The Grifters (12 page)

The holiday spirit was definitely absent. A kind of moodiness pervaded the train, and some of it enveloped Moira and Roy.

They had a drink in the half-empty lounge. Then, discovering that the train carried no diner, they remained in the car for the rest of their ride. Seated in the cozy closeness of a booth, her thigh pressed warmly against his, Moira looked out at the aching loneliness of the sea, the naked and hungering hills, the houses closed firmly to all but themselves. The idea that she had propounded to him, something that was merely desired, became a tigerish must-a thing that had to be. It was either that or nothing, and so it had to be that.

She could not go on as she had the past few years, eking out her capital with her body, exchanging her body's use for the sustenance it needed. There were not enough years left, and the body inevitably used more than it received. Always, as the years grew fewer, the more rapidly the flesh depleted itself. So, an end to things as they had been. An end to the race with self. The mind grew youthful with use, increasingly eager with the demands of its owner, anxious and able to provide for the body that gave it shelter, to imbue it with its own youth and vigor or a reasonable facsimile thereof. And thus the mind must be used from now on. The ever-lucrative schemes which the mind could concoct and put into practice. Her mind and Roy's, the two working together as one, and the money which he could and must supply.

Perhaps she had pushed her hand a little too hard; no man liked to be pushed. Perhaps her interest in Lilly Dillon had been a blunder; every man was sensitive about his mother. But no matter. What she suggested was right and reasonable. It would be good for both of them.

It was what had to be. And damn him, he'd better-!

He made some casual comment, nudging her for a response, and seething with her own thoughts she turned on him, her face aged with hatred. Startled, he drew back frowning.

"Hey, now! What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Just thinking about something." She smiled, dropping the mask so swiftly that he was not sure of what he had seen. "What was it you said?"

He shook his head; he couldn't remember what it was now. "But maybe I should know your name, lady. Your right one."

"How about Langley?"

"Langley…" He puzzled over it for a moment. Then, "
Langley!
You mean, The Farmer? You teamed with Farmer Langley?"

"That's me, pal."

"Well, now…" He hesitated. "What happened to him, anyway? I heard a lot of stories, but-"

"The same thing that happens to all of 'em, a lot of them I mean. He just blew up; booze, dope, the route."

"I see," he said. "I see."

"Now, don't you worry about him." She snuggled closer to him, misreading his attitude. "That's all over and done with. There's just us now, Moira Langtry and Roy Dillon."

"He's still alive, isn't he?"

"Possibly. I really don't know," she said.

And she might have said,
And I don't care
. For the knowledge had come to her suddenly, though unsurprisingly, that she didn't care, that she had never really cared about him. It was as though she had been hypnotized by him, overwhelmed by his personality as others had been; forced to go his way, to accept his as the right and only way. Yet always subconsciously resisting and resisting, slowly building up hatred for being forced into a life-and what kind of life was it, anyway, for an attractive young woman?-that was entirely foreign to the one she wanted.

It was nothing clear, defined. Nothing she was consciously aware of or could admit to. But still she knew, in her secret mind, knew and felt guilty about it. And so, when the blowup came, she had tried to take care of him. But even that had been a means of striking back at him, the final firm push over the brink, and subconsciously knowing this she had felt still more guilty and was haunted by him. Yet now, her feelings brought to the surface, she saw there was not and had never been anything to feel guilty about.

The Farmer had got what he deserved. Anyone who deprived her of something she wanted deserved what he got.

It was pine-fifteen when the train pulled into Los Angeles. She and Roy had a good dinner in the station restaurant. Then they ran through a light rain to his car, and drove out to her apartment.

She threw off her wraps briskly, turned to him holding out her arms. He held her for a moment, kissing her, but inwardly drawing back a little, subtly cautioned by something in her manner.

"Now," she said, drawing him down onto the lounge, "Now, we get down to business."

"Do we?" He laughed awkwardly. "Before we do that, maybe we'd better-"

"I can scrape up ten grand without much trouble. That would leave twenty or twenty-five for your end. There's a place in Oklahoma now, wide open if the ice is right. As good as Fort Worth was in the old days. We can move in there with a wire store, and-"

"Wait," said Roy. "Hold it, keed!"

"It would be perfect, Roy! Say, ten grand for the store, ten for the ice, and another ten for-"

"I said to hold it! Not so fast," he said, angering a little now. "I haven't said I was going to throw in with you."

"What?" She looked at him blankly, a slight glaze over her eyes. "What did you say?"

He repeated the statement, softening it with a laugh. "You're talking some tall figures. What makes you think I've got that kind of money?"

