by Orrie Hitt
“Yes,” I said, “there was a flood. A real old humdinger of a flood. You never saw so much water this side of the ocean. And it came the day after we put the books out. Hell, the only things you could have sold were one-way tickets out of that place.”
“And you lost money?”
“My shirt.” I offered her another cigarette but she shook her head. “So you can never tell. You have it good, everything right, and then it goes to pot.”
In a way, I was sort of testing her with this one. If she’d looked into my past as much as she’d indicated she’d know that I’d made money in Ravena. Actually, we’d done it by adding an insert of flood pictures and the things had sold for souvenirs like crazy crazy.
“Well, that’s business, I guess,” she said. “You win or you lose. You can’t do both.”
I wondered what she knew about business. I’d done some investigating about her, too, and she wouldn’t have known a business venture from a cyclone if she run head-on into either. Her old man and old lady were both dead and they’d left an estate of almost a million. This had been divided equally between Sandy and her brother. The retail credit report had disclosed that the brother was now living with a bunch of other nuts in an art colony on some island off the coast of Florida. Sandy had continued to live in Port Jessup, more or less, and she was one of the big wheels in the community. She was not only rich but good-looking, and she maintained a superior air that sucked most people in under her wing.
In the summer, she devoted part of her time to the playgrounds in the city and during the winter she sponsored a couple of girl’s basketball teams. She sang in the choir of the Presbyterian church, entertained some of the women’s organizations at her home and gave generously to every charitable cause. She had been engaged once, to some guy who had been killed in a plane crash, and it was pretty generally agreed that she always played it smart and slept alone.
“When do you think the book will be out?” she was asking me.
“Four to five weeks.”
“That soon?” She seemed surprised.
“You can’t spend your life on one job.”
She took one of her own cigarettes and lit it. This time I got a better look at her legs. They were nice and straight.
“I’ll have to get busy on the sales plan,” she decided. “I’d better contact each church and find out how many books they want.”
I let the Caddy get down to a crawl.
“Look,” I said. “There’s a couple of things I ought to go over with you, Miss Adams.”
“I do wish you’d call me Sandy.”
“Sandy.” I looked at her and grinned. “Now, to begin with, you shouldn’t try to do it through the council. The council doesn’t include all of the churches. Take the Catholics, for instance — you want to pass them up?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, they aren’t in the council but I’ve already talked with both of them and they’re willing to get behind it.”
“You have been working!”
“I’m interested in sales.”
“All of us are.”
“You have to have a plan, Miss — Sandy. You have to have a good plan when you go to them or you won’t reach first base. Here’s what I suggest. Give them books to sell, or let them take orders for them, if you want to. But don’t bury them under books. And don’t insist that they sell them. Rather, try to get six or seven good women who are interested in doing something in the community, women with pleasant phone voices. Then, when the book comes out, we’ll canvass the town by phone. As long as the churches are benefiting from the sale of the book we won’t have to use any run — delivery boys. We can mail the books out and ninety-nine percent of the people will send their money to us. In the book, we’ll put a slip so that the purchaser can list the name and address and church of his faith. We’ll see that the church gets its share, no matter where it’s located.”
The Caddy rolled over the top of the mountain and we slid leisurely down into a long, green valley.
“Your plan sounds very good,” Sandy admitted. Her hand touched my arm. “In fact, it sounds so sensible that I want to aplogize to you for something.”
“What’s that?”
“For that first day we met.” Her fingers gave a little squeeze and moved away. “For insinuating that you might not be — on the level.”
I gave her a big wink, feeling real sharp inside. It hadn’t been easy but she was beginning to see things my way now. She was beginning to trust me. And that’s all you need. A little trust and a short piece of rope. You take a situation like that and you can make a merry-go-round out of it in no time at all. And you can jump off any time you feel the urge. With the money. What the hell, she could have a dozen biddies dialing numbers in one part of town and I could have a couple of hot ones going on the other side. Me and Al. Sure. The two of us could work half the book before Sandy and her crew could get out of low gear. And with so many people calling who could know who called who?
“I’ll tell you the truth,” I said. “I’ve cut corners in a couple of places but there’ll be none of that here. Before, we’ve had to do it in order to survive but this time, with the churches in behind it, there’s no need to do that. This time — ”
“Please,” Sandy Adams said quietly. “You don’t have to sell me — Danny.” That hand was on my arm again and it didn’t pull away this time. “I’m sold on the program. And on you.”
We rode along, skirting the lake, and I felt high and good. She was worth a half-million bucks and I was getting over on her side of the fence without hooking my pants on her barbed wire. We would run off fifteen thousand copies of the book — I’d slip the printer a hundred to say that he’d run ten — and we’d float out five thousand into the town so fast it’d make me dizzy just counting all that money. We’d work the alphabet backwards and when the church women started we’d get them onto the front part of the thing. They’d have easy sales and I might pump a few dollars into it, during the first few days, just to make it look even better. Then I’d get a telegram, a rush job upstate, and I’d make a generous offer of selling the books to Sandy at a half a buck apiece. With her dough and her yen to be a goodie-goodie I wouldn’t have any trouble at all. By the time she found out that the city of Port Jessup had been blitzed I’d be out in California counting the loot. Or Florida. Or some other place where there wouldn’t be any Sandy, or Madeline, or constant rat race around the face of the nearest clock.
