Indicating the couch, Harman said to the old man. “Sit down again. Please.”
As he reseated himself, Fergesson said, “I can’t get over old Al Miller being here.” He shook his head, still with the fixed grin on his face, the laughter that he could not seem to control.
Harman, also seating himself, said, “Al’s working for the organization, Jim.”
The old man’s eyes flew wide open and bulged. “No,” he said. He seemed overcome with wonder and delight.
Al said, “That’s the way the ball bounces. I mean it’s all the same. It’s in the game.”
“Hey,” the old man said. Again he lumbered to his feet and made his way over to Al; nudging him again, he said in a loud voice, “We’re all part of the same bunch.” He looked around at them all.
“Yes,” Harman said, smiling. “I guess we are.” He had a genial, tolerant expression on his face.
“Listen,” the old man said to Harman, going up to him and taking him by the sleeve. “Harman, you know, Al and me weren’t speaking for a while; you know that?”
“I didn’t know that,” Harman said.
“I was really sore at him,” the old man said. “But I’m not anymore. He really let me down, but I don’t care. I went by his lot, and it was hard for me to get over it, but I did. He was in pretty thick with my wife; they’re a pair, the two of them.” He went on, but Al lost the sense of it; the words became jumbled. But anyhow they were not directed to him. The old man was confiding to Harman, standing close to him muttering away in a wet, sputtering monotone.
Coming over to Al, Bob Ross said, “Who is this old guy?”
Al said, “He owns a garage.”
“Oh,” Ross said, with a knowing expression. “I remember. Chris mentioned him. He’s retired, isn’t he?”
Al said, “No, he’s just getting started.”
“I think I recall,” Ross said. He puffed several deep puffs on his pipe. “Well, I guess we don’t get up to Petaluma today.”
13
Seated in the middle of the couch in Chris Harman’s living room, the old man talked on and on. Al had never heard him rattle away like this before; his face shone, his eyes fixed first on Harman and then on Bob Ross and then back to Harman, and then on Mrs. Harman, and, for an instant, on Al Miller himself. He winked at Al.
“I tell you,” the old man said. He had been discussing dry and wet heat. “People say you can’t live up in Sacramento, but that’s valley heat; that’s okay. You can stand it up to a hundred and twenty if it’s dry like that. What you can’t stand is in Texas, on the gulf; that gulf wind—” He waved his hand. “That’s terrible down there.”
It was a little like the way he had buttonholed customers, Al thought. He groaned.
“What’s that from you?” the old man said at once, halting. “I mean Al Miller, there.” He gaped at Al, waiting.
Al said, “Amarillo isn’t so bad.”
Excitedly, his words tumbling over one another, the old man burst out, “That’s in north Texas, with no wind, no gulf wind. That’s exactly what I mean; that’s dry.”
“When were you ever there?” Al said.
“I was born there, around there—in Kansas. You get the same wind crossing Kansas; it’s so hot it heats up your car no matter what speed you go. You know I grew up in Kansas.”
Al said, “Yeah, but you haven’t been there for a long time.”
“It’s still the same,” Bob Ross said. “We were down that way recently to get some tapes made. At Oklahoma City.”
“Hey, Al,” the old man said. “Remember that old Packard you were driving around in when I first met you? What was that, a ’37?”
“Yeah,” Al said. “A Packard Twelve.”
“That’s how I met Al,” the old man said. “Al wanted me to fix up that Packard and keep it running forever for him. He liked that car pretty good. Didn’t you, Al? Remember that time those teenagers challenged you to a drag race? And you went up to the Black Point Road; it was around two in the morning. And you raced them in that old Packard, and you got it up to—what was it?—around ninety miles an hour, and it threw a rod. And you had to have it towed all the way back to Vallejo. How much did that cost you? You tried to get me to come and get it; I remember that. What became of that Packard, finally?”
“You know,” Al said. “The rear mains went.”
“That’s because you drove it cold.”
“Hell it was,” Al said. “It was because I took it in to you and you balanced the crankshaft wrong.”