"Why, you must have! You're bound to!" She smiled at him firmly; a teacher reproving an errant child. "Now, you know you do, Roy."

"Do I?"

"Yes. I watched you work on the train, as slick an operator as I ever saw. You don't get that smooth overnight. It takes years, and you've been getting away with it for years. Living on a Square John income and taking the fools for-"

"And I've been doing some taking myself. Twice in less than two months. Enough to put me in the hospital here, and in San Diego today-"

"So what?" She brushed the interruption aside. "That doesn't change anything. All it proves is that it's time you moved up. Get up where there's big dough at stake and you don't have to stick your neck out every day."

"Maybe I like it where I am."

"Well, I don't like it! What are you trying to pull on me, anyway? What the hell are you trying to hand me?"

He stared at her, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry, his lips twitching uncertainly. He had never seen this woman before. He had never heard her before.

The rain whispered against the window. Distantly, there was a faint whirring of an elevator. And with it, with those sounds, the sound of her heavy breathing. Labored, furious.

"I'd better run along now," he said. "We'll talk about it some other time."

"We'll talk about it now, by God!"

"Then," he said quietly, "there's nothing to talk about, Moira. The answer is no."

He stood up. She jumped up with him.

"Why?" she demanded. "Just tell me why, damn you!"

Roy nodded, a glint coming into his eyes. He said that the best reason he could think of was that she scared the hell out of him. "I've seen people like you before, baby. Double-tough and sharp as a tack, and they get what they want or else. But they don't get by with it forever."

"Bull!"

"Huh-uh, history. Sooner or later the lightning hits 'em, honey. I don't want to be around when it hits you."

He started for the door. Wild-eyed, her face mottled with rage, she flung herself in front of him.

"It's your mother, isn't it? Sure, it is! One of those keep-it-in-the-family deals! That's why you act so funny around each other! That's why you were living at her apartment!"

"Wh-aat?" He came to a dead stop. "What are you saying?"

"Don't act so goddamned innocent! You and your own mother,
gah!
I'm wise to you, I should have seen it before! Why, you rotten son-of-a-bitch! How is it, hmm? How do you like-"

"How do you like this?" Roy said.

He slapped her suddenly, catching her with a backhanded slap as she reeled. She leaped at him, hands clawed, and he grabbed her by the hair and flung her, and she came down sprawling on the floor.

A little wonderingly he looked at her, as she raised her smudged and reddened face. "You see?" he said. "You see why it wouldn't do, Moira?"

"You d-dirty bastard!
You're
going to see something!"

"I'm sorry, Moira," he said. "Good night and good luck?"

Back at his hotel, he lay awake for a time, thinking about Moira; wondering at how little sense of loss he felt at losing her.

Was tonight merely a finalizing of something that he had long intended to do? It seemed so; it had the feeling about it of the expected. It might even be that his strong attraction for Carol had been a reaction to Moira, an attempt to attach himself to another woman and thus be detached from her.

Carol…

He fidgeted uncomfortably, then put her out of his mind. He'd have to do something about her, he decided. Some day soon, somehow, he'd have to smooth things over with her.

As for Moira…

He frowned, on the point of falling asleep, then relaxed with a shake of his head. No, no danger there. She'd gotten sore and blown her top, but she was probably regretting it already. At any rate, there was nothing she could do and she was too smart to try. Her own position was too tenuous. She was wide open for a smacking-down herself.

He fell into a deep sleep. Having slept so little the night before, he rested well. And it was after nine when he awakened.

He sprang out of bed, feeling good and full of energy, starting to plan the day's schedule as he reached for a robe. Then slowly, drearily, he sat back down. For here he was again as he had been last week. Here he was again, still, confronted by emptiness. Barred from his selling job, barred from any activity. Faced with a day, an endless series of days, with nothing to do.

Dully, he cursed Kaggs.

He cursed himself.

Again, hopefully hopeless, as he bathed and shaved, as he dressed and went out to breakfast, he sought some way out of the impasse. And his mind came up with the same two answers-answers which were wholly unacceptable.

One: He could take the sales manager's job-take it without further stalling around-and give up the grifting. Or, two: He could jump town and go to another city; begin all over again as he had begun when he first came to Los Angeles.

Breakfast over, he got into his car and began to drive, aimlessly, without destination; the most tiresome way of driving. When this became unbearable, as it very shortly did, he pulled in to the curb and parked.

Peevishly, his mind returned to the impossible problem.