“Swing left at the next four corners,” she told me. “The pavilion is about a half a mile up the lake.”
“I hope the corn is good. I’m hungry.”
“Are you?” she wanted to know, lazily. “I’m not. I feel so darned good!”
“That’s nice.”
“I like doing things for other people.” She let me chew on that one a while. “And I like those who want to help.”
You ever notice that about people with money? They come right out and say what they think. Maybe it’s a crust all that money gives them, encouraging them to let go with the first thing that rattles around in their head. I don’t know. But she shook me, that much I know. She shook me because I had figured on it taking longer for her to even hint at such a thing. But it was okay with me. It made it easier. And quicker. Because you can’t be sure how much is glitter and how much is real until after you’ve had them. And it’s rather difficult to get next to a girl unless she likes you. Even my old man knew that and he hung wallpaper upside down.
“Tell you what,” I said as the lights loomed up ahead. “Let’s forget about business tonight. Let’s eat and have fun and make merry.”
“All right,” she agreed.
“I’m not sure but I guess that’s when it started. You know how it is. You know somebody for a while, maybe even a long time, and you never seem to hit it off too good with them. Oh, you might speak, or swap cigarettes, or something like that, but the association is always half-formal and filled with doubt. Then something hap
pens, perhaps nothing more than a kind word, and the first thing you know you’re in the friendship business with another party. Sometimes it’s a female which, if you’re a male, has certain advantages. At any rate, that’s how it happened with us — a little joke, a gentle brush through her soft hair with my fingers — and the pantry door began to swing open.
It was a strange crowd at the pavilion, not at all what I had expected. There were cops and lawyers and carpenters and one fellow who, someone told me, raised hogs. He sure as hell smelled like it. And there were young kids, running around outside of the big building like mad, and old women and old men who claimed to have eaten better corn in the dead of winter. Some were poor and some had plenty of gelt but it was difficult to tell which was which. The food was good and the music that came from the band at one end of the dimly lit dance floor wasn’t bad. There was plenty to drink: wine, beer and all the other hard stuff. Nobody seemed to care who was who as long as everyone got their share and there was plenty to go around.
“Christ,” I said to Sandy later in the evening. “I haven’t eaten so much since I had my first meal in the army.”
I was sprawled out on my back on the grass, looking up at the stars. She sat beside me, smoking, and just the nearness of her brought something exciting into the night.
“You were in the army?”
“Yeah. I was one of Truman’s cops.”
“Korea?”
“Yeah.”
“So was Sam, my brother.”
I sat up, suddenly.
“That’s it!” I said. “That ship’s painting of his. I knew I’d seen that boat before. It’s the one I went over to Korea on, or one just like it!”
A fat guy in shirtsleeves, the one who’d been serving up the chicken, yelled for us to come over and get something more to drink.
“It’s a good idea,” I said. “I’m dry.”
We had a few drinks, rye and soda, and then we danced several times. She was a good dancer, no prude, and when we were in the shadows she came in close, letting her body move against mine.
“You dance the way you live,” she told me. “Like you’re chasing something.”
I was. Her.
A lot of people were crowding into the pavilion now and she introduced me around. I didn’t try to remember their names or what they did. It didn’t much matter. They’d remember me — ”He’s the fellow who’s writing up the city history” — and that was the important thing.
“Hiya, boy!”
I turned around.
It was old man Maddison and he was carrying a load big enough for a tanker.
“Hi,” I said.
He nodded his head up and down, just as though I’d made a rather startling statement of fact.
“Doin’ aw right,” he said, still nodding. The glass of beer in his hand tipped and some of the beer spilled onto the floor. “Always’ll do aw right. Meanin’ you, Danny. You. Always’ll do aw right. You take ‘em before anybody can catch you. Take ‘em and run. Thass you.”
I didn’t know if he was referring to his daughter or to the people who had us make up books. It didn’t make any difference. I got the hell away from him. Sober he was not hard to take but the hops had given him a tongue a foot long.
We had some more to drink and then we danced again. This time she clung to me whether we were in the shadows or out where the spotlight glared down on the floor. The liquor had gotten some good circulation by this time and I wondered if I could kiss her. I tried. She pushed my head away, laughing. I took another stab at it. This time we connected, lingered for a moment. Her lips were cool and firm but I could feel the swollen pressure of her breasts against my chest.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t spoil it.”
Spoil it? I was just trying to keep the night from going sour.
“Sorry,” I said.