“That’s a lot of bull,” the old man said loudly. “There isn’t anybody else in the whole world who could have kept that Packard running except me, the way you were mistreating it. Hey, you know what? Remember that kid who stole that Ford coupe off your lot? I saw him the other day. He was driving a new Olds.”
Grinning at Harman, he said, “I have to tell you about that, Harman. Al had this beat-up Ford coupe that some guy had used to haul sacks of cement and lumber; it was one of those utility coupes. It came in all battered and dirty—what’d you get it for, Al? Around seventy dollars. Anyhow, Al got it in on trade. And he took it down to this body shop—I wouldn’t touch it; he knew what shape it was in—and he paid them to repaint it. It cost him thirty dollars for that. And then he tried to get me to patch it up mechanically, but it was no good at all; the rings were completely gone—it was leaking oil all over. So anyhow, Al was determined to sell that car. He stuck it out there in front with one of those signs of his on it. Didn’t you even put an ad in the Tribune? Everybody that came onto the lot, he tried to peddle that wreck to them, but nobody’d take it. So old Al started having more and more work done on it. He took it over to some garage and made a deal with them; he had them put in new rings and regrind the valves. That must have cost him another fifty bucks. He had around two hundred in it by then. So still it didn’t sell. So he got seat covers for it. It didn’t sell. So—” The old man paused. “I think he even had a set of retreads put on it finally. Anyhow, you know what happened to it? This kid stole it and smashed it up. Nothing was left of it. Just junk. What’d you get finally, Al? Ten bucks for scrap?” He winked.
“Your brains are scrambled,” Al said. “There was no such car.”
“The hell there wasn’t,” the old man stammered, blinking.
Leaning back in his chair so that he could face Al, Chris Harman gave him a long searching glance but said nothing.
Al rose to his feet. “Pardon me,” he said.
“What is it, Al?” Harman said in his cultured voice.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Al said.
After a pause, Harman said in the same tone, “Follow the hall. The second door to the right. Past the picture.”
“Past the Renoir,” Bob Ross said, chewing on his pipe.
“Thanks, Chris,” Al said, going down the hall.
As he shut the bathroom door and locked it, he could still hear the old man. Even in here, he thought, as he unzipped his trousers and slid them down and seated himself on the toilet seat. The sound still reached him, above his own sounds.
For a long time he remained in the bathroom, doing nothing, merely sitting with his hands together before him, hunched over so that he was comfortable. He had no thoughts in his mind, nor any awareness of time; the old man’s voice had become vague to him, with no individual words.
A rap on the door startled him; he sat up straight.
“How long are you going to be in there?” Harman said, close to the door, in a low, sharp voice.
Al said, “I don’t know. You know how these things are.” He waited, but Harman said nothing. In fact, Al could not tell if he was still there, just beyond the door. “Is this the only bathroom?” he said.
“You better get back out here,” Harman said, in the same insistent, tense voice.
“Why?” Al said. “I don’t mean to contravene your authority and judgment in this matter, Chris, but these things take time.” Again he waited. Harman said
nothing. At last Al heard the man going away down the hall.
“Hey, Al!” the old man called, so loudly that Al jumped. Again there was a rap on the door, a great bang that visibly shook the door. It was the old man this time. “Hey!” he yelled; the knob turned and rattled. “Get off the pot. We got a lot to do, buddio. You going to spend the day in there?”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Al said, gazing at the tile of the shower.
The old man, his voice right at the door, said, “You in there playing with yourself, Al?”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Al repeated.
The old man went off. Once more, in the living room, his talk resumed. Then, after a time, there was silence.
“Listen,” the old man said, once again at the bathroom door. “You hear me, Al?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“We’re going down to a restaurant I know and have lunch,” the old man said. “We’re going to conduct our business down there. So get out of there and come along, or you’re going to get left behind.”
“I’ll be out,” Al said.
“We’re going in the Mercedes,” the old man said. “Listen, Al. You can drive. Chris says he wants you to drive.”
