“Thanks. I’ll leave that to you.”
He went away, asked directions at the drugstore, walked the two miles to Marview Terrace.
The houses here seemed to be bigger than those near the University, fancier, too. Set further apart, further back from the street. Bigger lawns. More elaborate shrubbery. High iron fences.
Queer place for a working girl to be living. Number 27 was a mansion of Moorish stucco that appeared to cover half a block; Number 29 wasn’t quite as large, but it was solid gray stone with huge picture windows looking out over a rolling lawn that might have been part of a golf links.
Must be some mistake. Zomby’d given him a bum steer.
A couple of bobby-soxers strolled past.
“Hey,” he called, “who lives in the stone shanty?”
The girls chorused: “That’s Mister Walch’s place...”
“Walch?” he had to find out.
“Harrison Walch. Feller who owns all those snauzy Savile stores... whole chain of ’em... New York, Palm Beach. You know.”
“Yeah,” Bill nodded. He knew, all right.
The Savile Store in Beverly Hills was where Lou Ann was supposed to have been ‘working’ when he first met her! Where she’d pretended to ‘quit’ her job!
For Pete’s sake, her old man really must be rolling in it. Bill took a long, slow burn at the recollection of telling her how he meant to get rich. No wonder money didn’t mean so much to her; she’d probably never known what it was not to have all she wanted.
His first impulse was to walk on past. Why humiliate himself by going in there and letting her laugh at him? Then he realized that if she wanted to be amused, she’d had plenty of occasion long before this.
Zomby’d known all about this, obviously. Probably she’d invited Zomby over here. Well, Bill hadn’t been invited, but he was going in, anyhow.
He marched up the winding walk, crossed a porch as wide as a street, used the bronze knocker.
A stout, moon-faced man in a monkey jacket opened the door.
“Miss Walch?”
“She’s not at home, sir,” the servant cocked his head on one side. “May I ask if she was expecting you?”
“No,” Bill said. “Some other time...”
A tall, spare man with silver-white hair and a long, leathery face came out into the hall.
“Hello.”
Bill backed away. “Howdy.”
“You’re Bill Cady, aren’t you?”
Bill nodded.
“I’m Lou Ann’s father.”
“Glad to know you, sir.” Bill felt his face getting red; he wished to hell he’d never come.
“Not quite sure whether I can say the same or not.” Harrison Walch wasn’t holding out his hand to take Bill’s. He was indicating a chair on the porch. “My acquaintance with you began under fairly unpleasant circumstances.”
Bill didn’t know what to say. “Yeah? How was that?”
“I had the dubious pleasure of quashing a complaint against you over in the Culver City hoosegow, a week or so ago.”
“Oh... it was you! I’m much obliged.”
“No reason to be. I didn’t do it on your account, I assure you. Purely to keep Lou Ann out of a mess.” The tycoon sat on the stone ledge of the porch, examining Bill with sharp, bright eyes. “I know very little about you, Mister Cady, — except what I’ve seen on the football field.”
“Oh!” Bill felt stupid, repeating that ‘Oh!’ every half minute, “You come to the games.”
“As an interested alumus,” the eyes puckered at the corners, “and since I was honored with an apointment to the Alumni Council a few years ago, I haven’t missed a game.”
So her father was on the council which had awarded Bill his athletic scholarship!
Walch went on: “I’ve seen you in our home games, — and I’m frank to say I think you’re outstanding... outstanding is the only word for it.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell me.” The magnate leaned forward earnestly. “What do you think of our Head Coach? You may speak candidly. Whatever you tell me will go no further, I assure you.”
“Snub? Mister Garret? He’s great. He’s strictly tops.”
“Do you genuinely believe that?” Walch watched him narrowly. “I’ve heard there’s a certain dissatisfaction among members of the squad. Been some talk of bringing in new blood, hasn’t there...?”
Why, the old buzzard! Bill raged inwardly. He’s one of these alumni big-shots who’re always gunning for the Coach whenever the team doesn’t wind up with a win? The snipers!
“Listen, Mister Walch,” he forgot completely he was talking to Lou Ann’s father, “far’s I’m concerned Snub is the greatest coach in the game. Never was any better. Never will be. Just because we drop a game we should have won, some people blame him, when they should know better. I happen to know better, about that Washington game Saturday. Snub would have come back with a win, instead of a tie, if it hadn’t been for a dumb lineman... named Cady.”
Walch raised one eyebrow, delicately. “Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed!” Bill stuck his head forward, belligerently. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, or even if you do, I think it’s a hell of a thing for Alumni Council members to go stirring up trouble for Snub behind his back! He has enough on his hands, without bucking you, too!” Bill turned away.
Walch called after him: “I’ll tell Lou Ann you called.”
Bill said: “Never mind,” without turning his head.
He didn’t have to have any weegee board to figure out what Lou Ann’s father would tell her about him.
IX
The Monday skull session was omitted, after out-of-town games. Tuesday, Snub only sent them through light signal drills. Wednesday was the first scrimmage. On Wednesday Bill put on a show.
He ran wild against the B’s, with Zomby pitching, — with Hustling Mike hurling ’em, long and short. Bill never missed a single completion.
He scored five times; twice, after the catch, weaving his way through a trio of second-string tacklers for twenty-five or better, to tote into pay territory.
Snub even went so far as to warn him:
“Don’t know how much of that stuff you’ve got, Cady. But don’t burn it all up. We’ll need some of it against Idaho. They have a ram-jet overhead attack themselves.”
Bill said, solemn-faced: “Plenty more where that came from Coach.”
Garret called the shot on Idaho; the Vandals came into the Stallion’s stadium with a dazzling display of lateral-forwards from the double-wing, a brace of very slippery receivers and a passer who looked like Otto Graham when the Clevelander was at his hottest.
The Vandals scored, early in the second period, to take a 7 point lead. But less than two minutes later Bill took a looping thirty-yarder from Hustling Mike at mid-field, outraced the Idaho safety man to the pay stripe.
The stadium began to whoop it up. The cheering section began unison chirping: “Cadydidit!.. Cadydidit!.. Cadydidit!”
He did it twice more in the second half. Once on a cross-over Thirty-two, with Zombie pitching, — once on an impossible interception that he couldn’t ever have made without the freedom of movement allowed him by the absence of those cumbersome shoulder-pads.
It wound up a comparative walkover, 36–13 for the Stallions, — and next morning Bill’s appetite for headlines began to be satisfied again.
The fat, black type with CADY CARRIES OVER TWICE and CADY-ZOMBROROWSKI COMBO HITS 8 OUT OF 11 began to appear in his clipping envelope more regularly.
The press notices didn’t exactly compensate for some of the other things he was missing, — but they helped. Anyhow, he’d completely given up any idea of hearing from Lou Ann, — after that collision with Walch, senior.