“‘What?’ I said. ‘Why the Cadillac car is named after a Catholic,’ I said. I said ‘Old Duke Cadillac, he was a Catholic.’
“‘I don’t mean Ginrul Mawtors, Mr. Fliegler,’ he said. ‘I mean Julian English, that’s who I mean.’
“‘Why, Mister Quilty,’ I said, ‘you’re all wrong about that,’ I said. I told him about Reverend Creedon, what a good friend of yours he is, and how you did this and that and the other for the sisters and so on, but he wouldn’t hear any of it. He said he didn’t always see eye to eye with Reverend Creedon, as far as that goes, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, he said, he’d been hearing some stuff about you and Harry Reilly having a fight. What the hell’s he talking about?”
“I threw a highball in his face the other night,” said Julian.
“Oh, that,” said Lute. “I heard about that. But you weren’t having a fight over religion, were you?”
“No. Certainly not. I was cockeyed and I just let go with the drink. What else? What about O’Buick?”
“Well, that’s the trouble. I can’t get anything on him,” said Lute. “Old Quilty, he wouldn’t tell me any more than what I told you, except to say he was going to take a little time to think it over before he bought anything off us. I’m afraid we’re not going to move that car unless you go out and talk to him yourself, Julian.”
“Do you think that would do any good?”
“To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know. I’m up a tree. When one of these Irish bastards gets the idea you’re against their church, you have your hands full bucking it. The only explanation for it in a case like this is young O’Dowd, the son of a bitch, he heard about you and Reilly having this fight or whatever it was, and he went right out and gave old Quilty this story. That’s my guess. I’d like to punch him one in the nose.”
“So would I.”
“Well, don’t you do it or we won’t be able to give the product away in 1931. I might as well tell you all the bad news while I’m at it.”
“You mean more bad news?” said Julian.
“That’s what I mean, nothing else but,” said Lute. “Julian, I don’t want—wait a minute. Miss Klein, would you mind going out on the floor a minute while I talk with Mr. English?”
“Not at all. The language you use.” Mary Klein left the office.
“Listen, Julian,” said Lute. “Your private affairs are your own business, and you’re boss here and all that. But I’m ten years older than you and you and I always hit it off pretty damned good, so do you mind if I give it to you straight from the shoulder?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Well, I don’t want you to take offense at this, and you can fire me if you get sore, but you been making a fool of yourself, and last night up at the Stage Coach—Jesus, I don’t know what to say. But you oughn’t to done that, taking that dame out, that torch singer. You know whose girl she is? Ed Charney’s. One of the best friends we have, in a business way. There’s a guy, a lot of people don’t want to have anything to do with him, and I guess a lot of your friends think you contaminate yourself by selling him an automobile. But meanwhile Ludendorf is selling plenty of Packards to the same friends, so what they think don’t matter. Ed Charney is a right guy, a square shooter. He pays his bills regular, and they’re pretty big bills. He likes you personally. He told me that many’s the time. He says you’re the only one in the whole high-hat crowd that he considers on the up and up. Well, what’s the result? The result is, any time one of his bootlegger friends is in the market for a high-priced automobile, Ed sees to it that we make the sale. You don’t see Ludendorf selling Packards to any of Ed Charney’s pals.
“So then what? So then you turn around and pay him back by giving his girl a lay and making a monkey out of him right in his own spot, not to mention making a fool of yourself with your own wife and friends right there. You know what’d happen to any of Ed’s own crowd that tried to pull a fast one like that, don’t you? Why it’d be suicide, and just because your father happens to be a big shot here, Julian, don’t think you’re in such a good spot yourself. I don’t mean Ed’s going to have his gorillas turn a Tommy gun on you or anything like that. But why can’t you be more careful? I happen to know Ed is plenty burned up, and, my God, I don’t blame him. He’s been keeping that dame for over two years now, and everybody says he’s nuts about her, and then you get cockeyed and take her out for a quick jump and ruin the whole works. My God, Julian.”
“You’re wrong about one thing,” said Julian.
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t lay that girl.”
Lute hesitated before answering. “Well, maybe you didn’t, but everybody thought you did and that amounts to the same thing. She was out in the car with you long enough, and when she came back she didn’t look as if you’d been sitting there listening to Father Coughlin on the radio. What surprised me was that you’d have anything to do with her at all. Not that it’s for me to say, but you always struck me as the ideal married couple, you and Caroline, Mrs. English. That’s what Irma said too. I know it’s the first time I ever knew of you going on the make for some dame. Honest, Julian, I don’t want to talk out of turn, but if you and your wife are having family troubles, you ought to do your best to fix it up. You have the nicest, the swellest girl in the whole God damn Lantenengo Street crowd, and everybody in town thinks so, and if you take it from me—and mind, I’m ten years older’n you—you do the wise thing and patch it up. Irma and I, we have our troubles, but she knows how it is between she and I, and I think you feel the same way about Mrs. English.
“There. I’ve shot off my face more than I intended to, but I’m glad I got it off my chest. If you want to give me the air, that’s your business, but everything I told you is the truth and down in your heart you know it, pal. I can get another job, or if I can’t, I’ll get by somehow. If you’re the kind of a guy that’d fire me for what I been telling you, then you’re not the kind of a guy I always took you for, and I don’t want to work for you. So that’s that.” Lute stood up slowly.
“Sit down, Lute.” Julian was unable to say more than that. The two men sat opposite each other for a few minutes. Lute offered Julian a cigarette and Julian took it, and Julian gave Lute a light. Presently Julian said: “What do you think I ought to do, Lute?”
“Gee, I wish I knew. I guess let it ride for the time being. You were cockeyed, and that’s one consolation. Maybe Charney will take that into consideration. Aw, what the hell. We’ll get by. Don’t take it to heart too much. I’ll see you this afternoon around quitting time. I have to go to Collieryville now, but it’ll work out one way or another. Shake?”
“Shake,” said Julian. They shook hands and smiled, and Lute left, and Julian heard him telling Mary Klein that everything had been decided; they weren’t going to handle automobiles any more; just airplanes.
“It isn’t true, is it, Mr. English? What Luther Fliegler just told me?”
“What did he tell you?”
“That we were going to stop selling cars and sell airplanes instead. I don’t think there’s any market for airplanes around here.”
“Don’t let it worry you for a couple of years, Mary,” said Julian. “You know Lute.”