“Okay,” Al said.
“Are you coming out?”
Al got to his feet and flushed the toilet. The old man said something, but it was lost behind the racket of the water.
When he opened the door he found the old man still standing there.
“I never did get finished,” Al said.
The old man clapped him excitedly on the back as they walked up the hall to the living room. “I’ll buy you lunch,” he said. “I’m treating.”
“Okay,” Al said.
Harman glanced at him without expression. He had put on a black Italian knitted sports shirt and slacks and crepe-soled shoes while Al had been in the bathroom; he was ready to go. “I hope we can all fit in the Mercedes,” he said, leading the way.
“If not,” Al said, “one of us can follow in the truck.”
Harman said, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“No,” Al said.
To that, Harman said nothing. They stepped down a short flight of stairs and into the garage, where the Mercedes was parked. Harman got out his keys and unlocked the car door, holding it for the old man to enter.
“Al has an old Marmon,” the old man said as he seated himself on the black leather seat in the back, his hands on his knees. “Don’t you, Al? Sixteen cylinder.”
“Is that so?” Harman murmured as he and Ross got in. “That must be quite a car. A collector’s item. Here.” He handed Al the keys.
“I can’t drive,” Al said.
“Why not?” Harman said in a slow, calm voice.
“I lost my license,” Al said.
After a pause, the old man said, “Hey Al, you’re spoiling the fun. You’re always so God damn gloomy and sore.” To Harman he said, “He’s always this way. He’s got a grudge against the world.”
“I didn’t really lose my license,” Al said. “I just don’t feel like driving.”
“That’s what I mean,” the old man said. He was breathing rapidly, and he sat with his hand pressed tightly against his coat. His face had a pinched, flat cast to it, an inertness. Speaking as if he were in pain, he said, “He put me on his shit list because I sold my garage. He wanted me to support him the rest of his life.” He halted, grimacing. “Fix his wrecks for him.”
Harman sat thoughtfully plucking at his lips. He did not seem ruffled or at a loss; he pondered, looked for a moment at the old man and then at Al, and then, swinging around, he opened the car door and stepped out. “No problem,” he said. “Mrs. Harman will be glad to fix us lunch. We’ll finish our business here.”
Still seated in the back of the Mercedes, the old man said in a strained voice, “I—hate to put her to any trouble.”
Ross said, “We could even send out for a caterer.” He, too, stepped from the car. Finally the old man, holding on tightly to the car door, got out. Only Al remained in the car.
“It’s no trouble at all,” Al said.
“What?” Harman said.
“I said it’s no trouble at all.” Al climbed from the car. “I’m starved,” he said. “Let’s pitch in. Tell her to bear down and really whip up something nice.”
“Sure,” the old man said, panting. “You won’t do anything for anybody else, but you want them to wait on you.” To Harman he said, “Isn’t that human nature? I tell you, it’s really funny. This guy ought to be grateful to me. He sure got a good low rent from me on that desirable lot. That’s why he’s so sore; he knows he’ll never get anyone else to solve all his problems for him, the way I did.” Starting on back through the house, he said over his shoulder, “I don’t know why you want to go out and hire anybody like that. You really made a mistake.”
As they entered the dining room, Harman drew Al off to one side. “This enmity between you two,” he said. “I have no desire to mix into anybody’s personal situation, but it might have been better if you had given me some inkling in advance. Don’t you think? Simply from a practical standpoint.”
“Maybe so,” Al said.
“In any case, you probably ought to bear in mind that he’s an old man. And he’s been seriously ill. It’s not my place to give you advice, of course.”
“There’s something to that,” Al said.
“I think it’s a good rule,” Harman said, “to keep one’s private life and one’s business life separate. It strikes me that you’ve got the two muddled together, to the detriment of all of us. Now let’s try to get things back on a civil footing, and then later on—”
Al said, “It’s no use, Chris.”
After an interval, Harman said, “What does that signify?”
“The jig is up,” Al said.
