“Yes,” he said, “I’ll sell it. And one day I’ll find out who did it. Whoever it is, I’ll make him wish to God he’d never been born.”
She sucked in her breath sharply and whispered, “You have so many enemies.”
“Uh-huh. And most of them call themselves friends. But there aren’t many men who could do this. It takes a special kind.” He paused and thought and then said slowly, “Offhand, I know of just one man who could do it. I don’t say he did, but he could.”
“Who?”
“Dean Holt.”
“But he was at our barbecue. You’re his attorney, his friend.”
“Dean Holt,” he repeated, nodding his massive head. “He’s the only one I can think of.”
“But you don’t know.”
“I’ll find out. There’s a private investigator in San Francisco. I’ve used him before. He’s expensive, but he’s the best. I’ll get him down here. I don’t care what it costs. He’ll find out who did it.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly. “You couldn’t live without knowing. Me, I don’t care. It’s done. It’s all over.”
He dropped a hand to her thigh and squeezed with his heavy fingers. “You’re taking it well, after all.”
“I don’t think you understand what I meant. This is the end for us, Clyde. I can’t face a thing like this. I tried not facing it for years and now everyone knows and — and — ” Her hands rose slowly to her cheeks as she said, “Now I wouldn’t be found dead on the same street with you. I’m leaving for Reno just as soon as I can pack.”
Clyde could have struck her again, but thought better of it. Naturally, she was upset, but she would get over that. Give her a few weeks and things would go back to normal. He forced a smile he was far from feeling and started to put an arm about her shoulders, but paused in the act. There was something in her eyes, a cold light of purpose that suddenly frightened him.
No, he thought, it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t really leave him just because of a stupid thing like this. Elsie was made of harder stuff than that. But was she? Sometimes a man just couldn’t be sure.
Chapter Nine
DEAN HAD LITTLE TIME to enjoy his joke. Hal Smith left for the Moore outfit and Dean had to clean up dozens of tag ends he left behind. Then Freeman moved into the office and Dean was the only one capable of breaking him in. His operation was far different from Moore’s and Freeman had to relearn the business from top to bottom while assuming the reins of sales control at the same time. Dean virtually lived in Freeman’s lap, prompted his every move, and went over the day’s business with him in detail. After a week in the office Freeman got used to the differences between the two systems and gradually took over where Hal had left off. The adjustment caused no serious dislocations, as the market was on a steady rise and most of the cars were sold before they were loaded.
Every evening Dean dropped in at Freeman’s home in Salinas and the two spent hours going over Eastern buyers who could be persuaded to swing their accounts to Dean. Many of the buyers, especially commission brokers, had done business with the Moore outfit only because of Freeman’s presence there. The moment Freeman called them on the telephone and explained that he was now with the Holt Produce Company, they switched their accounts to him without question. Others were more difficult to persuade, but each day saw one or two of them dropping away from Moore and teletyping their orders to Dean’s office.
When the market hit six dollars for fours Dean had more orders than he could handle and not enough lettuce in the fields. He was faced with dropping a number of the accounts he had taken from Moore, or transferring their orders to other shippers.
He was searching frantically for a solution when Freeman told him calmly, “We’ll start buying ourselves.”
Dean exploded, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’d like to keep all these new accounts, wouldn’t you? Of course. Hang onto them now and next year you can lease more land to take care of them. Lose them now and you’ll never get them back, and you’ll be paying me for nothing.”
“Sure, sure. So?”
“So we start buying. I’ll show you.” Freeman picked up a telephone and called Tim Harding. “Tim? Freeman here. Look, I’m in a jam. I need extra cars.”
Dean picked up an extension phone and listened. He heard Tim say:
“Well, I got two going out as floaters. I can let you have them, but strictly at market.”
“No dice. Those crates have your labels. We have to use our own. About how many floaters do you have on the rails each day — on the average, I mean?”
“Oh, about the same. Two a day.”
“O.K. The market is six bucks on fours and five and a quarter on fives. I’ll give you six-ten for fours and five-thirty-five for fives. That means better than thirty bucks extra for you on each car and you don’t even have to bother with them. Sound all right to you?”
“It sounds to me like you got a hole in your head, but I’ll go for it. Ten cents per crate above the market. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Two a day.”
“That’s right. As long as the market holds up. I’ll send over some of our labels to you in the morning. You can put them on the crates on your own line. No-bill the cars and I’ll bill them out. We’ll keep the sales strictly on the books.”
“Right. Be seeing you.”
Freeman called two other shippers and picked up another three cars per day. Then he turned to Dean and told him, “Five extra a day should hold us for a while.”
“I don’t get it. You’re costing me money.”
“Well, it’s one or the other. Those extra cars will cost you about a hundred and fifty bucks a day. So you’ll have to look at it this way: Just figure that on five of your own cars per day you’re selling at five-ninety instead of six. You’re still making a hell of a profit and you’re supplying lettuce to all the new accounts with your own labels. Either we play it this way, or you lose the accounts.” He added, as a clincher, “Steve Moore would probably get them back.”
