Never Leave Me (3 page)

His pale blue eyes glittered behind the wide steel rimmed glasses. He looked almost happy. He always looked happy when he spoke about money. “Once a week in four hundred papers,” he said in his nasal, precise voice, “will come to five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Our fifteen per cent placement on that amounts to seventy-seven thousand. Art work, copy and make-up charges will be a thousand a week, fifty-two thousand for the year.”

“Great, great,” I said interrupting him impatiently. “But can we handle it? I don’t want to find myself in the wrong boat like on that Mason job last year.”

He looked at me calmly. I had taken a job for thirty-five grand that cost us sixty to deliver. He smiled coldly. “That’s what you pay me for,” he pointed out. “To keep you from making mistakes like that again.”

I nodded my head. “How much?”

“Cost you four hundred a week,” he said. “We come out a hundred and eight thousand ahead.”

I smiled at him. “Good boy,” I said clapping him on the shoulder. “Now let’s take a look at the campaign.”

He permitted himself the vestige of a smile before he turned back to the wallboard on which the first series of ads were placed. There were ten advertisements resting there, all very neat in their grey cardboard mountings.

I heard the door open behind us. I turned around. Mickey was coming towards me. “I thought I said I didn’t want to be bothered,” I snapped.

“Mrs. Schuyler is here to see you, Brad,” she said calmly, ignoring my ill temper. I stared at her blankly. “Mrs. Schuyler? Who the hell is she?”

Mickey looked down at a small calling card she held in her hand. “Mrs. Hortense E. Schuyler‚” she read from it. She held it out towards me. “She says she has an appointment with you.”

I took the card from her hand and looked at it. Just the name in simple type. It rang no bells. I gave it back to her. “I don’t remember any appointment,” I said. “I purposely kept all afternoon open so Chris and I could get through this job.”

There was a peculiar look in Mickey’s eyes as she took the card from me. “What shall I tell her?” she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Tell her anything. I went out of town or I’m in conference. Only get rid of her. I want to finish this.” I had already turned back to the wall-board.

Mickey’s voice came over my shoulder. “She says she’ll understand if you can’t see her because of the short notice. But she’s due back in Washington to-morrow afternoon and would like to know what would be a convenient time.”

That did it. Now I remembered. This was one of Edith Remey’s ‘girls.’ I turned around quickly. “Why didn’t you say so the first time?” I asked. “That’s why Paul called me this morning. I gotta see her.” I thought. “Hold her for a few minutes. Make some apology for my delay and I’ll call you as

soon as I’m through.”

The peculiar look faded from Mickey’s eyes and something like relief came into them. “Okay, boss,” she snapped smartly, turning on her heel and walking out of the office.

I looked at Chris. “Well, that does it,” I said disgustedly. “We’ll have to take the rest of this up in the morning.”

“It doesn’t give you much time to absorb the plan before you see Matt Brady and the committee at two,” he said.

I started walking back to my desk. “Can’t help it, Chris,” I called back over my shoulder. “If I get stuck I’ll just have to fake it. I’ve done that before.”

He was standing in front of my desk, a look of disapproval on his face. “These boys are sharp, though.”

I sat down and looked at him. “Stop worrying, Chris,” I told him. “They’re human, ain’t they? The same as us. They like money, dames, liquor. They wear clothes, not wings. We’ll get to them the same way as we get to anybody else. Everybody can be reached once you know what they’re looking for.

And when we find out, we’ll get the job. It’s as easy as that.”

He was shaking his head as I flipped the intercom switch. I half laughed to myself. Poor old Chris. He still lived in an old-fashioned world where business was just that and no more. I remembered the first time he had heard me get a dame for a customer. He had turned so red I thought the colour would rub off on his starched white collar. “Okay, Mickey,” I said into the intercom. “Send the old bag in.”

Through the speaker I could hear a sudden swift intake of breath. “What did you say, Brad?” her voice echoed incredulously in my ear.

“I said send the old bag in. What’s the matter with you this afternoon? You deaf or something?” Her whisper was almost a chuckle. “You never saw her before?”

“No,” I snapped. “And after to-day, I hope I’ll never have to again.”

