The Institute

by James M. Cain

  “Well, yeah, that’s what I meant, of course.”

  “You said ARMALCO would do it.”

  “Okay, then I do it.”

  Mr. McDavitt slid a paper across his desk, at last taking his feet down. “There’s the securities I’d think would do it—give this thing, whatever it is, a nicely assorted portfolio with some growth potential and still leave you well assorted. I mean, you’ll kick in with quite a few things, so you’re not left lopsided. There’s a tax angle, of course. Here’s a memo on that.”

  Garrett picked up the papers, had a look, folded them, and put them in his pocket. “This is Dr. Palmer,” he said, “who’ll be in charge of our institution from now on.”

  Mal paid no attention. He didn’t even look at me. “Okay, then,” Mr. Garrett said after a moment, “is that all?”

  Mal didn’t answer, merely hoisting his feet again and going back to his belly button. Mr. Garrett led the way out. “Five minutes from now,” he whispered in the hall, “he’ll call me with what he thinks of you, and I’d better listen, believe me. He didn’t look at you, did he? In a pig’s eye, he didn’t.”

  Back in his office we sat down and waited. The phone on his desk tinkled, and he answered. “Thanks, Mal,” he said, “it’s what I wanted to know.”

  “He says you’re okay,” he murmured, hanging up.

  Several minutes went by, and I realized that Mal’s report and Mal’s assorted memos and admonitions had been very important to Garrett.

  “O.K., Dr. Palmer, let’s get started. What’s on your mind?”

  I said the next step, I thought, once we were incorporated, was our application to I.R.S. for a ruling on our tax-exempt status. “It’s a job for lawyers,” I said. “Even so, I would have to sit in, as the nub of the matter is the supplementary outline, our bound, typewritten booklet setting forth our aims and purposes. It has to be inclusive, covering everything we may conceivably want to do, so later on, if something comes up, we don’t find we’ve booby-trapped ourselves by leaving something out. I’m the one who knows, the only one who knows in detail, what we’ll want to do and how we expect to do it. So, if Mr. Dent is to be in charge as your lawyer, you should instruct him not only to work with me but to let me pass on his booklet before he actually submits it.”

  Mr. Garrett made a note. “I get the point,” he said. “What next, after we get our ruling? How long does it take, by the way? Or do you know?”

  “No more than a week or two.”

  “And then what?”

  “There’s the question of where we set up shop. I have some ideas on that, if you’d care to hear them.”

  “I’m listening. Go ahead.”

  I said that though our headquarters should be convenient to Washington, it needn’t actually be in the city. “I would think, by building a place out in the suburbs, say in Prince Georges County, we could save quite a lot of expenses—if the building were in the style of a colonial mansion, no more than three stories, we wouldn’t need elevators, for example, and at the same time we’d have ample space for books, records, offices, and so on. If we harmonized it with colonial architecture—”

  “With a deer park, perhaps?”

  “Why not? Those miniature Indian deer would cost very little and be quite a feature, especially for children.”

  “Swan lake?”

  “In Europe they have them.”

  “Box hedges?”

  “They give off a beautiful smell.”

  “Well, you can take your deer park and swan lake and box hedges and do what you want with them. But don’t ask me to come in. I hate mansions and everything connected with them. Dr. Palmer, there’s more comfort, more safety, more health, in a modern apartment building than in all the mansions ever built. I hate swan lakes, especially. They’re nothing but frog ponds, reflecting the light of the moon. Poor old John Charles Thomas. I dropped in on him once before he died, in Apple Valley, California, where he lived the last years of his life. And he was telling me about the Hollywood Bowl and how some genius had the bright idea of putting a fish pond in, between the seats and the shell. ‘Maybe some fish were there,’ John Charles said, ‘but all you could hear was frogs. I’d hate to tell you what they did to me one night. That’s nice, isn’t it? You’re singing The Trumpeter, you hold the last verse, and then you start it. You breathe it at them, you’ve got them. You finish, and there comes that moment you pray for, of utter, reverent silence before the applause breaks out. Then a goddam frog goes glk.’”

