Pushover

by Orrie Hitt

  I felt we were. I’d given her a going over when I’d gotten to Carbondale that night. I’d called her every bitch in the book and I’d wound it up by slapping her face until she cried.

  “Don’t, Danny!”

  “You bitch! Doing a thing like that.”

  “I didn’t know that you — loved her.”

  “Well, you do now.”

  “I thought it was the money, Danny. I thought you were after that. I — I couldn’t — let — you.”

  I’d slapped her again, spinning her around. She’d dashed to the door, screaming.

  “All right, Danny. All right. I loved you, you big, stupid fool. You hear me? I loved you! And I didn’t want to let you go. Didn’t you ever think of that?”

  I hadn’t. I’d thought it was her way of paying me back for what I’d done to her.

  “It’s finished now,” she’d told me from the doorway. “The same as it is with Johnny. Done. Are you satisfied?”

  She’d gone home to Amsterdam and Al and I had struggled with the Carbondale book. We’d both sold ads and we’d both worked in the historical room, along with a couple of local girls we’d hired, getting the book in shape. We’d been two weeks late getting the thing out but it had been a passable job and we’d done quite well with it.

  “Let’s not kid ourselves,” Al said when we were done. “We’re like a couple of lost souls without Madeline. Why don’t you call her?”

  A lot has happened since that time. We had a good organization to work with in Nevada, nice people, and the results were more than satisfactory. The day before we departed I gave them a notarized statement of printed copies as against sales. When we left town I had a clean taste in my mouth, as though I’d done something.

  The next job had been in Central Pennsylvania and the snow was fierce there that winter. The only good thing that can be said for the bad weather was that it lasted through our sales period and we were able to move rapidly. Following this we had gone to Florida for two weeks, all of us including Al, his wife and kids, and the New York State job had broken while we were down there.

  The phone rang. I answered it.

  “Hi,” Al said. “What you doing, boss?”

  “Having a drink. Toasting our good fortune all by myself.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s different these days, isn’t it?”

  “Much.”

  “Say, I’m out here at the radio station.” He was the same old Al, always enthusiastic. “Dropped off a couple of commercials and they were wondering if you could do that taped interview tomorrow morning instead of tonight. The fellow who’s going to do it has to work the board. Tell them okay?”

  “Anytime,” I said. “Who am I to argue? It’s free-for-nothing.”

  Al laughed.

  “I’ve been around town most all day,” he said. “Things look first-rate. That booth in the lobby of the theatre has picked up over five hundred orders already.”

  I told him that was great, asked him why he didn’t stop around for a drink later and hung up.

  I looked out of the window, at the cars moving in the street, at the neon signs burning in the store windows. And the people, I watched the people. Old ones, young ones. Men and women. Kids. I wondered, idly, how many of them would buy a copy of the history of their city. I picked up my drink again. My guess was that a lot of them could stand up and be counted.

  We’d hit this city hard, harder than any. Every potential advertiser had received a letter, outlining the program, and signed by the president of the church council. All had been solicited. Eighty-five percent had gone into the book. We had given lectures about the purpose and the need of the movement before every civic and charitable organization in the city, at least once. Our radio and newspaper publicity had been constant and hard-hitting. Not one angle had been missed. The people loved it.

  I turned away from the window and went over to the bed. I was tired. God, I was tired. I ought to go down to the little office we’d rented on Mission Avenue and see if I could help Madeline with envelopes. Harrison had promised an early morning delivery and we wanted to dump the advertisers copies into the mail as quickly as possible. But I just couldn’t get myself under way. It had been a rugged pitch, the worst yet.

  I stretched out on the double bed. I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

  “Hey! Come on, Danny, we’re late!”

  I rolled over and sat up. Light flooded the room, hurt my eyes. But I could see her. I couldn’t miss seeing a woman like Sandy.

  “Jesus,” I said. “I’m pooped.”

  She took off her coat and threw it on the bed. As she sat down beside me I kissed her on the cheek.

