Sam laughed. "Anyone who plays the market or the horses has some lovely rationalizations. Yours I have heard . . . even more elaborately, fella."
Yale smiled. "I was going over the figures on the Wilshire Trust building, yesterday. Real estate is going to regain its value in this city. They have five million dollars in four and a half debentures due in eight years. The debentures are selling at ten. Rumor has it that the owners have applied to convert the debentures to common stock."
"That's common knowledge, too," Sam said. "You expect the debentures will shoot up. But what in hell is the common stock going to be worth? I'll bet you they don't even get S. E. C. permission."
Yale toyed with his martini glass. He ran his finger around the edge. "I'm thinking, after studying the thing in detail, that the common stock would be worth a hell of a lot of money. The debentures in any case are worth more than ten dollars. New York real estate is going to boom again. You know, Sam, it occurred to me that the application for conversion was made with the pretty certain knowledge it might never be approved. This afternoon use the bank check I've given you as collateral. Pick up twenty thousand of those debentures for Challenge, Inc. You better buy some for yourself."
Sam didn't buy for himself. A week later he regretted it. He found Yale in the Higgins' directors' room, surrounded by piles of paper. Yale was making a series of calculations. "You know I hate to do this kind of work," he said to Sam. "Mine is not a mathematical mind, but Agatha Latham taught me how important it was."
"Have you seen what's happening on the Wilshire four and a half's?" Sam asked.
"They are going up," Yale said coolly.
"They are up to ninety. You better unload, fella; that kind of luck won't hold."
"I think they'll go to two hundred. You can still get in. You can sell me out when they reach one hundred sixty. I have in mind netting about three million."
Sam argued with him. He told Yale it was impossible. Trying to determine how Yale's mind worked, Sam asked him why he didn't plunge with his remaining fifty thousand dollars. Yale grinned. Sam's words raised a momentary recollection for him of Anne, naked, exhausted from making love, looking at the check in awe. "I never knew so much money existed," she had said, flinging the check in the air and kissing him again and again. "Now Cindar and I can buy a bathroom. No more sitting in an outhouse or peeing in a chamberpot. No more baths in an iron tub." Yale chuckled as he recalled how he had threatened to make love to her until she hollered "Uncle" unless she apologized for being upset in India with his pre-occupation for making money.
"Sam, that other fifty thousand bank check is in the coffers of the Midhaven National Bank supporting a mortgage on an old house I'm planning to remodel. But if I hadn't moved so fast on my domestic arrangements, I would have most certainly bought more of those debentures, only I would have bought them at ten. Still, they are a good buy at ninety. Sit down here, I'll show you."
Yale showed him several pages of figures. He pointed out to Sam the value of the property. "You better do a little grinding in the economic facts of life instead of worrying so much about your uptown sex life. Maybe the debentures won't go to two hundred. I'm gambling. So what? The plain facts are right here in this operating statement . . . plus the future of real estate in New York."
By the end of the month the debentures had risen to two hundred and ten. Following Yale's instructions, Sam sold him out when the market rose to one hundred and sixty. "You should have held on a little longer," Sam said. The paternalistic tone had vanished from his voice, replaced by open admiration for Yale's acumen.
"I've done exactly what I wanted to do," Yale said happily. "I ran three hundred thousand up to three million with enough extra to pay commissions to Higgins. Why play the gamble too hard? I think the market is a little out of line with the facts. The debentures will break any day, now. They should level at about one hundred."
A few days later the market on the debentures floundered. They fell to one hundred and fifteen. Sam proudly introduced Yale to his father. "This is the bird I've been telling you about. We roomed together at 'B' school."
"You made a nice killing," the elder Higgins, a slender grey-haired man in his sixties, said to Yale. "Was it a lucky accident or can you do it again?"
"I'll do it again," Yale said, smiling confidently. "Maybe not so easily next time. The secret is to study and wait. . . ."
"Wait for what?" the elder Higgins asked.
"A slight tingling sensation in my backbone," Yale said. They couldn't tell whether he meant it or not.
