He forced a chuckle and called, “Hiya, sweetheart. Glad to see me back?”
“You,” she sneered. “And how are you, you two-timing louse?”
He stopped in the center of the floor to give her a look of injured innocence. “Why, what’s the matter, baby? You sound sore about something. Aren’t you glad to see me back?”
She sipped at her drink and coughed, then cried, “I don’t give a damn if I never see you again, you — you cheap Casanova.”
“Now, wait a minute. I’ve been up in the city on business.”
“ ‘Business,’ he says. Hah!”
“Yes, business. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s ever wrong with business. It’s the monkey business I’m talking about. I knew it the other day; I knew it, but I thought I was wrong. I had a hunch then, when you stayed on that yacht with her. But not, I told myself, not the ever loving Truly Moore. Oh, no. Not that dignified bitch. She’s too good for us common people. And believe me, you louse, you’re really common.”
She brushed the back of her hand at her eyes and again sipped at the glass of gin. Dean lowered himself to the edge of the bed and stared at her. So Jan had brought Truly into the picture for sweet revenge. He had not thought of that angle. It made him curious. He was, in fact, far more curious than he was disturbed.
“Suppose,” he said, “you begin at the beginning. Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t follow you. What’s all this about Truly?”
She emptied the glass, lifted a bottle of gin from a drumhead table, and refilled the glass to the brim. Dean frowned anxiously. Ruth was a heavy drinker and had far too much liking for alcohol, but she rarely drank her liquor straight and never by the glassful. He got up and took the glass and the bottle away from her and placed them on a bureau, then returned to the edge of the bed. She glared at him, but made no move to retrieve her glass. Fresh tears oozed from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
“I didn’t really believe it at first,” she said. “Not you and Truly. It seemed too impossible to believe.”
Dean said patiently, “I asked you once before to start at the beginning. I still can’t follow you.”
She blinked at him, still with anger and pain, but with the first touch of uncertainty in her expression. She took a deep breath, sighed, and then said, “Well, Jan Parker dropped by this afternoon. I knew she had something on her mind the way she fidgeted about. Then she told me she’d been up to the city and she’d seen you someplace with Truly.”
“Yes, that’s right. We were watching a show at the Italian Village. Eight other people were with us.”
She stared at him with her eyes wide and her mouth open. “You don’t deny it?”
“Of course not. Why should I? It was the tail end of a dinner party. So,” he chuckled, “that’s what it’s all about? God, you women! Look. I ran into Truly downtown and she invited me to a dinner party at her place in the city. It was the first time I ever knew she lived there.”
“She has an apartment — ”
“I found that out. She needed a man to fill out at the dinner table and I was elected. Matter of fact, I got in a poker game later with some of her friends and had a pretty good time. Then we went downtown to a few spots and wound up the night. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed myself. Now, suppose you tell me what’s wrong with that?”
Ruth was silent for a moment, thinking of what Jan had told her and balancing it against Dean’s apparent sincerity. Then her features hardened. “Nothing,” she said, “is wrong with that, if it happened to be true.”
“But it is true.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t. Not all of it. Jan saw you at that place you said and she got curious.”
“I saw her, too. She was with that lawyer who got her her divorce from Tim Harding.”
Ruth was again silent and uncertain for a moment, then continued: “Anyway, she got real curious. When you left with Truly she followed you in a taxi.”
“That’s a lot of applesauce. She left first, ’way before we did.”
“Oh, no, she didn’t. Now you’re lying. She followed you. I checked the hotel and I know she’s telling the truth because Sam is down in Las Vegas.”
“What the hell has Sam got to do with this?”
“Plenty. That’s why Jan got so mad and had to tell me about it. You and Truly had a room in a hotel at Union Square. Jan saw the two of you get in an elevator and go upstairs. Then she bribed the night clerk and learned that you even had the guts to register there as Mr. and Mrs. Sam Parker. What do you have to say to that?”
