"Good night, Nick," she said. "And Nick, you really saved my life. You're one swell guy. I'd have sold my soul tonight to have some place warm and nice to sleep. I'd have sold a lot just to be able to take a hot shower."
Then Holly turned and moved across the room and Nick stared as she suddenly unbuttoned her blouse and tore it off and twirled it in her hands as she stepped into the short hallway that led to the bathroom. Her enormous breasts strained against a small, white bra and the contrast of the stark white bra and the golden skin was staggering.
At the hall, she looked over her shoulder and smiled deeply, and stopped for one instant to stare at him. Then she was gone and Nick left his apartment, and stood in the hallway breathing deeply…
Thoughts of Holly's body and face and the touch of her lips and the feel of her hand raced through Nick as he hurried down the steps. He told himself he was a fool to let her come to his apartment.
Yet as he stopped in the doorway and pulled his coat around his ears against the snow and the cold, he asked himself how he could have done anything else. Here he was hurrying to some stuffy old bitch on Park Avenue to discuss an important account. And if he did not have this to do, he would be in the Connors' suite on Sutton Place, warm and well fed and surrounded by luxury and elegance.
He had come a long way to be here tonight, but not so far that he could turn Holly out into the night. He knew only too well that it was not merely a matter of taking his money and getting a room. When you're young and really down, you need that touch of warmth from someone else, that response from another human being that is more important than a crumpled bill.
Nick stepped into the soft snowfall and walked to the curb to wait for a cab. Holly had needed very much to be helped tonight. But tomorrow she had to go because she was obviously potential trouble. And he was so on top of things now, he would be a fool to take any kind of chance.
Then Nick saw a taxi and stepped into the street and thought of old lady Dennison.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nick waited in the foyer of the Park Avenue apartment and his mind raced with thoughts of selling Dennison Beer, and of selling the old lady on his handling of her account.
He straightened his tie twice, and glanced nervously about the foyer, and at the dark stained wood and the paintings and the two heavy, old chests and the neo-Greek statues of warriors with spears on top of them.
The butler, an elderly man with pinched wrinkles and faded blue eyes and wispy grey hair finally returned and nodded at Nick and then gestured to a door.
"Mrs. Dennison will see you now, sir," he said. Nick thanked the butler and walked through the door into the largest room he had ever seen, outside of Grand Central Station. It seemed a block long and was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with old leather-bound books. The carpet was so thick he felt he would sink into it, as he might sink into quicksand.
Gigantic stately plants grew from elaborate copper pots and a fireplace bigger than Nick's living room was blazing with gigantic burning logs. And the ceiling was recessed panels beneath dark wood squares.
Nick passed pieces of magnificent old, heavy wood furniture and moved down the room to the far end, where a wrinkled woman sat sipping something from a delicate flowered teacup.
Nick was slightly unnerved as he reached the huge, overstuffed chair where the woman sat, and he remembered the things he had heard at the agency about the impossibility of dealing with Frances Dennison.
Nick walked past a table whose legs were twined with carved flowers, and whose top was filled with silver or gold-framed faded photographs.
"Young man, you're late," the old lady said, rising from her chair.
"It's hard to get a cab in the snow," Nick said, cursing himself for this blunder on the night of their first meeting.
"Oh, don't apologize," she said and took a dainty sip from the fragile teacup. "I admire a man who's late. Shows that he's human. What do you drink?"
"I drink Scotch," Nick said. "With a little water." He looked at the old lady, at the proud, wrinkled face and the fine line of her profile and the firmness her body still possessed and he realized she must have been a lovely woman at one time. And he also decided he liked her.
Mrs. Dennison stepped to a purple, flower covered cord and pulled and before she turned back to Nick, the butler was coming into the room.
"Yes, Mrs. Dennison?" he asked.
"This young man drinks scotch with just a bit of water," she said. "And I'll have another cup of gin."
The butler came over and took the teacup and left, and Nick stared at Mrs. Dennison with a new respect. She sat back down in her chair and nodded toward a similar chair opposite her.
"So you're going to try to sell my beer?" she asked.
"Mr. Connors has given the Dennison account top priority," he said.
"I should hope so," she said. "Sales have fallen off recently and the idiots Marshall has put on the account are simply not to be believed. When Marshall called and said he could not make it tonight, and was sending one of his top men, I actually shuddered, Mr. Harrison."
Nick started to mouth a platitude, to pour out an oily line of talk that would praise the agency and the account and the old lady. But something told him not to. Because he detected in this old lady a definite toughness, and an honesty, and he told himself that he would be making a bad mistake to follow the same line other men from the agency had followed.
"Sales might have fallen off because people don't like the beer," Nick said, in a win or lose it all statement. "Advertising can only do so much."
The butler brought the drinks in and there was a long minute of silence as Nick took a drink of his scotch and then watched Mrs. Dennison take short, dainty sips from the teacup.
She held the cup in her lap and leaned toward Nick, her faded eyes wide. "Mr. Harrison, the beer is lousy," she said. "It always has been. But before, your agency has been able to sell it, in great quantities."
Nick drank his scotch and looked at the wrinkled old lady and told himself he faced the toughest challenge of his career at the agency. Because how in hell could he deal with a client who thought her product was inferior?
"Do you know, to be honest, I've never had a Dennison Beer," he said.
"Well, Mr. Harrison," she said, "I haven't had one since, oh, when was it we had that party and I got so drunk? Yes, 1929 I think. Terrible, just terrible. But then I must confess. I'm not a beer drinker. It seems a waste of time. Early in life I discovered gin, and it has become a habit. In prohibition of course, in speak-easies, we drank from teacups. And the habit has stayed with me. A whim a wealthy old woman can allow herself."
"I'm not a beer drinker either," Nick said. "I believe in doing the job thoroughly, and whiskey does it best."
"So you're not afraid to admit you like to drink?" she asked, and took a dainty sip from her cup.
"I love to drink," he said. "As long as it doesn't interfere with my work."
"I think we'll get along just fine, Mr. Harrison," she said. "Marshall knew what he was doing when he sent you over. I warned him not to send another of those proper namby-pambies who spent half the time assuring me how proper and sober they were."
"I'll tell you what, Mrs. Dennison," he said. "I'll sell your beer if I don't have to drink it. Give me a week or so, and I'll develop a campaign that will have customers rushing bars and package stores in droves."
"I wouldn't think of having your enthusiasm and confidence dampened by having to know what the wretched stuff tastes like," she said. "You work that campaign out and then you call me here. I'm home all the time when the weather is like this. I like you, young man, but I warn you I have very definite ideas and no little knowledge of the market, and I'll give you hell if you don't live up to my expectations."