‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘We don’t have to match it exactly.’
But he shook his head again, and said, ‘I’m really sorry. I’d like the job, I could use it, but I just don’t think I’d be able to handle it. I don’t want to take on any job unless I can do a good job of it. You understand.’
Well, if he didn’t think he could do it, that’s all there was to be said. I thanked him, and gathered up the samples, and George and I went back out to the car.
At the second place, the man seemed interested, but when he read one of the throwaways he said, ‘No,’ and pushed everything back across the counter.
I said, ‘What?’
‘I don’t want to get involved,’ he said.
‘Involved in what?’
‘The answer is no,’ he said, and turned around and walked away from the counter.
In the third place, we hit another man who didn’t have the right founts or the right paper, and who was convinced he wouldn’t be able to do the kind of job we wanted. By then, I was beginning to get the idea. I’d believed the first man, and the knowledge that I’d believed him angered and embarrassed me. I stalked out of the third shop while the mealy-mouthed owner was still apologizing, and George came along after me.
We stood on the sidewalk, in the late afternoon sun. ‘Well, George,’ I said, ‘it looks like we’re getting the runaround.’
George nodded ponderously. ‘Nobody wants to get the shoe company mad at them.’
‘That about sums it up.’
‘Maybe we ought to go to Watertown,’ he said.
‘No. Walter said we support local business, and by God we support local business. Where’s a phone?’
‘Now, little friend,’ said George worriedly, ‘you aren’t going to start no trouble, are you?’
‘Not me, George,’ I said. ‘I’m cured. There’s a drugstore down there. Come on.’
George trailed me, not happy, and in the drugstore I looked up the number of the Wittburg Beacon. I left the phone-booth door open, both to get some air and to let George hear what I was going to say, and dialled the Beacon’s number. When a female voice answered, I asked for Sondra Fleisch. George stirred at that, and looked more worried than ever, but he didn’t try to stop me.
She was in the building, and eventually got on the line. ‘Hello, there,’ I said. ‘This is sneering, defiant Paul Standish.’
‘How nice,’ she said. ‘I see you got your voice back.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What a pity.’
‘Sure. How would you like to do me a favour?’
‘A what’?’
‘I’m trying to get some stuff printed up, and the local printers are scared to take the job. Now, I could just as easy go to Watertown and have it done, right?’
‘But you want the Beacon to loan you its presses for a while.’
‘Not quite. One of the guys I talked to, one of the printers, he seemed like a nice guy, and he looked like he could use the job. I’d like you to come on down and tell him it’s okay, he won’t have his shop wrecked or anything if he prints this stuff up for us. We’d get it done anyway, in Watertown, so you don’t have anything to gain by refusing. Will you do it?’
There was a kind of stunned pause, and then, in a surprisingly low voice, she said, ‘People like you just don’t happen. You like this print-shop man, and you want him to get the job. You’re an actual shining prince, aren’t you? You’re a God damn saint, aren’t you?’
‘Not quite a saint,’ I said.
‘Oh, I wish you were a bastard,’ she said. ‘I want to hate you, I really and truly do. Say something so I can get mad at you again.’
‘I promise I will. Right after you talk to the printer.’
‘Are you sure you just aren’t trying to make me ashamed of myself?’
‘Definitely not. I guarantee it.’
‘… All right. Where is this print shop?’
‘It’s the Bizzy Art, on—’
‘Oh, that one. I know it. All right, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
‘Fine. Thanks, Sondra.’
She hung up without answering.
George was looking at me oddly as we went back to the car. I grinned at him, and punched his arm and said, ‘Well, what do you think of Batman now?’
‘You ain’t Batman,’ he said. ‘Robin, maybe, but you ain’t Batman.’
Twenty Two
We parked in front of the Bizzy Art Printing Company shop, and waited in the car. After a couple minutes, I saw Sondra coming down the block, and I climbed out of the Ford. George came along with me, and we met Sondra in front of the plate-glass window with Bizzy Art curving across its dusty face.
