The Intruder Page 5
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to get to work,” Adam said. “It’s been very pleasant.”
“Yeah. Lousy food, but it fills the gut. If I didn’t have a type philosophy like that, we’d starve, in some of the places we been; ain’t that right, Vy?”
“That’s right, honey.”
They got up to leave. Adam reached for his pocket with deliberate awkwardness, put up a weak struggle for the check, gave in at last.
“Heck, we got plenty of money,” Griffin said. “Pushing a real nice line now; really raking it in. Keep this to yourself, but we been averaging four hundred a day in the dime store at Farragut!”
They went out of the restaurant. Adam wondered how he could break away discreetly, for the man showed no signs of letting up.
“Farragut’s only twenty miles,” Griffin boomed. “You ought to come over and hear my pitch. I’m pushing a ballpoint pen, no better and no worse than any other. But here’s the secret, here’s how come we get two bucks for them. We took out a trade name R. Rand—patented it—and it’s printed on the pens. Get it?”
“Not quite.”
“Easy. People see it, what do they think? R. Rand. Why, that must be Remington Rand! And everybody knows Remington Rand’s a fine old company, so they figure they’re getting more than their two dollars’ worth. It’s the old principle. ‘Something for nothing.’ See, there’s a little tiny bit of larceny in everybody’s heart. I make them think I’m kind of dumb, so they believe they’re taking advantage of me. Something for nothing; you know? You can sell people all kinds of things they don’t need, easy, you can make them do things they never would think of doing, just as long as they believe they’re special, important, getting in on the ground floor—you know? Boy.”
“That’s a very interesting theory,” Adam said.
“It ain’t a theory; it’s a fact. I been living on it for most of my life, I ought to know!” Sam Griffin laughed. “It’s a funny way to work, I guess—I mean, I admit it, I’m what you might call a con man—but, I ask you, is it much different from any other business? Advertising, politics—just great big pitches, that’s all. Selling the public something they don’t need, making them like it. Boy, what church you go to?”
Adam passed a hand through his hair. “I’m—a Baptist,” he said.
“That so? Well, you won’t find no trouble in Caxton. They got practically nothing but Baptists here, Baptists and Methodists— but not too many of them. Vy and me ain’t anything in particular, really; we believe in the good Lord’s word and what the Bible says, but when you’re all the time making jumps, you don’t get a chance to worship much formal. But you know”—Griffin paused for a moment, as though assembling the important parts of the story to follow—“I come within an ace of being a preacher myself, a couple years ago! Yeah, I did. Vy and—”
Vy Griffin nudged her husband and laughed. “Come on, Sam,” she said, “stop bending Mr. Cramer’s ear. He hasn’t got time for that story. I clocked you at forty-five minutes when you told it to that DeSoto dealer.”
Griffin shrugged. “Well, doggone it, it’s a good one. We’ll get together some night, Adam, and I’ll tell it to you. How about that?”
“That’ll be swell.”
They entered the Union Hotel. The three ladies on the couch had not stirred. The TV still flickered.
“I’d like to thank both of you,” Adam said, shaking Griffin’s hand.
“What for?”
“Breakfast.”
“You mean that scrambled framistan with fortis oil!” The stocky man chuckled again. “Yeah!”
“I’m going to the room,” his wife said. She turned and walked away.
Sam Griffin lowered his voice. “Adam,” he said, “I wonder if I could ask you a little favor. I know we’re strangers, but I like you—I mean, I’m a pretty good judge of character; you have to be, in this business—and, well, would you mind?”
“I’d be glad to do you a favor, Sam, if I can.”
“I knew it. It ain’t nothing, much—but, you see, I’m going to be hitting for Farragut right away. The first few days are kind of rough, so I’ll be staying overnight, most likely. I’d just appreciate it if you’d maybe look in on Vy once in a while. She gets bored, and the women here are all too old for her; you know. I mean, if you get a chance. Maybe take her to a movie. Or play cards with her; she likes cards.”
Adam studied the man carefully, decided that it was not a joke.
“She don’t really go for this kind of life,” Griffin said. “Not really. We’re saving up our dough and in a couple years we’ll be able to buy a motel, or something, and take it easy; that’s what she wants. She’s a wonderful little girl, and old Sam hates to see her unhappy.”
“I’ll do my best,” Adam said.
“Good!”
Adam walked carefully around Billy Matthews’ outstretched legs, climbed the stairs and went into his room. From the dresser he took three thick white envelopes and shoved them into the breast pocket of his coat; then he went back to the lobby and picked up a telephone directory.
Shipman, Verne J., he found, lived at 22 Myrtlewood Lane . . .
He approached the three figures on the couch. To the first lady, a wax carving in a faded organdy dress, he said: “Excuse me, ma’am, but I wonder if you could tell me how to get to Myrtlewood Lane?”
She did not answer or move.
“Thanks anyway,” he said and went out the doorway, trying to erase Vy Griffin from his mind. There would be time for that later, perhaps.
Yes, he decided. Definitely. There would be time.
