“Hortense, you mean you believe it?”
“Why aren’t you writing this up?”
“I did write it up. My dissertation’s about it.”
“I mean, really write it up.”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
I got her to bed, and she lay a long time in my arms. When at last she stirred, she whispered: “I’m sorry, I fell asleep.”
“It makes me happy that you did.”
“Then act happy!”
“There’s a certain preliminary—?”
“Here I come!”
8
Four days later Wilmington rang me. Richard Garrett called to say he was back from London and to ask if I could be at his office the next morning at ten o’clock. I said I could, as I’d been getting ready using the time to good advantage. I’d wound up my academic year, met with my teaching assistants, and turned them over to Dr. Shad well, my department head. Then I had my last class. They didn’t know I was leaving, but I did, and it shook me up. They formed a line to say goodbye for the semester, the boys shaking hands and the girls giving kisses. One of them had spent the whole year showing her legs to me from the front row, and she gave me a kiss, too. I was tempted to ask her name and where she lived, but didn’t. I would hear from her later.
In addition to all this, I had prepped a bit on the institute, with phone calls to federal departments, for fill-in stuff I needed, to be sharp and have it down pat when I met Mr. Garrett again. The nights I spent with Hortense. She would let herself in and we would lie in the dark, whispering.
When he called, that’s what we were doing. “I dread it,” I confessed to her. “I dread seeing him more than anything I can remember. Know what I dread most of all?”
“Not having me along?”
“That handshake with him that I’ll have to go through with. I feel like the guy in that story, an O. Henry story I guess, who couldn’t drink with the man he—”
“He what?”
“Took advantage of.”
“As you took advantage of me?”
“Okay then I did.”
“The story was ‘Cabbages and Kings,’ and the man couldn’t drink with the man he blackmailed. As you blackmailed me.”
“Lady, you blackmailed yourself.”
“You don’t have to go, Lloyd.”
“Well, I do have to if—”
“Yeah? If?”
“Look, we made a decision, and—”
That’s what was said, pretty gritty if we meant it. Yet ten minutes later there we were holding close, and the next morning I left for Wilmington. Miss Immelman received me as before, ushering me into the same office and saying Mr. Garrett expected me. I walked around, so nervous that I was jittery, still thinking about that handshake. But when he came in, he waved me to a chair with a bandaged right hand, and I knew why right away. He motioned to it with his left, saying: “Jabbed it last night chopping up ice for a friend. I detest cubes, like to serve rocks in lumps; so I freeze water in containers and bang into it with a pick. But sometimes I make a mislick — which I did last night but good.”
But in my secret soul I knew I wasn’t the only one worrying about that handshake, and I knew she and I weren’t fooling anyone.
The seat he waved me to was beside the desk. He took the swivel chair behind it, talking about his trip and how glad he was to be back. But he didn’t quite look at me, only occasionally, when he seemed to be making himself do it. Soon he blurted: “Well, let’s get on. I’d say the first thing is to get it incorporated, this institute we’re starting. Fortunately, Delaware makes a specialty of it, so it should be easy, with no snags. I thought the boys could drive down to Dover tomorrow and get the thing over with. I’d like you to go with them, to familiarize yourself with details and get acquainted with my staff. With incorporation out of the way we can do the actual exchange of securities — from ARMALCO to the H.G. Institute. Malcolm McDavitt is in charge of the securities for ARMALCO, and for the Institute, I’ve asked Sam Dent to come up. He’s chief of my legal staff, but bases in Washington.” I said I was at his disposal, for Dover or any place I might be needed.
He drummed on the desk with his fingers, then went on: “I think you should meet McDavitt, but I have to tell you about him so you don’t think I’m nuts to have him. He’s in charge of all our investments. His desk is piled high with reports. He must do something about them, because he always knows what they say. But all I see him read, and I ever see him read, is his belly button. He sits at his desk, his feet up in a chair, studying it, as his father did before him. He was my father’s investment chief. This is how it works: His father, back around World War I, did his umbilical research and then, suddenly announced: They’re lining it with concrete.’
“Lining what with concrete?’ asked my father.
“ ‘The whole Mississippi Valley. They’ve gone nuts over flood control. We’re buying Portland Cement.’
“So my father bought Portland Cement — plants in California, Indiana, and Illinois — and they made him rich. They’re still making me rich. Mal frightens me a little. He says he bets on my hunches, my knowing a thing from a thing. Well” — waving a hand toward the things on the shelves — “so far it’s worked. But suppose I come up with a dud. Which I can do, Dr. Palmer. Which I can do so easy it scares me to death.”
“I’d say, no use borrowing trouble.”
“It’s all you can say. Let’s go in and see Mal.”
So we went in there, Garrett first knocking on a door with no name on it; and sure enough, there was a rumpled, potbellied man sitting behind a desk, his feet in a swivel chair, his fingers covering his belly, and his eyes fixed on his navel. He didn’t look up when we came in. Apparently he could see out of the side of his head, as he said to Garrett: “Not ARMALCO. You transfer that stuff yourself.”
“What stuff?” Mr. Garrett asked.
“The securities for this thing you’ve decided to back. It’s not a corporate enterprise — it’s your private project, and you have to endow it yourself.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what I meant, of course.”
“You said ARMALCO would do it.”
“Okay, then I do it.”
Mr. McDavitt slid a paper across his desk, at last taking his feet down. “There’s the securities I’d think would do it — give this thing, whatever it is, a nicely assorted portfolio with some growth potential and still leave you well assorted. I mean, you’ll kick in with quite a few things, so you’re not left lopsided. There’s a tax angle, of course. Here’s a memo on that.”
Garrett picked up the papers, had a look, folded them, and put them in his pocket. “This is Dr. Palmer,” he said, “who’ll be in charge of our institution from now on.”
Mal paid no attention. He didn’t even look at me. “Okay, then,” Mr. Garrett said after a moment, “is that all?”
Mal didn’t answer, merely hoisting his feet again and going back to his belly button. Mr. Garrett led the way out. “Five minutes from now,” he whispered in the hall, “he’ll call me with what he thinks of you, and I’d better listen, believe me. He didn’t look at you, did he? In a pig’s eye, he didn’t.”
Back in his office we sat down and waited. The phone on his desk tinkled, and he answered. “Thanks, Mal,” he said, “it’s what I wanted to know.”
“He says you’re okay,” he murmured, hanging up.
Several minutes went by, and I realized that Mal’s report and Mal’s assorted memos and admonitions had been very important to Garrett.
“O.K., Dr. Palmer, let’s get started. What’s on your mind?”