‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been listening to them. They work in the shoe plant, and they’ve been talking about the union. Three of them want a local of the Machinists, and they want it bad. And the fourth one said a local will be just as bad as the company union, so the hell with it.’
‘Three to one,’ I said. ‘That’s good odds.’
He shook his head, grinning hugely. ‘Better than that,’ he said. ‘Four to nothing. One of them finally told him the local couldn’t possibly be any worse than the company union, so it was at least worth a try, and he agreed. Four to nothing, Paul. Those are good odds.’
‘So all we have to do is get a hands-off from Fleisch.’
‘That’s all. Drink your beer. You play shuffleboard?’
So we had two more beers, and Walter beat me at shuffleboard, and then we went back to the motel.
Twenty Four
We left the Tango Inn at eight o’clock, and Walter drove us back to the motel. I asked him to; I was feeling the beer a little bit. We’d each had seven or eight bottles of the stuff.
George didn’t seem to have moved. He was still lying on my bed, arms straight out at his sides, smiling dreamily at the ceiling. Phil was gone, and Mr Clement was nowhere in sight, but Fletcher had come back to the room’s easy chair. He was reading a black-bound book when we came in, but looked up from it at our entrance, nodded, and stowed the book away in the briefcase beside the chair. ‘No particular legal problems,’ he said. ‘We’ll need a permit and to pay for the presence of a fire marshal, if we have any indoor rallies. Other than that, we have nothing to worry about.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Walter, sounding pleased. ‘What was their attitude?’
Fletcher smiled icily, and without humour. ‘Distant, when I told them my affiliation. But properly helpful when I let them know I would brook no prejudiced behaviour.’
‘That’s the boy, Ralph,’ said Walter. ‘They don’t stay on their high horse long when you’re around.’
‘I know the law,’ said Fletcher. ‘That is my job.’
‘And you’re good at it, too, Ralph.’ Walter fought his necktie off, and draped it on the bedpost. He winked at me as I went by him, heading for the wooden chair near the bathroom door, and said, ‘Oh, by the way, Ralph, I have news.’
‘News?’
I sat down, at the fringe of the group, and watched to see how Walter would handle it.
‘Something Paul found out today,’ Walter said. ‘The same thing that Charles Hamilton found out, and the same thing that old man what’s-his-name found out.’
Fletcher leaned forward, interested in spite of himself.
Walter smiled and nodded, prolonging Fletcher’s suspense. Then he said. ‘There’s a sticky finger in the Mclntyre till, Ralph. Somebody’s been doing bad things to the books.’
‘Not Fleisch?’
‘Oh, no. He doesn’t even know about it. But Hamilton and old what’s-his-name’s granddaughter went poking through the books and found it. That’s what Hamilton was going to give us. I suppose he figured we could use it if we got into a fight with Fleisch.’
Fletcher frowned. ‘I don’t see how,’ he said. ‘If Fleisch has nothing to do with it.’
Walter grinned, and raised one finger for attention. ‘That’s the beauty of it, Ralph,’ he said. ‘Fleisch isn’t the owner of the Mclntyre plant, he’s just the manager. When we come in, there’s indications of labour trouble, and already Fleisch is worried, and already the owners are saying to themselves, “Maybe we need a new manager.” So what if all of a sudden a scandal breaks? Embezzlement going on under Fleisch’s nose!’ He turned to me. ‘How much you say it was?’
‘Two or three thousand a month.’
‘How’s that, Ralph? Are the owners going to get themselves a new manager, or aren’t they?’
‘I see,’ said Fletcher. He rubbed a knuckle thoughtfully along the line of his jaw. ‘It could be leverage,’ he said. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘We want to do this right, Ralph,’ Walter told him. ‘If we just go to Fleisch and tell him there’s an embezzler in the plant, he’ll run a quick audit, very quietly grab the embezzler, and our leverage is gone.’
‘A point,’ admitted Fletcher.
‘I was thinking about it on the way back,’ said Walter. He turned to me again, so his profile was to Fletcher, and winked the eye Fletcher couldn’t see. ‘Paul,’ he said, ‘this girl, what’s-his-name’s granddaughter. You said she can get at the books?’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Could she get at them tonight?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Urn,’ said Fletcher. ‘What do you have in mind, Walter?’