Dean stared at her and his mind came dead center. That Jan, he thought; that wild, impossible, crazy Jan. She had really pulled a beauty, a classic. He had registered as Mr. and Mrs. Parker. There was no denying it, unless —
He asked quickly, “How do you know I’m the one who registered there?”
“I checked. I called the manager and said I was Mrs. Parker and got him to describe you. It was you, all right. It sure wasn’t Sam and Jan.”
“And did he describe Mrs. Parker?”
“Well, no. I didn’t ask. But how do you explain it, you liar? How do you explain a thing like that? You and Truly Moore. My God!”
There was no way to explain. He could get Ruth to call the manager again and learn that Mrs. Parker had been a brunette, not a blonde. And what would that prove? It could be even worse. If Ruth learned that it had been Jan that had registered with him, rather than Truly, she would jump immediately to the correct conclusion that it was not the first time it had happened and that he and Jan had probably been carrying on for some time. It all added up the same way. And it all added up exactly the way Jan had figured it would. His hands were tied. There was no possible way he could lie out of it.
He got to his feet, feeling like a trapped animal, and frowned nervously at Ruth. In her way, she was a loyal person. She expected loyalty from him. She also expected to marry him eventually. Their affair together, which had been going on for years, she did not regard at all as being immoral. They were grown up, they were adults, they knew what they were doing, and the end result would be legal enough. But, meanwhile, she exercised loyalty and she expected it from him.
He coughed and cleared his throat and said weakly, “If you care to believe everything Jan tells you — ”
Ruth reached to the table, grabbed the half-empty bottle of gin, and hurled it at him. It was a wide miss. The bottle skidded across the carpet and crashed against the baseboard without breaking. Ruth started swearing at him, loudly, foully, and hysterically. Dean stared at the bottle on the floor, then turned and walked slowly out of the room and out of the house.
Funny, he thought. If she hadn’t been dressed so well for the yachting party and they hadn’t argued about it later, she would have been the one in the city with him. It would even have been much more fun that way.
On the other hand, though, he would not have had the experience of Truly in his arms and that kiss that seemed to promise so much. He wondered just what it did promise.
Chapter Thirteen
DEAN WAS in a bad frame of mind when he arrived in Salinas Monday morning. His headquarters had been moved over the week end and his staff was occupying the newer and more spacious offices in the vacuum plant. The ice shed would still be operating and one of the clerks had been left behind to handle that end, but everything else had been moved. Freeman was in command of a larger sales office, to which he had added two more order clerks that morning and another stenographer. Dean’s new office was at a corner of the building, with wide windows overlooking the loading docks, the parking area, and the steady traffic on 101. As it had been in the ice shed, all partitions between offices were of glass, so that the various members of the staff could communicate with each other and know what was going on without wasting time. When the telephones and teletypes started clanging, every minute was precious.
Dean talked with Freeman when he came in and agreed that all the arrangements were satisfactory, but he was not ent
husiastic. He went into his own office, dropped into a leather chair, and stared through the glass partition at the hectic activity in the sales room. But he was seeing again the scene with Ruth in her bedroom and feeling the dregs of its aftermath. He had not slept well the night before and his lungs were burning from too much smoking. The cigarette he was smoking came apart on his lip and he swore under his breath, crushed it out in a tray, and spat out the grains of tobacco. A tiny piece of skin had been pulled from his lower lip and he wet the sore spot with his tongue and touched it gingerly with a finger. He thought it would be a good idea to quit smoking and a moment later was lighting another cigarette.
He thought of how it had been with Ruth the past few years and felt a bit ill. They had always got along so well together, their tastes were quite similar, and their backgrounds had a great deal in common. Each had come up the hard way and each was now secure, but neither was ever likely to forget the early years. It had established a bond between them that would not have been possible with anyone else. Ruth was the only woman Dean had ever seriously considered marrying, simply because he knew, without doubt, that it would work out well.
