The Man in the Tree (21 page)

On Monday she applied for a waitress job in a coffee shop in Treasure
Island; the manager said he would let her know. Walking back toward
the bus stop, she noticed a sign she had not seen before: it was an
employment agency, a tiny place tucked in between a drugstore and a
real-estate office.
The woman behind the desk was a fortyish blonde in a startling blouse
of blue and yellow trapezoids. She looked at Margaret's application
without putting down her cigarette. "Well, let's see. You haven't had
much business experience, have you?"
"No, but I can type and take shorthand."
"I see you were a teacher before -- why did you give that up?"
"Not cut out for it, I guess."
The woman gave her an indifferent look. "Uh-huh. How good is your
shorthand ?"
"Not very, but I can brush up."
"Well, here's a filing job -- you say you don't want that -- filing and
bookkeeping. . . . Here's one, secretary, part time, some filing and
bookkeeping. Salary open, that means it probably isn't much."
"What sort of place is it?"
"Not a place, it's the man's home. Occupation, investor. Do you have
a car?"
"No -- not yet."
"Well, it's back in the boonies, but it says here, 'Will pick up for
interview.'"
"I'd like to try it."
"All right." The woman picked up the phone, squinting past the smoke of
her cigarette. "Mr. Anderson, please. . . . Well, would you tell him that
Mrs. Harrell of Suncoast Employment called. We have an applicant for the
secretary job, and she'd like to be picked up for an interview. . . . Just
a moment." She covered the phone. "Can you go out there this afternoon?"
"Yes."
"Yes, that will be fine. Her name is Margaret Morrow. Two o'clock?" She
lifted an eyebrow at Margaret. "All right, thank you."
She put the phone down. "Somebody will pick you up here at two. The
office will be closed until twelve-thirty, but you can come back here
any time after that. Whether you get the job or not, please remember to
check back and let us know; that's important."
Margaret went back to the coffee shop, had a sandwich and a glass of milk,
then browsed in the tourist shops until almost two.
In the waiting room sat a man in a blue flowered shirt. He was partly
bald, compactly built, tanned the color of mahogany. There was a cold
cigar stub in his mouth. He got up and put on a blue straw hat. "Miss
Morrow?"
"Yes."
He looked up at her. "Well, you're tall enough, anyhow. My name is Bill
Richards. Come on."
He led her to a dusty blue Lincoln convertible parked at the curb. "I
haven't seen one of these in years," she remarked as she got in.
"They just started making them again." Richards pulled out into the
street, made a startling U-turn and headed north. "Been here long?" he
said around the cigar.
"No, only a week."
"Figures." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye; his expression
did not change, but she thought he was amused. "Get a little sunburn?"
"A little."
"Thought so." His muscular arms were covered with coarse black hair;
his fingers were blunt and spatulate, but his nails were clean.
"Mr. Richards, what does Mr. Anderson do?"
"A little of this, a little of that." He gave her a faint smile.
"Mr. Anderson," he said, "is a very big man."
They were running across the causeway, the water sparkling white beneath
them; then around the curve of the road, past Spanish-looking villas with
palm trees, up the gentle rise that passed for a hill in Florida. After
a few miles the car slowed, turned to the left onto a macadam road that
quickly became white dust, bordered with yucca and palmetto. They turned
again, running now between fenced pastures where brown and white cattle
grazed; then once more, into a road marked "Private." Up ahead was a
real hill covered with trees, a wall, a cluster of rooftops.
They halted in a wide archway closed by a wrought-iron gate. Richards
rolled down his window and spoke to a grille in the wall. "Irma, open
up." Beyond his head, Margaret could see a lens swiveling to point at
them. "Okay," said a metallic voice. The gate swung open, they drove
through past flowering bushes, a vast stretch of new lawn with sprinklers
playing on it. Where the driveway leveled off, the house was too close
to see, but she caught a glimpse of tall stucco walls, wrought-iron
balconies.
They swung into the cool shadow of a carport. Richards led her up three
steps to an enormously tall door of carved wood; he opened it and ushered
her into a huge kitchen where a blond woman was sitting with a telephone in
her hand. "I understand that, Mr. Lyons," she was saying, "But Mr. Anderson
wants me to tell you that if we can't get better service, we'll have to look
for another supplier." She smiled at Margaret and pointed to a chair at the
long table.