Walter’s head inclined back toward Fletcher. ‘We hold the books for ransom,’ he said.
Fletcher reared back, startled. ‘You mean, steal them?’
‘Borrow them.’
‘Ridiculous,’ said Fletcher. ‘I thought you had more sense than that, Walter.’
‘I thought you had more imagination than that, Ralph. What happens if we steal them?’
‘Fleisch phones the police,’ said Fletcher, promptly.
‘And compounds the scandal? He wants the embezzlement kept quiet, Ralph.’
‘Urn,’ said Fletcher. He thought some more, pondering the idea.
‘We put Albert to work on them,’ said Walter. ‘By morning, he’ll have the evidence ready to turn over to Fleisch, along with the books, in return for certain considerations.’
‘It’s a drastic move,’ said Fletcher, but I could see he was being swayed.
‘It’s a drastic situation,’ Walter told him.
‘Um. I’d have to check with Washington, Walter, you know that.’
‘I’ll make the call, Ralph,’ said Walter.
‘No need for that.’ Fletcher was on his feet.
‘I’ll go along,’ said Walter, rising beside him.
‘Very well.’
They went out, and I sat there and lit a cigarette. Walter had surprised me, claiming the idea as his own, but I’d seen right away what he had in mind. Fletcher would be more likely to think seriously about an idea from Walter than from me. It hardly mattered whose idea it was to begin with, just so it worked.
George turned his head slowly on my pillow, and smiled dreamily at me. ‘Fletcher would of stole the credit,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘Sure, That’s how come Walter went along. These career boys!’ He shook his head fondly, and went back to gazing at the ceiling again.
It was a warm night, and there wasn’t enough air circulating through the room. I was still feeling those beers. I lit a cigarette and promised myself to stop for coffee on the way to meet Alice.
Fletcher and Walter came back, finally, and Walter nodded at me, smiling hugely. ‘They went for it, Paul,’ he said. ‘What do you think, boy? You want to be a burglar?’
‘Just one moment, Walter,’ said Fletcher. ‘Standish seems hardly the man for the job.’
‘Oh, come on, Ralph, give the boy some credit. Besides, he’s the one the granddaughter knows. I don’t think she’d cooperate with any of the rest of us. What do you think, Paul?’
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t,’ I said.
‘You see?’
Fletcher saw, but was displeased. ‘George at least should go along,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘No, sir. Alice will help me, but she’d back out if there was anybody else along.’
‘That’s another point,’ said Fletcher. ‘How do you know this girl will agree to help us?’
I was about to say she’d agreed already, but Walter got in first, saying, ‘Paul can talk her into it. Can’t you, Paul? She and Paul have a sort of-understanding.’ And he winked.
I hadn’t told him anything about what had happened between Alice and me, or even hinted, and this unexpected direct hit rattled me. I felt the blood rushing to my face, betraying my embarrassment, and stumbled around in an unsucc
essful attempt to say something coherent.
‘I see,’ said Fletcher, studying me.
I saw Walter quickly cover his surprised realization that he’d hit a bull’s-eye he hadn’t known existed, and then he said, ‘Paul, you just tell her how it’ll be helping avenge her grandfather’s death, and all that. Okay?’
‘All right,’ I said, low-voiced and still embarrassed. And the beer wasn’t helping me get my control back.
Walter plopped down onto his bed again, and said, ‘Why not go now?’
‘Now?’ Fletcher frowned at both of us. ‘Shouldn’t you wait till later?’
‘Why?’ Walter asked him. ‘Stroke of midnight and all that? They’ll be much less conspicuous going into the plant at nine in the evening than at midnight. Right, Paul?’
‘Right.’
‘Right,’ said Walter, airily. Still airily, he said, ‘You can take the car, Junior. But don’t be out all hours.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, grinning back at him. Walter had handled it beautifully, far better than I could have done, and I was grateful to him.
‘And no necking,’ he said, and laughed when I started to blush all over again.
I grabbed the car keys and hurried on out.