I didn’t try it again and after the dance we went back to the bar and had some more to drink. A guy came along, an old fellow with a bald head, and asked Sandy for a dance. Or, rather, he asked me. I said, sure, go ahead, but not too quickly and she seemed to like that. I watched them as they moved out on the floor and then I went down into the glass again.
They were gone a long time, long enough for me to go to the railing and start looking for her, when I felt somebody beside me. And I smelled somebody. I knew, even without looking, who it was.
“Well,” I said to Gloria. “I didn’t think you’d be here. I thought you’d be home taking care of your kid.”
“I have to get out once in a while.”
“Yeah.”
“And I like to dance.”
I could smell the liquor on her breath. She’d been drinking. But who hadn’t?
“Let’s spin it,” I said. You had to humor a dame with Gloria’s background. “Let’s put those feet to work.”
It had been a long time since I’d held her in my arms but it was the same fit. Her breasts were just as soft and firm as ever and her hips kept moving down there in an abandoned, wild sort of way.
“I’m sorry about this afternoon,” she said.
This was a night when everybody apologized.
“Forget it.”
“I was upset, Danny. I had to get it off my — shoulders.”
“Sure.”
“I didn’t mean it about the money.”
I kept my mouth shut. What had I told her, a grand? I must have been out of my mind.
“I’ll take the money,” she said. She held her head back and the whiskey smell hit me in the face. “I couldn’t say it this afternoon but I can say it now, Danny. I’ll take the money.”
It made me a little mad.
“You want it now?”
“Any time.”
“Tomorrow,” I said, remembering my check book was back in the motel. “I’ll bring it around then.”
She smiled up at me crookedly.
“I’ll never tell anybody, Danny.”
“Okay.”
“Only my husband knows.”
“And I suppose he wants a grand, too,” I said.
We were over in one corner, out of the light. It was a good thing. She stopped dancing and stepped away from me like I had a dose of something that nobody else wanted.
“No,” she said. “He doesn’t want your money. But I do. I want to make it easy on him, as easy as I can. He isn’t well and he’s done a lot for me and the baby. A lot.”
“Well, cheers!” I told her. “What does it make him if he supports his own kid? A hero, for gosh sakes?”
“Danny,” she said, her eyes very serious. She came in close so no one else could hear. “Danny, don’t make me cry. The baby is yours, Danny!”
It hit me all over, like a cold bath in zero weather. It hit me right in the guts, where you get sick and you want to throw up only you can’t. It hit me and stayed there, burning in, and by the time I started to say something she was already gone, moving toward the exit.
I caught up with her outside. I grabbed her by the arm and shoved her over into the shadows and held her there.
“Take it easy,” I said. “You just don’t blow your whistle on me and walk off.”
Her face twisted in pain.
“You’re hurting my arm, Danny!”
“Shut up!”
“Please, Danny — ”
She shrank back away from me, whimpering. I slapped her one across the face, not hard, and she stopped it.
“You lie!” I told her. “It isn’t my kid and you know it.”
“It is,” she sobbed. “It is!”
“Like hell. I never took any chances that way.”
“But, Danny — ”
“Shut up, will you?” Jesus, I wondered, what do you do in a spot like this? I wet my lips and drove into it. “Look,” I said, “I’m going to give you that grand. I’m giving it to you because you’ve got it coming. But don’t try to pull that kid stuff on me, never again. You hear? You try that on me again and I’ll wallop you silly.”
“Let me go, Danny!”
“No more of that stuff?”
She shook her head.
“I’d be ashamed to admit it,” she sobbed.
I let her go.
“I’ll bring you the dough tomorrow,” I said.
She didn’t say anything. She just walked on out of the sight. She was crying.
I didn’t go back inside right away. Now that she was gone I leaned up against the building and began shaking all over. A kid! God Almighty, that was all that had to happen.
A kid! Was it a boy or a girl? I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember whether or not she’d told me. A kid!
“Hot night, huh?”
An old guy went past, a can of beer in his hand.
“Boiling,” I agreed.
After a while I sat down on the steps, still trying to think. It didn’t seem possible, Gloria having my kid and married to somebody else. It must be a gimmick, a pitch, a solid way to try to get some money from me. Hell, yes, that was it; she was just another dame with her hand out for a buck. I thought that one over a long time. I wanted to laugh. Why should she hold her hand out when she could do better with something else?
A kid, I kept thinking. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. A kid. When had it happened? I tried to remember. I couldn’t. I got up and walked around. Damn it, she must be lying. She had to be lying! A thing like that — a mess like that, well, it could really kick up a rumpus. Or could it? She was married, wasn’t she? What more could she get? What more did she want?
“Danny!”
Dames, I thought, as Sandy came out and down the steps. Millions of dames in the country and I had to get tangled up with something like that Gloria.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“Getting a little air?”
“Yeah.”
She came up beside me and linked her arm through mine.
“Just look at that moon!” Her eyes moved to my face and she smiled. “I saw you follow that attractive young lady out here and I thought I’d lost you.”
“You mean, Gloria?”
“Collins. It used to be Maddison.”