Sondra looked blankly at George. ‘This is George,’ I said. ‘The union sent him along with me, in case the local police decide to exceed their instructions any more.’
‘So now you have a bodyguard,’ she said.
‘That’s the way life goes in Wittburg.’
I held the door, and Sondra, looking thoughtful, went on inside. I followed her, and George came third.
The lady with the lace cuffs and the pince-nez looked up at our entrance. ‘I’d like to talk to Harry again, please,’ I said.
She looked doubtful, and a little scared. ‘He told you we couldn’t do that job,’ she said.
‘I know. But I’d like to talk to him anyway.’
She debated, and then got to her feet. She wasn’t just going to call Harry this time; she was going back to forewarn him.
He came through the doorway, looking very reluctant. He frowned when he saw Sondra, then came on to the counter and said, ‘Well?’
‘This is Sondra Fleisch,’ I said. ‘You’ve probably heard of her.’
He nodded cautiously.
Sondra said, ‘My father wouldn’t mind if you printed those things for the union. I guarantee it.’ He still looked doubtful. ‘Well …’
I said, ‘You don’t believe she is Miss Fleisch?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen her picture in the paper.’
For some reason, that made Sondra blush. Using her job on the paper to con me hadn’t bothered her, but using her influence to get her picture in the paper made her blush.
She said, ‘In fact, I’m sure my father would be upset if word got around that these people couldn’t even get their posters printed in our town. After all, this is a democracy.’
‘Well … All right, Miss Fleisch, if you say so.’
‘I say so,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘All right, then,’ he said to me. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘I want to be sure of something, though,’ I said. ‘You told me you didn’t have the right founts. Do you?’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘I think we could, uh, find some, uh …’
‘Sure. But you also said you didn’t think you’d be able to do a job that would satisfy us. Now, do you think maybe you could satisfy us, after all?’
‘I … uh, I think I could, yes.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ I turned to George. ‘Isn’t he a mealy-mouthed bastard, though?’
George looked just as confused as everybody else, so I turned instead to Sondra. ‘I promised you,’ I reminded her, ‘I’d say something to let you be mad at me again, right after you did me the favour, right?’
She didn’t answer. She watched me warily.
‘When I first got to this town,’ I told her, ‘I was kind of stupid. I was so stupid I let you use me for your yellow journalism. But I learn fast, Sondra. I’m a real quick study. This cheap bastard here, this Harry here, told me a bunch of cheap cowardly lies, and I believed him. Just like you told me a bunch of cheap cowardly lies and I believed you. I told you I liked this Harry, but I’m afraid that was a cheap cowardly lie. You see how quick I learn? I wanted to be able to come back in here and listen to Harry tell me he was a cheap cowardly liar. That’s why I called you up, and that’s why you’re down here. You see what a fast study I am? Now I’m using you.�
��
I turned to the door, saying, ‘Come on, George, let’s go to Watertown and get this stuff printed up.’
Twenty Three
We got back from Watertown a little after six. Walter and Phil Katz were already back at the motel, playing gin, and Phil seemed to be winning heavily. George watched Phil deal out a new hand, and then nodded sagely and said, ‘Thirty-eight cents.’
‘Yah,’ said Phil. That one loss in his past bothered him more than he wanted to admit, and George’s needling was more to the point than I’d at first thought.
His comment made, George stretched out on my bed, composed his arms at his sides, and gazed sleepy-eyed and smiling at the ceiling. Any time George was at rest, it seemed, he was supine.
Walter looked at the cards he’d been dealt, shook his head, and said, ‘Last hand, Phil.’ He looked up at me, saying, ‘You eat yet?’
‘On the way back.’
‘We’ll go have a beer.’
‘Fine.’
Phil won handily, collected forty-seven points from Walter’s hand, and Walter reached for his wallet. He handed three singles to Phil, got some coins back, and said, ‘We’ll be back in a little while.’