She was really laughing now. “Ten to one you change your mind. If you don’t, I’ll really believe you the next time you tell me you gave up women.”

The intercom clicked off and I looked up at Chris. “She’s gone nuts,” I told him.

He smiled bleakly and started for the door. Before he got there it started to open. He stepped quickly to one side so that it could swing past him.

I could hear Mickey’s voice. “Right this way, Mrs. Schuyler.”

I started slowly to get to my feet as Mickey came through the door. Chris was staring past her into the outer office. There was a look on his face I had never seen before.

Then she came in, and I knew what the look on his face meant. The guy didn’t have dollar bills running through his veins, after all.

The expression on my face must have been worth the price of admission, for Mickey was smiling as she closed the door behind Chris and herself. I found myself walking unsteadily around my desk towards her. “Mrs. Schuyler,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m Brad Rowan.”

She smiled at me, taking my hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Rowan,” she said softly. “Edith told me so much about you.” Her voice sounded like chimes ringing in the office.

I looked at her. I’d seen dames before. Lots of them. When I worked for a movie company I squired some of the most beautiful dames in the world around. It was my job. They didn’t bother me. I could take ’em or leave ’em. But this one was something special.

This one was class. Blue chip stocks on the big board. The gold standard. Big white orchids in

florists’ windows. A Rodgers and Hammerstein score. A lazy sun in the summer morning. The green, friendly earth. Ruby port after dinner. A Billy Eckstine love chant.

Her hair was a rich soft brown, short in the front, long in the back, almost to her shoulders. Her eyes were dark blue almost violet, with large black pupils that you could almost dive into. Her face was not quite round, her cheekbones high, her mouth soft and generous, her chin not quite square, her nose not quite tilted, her teeth white and even, not dentist’s even but human even.

I drew a deep breath and sucked in my gut. Suddenly I wished I had got in a little more tennis or golf last summer so that the slight paunch I was developing would not show. “Make it Brad,” I smiled, pulling out a chair for her. “Please sit down.”

She sat down, and still in a sort of daze I went back behind my big desk to recuperate.

I looked over at her. She was slipping off her gloves and I could see her hands, white and slim and small-boned with a slight coral polish on the nails. She wore one large white diamond on her left hand, no other ring.

“Paul told me you were coming in,” I said awkwardly. “But I hadn’t expected you so soon. What can I do for you, Mrs. Schuyler?”

She smiled again. It was like there were no other lights in the room. “Make it Elaine,” she said. “Eh-laine,” I said after her, saying it as she did.

She smiled again. “I never liked Hortense.” Her voice was gently confidential. “I never forgave Mother for that.”

I grinned. “I know just what you mean. I was christened Bernard. Everybody called me Bernie.”

She took a cigarette from a flat golden case and I almost broke my neck getting around the desk to light it for her. She drew on it deeply and let out the smoke slowly.

I went back to my chair and sat down. I was still arguing with myself. I couldn’t understand it.

Her eyes were wide as she looked at me. “Edith told me to look you up, because”—she laughed gently—“you were the only man in the world who could help me.”

I let myself laugh with her. I began to feel better. My control was coming back. I was on ground I could understand now. The old build-up. I looked at her again. I guess what got me was that I had expected somebody else. I never thought Edith’s girls could be anything but carbons of Edith herself. “How?” I asked.

“I’ve been appointed chairman of our local committee on the Infantile drive and I thought you might be able to help me plan a campaign that would really produce results.” She looked at me expectantly.

I could feel a tough cynicism creeping back into my joints. She was one of Edith’s girls, after all, no matter what she looked like. The only thing that was important to her was that she would get enough space in the papers to compensate her for her effort. I felt disappointment.

Didn’t know why I should, but I did anyway. These society dames were all alike. Class or no class, they were like any publicity-hungry dame, looking for some fat clippings. I got to my feet.

“I’ll be very glad to help, Mrs. Schuyler,” I said brusquely. “If you’d leave your name and address with my secretary and keep her informed of any activities on the part of your organization or yourself, we will see to it that you get proper publicity and coverage.”