For a long time Harman scrutinized him. Ross appeared, but Harman waved him away. The old man, at the far end of the dining room, was chattering with Mrs. Harman about food; his voice penetrated the whole room. He seemed to have gotten back most of his energy.
“We placed that call”, Al said.
“What call?” Harman said. His forehead had become as white as tusk. There was no hair on it at all, Al noticed; it was absolutely polished and smooth. It shone. “Miller,” he said, “do you know what I’m beginning to think about you? You’re a bullshitter. I should have been on to you from the start. You’ve been bullshitting me the whole way.” He did not seem especially disturbed; his voice was controlled.
Al continued, “The colored individual who called asked about the ‘Little Eva’ record. Did he not?”
Harman’s head moved up and down.
“Your response,” Al said, “was an offer to sell him some. But we weren’t fooled. It took a long time, Chris, but we did do it.”
“Did do what?” Harman said.
“We got inside,” Al said. “We penetrated your organization. You were right. We’re here, now.” He paused. “Aren’t we, Chris?”
Still Harman’s eyes showed no reaction. It was, Al thought, as if the man actually did not hear him. Had not heard in the slightest.
“And him,” Al said, pointing at the old man. “We reached him, too. You heard what he said. About the letter.”
Turning, Harman walked away from him. He walked over to Ross, Mrs. Harman, and the old man.
“You can’t get away,” Al said.
Harman did not stir. But the old man ceased talking. The room was silent. The old man, Bob Ross, Mrs. Harman all gazed at Al.
“We’ve watched your activities for a long time,” Al said. “In the main, we’ve found you a shrewd operator. You’ve interested us. But even good things can’t go on forever. And you’ve had quite a good thing going for you. Haven’t you, Chris? But now the time has come.” He walked from the dining room, into the hall. “We’re going to blow the whistle. On all of you.”
At the telephone he dialed, watching the three men and the woman. T
hey remained where they were, in the dining room. Harman was saying something to them. Al could not catch it. He did not try.
The phone receiver clicked, and then, in Al’s ear, a woman’s voice said, “Good afternoon.” A warm, familiar, reassuring voice. “Lane Realty. This is Mrs. Lane.”
Al said, “This is Al.” The people in the dining room had stopped talking now. Their sound had died away.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Lane said. “How are you today, Mr. Miller? I been wondering about you, how you been getting along. Actually I been a little worried about you, but I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
“Could you come and pick me up?” he said.
Hesitating, she said, “I—you’re not at your lot, I know. I can see down there. Where you at?”
“I don’t have a car,” he said. “I’m up in Piedmont.” He gave her the address. “I’d appreciate it,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “by the tone of your voice I can perceive something is going on. I know you wouldn’t call me. Okay, Mr. Miller. There ain’t any bars in that neighborhood, so it ain’t that again. I’ll be there. As soon as I can. Should I just honk or—”
“No,” he said. “Come on up to the porch. If you will.”
“I’ll get out of the car,” Mrs. Lane said. “But I won’t go any further than the sidewalk. You have to come down. Goodbye now.” She hung up then.
He put down the phone and walked back into the dining room. The four of them watched him silently as he approached.
“This is it,” he said.
Pressing her hands together, Mrs. Harman said, “Chris, is something dreadful going on?” She moved over to stand by her husband.
Bob Ross had relit his pipe. He seemed completely at sea; he started to say something and then, grunting, wandered off. Perhaps, Al thought, it was too much for him.
“Do you want to do business?” Al said to Harman. “With me?”
The old man said in a squeaky voice, “Listen, Al—you’re jealous of me and I wish you’d get the hell out of here. Isn’t that a fact? You’re doing this out of spite.” He, too, seemed confused; his hand, pressed against his coat, now scrabbled and then dug into the inside pocket. He brought out an envelope, and from it took a checkbook and a passbook; he studied them, his lips moving. “You know what I got in here?” he said to Al. “Want to know? Listen to this.” His head bobbed up and down, trembling. He swallowed, cleared his throat.