Dean slapped him on the back. “We’ll do it your way, Freeman. Not a bad idea. Not bad at all.”
• • •
Dean did not lose touch with the Metzner situation. Herman’s tentative deal with Steve finally fell through completely because the banks would not go along with Freeman out of the firm. The bankers knew that Dean was interested and that seemed more sound to them Clyde put the deal across, eventually, the way he had outlined it to Dean at the ranch. Dean wound up in control of the vacuum plant and closed down all his ice packing sheds except the one where he had his own office. Freeman used that shed for packing and selling a top-quality product, but all the rest of the lettuce, better than three quarters of everything cut, was sent through the vacuum plant. Even that volume was not sufficient to run all four tubes, but the balance needed came from other shippers, who paid fifteen cents a carton to get aboard the dry-pack bandwagon.
Dean saw very little of Clyde during the formation of the deal and after it was concluded. Clyde asked him once if he had any idea who was responsible for moving the Bide-A-Wee sign and Dean replied that he hadn’t. The subject was never brought up again. Clyde kept to his office or stayed isolated on his ranch. He no longer went to lunch at any of the popular places, he dropped out of the numerous clubs in which he was a member, and he shunned all public appearances. No one saw Elsie Davenport. It was rumored that she had gone to Los Angeles until the gossip and laughter died down, but no one really knew. She was actually in Reno establishing residence to get a divorce. Clyde never mentioned it to anyone.
Lettuce went as high as six-fifty a crate and then, as usual, the market became glutted, the home-grown product started ripening in the Eastern states, and the price began skidding down. Dean had Vince Moroni plow under every other row in the fields ready for cutting, but few of the other growers and shippers would do the same, so the price continued down. Dean shrugged philosophically. It went the same way eve
ry year. But he had made a killing in the first third of the season and was not worried about the balance.
Lettuce was down to three dollars when Dean picked up Ruth one evening and took her to dinner at Slats’ seafood restaurant on Monterey’s Fishermen’s Wharf.
He had talked with Ruth a number of times on the telephone, but he had not seen her in quite a few weeks. He was happy to notice that all her bruises and scars had disappeared. He was relaxed and happy in her company, but she did not share his mood. She was unusually silent and preoccupied.
After the meal they walked out to the end of the wharf and looked over the fishing fleet within the breakwater. Their riding lights were on, but otherwise the boats had a woebegone, deserted appearance. Sardines, the main catch of the fleet, had not appeared in the bay in years, and the big purse seiners were idle and rusting. The canneries, too, were also idle and deserted. Monterey had virtually died as one of the world’s great sardine fishing ports.
Ruth sighed and said, “It’s such a shame. Why did the sardines just up and leave the way they did?”
Dean shrugged. “Nobody seems to know, even the experts. Personally, I think it’s a simple case of overfishing and ruining their feeding grounds.”
“So many people do that. They get greedy. They just never seem to have enough. Which reminds me — ”
She put a cigarette to her lips and Dean held the lighter for her until she had it going. She was silent for a moment, again lost in thought, then she said, “Dean.”
“Uh-huh?”
“You’ve had an excellent season so far, haven’t you?”
He grinned and put an arm about her shoulders to hug her. “I can’t complain. Neither can you. You cleaned up on that percentage deal and all your stuff was cut before the bottom fell out.”
“I know. Isn’t the second planting in?”
“Yeah. Don’t expect too much on that, though. Weather is too good in the East.”
“I never could understand what bearing that has on what we do here.”
“Plenty. There are thousands of little truck gardens scattered all over the East; when the weather is good and it all grows well there’s less demand for our product and the price stays down. Bad weather back there and our price goes up. Supply and demand. That’s all there is to it.”
“But,” she persisted, “you’ve been doing very well.”
“Oh, sure. Why?”
“Well, I was thinking. You,” she said accusingly, “have been too busy to come around, but I’ve seen Betty quite a bit and Steve has dropped over with her a couple of nights to play canasta. I’ve also seen Sam and Tim Harding and a lot of other people in the business. They’ve all been talking.”
He pulled her around and kissed her in the dark, then asked, “About what?”
She pushed herself away and said, “About you and Steve. You’ve been hurting Steve — badly.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He cleaned up on the high market like everyone else. He couldn’t help himself. No one could.”
“But he didn’t.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true, though. You and Freeman have taken a lot of the best accounts away, you got that vacuum plant from Metzner, and worst of all, you got Hal Smith selling for Steve. I understand that Hal is always selling behind the market.”
“Hal is naturally cautious.”
“Yes. He’s so cautious that he was always selling ’way under every one of the big market breaks. Steve’s whole setup is so disorganized now he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going.”
Dean suppressed a smile and said, “Nevertheless, baby, he couldn’t help but make a profit on that high market.”
“He did, yes, but it wasn’t as big as it should have been. He couldn’t get any dry pack out, because of you, so he had to sell everything in ice and sometimes at dry prices. He made a little profit, but he also took a beating.
“Hmmm.”