He wondered if it had really come to an end. Ruth was apparently angry enough never to speak to him again. He had violated the only thing she had ever demanded of him, his sexual loyalty. That was a matter of special importance to a woman such as Ruth. She had known personally the more rugged and seamier side of life and was well acquainted with the fact that it was not necessary for a man to stray when he was physically happy with one woman. The fact that he had strayed meant that she had failed and that Dean was not completely happy with her. She hadn’t the knowledge or insight to accept the additional fact that Dean could never really be loyal to any one woman, that his ego needed constant reassurance and his vanity was soothed by conquest. There was but one side of the coin in her mind: Dean was disloyal and she had failed.
He chewed on his lower lip and wondered what it would be like without Ruth and knew that it would create an unhappy vacuum in his life. He was not a man who could live with a vacuum. Somehow, he had to win her back. He thought of all possible methods and came to the conclusion that his best ally was time. She, too, would be unhappy and would miss him more and more as the days went by. So perhaps it would be best to let her stew a while and become lonesome and then try to patch up their difference. It was the only program to follow. But to expedite matters, he telephoned a florist in Monterey and put in an order for Ruth to receive a dozen roses every day of the week with a card reading: “Forgive me. Dean.” Maybe that would help — in time.
During the days that followed he turned furiously to his work. He roamed the fields with Vince and planned a schedule of planting that would take care of the entire season. The market dropped to a new low and most of the shippers and growers were hurt, though not too badly. The greater number of them had reserves from the big profits at the beginning of the season to see them through safely. Dean was not hurt at all. He insisted that the good weather in the East was going to break and made Freeman cut sales down to an absolute minimum. Some of the lettuce left in the fields went bad and some of the growers on contract were in a mood to tear Dean’s office apart. Then the weather broke in the East with thunderstorms and heavy showers, followed by bright hot days that turned lettuce to slime and cracked the better heads and wiped out the truck gardens. The Salinas market jumped to three dollars and Dean and Freeman started selling again at a profit and Dean was suddenly king.
He was sending out more cars every day than any other shipper in the business and was in healthier financial condition than anyone else in the valley. The ice shed was working at capacity and all four tubes of the vacuum plant were in constant use. He accepted lettuce from other growers and shippers at a flat rate of fifteen cents a carton, or ninety-six dollars for a carload. The vacuum plant showed a profit and for the first time was in black on the books. Dean was then automatically elected president of the growers’ association, a post that always went to the biggest man in the business. Except for Ruth, Dean’s cup was filled to overflowing.
Dean was so busy that he had almost forgotten the existence of Steve Moore and his company. Even when he learned that the Moore outfit had dropped to fifth place among the shippers in number of cars moved, his reaction was one almost of indifference. He had reached the top and was secure and could find no one on his level to challenge his supremacy. He was almost content.
Hal Smith brought Steve back to Dean’s mind. He telephoned one morning and suggested cautiously that they meet in some out-of-the-way place that noon. Dean was tempted to tell him to get lost, but curiosity changed his mind. He told Hal to meet him on the highway at the turnoff to Spreckles.
Dean forgot the date and was heading toward Berdell’s for lunch when it came back to his mind. He drove out the highway, turned onto the Spreckles road, and saw Hal’s car parked under the giant walnut trees lining either side of the roadway. Dean came a stop against the rear bumper of the other car and waited. Hal had to come to him. He slid nervously into the right seat and lit a cigarette as Dean watched him narrowly.
Dean asked him, “How did you do during the two-and-a-quarter low?”
“Not good. I heard you held off for the rise.”
“Yeah.”
“Steve couldn’t do that. He had to keep selling and lost his shirt. Now he’s really in deep at the bank.”
“So I heard. Two hundred grand.”
“He doubled that day before yesterday.”
Dean looked interested. “Oh? That’s a lot of money to pay back. He can do it, though, if he’s got the stuff to make on a big market.”
“He’s making his big gamble on carrots.”
“Yeah? I didn’t know that.”
“About a thousand acres of carrots alone.”
