A Man of Affairs

by John D. MacDonald

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I had to think fast. I have a hunch it might work, and I couldn’t let that happen. The present Mrs. Brainerd is a bitch, but at least she keeps her nose out of the office. This item would try to run our shop and I think I like it there, and I think she would run it into the ground. So I had to come up with something that would shake her. She wasn’t asking my advice. Her mind was made up. She was just staking out the limits of her own reservation and putting up the no shooting and trapping signs. So I came up with a doozey. I told her I thought it was a terrible mistake. I told her I wouldn’t mention any names, but there was another woman in Guy’s past, a woman to whom he was strongly drawn physically. I told her that she had saved him from that awful woman. She had given him the strength to break the ties of the flesh. And now, if she denied him, she would be driving him right back into the arms of the third woman.”

  “Very tricky,” I said. “Appeal to the martyr in her.”

  “And also scare hell out of her. Which it did. It worked.” She laughed. Her eyes were dancing. “And so right now lady bountiful is probably in Guy’s bed, saving him from himself. She had that look when she loped off.” And she laughed again, and all of a sudden she was crying.

  “Hey!” I said. “Hey, now!”

  She flung herself onto my chest and nuzzled her head into my throat and enough of the words were intelligible so I could piece it together: “… years older and bald-headed … so sincere and with that ridiculous chin. He’d never look at me. Never, never, never, no matter what I do. So damn foolish, all of it. Likes them slinky and bitchy and affected. Oh, it all.”

  So, incredibly, Bridget was in love with Guy Brainerd, and she had just sent Elda Garry trotting off to Guy’s bed, and she had thought she could make a big scandalous joke about it, and laugh over it with a stranger, but it had cracked her up.

  “Always the wrong guy,” she said. “Always.” And a tear dropped like wax on the side of my throat and she snuffled. I had my arm around her waist. And pretty soon I found I had to send my mind winging away to some place else. I thought desperately of the barracuda and of how many shares of Harrison Mike Dean controlled, and how I was going to present my beef to the union officials, and then I tried to replay an old football game, and then I tried multiplying numbers by twelve, and then I tried to visualize a tall pitcher of ice water. But a bed is a bed is a bed. And an armful of girl in sun suit is an armful of girl in sun suit and no matter how far away I threw my mind it came zooming back to the here and the now and the scent of the crisp fresh hair and the firm warmth against chest and against my arm. So as I was bracing myself to come surging up to a sitting position and put an abrupt end to all this dangerous nonsense, she turned her head a little and caught up a little bit of the hide on the side of my neck between her teeth and nibbled it very gently. It seemed as if her teeth made little holes and all good intentions and will power drained out through those little holes. I hitched her around and found her mouth with mine. In a little while she got up and went over closed the door and came back, dropped her halter top and her sun shorts to the floor beside the bed, stood there for not more than two seconds and the stretched out beside me.

  She bent over the side of the bed and got her cigarettes out of the pocket of the sun shorts, lit two and gave me one and lay back in the circle of arm, huffed out a big cloud of smoke and said “Cheap and silly. A blond bawd in bed. I despise myself, ole Sam. Why use you to try to get even with the game?”

  “It depends on how you look at it.”

  “Nobody ever gets even. My God, I wish I could be like this. I wish I could be blithe and gay about it, and pay no attention to it, and indulge in it with big handsome strangers just for the sake of the pleasure, which, I might add, was considerable, and I do thank you, sir.”

  “There isn’t much to the people who can toss it off like that and go on their way. Jaded little empty people, Bridget.”

  She sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to hurt so much and feel so cheap and bitchy and reckless, and hate myself. You see, it’s this damn active conscience I’ve got. The way I was brang up, I guess.”

  “Don’t feel bad about it this time. You didn’t plan it.”

  “I don’t even know if I did or I didn’t. With you it’s the dark one, Louise, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know?”

  “The way you look at her. And I saw you on the dock last night. It gave me a lump in the throat, kind of.”