She faced him to fiddle with the knot of his tie and said, “Now he has to face the bad part of the season. He’s not in shape for it and he’s worried.”
“I can’t help that. This is the part of the season that separates the men from the boys. Anyone can make money on a high market. This is where a man is either a produce man and knows his business or loses his shirt and gets to hell out. That’s up to Steve. But I don’t know what he’s worried about. He has plenty of dough to carry him through it. I’d like to have a small part of what old Tom left him.”
Ruth took his hand and led him around to the edge of the wharf, where they sat on some twelve-by-twelve ties looking out over the calm bay and the lights in the harbor. They could see a boat coming in through the dark just beyond the breakwater. Dean watched it and was puzzled. He could not see the hull, but the lights were different and he knew that it was not a fishing boat. He kept his eyes on it, wondering curiously what it was.
Ruth said, “You don’t understand what’s going on, Dean. The inheritance tax on Tom Moore’s estate was terrific.”
“I can imagine. So?”
“So rather than wait through a long probate period, Steve settled with the state and the government and paid everything off in cash last week. Truly did, too. I don’t know how that left her, except she has no worries with the land, but it left Steve with practically no working capital. He’s worth millions on paper and in the business, but he doesn’t have very much money.”
Dean thought, Oh, God, this is it. This is where I move in. It couldn’t be more perfect. And she’s handing it all to me without knowing it. But he said again, “So?”
Ruth was suddenly exasperated with him. “Well, my goodness, can’t you see? You’ve already hurt him on a high market. He’s in bad shape. What’s he going to do now on a low market when he doesn’t even have the profits from the high to carry him through?”
“Why ask me? I have my own problems. I should start worrying about his?”
She took his hand and held it between her palms. “Dean, please. I know how you think. I know what you’re after. Maybe it’s a worth-while goal to be top dog. But is it necessary to ruin somebody else to get it? I could understand it if it were Tom Moore you were fighting against. He’d be doing it to you if he could. But Steve isn’t that way. He’s a very fine person.”
“I know, I know. Everyone’s crazy about him.”
She asked curiously, “Do you dislike him for some reason or other?”
Dean had to laugh. “Not a bit. I like Steve. Always have.”
“Then why, in God’s name, are you trying to ruin him?”
“Damn it all, I’m not. I’ve had some breaks that were to his disadvantage and I took them. That’s simple business. I don’t know anyone else who wouldn’t do the same.”
“That’s only partly true. I think you’d like to smash the Moore setup just because the name is Moore. Please, Dean, don’t do it. If you keep after Steve during this bad market he’ll go under. I know he will. I wouldn’t like that. I don’t think I’d like you for doing it. So take it easy during this bad market. Will you, please?”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure. I got nothing against Steve.”
He had his eyes on the boat, which was getting closer to the wharf, and now he could see the white hull and some of the deck structure. It was a yacht with a fairly long deckhouse and a covered flying bridge. When it swung broadside for a moment he estimated its length at about sixty feet. Then it came slowly around the lip of the wharf and eased gently in against a landing platform just above the water. The screws were reversed, water boiled under the stern, and the boat came to a halt. Dean could see dimly two figures on the bridge and a man forward holding a line on the wharf. Apparently the boat was going to be there only a moment or two.
Ruth was also watching the yacht and at last got to her feet to see it better. “I think that’s Truly Moore’s boat,” she said. “She usually keeps it in San Francisco Bay. Can you see the name?”
Dean walked down the wharf to where he c
ould see the stern, then came back and told Ruth, “What a name for a boat! It’s called Monkey-Do.”
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s Truly’s.”
“Looks very nice.”
“Oh, it is. I was on it once for a party. I came awfully close to buying one like it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I get seasick.”
One of the figures detached itself from the bridge and jumped to the landing platform. It was Truly in blue canvas shoes and dungarees, a horizontally striped pullover sweater, and a heavy navy-blue jacket. She called to the man on the bridge, “Take her around to Stillwater Cove. I’ll be out tomorrow.” Then she ran up the steps leading to the roadway of the wharf.
She saw Dean first and then Ruth and stopped to stare at them curiously. “Don’t tell me you’re a reception committee.”
Ruth giggled and said, “We were just out here having dinner.” “Oh.”
“I thought I recognized the Monkey-Do. Don’t you usually keep it up in the city?”
Truly searched her pockets, but could not find cigarettes and looked inquiringly at Dean. He gave her a cigarette and held his lighter to it. She inhaled deeply, gave him a brief smile of thanks, then looked at Ruth. “I’m going to keep it down here for the summer. Stillwater Cove isn’t a bad anchorage, once the stormy season is over.”
Ruth’s voice was sharp with curiosity as she said, “Then you must intend spending the summer here yourself.”
The boat was backing away from the wharf and Truly looked down to wave at the man on the bridge. He yelled something and then the boat pulled away and swung about to head out to the dark bay.
Truly ignored Ruth and her curiosity and looked into Dean’s eyes. “You don’t happen to have a handy Scotch and soda in your pocket, do you?”
“I know where we can get one in a hurry.”
Hunger and the Hate Page 16
