“I think so,” she said. She looked into the register and then she gave him twenty-five dollars from her purse and two tens from the register and, to wind it up, a roll of nickels. “Almost fifty,” she said.
“It’s enough,” he said. “I have my credit card to buy gas.”
“Did you believe me when I said I’d call your old boss?”
“We’ll see,” he said. He did not believe that when it came down to it she would jeopardize the sale. They both understood the situation; they could not afford the pleasure of telling anyone about the keyboards. Like Baranowski, they would have to keep it quiet and hope it wouldn’t be noticed. Possibly Baranowski hadn’t discovered it himself until after he had bought up the four hundred machines …
All along the line, he thought. The machines passing from one hand to the next. From one city to the next. Up from Mexico to Seattle, through San Diego and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, maybe even some of the smaller towns in-between.
And now we own a bunch of them.
Now it’s up to us to make the wheels turn; to get rid of them, push the things into motion again.
In his mind he believed that she saw it like that, too. It was too serious. What other way was there?
Susan said, “You know, when you called me from up there, and told me about Milt—it worried me. That you could walk off and leave him. I guess you’ll walk out of here sometime, like last night. When you calculate in your mind that it’s unprofitable to stay with me. When you get to the point that you can’t see a living to be made out of this place, or out of being married to me. Maybe I can talk to you in your own terms. I think there is a living to be made out of me. I can probably make a living on my own; I always have. At least, since I was—I started to say, Since I was your age. But actually it was since I was nineteen. Isn’t that something for you to consider? A wife who can support herself, and possibly support you as well?”
He said, “You know I’ve never thought about anything like that.”
“Maybe not consciously,” she said.
“That damn talk,” he said, with loathing.
“Haven’t you subconsciously wanted to lean on me? The situation cries out for it. An older woman that you recognize as a figure you used to look up to and depend on for guidance.”
“I never depended on you,” he said, at the doorway of the office. “I was afraid of you. I lived for the day I could get out of your class.”
“You liar,” she said. “You needed somebody to guide you. You had to be led around.”
“Don’t be vindictive,” he said, hardly able to stand hearing her tell him such things. Such obviously made-up things for no other purpose than to injure him. She was saying whatever she could think of.
“You were a weak child,” she said, her face white but composed. “A dependent child that followed the lead of the other children.”
“Not true,” he said, having difficulty speaking.
“That’s right,” she said. “You had an older brother. He’s doing medical research, isn’t he? He won a lot of scholarships. I remember seeing his school records. He was brilliant; I remember that.”
“Having fun?” he said. “Have fun. Have a lot of fun.”
“I can understand your wanting to demonstrate to me that you’re an adult and capable of taking your place as an equal,” she said, with the perverse acuteness that had always shown up in her when she was terribly angry, determined to get back at any cost. “If only you had been able to pull off this deal of yours. For your own sake, as well of course as for ours, I wish you had actually been able to do what you maintained you had the experience to do. I guess I shouldn’t be saying things like this to you, should I? You’re not psychologically strong enough to hear them. I’m sorry.” But even as she apologized her eyes shone with cruelty; she was still searching for something more to say. “Sooner or later you have to learn about yourself,” she told him, her voice rising to that sharp, carrying, speech-like tone that had entered into his bones years ago and stuck with him. He winced at the sound. It made him cringe and feel guilt and fright, and the remembered hopeless dislike toward her. Suddenly, with triumph, she waved her finger at him and said, “I think I have your motivations worked out; you deliberately managed to buy these machines, knowing subconsciously that they were defective, to pay me back for the hostility you felt toward me when you were eleven years old. You’re still eleven. Emotionally, you’re living out the life of a grammar school child.” Panting, she stared at him, waiting to hear what he had to say.
There was nothing to say. He left the office without answering. For a time he did not know or care where he went; he wandered around downtown Boise, in a blank.
What meanness, he thought. Anything to score a hit.
Maybe it was true. Maybe—subconsciously—he had noticed that the keyboard was not right. After all, he had had plenty of opportunity to study it. In the same manner that Milt Lumky had arranged to become ill at the proper moment, to pay him and Susan back.
How can anybody ever know? he asked himself.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, he thought. Maybe it has no meaning, one way or another. I did buy the machines; Milt did get sick. Motives or secret reasons have no significance in this. I still have to get rid of the sixty Mithrias portable electric typewriters.
And I’ll be god damned if I’m going to say anything to anybody about the keyboards. Let them find out for themselves.
He waited until sunset and then he started out on the highway.
I had better cook up a darn good story, he said to himself. Because the first thing he’ll want to know is why I’m trying to unload them. The sale will be made or lost there.
As he drove he meditated.
Nothing entered his mind for several hours. And then, out of nowhere, he thought up one of the most sensational lies that he had ever heard of. An absolutely perfect explanation for his purposes.
He had to dump the Mithrias machines because a representative of some major U.S. typewriter—Royal or Underwood or Remington—had gotten wind that he had them and was about to peddle them. The factory representative had shown up and told him that if he sold them over the counter he would never get a U.S. typewriter franchise as long as he lived. And that furthermore he would not even get parts or supplies; they would strangle him on the vine.
On the other hand, if he dumped the Mithrias machines outside of the area, they would see that he got a decent franchise arrangement.
It was the superiority of the Mithrias that had frightened the U.S. typewriter people.
A discount house like C.B.B. would jump at a chance to get the machines, once they had been fed such a story. Assuming they believed it.
As he drove he thought, If they believe it, then I have a sale. If they don’t, then I don’t. And, he thought, if they buy, they’ll buy at a good price. I can probably sell it to them at a good profit. Not for fifty bucks a machine but more like seventy-five. That would mean a clear net profit of fifteen hundred dollars. Fifty percent mark-up, which is good enough for anybody.
Of course, he realized, I’ll never be able to set foot in Nevada again.
I wonder if I can pull it off, he asked himself. The idea of it intrigued and excited him. Not merely dumping the machines, but making a good profit. And selling them not just to anybody but to a discount house. One that he had learned the business from.
And to his own former employers … it was a challenge.
15
In the upstairs office overlooking the main floor of the Consumers’ Buying Bureau building, Ed von Scharf met him and sat down with him.
“Let’s have a look at them,” von Scharf said briskly.