  “All right, the mansion is out.”

  “Why not a couple of floors in the Garrett Building? The one I already have on Massachusetts Avenue—in Washington, I’m talking about.”

  “A little slower please. You’re way ahead of me.”

  “I have to have this Washington branch on account of the things I sell, or my companies sell. They all involve patents, and patents have to be defended at hearings of various kinds. They also involve legislation, tariffs, authorizations of one kind or another, appropriations, and so on. All that means lawyers, lobbyists, agents, gumshoes, goons, and God-knows-what. They have to have offices with phones, secretaries, and messengers. So I bought this building down there, reserved two floors for them, and rented out the other floors—ten, actually. So, O.K., why can’t you take two? Or three? Or however many you’ll need? I’ll make the building over to you. You’ll rent the other floors out, and the rent you get will be a nice lift for your budget. Is that an idea or not?”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to say no.”

  He looked very startled and stared at me for some time. After several moments, after he had said, “You quite surprise me” and in other ways betrayed that he had been set back on his heels, he finally asked: “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s against the law, Mr. Garrett.”

  “It’s what?”

  “You can’t endow a foundation and then rent yourself office space. You could until recently, but they found it was being used as a loophole, some tricky angle on taxes. So Congress closed it.”

  “Well! Thanks for warning me.” He leaned back, staring at his desk top. His chair squeaked. He pressed a button. When Miss Immelman came in, he said: “Get on this chair, will you? Have it greased or something.”

  “Yes, Mr. Garrett, I will.”

  Then to me: “What would be your idea?”

  “Why—I have no idea yet. I may get one, though. Give me a little time.”

  “Why don’t we break for lunch? I’d invite you to the apartment, but I’m expecting someone there. You’ll find the hotel good—the Du Pont, I mean. Quite good, as a matter of fact. Damned good.”

  “The Du Pont is fine. I’ll be staying there.”

  After lunch I said: “If you insist on downtown Washington—and though I’m caught by surprise, I have to admit it does make sense—I would say you should buy us a building, let me take two floors, and rent out the rest. I wouldn’t think the right place would be too hard to find.”

  “Okay, will you handle it?”

  “I’ll do my best and keep you informed.”

  What he meant, I wasn’t quite sure of, because if finding a building for him was what he had in mind, I knew no more about buildings than a new-born grasshopper did. But that seemed to be it, and I added: “I think I should give you a weekly progress report, with discussions in between—if, as, and when.”

  “Where’d you get that expression—‘if, as, and when’?”

  “It’s one my mother was fond of. Why?”

  “It’s one bankers use.”

  “She was quite a banker herself. I wouldn’t say she was fond of money, but money was fond of her.”

  “Money’s no fool.”

  He looked at me sharply, and from there on in, I thought his manner toward me changed.

  The next day we assembled at his office for the trip down to Dover—Ned Bramwell, his top Delaware lawyer; four or five men from his office who were to sign as incorporators, and Sam Dent, chief lawyer for
the entire ARMALCO outfit, who had come up from Washington. He was the pleasantest discovery of the trip. Older than me, around forty-five, I’d say, but tall, well bred and dressed—definitely my kind of guy. We took to each other at once, but from the look on his face when the Institute was mentioned, I knew he had pretty well guessed the relationship between its patron saint and the man who was going to direct it. We drove to Dover in two cars, I in the front seat with Dent in his car, the two youngest men from the office in back, and the rest in Bramwell’s car. The whole process took no more than an hour as we moved from office to office in the capitol, signing and shuffling papers. Once there was a slip I had to sign, which I did. Then we had a late lunch. Bramwell took his gang off, and Dent and I had a long drink and talk. It turned out that he had seen me play football. We drove back to Wilmington and he dropped me off at the Du Pont. I called Mr. Garrett to ask him when he wanted to see me, but he said we were done. “However,” he said, “keep in touch, will you—if, as, and when? And get on that building at once.”