  “Yes, with me it’s that dark one.”

  “I think she’s one of the two or three really beautiful women I’ve ever seen.” She lifted her long and rounded left leg, the leg next to me, and locked her knee and pointed her toes at the ceiling. “Every five minutes my thighs get heavier. They’re getting all nasty and meaty. In one more year I’ll be round as a barrel.”

  “Fishing?”

  “I guess to hell I am. So if I’m fishing, Sam’l, build me up.”

  “The, thighs are not nasty and meaty. They are beautiful. They are delights. A man could stand on the corner of Fifth and Fifty-Second for weeks at a time without ever seeing a pair of thighs that …”

  “Don’t overdo it, Buster,” she said, dropping her leg. “What’s with the slob husband of the dark one? Just a plain and simple nogudnik? Just an All-American slob?”

  “Completely.”

  “So why doesn’t she ditch him? She’s the one with the money, no?”

  “It’s complicated. Her father had a hell of a heavy hand. She fought him every inch of the way, standing and slugging toe to toe. It gave her a funny kind of emotional insecurity and, after he died, a curious guilt complex. I think that if he had lived, she would have divorced Warren six months after they were married. But she seems to feel some ethical and emotional obligation to make this impossible marriage work. Tommy fought his old man in a different way. He just got out, just as soon as he could.”

  “He’s a doll. Luck in your venture, Sam. I wish you more luck than I’m going to have.”

  She sat up and put the halter top on, and then stood up and pulled the shorts on and zipped them at the side. She leaned over the bed and kissed me lightly on the lips and pulled back not over an inch and, looking directly into my eyes, said, “If I don’t get around to saying it sometime, you are a nice guy, Glidden. And if I can get over feeling like a cheap bitch, maybe I’ll find out this did me good.”

  She opened the door cautiously, stood listening, then pushed the screen open and went out. She waved at me through the screen and then she was gone.

  I fell asleep as abruptly as if I’d tumbled into a hole.

  FIVE

  It is a rare thing for me to see something that physically sickens me. It has happened only three or four times in my life, and it is always unexpected.

  I didn’t expect anything like that to happen during what was left of Thursday when I woke up at three-thirty. The interval of sleep had made the episode of Bridget seem completely unreal. It was more like something I had dreamed than something that had happened. But there were the two lipsticked butts in the glass ash tray and one medium long blond hair on the pillow. I drew it between my thumb nail and fingernail and it coiled into a tight coppery spring.

  I felt sweaty so I showered again, inspected my sunburn and decided I hadn’t overdone it, and got dressed. The veranda was empty, the main lounge was empty. Warren Dodge was alone in the play room with a dark highball and a copy of Time. He glanced up and looked back at the magazine. I was surprised he didn’t move his lips when he read. His underlip was strikingly pendulous.

  Bonny Carson lay prone in the sun by the pool. Bundy sat under the shade of an umbrella, playing solitaire and listening to a transistor portable set at low volume. The place was still in the grip of siesta. I found John and he found me a cold beer. I felt mildly restless and decided I might as well take a look at the generator house. The path was winding. When I stopped to drink beer out of the bottle I would pick up a mosquito or two.
I came to a clearing about two hundred yards behind the house. The busy noise of the generators seemed to come from a building on the far side of the clearing. There was a tumbledown shack on my left, set back against the pines and palmetto scrub. One of the two porch posts was gone and the porch roof had a drunken sag. After I had walked past it I glanced back at it. I stopped and turned, frowning and puzzled. Porter Crown’s continental wife stood in an attitude that was both furtive and rigid, staring into a broken window. Her red hair was flame against the weathered gray of the wood. She no longer looked sleepy and unresponsive. She was wearing gold slacks and a black blouse. She should not have worn slacks. Her hips were too abundant, her body, though attractive, too billowing and soft. She seemed to be peering into one corner of the window, so as not to be seen. I wondered what the hell was going on. I was not more than twenty feet from her, but she did not know anyone was within nine miles. I had half decided it was none of my business, and I was about to turn and be on my way when some sixth sense warned her. She snapped around and looked toward me. In that unguarded moment her face was a shocking mask of evil, the eyes slitted, the mouth loose. I could see that she was breathing heavily. Within moments her face reassumed its habitual dull and sleepy expression and she moved away from the window and walked, quite slowly, toward the path that led back to the house.

