The Lockwood Concern (37 page)

of it." "You're speaking of a stock, and not your personal life." "Speaking of a stock, although you're right, I could have meant either one," said Pen. "You could only have meant one, but it could have been taken either way. No, I'm not interested in your stock speculation, but I am in your love life." "Wilma has taken up with some fairy. That is, I think of him as a fairy. Half the men I know don't seem to mind if their wives have some fairy around to dance attendance on them, and I wouldn't mind either. But this fellow may not be a fairy. His name is Eugene Hyme, H, y, m, e. He's a young Jew about thirty or so, related to some of those prominent Jewish families. Interested in music and all that stuff, but has a job downtown too, in the foreign exchange department of Glassman Brothers." "You don't sound very worried about him," said George. "Well, I am and I'm not," said Pen. "In the first place, he looks like such a long drink of water that a good screw would shake him to pieces. I could be wrong about that, too, but I don't think he and Wilma go to bed together. In the second place, I don't know what he sees in Wilma beyond the fact that through her he gets invited to houses that he'd never get invited to otherwise. In that respect he resembles me, except that after twenty years they've gotten sort of used to me. Wilma's old New York society connections. So much for Mr. Hyme." "So much for Mr. Hyme," said George. "I'll have to come back to him in a minute," said Pen. "I had a couple of talks with Wilma, and wish I'd been more Eke you. I'm not as good as you at these things. I tried to sound her out on the question of getting a divorce." "Oh, Christ," said George. "Oh, I wasn't as clumsy as all that. I didn't say divorce. But I put it to her that she seemed restless and unhappy, and I asked her if there was someone else." "You trying to be clever! You're a blundering fool, Pen." "I know. But I had to find out how she would feel about a divorce because I wanted one. I've gone back with my girl, and I want to marry her. It isn't fair to keep her from getting married if I'm not willing to marry her. She's entitled to a great deal more than she's getting under the present arrangement. In fact, she's entitled to marriage, to be my wife. Wilma has everything and gives nothing in return, whereas my girl. gives me the only happiness I've known in years and gets practically nothing. At least in a material way. So I wanted to find out what it would cost me to be free to marry her." "And you didn't find out," said George. "Wrong, I found out that Wilma has no intention of divorcing me now or ever. It seems that after our first conversation, she confided in Mr. Hyme, and he guessed right away that I wanted the divorce, that I was restless and unhappy. And that I had a lady friend. And that's about where the matter stands." "Wilma told you all that?" "Yes. The next time I brought the matter up she talked as if she had a lawyer sitting in the room with us. She didn't sound a bit like herself, and I ought to know. She told me to have an affair, or as many affairs as I liked, but not to expect her to give me cause to divorce her. She came right out with it. She said that money was no consideration, but then in the next breath she said that if she took half and I kept half, we'd both be that much poorer. Each of us would only be worth half of what there is now." "And she's quite right. Mr. Hyme has a great deal of common sense, it seems to me. And it is Mr. Hyme, I'm sure. Wilma would never have figured that out all by herself. So to get back to Mr. Hyme, your problem is why does he want to preserve the status quo? My guess is that Mr. Hyme wants to have a good friend in New York society, possibly for the rest of his days. Sooner or later Wilma's old friends will come to realize that it was Mr. Hyme who advised her to preserve her marriage. Therefore he is a very dependable man, not at all the gigolo type who could just as easily have persuaded Wilma to divorce you and marry him. Mr. Hyme is a dangerous man, the more so because he doesn't seem to be a bit dangerous." "Yes," said Pen. "And where does that leave you and your mistress?" "I haven't had the courage to tell her the truth." "I more or less gathered that. But why has she been so patient? Have you asked yourself that?" "No," said Pen. "It never occurred to me." "You're not giving her credit for very much intelligence. Haven't you stopped to consider the matter from her point of view? She surely must know that you're stalling her off. And this is the second time, if I'm not mistaken. You broke off with her once before, and then you went back. This time she must have thought you meant business." "Yes. I told her it might take a while," said Pen. "What is a while? A year? Two years? Two months? Actually how long has it been that you've been stalling her off?" "Almost six months, I guess," said Pen. "Pen, if you insist on being so damned honorable