‘Alcohol,’ said George dreamily, ‘ain’t good for the system.’
We went outside, and Walter told me to drive. ‘Not into town,’ he said. ‘The other way. I saw a place about a mile south of here, looked pretty good.’
‘Check.’
We were both silent on the way, both, I suppose, lost in our own thoughts. The bar was a rambling yellow-brick building, with blacktopped parking area across the front. A neon sign suspended from a pole stuck to the front of the building over the door read: Tango Inn. There were two Plymouths, a Chevrolet, a Volkswagen Microbus and an elderly Packard parked in front. We left the Ford with them, and went inside.
The main room was a large square, with a horseshoe-shaped bar jutting out from the left and filling up most of the space There were small tables along the front wall, and a broad doorway in the back wall showed an unlit second room, lined with tables. A shuffleboard flanked this doorway on one side, and stacked beer cases flanked it on the other.
There were no women in the room. Six or seven men in work clothes sat here and there at the bar, and four more men, younger than the rest, were playing shuffleboard. The bartender was very short, somewhat stocky, and totally bald. His head gleamed amber in the indirect lighting.
Walter led the way all around the horseshoe to the far corner, where we’d have semi-privacy. The beer cases were behind us, the wall was to our right, and the nearest other customer was four stools to our left.
We ordered Budweiser. The bartender brought them, took Walter’s money, and went back to his conversation around on the other side of the horseshoe. Walter drank some beer, nodded, smiled, and said, ‘Well? You want to tell me about it?’
‘What? Tell you about what?’ To my own ear, I sounded guilty as hell.
He smiled some more, and shook his head, and patted me on the back. ‘Paul,’ he said, ‘you’re a good guy. I’m glad Dr Reedman sent you.’
‘You are?’
‘Did you ever think of staying with the union?’
I hadn’t, and the question was totally unexpected, so I didn’t say anything at all.
‘You’d be a good man for it,’ he said. ‘You’re intelligent, and you’re resourceful, and you’ve got a good honest face.’
‘Well,’ I said.
He jabbed me with his elbow and laughed out loud. ‘It isn’t always like Wittburg, Paul,’ he said. ‘Usually, it’s a lot better.’
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘You ought to think it over,’ he said.
‘Well, I’ve still got my degree to get.’
‘Oh, sure. I didn’t mean quit school. You need a college education, Paul. If you’re going to get anywhere in this world today, you’ve got to have that diploma.’
‘That’s the way I figure it.’
He turned serious. Not the businessman facade, simply earnestness. ‘You’re an economist,’ he said. ‘Or, you will be. Now, you’ll want to make a decent living, why not? Not a million dollars, but a comfortable wage. So teaching and the government are out; with both of those you make peanuts. Now, that leaves industry and unions. Unions hire a lot of economists, Paul, and pay them damn good salaries.’
‘I wanted to go on for a master’s,’ I said.
‘Well, of course. You can’t be an economist with a lousy B.A. But the union’s got a programme for that. You hire on when you graduate from Monequois. You sign a contract with the union. Then the union pays for the rest of your schooling, and you get on-the-job training during school vacations. When you’ve got the M.A., it’s possible you can get the union to go along with you for the doctorate. That depends on your school record, and what the union thinks your potential is. In any case, you finish school with a job waiting for you, in an organization where there’s plenty of room for advancement. This isn’t the Miners, Paul, this is the Machinists. We’re one of the few unions around that can expect to grow with automation. You ought to think it over.’
‘I will,’ I said, and meant it. The schooling assistance sounded good, and the union looked as though it might be a more exciting outfit to work for than anyone else I’d had in mind. And the point about automation was a good one; it was important to pick an outfit that would be expanding in the future, and not simply holding its own. It was important if you wanted to move up the rungs, anyway.
He nodded, satisfied. Then conversation waited while we ordered two more beers. They came, I paid this time—over Walter’s protests—and when the bartender left again, Walter said, ‘Now, about your more immediate plans.’ He was grinning when he said it, and looking humorously sly.