  I matched a mental coin and shrugged when I lost and went stealthily to the window anyway. They were in sunlight that came down through the broken roof. They were on a pile of straw. Her skirt and his trousers were in a heap beside them. I saw the knife and snake tattooed on his forearm. They plunged and strained as I watched. I was frozen there, but I do not think it could have been for more than three or four seconds. The eyes of Lolly Crown were squeezed tight against the sunlight, and her face was corroded by passion, her mouth savage and ugly with it. I sensed she had rot and evil wisdom in her far beyond her years. I turned away. I was not sickened by seeing a fragment of the sex act. That was merely slightly ludicrous, as it always is to anyone but the participants. What actually physically sickened me, in retrospect, was the memory of the voyeur expression on the face of Tessy Crown as she had watched the hired hand and her gypsy step-daughter, the memory of evil seen as clearly as anyone can ever hope to see it.

  I walked back toward the house. I felt as if I might gag. I finished the beer and then, with a grunt of effort, I hurled the bottle high over the trees. It spun and twinkled in the sun. I felt as if I wanted a bath with yellow soap and a wire brush.

  Tessy Crown sat on the far side of the pool from Bonny and Bundy, sat at a tin table under the shade of a striped umbrella. It was none of my damn business, I told myself. Stay the hell out of it, Glidden.

  But I walked over and sat down with her without invitation and said, “Did you follow them?”

  She gave me a torpid smile. “Too much zun makes me all bink and schleepy, yes?”

  “Did you follow them?”

  “On the boat I am so careful I don’t get too much zun.”

  “Damn it, are you going to do anything about it? That’s your step-daughter. You have an obligation.”

  The dozing pearly smile was unaltered. Her teeth were tiny and very white. Her breasts were vast. “But even zo, even in the shzade I get bink. From reflections, they tell me, but to me that does nod make sense.”

  I gave up. I went away. That was what she wanted me to do. And it still wasn’t any of my damn business. I went down to the dock with a small group when the Try Again came in. They had a good catch, but nothing special. The Bufords came in a few minutes later and they too had an average catch. The Bufords cleaned up and, shortly after five, took off in the float plane with their fish and their tackle and their sunburn.

  When I went inside Puss was sitting on the veranda talking to Lolly Crown. Lolly looked fresh and poised. I had the strong feeling that this little business vacation was jinxed. Nothing was going to go right. It seemed to be deteriorating rapidly, and I had the feeling that there were worse things ahead. And I had more than a vague gnawing of guilt about Bridget. The worst aspect of it seemed that it had happened with Louise only two rooms away.

  That night, after dinner, Fletcher Bowman asked me to come to Mike Dean’s room. I wished I had had four less drinks before dinner. I had drunk out of a feeling of depression. I felt fuzzy and dulled.

  Mike’s room was large. It was a corner room, with a space for a conversation group of tables and chairs. Mike kept kidding Bowman about the fish that had gotten away from him. I turned down a drink. Cam Duncan arrived a few minutes later.

  “You people have me outnumbered,” I said.

  “There’s nothing official about this, Sam,” Mike said with a hurt look. “Just a little chatter.” Cam made himself a drink. Bowman had made one for himself. Mike had his usual steaming cup of black coffee.

  Mike settled himself in his chair, sighed and said, “I’ll tell you one thing. You people did a good job of protecting yourself in the clinches. We’d hoped to control more than a hundred and eighty thousand shares by now. I won’t try to kid you, Sam. You were the one who did the job. Dolson is a cipher, an empty desk chair.”

  “Gene Budler and I handled it. Al Dolson came up with some good ideas.”

