“J. Arthur tagged you with the desk lamp.”
“Where is he?”
“He and Walter went to see Mr. Judd. They were going to stop at a drugstore first to get Walter patched up.”
Everything was dandy. I said: “And what now?”
“Mr. Murch told me to call up every Management Engineering firm in town and tell them that you have been fired for emotional instability. The firm will mail you a check bringing you up to date. He said he’ll write to the out-of-town firms. He dictated a letter of reference for you.”
“Read it to me.”
“It says: ‘To the best of my knowledge and belief, Samuel Ladder classifies himself as an Industrial Engineer. He endeavored to convert this firm to his belief for an eight-year period ending suddenly on the morning of September eighteenth. Signed, J. Arthur Murch.’ ”
“Now that I’m down and out, will you marry me, Ginny?”
“Of course, darling. Any time you say.”
I guess my Ginny is just that sort of girl. She has to be needed, and she certainly knew that she was wanted.
She phoned me at the hotel that she could get a week off, starting in four days. She told me that Murch had begun to use my name as a new cuss-word. She said that Dr. Hawes was a fatuous prig, and that she hated everybody that didn’t like me.
Ginny and I stayed in a little guest-house in the woods near a hotel in Southern Pines, and everything was just right. All my problems faded away — until I started to wonder how I was going to earn a living. It would have to be a case of making a tour around to the client firms that I hadn’t been too rough with, and see if they needed a guy with two hands and a big mouth.
She hadn’t told me that she had let the office know where they could get in touch with her. They thought she was off by herself. The wire came on the fifth day of the honeymoon:
WHERE IS LADDER? IMPERATIVE HE VISIT THIS OFFICE THIRTIETH NOVEMBER MORNING. J. ARTHUR MURCH.
She counted the words and said: “Eleven, darling. He must really be in a sweat. Let’s go.”
“The hell with it! This is a honeymoon, and I like it here, and he just wants me for target practice or something. I’m not going.”
She smiled at me sweetly. She looked wonderful in the blazing white terry-cloth robe with that chestnut hair piled high on her head. “Pack!” she said...
I left her in the coffee-shop in the lobby of the building, and went on up to the offices of Bellows and Murch. My insides had turned to slush, and I tried to whistle with dry lips. On a hunch, I had brought along the Poughkeepsie report.
A new girl was at Ginny’s desk — a fill-in. She looked at me coolly, and said: “You look dopey enough to be Sam Ladder.” I nodded. “Go on in, Sam. They await you.”
They did: J. Arthur, who looked at me like a dog looking at a tree surgeon, and a stranger. The stranger was in his late fifties, and large in every dimension. A lock of white hair fell down over his tanned forehead.
Murch said: “I sent out wires to everyone I thought might know about you. Which one did you answer?”
“The one you sent to my wife.”
“Wife?”
“The ex-Miss Davo. You can keep that harpy out there in your outer office. Ginny is through.”
Murch sighed, and flapped a hand in a helpless gesture. “This is—”
The stranger interrupted. “Charley Hawes is my name, Sam. Glad to know you.”
“Any relation to—” I said weakly.
“His father, Sam. Walter flew out to the coast the other day all puffed up about this big deal he’s swinging here, and told me about you. I got a few little businesses on the West Coast... ah... Hawes Mining Equipment, Hawes Construction, Hawes Motors, Hawes Shipbuilding. Few more — prefabs, gliders. Forget the rest now and then. Son, did you really nail him?”
I could see the suit coming. “Yes sir,” I said faintly.
He chuckled. “Good boy. Walter is a damned college professor. Ethereal. Calls me a reactionary and a robber baron. Murch, how come you paid any attention to that — report that Walter wrote up? How come you tried to sell it to Judd? I’ve known Ben Judd for years. He wouldn’t fall for that sort of gunk.”
Murch bleated a little. He said: “Well, I didn’t. I told Ben on the side to play along with me, and let Dr. Hawes think that he had a ripe idea. You see—”
“Sure, I see it. You wanted to play along with Walter in hopes that I’d be grateful enough to become a client of yours. Goodness knows, you’ve had those two men out there in L. A. pestering me long enough. And then because Ladder, here, almost crossed up the deal by swinging on Walter, you fired him. Now, that’s a hell of a way to do business, Murch. Man your age ought to have more sense.”
“But!—”
“Don’t give me any but’s, Murch. Sam, did you make a report on the Poughkeepsie plant that Walter is yammering about?”
I handed it to him, and my hand was shaking so badly that he had to make two grabs for it. He scanned it quickly. “Hmmm. I like ’em short. Right smack on the nose. Murch, I’ve got a proposition for you. Walter told me some of the things that Sam, here, said to him. Walter thought they were silly, but they made sense to me. Didn’t know you had roughnecks like Sam working for you. I’ll make a contract with you that’ll call for about five of your men working with me out there for a two-year period. But I want Sam Ladder in charge. And I know how you people operate. Ladder, here, is responsible for this contract, not those two cream-puffs you’ve had working on me. Understand?”
Murch flashed me a look of pure hatred and said: “Yes sir.”
He said: “Furthermore, you’ll hire Ladder back with a small bonus. The bonus is for punching that phony son of mine in the teeth.” He turned to me. I was busy with arithmetic. Ten per cent of five times fifteen hundred a month is nine thousand a year. A nice addition to the Ladder purse.
He said: “I’ll expect you in L.A. with your crew one week from today, Sam. And you’ll have one more responsibility: I’m assigning Walter to you.”
I stammered: “But he — Washington — the broad picture—”
“Son, the broad picture gives me a pain. Walter, for all his big talk, has a nice knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping. I told him flat that either he was going to stick around home and get his hands dirty, or I was disinheriting him.”
On my way down to tell Ginny, I didn’t use the elevator. I just floated down the shaft.