“I’ll be damned. Y’ know, that’s not a bad move, if he can get labor to pull ’em out of the ground. It’s a funny thing about labor. Those Pachooks just hate carrots.”
“I know.”
“But if you can get labor there should be a damned good profit in carrots this year. We don’t have any planted ourselves. Steve’s not so dumb, considering the trouble he’s had with lettuce. Maybe he’ll take care of that bank note.”
“Maybe.” Hal flipped away the cigarette that was hardly smoked and nervously lit another. He glanced at Dean and then his eyes slid away. “I got some other news, though. The news you wanted.”
Dean crossed his legs and turned about to face Hal with an arm over the back of the seat. “Yeah?”
Hal said bitterly, “Damn it, Dean, I don’t like this, but I know darned well I’ll need another job the end of this season. Every day, now, Steve tries to take over more and more of my duties.”
“You were complaining before about having too much responsibility.”
“Well, but now he hardly trusts anything I have to say, and besides, he’s learning the business himself.”
“The hard way.”
“He’s pretty sharp, though. He learns quick. If he can keep his head above water this season, I think he’ll outdo the old man next year.”
“Oh, for God’s sake — ”
“I mean it, Dean. The old man was shrewd and Steve isn’t. But he’s got something better. Steve is intelligent. Once he really gets the hang of this business, he’ll go much farther than his father ever dared. I’m not kidding. And when he does, believe me, then you’ll have a real fight on your hands.”
Dean laughed. “I can take care of him any time. I’m not worried.”
“Don’t be so sure. I’ve never seen anyone take command the way he has lately. All right, so he’s losing money and losing accounts and getting in deep at the bank and he’s got plenty to worry about. But every day he learns something new and each day he’s a hell of a lot sharper than he was the day before. If he can survive, he’ll put that company back on its feet and make it bigger than ever.”
Dean started to laugh again, but his smile f
roze. “O.K., O.K.,” he snapped. “What’s this news you got on your mind?”
“Well, I still say I don’t like, this, but I’ll tell you. I did like you said and got chummy with the Moore shed boss. I keep talking about old Tom and every once in a while I bring in Joe Biancoli’s name. So yesterday he came through with the dope on what it’s all about.”
“Joe gets a pay-off.”
“Sure. It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while you’ll run into a commission broker who’ll take an under-the-counter pay-off. That’s the way it was with Joe and old Tom.”
“How about Steve?”
“No dice. Steve won’t play that way. But Joe is stuck, anyway, and he’s sore as hell about it. He can’t stop buying from Steve because then the whole business would know he’d been taking a pay-off all these years from the old man. You see?”
“Sure.”
“So he keeps on buying the same amount.”
“That makes sense. Now, just what did the old man pay him?”
“Joe got ten dollars slipped into his pocket for every car he bought from Moore’s.”
“Hmmm. At ten cars daily, that means a hundred bucks a day for Joe. Pretty sweet. A couple thousand a month is a nice wad for any broker, particularly when he don’t — doesn’t have to account for it. Yeah.”
Hal smiled weakly. “That’s it. That’s what you wanted.”
“Uh-huh.”
Dean looked through the windshield at the walnut trees and remembered how, as a child, he had gathered walnuts from the ground and sold them at back doors so that he could eat in the school cafeteria now and then, like other kids. He thought of Joe and his arrangement with old Moore and wondered if Joe had ever had to gather walnuts. Maybe so. Or maybe it was old bottles he had sold for spare money. Joe had come from somewhere in the East, from the slums. He knew the value of a dollar. He was certainly always after it.
It would be easy to approach Joe, knowing now the exact sum involved. And Joe, whether he liked it or not, would have to go along on a deal. Joe was on salary for the East-West market chain. His job was to buy all sorts of produce for East-West at the lowest price and best quality. Friendship was not supposed to influence his judgment, and rarely did, and, of course, bribery could cost him his job. Joe would be easy to reach. He was vulnerable. Once a man dirtied his hands, he could never again get them clean.
Hunger and the Hate Page 24