Twenty Five
Even though I stopped at the City Line Diner for two hamburgers and three cups of coffee, I got to Alice’s house early, at quarter to nine. I was regretting not having found out on which side lived the neighbour with whom Alice was staying, when I noticed the living-room light was on in Alice’s house. I went down the stairs and rang the bell.
Alice opened the door almost at once, and smiled through the screen at me. ‘You’re early,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’
‘You shouldn’t open the door that way,’ I told her. ‘How did you know who it was?’
‘Oh! I forgot.’ She looked more embarrassed than frightened. ‘I’m not used to hiding out,’ she said.
I know how she felt. She wasn’t the only one who’d suddenly been thrown into a world she hadn’t been trained for. I said, ‘All right, never mind. But you at least should have been next door.’
‘I just this minute came back,’ she said. ‘To get ready for you. I was just going to get dressed.’
She was wearing a man’s white shirt and faded blue jeans, which emphasized the contradictory slimness and provocativeness of her body. I said, ‘What’s wrong with what you’ve got on?’
‘Silly. I couldn’t let anybody see me like this. Anybody but you, darling. I’ll have to get into a black dress.’ Her mouth suddenly twisted, and she said, ‘Listen to me. I sound happy about it.’
‘Relax, Alice,’ I said. ‘You’re alive and you’re healthy and you’re young. I know you loved your grandfather, and I know how much grief you feel that he’s dead. But don’t tie yourself into knots trying to keep a glum frown on your face all the time. It wouldn’t be natural, and you’ll just get yourself all upset again.’
‘You’re good for me, Paul,’ she said. She rested a hand on my arm, then turned away and headed for the stairs. ‘I’ll be right back down,’ she said. ‘Play some records, if you want.’
I didn’t play any records. I sat in the living room and read last week’s issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It had been a long time since I’d seen the Post. They’d changed the cover logo, and they’d changed the format inside, making the layout and illustrations all Playboy-flashy, but they hadn’t changed the content of the magazine at all. It was still fine-ground corn, and the stories were still about slim blonde girls in red bathing suits. I have a two-part question I’d like Hooper or Elmo Roper or one of those pollsters to ask Americans sometime: (A) Did you ever read a Clarence Budington Kelland serial all the way through? (B) If so, did you understand it?
Alice came back down in a black dress, with a fitted bodice and pleated flaring skirt. She looked like Leslie Caron, Audrey Hepburn, Mitzi Gaynor. She looked like all the girls who ever danced beneath the Eiffel Tower with Gene Kelly. Her lipstick was dark, her eyes darker. She hooked her hand in the crook of my arm, and smiled up at me, and we went out of the house to the car.
It was like taking a girl friend out to a movie. I wished I was taking Alice MacCann out to a movie. I tried to make believe that was all it was, a date, the two of us going out for a good time together. But the make-believe kept falling apart, and I gave it up.
She directed me through town to the plant building containing the bookkeeping offices. In the huge parking lot, there was only emptiness and a tiny Metropolitan, green and white. ‘That’s Abner’s car,’ said Alice.
‘Abner?’
‘The night watchman. Don’t worry, he won’t bother us.’
‘If you say so.’
I left the Ford up close to the building, in the shadow, and we went around to a small side entrance. Alice produced a key, and unlocked the door, and we went in.
There was a metal stairwell on our left, leading down to blackness, up to blackness punctuated by reflections of a small weaving light. ‘That’s Abner,’ Alice whispered. ‘That’s his flashlight.’ Then she laughed, a little nervously, and said, in a normal tone, ‘I don’t know why I’m whispering.’ She went over to the stairs and called, ‘Abner! Abner?’
A heavy tread sounded above us, and the reflected light grew stronger. A voice called down, ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me, Alice. I’m not alone.’ She reached out and took my hand and pressed it. ‘We’ll be in the office a little while,’ she called.
‘All right,’ shouted the voice, and the heavy footsteps receded again, the flickering light grew fainter.