She was staring up at me in some sort of surprise. Her eyes expressed a bewilderment at the sudden manner in which our talk had ended. Her voice was lightly incredulous. “Is that all you can do, Mr. Rowan?”

I stared back at her in irritation. I was getting sick and tired of all the phonies who wore mink to

their committee meetings. “Isn’t that what you want, Mrs. Schuyler?” I asked nastily. “After all, we can’t give you a written guarantee on the space we can grab for you, but we’ll get our share. Isn’t that what you’re in this for?”

Her mouth closed suddenly. Her eyes got dark and cold. Silently she got to her feet, tapping her cigarette out in the tray beside the chair. She picked her pocket-book up from the chair and when she turned back to me her face was as grim and cold as her eyes. The tone of her voice went mine one better. “You misunderstand me, Mr. Rowan. I’m not looking for any personal publicity out of this.

I’ve had more than enough of it. The only reason I came to see you was to work out a campaign for the Infantile drive next January. The only reason I accepted the job was because I know what it means to lose someone to that dreadful disease and I don’t want any other wife or mother to go through what I did.” She turned and started for the door.

I stared after her in confusion for a moment. Then a glimpse of her profile set in white anger did it and I remembered. Her name escaped my lips. “Mrs. David E. Schuyler!” Now I knew the whole story. Silently I cursed myself for fool. The papers had been full of her last year. How she had lost her twin children and her husband to infantile.

I caught her at the door just before she opened it. I leaned against it, holding it closed. She looked up at me. I could see the faint trace of angry tears in her eyes.

“Mrs. Schuyler,” I said contritely. “Could you forgive a stupid Third Avenue mug who thinks he knows everything? I’m really ashamed.”

Her eyes looked deep into mine for a long moment, then she drew a deep breath and silently walked back to the chair. She took out her cigarette case and opened it. I could see her fingers trembling as she put the cigarette in her mouth. I held a match for her.

“I’m very sorry,” I said as the flame flared golden on her face. “I thought you were just another one of those women who were looking for glory.”

Her eyes were still staring up into mine and I could see the smoke curling blue around her face.

Then there was nothing but her eyes and I was lost in the whirling dark blue pain of them. I fought an impulse to take her in my arms and wash the pain away. No one should know such pain.

Her voice was very still and gentle. “If you’ll really help me, Brad, I’ll forgive you.”

THE phone buzzed. It was Chris. “The accountant just verified last month’s net,” he said.

I looked over at Elaine. “Excuse me a moment,” I smiled. “Business.” “Of course,” she nodded.

“Okay, shoot,” I said into the phone.

“Profit before taxes, twenty-one thousand; after taxes, nine,” he said in his dull, dry voice. “Good,” I said into the phone. “Go down the line.”

“Have you the time?” he asked, a faint touch of sarcasm in his voice. “I got the time,” I said coldly.

He began reeling off a string of figures from the profit and loss balance sheets. I paid no attention to them. I was watching her.

She had left her chair and walked over to the wall and was examining the steel layouts. I liked the way she moved, the way she held herself, the way she cocked her head to one side to study a drawing. She must have felt my gaze on her back for suddenly she turned around and smiled at me.

I returned her smile and she came back to the desk and sat down. At last he was finished and I put down the phone. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “I understand.” She looked at the drawings on the wallboard. “They seem like rather unusual ads. They don’t sell anything specific. Only the functions of steel.”

“That’s what they’re supposed to do,” I said. “That’s part of a special campaign we’re whipping up for the American Steel Institute.”

“Oh, the institutional public relations campaign?” she exclaimed. “You know about it?”

“That’s all I’ve been hearing about the last two weeks,” she said. I looked puzzled and she explained. “My uncle Matthew Brady, is chairman of the board of Consolidated Steel. I’ve just come from two weeks at his house.”

I let out a whistle. Matt Brady was the last of the old-line steel men. A pirate down to his fingertips. Sharp, cold, ruthless. I had heard he was the nut we had to crack to get anywhere, and he was the guy Chris had been afraid of.

She began to laugh. “You’ve got such a funny expression on your face. What are you thinking?”