  “Unzip me,” she said.

  I did.

  “You haven’t shaved,” she reminded me. “And that dinner is for seven thirty.”

  I got up, grumbling, and went into the bathroom. She’d had me on the run for weeks, chasing everybody in town. I wondered if I’d last until midnight.

  She came in while I was shaving and turned on the shower. I could see her in the mirror. She slipped out of the robe and hung it on the hook. She had a beautiful body.

  “Know what?” She put on a red bathing cap and stuffed her hair under it. “After my talk at the parent teachers association this afternoon a man came up and offered me a job. Said he’d been following the publicity on the book here in town and he’d never seen anything like it. Told me I could go to work for him anytime.”

  I winked at her in the mirror.

  “So-long,” I told her.

  She shut off the water and swung me around.

  “It’s going to cost you,” she laughed. “To keep me. One big kiss.”

  The price was right so I bought.

  “Oh, God, Danny,” she whispered, her arms around me. “I’m so happy! Just hold me tight so that I know it’s true.”

  I knew how she felt. I felt that way, too, sometimes, like it was just a wonderful dream and that one day I’d wake up. But it wasn’t a dream. It was for real. Both of us owed a lot to Madeline for writing that letter to Sandy, confessing that she was the one who had caused all of the trouble. Sandy had joined us in Nevada and three days after Madeline got her divorce Sandy and I had been married.

  “Oh, I forgot,” I said. “There’s some mail for you.”

  “Mr. Boyd?”

  “I guess.”

  “He wants to sell that auto agency, says it takes too much of his time. I think I’ll let him. We’ll never want it.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think we will.”

  Sandy had only been back to Port Jessup once since our marriage and that had been just for overnight. She wasn’t the town’s charity hound any longer but that didn’t seem to bother her. She’s made it right on the books and the churches had earned about six thousand out of it. She had reported everybody back to more or less normal.

  “I don’t deserve such good luck,” I told her. I kissed her on the mouth, around the eyes. “And I know it.”

  I was lucky. Business had been good and I’d been earning enough money, all strictly legal, to pay our bills and put a little aside. I never thought about all that money she had back in Port Jessup. And she didn’t mention it. She put all of her ambition and talents into being the greatest female publicity agent of all time — that and being a good wife. My personal reaction was that her score was almost perfect in both jobs.

  “You’re luckier than you think,” she told me, starting the shower again. She slipped out of my arms and pushed the curtain aside. “I saw Al on the way up and he just got a wire. We have another job.”

  “Where?”

  “Scranton.”

  I started up the razor and went to work on my face. Water splashed in the shower and Sandy began to sing. Her voice wasn’t good but I liked it better than any I’d ever heard.

  “Scranton,” I repeated and grabbed for the shave lotion. “I might have known it.”

  I went out to the bedroom and started changing my
clothes. I glanced at the clock.

  “Let’s go!” I shouted. “We’re practically late now.”

  The water hissed and stopped. She came out wrapped in a big towel.

  “I have to be coaxed,” she said.

  I got my arms around her and I kissed her on the mouth. She let out a little sigh, the way she always did, and the towel fell on the floor. We tumbled to the bed and lay there laughing.

  The traveling clock on the night stand ticked on and on.

  At a time like this everything else could wait.

  THE END

  If you liked Pushover check out:

  Ladies’ Man

  1

  THE TOWN was a patchwork of streets where ten thousand four hundred and forty people suffered through life. That, of course, was not Nicky Weaver’s count; he had read it on a sign while driving in. It looked like a lazy town, a dumb town. Chesterville, he thought, seemed to be a good name for it.

  There was a cop at one of the intersections, pinch-hitting for a traffic light that was out of whack. Nicky stopped and inquired as to how he might reach the radio station. The cop squinted into the hot sun, thought a moment, then told him to keep straight on past the saw factory and take the first turn to the right. Nicky told him thanks, it was a nice day, wasn’t it, and let the Buick roll on down the street.

