by Sol Stein
“Thanks.”
When Clete left, Fetterman looked up at the camera again. He’d heard about motels that showed X-rated movies, but this was a new twist. Incredible what people do.
He was putting his pajamas on when a thought occurred to him. Clete hadn’t left the room key.
*
Clete dangled the room key in front of Paula at the reception desk. “New one for you, honey. Jacob Fetterman, room 34. Smart young fellow. Spotted the camera.”
As Paula took the key, the door was swung open by one of the staff members in the blue-and-orange Cliffhaven uniform. Out of breath, he yelled, “Your guy Henry Brown’s on the loose again. Just found one of the trusties unconscious on the road.”
“Shit,” Clete said. “He can’t get far. Where’s his wife?”
“Locked in her room.”
“Good. Let’s round up a couple of the guys.” He held his hand out palm up to Paula.
She reached into the desk and pulled out a standard California Highway Patrol .38. Clete put the pistol in his belt and held his hand out again. Paula put the clip of bullets in his hand. “Remember Mr. Clifford’s warning.”
“Don’t worry,” Clete said. “I know the rules.”
12
It was the shortest help-wanted ad Daniel Pitz had ever seen:
RESORT MANAGER, BOX 1665
At first he thought it was a dumb ad. With that little said, a hundred guys could answer. But somebody who didn’t really need a job wouldn’t answer something like that. That eliminated the merely curious. You couldn’t phone and find out more. You had to write. To a box number at the L.A. Times. You couldn’t guess what kind of place it was or who you were writing to. It was all up to you. Your letter had to do it all. Nobody would get in touch with you unless your letter made you sound like the right type for them, whoever them was.
Dan Pitz decided that somebody smart had placed that ad. He liked smart people. Whenever he thought of himself, it was not as good-looking, which he was, or physically strong, which he also was, but as real smart. When he had got caught pulling the fire alarm in grade school, his homeroom teacher had said to him, “You think you’re smart?” When he answered, “Yes ma’am,” she had slapped his face. Well, he’d gotten even on her, hadn’t he? Four flat tires on her car.
Dan spent all of Sunday afternoon and part of the evening composing his letter carefully.
“Dear Sir or Madam,” it began, “I am intrigued by your laconic advertisement.”
He chose the word “laconic” carefully. It proclaimed that the applicant was a man of good vocabulary who assumed the recipient would be also:
I have managed resorts successfully both in California and in the East.
My father died when I was eight years old. My mother and an older sister raised me. I have a B.A. from UCLA, with a major in Drama and a minor in Psychology.
While in college I had several bit parts in motion pictures, but after graduation found the entertainment industry uncongenial. I got a lucrative position as salesman in a well-known clothing emporium, but found the owners uncongenial. My break came when I was selling real estate on commission. Some people I dealt with were impressed by my abilities and offered me an opportunity to be deputy manager of a motel. At the time the manager died in an accident, the motel was in the red. Within three months of my appointment as manager, the motel was making money. The owners asked me to take over a much larger motel and restaurant they had in central California, and I was able to turn that around also. After a successful eight-year career with the same ownership at various locations, I was lured East to manage a very large and long-established resort in the Catskills. I found the environment uncongenial and have since returned to California to pursue my career here.
I am single, have no dependents, and am free to relocate provided the responsibility and remuneration are appropriate to my experience. References in California are available on request.
In the living room of their mansion, Merlin Clifford showed the pile of replies to Abigail, who used a pair of gold-framed eyeglasses that hung from her neck by a black satin cord to glance through them. Clifford watched his wife’s expressions. She wasn’t liking what she saw either. When she looked up, he handed her Daniel Pitz’s letter.
“This man’s a pompous ass,” he said. “But interesting.”
Abigail Clifford read Pitz’s letter several times. “You’d better find out more about what he means by uncongenial,” she said.
“I can guess. I have several other matters to explore with this young man.”
“How do you know he’s young?” she asked.
“He hasn’t mentioned anything that would clue me to his age. If he thought he might be too old for the job, he would have mentioned his high energy. The writer of this letter takes high energy for granted. Unless he’s left out a lot of employment deliberately, he’s young and worried about it. Also, Abigail, there comes a time in life when even a pompous man says money instead of remuneration.”
Abigail had to laugh.
*
“Mr. Daniel Pitz?” the man’s voice asked.
“Speaking.” The caller, Dan thought, had a very authoritative voice.
“I’m calling in response to your letter applying for the position of resort manager.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How old are you?”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Please don’t lie,” the voice said. “It’s something that is objectively ascertainable.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“Good,” the voice said, to Dan’s relief. “You said your father died when you were eight. What was the cause of his death?”
“A trauma.”
God, thought Clifford, he really is pompous. “What kind of trauma?”
Again a moment’s hesitation.
“Please, Mr. Pitz. I’m a busy man.”
“I’m sorry. I still have difficulty with it. He died of a gunshot wound.”
“From the police?”
“No, no. A holdup.”
“Where?”
“In…his store.”
“Your father was a shopkeeper?”