Kaggs, he thought bitterly. That damned Perk (for Percival) Kaggs!
Why couldn't he have left me alone? Why did he have to be so damned sure that I-

The futile thinking interrupted itself. His frown faded, and a slow smile played around his lips.

Kaggs was a man of snap judgment, a man who made up his mind in a hurry. So probably he would unmake it just as fast. He would take no nonsense from anyone. Given sufficient reason, and without apology, he would snatch back from the sales manager's job as promptly as he had proffered.

Roy called him from a nearby drugstore. He was still forbidden to work for a while (the doctor's orders), he said, but perhaps Kaggs would like to have lunch with him? Kaggs said that he seldom took time for lunch; he usually settled for a sandwich in his office.

"Maybe you should start going out," Roy told him.

"Oh? You mean on account of my ulcers? Well-"

"I mean on account of your disposition. It might help you to get along better with people."

He grinned coldly, listening to the startled silence that poured over the wire. Then, Kaggs said equably, "Well, maybe it would at that. Twelve o'clock suit you?"

"No, it doesn't. I'd rather eat at one."

Kaggs said, fine, that was better for him, too. "One o'clock then. The little place across the street."

Roy hung up the phone. He considered the advisability of showing up late for the appointment, and decided against it. That would be simply rudeness, crudeness. It would do nothing but arouse Kaggs' suspicions.

Already, perhaps, he had pursued the line of brusqueness too far.

He arrived at the restaurant a little before one. They ate at a small table in the rear of the place, and somehow the meeting went pretty much as the first one had. Somehow, and much to Roy's annoyance, the feeling of empathy grew between them. Toward the end of the meal, Kaggs did a surprising thing- surprising, that is, for him. Reaching across the table, he gave Roy a shy slap on the shoulder.

"Feeling lousy, aren't you, boy? Like you could bite nails."

"What?" Roy looked at him startled. "What makes you think that?"

"You'd just have to; I know I would. A man can idle around so long, and then it begins to drive him nuts. Why don't you come back to the office with me for a while? Sort of look the setup over."

"Well, I-you're busy, and-"

"So I'll put you to work, too." Kaggs stood up, smiling. "I'm kidding, of course. You can just look around; take a gander at the salesmen's file, if you like. Do what you want to, and pull out when you want to."

"Well…" Roy shrugged. "Why not?"

The question was rhetorical; he could think of no valid reason to decline. Similarly, finding himself in Kaggs' office at Sarber & Webb, he was forced to accept the file which Kaggs shoved in front of him. To show at least a semblance of interest in its various cards.

Resentfully, he saw himself a victim of Kaggs' highhandedness. Kaggs had taken charge of him again, as he had on that first day. But that wasn't really true. More accurately, he was his own victim, his own slave. He had made personality a profession, created a career out of selling himself. And he could not stray far, or for long, from his self-made self.

He riffled through the cards, unseeing.

He began to see them, to read the meaning in them. They became people and money and life itself. And thoughtfully, one at a time, he took them out of the file and spread them out on the desk.

He picked up a pencil, reached for a lined pad of scratch paper…

As he worked, Kaggs gave him an occasional covert glance, and a smug smile tightened his thin lips. A couple of hours passed, and Kaggs arose and strolled over to his desk.

"How are you doing?"

"Sit down," Roy said, and as the other man obeyed, "I think this record system is all wrong, Perk. I don't want to tread on anyone's toes, whoever set it up, but-"

"Tread away. Nothing's sacred around here."

"Well, it's misleading, a waste of time. Take this man here. His gross sales for the week are six hundred and fifty dollars. His commission, over in this column, totals eighty-one dollars. What's his percentage of the week's sales?"

"I'd have to figure it up. Roughly, eight per cent."

"Not necessarily. Depending on what he sold, he might have some twenty-five per cent stuff in there. The point is, just what the hell was it that he sold? How much of it was practically loss-leader stuff, items that we have to sell in order to compete?"

Kaggs looked at him sharply; hesitated. "Well, of course, there's his sales slips; that's what his commissions were figured from."

"But where are the sales slips?"

"Accounting gets a copy, inventory gets a copy, and of course the customer gets one at the time of purchase."

"Why does inventory need a copy? The stuff is checked off at the time it leaves the shop, isn't it? Or at least it could be. You've got some duplicate effort if it isn't. Where you need a copy is here in the salesman's file."

"But-"

"Not in a file like this, of course. There isn't enough room. But it doesn't have to be like this. We don't have so many salesmen that we couldn't set up a separate file on each one, give each man a section in one of the filing cabinets."