  “I shall indeed, sir.”

  But my heart was already jumping with the anticipation of seeing her that night.

  9

  THE SMELL OF ROAST beef rose in my nose as soon as I unlocked the door. No light was on, but a hand raised up from behind one of the sofas and a voice said huskily: “Well, hello, hello!”

  I was hungry for her. My arms ached for her, and hers went around me as I knelt to press her close, inhale her, pat her, and at last kiss her. She whispered: “We’re eating in tonight—roast beef, which won’t be a surprise; as you must be able to smell it. But everything else will be. I promise you, though, it will be just right for what ought to go with it.”

  I knew nothing to say to that except hold her closer. She moved so I could sit beside her, and then I saw the gingham apron she had on over her dress. I laughed, and she asked: “Well, what’s so funny? I love you, that’s all.”

  “It makes you look cute.”

  “It makes me want to snuggle.”

  “Okay, then snuggle.”

  So she snuggled and time went by. At last she drew a deep breath and said it was time to talk. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.

  “What have I done for you to be proud of?”

  “The impression you made on him. He called to tell me.”

  “What impression?”

  “You said no to him, for one thing. He’s so used to yes men around him that he couldn’t believe his ears at first. He was still gasping when he called me. Said you threatened to put him in jail.”

  “I did no such thing, and he said no such thing.”

  “Well, it was something.”

  “All I did was warn him that his idea was against the law.”

  “Yes, that was it.”

  “I said not one word about jail.”

  “I think that was his little joke. He has an odd sense of humor. But that wasn’t all. Lloyd, you impressed him no end, the way you had done your homework, as he called it. You had things at your fingertips. Also, he says you come by your brains honest. How did your mother get in it?”

  “I mentioned that money liked her.”

  “And he fell for her plenty.”

  “I happened to use an expression of hers and it seemed to catch his ear.”

  “What expression?”

  “ ‘If, as, and when.’ ”

  “Why would that catch his ear?”

  “It’s one bankers use.”

  “Oh! ... Oh! Well, that would catch his ear.”

  “Speaking of ears ... I began to nibble on hers, but she pushed me off.

  “No, please,” she said a little breathlessly. “There’s more.”

  “Say on, pretty creature, say on.”

  “He was suspicious of you before—half-liked you but thought you were much too cheeky to really have any brains. But your saying no to him caught his attention, and suddenly he’s now sold all the way, even on you, as the person who should be in charge. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “I thought I detected a change in his manner.”

  But I must have seemed withdrawn or hesitant or something short of joyous, because suddenly she pulled away in the dark and asked: “Well, for heaven’s sake, what is it now?”

  “It doesn’t quite add up.”

  “What doesn’t add up?”

  “In the first place, he knows.”

  “Lloyd, how could he possibly know?”

  “How could he possibly not?”

  “Then, O.K., he knows. But if he’s sold on you even when he knows, what is there to have a long face about?”

  “I told you—it doesn’t add up.” I told her about the hand he had injured, and she jumped up, all excited.

  “But he does chop ice! He never uses cubes.”

  “O.K., but then he switched.”

  “I told you he did. He explained it.”

  “Yeah, but in regard to you—”

  “It’s simple, if you just remember that he loves me—all except in that one, just that one, way. So if he thought you were kind of a phoney and very bad for me, it could account for the first way he felt, even including that hand, if that’s the reason he had, though he told me about it, about jabbing it with the ice pick, I mean—and he wouldn’t have, if it was just something he made up and put the bandage on to pretend. So, at first, he was upset on my account, and then he wasn’t. It could be as simple as that.”

  “Wait a minute. Maybe that makes sense.” I didn’t know whether it did or not, but at least I felt that it could—and anything to please her after her sweet, romantic welcome. I kissed her and pretty soon she kissed back. “I think the roast is done,” she said.