“A liquor store.”
“I see. Is your mother alive?”
“No. Excuse me, but is all this relevant to the position?”
“Extremely. Did your mother die of natural causes?”
“An auto accident.”
“I see. Your sister is alive?”
“She died in the same auto accident.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Let’s see. May third, eleven years ago.”
“Do you recall the date on which you became manager of that first motel?”
Pitz gave the date to the caller.
“I will phone you again in two days’ time unless my inquiries produce negatives, Mr. Pitz.”
“Do you want my references?”
“No.”
“May I ask your name, sir?”
There was a click on the line.
*
Daniel Pitz thought a lot about that phone call during the next twenty-four hours. The man must have been impressed by his résumé to call, but the questions didn’t make sense. That man didn’t know any more about Dan’s ability to run a resort after the call than before.
Dan decided he’d better keep looking. He was writing a reply to an ad for an assistant manager when the phone rang.
“We spoke two days ago, Mr. Pitz. I’ve had some inquiries made. You are now the leading candidate for the position. My name is Clifford. I will expect you for an interview at my home tomorrow at the cocktail hour, say five. Is that convenient?”
Dan Pitz’s throat felt dry. “Yes, of course,” he managed. Clifford gave him the address. “Bring with you a list of the books you’ve read in the last five years. Please don’t come early,” he added, “and if you’re more than ten minutes late, don’t bother.” He hung up.
Punctuality was only
one of Merlin Clifford’s tests.
When he hired somebody, it was damn well going to be permanent.
*
When he was in real estate, Dan Pitz had handled the houses of some well-to-do people, but never anything like the Clifford mansion. There was an impressive stone-and-ironwork gate with a gatehouse. The guard was not some elderly man dozing on the job, but a fellow who looked like he could strangle a dog. He was expecting a man named Daniel Pitz, but insisted on two pieces of identification. The guard then telephoned the main house to say that the guest had arrived at the gatehouse at five o’clock and was on his way up.
The lawn and shrubbery seemed the kind it would take a small army of gardeners to keep up, but not a soul was in sight. The house itself, set back about seventy-five yards from the road, was in the Spanish style that suited southern California. In fact, it looked like a mission more than a home, with tile roofs at various angles, parapets, openings in the stonework that looked as if they were meant for riflemen or archers. Dan always worried about a prospective employer’s financial stability. He didn’t want to get caught in someone else’s bankruptcy, but these folks looked like they were here to stay.
He heard the dog growl, then saw it, a German shepherd between himself and the entrance doors. The German shepherd his father had kept in the liquor store hadn’t done any good. The intruder had shot them both.
“Here, boy!” A Japanese man had appeared at the door, and the dog immediately went running to him and disappeared inside the house.
“Mr. Clifford is expecting you,” the Japanese man said. “This way, please.”
Dan was ushered through the entrance hallway—the floor was marble in a checkerboard pattern—to a huge living room with peaked windows two stories high. He couldn’t believe the size of the intricately woven carpet. At its other end a man of sixty or so put his pipe down in an ashtray and stood up, then advanced across the carpet, his hand out. The woman he had been talking to stayed put, watching him.
“I’m Merlin Clifford,” the man said.
“Daniel Pitz, sir.”
“Welcome. Please come sit down. My wife wants to meet you as well. Abigail, this is Mr. Pitz.”
Mrs. Clifford raised her head for a better look. Handsome young man. Though she now drew her lovers from a different stratum of society, in the old days she had permitted some of her husband’s employees to service her from time to time, and she still found herself inspecting each newcomer to see if he would do.
“What will you drink?” Mr. Clifford asked the moment Dan was seated on the edge of his chair.
He liked beer, but that wasn’t for now.
“I prefer whisky,” he said.
“Ice and soda?”
“Yes, please.”
The Japanese man had reappeared.
“Scotch and soda for Mr. Pitz, and the usual for Mrs. Clifford and myself.” Mr. Clifford turned to face Dan Pitz. “Do sit back, you’ll be more comfortable.”
Dan did as he was instructed.
“Now then,” Mr. Clifford said. “Did you bring your reading list?”
Dan handed it over. It was short and included the names of novels that Dan remembered wanting to read. Most of them he hadn’t gotten around to. To his surprise, Mr. Clifford just put the list in his inside breast pocket without examining it.
“We will get on much better,” Mr. Clifford said, “if you assume I already know the answers to any questions I ask. Understood?”
Dan nodded. For a moment, glancing around at the vast space in the room, he felt small.
“I am a student of language,” Mr. Clifford said. “One unusual word showed up in your short letter three times.”
“Oh?”
“Do you remember which word?”
“No, sir.”
“Uncongenial.”
Dan blushed.
“What do you mean by uncongenial?”
“Oh,” Dan said, “the same as everyone else does. Not right. Different. Bad different.”
“Do you remember the connections in which you used the word?”
“I think I said I found some of my employment uncongenial?”
“I think you found some people uncongenial. In the motion picture industry. The owners of the clothing store. The people at the resort in the East.”
“That’s right,” Dan said.
