Reinhart's Women

by Thomas Berger

  Blaine looked at him. “She has a full life. She has lots of her own friends. I say, more power to her.” He stood up abruptly, wrinkled his nose, sniffed, and spoke. “I really must leave.”

  “Your mother was here earlier. She got some more money from Winona. Is she really going to California?”

  Blaine nodded briskly. “Of course. If she says so. I have never known Mother not to carry things through.”

  “Same is true of you, Blaine,” said Reinhart. “You actually are quite impressive at it.”

  Blaine turned and marched back to the bedroom to get his sons. Before long he reappeared, followed by two small stragglers, each of whom carried a Matchbox car. Blaine held the one valise that served both boys: the smaller you are, the lighter your travel. In the pocket on the right round of his little jeans-clad butt Toby carried the bandanna given him by his grandfather. It was too big for the pocket, and most of it dangled. When Reinhart came to say good-bye, he snatched at it.

  “Somebody’s going to steal your tail,” he said.

  “No, they’re not!” Toby cried in his contrary style, but when Reinhart turned to address Parker he saw, from the side of eye, that the senior grandson was furtively tucking the bandanna in.

  “Well, Parker, it’s been nice having had you on board,” said Reinhart, and did not dwell on the ceremony of parting, for a child of that age is like a cat about such matters and won’t meet your eye.

  He opened the door and told the boys: “Run down and punch the elevator button. The bottom one.”

  “I know!” said Toby. He got the jump on his brother, but Parker’s flying sneakers were close behind.

  “But don’t get on the elevator until your father gets there!”

  “I know!” said Toby.

  Reinhart spoke to Blaine. “I really enjoyed having them. I got to know them a little better. They’re nice boys, Blaine. Any time I can serve as baby-sitter...”

  Blaine looked lofty. “Of course a nanny would be the answer.” He did not go so far as to assume a British accent, but still, he was a remarkable fellow.

  When they had left Reinhart went to gather up the dirty laundry, stuffing to the limit two pillowcases. He took these down to the basement, filled two washers, dropped into the respective slots the requisite coins, and was on his way back to the apartment, there to wait until it was time to return and transfer the wet wash to the dryers, when he encountered Andrew, the doorman, who was just coming off his shift. He hadn’t spoken anything beyond the commonplaces to Andrew since the day that Mercer had left the building clad only in a towel. Reinhart had not seen any great reason to bring the man up to date on the subject of his daughter-in-law. Andrew had no doubt seen worse in his years of service.

  “Home to supper,” he said now, remembering that he himself was all alone this evening.

  “Yes, indeed,” Andrew said with obvious satisfaction. “I’ll say good evening to you, Colonel.”

  “Say, Andrew,” Reinhart said, turning back after they had passed each other. “It was only today that I discovered that the landlord’s daughter lives right here in the building.” He laughed lightly at his ignorance.

  “I expect you mean Edie Mulhouse,” said Andrew. “But she is Edwin Mulhouse’s child. He just works as a bookkeeper for his brother Theodore M., who is the one who has the money.”

  Reinhart looked up and down the basement corridor, seeing no one. “Edie’s a very nice girl, but I don’t think she’s found herself yet”

  The doorman maintained an expression that might be seen as benevolently detached, and Reinhart understood it as the mark of the professional.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking out loud, not asking your opinion of a tenant.”

  He said good night to Andrew. After two more trips down to the laundry room, one to transfer the clothes to the dryer and the second to fetch the load back home, he fell into the kind of dispirit which sometimes even claims a cook, and he made his own supper childishly on a peanut-butter sandwich and a glass of milk.

  He was lonely, but it was at least a relief to have his room back. He made up a fresh bed, and after having taken a leisurely shower and dried himself with a fluffy fragrant towel, he put on the television set and inserted himself between the fresh sheets. If he ever made any money, he wanted to get himself one of those remote-control gadgets. As it was, he did not dare to do more than nap fitfully throughout the evening, for fear he would fall into a sound sleep and stay in it till morning. Yet climbing out of bed and going across to extinguish the set was just enough to keep him awake for any subsequent hour.