  Is there any greater intimacy than a man frying eggs for his woman or her roasting beef for him? Once more we were there at the kitchen table, she letting me carve, then serving me vegetables, the boiled new potatoes with parsley butter on them and the peas on little glass plates. We gobbled our dinner down, now and then touching cheeks, and I told her how happy I was. But in the still of the night, she whispered: “I almost forgot. He’s bringing Inga back, which, in a way, is the best news of all.”

  “Who’s Inga?”

  “I told you—the Swedish housekeeper we had, who got a cable from Stockholm while I was in the hospital with my miscarriage. He had to pack her off, but now he’s bringing her back.”

  “Why is that good news?”

  “It has to mean he’s getting organized to live alone.”

  “Leaving us a clear track, you mean?”

  She burrowed close, and for some time nothing was said. But I knew she wasn’t asleep.

  “Lloyd, there’s just one thing.”

  “What is it, Hortense?”

  “Listen, do you or don’t you?”

  “Do I or don’t I what?”

  “Love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  I threw back the covers, flopped her over, and fanned her backside until it sounded like pistol shots in the dark. Then her arms were wrapped around my neck.

  “I’m a degenerate,” she said. “I love it when you bop me.”

  10

  MY FINDING A BUILDING was purely by accident, and I got credit for brains I didn’t have. One day I woke up with a drawstring on my stomach—from the fact that I had a job to do and no idea how to do it. Hortense gave me my breakfast, there-thered me, and promised between kisses that something was bound to turn up. I called her Mrs. Micawber. She said: “Instead of glooming about it and feeling sorry for yourself, you could make some use of the day, like paying a courtesy call on Ralph—Ralph Hood, the senator. Except for writing him a note, which really isn’t much, you’ve done nothing about him. Why don’t you take him to lunch? Or at least invite him?”

  So I called his office and a bit to my surprise got through to him at once. He said he’d check his calendar and see if he was free and call me back. He did, and he was free. I said I would pick him up in my car, as the only place I was known
was at Harvey’s, and from his office, it would be too far to walk. He told me to put my car in a parking lot and he would “blow” me to the ride.

  At twelve I stopped by his office and for twenty minutes had to shake hands and chat with the administrative assistant, the assistant assistants, and the secretaries—all in the outer office. Then for ten minutes I was admitted to his private office where the decorations consisted of framed pictures of him shaking hands with presidents Kennedy and Johnson, with the Queen of England, and with Smokey the Bear. At last we went downstairs. The guard at the door said to him: “Your car is waiting, Senator.” And sure enough, it was—at the curb, a Chrysler limousine with uniformed driver. We chatted as we rode, and I gave him the big piece of news, that the Institute seemed to be set, “and it’s all due to you, Senator. I can’t thank you enough.”

  He held up a hand. “I like to be thanked, but it was due to you, not me. I’ve heard a little about it. Richard Garrett called me, and so did Hortense. You impressed him no end—and her even more, I suspect. Lloyd, I wasn’t surprised. You impressed me, too, in court that day. More important, you impressed the judge. I would even go so far as to say that you set him back on his heels somewhat.”

  This left me slightly crossed up, that this reaction to me, Mr. Garrett’s reaction, I mean, which he had passed on to her by phone, had now become official. So it was being passed on to everyone. But I began to realize that it was the only reaction that could be maintained. If I was a guy whose wife would shortly be paired more or less publicly with the head of an institute he was underwriting, the only way he could play it would be straight, make noises that this friend of his wife’s was really some kind of genius, that Dr. Palmer had the job for that reason and not for reasons that might be inferred. But, of course, I said nothing about this to the senator. I merely listened while he talked on.

  When we arrived at Harvey’s, which is a basement restaurant with underground parking for cars, I gave the driver ten dollars to go have his lunch. Then I led the way to my table which I had reserved by phone and which the girl, a rather good-looking maîtresse d’, had waiting when we got there. We ordered, and when Senator Hood asked for a martini, so did I. He resumed discussing the Institute and the future I could look forward to, “now that the Garretts have fallen for you.” But I must not have been paying attention, because he stopped in midsentence and asked: “What is it, Lloyd? What did I say?”