"You better give Sam some instructions. . . ." the elder Higgins said gruffly. "He's been tingling in the wrong places."
Despite insistent pleading during his nightly telephone calls to Midhaven, Yale had been unable to persuade Cynthia to come to New York. Until Cynthia would come, he knew that he couldn't ask Anne to make another weekend visit. Both of them had asked him pointedly on the telephone what he was afraid of. They told him, laughing at his obvious silence, that he couldn't ask for more. He had a home with two women in it.
"It's only a two-hour train ride. If you must work in New York, you can commute weekends," Anne said. "And you can come home and try heating water on a coal stove to take a bath."
Cynthia said, "Anne and I are just waiting to get you into this tin tub that Ralph dug up for us."
They told him that he was living in splendor while he forced them to live in the backwoods. With grim humor they described the pleasures of sitting in the outhouse on a cold March night.
Yale knew that they were forcing him to a showdown. If there was any possible way to live with two women he was going to have to prove it, not piecemeal in New York hotel rooms, but together in Midhaven. After his success with the Wilshire Trust debentures, he decided that he couldn't wait any longer. It was imperative that some decision be made. Either they would all stay together and make Challenge, Inc. a reality, or else Yale hated to contemplate . . . the "or else." Having Anne and Cynthia had seemed to fuse the divergent coils of his energy. For the first time in his life he was driven with ambition. The goal, tenuous as Challenge still was in his mind, seemed worthy of every effort. But not alone. Not without Anne and Cynthia.
Riding from New York on the six forty-five to Midhaven, he wondered why the female element, the demand for female acceptance, was so important to him. The current of his thinking didn't seem to function unless it was connected to the female pole. Some men might look upon it as a denial of their own masculinity. Many men, basically, resented women. He remembered once, in college, writing a thesis for a psychology course in which he analyzed the handling of female characters by twenty top male authors. Not one of these authors had been able to develop the male-female relationship without a strong element of sadism, and a basic revulsion toward the female.
Yale wondered if the male rejection of his fundamental affinity with the female was a natural reaction, or a learned reaction. First taught by the ancient medicine men in their taboo system, and calcified into an accepted pattern of behavior by the age-old brainwashing of religious theories.
When Yale got off the train he saw them waiting, far back on the platform. With a grin that belied his basic uneasiness he grabbed them both around the waist and gave them each a peck on the cheek. As he walked between them, listening to their happy chatter, he was glad that he had come. In the next few days, he reflected with amusement, he must find the solution to the problem of how one man and two women could adjust sexually to each other. The Mohammedan with his harem didn't have the same problem. He simply had uncomplaining slave vessels into which he could discharge his desires as he saw fit. Yale had two young, physically attractive, American girls whose entire lives up to this time had been conditioned to the sacredness of monogamous marriage. Both of them had been brought up in a society in which it was considered impossible for a man to love more than one woman, especially in a condition of marriage.
Both Anne and Cynthia seemed unusually happy. Their talk wa
s filled with warm laughter. They told him that Ralph Weeks was minding Ricky. "Imagine a sixty-five-year-old baby sitter, smoking a cigar and rocking a crib!"
"Wait until you see the plans for remodeling the house," Anne said. "It's going to be a mansion. Bob Coleman is a wonderful architect."
"Handsome -- and single, too!" Cynthia said, enjoying the idea of teasing Yale a little. "You should have seen him the first few days when he was measuring the rooms; consulting first with me and then with Anne as to where we wanted bathrooms and trying to figure out the bedroom arrangements. You could see that he was quite bewildered. He was even more confused when Anne and I were discussing how we wanted one master bedroom with a huge bathroom and another bedroom with a smaller bathroom leading directly off it. Bob finally just about asked Anne what business it was of hers. Anne told him that we were very close. She said that she was my sister-in-law, Mrs. Anne Marratt, from Ohio."
"And you know what he said?" Anne asked, giggling. "He said he didn't realize that Yale had a brother. You should have seen our faces. We both looked at him with our mouths open. Cindar recovered first, and said, 'Oh, it's his father's brother's son.'"
