At a payphone in a drugstore he called her. “They’ll take them off our hands,” he said.
“Oh thank god,” Susan said fervently. “At how much?”
“Forty-five apiece,” he said.
“Oh what a relief.” She sighed. “Bruce, that’s wonderful. That means we get almost all our money back. How much do we lose? Three hundred dollars? I’m too excited to figure it. We could call that Milt’s money; part of the five hundred he gave us as a wedding present. I called him, incidently. I got hold of him at Pocatello, at a friend’s place. You met her—Cathy Hermes.”
“How is he?” he said.
“Much better. He’s back on the road again. He asked me if we got the typewriters and I told him—” She hesitated. “I told him we decided not to.”
“Why?” he said.
“Because—well, I thought perhaps it would worry him.”
“Why should it worry him?”
“I got to thinking about it and I decided that maybe you’re right. He might have known subconsciously. And then if he knew we’d gone ahead and bought them he’d have guilt to wrestle with. I think that’s why he gave us the five hundred dollars; to appease his conscience. I was wondering about that… it’s an awful lot of money.”
“I just assumed it was for old times’ sake,” he said. “Because you and he used to be such friends.”
“No,” she said. “What gave you that idea? I probably don’t know him any better then you do.”
He said, “Shall I sell the machines to them, then?”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “By all means. Before they change their minds.”
“They won’t change their minds,” he said. “They’re going to make something like nine thousand dollars out of this, give or take a few man-hours of repairwork.”
Susan said, “Did Mr. von Scharf say anything to you about your job?”
“Why?” he said, chilled.
“I wondered if he had. If we’re going to close up the office you’ll have to give some thought to that. I mean to close it, Bruce. I talked to Fancourt after you left and he said he thought it would be a good idea. Then I can be home with Taffy.”
He said, “Did you say anything to von Scharf about it?”
“I—told him that I thought we might be moving down to Reno.”
“What did he say?”
“He said your job is open.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you.” He started to hang up.
“You’ll be home tomorrow?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. He hung up.
By god, he thought, she did talk to them about my job. They probably arranged it among them. Time, salary, duties.
He returned to his car. For a few minutes he sat, and then he started the motor and drove back to the typewriter repair shop where the short little neatly-dressed man had given him the estimate.
“I see you’re back,” the man said in his severe, quiet manner, as he entered with the Mithrias.
Bruce said, “I want you to go ahead and do the work. Can you do it right now?”
“I suppose I can,” the man said. “Set it down here.” He took the machine and placed it on his work table. “It’s certainly not very heavy,” he said.
“I’d like to watch,” Bruce said. “It won’t make you nervous, will it?” He got out a ball point pen and paper and placed himself nearby.
The man said, “You’re going to see how it’s done, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Let’s be honest about this. If this is going to help you any, you’re going to have to know more about it than you’ll get by watching me work.” The man considered. “Are you in a hurry? For instance, can you manage to hold your water until tonight?”
“I guess so,” he said.
The man said, “Come by here after dinner. Around seven o’clock. I’ll go over it step by step for you, show you what tools you’ll need. And you can do it here on my bench until I’m satisfied you know what you’re doing. Otherwise you’ll wreck your sixty typewriters.”
“Can I learn, do you think?” he asked.
“Undoubtedly. It’ll cost you about thirty bucks for my labor. I’ll let you do as much of it as possible. I’ll break about even.” The man put the Mithrias off to one side. “See you at seven, then.”
Feeling a little better, Bruce left the shop. Behind him, at the bench, the unemotional, ordinary-looking man, his necktie dangling out and in his way, resumed his work on an old IBM electric.
A person I never saw before, he thought to himself.
That evening he returned to the shop. The man let him in and then began work on the typewriter. It did not look hard. When he had finished he supervised while Bruce tackled a second machine. By ten o’clock he had learned the soldering part, the cutting and rewelding part, and was on the business of splitting a key in half. After that the man showed him how to align the keys, using special tools that pinched and bent the typebars.
“You’ll have to buy the tools,” the man said. He methodically wrote out the trade names and sizes for him in an old-fashioned formal hand. “Here’s the names of a couple of places you might try; if they don’t have them then you can send out to the Coast or back East. You can use them later on for certain other kinds of service. You know, if you’re going to be selling typewriters you ought to work out your own service. Get a man, set up a bench. Otherwise it’ll cost you too much.”
He paid the man, thanked him, and left.
I know I can make the changes myself, he said to himself as he got back into his car. All I need is the tools. He had written everything down, step by step, and then gone over it from the written instructions. A week or a month from now he could pick it up again. According to the man the tools wouldn’t set him back more than fifteen dollars, if he could get a good buy on the alcohol torch. And he knew where he could get that: in the hardware department at C.B.B.
That night, with the sixty typewriters still in the car, he started the drive back to Boise.
When Susan saw the cartons still piled up in the car she said, “Why didn’t you sell them? Did they renege?”
“No,” he said. “I did.”
“Why?”
He said, “I’m going to fix them. A fellow down in Reno showed me how.”
“But you aren’t a typewriter repairman!”
“I’m only doing this one job.” He had already picked up the tools he needed, back in Reno. “It won’t cost us anything. Unless you want to write the labor down as cost.” Getting the hand-truck he began to load it with the cartons.
“It’s not up to you to decide,” she said.
“I already decided,” he said.
“When I talked to them on the phone,” she said, “I told them you were bringing the machines in to sell to them.”
“We couldn’t agree,” he said.
“There was nothing to agree to. We made all the arrangements on the phone. Did you try to talk them up to paying more, is that it? Did you try to get a better price, and they wouldn’t pay it, so you stormed out of there?” She seemed more bewildered than angry; she did not understand why he had come back with the machines and she knew that there had to be a reason. He had done it deliberately; she seemed to grasp that. Watching him carrying the machines, she could not decide between curiosity and outrage. Meanwhile, she kept on with her harangue. He paid no attention to her.
“I’ll do the work down here at the office,” he said when she paused. “If I can clear a desk. We don’t need them all done at once, just enough to get a few on sale.” In the office window he set down the two that had been worked on. “There’s two already.”
She bent over them, wondering what had been done. So he stopped the unloading and showed her.
“You’ll ruin them,” she said.