Pushover
Page 19
“Mr. Weaver?”
“Yes.”
“I asked you a question. You look — funny. Are you ill?”
“Not now.”
“I asked you if you were married.”
“No. I’m single.”
“Your address?”
“The car outside.”
“I see.”
But she didn’t. No one could. The Buick was all that he had left, not another thing. The eleven thousand dollars he had saved while working overseas before going into the life insurance business had been sucked away from him by Bess. Bess Walters had been real pretty, for a widow with two kids. Nicky had worked with her husband, for Great Northern, before Tommy had come up short on his accounts and had hung himself. After that, somehow, Nicky and Bess had gotten very close and following Irene’s death he’d taken his money and stuck it into a chunk of land Bess owned up in the hills. They’d been hoping to start a summer resort or a fishing club, or something like that, and he’d worked his guts out on it, hauling logs and clearing land and driving the tractor until he couldn’t see straight. He’d been so busy working that he hadn’t noticed that Bess and the guy who was cutting the lumber on shares were doing more than measuring trees in the woods. They’d been measuring each other, getting the proper distance, and one day he’d caught them doing it, right in his own bedroom and with not a stitch on. He’d beaten hell out of the guy, and he’d called Bess a no-good whore and, later, he’d insisted that she straighten up with him on the money. But there hadn’t been any money left, not a cent, and the bank had turned her down cold when she’d tried to get a loan. The place was now up for grabs and the only way he could salvage his investment was to buy her out. But he had to have a bundle to do that. And he had to have it quickly. It was hell, knowing that he’d been a sucker and that there wasn’t any way of undoing it. The futility of the whole thing had buried itself so deep and so far inside of him that he’d never be able to forget it.
“I can’t help you any more,” the girl said. “You’ll have to wait until Marie comes in.”
“Thanks,” he said, getting up.
“By the way, my name’s Alice.”
He went over and sat down in a chair by the door. The girl got some papers out of a wire basket and began filing them in a high metal cabinet. She had to stretch to reach the top drawer. Nicky watched her, admiring her small, compact shape.
“How much does this job pay?” he wanted to know.
“About seventy-five a week.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, you’re inexperienced, Mr. Weaver.”
“Sure.”
“There’s a good future in radio.”
“In this town?”
She glanced at him sharply.
“In any town.” She returned to her filing. “In anything. If you look for it.”
Nicky grinned. She was right. A guy had to look for it, a guy had to keep searching until he found a ribbon in the sky, a golden ribbon with a potful of bills hanging on the other end. And he had to find it alone, had to do it by himself. If he tried to find it with a woman like Irene, or a woman like Bess, they’d finish him off with the ribbon around his neck, twisting it tight, strangling him while their lips kissed and their eyes promised. Hell yes, a guy had to keep the women out of it. The dogs running in the streets had the right angle. The females of the species were good for just one thing and some of them weren’t of much use even for that. There’d been a time, not so long before, when he hadn’t felt that way about it. There’d been those wonderful moments when he’d held Bess in his arms, wanting her, needing her, oh, everything had been fine. She’d belonged to him, this lovely creature filled with fire and life, and he’d loved her very much. Then, without caring, she’d torn all of their tomorrows apart, ripping away all of their dreams, smashing every illusion that he’d ever had.
“This is only a small station,” the girl was saying. “Just a hundred watts.”
For a guy who was used to thinking about watts simply in terms of a light bulb, the explanation didn’t mean very much to Nicky.
“It’s hardly more than a year old.”
Nicky didn’t say anything.
“Miss Hasset’s father died about two months ago and she’s had quite a hard time of it ever since. To be honest with you, Mr. Weaver, she doesn’t know the first thing about radio. Anyone who knows anything about radio wouldn’t use the Times to advertise for a salesman. They’d do it through the trade journals.”
That would be some combination, Nicky thought in disgust, working for some dame who didn’t know any more about what was going on than he did.
“This Miss Hasset is the sole owner?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s the name of the station?”
“You mean, the call letters?”
“I guess so.”
“WKDY.”
“Sounds like a bird.”
The girl went over to the water cooler and got a drink. She seemed like a nice kid, talkative, and he asked for her last name. She said it was Gordon.
“You live around here?”
“On a farm, just down the road. My father has a dairy.”
She walked across the office. She had a ripe body, youthful and flowing. He decided, without a great deal of effort, that she might be good for that one thing.
“I think Miss Hasset’s coming now,” Alice Gordon said.
“She usually this late?” It was now almost nine-thirty.
“She’s seldom this early.”
Someone pushed open the door and Nicky stood up. He could smell her even before he saw her and after he saw her he couldn’t say anything at all.
She was fairly tall, not quite up to his shoulders, and she was a white blonde with lips the color of fresh blood. She wore dark glasses with heavy black rims and he couldn’t tell whether she was looking at him or not. She stood just inside the door, the sunlight bright and solid behind her. Her legs, long and straight, were sharply outlined against the yellow dress. The dark, full centers of her breasts thrust up and out against the thin material.
“Did you wish to see me?”
Nicky wet his lips and nodded. Hell, he didn’t want to see her. He wanted to touch her. She had something that he could use, any time of the day or night.
“Good morning, Alice.”
She came in and closed the door.
“Good morning, Miss Hasset.”
Her hips, as she walked across the office, rolled like they were fastened to her with ball bearings.
“Won’t you come this way, please?”
“Sure,” Nicky said. His mouth was dry.
She opened the door to her private office and hesitated for a moment, standing there.
“Why wait?” she inquired, smiling at him. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Why not?”
He had a feeling, as he went past her, that it was going to take a lot longer than either one of them anticipated.
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