They employed the same caution when they reached the street, and then they hustled me over into a long, dark blue sedan already occupied by a uniformed driver. The motor was running and the car slid ahead as the door closed.
The goldfish one rapped his knuckles on the window nearest him. “You can relax now,” he said. It seemed an odd superstition, rapping on glass, but I ignored it.
“Any excitement out your way?” the other little man asked.
The only thing that seemed apropos was my recent survey of retail outfits instigated by Mr. Max Idelhaur.
“I personally eliminated eleven dealers,” I said with quiet pride.
His jaw sagged and his eyes protruded a bit. I revised my estimate of him. Doubtless he was one of the dealers rather than one of our Mr. Darben’s salesmen.
“Holy Moses!” he said. “Eleven! I didn’t see it in the papers.”
Doubtless he was referring to the trade papers. “We have ways of avoiding undue publicity,” I said. He nodded sagely.
“I wish we had that kind of control out here,” he said.
I then noticed that we were going in almost the exact opposite direction from our Mr. Darben’s offices. Then I realized that it was quite early. Doubtless we were going to his home. This surprised me a bit, as I have always felt that Mr. Darben does not particularly care for me. I frequently criticize his expense accounts.
We rode in silence and at last turned into a winding street called Jacaranda Drive. The chauffeur turned into a driveway and blew his horn in front of a massive wrought-iron gate. I made a mental note to remove the expense item of this trip from Mr. Darben’s next expense account. A man came running to the gate on the inside. He stared out at us, then activated the gate with some sort of a pushbutton. We could not see the house itself until we were inside the gate, and then it quite took my breath away. Our Mr. Darben was certainly doing very well indeed. I decided to caution him about going in debt. It was a huge structure of grey stone, redwood and plate glass. Beyond one corner I could see the end of a swimming pool, with bright mattresses laid out on the edge of it.
The car stopped and the goldfish one said, “Now we’re really all right.”
When he got out and took my bag out, I said, “Now look here! I am planning on residing in a hotel.”
“Wait’ll you hear the pitch,” he said, “then decide.”
I shrugged. I followed them to a side door, my package under my arm. We went into a hallway and then out onto a very pleasant little terrace with several tables. It overlooked the pool.
The chauffeur had come in. He rubbed his hands together. “I’ll tell ’em in the kitchen what you want.”
“That’s very nice of you. Orange juice, toast and coffee, please.”
“Coming up. He ought to be down in a half hour or so. Want a paper?”
“Yes, thank you.” A fresh copy of the Pacific City Courier was given to me and I was left alone on the terrace. The morning breeze was fresh and quite comfortably cool. Soon a young man in a white coat brought my breakfast. He seemed to be some sort of an Oriental.
I inspected the breakfast most carefully. Our representatives have a somewhat annoying habit of trying to catch a man from the home office with some of his own merchandise. The butter was not our hard yellow rubber special which has sold so well, nor did I find one of our green plastic Wiggli-Worms in the orange juice.
As I buttered my second piece of toast, a young woman came out through the wide doors and approached my table. I would hesitate to call her a lady. Her long yellow hair was not carefully combed, and there were remnants of yesterday’s lipstick on her slightly over-heavy lips. She had an extremely sulky expression. But the thing which dismayed me most was her attire. She wore some sort of a wrapper, I believe they are called.
“He told me to come down and entertain you,” she said somewhat bitterly.
I naturally held a chair for her.
“Soong!” she yelled, so loudly that I jumped. The Oriental put in his appearance. “Coffee, Soong. Black and lots of it,” she demanded. When he left she pressed her palms against her temples and sighed. “Will I never learn?” she said. Then she looked at me steadily. Her eyes were so level and so frankly searching that I felt myself blush. “Do you know your business?” she asked. “You certainly don’t look it.”
“I think you should know,” I said with dignity, “that I am well thought of in many quarters.”
“Maybe I haven’t seen everything,” she said obtusely.
“Have you known Mr. Darben long?” I asked politely. This woman certainly bore no resemblance to Mrs. Darben, a short, heavily-constructed person who quotes Browning.
“I don’t know any Darben,” she said.
It did not take my agile mind long to recover from the surprise. I surmised that they were giving me what is called ‘the buildup’. Evidently this was a rather topheavy ‘gag’, precisely the sort of thing you would expect from our Mr. Darben, a man of rather meager resources.
As I was about to play along with her in an attempt to turn the tables on them, a strange man came out onto the terrace. He wore a pale yellow terrycloth robe and his brown feet were bare. I must say that he was a most handsome man. Though his hair was white, he seemed to be in the very flush of health. I was prepared to like him at once, yet when he stared at me I noticed that his eyes had an uncanny coldness about them. They were of that grey shade that icicles get in a soft coal region.
I stood up and reached my hand out to him. He came toward me to take my hand, saying, “Glad you made it okay.” Just as he was about to take my hand I lifted it out of his reach, closing my fingers and pointing my thumb back over my right shoulder. It is one of those ‘bits of business’ that seem to be essential when one is out on the road selling our line.
He went white with fury and I beamed at him, because it is one of the tenets of our trade that a successful ‘gag’ always leaves the subject enormously angry. The woman at the table made a strangling sound. Then the stranger proved that he was no gentleman. Barely glancing at her, he backhanded her across the mouth. The blow was sufficient to split her lip and knock her over backwards. She scrambled to her feet and moved away from the white-haired man, obviously afraid of a second punishing blow.
It was the first time I have ever seen a woman brutally struck. Though she seemed to be a rather sordid type, she was still a woman. One might say almost too obviously a woman.
“That, sir,” I said, stepping toward him, “was the act of a dastard.”
“What did you say?” he asked me in a curiously small voice.
“The act of a coward and a bully!”
I detest violence, but in this case it was obvious that someone had to take a firm hand. I am a veteran of three years of boxing lessons at the YMCA. I went up onto my toes and put my left fist out and danced around him in a deadly circle, my right hand coiled to strike. He turned and faced me as I circled him, utter amazement on his face. But he was sufficiently wise not to raise his hands. I imagine that he realized I could not hit a man who made no attempt to protect himself.
Then he threw his head back and laughed. He laughed until the tears squeezed out of his eyes and he sank weakly into the nearest chair. He was too far gone for several moments to talk.
“Okay, okay,” he gasped, “they told me you were a handy man with a boffo, but I didn’t know how good you really were. Sit down and finish your coffee.”
I sat down, rather puzzled. “Just who are you, sir?”