"Yeah?" said Ballin. "That's an idea."
"I've got good eyesight," continued Falck, ignoring the mental squirmings of Ross, "and no private axes to grind ..."
Falck continued his line of sales chatter until Ballin said: "Okay, you're in, Mr. Ross."
"Whenisittobe?"
"Next Thursday. I've already got over thirty entries, but next year if I repeat it there ought to be a lot more. We'd have to set up some sort of preliminary screening."
Falck wound up the interview and took Ross's body out of the Outstanding Knitwear offices. Ross heard his body say:
"Well, Ovid old boy, there's an opportunity most men would fight tooth and nail for. Anything to say before I sign off? Write it on your pad."
As Falck released control, Ross wrote a couple of dirty words on the pad, adding: "You got me into this; you'll have to see me through."
Falck, taking over again, laughed. "Rather! I have every intention of doing so, laddie."
Back at the Gazette, Addison Sharpe whistled when he heard Ross's story. He said:
"I don't know how the boss will like your getting in on this fool stunt. He turned Ballin down in no uncertain terms."
"I'd think it would be good publicity for the paper," said Ross.
"Well, Mr. Hoolihan has funny ideas; quite a Puritan. You wait while I speak to him."
Ross sat down and wrote notes on his interview until Sharpe said: "This way, Ovid."
The managing editor led him into Hoolihan's office, where the advertising manager was already seated. Hoolihan barked:
"Ross, call up Ballin and tell him it's no go! At once! I won't have my clean sheet mixed up in his burlesque act!"
"But, Mr. Hoolihan!" wailed the advertising manager. "Mr. Ballin has just taken a whole page for the October issue, and if you insult him he'll cancel it! And you know what our advertising account looks like right now."
"Oh?" said Hoolihan. "I don't let advertisers dictate my editorial policies!"
"But that's not all. Mike Ballin, his brother — or rather one of his brothers — is the bigshot at the Pegasus Cutting Machine Company, another advertiser."
"Hm. That's another story."
As the great man pondered his problems, the advertising manager added slyly: "Besides, if you don't let Ross judge, Ballin will simply get somebody from The Clothing Retailer or Women's Wear or one of the other sheets, and they'll get whatever benefit —"
"I see," interrupted Hoolihan. "Ross! You go through with this act as planned, but heaven help you if you bring us any unfavorable notoriety! Keep yourself in the background. Play it close to your chest. No stunts! Get me? All right, back to work!"
"Yes, Mr. Hoolihan," said Ovid Ross.
"Yes, Mr. Hoolihan," said Addison Sharpe.
"Yes, Mr. Hoolihan," said the advertising manager.
Ovid Ross spent most of Saturday shining up his small middle-aged convertible and touching up the necks in the paint. He had to journey up to the Bronx to get to it, because automobile storage fees had become prohibitively high in Manhattan.
Sunday morning, the sky was so overcast that Ross had doubts about his party. The paper, however, said fair, warm, and humid. By the time he went all the way up again by subway, got the car, and drove back to Manhattan to pick up Falck and his girl, the sun was burning its way through the overcast.
Falck directed Ross to drive around to a brownstone front house in the west seventies to get the girl, whom he introduced as a Miss Dorothea Dunkelberg. She was a plump girl, very young-looking, and pretty in a round-faced bovine way. She was the kind whom their elders describe as "sweet" for want of any more positive attribute.
They spun through a hot, humid forenoon up the Westchester parkways to the Peshkov estate near White Plains. As they turned in the driveway between the stone posts, Falck said:
"These Russkys rather did all right by themselves, didn't they?"
"Yeah," said Ross. "When they liquidated all the Commies in the revolution of '79, Peshkov was Commissar of the Treasury or something and got away with a couple of trunk-loads of foreign securities."
"And he's been allowed to keep them?"
"The new Russian Commonwealth has been trying to get hold of that dough ever since, but Peshkov keeps it hidden away or tied up in legal knots."
"And your Miss La Motte tutors his kids?"
"That's right. She doesn't like 'em much, but it's money."
"Why, what sort of folks are they?"
"Well, to give you an idea, Peskhov's idea of a jolly evening is to sit all alone in his living room with a pistol on the table beside him, drinking vodka and staring into space. Claire tells me he's been getting moodier and moodier ever since those anti-Communist Russians tried to assassinate him last year."
A tremendous barking broke out. Around the corner of the house streaked a half-dozen Russian wolfhounds with long snaky heads thrust forward and long legs pumping like steel springs. The dogs rushed to where the automobile was slowly crunching up the winding gravel driveway and began racing around it like Indians circling a prairie schooner.
"Do we have to fight our way through those?" said Dorothea Dunkelberg. "They scare me."
"Claire will handle 'em," said Ross with more conviction than he felt. "She says they're friendly but dumb."
The sun glinted on red hair as a figure in a play-suit appeared beside the mansion. Claire La Motte's voice came shrilly:
"Ilya! Olga! Come here! Here, Dmitri! Behave yourself, Anastasia!"
The dogs loped off towards the house, where the girl seized a couple by their collars and dragged them out of sight around the corner. The others followed. Presently, Claire appeared again and waved an arm towards the parking space. Ross parked and got out.
As Claire La Motte approached the car, Ovid Ross reached into his pocket and pressed his switch button, once. Now, he hoped, he would show up all right in comparison with his slick friend Falck!
He felt Jerome Bundy take over his body and stride it towards the approaching Claire. Behind him he heard a faint wolf-whistle from Falck. Instead of formally shaking hands with her and mumbling something banal while his ears pinkened and his knuckles seemed to swell to the size of baseballs, Ross heard his body bellow:
"Hi there, beautiful!"
Then it clamped its hands around Claire's small waist and hoisted her to arm's length overhead. He let her slip back into his arms, briefly hugged the breath out of her, and dropped her to the ground. As he did so he thought he caught a smothered murmur:
"Why, Ovid!"
At least, thought Ross, he was glad that Bundy hadn't made him kiss her or spank her behind. It was all very well for his controller to take an attitude of hearty familiarity, but that sort of thing could easily be carried too far. Popular mythology to the contrary notwithstanding, many girls really disliked caveman tactics.
Ross's body then affably introduced Claire La Motte to his new friends. Claire said:
"I thought we'd take a walk around the grounds and then eat a picnic lunch on the edge of the pool. Then later we can take a swim."
"Oh," said Bundy-Ross. "Gil, grab the suits and towels."
Falck brought these objects out of the rear seat of the car and walked after the others.
"Over that way," said Claire, pointing over the trees, "is the Untereiner estate. The Wyckman estate used to be beyond it, but now they're putting up apartment houses on it."
There were the conventional murmurs about the never-ending growth of New York's commutershed, both in size and in population. Claire continued:
"And over that way is the MacFadden estate, only the Mutual Fidelity bought it as a club for their employees. And in that direction is the Heliac Health Club."