  When finally he had nevertheless cranked up sufficient courage to undertake the mission, at about one A.M., had already swung his feet down onto the bedside rug, the late-late movie came on, starring Jack Buxton.

  CHAPTER 18

  REINHART WAS HALF ASLEEP when he answered the phone.

  “Carl? You’re not still in bed?”

  He covered the instrument as he cleared his throat. “In fact I am, Grace.” Only in recent years would he have had the nerve to make that sort of admission. When younger he would have denied the charge had it been made at five A.M. He squinted at the electric alarm clock on the bedside table. “It’s hardly seven thirty.”

  He had stayed awake last night for the entire Buxton film, for once not the kind of action movie with which the man was usually associated, but a romantic comedy, probably the only one he ever made. It wasn’t bad: a kind of hygienic bedroom-farce-cum-mistaken-identity caper, co-starring a cream-faced, retroussé, wry but cheery young actress (who had never been seen again) and featuring a supporting cast of benevolent zanies, the inordinate Slavic concert pianist, the stuttering maitre d’hôtel, the effeminate hotel clerk, and the fluttering middle-aged lady wearing a hat and, for some unexplained reason, speaking in an English accent. Movies were better then.

  Grace was saying something. Reinhart came back on the line and overrode her voice. “I’m glad you called finally, Grace. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for several days. First, the TV show went well, I thought. At least so the studio people told me.” She tried to recapture his ear at this point, but he said imperiously: “No. Let me finish. Then I found a little café up in the country that serves an extraordinary chili con carne, homemade, made in fact on the premises. I think that Epicon should maybe consider it as a product to can and sell to the public. It’s a different concept of the dish from the other canned versions you can buy—your own Pancho Villa brand, for example. And this is an example of the kind of thing that I think Epicon should try to go in the direction of, whether or not this chili works out: namely, the interesting and, if possible, unique product that would deserve the name of gourmet, instead of the line of more or less fake stuff offered at present.”

  Grace cried: “Carl! I think you were just pretending to sleep just now, weren’t you, you sly dog? You’ve got the jump on me.” But she seemed in a good mood: perhaps Winona had trained her to acquire a taste for a certain amount of bullying from anyone named Reinhart. “Listen for a moment, please! The Eye Opener folks are looking for you.”

  “You mean the TV show?”

  “Sure! This is a comedy of errors. You’re not listed in the book—”

  “That’s because of Winona,” said Reinhart. “It’s her phone, really, not mine.”

  “And that wouldn’t have mattered ordinarily, because they could have called me for the number, but in point of fact I was laid up for a day or so and not in the kind of communication with the office that I usually maintain.”

  “I hope you have fully recovered,” Reinhart said, in a ritualistic expression.

  Grace went on: “I had neglected to put your number on my wheel, so my secretary couldn’t help—”

  “Yes, Grace. Go on.” The fact was that his “employment” had been merely her private project, a feature of the cajolery of Winona. “But what did they want?”

  “Only to say that you were sensational, old boy!”
<
br />   “Pardon?”

  “You were the hit of the show, Carl, and they got tons of calls and letters asking for more. All raves, buddy.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It’s your image, Carl: knowledgeable, but all wool and a yard wide. You’re plain folks. You don’t talk down to anybody, but you have your specialty down cold. That’s what they’re saying over at Channel Five! See, when it conies to food, everybody’s got to eat. You become too partisan about a certain kind, though, you lose a lot of people, or if you get too fancy-pants. On the other hand, as a nation we’ve passed beyond the simple meat-and-potatoes phase. Well, that was my idea in bringing your expertise into Epicon in some way, except that for a little while I couldn’t figure out just the right way to maximize what either one of us, or the firm, would get from it—”

  “Did they, the people at the Eye Opener Show, have any plans to put me on again?”

