Dombrosio said, “How much would you pay her?”
“Not much. It’s in the nature of an experiment. Want to know how I got the idea? You know those quiz shows they had on TV, those big money shows like the Sixty-four Thousand Dollar Question? I read an article about the girls who used to work on them; you know, bringing out the contestants. Anyhow, this article told what’s become of them now that the quizzes have folded. I got to thinking we needed something like that in our business. Somebody to lead the client in, so to speak. You get me?” He gestured. “You know, like the airlines have; like airline hostesses. But somebody who can discuss technical aspects, about dyes and costs; not just some fluffball, some dame with a nice pair of knockers, but one with sense.” His calm, mellow voice rolled on; Dombrosio hardly heard him. “Am I making my point?” Lausch asked. “Do you see what I mean?”
“You discussed the job with her. You told her what she would be doing.”
“Sure,” Lausch said. “Naturally I did. Of course, she’s more interested in the work; she wants to put on a smock and start designing milk cartons for Golden State. But you can’t always have what you want in this world. Frankly, I don’t think she’s got what it takes to turn out original stuff, but maybe I’m wrong. You’d probably know better than me. You know her stuff. What do you think?”
He shrugged.
“Hard to talk about your own wife,” Lausch agreed. “Well, I won’t press you. Anyhow. I can’t give her a job like that; all I can give her is the kind of work I outlined to you just now. Admittedly, it’s not precisely what she wants. But she’d be around designers; she’d be around creative craftsmen. And she would get a chance to do some work. She could try a few sketches if she wanted.”
Dombrosio said, “Did she say how I felt about her working? About her coming here?”
“She said that you and she had worked together on stuff at home. That you thought her work was good. She showed me some sketches that you and she did together, on your own time. Sketches for a fiberglass car body. I know you’re both interested in sports cars; you have that Italian car, whatever it is, that you drive. Or drove.”
For a time he could not figure out what fiberglass car body designs Lausch meant. Then he recalled that, years ago, when the Chevrolet Corvette had been introduced, he and Sherry had done some pen and ink sketches of a Corvette-like sports car. But only for fun. He had not even tried to keep the sketches; they were more in the nature of “dream car” stuff, done by every high school boy who ever took commercial art. The motor magazines published twenty of them a month, and gave away free magazine subscriptions as prizes.
“And that’s all she showed you,” he said. “That’s all she had to show. In the way of sketches.”
“Plus her belts. And sandals.”
Dombrosio thought, No mobiles. I’m surprised she didn’t bring in some of her driftwood mobiles.
What an incredible world, he thought. That a woman could sell a hard-headed business man on something like this. Sell him with what she’s accomplished…a few Christmas gifts, a few earrings and bric-a-brac. And of course a cultivated manner of speaking, expensive I. Magnin clothes, and a three-page spread in a seven-year-old newspaper showing the house of a wealthy man in Tenafly, New Jersey who is not in the same line of business as Lausch, whom Lausch has never heard of, and whom he will certainly never meet or have any business relations with. She really knows the password, he thought. She’s got it, whatever it is. That makes them recognize her as on the in.
He thought, Sherry really impressed him. In his mind he saw it so clearly; his wife coming into the office, greeting Lausch, the designers…making sage comments on the work in progress. Roaming around with her coat over her arm, awing everyone in the place. And especially Norm Lausch who smoked Philippine cigarettes and had made his money in house trailers.
Quality tells, he thought. Quality wins out.
“She’s got good breeding,” he said aloud.
Pleased, Norm Lausch nodded his head up and down.
When Sherry came to pick him up that evening he said to her, “So you want to work here.” No one else was around; the other designers had already gone home. The building was deserted except for the janitor sweeping up. He stood facing her across his work bench.
“I’m not sure,” Sherry said. “I thought about it. As long as I’m looking for a job I thought it would be a good idea to apply here.” She did not seem disconcerted or nervous; she returned his gaze with absolute poise.
At the very least, he thought, she’s got poise.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
“I did tell you,” she said. “On the way home.”
“When?”
“The day I made out the application blank.”
“No,” he said. “You did not.”
Sherry said, “I did; I know I did. I remember the discussion as we were crossing Van Ness to the place where I parked the car.”
“What did I say?”
She shrugged. “You were noncommittal. You seemed to be more involved in mulling over some work you had been doing. Bob Fox was with us; he walked part of the way. You and he talked about a squirt can for moths. I even remember that. Don’t you remember? Your memory must be even poorer than it used to be. Or possibly you remember only what you want to remember.”
Now, he realized, she was going on the attack.
I’ll never know what she did say, he thought. Possibly she did say something; or possibly it’s a complete lie and she said nothing at all. In any case, she has managed to handle it successfully; whatever she said, I paid no attention. It didn’t catch my ear. We were crossing a busy street; I had my mind on other things; somebody was with us; I was tired from the day’s work. Probably there was a lot of noise, too.
But what does it matter?
“You may have fulfilled the letter of the law,” he said with difficulty. “But not the spirit.”
“What law?”