about all this, you ought to give her up. Why are you afraid to?" "Who said I'm afraid to?" "I do," said George. "Why don't you fire her?" "You know who it is," said Pen. "Yes, and I've known for a long time. Do you want me to fire her?" "Certainly not. I don't want her to know that you know. If she has to leave the office, I'll be the one to tell her." "And then what? She goes on being your mistress?" "If she will be. But I want you to keep out of it. If you insist on her leaving the office, you can think up some excuse for firing her. But I'll be the one to tell her, and you keep out of the whole thing." "Why don't we have her in here right now and both tell her? The time has come for putting all our cards on the table." "If you do that, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live. The only life I have is with her, having her near me in the office, and the times we can be alone. I can see why you want to get her out of the office. But I'm not going to have you do anything that will interfere with the other times I see her." "Pen, when you get fed up with her, you're going to wish you'd let me handle this." "I'm not you," said Pen. "We're not a bit alike. I could never imagine going to all that trouble just to get away from my wife for a few days. Calling me long distance, making up some story about advertising, taking the sleeper. Christ Almighty, what a way to go through life!" "Show me how your way is better." "No better, maybe, but it's my way, not yours. You've never even seen your own grandchildren, that's where your way has gotten you. You never will see them, either, till they're old enough to be safe from you." "Is that what young Hibbard told you?" "It doesn't make any difference who told me. It's true," said Pen. "Your own son doesn't want you anywhere near his kids. You have a hell of a lot to answer for, my friend." "To whom?" "To God, maybe." "Oh, dear me. Did you get that information from Hibbard, too? Or is that something you thought up all by yourself? You and Mr. Hibbard must have a lot to say to each other." "Hibbard doesn't have to be afraid of you." "Do you?" "Not of you, but of what you might do to someone I love. But if you hurt her, George, you can start being afraid of me, I mean that." George tapped his fingertips together and looked out the window. "What your friend Mr. Hyme said about your marriage applies here as well. If you feel so strongly that I'm the arch-villain of the piece, then we ought to call in the lawyers. But as Mr. Hyme said, if you take your half and I take mine, we'd both be that much poorer. What do you want to do?" "I'll have to think it over," said Pen. "That's right. Don't do anything impulsive. I'm here on an impulse, and a half an hour ago I was sure it was a good one. However, we shall see. I've come all this way. You think it over. I'll be in and out of here most of the day, and at the Car. stairs tonight. Now if you'll excuse me, I want to run over and see Charley Bohm. Oh, and are you planning to tell Miss Strademyer about this conversation? She offered to take some dictation, but that could be very awkward if you spill the beans." "I'll spare her that," said Pen. "You're such a good man, Pen. Such a good example to your older brother." "Go fuck yourself," said Pen. "Nope," said George. The unsuspected duplicity of young Preston Hibbard would have to be dealt with, but first there was Marian Strademyer, Marian Strademyer and that reluctance of hers to leave this office. He rang for her. "I came to New York for one special reason," said George. "Oh, really? What was that?" she said. "I'll tell you later." "How much later?" "Oh - say, six o'clock? At your apartment?" She shook her head. "Can't be done," she said. "Well, that's too bad. My trip is wasted." "You could have phoned me yesterday," she said. "No, this was on the spur of the moment. You wouldn't have been here." She paused. "I'll see what I can do. You'll be back here this afternoon?" "Yes, after lunch." "I'll see what I can do," she said. He was tempted to say he knew what she could do, but it was a temptation he resisted. At least her part in the impulse he had followed remained sound. Indeed, as he quickly thought it over, his obedience to the impulse, though it encountered minor aggravation by Geraldine and possibly serious difficulty with Pen, continued to promise the relaxation he needed. A venture that went too smoothly was not stimulating. Even his displeasure over young Hibbard's double-dealing made Hibbard more stimulating than he might have been as a conventional Boston eccentric. Boston was full of conventional eccentrics. The lunch club where he was meeting Charley Bohm was a dull place in one of the older skyscrapers, and Charley Bohm was a dull man; but there had been enough excitement for one morning, and George was pleased that for the next hour and a half there would be no demands on his mental energy. "We are coming along fine," said Charley, after they had ordered their