“Were they all Jews?”
Dan took his handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed his wet palms. Then he realized what he was doing and, embarrassed, shoved the handkerchief back where it belonged. Clifford couldn’t be Jewish, could he?
“What do you mean?” Dan asked.
“You know very well what I mean. Was the common denominator of the people you found uncongenial the fact of their Jewishness? Are you circumcised, Mr. Pitz?”
Dan looked over at Mrs. Clifford. Her gaze did not relent. “Yes. Most men my age—I’m not Jewish, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I established that before inviting you here. I just want to clarify what you meant by uncongenial. Is there something about Jews you don’t like?”
Dan felt he had to take a chance.
“Pretty much everything,” he said, smiling in Mrs. Clifford’s direction and noticing that she now smiled, too. Mrs. Clifford was thinking that while she didn’t want the bother of becoming regularly active with employees again, she might enjoy this young man just once or twice.
“Explain that,” Mr. Clifford said. “If you will. What don’t you like about them?”
“Well,” Dan said, spreading his fingers as if he were about to play the piano. “They’re very aggressive. I mean in school they were the pushy ones, trying for the straight A’s, scholarships, things like that. They were always running for student government. Both kids who ran our Drama Society were Jews, and I felt it wasn’t fair that Christian kids did all the acting and the Jews ran the place.”
He hoped that would satisfy Mr. Clifford. You could get yourself in a lot of trouble saying things like he just did. You had a feeling the Anti-Defamation-whatever-the-hell-its-name-was recorded everything you thought as well as said about the Hebes.
“Go on,” Mr. Clifford said. “I’m interested in your views.”
“About Jews?”
“I believe that’s what we’re talking about.”
Dan looked over at Mrs. Clifford. She was smiling in that special way again. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, attractive, in fact, if a little bit older than he would have preferred. Still, older women could be great in the sack, all that experience and nothing to lose. Dan felt encouraged.
“Well, everyone knows the people on top in the film business are Jews. The ones—”
“That’s not quite true,” Mr. Clifford interrupted. “The Chairman of Fox is not a Jew, nor is the head of production. Zanuck is not a Jew.”
“But they predominate,” Dan said hastily.
“Go on.”
Dan wondered whether he was on the right track. “Well, the ones I got to work with, lower down the ladder, they were flashy types, just like I later found in the clothing business, which is why I liked real estate better.”
“Aren’t there plenty of them in real estate?” Mrs. Clifford asked.
Dan turned to her. He knew when a woman was interested. “Oh certainly, but you can avoid them if you want to.”
“Are you uncomfortable with Jews?” Mr. Clifford asked.
“Well, yes.”
“But you wouldn’t want to do them any harm, would you?”
Mr. Clifford noticed the momentary twist in Dan’s lip, not quite a twitch.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Mr. Clifford said, already having had his answer. “Do you think you would have difficulty working with them?”
“Jews?” Dan asked.
“Ah,” Mr. Clifford said, “there are the drinks.” He waited till the Japanese had served Mrs. Clifford and Pitz, then took his own drink. Dan watched the Japanese leave the room.
“Don�
��t worry about his overhearing anything, Mr. Pitz,” Mr. Clifford said. “He’s been with me for years. He’s like a son.”
Dan saw the look Mrs. Clifford shot at him at the mention of a son. That might be worth exploring privately with her. His view was that you always needed something on the other guy, and women were a good way to get what you needed. He smiled at Mrs. Clifford to let her know he knew of her interest.
“I was asking,” Mr. Clifford said, “whether you would have difficulty working with Jews.”
“Is this a Jewish resort the ad was for?”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” Mr. Clifford said. “There are Jews there.”
“What about the owners?”
“The owners are Mrs. Clifford and myself.”
“It isn’t one of those, er, restricted places then?”
Mr. and Mrs. Clifford looked at each other.
“Mr. Pitz,” Mr. Clifford continued, “I want an absolutely honest answer to the next question.”
“Certainly.”
“Are you capable of murder?”
Dan Pitz sat frozen.
“Please remember my earlier warning,” Mr. Clifford said. “Are you capable of murder?”
This wasn’t a courtroom. He could say anything. “Isn’t everyone?” he asked, his palms sweating again.
“I’m not asking about everyone, I’m asking about you.” Mr. Clifford seemed annoyed. “Can you kill if necessary?”
“I think so,” Dan said.
“Good,” Mr. Clifford said. “I’m glad you chose not to obfuscate. Just for Mrs. Clifford’s elucidation, I should tell her that your mother and sister died in an automobile accident under circumstances remarkably similar to the ones obtaining when the manager of your first motel died, am I right? Please don’t be alarmed, Mr. Pitz, I’m not about to inform the police. From the dates you supplied on the phone, I was merely able to have the newspaper accounts of the time researched. I would guess that you used rubber cement, is that correct?”
How the hell could he know?
“What kind of fuse did you use, Mr. Pitz?”
“An ordinary display fireworks fuse.”
“How much rubber cement did you use?”
“Just half a gallon.”
“Why was no container found?”