Richards had disappeared; he came back carrying a cardboard carton full of
packages and letters, which he set down on the table, then went out again.
The blond woman put down the phone. She was in her forties, a little
plump in a candy-striped blouse and blue shorts; her legs were bare
and tanned. "I'm Irma Hartz," she said. "You're Miss Morrow, from the
agency?" "Yes."
"Nice to meet you. Want to go to the bathroom or anything before we
start?"
"No, I'm fine."
"All right, let's go." When she stood up, Margaret noticed that her
brown feet were bare. She led the way across the kitchen. The chair at
the far end of the table stood in a curious sunken area, a foot or two
lower than the rest of the floor. They passed into a tiled hallway, down
a gentle ramp, and emerged into a vast space with a cathedral ceiling;
it must have been thirty feet high. There were Oriental rugs on the tile
floor; the walls were oyster white. To their left a broad ramp rose to
a balcony at the far end of the room. Under the balcony, through sliding
glass doors, she glimpsed a colonnade and a garden with a fountain. The
room itself was enormous, more like a museum hall than a living room. The
middle part of it was sunken, with a wrought-iron railing around it.
She followed Mrs. Hartz down a hall lined with pictures to a room fitted
out with filing cabinets, a desk, an electronic typewriter. "Sit down,
honey, and let's talk." Mrs. Hartz took a seat behind a second, smaller
desk, and peered at her over her glasses. "Your name is Margaret Morrow --
just like it sounds?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Hartz wrote on a yellow pad. "Age?"
"Thirty."
"M arried?"
"No."
"What was your last job?"
"I was a schoolteacher in Albany."
"Albany, New York? Why did you leave?"
Margaret was silent a moment.
"Honey," said Mrs. Hartz, "I don't want to be nosy, but I have to know
all this stuff. If you were fired, you can tell me."
"No, I wasn't fired," Margaret said. "Maybe I was burned out. My mother
died in February. She was bedridden for seven years. And -- " She stopped
and went on again, trying to keep her voice level. "I don't know, the
middle school I taught in was consolidated with a high school that wasn't
as good, and some of our programs went downhill. It stopped being fun.
One day I caught myself hating one of the kids. It scared me, I thought
maybe I was cracking up. The only thing I could think of was just to get
out of Albany, and I came here because of the sunshine."
Mrs. Hartz wrote something slowly. "O-kay." She got up and came around
the desk. "Have you ever used one of these gadgets?" she asked, indicating
a dictation machine beside the typewriter.
"No, not that kind."
"It uses a little plastic disk, like this one. You put it in the machine
here. Here's the 'on' button, here's reverse -- 'review,' they call it
-- here's forward, and this counter keeps track of where you are." She
touched a button, and a man's deep voice said, " . . . items number
three seventy-five, three eighty-one, five ninety-seven, and please
bill to my account." She pressed the "off" button. "Why don't you fool
with this awhile till you get the hang of it, and then type the first
letter on the disk. There's a foot pedal under here, and letterheads,
envelopes, carbon paper, and all that stuff in these drawers. I'll be
in the kitchen. You can bring the letter out when you're finished,
or if you run into any trouble, you can call me on this intercom --
press number five." She turned and went out.
Margaret sat down, pressed the "review" button, then played the disk from
the beginning. "J. R. Veillot Frčres, dear sirs, referring to your catalog
dated November 1983, I would like to order items number one fifteen,
two seventy, three seventy-five . . . " She stopped the machine; where
was the address? She would feel like a fool to call Mrs. Hartz for help
so soon, before she had even started.
There was a rotary file on the desk: she looked under 'V,' and found it:
Veillot, with an address in New York. She typed the letter rapidly. The
letterhead read "G. Anderson," and she put that under the space for his
signature. She typed an envelope, looked over the letter and envelope
for errors, and carried them back to the kitchen.
Mrs. Hartz was sitting where Margaret had first seen her; behind her,
in an alcove, there was an intercom and a television screen. She
looked up and smiled. "All done? Let's see." She took the letter and
envelope. "Perfect," she said firmly. "Good as I could do. How's your
shorthand?"
"Pretty poor."
"Well, let's try it." Mrs. Hartz picked up a stenographic notebook and
pencil, handed them to her. "Ready?" She turned a page of the account
book before her and began to read. "Two hundred twenty square yards
wool carpeting at seventy-three dollars, sixteen thousand and sixty
dollars. Four pairs damask drapes . . . " It was a long list. When she
was done, Mrs. Hartz put out her hand for the notebook. "Can I see?"
