It had been a good meeting. I had reviewed the entire affair briefly from the first meeting with Matt Brady right up to the one I had with Chris before they came in. I told them that I could promise them nothing but a fight; that it would not be easy, but if I could count on their support I felt we would make out.
I couldn’t lose, especially after letting them hear what I had said to Chris as he went through the door. They promised their co-operation and swarmed around with words of encouragement. Some of them even volunteered temporary salary cuts until we could level off.
I waved that off, leaving the door open if I had to come back to them for that in the future. Then I shook hands with every one of them and they left.
It was great. I had promised a lot and said nothing. I stared down at the desk dejectedly. The phones were curiously silent. Normally at this time they would be banging like mad. I smiled grimly to myself. There was an old saying in the business—when they stop calling, you’re yesterday’s news. That’s exactly what I felt like.
The intercom buzzed. I flipped the switch lackadaisically. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Schuyler is here and wonders if you’d have time to look at some notes on the infantile campaign?” Mickey’s voice was metallically cheerful.
For a moment I couldn’t find my voice. “Send her in,” I said, closing the switch.
I was on my feet as the door opened. I tried to calm the wild excitement pounding inside me. The door closed behind her.
She stood there looking at me. Her eyes were wide pools of concern; she didn’t smile. Then she came slowly toward my desk.
I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. There was something about her that belted me where I live. I could feel this woman in every cell of my being.
She looked up at my face. “You don’t look well, Brad,” she said quietly.
I didn’t speak, just kept soaking her up with my eyes.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?” she asked.
I found my voice. “Elaine.” I reached for her hand. Just the touch of her fingers made me want more. I started to pull her to me.
She shook her head and slipped her fingers from mine. “No, Brad,” she said gently. “It’s over. Let’s not start again.”
“I love you,” I said. “It’s not over.”
“I made a mistake, Brad,” she said in a small voice. “Please don’t keep throwing it up to me. I want to be your friend.”
“You don’t love me?” I asked.
I never saw such eyes. They told so much, they held so much pain. “Let me go, Brad,” she begged. “Please.”
I took a deep breath and went back to my chair and sat down. With trembling fingers I tapped a cigarette on the desk and lit it. I blew out a cloud of smoke and stared at her through it. “Why did you come back, Elaine?” I asked. “To torture me?”
The words seemed to hit her physically. I could almost see her shrink before my eyes. Her voice was tight and strained. “It’s my fault,” she said. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be fighting with my uncle.”
“You had nothing to do with it,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t even know I know you.”
“I know about the report he had on you,” she said. “That’s why you didn’t want to see him that night. You knew if I went with you, he would know. You were protecting me.”
“I was protecting myself,” I said. “I was completely selfish about it. Things would have been worse for me the other way.”
She didn’t answer.
“How do you know about the report?” I asked, wondering whether Sandra had talked. She knew the name, all right. She could have tied the two together.
“Uncle Matt told me,” she answered. “He was angry about the way you spoke to him. He felt he was only acting for your own good.”
“Heaven protect me from Matt Brady’s good intentions,” I said sarcastically. “If they were any better, I’d be dead for sure.”
“Uncle Matt felt you would have had a brilliant future with him,” she insisted.
“I had a brilliant future right here,” I pointed out. “Your dear uncle took care of that. Now I got nothing.” I ground out the cigarette which had burned almost down to my fingers. “He’s a real helpful character,” I added. “As long as you don’t cross him.”
“I can speak to him,” she said.
“No, thanks,” I answered. “Not interested. It’s too late, anyway. He pulled off my best accounts already.” I smiled wryly. “Your Uncle Matt doesn’t waste time.”
“Brad, I’m sorry,” she breathed.
I got to my feet. “I’m not,” I said. “Not for myself anyway. You pay for everything you get in this world. You get nothing for nothing. Little happiness—little pain; big happiness—big price. Everything comes out even. The books are always in balance.”
She got to her feet. A cold contempt had crept into her voice. “You’ve quit already.”
“What do you mean, I’ve quit?” I exclaimed in surprise. “What am I going to do? Sue him?”
Her eyes were cold. “Uncle Matt will be real disappointed,” she said. “I got the impression he was looking forward to a fight.”
“What am I gonna fight him with?” I asked. “Matchsticks? When he cut off my customers, he cut off my dough.”
“I have some money,” she said.
“Save it,” I said tersely.
“I want to help, Brad. Isn’t there anything I can do?”
I stared at her and shook my head. “I don’t know, Elaine. I don’t know if there’s anything anybody can do now. There’s an unwritten law in this business, and I broke it. No matter how you feel, the client is always right. Nobody’ll come near me now, for fear they might be tarred with the same brush.”
“What about the other members of the Steel Committee?” she asked. “I know some of them. They’re still interested in your plan.”
I laughed. “The way I figure it your uncle probably took care of them too.”