"Ye gods, that would make you cousins." Yale laughed.
"We figured that out later," Cynthia said. "Anyway he has stopped asking us. But you'll see when he comes over. He is still plenty puzzled. He's coming out tomorrow or the next day to go over costs with you."
Yale asked what Coleman had guessed the remodeling would cost.
"He was cautious. Not less than forty thousand dollars. He said the house would be worth double that when he finished. Do you think it's too much, Yale?" Cynthia asked.
Anne said, "Cindar and I haven't been very practical, but if you don't think we should spend so much, we won't mind . . . just as long as we have at least one toilet that flushes water."
When they got to the car, Anne stood aside. She let Cynthia slide into the middle of the front seat. Yale got behind the wheel, wondering how they had figured out the seating arrangement.
"Don't worry about the money. As soon as the house is remodeled, I'm going to re-mortgage it to Challenge, Inc. That will free the money for another project I have in mind."
Yale drove to the "Hare and Hounds," a heavily patronized eating place decorated after an American's idea of an English country manor. Because the restaurant was new and specialized in expensive dinners, he knew that there was a chance that Pat and Liz would be there. Some day, they would have to see him with Cynthia and Anne. If it happened tonight so much the better.
"I'll buy you both a lobster. While we're eating I'll tell you what has developed with Challenge."
Cynthia and Anne sat opposite him in a candle-lighted booth. Yale admired the clean lines of their faces, and the soft glow in their eyes. Anne light complexioned, with her natural blonde hair piled carelessly on her head, and Cynthia with dark black hair flowing to the top of her shoulders. As the hostess guided them past other tables to their booth, Yale caught the stares and half-envious glances of other diners. In their strikingly contrasting beauty Anne and Cynthia seemed to complement each other. Even the maternity dress that Cynthia was wearing didn't dampen male interest. Men felt the natural beauty of both the girls with a sharp impact. Beauty that said without words: "We are happy, proud women who love our man with a fierce passion."
Over manhattans, Yale told them of his success with the Wilshire Trust debentures. Their faces showed amazement.
"You mean in just two weeks, you have made three million dollars?" Cynthia asked, disbelief in her voice.
"Well, not quite. I started with three hundred thousand dollars on the rupee conversion." Yale explained his maneuver, enjoying their swift comprehension.
"Weren't you nervous that you might have guessed wrong?" Anne asked. "I'd have been so terrified that the market would drop, I'd have sold everything after the debentures had gone up just a little."
Yale grinned. He played with the silverware. "I was cautious, I held back fifty thousand in case anything went wrong. It's funny . . . knowing that you and Cynthia were in Midhaven, caring . . ." Yale blushed. "May I say loving me . . . ?"
Cynthia looked at Anne. They smiled sheepishly at each other. "Well, anyway," Yale continued unabashed, "I seemed to have a sixth sense born of love. It's as if something is guiding me to create Challenge as a focus for our love and marriage. I hope you realize it -- you gals are working for a non-profit corporation. I'm simply your treasurer and financial advisor. Very soon now you are going to have to go to work and support me. What's the matter, Cindar? You look so worried."
"Sometimes, I can't believe that you are the same Yale Marratt I knew in college."
"You mean I have changed for the worse?"
"Oh, honey, no! Even Anne admits that you are somehow 'different.' We both agreed that what you want to do is typically quixotic, and typically you. Only now you seem to know so much, somehow . . . financial things that bewilder us both. . . ." She paused. "I'm not clear, am I? But years ago you were more of a dreamer. I never thought . . . well, I guess I was afraid of your wild ideas, then. Now, I get positively frightened when you talk so coolly of making three million dollars; and then this Challenge idea . . . Oh, Yale . . ."
"Maybe you are both my Sancho Panzas. A much more realistic idea when you think of it than that of Don Quixote followed by a fat man. A twentieth century Don Quixote with two beautiful women to try to keep him out of trouble."
"In trouble, you mean." Anne smiled. "Even Don Quixote had more sense than to believe that the rest of the male population would be gratified if he had two wives. I sometimes think that Cindar and I have a tiger by the tail."