Margaret handed it over: it was a mixture of half-remembered Gregg
shorthand, abbreviations, and figures.
"That's a mess," Mrs. Hartz said, "but if you can read it back, what's
the difference?" She handed Margaret the notebook again. "See if you can."
"Two hundred twenty square yards wool carpeting," Margaret began, and
went through to the end of the list.
"Okay," said Mrs. Hartz. "Let's see if we can find the boss." She reached
back to the intercom and pressed a button. "Gene, are you there?"
"Yes," said a voice promptly.
"You want to come in and meet Miss Morrow, or should I bring her out?"
A pause. "Bring her out. I'm too dirty to come in."
"Okay." Mrs. Hartz went to a closet, came back with a pair of sneakers
without laces, and put them on. Margaret followed her through the
sliding doors at the far end of the living room, across the colonnade
to a long building behind the house. The interior was brilliantly lit
by the glass panes in the north side of the roof. Down at the far end a
bearded man stood at a workbench, cutting something on a jigsaw. Only when
he turned off the saw and began walking toward them did she realize that
perspective had misled her in that enormous room: the man was grotesquely,
impossibly tall.
He picked up a bench casually with one hand as he approached; he put
it down in front of them and sat on it. Even then, he loomed over the
two women until he bent over to put his elbows on his knees, like a man
leaning over to talk to children. That was almost worse, because his
leonine head was so big and so close. His skin was deeply tanned, but
not as dark as Richards'; bits of wood dust were clinging to his beard
and to the bleached hairs of his arms and chest. He looked at Margaret
attentively when Mrs. Hartz introduced them, and took her hand in his
for a moment; his huge fingers were calloused and warm. His face was
heavy-boned, perfectly in proportion except for his eyes, which were
no larger than hers. His voice was unexpectedly quiet. "Three or four
hours a day," he was saying. "Would that suit you?"
She stammered something.
"Fine, then. Tomorrow?"
"Yes, tomorrow."
Mrs. Hartz led her back through the garden." Didn't Pongo tell you?" she
asked.
"What?"
"Pongo -- Bill Richards -- the man who brought you out. Didn't he say
anything?"
"He said Mr. Anderson was a very big man."
Mrs. Hartz snorted. "That's Pongo." They crossed the living room again,
went through the hall into the kitchen. It was cool here; Margaret sat
down gratefully at the table. She looked at the huge Spanish chair at
the far end where the floor was sunken. How could she not have understood?
"Second thoughts?" Mrs. Hartz asked, coming over with a cup and a pot
of coffee. "This is dark Colombian. Would you rather have something
else? Tea, or a Coke?"
"No, this is fine. Thank you."
Mrs. Hartz sat down and put her elbows on the table. "Well, you can have
the job if you want it. He likes you."
"How could you tell ?"
"If he didn't, he would've let me know. Then it would be up to me to
tell you to leave your number and pretend we'd call you later. Gene
won't tell a lie if he can help it, but he doesn't care if I do."
Margaret sipped her coffee, put it down. "Mrs. Hartz -- "
"Irma."
"Irma, would you take this job if you were me?"
"Sure. I'm here, aren't I? Any dumbbell could do the work; I did it
myself until last week. But it doesn't hurt to be smart, no matter what
you're doing, unless it bores you out of your mind."
"You're no dumbbell. Why only until last week?"
"We were living in the cottages in back, until the big house was
finished. Then Gene wanted me to be the housekeeper, and I couldn't do
both. Now, take your time, but tell me if you want it. He'll pay you
twice what you're worth. What would you say you're worth?"
"Oh -- I don't know. Ten dollars an hour?"
"Okay, twenty then, and he'll pay you for a full week no matter how much
you work, so that's eight hundred."
"Eight hundred a week? That's too much!"
"I know it, but he doesn't care. Deal?"
"Okay."
"All right, now. about transportation. You haven't got a car?"
"No."
"Pongo can take you back and forth until you get some wheels of your
own. Don't know where he is now, though. I'll try his cottage." She
leaned back to the intercom, pushed a button. "Pongo?"
"Yeah."
"You want to run Miss Morrow back into town?"
There was a perceptible pause. "Okay. Five minutes."