“How do you know unless you try?” she asked. “I know them pretty well. Most of them have no love for Uncle Matt.”
She had something in her favor. It was worth a chance. I reached for the telephone. “Who likes him the least?” I asked.
“Richard Martin, at Independent Steel,” she answered, her voice charged with excitement. “You’re going to call him?”
I nodded, asking Mickey to get him for me. I put down the phone while waiting for the call to go through.
“Good,” she smiled, her eyes glowing. “We’ve lost too much time already.”
I began to smile. This was a girl after my own heart. Everything she did was for me. Even the way she thought. She took out her cigarette case. The gold gleamed up at me. I walked over and held the light for her. She looked up at me, the blue smoke casting swirling shadows in her eyes.
I grinned down at her. “If you weren’t the woman I love, I’d offer you a partnership.”
“Better be careful,” she warned, smiling slowly. “I might take you up on it. Then you’d never be rid of me.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “It ain’t me that wants to run away.”
The smile vanished from her lips. “Can’t we be friends, Brad?”
I stared at her so long that she became uncomfortable under my gaze. She looked away from me at the floor. “Can’t we, Brad?” she repeated in a small voice.
“Maybe we can,” I said slowly. “When love goes.”
She looked up at me. My heart leapt at the sudden hurt in her eyes. I half reached to brush away the pain, but stilled my hand.
The phone buzzed and I went behind my desk and picked it up. Still watching her, I heard Mickey tell me that Martin was out to lunch. I told her to try again and put down the phone.
“He’s out to lunch,” I explained.
“Oh.” Her voice was expressionless. She looked down at the floor again.
“Elaine,” I said sharply.
“What?” she asked in the same expressionless vo
ice, still looking down.
“But love’s not gone yet, Elaine,” I said and then she looked up at me, I knew she could not hide the truth from me.
I couldn’t help myself. I reached for her and held her as tight as I could. She stood very still, but I could feel her warmth, her giving. The love we had could never die.
The hurt had vanished from her eyes.
22
We went to the Colony for lunch. The maître d’ picked us up at the door. “Mr. Rowan,” he murmured, “I have a very choice table for you.”
I looked around. The place was jammed, but this guy was a real smoothie; every table was choice to him. He took us to a table in the bleachers so far away from the front of the restaurant that two more steps and we would have been in Sixtieth Street. I wondered if he had heard the talk about me. I hadn’t done this bad since I first came to the place, a young man on the make trying to impress a prospective client.
I was smiling as I sat down. If I remembered right I never got the account.
“What are you smiling at?” Elaine asked.
I told her and she laughed. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
I shook my head seriously. “That’s the way people live in this town,” I said. “The word must be out. Rowan’s broke.”
We were still laughing when a voice came over my shoulder. “Elaine Schuyler!” it exclaimed. “What are you doing in town?”
Resignedly, I got to my feet, a polite smile already on my lips. An attractively youngish, middle-aged woman was smiling at us. I let out a silent damn when I recognized her. I should have known better than to come here. She was the society columnist for one of the wire services. We would be in half the newspapers in the country tomorrow morning. It was too juicy an item to miss. Matt Brady’s niece and his enemy having lunch.
After a few minutes she went away and I looked over at Elaine. “You know what this means?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Your uncle will be angry,” I said.
She smiled slowly. “I don’t give a damn.” Her hand rested on mine lightly across the table top. “I’m with you.”
We went back to the office, and while we waited for my call to Martin to go through, she gave me some background on Matt Brady and the steel business. It was quite a story. Those guys really played rough. They made my crowd look like amateurs. It seemed to me there wasn’t one among them who hadn’t double-crossed the others at least once. Many of them more times than that. It seemed to be their favorite indoor sport. I guess they never heard of sex.
It was either that or they were so damn careful about hiding it that they were never caught. No wonder Matt Brady had cautioned me. Willing or not, these boys toed the mark. They took no chances.
My private phone rang and I picked it up. It was Marge. “How’s it going, darling?” she asked.
“Better,” I said, smiling over the phone at Elaine. “Mrs. Schuyler came in this morning. She offered to help and I took her up on it.”
“She’s going to speak to her uncle?” Marge asked.
“No,” I answered. “You know I wouldn’t go for that. But we’re contacting other members of the committee and she will work with me to get the account in spite of Matt Brady.”
“Oh,” she said disappointedly.
“I’d rather have it that way,” I said quickly.
There was a subtle change in her voice. “What about Chris?”
Briefly I told her about what had happened that morning. When I had finished there was a silence on the other end of the wire. “Still there?” I asked anxiously.
Her voice was depressed. “I’m here,” she said.
“You were so quiet,” I said.
“I just don’t know what to say,” she replied. “I never thought Chris would—”
“Forget him,” I said. “It’s just one of those things. He’s no good, that’s all.”
“Brad,” she said hesitantly.
“Yes?”
“Maybe it would be better to take his offer. If you don’t get the account, we’ll have nothing left.”
