“Don’t you believe in progress?” Victman asked, shocked, shattered, who had based his life and staked his reputation on that principle.
“I believe,” said Feldman softly, for they were in a restaurant now too, and he recognized faces and the walls had ears, “I believe in smearing the competition, survival of the fittest, cartel by default. I believe in the disappointed expectation and the harpooned hope, and that the best-laid plans of mice and men often gang astray. The tire with the plumpest tread has never moved an inch. Norman, Norman, consider the man in the club chair. That bulk comes from exercise’s opposite: if you’d increase, decrease and desist. The proud falsetto of the castrate, the fat lap of the dowager, the banker’s big ass — seats of power, Victman. I believe in ploy and stratagem and maneuver and conspiracy. I believe in espionage, the coup d’état, assassination, the palace revolt, guerrilla attacks and the cheaper revolutions. No more parades, sir. No more expensive reviews and costly May Day brags. No more shopping centers, no more sites, no more branch stores. Think me up commando schemes!”
He’d been had, poor man. When the other stores had their grand openings Feldman would have fired him, but he had invested $150,000 in him in the past two years and could not consider the deal closed until the stores had gone under. In the third year, having thoroughly discredited him, he lowered his salary to a more wieldy $30,000. (Two years, and not one coup to add to his score. No one knew, of course, how Feldman used him.) And the next year his salary was lowered again, by five thousand dollars. “The laborer is worth his hire,” Feldman told him. “That’s the best rule of thumb, I think.”
Only one thing. And Feldman now considered it.
The stores had not gone under. There had not been seven fat years and seven lean ones, but fourteen fat. Disastrously, there had been no disaster. Red China had not laid a finger on the competition. “If you’re so smart,” he sang, “why ain’t you rich?”
“They’re taking us off the charge plate, Leo,” Victman said.
“They’re what?”
“What they threatened. When the new plates come out in the fall, we won’t be on them.” Feldman stared at him. “We haven’t kept pace,” Victman said shyly.
“Why? How can they do that?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you. There isn’t any one reason — pressure from the retail clerks’ union.”
“I pay a straight commission.”
“Hiring policy—”
“The first store in the state to hire a Negro?”
“Token, Leo.”
“Tahkee token,” Feldman said.
“They claim we run phony sales.”
“Phony sales? Phony?”
“Who celebrates Arbor Day today?” Victman asked tragically. He was inconsolable.
“Some irony, hey, kid? It must be tough for you. You practically invented the charge plate.”
“I was in on the discussions.”
“Sure you were,” Feldman said. “Come on, Victman, cheer up. It’s not so bad. Smile once for me. Grin and bear it. Say ‘cheese.’ We’ve been there before, you and me. Back to the wall. Listen, try to look at it this way. You’ve had your back to the wall ever since you came here. I put you there. I made you stand in the corner with your back to the wall. What, you’ve forgotten all the lousy tricks I’ve played on you? The underhanded deals, the way I’ve used you, all the dirt I’ve made you eat? I’ve been hacking away at your salary for years. Why let a little thing like this get to you? I know. It’s symbolic, your being in on the discussions and all, but frig them, I say. Listen to me. Please take heart. You’ve got Feldman back there against the wall with you now. That’s my territory, the landscape I know and love.
“So they’ve taken us off the charge plate, have they? Well, who needs them? Say that with me. ‘Who needs them?’ The charge plate is new-fangled anyway. It’s against nature. We’ll put out our own charge plate. We’ll do better. We’ll make the customer bring a note from home. Come on, we’ll show them, Victman. Are you with me on this? The ammo’s running out and winter’s coming and there’s nothing between an enemy bent on rape and our helpless, sleeping women and children but you, me and the token niggers. Never say die, I tell you. Rally round the flag, pal. Stomach in, chest out. Five, six, pick up sticks and beat hell out of them. What do you say? Never say die. What do you say?”
“Leo, the property I told you about — why don’t you look at it? Won’t you look at it now? This is no joke. Our volume is down. We haven’t kept pace. Come this afternoon. I’ll get the developer to meet us. What do you say?”
“I say die.”
“It’s a beautiful site, Leo. When the projects go up, there’ll be ten thousand middle-income families within a twelve-block radius.”
“Die,” Feldman said.
“Parking for fifteen thousand cars. At least talk to the developer.”
“Die.”
“You can’t avoid it any longer. The handwriting’s on the wall. Leo, I warned you a year ago. It’s no joke, being dropped from the group charge plate. It’s a slap in the face. What do you keep me for if you don’t listen to me? I don’t sell for you, I don’t wrap packages or wait on trade. I’m an idea man, Leo, a merchandising-concepts man. I see ways to bring this all off. We can get financing. My home-shopper plan, Leo—”
“Die,” Feldman said. “I say die.”
“It could be terrific. We put the customer’s size on IBM tape, we code his tastes, his needs, then we keep him advised what we have for him and send it to his house. They’ll go for this big, Leo.”
“Die.”
“Leo, you don’t listen. My franchise plan. What was wrong with my franchise plan? It’s only logic. If the little name can’t absorb the big name, let the big name absorb the little name. Merge, Leo.”
“Die? You say die?”
“All right, forget that, but at least look at the site I have in mind. This charge-plate business is only a first step. If the big stores put on the pressure, the papers won’t accept our advertising. It could happen. It happened in Mobile to Blum’s. Our volume is down eight percent. We let go sixteen people this year. Gerard Brothers took on fifty, Llewelyn’s thirty-seven. At least look at the site.”