"You can let go of this tiger without having it bite you," Yale said. "I don't blame either of you for being bewildered. The main thing is that I never would have gone this far, if I hadn't felt that basically the three of us all have the same outlook on life. It would certainly be impossible, for example, if any of us was so dollar-conditioned that our goal in life was to enjoy a superiority based on possessions. I don't believe either of you care for that kind of life."
"We insist on having a tub with running water, though." Anne grinned.
"And a flush toilet," Cynthia said. "Just wait. You are going to go sit in that outhouse with us, just for penance. You'll see how demanding two wives can be. Don't think we are going to wear just jeans and sweaters all the time either. . . ."
The waitress brought their lobsters, taking longer than necessary to arrange the side dishes.
"She's wondering what I've got to attract two such lovely dames." Yale laughed. Then, very seriously he told them how very much he hoped their marriage would work. "It would be kind of foolish for me to pray to a monogamous Christian or Jewish god. I don't particularly believe in destiny, but I feel that Challenge, Inc., will be a kind of central point in our marriage. By living together, gracefully, and caring deeply for each other, we will proclaim in our marriage and in our living the essential dignity of man. If man can't solve his own tiny problems -- problems that are within his control -- how can he cope with the larger ones? Sure . . . Challenge may not make much of a dent or change the course of the world, but if the three of us admit the goal is worthwhile; if we believe in the essential wonder of man and manage to awaken a few men to their possibilities, then we will have accomplished something."
Yale spoke so earnestly that he was unable to restrain the tears. He could see the warm approval on their faces and the extent of their love, but he was impelled to continue.
"What would you have me do? I have to know one thing for dead certain -- that you are with me. The way I have set this thing up, we may not be personally wealthy. If the basic fund grows -- and hold your breath -- I hope to build it up to at least twenty million dollars, then you will receive as managers thirty or forty thousand dollars a year." He noticed the surprise on their faces. "What do you want me to do? Forget it? Three million dollars is a lot of money. Even if I dissolve the foundation and pay
the taxes, we can still spend our lives in complete luxury -- we can own fancy foreign cars, swimming pools, chase around to swanky clubs, see the best shows . . . you both can have . . ."
"Yale, come up for air," Anne interrupted. She dug in the claw of her lobster. "Neither Cindar nor I want that kind of life. I don't know about Cindar, but thirty or forty thousand dollars a year sounds fabulous in itself. I grew up in a family where a man who made five or six thousand a year was considered well off."
Cynthia murmured her assent. Her face suddenly had a startled look. Yale turned and followed her glance. Dr. Amos Tangle was approaching their booth with a broad smile on his face. His almost completely bald head and imposing height drew the attention of the other diners like a magnet.
"It's Yale Marratt," he boomed, thrusting out his hand. Yale half arose and shook hands awkwardly. "Sit down, sit down, Yale. I've been meaning to call your father. I understand he came back from Florida sooner than expected. Is everything all right?"
Yale told him that he hadn't seen Pat. Doctor Tangle was looking at Anne and Cynthia. "I've seen you before young lady. Don't tell me!" He bent over the booth. "You're Cynthia Carnell," he said triumphantly. "I knew it! How's that for memory? You married Mat Chilling." Doctor Tangle looked sad. Evidently he remembered that Mat was dead. "I was sorry to hear about Mat. A brilliant man. Erratic, but no doubt about it a man with a mind."
"You're not quite up to date," Yale interjected coolly. "She's Cynthia Marratt, now. My wife."
Doctor Tangle made no attempt to conceal his surprise. Yale could see in his quick flicker of astonishment the question . . . what did Patrick Marratt think of this? A Jew in the family . . . despite everything Pat had done to discourage Yale.
"Well, congratulations are in order. Very nice . . ." Dr. Tangle seemed at a loss for words. As if to change the subject he paused and smiled at Anne who had been following the conversation with a twinkle in her eyes. "This is a lovely young lady, Yale." He stared at Anne. "I'm still not too old to appreciate female beauty. Introduce me."
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 50