5
He sat at the heavy oak table, chewing resolutely at a final fibrous shred of breakfast steak, wondering what to do with the day. The dogs could be heard faintly, and that reminded him that the tournament would be coming up soon; but there was nothing he could do now, except practice. And that was pretty stupid, when you got right down to it. He had the best dogs in the state: no other animal had come close to matching Rupert’s stance, and Prince was just sloppy enough to make his retrieves popular. He would win the tournament, there was no doubt of that. So why should he even bother to enter?
The question was vague and unspoken, just as all other questions were, these days.
He yawned and pushed the table forward. His dark silk dressing gown was stained where he had spilled coffee onto it, and his face seemed stained, too: it was square and thick, covered by a three-day growth of beard. Two hundred and thirty pounds of meat stuck loosely to his bones; it bunched around the chest and stomach, even around the fingers of his hands. In the immaculate room with its white lace curtains and white walls and oriental rugs, with all its polished silver plates and candelabra, Verne Shipman looked grotesquely out of place.
He was quite aware of this fact, and felt it, also. His was a completely untenable position: having the instincts of an adventurer, wanting to start with nothing, as his father, Parke Shipman, had done, and work up a personal fortune of his own, he’d had to yield to his common sense and take the luck built-in. You can’t disregard two million dollars. Yet, having it, what was there left for a man to do?
He hated his father, and venerated him. Old Parke had been one of those electric young men with bright lights shining deep behind their eyes. At the age of twenty-two he’d gone to California and bought a small lemon grove. The grove had been producing but losing money because of poor management; also, there was no way to fight the frosts then. Parke figured out a way, and soon had himself a thriving business; but it was not satisfying to him. There was nothing for him to do, once the initial rhythm had been set up. So he sold the grove and began to look around for something else to do. At that time, the most popular machine in America was the Model T Ford. The “T” was a stark, unlovely, uncomfortable, graceless conveyance; it had to be. Department stores therefore began to offer accessories, and the idea caught on. People started to “improve” their machines—adding special gimmicks to step up the power output, to g
ive a softer ride.
Parke Shipman decided to climb onto the bandwagon in a hurry. What could he produce that was new, not yet thought of by the department stores?
He went into partnership with a man named Rogers, and together they dreamed up a series of luxury accessories for the interior of the car. Everyone else at that time was offering mechanical gadgets, considerations of comfort and beauty being largely neglected. So a vast field was open for such an enterprise.
Parke and Rogers decided to set up their shop in Caxton, both because it was Parke’s home and because Negro labor would be cheap. They began to produce arm rests, cloth steering-wheel covers, and several other items. A Farragut bank financed them during this period. Then they began a heavy advertising campaign, and soon the business was flourishing.
As it flourished, the shop grew and, shortly before the decline of the Model T, Parke bought out his partner and built the fabric mill.
There was a trying period of readjustment to the new economy, but whenever his items became obsolete, Parke would invent others.
He spent small fortunes, but invariably made them back; and, at seventy-eight, he signed a long-term contract with one of the nation’s largest automotive corporations, to supply accessories for all the cars to come out of their state factory.
They converted to plastics and, in 1949, the Shipman Mill added a second story.
Then Parke Shipman died, of a fistula, and his son was left to carry on.
Only, of course, there was nothing to “carry on.” The contract was a long one, the orders were filled on time with great ease, the profits were sufficiently large so that an increase would only compound the tax problem. Had he the financier’s interest in money for its own sake, Verne might have enlarged facilities, lobbied for new contracts, built the business into a colossal enterprise; but he knew that this involved tremendous work, work that was meaningless without the passion for business and the business world to carry it along.
Coming up from nothing, that was different; but adding frosting to an already over-rich cake—no. Two million in escrow and a regular $100,000 per year was enough.
It had occurred to Verne, when he was young, to change his name and strike out alone for Alaska or similarly virgin territory, to remain silent for a few years and then return with a fortune to match his father’s—he’d dream this dream every night—but somehow he never got around to doing it. At the age of twenty-two he went to Europe and stayed there for a while, long enough to fall in love with an English girl and marry her; but it scared him, and, when they were home again, the girl scared him, too. The marriage lasted six months, then the girl said she wanted a divorce and would settle for two hundred thousand.
Parke paid it, gave Verne a feeble lecture, and returned to the mill. After the death of the old man’s wife, he seldom ventured from the office, and took even less interest than usual in his son.
At forty-six Verne Shipman felt, without actually feeling it, that his life was over; that, in fact, it had never begun. Robbed of the chance to prove himself, cheated of all the adventure and force that had once sung in his blood, he could do no more than uphold the family name. And that was a poor job at best.
He picked up the Irish linen napkin, swabbed his lips; then, yawning, went upstairs and put on a sports shirt and a pair of light denim trousers.
Immediately upon leaving the house, he began to perspire.
He walked across the barbered green lawn, toward the kennels. The dogs were pacing, a few of them letting out futile cries behind the wire mesh.
Verne opened the first cage. A fine setter sprang out eagerly. “How is it, Rupert? You okay, boy? Everything okay?”
The dog pranced.
“Good. Good, fella.” He ran his hand over the smooth back of the setter, and decided that they might as well go out and practice anyway. Practice never hurt.