lunch. "Yes, I read all your letters, and I had a chat with Ringwall." "There's a clever fellow, Ringwall. "Clever enough to realize that this could mean a lot to him. We must emphasize that," said George. "How do you mean, George?" "At this stage of the game, we need one man's entire enthusiasm, all he can muster. You have other things to do, so have I. Other irons in other fires. My original enthusiasm has begun to dwindle, hasn't yours?" "Well, maybe to some extent. Neither one of us are in the candy business. As far as I'm concerned, it could be the fertilizer business, just as long as I saw money in it." "Exactly. But Ringwall mustn't be allowed to have such treasonable thoughts. I've been wondering whether we ought not to dangle a few carrots in front of his nose. Incentives." "I'd wait a while before we do that. So far we don't have to," said Charley. "Well, you see him much more than I do, but don't wait till he needs it. Try to anticipate the lessening of enthusiasm." "What were you thinking of offering him?" "What does he make?" "I'd guess around twenty thousand a year," said Charley. "Well, when we have our own advertising manager, won't we pay him twenty-five, and various extras based on production?" "I don't know. Will we?" "We'd better," said George. "Our advertising manager is going to have to be the hardest-working man we have. Anybody can make candy. Fill a vat with fudge and sprinkle a few raisins in it, and there's a product. But you have to give it a name, and get people to buy it. That's the advertising man's job. Incidentally, that wouldn't be a bad candy, a fudge with a few raisins in it. We might try it later. It might turn out to be better than what we have." "Did you just think of it?" "Just this minute." "I can pretty nearly taste it," said Charley. "Not bad, is it? Who knows, we may expand before we sell our first piece of candy. Then we'll need some financing. What do you know about Glassman Brothers?" "Probably no more than you do. Not in the same category with Julie Bache and Otto Kahn, but one of the older Jewish houses. But why do you want to let the Jews in on it? I never heard of them going out of their way to make us rich." "True, but I was thinking way ahead and I happened to hear their name this morning. Do you know a fellow there named Hyme?" "Oh, I know Leonard Hyme. He's a great old fellow, but he retired a couple years ago and lives in Europe. Vienna. I think he was born there. Why do you ask about him?" "Oh, somebody mentioned his name, and I'd never heard of him." "He has two sons in the firm, but I'm not acquainted with them. They're members here, but I wouldn't know one from the other. Oh, we won't have trouble raising money in the present market, especially if we get off to a halfway decent start. They'll come around and try to buy us out, but if we have another candy that we haven't even put on the market, we'll be sitting pretty." "How much are you worth, Charley?" Charley burst out laughing. "I'll be a son of a bitch! You know you're the first guy ever asked me that? All the years I've been in business, nobody ever asked me point-blank. All right, how much do you think I'm worth?" "Three million," said George. "More." "Ten million," said George. "Less "Between three and ten." "That's as close as I'll let you get. But why did you ask?" "I'm always curious," said George. "Huh. I know fellows would give you a punch right in the nose if you asked them that question. That's a pretty personal question, George." "They're the only kind worth asking." "All the same, you're supposed to be a gentleman," said Charley. "I have a little way to go yet, so I'm not bound by gentlemen's rules." "Well, I always understood you to be a gentleman, you and Pen." "Pen may be. He's four years younger than I, and that may have been just long enough. A very interesting notion you know. Just those extra four years may have made the difference. Yes, I believe Pen is a gentleman, the first one under the wire." "I'm sure I don't know what the hell you're talking about," said Charley. George redirected the conversation into channels more familiar to Charley Bohm. They agreed to meet again on the 30th of the month, for the purpose of dangling a carrot or two in front of Ringwall. What had promised to be no more than a dull lunch with a dull man at a dull club turned out to produce an interesting theory: that four years of Lockwood family history had benefited Pen. Pen was a gentleman because there had been their grandfather, their father, George himself, and those four years to make him one. Four less years of their rough-diamond grandfather's influence could have made some difference; and there was no doubt at all that at a place like St. Bartholomew's a boy whose older brother and father had been there before him was more acceptable, therefore unperturbed by the need to fit in that tortured boys at school and college. Rivalry often existed between brothers, but George now saw that if there had been any