“Leo,” Victman said, “you ought to listen to this.”
Feldman’s irritation was such that he began to scratch himself. (If he could get just some of his money back, it would be goodbye Victman.)
“Please, Leo,” Victman said.
Feldman looked at him. He winced and said, “Victman, where you going to command a salary like the one I pay you?”
Victman groaned and Feldman winced again.
“Where, Victman?”
“You ruined me, Leo,” Victman said.
“Ruin is relative,” Feldman said. (A picture of this man had been in Fortune.)
“You ruined me, Leo,” Victman said again.
“I’m the more injured party,” Feldman said. “I can’t look at you without wincing.”
“Yes. I meant to say something about that,” Victman said. “I wish you’d try to control that, Leo. It embarrasses me.”
Yet he was sorry for Victman. He had ruined him. If he left tomorrow, though it was impossible that any major store would have him now, there would be nothing in the Times, nothing in the Wall Street Journal. Mum would be the word from Woman’s Wear Daily. Looking at him, Feldman was often reminded of those “Where are they now?” features in magazines. Question: “Whatever happened to Norman Victman?” Answer: “He’s with Feldman. He’s sitting on his ass for many thousands of dollars a year.”
“Victman started talking again, but Feldman wasn’t listening. Victman stared at him. “You can’t stop thinking about it, can you?” he asked.
“You’re on my shitty list,” Feldman said weakly.
Eight years ago Feldman’s fortunes had been at their apogee. He had come up and up, the upstart, and in the last few years had outtraded and outdealt all of them, his store neck and neck with the largest ones in the state. Movie stars in town for personal appearances carried home his shopping bags on airplanes.
And his demon told him that it couldn’t last, that prosperity was short-lived deception, that at last Red China and The Bomb and Civil Rights and The Russians would take their tolclass="underline" that the world was turning a corner, the blue sky was falling. He saw a terrible fight for survival in which America — white men everywhere — backed against a final wall, would have to scrap its style. (Hadn’t he been there himself, a passionate Jewish guerrilla fighter on the beachheads of the Diaspora? Hadn’t he, the little terrorist, thrown his bombs and Molotov cocktails, and didn’t he understand ardor, zeal, impatience, all the harassing, importuning passions? Wasn’t he, by analogy then, an expert on the little yellow men, the little brown ones, the big black ones?) He foreknew the failing markets and the finished fads, anticipated in some sweeping, dark, Malthusic vision America’s throes, this very city’s — saw it choking on its fat. When others spoke warmly of progress Feldman kept his troubled peace, but he knew they were wrong.
Then he saw Victman’s picture in Fortune and read his articles: “The Suburbs: America’s New Market Towns.”
He made the phone calls, sent the wires. Then the flights to New York and the wining and the dining and the feeling him out, and finally the secret meeting between the two men in the motel outside Chicago. “What can you expect from Macy’s, Mr. Victman? You know their setup. Their echelons. Think of those echelons. Think of your distance from the king. How many princes and dukes and archdukes and barons and counts stand between you and the throne?” “That’s true,” Victman said, “that’s true.” “America is West, Mr. Victman. The whole world is, the whole universe is. Dare to dream. I’m talking future with you tonight — empire, dynasty, destiny. Neiman-Marcus, Norman. Consider, conjure. Soon Hawaii will be a state. Guam. The Philippines. Dare I suggest it? Come closer. Formosa. Quemoy. Matsu. Quemoy — keen; Matsu — mmnn. Shh. Shh. Are you the passionate man I think you are? Did you mean what you said in ‘The Suburbs: America’s New Market Towns’? Then get in on the ground floor. This is foundations, first principles. Make a wish on the stars, on the blue horizon. Climb every mountain, Mr. Victman. Pioneers, O pioneers, sir. Come West, young Victman.”
He came, Feldman talking so fast Victman didn’t know what was happening. Of course he came. Expecting perhaps to find mud streets, plank sidewalks, boomtown — assay offices, burlap sacks of nugget and dust, old-timers leading packmules. Finding instead only Feldman’s somber city, a place of half a million looking older and more settled than New York. Then held in check: allowed to fiddle, seek sites, arrange for surveys, market-research reports; consult till the cows came home sociologists, city planners; even consulting architects at some predecision, top-of-the-tablecloth level, positioning goblets, inclining forks. Seen everywhere, overheard everywhere, egged on by Feldman himself, spilling his dreams in restaurants near the tables of men Feldman recognized as competitors and he didn’t. His enthusiasm daily primed, each scheme encouraged, Feldman himself squaring his plans, complicating, flourishing, until the man thought he dealt with some merchant Midas and that on this rock would be founded some new commercial Rome. Until the casual chitchat of millions made even this city slicker’s head spin: “Invest at a hundred dollars a man. That’s the best rule of thumb, I think.” “But that’s fifty-five and a half million dollars!” “Today. I don’t mean today. What were those population projections you got from the university? Let me see them, please. But this is only for two generations. It’s a mistake to plan for under three. That’s house-of-cards thinking, pigs who build with straw and sticks.” “Wow!” “Wow indeed. Indeed wow.”
Only gradually disappointed, held off for eight months by Feldman’s ploys: Feldman dutifully inspecting Victman’s sites. “You know your business, Victman, or you wouldn’t be working with me, but I thought we were speaking about three generations. Can you see this place in even two generations?” (They were standing in a green pasture eight miles from town.) “It’ll be a slum. Women unsafe on the street after eight o’clock at night, men unsafe after nine.” Held off some more by his ploys for backing (“We don’t want our capital from American sources”). Sent once to India, another time to Dutch Guiana (“That’s where the money is, Norman, in your underdeveloped nations. Among those old Dutch planters”). And one time actually coming back with a pledge for twenty million from a man in Mexico (“No, Norman, I want thirty million from him. Either he’s willing to show some good faith in this or we don’t want to have anything to do with him”).
And then, in a year, the disappointment growing in leaps and bounds: “I don’t understand, Leo. Let’s not sit on this. It’s been eighteen months. We should break ground this winter so we can start building in the spring. The competition has its sites already.” “Give them their rope, Norman, please.” And then, later, after he had obtained additional pledges and pushed the Mexican up to thirty million: “Leo, we could have the capital investment tomorrow if we wanted. Let’s move already.” “‘Let’s move already’? We have moved. We have moved, Norman, you silly man. What else do you think we’ve been doing for two years? And don’t talk to me about having the capital investments tomorrow, when I have them today, when I’ve had them for two years. You’re the capital investments, Norman. Don’t you see what’s happening? They’ve taken the bait! They’re overextending! Those stores will be open in a year. Built in the sticks. Who’ll go? Who’ll go? And not just the double maintenance, but the double staff, the double advertising, the double trouble. We’ve thinned them out, we’ve spread them thin. You did, Norman. With your table talk, your reputation, your picture and the three columns in Woman’s Wear Daily. You believe in progress? Progress is irreligious. Read your Bible. Seven fat years. Seven lean. And the seven lean shall be seven times leaner than the seven fat are fat. Seven lean, Norman, and all it takes is two — say three. No, Norman, no, they’re tough, these guys. Say four. Say five, and have a margin of two. So don’t speak to me about capital investment, nor prattle of progress. Checkmate is the name of the game. Not moving forward: standing pat when all about you are losing theirs.”