and Judge was three, and they were nearly driving Jane mad. And he had had to leave her for the crazy months overseas. Her letters had always been a declaration of love and faith, strengthening him, and making him feel soiled and guilty in the arms of Beatrice and the abundant Hannah. He thought of all the nights of love with Jane, of how it always varied. Sometimes warm and slow and sleepy, and sometimes wildly inventive, and sometimes pure magic that took you away from yourself, away from a known world. Had any man ever lost more, and lost it more brutally? He wished with all his heart that she had denied the incident flatly and calmly and decisively, and that he could have learned to live with the lie—rather than having it this way, where there seemed to be nothing left.
Chapter Fourteen
At ten o’clock on Monday evening the city stewed like a pot over a slow fire. The overworked police began to have the feeling that some vast lid was about to blow off. There was a thread of fear in them, and even the milder members of the force used quick brutality as the solution to most problems.
An interne carefully counted twenty-three stab wounds in a stocky Italian body and marveled that the man had lived long enough to die as they were wheeling him into the emergency operating room. Somebody found a starving dog under the Town Street bridge. A person unknown had carefully sewed its festering mouth shut with heavy cord. Three young girls of decent family were picked up naked in a sedan parked on a downtown street. It was discovered that all three were full of heroin, and that two of the three were diseased. A pulpy bloated body was fished out of the river by four small boys. An elderly man was nabbed in the park for indecent exposure and on the way to headquarters he managed to dive out of the open window of the prowl car to die under the wheels of a city bus. A hysterical girl was found wandering on the highway near lover’s lane. They found the body of her escort ten feet from the parked car. The four men who had raped her had hit the young man a bit too hard.
The night heat was like the string of a bass fiddle, a string which had been plucked and now vibrated in a tone just below the ability of the human ear to hear it. A man sat in a small dirty apartment near the river. There was a boy scout hatchet near his feet. Those who had heard the screams called the police. They broke the door down and the youngest cop was sick in the hall. The man sat there, studying first his palms, and then the backs of his hands, over and over, as though there were something there he would understand if he looked long enough and thought hard enough. A small boy toddled into a doorway, fingers in his mouth, and stared mildly at his teen-age sitter and her boy friend on the dark couch. The boy friend cursed. The sitter snatched up the boy so violently that he howled with fright and pain. She thrust him back in his crib. If he kept crying, the boy would go. If she didn’t come back soon, the boy would go. She held the pillow down tightly with both hands for a long time and then went back to the living room, heard herself say faintly, “He went to sleep,” as she slipped back into the boy’s rough impatient arms.
The police cursed the night and the heat and the animal city as they built up long weary hours in future courtrooms. The city lay on a hundred thousand sticky beds and fought for air.
At ten o’clock Fletcher had known for some time that he was going to phone. He had known in the meeting that he was going to phone, as soon as it had been decided that Ellis would be sent to K.C.I. She had been in his mind ever since. Yet, somehow, he had fought against it, fought to the very limit of his strength.
He had wandered through the areas of the cheapest bars, collar open, sleeves rolled up, coat over his arm. He’d lost his hat someplace, and he couldn’t remember where, or how. He’d sat in one dim bar and a tawny, hard-mouthed girl had sung one of the old songs and it had made him cry, silently there, in the dimness, with the glass cold against his hand. That was many bars ago, and he was beyond tears.
He saw the booths in the back of the drugstore and he went in. Ceiling fans stirred the air, and there was an indefinable smell of garbage. He had two dimes, and first he called his home and counted the rings for a time, and then forgot to count and finally hung up. He stood heavily in the booth, and then remembered he had to look up the number. He got the number and started to dial and forgot it, and had to go back to the book and look again.
She answered on the third ring. “Hello?” She sounded far away.
“This is Fletch.”
“Oh! What do you want, Fletcher?”
“That’s a good question. A very good question.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Oh, a little. Not too drunk, if you know what I mean, honey.”
“I’m afraid I do. You better go take a cold shower, Fletcher.”
“Let’s both take one. Little co-operative shower. Very brisk.”
“This is a party line, you know.”
“Good thing. Wake them up. Give ’em something to talk about. Ellis go bounding off okay?”
“Yes. He took a three o’clock flight. I drove him out.”
“Kiss him good-by?”
“I believe so.” She sounded irritated.
“Jane’s away. Up at a lake. She likes lakes. Got to tell you about that sometime. She’s nuts about lakes.”
“I was reading, Fletcher, and enjoying it. Do you have anything at all to say?”
“Last night. Didn’t I turn down a deal?”
“I got that impression.”
“Changed my mind, baby. Quick-like. Right after you left.”
“Think it over some more and call me in the morning.”
“I tell you I’m fine! Sober as a damn judge.”
“Frankly you sound sloppy and messy and I don’t want you barging around here tonight. Is that clear?”
“Ellis said you’d phone me up, you want anything. No car, he said.”
“The garage was too busy. They couldn’t take the car. Good night, Fletcher.”
“Wait a minute!”
“Go to bed, Fletcher. Good night.”
There was a sharp, decisive click. He fished in his pocket and found another dime. Then he went out and asked the address of the drugstore. He went back into the booth and phoned a cab. When it came he was waiting out on the corner, feeling faintly queasy. He gave Laura’s address. On the dark street the houses looked all alike, back in the elm shadows.
He paid off the cab and stood in the shadows for a time, and then walked up to the porch steps with an attempt at briskness and decision. But he stumbled on the steps and caught himself with his hands, hurting his wrist.
He pounded on the door, calling, “Laura! Laura!”
He looked through the glass. The hall light clicked on and he saw her stride quickly down the hall toward the door. She wore a dark blue robe and her face was set and angry. She fiddled with
the door and then opened it. It opened about five inches before the night chain snubbed it.
“Really!” she said. “I do have to live here.”
“Take that silly chain off, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”
“Listen to me! Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“Sure. Anybody’d think I was drunk, the way you talk.”
“I don’t want you in this house … in your present condition or any other condition. This house is out of bounds. Can you understand that?”
“Come on. Get the car keys and we’ll go to my house.”
“I’ll phone a cab. It will be here in five minutes and take you home.”
“Just got rid of a cab. Sick of cabs. Gets monotonous. Be a good kid and let me in.”
“No!”
“LAURA, LET ME IN!”
“Will you shut up! Please!”
“LAURA!”
She fumbled with the chain and swung the door open. He walked through, reaching for her. She twisted out of his arms and turned off the hall light. He reached for her again and she hit him sharply across the mouth. The shock silenced him.
She said, “Get back away from the door. I think somebody called the police.”
The pale car drifted down the street. It stopped in front. A uniformed man got out and came up the walk. She pushed at Fletcher. “Get in the other room. Sit down on the floor before you knock something over.”
He went into the other room, found a chair and sank gratefully into it. He heard a heavy voice, heard her calm answering tone. “It didn’t come from here, officer. Further up the street I think. I heard it too. A man shouting.”
The door closed and he could vaguely see her as she came toward him. She stopped a careful distance away. “Really!” she whispered.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Drunker than I thought I guess. Hell of a note.”
“I don’t want you here.”
“See what you mean.”
“I’ve got to get you home somehow. Is your wife really out of town?”
“Yes. I wasn’t kidding. Look … maybe some black coffee and then call a cab …”
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