  “That’s the whole point, mister! They want to give you a regular daily spot to cook up something on the air! You’re on the threshold of stardom, Carl. Now here’s our idea—mine, just now, but the rest of the board will go along with me, I can promise you that. To have our own man on television every day, who would turn that down?”

  “You mean Epicon will sponsor me?”

  “That’s the most popular of the wake-up shows in the local markets, outdrawing even the network programs of the same type. They get a damned stiff commercial rate, but hell, you’ll use our food products, clearly marked, and I’m getting us into cook-ware these days. Did you use that copper-clad fry pan I sent over to the studio the other day? Unfortunately I couldn’t catch the show.”

  “That skillet was junk, Grace. The copper’s just for aesthetics: so thin it looks as if applied with a paintbrush. That’s the kind of thing I disapprove of, along with bottled hollandaise sauce.” He got out of bed. “And if I do this show, I won’t be bound by an obligation to use anything Epicon sells. Most of your line is crap, Grace, whether you know it or not.”

  “Come on, Carl,” said Grace, with no diminution of enthusiasm. “I don’t mean for a minute that you would be standing by with your finger in your ear while everybody else collected the bucks. You’d be an integral part of it, on a percentage of the increase in sales, et cetera. We wouldn’t be asking you to do charity work, big fellow.”

  Her style was remarkably reminiscent of several male con men with whom Reinhart had been associated in past commercial ventures; beginning with Claude Humbold the frenetic realtor in whose office, so many years before, he had met Genevieve. A practice of them all had been to talk money incessantly while never delivering a cent.

  “Apparently that’s what I’ve been doing thus far, Grace.”

  “Now, Carl, you know I’ve been under the weather. I’m back now and full of beans. You’ll be paid well for these one or two little things, of course, but what I’m talking now is big bucks.”

  “I’ll have to speak to the Eye Opener people first.”

  “I think we ought to make our deal before you go to them,” Grace said. “I really do, Carl. I don’t want to lean on you, but after all it really was me who saw your potential. As I recall, you practically had to be dragged out of your home kitchen. I mean, if you’re going to make a career of it, don’t you think I should get a little credit?”

  “It’s true that at one time I would have thought that way,” said Reinhart. “But now I don’t.” And as if that were not blunt enough, he added: “You’ve got enough from me. Think about my chili suggestion. I can always take it elsewhere.”

  Grace whistled low and said: “I’ll tell Win she’s a chip off the old block. Don’t go away mad, Carl. I think we can do business. If you insist, though, call Billy Burchenal at Five. He’s the producer of Eye Opener. He’ll be at his office till noon.” She gave the number.

  Reinhart took his pajamas off and nakedly crossed the hall to the bathroom, having learned that trick from Mercer. But it was one of the advantages in living alone. After showering, he had some coffee and toast. He should have been ravenous the morning after dining on peanut butter, but he was too excited to be hungry.

  At last the time reached a decent hour to call Burchenal, he hoped.

  The producer answered his own line, perhaps because it was Saturday.

  “My name is Carl Reinhart. I was supposed—”

  “Carl, hi. You’re a hard man to find. Could you possibly zoom over here this morning, say by eleven, and we can get this deal wrapped?”

  Reinhart chuckled to relieve his nervousness. “You don’t waste time, do you, Mr. Burchenal?”

  “‘Burch,’ please. Sixth floor, six-oh-two. I’ll give your name to Security downstairs.” He hung up.

  A quarter-hour later Winona called her father.

  “Daddy, you’re going on TV? Isn’t that great?” She giggled.

  “It might be,” said Reinhart. It helped to have someone else’s enthusiasm to play off. “I don’t know, though. I’m not a professional cook, let alone a performer.” He waited for and got Winona’s loving protests. “We’ll see. I haven’t talked to them yet. I’m going over there this morning.”

  “That reminds me,” said Winona. “This is a thing I know something about. You’ve got to get yourself an agent to do the negotiating of the deal.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “A show-business person, though, not the kind of agency I have, which is for models.”