“The law,” he said. “that governs the relationship between decent people.”
Her eyebrows went up mockingly. Now she wore an expression of dislike for him. “And what sort of people is that?”
“People who act in good faith,” he said.
Her scorn broke through; she said scathingly, “Oh, don’t make me laugh. Really—don’t make me laugh.” Turning, she walked away from him, carrying the packages that she had temporarily put down on his workbench.
Running after her, he grabbed hold of her. He seized her by the shoulder and spun her around. One of her packages fell to the floor; it gave out a tinkle of breaking glass.
“God damn you,” she said, her teeth close together, her eyes small. “You made me drop that and break it; I think it was a fifteen-dollar bottle of Chanel Number Five.”
With a swipe of his hand he knocked the remaining packages from her hands; they bounced away in all directions, clattering and fluttering to the floor. Her eyes grew large, then even smaller than before. A dark, wild color rose into her cheeks. The flush of hate. He had seen it only once before, in her. So swiftly that he could not see it, her hand flashed up; she slapped him. He grabbed her by the wrist, digging his fingers into her flesh. As he did so, she kicked him; kicked with her sharp, hard toe, the toe of her I. Magnin shoes. It hurt him and he let her go. His fingers flew open of their own accord. At once she stepped back, composed, wary, studying him with tension but no strong emotion. The hatred was gone.
“You broke everything,” she said in a placid voice. “All my packages. You can walk back to Carquinez. You’re not riding with me; that’s a cinch.” Without a further word, she turned and strode out of the work room. The door slammed after her, and, standing there gasping and panting, he heard the sound of her heels as she departed. He heard her reach the stairs, go down; and then the sound ceased.
I could catch her, he thought.
He ran after her. At the foot of the stairs, near the street entrance, the janitor was standing with her, fishing for hi
s passkey. Seeing Dombrosio he said, “You want to be let out, too?”
“No,” Dombrosio said. Sherry did not turn to look in his direction; she waited with her back to him until the janitor had unlocked the street door and was holding it aside for her, and then she walked on outside, onto the dark evening street. She disappeared off to the right. The janitor resumed his broom-pushing.
For a time he remained where he was. He watched the traffic go by, and at last he saw a red Alfa Romeo speed past and disappear. She was on her way home. Back to Marin County and Carquinez.
She really would do it, he realized. Strand me here.
Going back to the work room he surveyed the litter of broken packages. Some had begun to ooze liquid, and now he could smell the perfume. The thick, heavy reek.
Getting rags and water, the dustpan and a bucket, he began to clean up the mess. Towards the end, the janitor came in, saw him and what he was doing, and helped him.
After the mess had been cleaned up and the janitor had gone, he sat alone at his work bench. In front of him the half-finished model of a deodorant container looked like some ruined castle with its top leaning, its walls falling into disrepair. He fooled with a shaving of metal, reflexively.
If she wants a job here, he thought, she will get it. Possibly I will never understand her reasons; I am right in some respects but no doubt wrong in others. In any case, she has not been honest with me. She knows that, too, somewhere down deep. That was why she got so mad. We both know it. And after she has worked here a while, in the same shop with me, then what? Will she move by degrees to become a full designer?
Will she be content to work at a bench exactly like mine, doing the exact same work as I do? Or—must she have my desk? Must I be out of here?
He thought. And if so, then will she be happy?
At a coffee shop down the street he got into the phone booth and, dropping in a dime, dialed. While he waited he studied the shapes of glasses stacked up in the cupboards behind the counter.
An unfamiliar woman’s voice answered, “Hello.”
He said, “Is Charley Halpin there?” He tried to remember if Charley had said he was married; there had been something about it, a long time ago. Some joking mention about marital problems.
The woman said in a low voice, “Jus’ a minute. I go get him.”
“Thanks,” he said.
After a time the phone clanked and then he heard Charley’s voice, a slow, suspicious hello.
“This is Walt Dombrosio,” he said.
Instantly the voice became friendly. “Hi. Say, did you know: your wife brought your little Alfa in just the other day. I adjusted the timing.”
“Listen,” Dombrosio said. “I’m stuck in town, here. I can’t get back home tonight.” He paused. “Any chance I could drop over to your place a while?” There was nothing clear in his mind; he only wanted a place to go, to be with someone. “I could pick up something for dinner. Or maybe you already ate.”
A long, long pause.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Charley said. “I don’t know if you’d want to come over.” The friendly tone was still there, but with more formality, now. With caution. “We just got this little tiny place, you know. It’s not like yours. It’s just a couple of rooms. Over on Hays.”
“That’s okay,” he said. But he was being turned down; he knew it. There could be no mistaking it. Now what? he wondered. “How about just for a few minutes. For a drink.”
As if not exactly listening to him, more as if the two of them were thinking and talking along parallel lines that did not quite meet, Charley said, “We haven’t eaten, and naturally you can eat with us. But there’s no place to put you up; we have the front room half painted.” He went on, giving details. Dombrosio barely listened. Once more he studied the glasses stored behind the counter of the coffee shop. Outside the phone booth a woman in a cloth coat waited to get in.