  He tried to remember the call letters of the station, but couldn’t. It wasn’t, he decided, very important, anyway. The only thing that mattered was the fact that the ad in the Times had stated they were looking for someone familiar with selling intangibles. Nicky laughed and lit a cigarette. Life insurance was an intangible and he’d sold that. He laughed again, only this time there wasn’t any humor in his laugh. In a way, women were intangibles, too. And they were around, no matter where you went. They were always on hand to drain you dry, leaving you ready to push down any road where you thought there might be some real money around the next curve.

  He drove through town, turning right at the saw factory. It was a warm day for fall, even at eight in the morning, and he was sorry he hadn’t lowered the top of the convertible. He started to pull over to the side of the road when, through an opening in the trees, he noticed the tower of the radio station up ahead.

  Nicky wasn’t exactly sure what he had expected to find upon reaching Chesterville. The only thing he knew for certain about radio was that he had one in the car with a blown-out tube. Once, a long time before, he had walked past CBS in New York and now, remembering it, the appearance of the little yellow building left him almost as cold as a streetwalker’s heart. It was stuck out in the middle of a rather large field with the big tower, just in back of it, poking its pointed spear up into the sky. That’s all there was to it. Nothing more. To Nicky, it looked like a place in which it would be ridiculous for anybody to try to make a living.

  He stopped the Buick in the parking lot in front and went inside. There wasn’t anybody in the office but in the rear, past the water cooler, he saw a young guy staring out at him through a double thickness of glass. The blond-haired kid motioned for Nicky to enter the glass cubicle, which bore a sign marked: Control Room.

  “Hi,” the kid said. “Looking for somebody?”

  The air in the tiny compartment was stale and heavy with the odor of old tobacco smoke. A record ground away on one of the turntables, the rock and roll beat thumping lustily against the walls and the glass. The operator flipped a switch, staring as he did so at the line of instruments and the bouncing red needles in front of him. The sound of the music fell away to a whisper.

  “M. Hasset,” Nicky said. “I’m looking for M. Hasset.”

  The record started to run out and the kid casually adjusted a switch. The turntable on the opposite side of the panel began to spin.

  “Marie isn’t in yet,” he said. “Mostly generally, she gets in about nine.”

  Nicky hadn’t considered the possibility that M. Hasset might be a woman. It was of no consequence, one way or the other, but it surprised him and he said so.

  “Her old man died and she inherited the station,” the kid said.

  “Well, that’s one way of getting ahead.”

  “Ever meet Marie?”

  “No.”

  “Then your life isn’t complete, mister.”

  He sat down in a chair, between the two turntables, and faded the music. Picking up a typewritten sheet, he began speaking into the microphone, adjusting the boom on the mike as he did so. He gave his listeners a long and glowing spiel about the new low, low prices on fall and winter suits. Actually, it didn’t sound as though he were reading the copy; rather, he gave the impression that he was speaking to each individually, letting them in on something that was supposed to be hush-hush.

  “Damn morning show,” he complained, bringing the music up again. “You’re supposed to be able to cheer up everybody who’s taken on a load the night before, or slept with somebody else’s wife. Jesus, you’d think they’d get tired of this crap after a while.”

  “Maybe they do.”

  He grinned and got to his feet.

  “My name’s Adams. Rip Adams.”

  Nicky shook the extended hand. It was, he thought, a waste of energy. From the looks of the radio station he wasn’t going to be around long enough to see much of the kid.

  “I’m Weaver. Nicky Weaver.”

  Adams nodded, expertly flipped the record on the idle turntable and put the needle in place.

  “Job hunting?”

  “There was an ad in the Times.”

  “I heard she thought of running one. Ever sell any radio advertising?”

  “No.”

  “Rough. Very rough.”

  “What isn’t?”

  Rip Adams shrugged and glanced at the huge electric clock on the wall.

