“How come?”
“They’re riding me all the time. They’re making me tear out and replace work as fast as I put it in.”
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you following specifications?”
“Of course I’m following specifications, but it isn’t a question of specifications. It’s a question of underlying hostility, of pouncing on every little technicality to make me do work over, to hamper me, to hold up the job, to delay the work.”
Borden made clucking noises of sympathy. His eyes, hard and appraising, remained fixed on Ansley.
“I protested to the inspector,” Ansley said. “He told me, ‘Why don’t you get smart and see Meridith Borden?’ “
“I don’t think I like that,” Borden said.
Ansley paid no attention to the comment. “A friend of mine told me, ‘You damn fool. Go see Borden.’ And... well, here I am.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Call off your dogs.”
“They’re not my dogs.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“You said it that way.”
There was a moment of silence.
“How much are you going to make on the job?” Borden asked.
“If they’ll let me alone and let me follow specifications according to any reasonable interpretation, I’ll have a fifty-thousand-dollar profit.”
“Too bad you’re having trouble,” Borden said. “I’d want a set of the specifications and a statement by you as to the type of trouble you’ve been having. If I decide you are being unjustly treated, I’ll threaten a full-scale investigation. I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble. I’d need money, of course.”
“Of course,” Ansley said dryly.
“And,” Borden went on, “after we start working together you won’t have any trouble with the inspectors. Just make your stuff so it’s good construction, so that it’ll stand up, and that’s all you need to worry about. Don’t measure the placement of your structural steel with too much accuracy. Make your mix contain just enough concrete to do the job, and don’t worry about having absolutely uniform percentages.”
“That isn’t what I wanted,” Ansley said. “I only wanted to have a reasonable break.”
“You’ll get it,” Borden promised. “Mail me a retainer of two thousand dollars tomorrow, pay five thousand from the next two progress payments you get, and give me five per cent of the final payment. Then we’ll talk things over on the next job. I understand you’re planning to bid on the overhead crossing on Telephone Avenue?”
“I’ve thought about it. I’d like to get cleaned up on this job and get my money out of it first.”
“Okay. See me about that overhead crossing before you put in your bid. We’ll talk it over. I can help you. A good public relations man who knows the ropes can do a lot on jobs of this kind.”
“I’m satisfied he can,” Ansley said bitterly.
“I wish you’d seen me before you took that school job,” Borden went on. “There might have been more in it for both of us. You didn’t have any public relations expert to represent your interests in connection with the bidding?”
“No. Why should I need a public relations expert just to submit a bid?”
Borden shrugged his shoulders. The gesture was eloquent.
Ansley finished his drink. “I’m sorry that I had to bother you at this hour of the night, but the inspector found two places in the wall where he claimed the steel was incorrectly spaced. It didn’t amount to more than a quarter of an inch, but he demanded I conform to specifications. I can’t tear out the whole wall, and to try to cut and patch now would be prohibitive.”
Borden said, “See that inspector tomorrow and tell him to take another measurement. I think the steel’s all right. The rods may have been bent a little off center. Quit worrying about it. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
Ansley put down the drink, got up, hesitated, then said, “Well, I guess I’ll be getting on.”
“I’m glad you dropped in, Ansley,” Borden said, “and I’ll take care of you to the best of my ability. I feel quite certain you won’t have any more trouble with the inspectors. They don’t like adverse publicity any better than anyone else, and, after all, I’m a public relations expert.”
Borden laughed and moved to accompany Ansley to the door.
“I can find my way out all right,” Ansley said.
“No, no, I’ll see you to the door. I’m all alone here tonight. Sorry.” He escorted Ansley to the door, said good night, and Ansley went down the steps into the cold rain.
He knew that his trouble with the inspectors was over, but he knew that the trouble with his self-respect had just begun.
They had told him at the start that it was foolish to try to build anything without getting in touch with Meridith Borden. Ansley had thought he could get by, by being scrupulously fair and conforming to the specifications. He was rapidly finding out how small a part fairness and specifications played in the kind of job he was getting into now.
Ansley sent his car crunching along the gravel driveway. His anger at himself and the conditions which had forced him to go to Meridith Borden made him resentful. He knew that he was driving too fast, knew that it wasn’t going to do him any good to try to hurry away from Meridith Borden’s palatial estate on the outskirts of the city, I knew that it wasn’t going to do him any good to try to get away from himself. He had lost something important in that interview; a part of him that he couldn’t afford to lose, but he had yielded to the inexorable pressure of economic necessity.
Ansley swung the wheel around the last curve in the driveway and slowed for the main highway as he saw the iron gates.
It was at that moment that he saw the headlights on the road swinging toward him.
Apparently the driver of the oncoming car intended to turn in at the gate, and was cutting the corner before realizing a car was coming. The smooth, black surface of the road was slippery with an oily coating from the first rain in weeks.
For a brief moment headlights blazed into Ansley’s windshield, then the other car swirled through the gate into a sickening, skidding turn. The rear fender of the car brushed against the bumper of Ansley’s car.
In vain Ansley tried to bring his car to a stop. He felt the jar of impact, saw the careening car tilt upward, swerve from the driveway. He heard a crash, dimly saw the hedge sway under the impact, heard another jarring sound and then silence.
Ansley braked his car to a stop just outside the gates. Without bothering to shut off the motor or dim the headlights, he scrambled out from behind the wheel, leaving the front left-hand door swinging wide open. He ran back through the soggy gravel to the gap in the hedge.
He could see the other car only as a dim, dark bulk. The motor was no longer running, the lights were off. He had the impression that the car was lying over on its side, but he couldn’t be certain. The machine had crashed through the hedge, but there remained enough broken twigs and jagged branches to make progress extremely difficult and hazardous.
“Is everyone all right?” Ansley asked, standing midway through the tangle of the jagged hedge.
There was no answer, only a dead silence.
Ansley’s eyes were gradually becoming more accustomed to the darkness. He plunged forward, pushing his way through the water-soaked leaves.
A projecting snag caught the leg of Ansley’s trousers, tripped him, threw him forward. He heard ripping cloth, felt a sharp pain along his shin. Then, as he threw out his hands to protect himself, his right hand was snagged by the sharp projection of a broken branch. The ground was sloping sharply, and Ansley found himself with his head lower than his feet. It was with difficulty that he got to his knees, and then once more to a standing position.