“Shorthanded again,” he told me bitterly. “Charlie called in sick. Hangover, more than likely. Al is tied up with the Melburn case down in district court. Bert is trying to finish up that series of his on the freeway progress. The brass is screaming for it. It’s overdue right now.”
He took off his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. He threw his hat into a copy basket. He stood there, in the glare of the lights, pugnaciously rolling up his sleeves.
“Someday, by God,” he said, “Franklin’s will catch fire, jammed with a million shoppers, who turn into a screaming, panic-stricken mob—”
“And you won’t have a man to send there.”
Gavin blinked at me owlishly. “Parker,” he said, “that is exactly it.”
It was a favorite speculation of his in moments of great stress. We all knew it by heart.
Franklin’s was the city’s biggest department store and our best advertising account.
I walked over to the window and looked out. It was beginning to get light outside. The city had that bleak, frosty look of a thing not quite alive, a sort of sinister fairyland that is on the verge of winter. A few cars went drifting past in the street below. There was a pedestrian or two. Scattered early lights burned in the windows of some of the downtown buildings.
“Parker,” said Gavin.
I swung around to face him. “Now, look,” I said, “I know you are shorthanded. But I have work to do. I have a bunch of columns to get up. I came in early so I could get them done.”
“I notice,” he said nastily, “you’re working hard on them.”
“Damn it,” I told him, “I have to get woke up.”
I went back to my desk and tried to get to work.
Lee Hawkins, the picture editor, came in. He was virtually frothing at the mouth. The color lab had bollixed up the picture for page one. Foaming threats, he went downstairs to get it straightened out.
Other members of the staff came in and the place took on some warmth and life. The copy editors began to bawl for Lightning to go across the street and get their morning coffee. Protesting bitterly, Light- fling went to get it.
I settled down to work. It came easy now. The words rolled out and the ideas came together. For now there was the atmosphere for it, the feel for writing—the clamor and the bustle that spelled newspaper office.
I had one column finished and was starting on the second when someone stopped beside my desk.
I looked up and saw that it was Dow Crane, a writer on the business desk. I like Dow. He’s not a jerk like Jensen. He writes it as he sees it. He butters up no one. He polishes no apples.
He was looking glum.
I told him that he was.
“I got troubles, Parker.”
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to me. He knows that I don’t smoke them, but he always offers one. I waved them off. He lit one for himself.
“You do something for me, maybe?”
I said that I would.
“A man phoned me at home last night. He’s coming in this morning. Says he can’t find a house.”
“What house does he want to find?”
“A house to live in. Almost any house. Says he sold his home three or four months ago and now he can’t find one to buy.”
“Well, that’s tough luck,” I said unfeelingly. “What can we do about it?”
“He says he’s not the only one. Claims there are a lot of others. Says there isn’t a house or apartment to be had in town.”
“Dow, the guy is crazy.”
“Maybe not,” said Dow. “You been looking at the want ads?”
I shook my head. “No reason to,” I told him.
“Well, I did. This morning. Column after column of ads by people who want a place to live—any place to live. Some of them sound desperate.”
“Jensen’s piece this morning . . .”
“You mean about the housing boom?”
“That’s it,” I said. “It doesn’t add up, Dow. Not that piece and what this man was telling you.”
“Maybe not. I’m sure it doesn’t. But, look, I have to go out to the airport and meet a big wheel who is coming in. It’s the only way I can get an interview in time for the first edition. If this guy who phoned me comes in about the house and I’m not here, will you talk to him?”
“Sure thing,” I said.
“Thanks,” said Dow, and walked off to his desk.
Lightning showed up, carrying the coffee orders in the battered, stained wire service paper box that he kept, when not in use, beneath the picture desk. All hell broke loose immediately. He’d gotten one coffee with cream and no one wanted cream. He’d gotten three with sugar and there were only two men who could drink the stuff with sugar. He’d fouled up on the doughnuts.
I turned back to my machine and got to work again.
The place had hit its normal stride.
Once the daily coffee battle between Lightning and the copydesk had taken place, one knew the place was grooved, that the newsroom at last had slipped into high gear.
I didn’t work for long.
A hand fell on my shoulder.
I looked up and it was Gavin.
“Park, old boy,” he said.
“No,” I told him sternly.
“You’re the only man in the place who can handle this,” he told me. “It’s Franklin’s.”
“Don’t tell me there’s a fire and a million shoppers—”
“No, not that,” he said. “Bruce Montgomery just phoned. He’s calling a press conference for nine o’clock.”
Bruce Montgomery was the president of Franklin’s.
“That is Dow’s department.”
“Dow left for the airport.”
I gave up. There was nothing else to do. The guy was practically in tears. I hate city editors who cry.
“All right, then,” I said. “I’ll be there. ‘What’s it all about?”
“I don’t know,” said Gavin. “I asked Bruce and he wouldn’t say. It’s bound to be important. Last time they called a press conference was fifteen years ago, when they announced that Bruce was taking over. First time an outsider ever held a top office in the store. It had been all family up till then.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
He turned around and trotted back to the city desk.
I yelled for a boy and, when one finally showed up, sent him out the library to get me the clips on Franklin’s for the last five years or so.
I took the clips out of the envelopes and thumbed through them. There wasn’t much in them that I didn’t know. Nothing of importance. There were stories about style shows at Franklin’s and about art exhibits at Franklin’s and about Franklin’s personnel taking part in a host of civic endeavors.
Franklin’s was an ancient place and tradition-ridden. It had, just the year before, celebrated its hundredth anniversary. It had been a household word almost since the day the city had been founded. It had been (and still was) a family institution, with its precepts fostered as carefully as is possible only in a family institution. Generation after generation had grown up with Franklin’s, shopping there almost from the cradle to the grave, and it was a byword for fairness in its dealings and in the quality of its merchandise.
Joy Kane came walking past the desk.
“Hi, beautiful,” I said. “What’s the deal this morning?”
“Skunks,” she said.
“Mink is more your style.”
She stopped and stood close beside me. I could smell just the faintest hint of some perfume that she was wearing and, more than that, I could feel the presence of her beauty.
She put out a hand and ruffled my hair, just a quick, impulsive move, and then she was proper once again.
“Tame skunks,” she said. “Pet skunks. They are the newest thing. Deodorized, of course.”
“Naturally,” I said. And I was thinking—cute and hydrophobia.
“I was sore at Gavin when he chased me out there.”
“Out into the woods?”
“No. Out to this skunk farm.”
“You mean they raise them just like pigs and chickens?”
“Certainly they do. I was telling you these skunks are pets. This man says they make the swellest pets. Clean and cuddly and a lot of fun. He’s getting stacks of orders for them. Pet dealers in New York and Chicago and a lot of other places.”