  “I’ve got a script show coming up at eight-thirty,” he said. “Maybe you’d better wait for the boss in the office.”

  “Sure.”

  Nicky turned, walked through the office and out of it and sat down in the Buick. The sun was hot for late September, blazing. He decided not to lower the top of the convertible. Yawning, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the cushions. He almost wished that he’d taken that job with Cumberland Insurance, chasing radio leads and shoving their phony accident and sickness coverage down the throat of every sucker who got in the way. But the rates had been low and the commissions hadn’t been enough, only twenty-five percent, and he had to make money faster than that. Driving up to Chesterville had been a gamble, a long chance on a weak horse. It didn’t seem, now, as though there were anything around the radio station that might interest him. Besides, the idea of working for a dame didn’t appeal to him in the least. He didn’t care if she was old and fat or young and pretty. A dame was a dame; he’d had quite enough of them. The one thing he needed from women he could go out and buy on a one-night basis. That way, there wouldn’t be any Bess, or any Irene, or any Sally to trouble him.

  “Hello.”

  Nicky sat up, turned around. The girl had walked up the road and across the parking lot and he hadn’t heard her soft-soled shoes on the stones. She stood only a few feet away, regarding him curiously, her red lips curving slightly as she favored him with a smile. She was small, about five-four, with dark hair and white, perfectly formed teeth. The black sweater above the red skirt looked the way a sweater was supposed to look, tight across the high jutting mounds of her breasts and very narrow and flat at the waist.

  “Miss Hasset?”

  “No. I’m Miss Hasset’s secretary.”

  He got out of the car and slammed the door shut.

  “Maybe you can help me, anyway.”

  She had nice eyes, deep blue and soft.

  “Perhaps I can.”

  “I’m inquiring about the ad in the Times.” “I see. Well, it’s still open.”

  She tossed her head and her long hair fell in wild, natural waves across her shoulders. “You’re the only applicant we’ve had so far.”

>   The ad had appeared in the Sunday edition, four days previously.

  “Must be a pretty lousy job,” he said.

  The girl laughed and glanced at the smooth lines of the long red Buick.

  “Oh, the job’s all right,” she told him. “Have you had any radio experience?”

  “No. But the ad didn’t specify radio experience. It said intangible sales was enough. I’ve had that.”

  The girl shrugged and looked up into the sun. Her throat was long and smooth as cream and richly tanned.

  “Well, everybody to his own choice,” she said, kicking some loose stones around. She had nice legs and when she moved them they looked good all the way to the top. “I could take your application,” she said. “If you want me to.”

  “I might be wasting my time.”

  “Your time can’t be worth an awful lot,” she said, glancing at him. “Or you wouldn’t be in Chesterville.”

  Nicky grinned and lit a cigarette.

  “You’ve got something there,” he agreed. “Believe me, you have.”

  He followed her inside and she told him to sit down beside one of the desks. When she pulled the typewriter up out of the well he got a better view of the twin mounds beneath the sweater. Then she sat down, put a piece of paper in the machine and asked him his full name and the type of work he had done before.

  “How come you quit the life insurance business?” she wanted to know.

  “I was sick of it.”

  That seemed to satisfy her and that was all right with Nicky. He didn’t want to talk about it. It was bad enough that he couldn’t stop remembering how it had been. That fifty thousand dollar policy on the life of Irene Schofield’s husband, issued by Great Northern, still haunted him. She’d kissed Nicky on the lips, accepting more then his kisses, and she’d had murder in her heart. He wanted to laugh, recalling the pitch at the end, how she’d set it up for him to kill Schofield, up there at the cottage at Hickory Lake, and how he could have burned for it. Only her husband had been smart, too, and he’d had some ideas of his own. She’d been a bitch and Schofield had pumped a bullet through one high breast and then he’d slid down over the cliff, landing in a tangled mass of bones and flesh on the rocks below. Nicky, thinking about it, felt cold and sick inside.