  “Shouldn’t I wait until I get a little farther along in my career—if in fact I have a TV career?” Yet this talk was thrilling to him.

  “Noo,” his daughter said forcefully. “Now is the time to set the pattern: you wanna talk turkey from the beginning. Otherwise they’ll try to screw you.”

  Reinhart wet his lips. “Really, Winona...”

  “Sorry, Dad. That just slipped out.”

  “Huh? Oh. No, I meant, gee, the whole idea of my being a television performer is so startling if I think about it, that I’d probably do it for a while for no payment whatever.” He did not add that he had performed a few jobs for Grace in that fashion, including even one TV appearance. “Let me just go and talk to the producer first and hear his proposition. I’ll consult with you on the deal I’m offered, I promise.”

  “Some of the models here have done some acting work. One of them has a small part in Song of Norway at the dinner theater in the Lemburg Mall.”

  “Jack Buxton was in that, wasn’t he? The actor who died the other day?”

  “Gee, I couldn’t say,” said Winona.

  “Didn’t we ever watch him together in old movies on TV when you were a kid?” Reinhart asked, softening in nostalgia. “We had some good times, didn’t we, baby? Remember the popcorn I used to rush out to make at commercials? And those enormous Dagwood sandwiches we’d eat?”

  Winona took in air. “I can’t even listen to that kind of talk without going up one size.” She sighed out. “I gave up a lot for my career.”

  “Is that right? You mean you still have to discipline yourself?” He couldn’t believe it; she was sweetly trying to make him feel good. He adored his daughter. He changed the subject. “Don’t tell me you are working today too.”

  “Not me,” said she. “Grace went to her office, but I’m still in bed.”

  He regretted having asked the question, but within a trice recovered when Winona added: “My room is practically soundproof, and anyway you know what a heavy sleeper I am. I didn’t hear her go out, but she just called me now with the good news.”

  “Blaine came over not long after you were here yesterday and got the boys,” said Reinhart. “He refuses to acknowledge that anything is wrong with Mercer. What can I do? I don’t want to interfere, but I’m worried about the boys’ being neglected.”

  Winona cleared her throat. “I’ve talked this thing over with Grace.” She waited for his objection: he understood that, but none would be forthcoming. Did not Grace by now have the status of an in-law?

  “And?”

>   “First, the shrink I told you about is a prerequisite. Don’t blame me, Dad! I didn’t say it!”

  “Look, Winona, I’m not against anything that works.”

  “Then Grace thinks she might find something for her at Epicon.”

  “A job?”

  “Maybe part-time anyway.”

  “You know, that’s a damned fine idea,” Reinhart said. He saw no reason to add that it would probably be unpaid unless Mercer spoke up. The fact was that he did think it a splendid thing to try on for size: his daughter-in-law was a college graduate after all, which was more than he could say for himself. Given a certain kind of employment, she might even learn to spell most common words.

  “Do you miss me, Daddy?”

  “You know I do. But I also recognize that this is a transitional time, Winona. Besides, we probably know all there is to know about each other at close quarters. Now there’s a whole new perspective for us both, looking back and forth across town.”

  “Who can say where you might be living a year from now if this TV thing pays off as I think it might? Heck, you might be picked up by one of the big networks and go to New York or the Coast.”

  “I’m trying not to have delusions of grandeur,” said her father. “I used to be addicted to such fantasies while not bothering to see whether there was any solid ground beneath me when I came down. No, Winona, I’m the sort of guy who does better by looking at the eggs in hand rather than at the soufflé to come. I’m a cook and not a waiter: I’m better at making things and letting someone else take over from there. I’m going to try to remember that if I do get on TV regularly, and keep from being too much of a ham.”

  “I beg to differ with you, Dad!” Winona protested. “I think I know something about an allied field. Modeling after all is performing too. You have to have presence. You can’t think first of what would be your natural good taste. I worry only that you might be too modest!”

  “My, oh, my,” said Reinhart, “but aren’t we anticipating?”