  “You realize that where we stand now, we can force representation on the Board?”

  “I suppose so. Whoever the Board is, I work for the Board. If they don’t want me, I go to some other outfit.”

  “That’s a healthy attitude,” Mike said.

  “Sure, and you can be a clown all your life,” Cam Duncan said, grinning at me.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You’re only thirty, Sam,” Cam said. “It’s still going to take some time before you can work yourself up into a slot where you can get your hands on some stock option deals and make real money. And maybe by that time they will have slammed the door. You can’t tell.”

  I began to sense the way it was going. “I don’t need very much. Your people made a thorough investigation. You probably know I make twenty-five thousand.”

  “You’re worth more,” Mike said.

  “I can get more. Some other place. But Harrison can’t pay more. Not yet. Not for a while. Look, don’t try to buy me. I live fine. I travel on expense account. I have a car and an apartment and all the clothes I need and I eat fine.”

  “We know most of the program you and Dolson have for Harrison,” Bowman said. “Want to fill us in a little on it?”

  I thought that over carefully. I knew the program was sound. I could see no harm in going ahead and telling them. It took me about ten minutes. God knows I’d said it enough times before. There was silence after I finished. They glanced at each other.

  Bowman said, “What’s your slant, Mike?”

  Mike looked over my head and said softly, “I don’t like it.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” I demanded, getting hot.

  Mike said, “Do you know the way some people drown? They try to swim after a boat in the wind. For years Harrison was churning along and the boat was drifting farther and farther away. Now you want to put on a big spurt and catch it. But I don’t think you will. I think you’ll drown.”

  “But why?”

  “You’ve got too heavy a tax burden, local, county and state. It’ll get heavier. Wages are high and productivity is low. Your shipping costs are high. You can fix the rest of the wagon maybe, but you can’t fix that part. Those items are beyond your control. Harrison was half asleep for too long, and the world moves too fast. You’ll never take up all the slack and be in a healthy competitive position.”

  “I think we will. With a quality product plus top designing, people will pay just enough of a premium price to offset those factors we can’t change.”

  “Will they?” Cam asked. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s not a fair question,” Mike said. “Listen to me, Sam. Our little game up until now has gotten some national attention. In spite of the efforts of Guy B
rainerd, the public seems to have a morbid interest in the activities of Mike Dean. Okay, suppose you keep the McGanns and the Dodges under your thumb. I may not be interested in putting a couple of men on the Board. I may give up on this thing and get out. So say you go along for five years, and at the end of that time you find out I was right, and Harrison folds. So where are you? By then you’ll be thirty-five and you’ll have wasted five years and worked your heart out for the chance of being associated with a big, loud failure. They’ll remember you stood off Mike Dean and you lost.”

  “Or,” said Cam Duncan smoothly, “look at the other side of the coin. Suppose you win. You won’t hold a share of Harrison, and you won’t have much savings after taxes. You win so that Warren Dodge can live high off the hog. That’s about the face of it.”

  It was indeed very smooth.

  “Suppose,” I said, “you nail down the proxies you’re after. Another way to put it is to say I can’t prevent them from signing after the snow job you do on them. Then what do you do?”

  Mike shrugged. “We make our own survey. That loss record is pretty attractive, you know, in setting up a sale. I can think of a couple of outfits who might be interested.”

  “Even though you say the firm is doomed?”

  “Maybe the buyer would be as optimistic as you are.”

  “So suppose a sale isn’t feasible?”

  “After our own survey,” Bowman said, “we may come around to your way of thinking, Sam.”

  “Don’t try to kid me. Why don’t you level with me? With every trick you’ve been able to think of, what’s your educated guess on how high you can bump the stock before the bottom falls out of it?”

  Again they exchanged glances. Mike pursed his lips. “I employ some pretty good practical psychologists and some dandy statisticians and some bright accountants. The figure we come up with is fifty-four. That’s the place to unload. It may not be the top, but it’s the place where there’ll be enough steam left in it to hold it up there while we unload.”