Up to then, she had known there would be outlays, but thought of them vaguely as “a couple of thousand to put the place in order, and a few thousand to furnish it.” After the bank’s report, however, she had to consider whether it wouldn’t be better to give the place a complete overhaul, so that she would have a property that somebody might conceivably want to buy, instead of a monstrosity. That was when Monty was called into consultation. She didn’t tell him about the financial problem, but she was delighted when he hit on the plan of restoring the house to what it had been before Beragon, Sr., put into effect his bizarre ideas for improvement. But while this satisfied the bank, and qualified her for a $25,000 loan, it cost upwards of $5,000, and cleaned out her personal cash. For the furnishings, she had to sell bonds. When she married Monty he had to have a car, or she thought he had. This meant $1,200 more. To get the money, and cover one or two other things that had come up by then, she dipped into the reserves of the corporation. She drew herself a check for $2,500 and marked it “bonus.” But she didn’t use a check from the big checkbook used by Miss Jaeckel, the lady she employed to keep the books. She used one of the blanks she always carried in her handbag, in case of emergency. She kept saying to herself that she must tell Miss Jaeckel about the check, but she didn’t do it. Then, in December of 1939, to take care of Christmas expenses, she gave herself another bonus of $2,500, so that by the first of the year there was a difference of $5,000 between what Miss Jaeckel’s books showed and what the bank was actually carrying on deposit.
But these large outlays were only part of her difficulties. The bank, to her surprise, insisted on amortization of her loan as well as regular interest payments, so that to the $125 a month in carrying charges were added $250 in reduction charges, a great deal more than she had anticipated. Then Monty, when he sold her Kurt and Frieda at $150 a month, put her to somewhat heavier expenses in the kitchen than she had expected. Then the endless guests, all of whom seemed to have the thirst of a caravan of camels, ran up the bill for household entertainment to an appalling figure. The result was that she was compelled to increase her salary from the corporation. Until then, she had allowed herself $75 a week from each of the corporation’s four component parts: the Pie Wagon, the pie factory, the Beverly restaurant, and the Laguna restaurant, or $300 a week in all. This was so grotesquely in excess of her living expenses that the money piled up on her account, and it was so much less than the corporation’s earnings that a nice little corporate reserve piled up too. But when she hiked it to $400, the reserve ceased growing, and in fact Miss Jaeckel, with stern face, several times notified her that it would be necessary to transfer money from Reserve, which was carried on a special account, to Current Cash, which was carried on another account. These transfers of $500 each Mildred O.K.’d hurriedly, and with averted eyes, feeling miserable, and like a thief.
Reserve, being a sort of sacred cow outside the routine bookkeeping system, didn’t often come into Miss Jaeckel’s purview, so there was no immediate danger she would learn of Mildred’s withdrawals. And yet in March of 1940, when Miss Jaeckel made up the income statements, and took them down to the notary and swore to them, and left them, with the tax checks, for Mildred’s signature, Mildred was in a cold sweat. She couldn’t now face Miss Jaeckel and tell her what she had done. So she took the statements to an accountant, and swore him to secrecy, and told him what she had done, and asked him to get up another set, which she herself would swear to, and which would conform with the balance at the bank. He seemed upset, and asked her a great many questions, and took a week making up his mind that nothing unlawful had been done, so far. But he kept emphasizing that “so far,” and looking at Mildred in an accusing way, and he charged $100 for his services, an absurd sum for what amounted to a little recopying, with slight changes. She paid him, and had him forward the checks, and told Miss Jaeckel she had mailed them herself. Miss Jaeckel looked at her queerly, and went back to her little office in the pie factory without comment.
Then, within a week or two, two things happened, of an elusive, tantalizing sort, and it was hard to say what was cause and what was effect, but the Laguna business took an alarming drop, and didn’t recover. The Victor Hugo, one of the oldest and best of the Los Angeles restaurants, opened a place not far from Mrs. Gessler’s place, and at once did a thriving trade. And Mrs. Gessler, white-lipped and tense, informed Mildred one night that “that little bitch, that trollop from Los Feliz Boulevard, had moved down here.”
“Is Ike seeing her?”
“How do I know who Ike sees? He’s out on call half the time, and who knows where he goes, or when he comes back.”
“Can’t you find out?”
“I’ve found out, or tried to. No, he’s not seeing her, that I know of. Ike’s all right, if he gets half a break. But she’s here. She’s working in that pottery place, up the road about three miles, in a smock and—”
After that, it didn’t seem to Mildred that Mrs. Gessler quite had her mind on her work. Trade slacked off, and Mildred couldn’t think of any way to get it back. She cut prices, and that didn’t help. She would have closed the place down, but she was bound by a lease, unless she could get rid of it, and the other three places wouldn’t yield enough to pay rent under the lease, and maintain her establishment in Pasadena too. It was almost weekly now that Miss Jaeckel came to her for more cash, and the transfers from Reserve, instead of being $500 each, dwindled to $250, to $150, to $100, to $50, and still the spiral was going downwards. Mildred lived a queer, unnatural life. By day she was nervous, worried, hunted, afraid to look Miss Jaeckel in the eye, sure all her employees were whispering about her, suspecting her, accusing her. By night, when she came home to Monty, to Veda, to the inevitable guests, she abandoned herself to quiet, mystical, intense enjoyment. In these hours, she sealed herself off from the crises of the day, permitted herself no anxious thoughts, stared at Veda, drew deep, tremulous breaths.
But there came a day when Reserve, on the books, was $5,003.61 and at the bank was $3.61. She had to tell a long story to Miss Jaeckel, to cover her inability to make another transfer. Two days after that she couldn’t pay her meat bill. Bills of all kinds, in the restaurant business, are paid on Monday, and failure to pay is a body blow to credit. Mr. Eckstein, of Snyder Bros. & Co., listened to Mildred with expressionless eyes, and agreed to deliver meat until she “straightened this little matter out.” But all during the following week, Archie was raging at the inferior quality of the top sirloins, and Mrs. Gessler had to be restrained from calling Mr. Eckstein personally. By Monday, Snyder Bros. were paid, but Mildred was asking time on other bills, particularly her liquor bill, most of which she owed Bodega, Inc. And then one day Wally Burgan strolled into the Pie Wagon, and it developed that he had been retained by several of her creditors. He suggested a little conference. As most of the trouble seemed to be at Laguna, how would she like to meet them down there the following night? They could have dinner, and then talk things over. The following night was the night Veda was to sing at the Bowl. Mildred shrilly said it was impossible, she had to be at the Bowl; nothing could interfere. Then, said Wally, how about one night next week? How about Monday?
The delay made matters worse, for Monday saw more unpaid bills, and in addition to Mr. Eckstein, Mr. Rossi of the Bodega, and representatives of three wholesale grocers, Mildred had to face Mr. Gurney and several small-fry market men who had previously been flattered if she so much as said good morning. Wally, however, kept everything on a courteous plane. He enjoined silence about the matter in hand while dinner was being served, lest waitresses hear things. He insisted that Mildred give him the check for the creditors’ banquet, as he somewhat facetiously called it. He encouraged her to talk, to lay her cards on the table, so something could be arranged. He kept reminding her that nobody wanted to make trouble. It was to the interest of all that she get on her feet again, that she become the Al customer she had been in the past.