“Don’t be a fool, Marge,” I said. “If I do take his offer, I’m through anyway. The dough won’t last forever and there isn’t another place I could go afterwards. Nobody wants a quitter.”
“I had another letter from Brad this morning,” she said, changing the subject.
“Good,” I said. “What’d he have to say?”
“He thinks the cold is a little better. He has hopes of getting back to classes next week.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “I told you he’d be all right.”
“I hope so,” she said. “But I don’t know. I’m worried. Nothing seems to be going right.”
“Stop worrying,” I said. “That doesn’t help.”
“I know,” she answered.
“Things’ll get worse before they get better.” I tried joking.
It didn’t take. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said seriously.
“Marge!” I said sharply. I was beginning to lose patience. What had got into her anyway? “Cut it out!”
“Are you alone?” she asked, her voice changing slightly.
“No.”
“Mrs. Schuyler with you?”
“Yes,” I answered shortly.
There was a moment’s silence before she spoke. “Don’t forget to tell her how grateful we both are for her help, dear,” she said sarcastically.
The phone went dead in my hand. I looked quickly over at Elaine. She was watching me. I wondered if she could have heard what Marge had said. I played it through.
“Goodbye, dear,” I said into the dead phone and put it down. I turned to Elaine. “Marge asked me to thank you for your help.”
“Your wife doesn’t like me?”
“How can that be?” I smiled awkwardly. “She doesn’t even know you.”
Elaine looked down at her fingers. “I don’t blame her,” she said. “I’d feel the same way if I were in her place.”
Martin’s call came through then, for which I was properly grateful. His voice was cool. He remembered me perfectly. No, he wasn’t interested in pursuing the public relations plan any further. Of course he was only speaking for himself, not for the other members of the committee, but he doubted their interest also in view of what had happened.
“What happened?” I asked.
His voice was flat and threw cold water on all my hopes. “Consolidated Steel withdrew from the institute today to pursue their own plan.”
I put down the phone and looked at Elaine. I tried to smile. “Your uncle is thorough. He pulled Con Steel out of the institute, knowing they wouldn’t have enough dough to do the job without him.”
She was silent for a moment. “Brad, you must let me speak to him. He’ll listen to me.”
I shook my head wearily. “Uh-uh. There has to be another way.”
Her voice was depressed. “What way?”
I leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know,” I said. “But somewhere there must be an out.” I looked over at her. “You were telling me about the steel business and your uncle. Keep talking. Maybe there’s something there.”
The day went on while I listened. It was a few minutes after six o’clock when suddenly something she said hit me. I had been sitting with my back to her, looking out at the darkening sky. I spun my chair around.
She had mentioned that her husband had learned something about the way Con Steel had settled its anti-trust case with the Government that he had wanted to discuss with Brady.
“What was it?” I asked.
“I never really knew,” she said. “David only mentioned it once. He seemed pretty angry about it.”
“Did he speak to your uncle about it?” I asked.
A shadow came into her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It was just a few weeks before he got sick.”
I had a hunch. I didn’t know what I’d find, but I had to follow this through. I got Paul just before he left his desk in Wash
ington.
I wasted no time on the usual greeting. “How did Con Steel settle its anti-trust case?”
“By consent decree,” he answered. “Why?”
“Anything irregular about it?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “Usual thing. Con Steel agreed not to interfere with the operations of their competitors.”
“I see,” I answered. “Who handled the case for the department?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But I could find out. Is it important?”
“I got a feeling it is,” I said. “I hope I’m right. If I’m wrong, I’m dead.”
“I’ll call you back in the morning,” he said and hung up.
Elaine was watching me, a look of interest on her face. “Think you’ve got something?”
I shook my head. “I’m only stabbing,” I said. “But I can’t afford to miss a trick. Now tell me everything you can remember about it. Everything your husband may have mentioned.”
The shadow came back into her eyes but she began the whole story over again while I listened carefully.
It was dark when we stepped out on Madison Avenue. I looked at my watch. Eight-thirty. I took her arm. “Walk a little?”
She nodded. We had gone almost a block before she spoke. “What are you thinking, Brad?”
I smiled at her. “I got a feeling things’ll work out,” I lied.
Her hand squeezed my arm. “Really, Brad? I’m so glad!”
I stopped and looked at her. It was worth the lie to see her eyes glowing. “I said you were lucky for me, baby.”
The glow went out of her eyes. “I wasn’t the last time, Brad.”
“Last time doesn’t count,” I said quickly. “That had nothing to do with you. This is the one that counts. This one you made possible. Without you, I would have no chance at all.”
She didn’t answer and we walked silently for a few blocks. The cold night air gave me an appetite. I stopped. “What about dinner?” I asked. “I’m starving.”
She looked up at me, her face very still. “I think we’d better not, Brad.”
I grinned at her. “What’s the matter? Afraid of me? I won’t eat you.”
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