Once again, I took a vain stab at appearing innocent. ‘Such as?’
‘That’s what I want to know.’ He leaned closer, smiling, and said, ‘You can kid old Fletcher, Paul. He’s a humourless self-satisfied clown. But you can’t kid me. I know you, Paul, and you don’t give up.’
I busied myself pouring more beer from bottle to glass.
‘If you didn’t have some scheme in that head of yours,’ he said, ‘you’d have told Fletcher to go to hell for himself. But you’ve got an idea, and you want to be left alone to try it. Right?’
‘Aw, now, Walter—’
He laughed out loud again, and jabbed my arm. ‘Oh, those great big innocent eyes!’
‘It’s the glasses,’ I said, trying vainly to change the subject. ‘They make my eyes look bigger.’ I took them off and said, ‘See?’
But he refused to be sidetracked. ‘I can help you, Paul,’ he said. ‘Whatever it is, you’re going to have to spring it on Fletcher sooner or later. That’s why I wanted to know if you’d thought about making a career of the union. If you’re going to stay with us, you don’t want a man like Fletcher down on you.’
I studied my beer and thought that over. As usual, Walter was right.
‘I can help soften the blow with Fletcher,’ he said. ‘And maybe I could help with the scheme, too. Besides, if we’re going to work together, we ought to trust each other. And you’d like to talk it over with somebody, wouldn’t you?’
I would. I’d been thinking that all day long, wishing I could tell them all the truth. And now, it seemed, I had the chance. Walter had seen through my apologies and pledges, and had said nothing to Fletcher. I could trust him.
‘All right,’ I said.
‘Good. Hold on, let’s get another beer.’
We got another beer, and I told him the story, everything except the details of my stay with Alice. He nodded from time to time, and grinned, and seemed pleased all the way through. When I finished, explaining that the scheme, if it worked, would serve a dual purpose, forcing Fleisch into line the way the union wanted and also forcing the police to go out and find the murderer the way I wanted, he laughed out loud, shook his head, and said, ‘The union can’t afford to pass
you up, Paul! The way you operate, you could start a local in Congress!’
Then we had another round, before he said any more. The bartender was getting more displeased every time we called him away from his conversation, and he tapped his foot impatiently this time while Walter and I argued about who would pay. Walter finally won, and the bartender went away.
Walter turned back to me. ‘To begin with,’ he said, ‘it’s illegal. It could backfire, Paul. If you were caught, the union couldn’t very well admit it had anything to do with your going there.’
‘I’m not asking the union to back me,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything about it at all.’
‘I know. I just wanted to get that on the record. All right, it’s illegal. And one more thing, it isn’t the kind of scheme the union would normally consider. We work through legal and honest methods, Paul. We have an unusual situation here, and you want to do something as a private individual, so that’s something else again. But I don’t want you to think that the union normally engages in illegal activity of any kind at all,’
‘I didn’t think that,’ I told him. ‘I know better.’
‘I know you do. As I say, I just want to get these facts on the record. So. Now that I’ve told you your scheme is illegal and against union policy, I’ve gotten all that out of the way.’ He winked. ‘Mr Clement will love to see those books, Paul,’ he said.
‘I should go ahead with it, then?’
He cocked his head, and grinned at me. ‘Are you asking me as a representative of the Machinists?’
I laughed, shaking my head. ‘I don’t think I better.’
‘You’re right. Okay. Now, when we go back, you follow my lead, all right? We’ll have to let Fletcher know ahead of time, but let me do the talking, and don’t be surprised at anything I might say. Believe me, I know how to handle Fletcher. Okay?’
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Good. Now, let’s have another beer.’
‘I’ll be right back.’
I found the men’s room off in a corner of the rear dining-room area, and when I came back, Walter was looking pleased and conspiratorial. Low-voiced, he said, ‘You see those four fellas down to our left?’
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