Kaggs scratched his head. "Hmm," he said. "Well maybe."

"It ought to be done, Perk. It just about has to be if you're going to have a clear picture of what's going on. Tie the sales slips to the salesmen, and you know which men are selling and which are running a milk route. Ordertakers. You know what items are moving and which need pushing, and which should be dropped entirely. Of course, you'll know all that eventually, anyway. But waiting can cost you a hell of a lot of money and-"

Roy broke off abruptly, suddenly abashed by his tone and his words. He shook his head, dismayed, like a man coming into wakefulness.

"Just listen to me," he said. "I come in here for the first time, and I start kicking your system to pieces."

"So kick it some more. Kick the crap out of it!" Kaggs beamed at him. "How are you feeling, anyway? Getting tired? Want to knock off for the day?"

"No, I'm okay. But-"

"Well, let's see, then." Kaggs skidded his chair closer, and reached for a pencil. "What would you say to…"

An hour went by.

Two hours.

In the outer offices, one of the clerks turned a startled stare on her neighbor. "Did you hear that?" she whispered. "He was
laughing!
Old Picklepuss Kaggs laughed out loud!"

"I heard," said the other girl, grimly, "but I don't believe it. That guy never learned how to laugh!"

At five-thirty that evening, the telephone operator plugged in her night numbers and closed her board. The outer offices darkened and became silent, as the last of the office employees filed out. And at six, the downstairs workers departing to the muted clanging of the time- clock, the silence and the dimness became absolute.

At eight o'clock-

Perk Kaggs removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. He looked around, blinking absently, and a bewildered look spread over his face. With an amazed curse, he jumped to his feet.

"My God! Look at the time! Where the hell did the day go to?"

"What?" Roy frowned. "What's the matter, Perk?"

"Come on, you're getting out of here! Right this minute, damnit! My God-" Kaggs swore again. "I ask you to drop in for a few minutes and you put in a day's work!"

They had a late dinner together.

As they said good night, Kaggs gave him a sharp searching glance. "Level with me, Roy," he said quietly. "You do want this job, don't you? You want to be sales manager?"

"Well…" Roy hesitated for a flicker of a second.

There it was. Here was his chance to refuse. And he knew suddenly that he could refuse, without apology or explanation. He could say simply no, that he didn't want it, and that would be that. He could go back to his old life where he had left it. For something had happened between him and Kaggs, something that made them friends. And friends do not question each other's motives.

"Why, of course, I want it," he said firmly. "What gave you the idea that I didn't?"

"Nothing. I just thought that-nothing." Kaggs returned to his usual briskness. "To hell with it. To hell with you. Go home and get some sleep, and don't show up at the shop again until the doctor says you're ready!"

"You're the boss," Roy grinned. "'Night, Perk."

Driving back to the hotel, he started to rationalize his decision, to find some devious reason for doing what he had done. But that passed very quickly. Why shouldn't he take a job that he wanted to take? Why shouldn't a man want a friend, a real friend, when he has never before had one?

He put the car away and entered the hotel. The elderly night clerk hailed him.

"You had a phone call this morning, Mr. Dillon. Your mother."

"My mother?" Roy paused. "Why didn't you leave word for me where I work?"

"I was going to, sir, but she said not to bother. Didn't have time to wait, I guess."

Roy picked up a house phone, put in a call to Lilly's apartment. He hung up a moment or two later, puzzled, uneasy.

Lilly was gone. She had checked out of her apartment this morning, leaving no forwarding address.

He went upstairs. Frowning, he shucked out of his clothes and lay down on the bed. He tossed and turned for a while, worrying. Then, gradually, he relaxed and began to doze.

Lilly could take care of herself. There could be- must be-an innocent reason for her sudden move.

Del Mar… She might have moved there for the race meet. Or she might have found a more desirable apartment here in town that had to be taken immediately. Or perhaps BoboJustus had suddenly recalled her to Baltimore.

He fell asleep.

After what seemed only an instant, he came awake.

Sunlight flooded the room. It was late in the morning. He was conscious that the phone had been ringing for a very long time. It was now silent, but its din was still in his ears. He started to reach for it, his senses dull, not fully free of the stupor of sleep, and there was a knock on the door, a steady knocking.

He crossed to it, opened it enough to look out. He blinked at the man there; then, the man identifying himself, stating his business with professional regret-apologizing for the errand that had brought him here-Roy let the door open wide.

And he stood shaking his head as the man came inside.

No, he shouted silently. It wasn 't true! It was some stupid mistake!Lilly wouldn 'tbein Tucson! Why-why
-