‘This way,’ Alice told me. Still holding my hand, she led me through a pair of doors from the stairwell to a long hall. Far down to the right I could see the glass of the main doors. We turned to the left and walked down the hall, Alice’s heels clacking hollowly on the composition flooring. There was practically no light, only that which seeped in through the front doors far behind us. And when we turned a corner, even that light was gone. But Alice seemed to know exactly where she was going.
We stopped, finally, and she let go my hand to fumble with the keys. I heard the sound of the key going into the lock, and the click of its turning, and then the door opened. There were windows along a wall to the left, overlooking a side street. The street lights there shone wan afterthoughts of light into the office. I could make out two rows of desks in a long room, and filing cabinets along the wall opposite the windows.
Alice led the way down between the rows of desks. At the far end, wood and frosted-glass partitions rose to a foot from the ceiling. Alice unlocked another door here, and we went into a smaller office, with only one desk, and that one about twice as large as the desks outside. Light gleamed pale through the single wide window, and aside from the desk I could make out a leather couch along one wall, another filing cabinet, and a squat safe.
Alice said, ‘Light a match, will you, Paul?’ She knelt before the safe.
I lit a match, and watched her slim fingers turn the combination dial. Then she twisted the lever downward, and it clicked. She waited, twisted it farther, and it clicked again. Then she pulled the door open.
The first match burned down. I shook it out, threw it on the floor, and lit another. Alice pulled a large heavy ledger book from the safe, and then another, and a third, and a fourth. ‘We’ll need all of these,’ she said. ‘There. That’s it.’ She closed the safe again, and spun the dial.
We both straightened. ‘They look heavy,’ I said. The second match burned low, and I shook it out. I was reaching for a third match when she came against me and kissed me.
I am not a phlegmatic man. My reaction to sexual invitation is, I think, normally hearty. On the other hand, I don’t suffer from satyriasis, either. But there was something about Alice that caught me where I lived. My reaction to her invariably was immediate, unthinking, and total. Within seconds, we were on the couch.
While there was still some clothing between us, I did manag
e one sobering thought. ‘Pregnant,’ I whispered. ‘What if I make you pregnant?’
‘I’ve taken care of that,’ she whispered back. ‘Don’t worry, Paul, I’ve taken care of that. Dear Paul. Come, Paul. This leather is cold. Warm me, Paul.’
Does it spur any man on, to hear a woman softly speak his name? The sound of my own name, spoken in hot sweet urgency, with Alice’s breath on my ear, left no questions and no doubts.
We left twenty minutes later, me carrying the four very heavy ledger books. There was no sign of Abner.
Twenty Six
Mr Clement was delighted by the books. For the first time, I saw actual vitality in that man’s face. He and Alice sat side by side at a card table in the unit he shared with Mr Fletcher, and together they went over the books, while the rest of us hung around in the background, watching.
Mr Clement was having a lovely time. He shook his head, and chuckled, and made little admiring sounds. Alice led him through the labyrinth of the books, and they flashed back and forth, from this ledger to that ledger to the other ledger, the four books all spread open, filling the entire surface of the card table and hanging over the edges. And in those places where the embezzler’s river had gone underground and Alice hadn’t been able to follow the progression of the sidetracked money for a while, Mr Clement leaned close and traced rows of figures with a rigid finger, concentration bowing his back and freezing his features, till he would cry, ‘Ah hah!’ and point a triumphant finger, and say, ‘There it is!’ and explain rapid-fire to Alice, who sometimes would nod in agreement and other times merely nod in bewilderment.
‘Grand,’ muttered Mr Clement, and, ‘Lovely.’ He was a professional, lost in admiration of the work of another professional, seeing nuances and inspired creativity that a layman could never really appreciate.
It went on and on, and the rest of us began to get tired. Even Alice, who was interested in this sort of thing, began to show signs of weariness. But Mr Clement was having the time of his life. George was the first to give up. He mumbled something about eight hours of sleep every night and went off next door to his bed. Phil Katz, who didn’t see how this new development applied to his own particular specialty, followed soon after. Fletcher announced that he proposed to take a nap, as we would all have to be alert in the morning, and stretched out, fully clothed and proper and unwrinkled, on his bed. His eyes closed. His face slowly relaxed into sleep, but he still looked like a perfectionist forced to live in an incompetent world.
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