“Anyhow,” Dombrosio said. “I’ll pick up a bottle and come on over. Is Jim Beam okay?”
“I’ll pick you up,” Charley said. “You tell me where you are and I’ll come by. And don’t buy nothing; we got everything.” He paused. “There’s some other people here, if you don’t care. We were having a little party. Nothing much, just sitting around.”
“Fine,” Dombrosio said. He gave him the location and then he hung up and left the booth.
When he went outside the coffee shop onto the sidewalk he found himself facing a red Alfa Romeo parked at the curb. For a moment he stared stupidly at it, without understanding. Not until Sherry spoke to him did he make out what was happening.
“I thought it over,” she said in a steady, dispassionate voice. “It didn’t seem to be the moral thing to do, to leave you here. No matter how you treated me. I drove around the block a few times and then came back to Lausch Company.” Reaching out, she opened the door on his side. “You had gone, but the janitor saw you go this way.”
He said, “I just called Charley Halpin. He’s going to come by here and pick me up.”
“That’s okay,” Sherry said. “I’ll wait here with you, and when he comes I’ll explain that you thought I had missed connections with you, but right after you called him I did show up. You didn’t go into any details with him, did you? About our fighting.”
“No,” he said.
She shut off the car’s motor and lights. “I hope he isn’t too long,” she said. “It’ll get cold in here with the heater off.” She had put up the top, and now she made sure the side flaps were in place. “I’ll have to replace those things you broke,” she said. “Did you look at anything to see what wasn’t ruined?”
“No,” he said.
“You just tossed everything into the trash barrel.”
He nodded.
“Well, you can count on about sixty-five dollars gone to waste. Because you can’t control yourself; because you’re like a baby and have to have a temper tantrum once in a while.” Sitting in the darkness beside him in the car she went on, delivering her tirade in a rational, almost toneless voice. He said nothing. He listened.
“I really don’t know if I want to work around you,” she wound up. “I have no idea how you’d behave. They say a man and wife should never try to work together. You’d probably resent everything I’d suggest. Just because I suggested it.”
I’m not going to give up, he said to himself. I’m going to keep on trying. But I know it’s hopeless.
Presently the lights of Charley’s old Cadillac flashed at them as he drew up to the curb.
“Want me to talk to him?” Sherry said. “I’ll talk to him—poor baby, you look so tired.” Patting him on the arm she opened her door and stepped out, business-like and confident, her coat over her shoulders. Without a look back or another word she crossed over to the Cadillac. Dombrosio could not hear what either of them said; their voices were lost in the evening traffic.
The Cadillac, after a moment, drove off. He caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel, and, in the back, two more faces, dark, friendly with interest—they all waved to him, and Charley blew the car horn.
His heart ached as he sat waiting for his wife to get back in the Alfa beside him.
8
At the crack of dawn Leo Runcible’s phone rang. It was the title company in San Rafael, telling him that Mr. and Mrs. Diters had come in to put money down. Hearing that, he felt a thrill of joy, the pure sense of accomplishment that ennobled his business; he had made a sale. And the deposit, the title company informed him, was on the larger of the two houses that the Diterses had been considering.
Two yesterday! he thought as he hung up. And this—actually three in one day. Three deals closed, bam bam bam. Right like that.
His gross five per cent…he began figuring, savoring each number as he added. Fine, he thought. It came to two thousand dollars. Not bad, he thought; not bad at all. Going back into the bedroom he awoke Janet. “Hey,” he said. “I have some news.”
Later, when they had got dressed and were
fixing breakfast, Janet asked him what he was going to do with the money. They could put it into their own house, she told him. On new outside paint, new gutters, and—she had a lot of ideas.
“Listen,” he interrupted. “This money is spoken for.”
“But it isn’t,” she said. “You already said you didn’t expect to take in anything like this.”
“Sure,” he said, with irritation. “Fix up this place—pour it in and make some contractor rich. Maybe we ought to get one of those siding salesmen up here and have a four-thousand-dollar job of aluminum siding done. The whole works.” He glared at her and she shrank back, fooling with the sash of her robe and avoiding his glare. “Is that what you want to do?” he demanded. “Spend it? Hell, let’s get one of those sports cars like Dombrosio has; let’s really live it up.”
In a faltering voice, she said, “Then what did you want to do with the money?”
“It’s not what I want to do,” he said. “It’s what I have to do. When you get money—listen to this. Learn something.” He seated himself at the table and put toast into the toaster. “You invest it. Do you follow me? The smart man puts his money to work. I’ve told you that. I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to buy into. With this two thousand I can go ahead and put down what it’s going to take to handle that unimproved acreage up on the Ridge.”
“Jancuzzi’s land?” his wife asked.
“Yes,” he said.
She said, “You’re going to go ahead without Paul?”
“Who needs him?” Runcible said. “I don’t have to subdivide right away; what’s important is to get hold of the god damn land before some a-hole from outside steps in and makes a killing.”