He was about to call Lucas, the trainer, who lived in the reconverted stable at the end of the plot, when he saw Mrs. Mennen coming toward him. He frowned, for no good reason. Mrs. Mennen was an excellent housekeeper, and she cooked marvelously well, but somehow he felt that she begrudged him his position. She was continually comparing him with his father—and what did she expect, for God’s sake? What was he supposed to do?
“There’s someone to see you,” the old woman said crisply. “He says he isn’t a salesman and he’s staying with Mrs. Pearl Lambert.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”
Shipman deepened his frown. “When they say they’re not salesmen, you can be pretty sure that’s what they are.”
“I’m only repeating what he said.”
“I know that. Mrs. Mennen”—he could never manage to call her Edna, as Parke had done—“I’m trying to get the dogs ready for some practice here, for the tournament. I’m very busy.”
The woman’s lips curled upward, almost imperceptibly.
“They’ve got to be made ready if we’re going to win this thing, you know that.”
“Do you want me to send him away?”
“Well . . . who is he, anyway? You ever seen him before?”
“No. A young fellow. He’s staying at the Union.”
In other words, Verne thought, since he’s staying with your friend Mrs. Lambert you’d like me to see him.
“All right, all right. Send him out here. But tell him I can’t give him much time; there’s a lot to do.”
Mrs. Mennen’s eyes flickered—the look that Shipman could remember from childhood; the look that said, That’s the whole trouble, there isn’t anything for you to do, and you don’t fool me for a minute—then she nodded, and went off.
He longed for the courage to fire her, but he knew he could never do this; and not merely because she was a fixture, either.
But why? Why couldn’t he?
Rupert jumped up suddenly, planting forepaws on his master’s chest. Shipman knocked the dog away gently and began thinking about which rifle he ought to take, what clothes he ought to wear, for the tournament. There was nothing else in his mind; not even the worry about the long empty weeks after the games. . . .
“Mr. Shipman?”
He turned. A young man stood near him, smiling.
“Go on, Rupert,” he said gruffly. He always used a gruff tone around strangers. The dog frisked a moment, paused, leaped upon the visitor.
“Down, goddamnit!”
“No, wait, it’s okay,” the young man said. He rubbed the dog’s ears, patted him, then watched as Rupert retreated to the cage.
“Did he get your suit dirty?”
“No, it’s fine. I like dogs. You are Mr. Shipman?”
“That’s right.”
“My name is Adam Cramer.” The stranger had a firm grip; and he looked at your face when he spoke. Shipman locked the kennel, muttered something, fumbled for his pipe.
“I know you must think it’s a little odd for me to come bursting in on you like this, and I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Well,” the young man grinned, “quite a bit, sir. I think you’ll be interested in hearing about it.”
Shipman tamped some tobacco down in his pipe and applied a match. “I guess I’ve heard that somewhere before,” he said.
“This is a little different, sir. You see, I’m not trying to sell you anything.”
“Uh-huh.”
The stranger stopped smiling. “Mr. Shipman, I’ve come down from Washington, D.C., as a representative of the Society of National American Patriots. Have you heard of the organization?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
“We’re a group dedicated to helping the people of America understand the meaning of the Constitution. When we heard about the court’s decision to integrate Negroes with whites in the high school here in Caxton, we decided to carry out an investigation—an investigation on how the people of Caxton feel about it. That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re considered one of the most important civic figures of Caxton, sir,” the young man went on, “so I simply would like to get your opinion.”
“On what?”
“The integration issue.”
“Oh.” Shipman scratched his leg. He studied his visitor carefully, decided finally that if he was a salesman, he was a clever one, and it would be more entertaining to listen to a clever salesman than to practice with the dogs. “I can’t spend a lot of time,” he said.
“I realize that you’re busy; but I promise it won’t take long.”
“All right. Let’s go on back to the house, though. It’s hotter than hell out here.”
They started back across the lawn, which had been freshly watered by Lucas. It put out a clean, washed smell.
“You have a beautiful house, Mr. Shipman.”
Verne grunted. The house had been planned as a Colonial mansion, complete with porch and hammock and pillars; but the wood hadn’t lasted, and he’d been obliged to rebuild. He tried to keep it traditional, but small things went wrong. It somehow lacked the dignity of the old place. It was a facsimile. Maybe I’m a facsimile, too, he’d thought, once. All of us, everything. Stinking little imitations. Except for Mrs. Mennen . . .
“It has a real sort of quietness to it.”
“In here.”
Shipman went in first, striding with almost deliberate clumsiness through the cream-colored living room, past the grand piano, to the library.
He closed the door, motioned Adam Cramer to the large leather couch, and took his accustomed place behind the desk.
“Okay,” he said, “what is it you want to know?”
“Well, sir, primarily this: how you stand—whether you’re for integration or against it.”
“Mister,” Shipman said, “I’m a Southerner. I was born and raised in this country, and so were my folks. I don’t mind telling you that I go right along with everybody else. I didn’t like it when it first come up, and I don’t like it now.” He was a bit surprised at the firmness of his voice. The truth was, he hadn’t thought about the question at all for several months. He’d never felt particularly concerned.