You’d better watch out.
Just the Lady We’re Looking For
Being a housewife in a suburban development is not just shopping, cleaning, and cooking — not when men like Mr. Merriweather ring the front doorbell…
That morning Mary cleaned the kitchen, and after lunch she went shopping. It was a beautiful sunny day, but getting hot; the lawns and curbs and ranch-style houses of Pleasant Park Estates gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight, and in the distance the blacktop street shone like glittering water.
Mary had lived here barely five weeks now, but one development was very like another, and in her seven years of marriage to Geoff she’d seen plenty of them. Geoff transferred frequently, spending six months here, eight months there, never as much as a year in any one location. It was a gypsyish life, but Mary didn’t mind: we’re just part of the new mobile generation, she told herself, and let it go at that.
All the stores in the shopping center were air-conditioned, but that only made it worse when Mary finally walked back across the griddle of a parking lot to the car. She thought of poor Geoff, working outdoors ’way over at Rolling Rancheros, and she vowed to make him an extra-special dinner tonight: London broil, a huge green salad, and iced coffee. In fact, she’d make up a big pot of iced coffee as soon as she got home.
But she didn’t get the chance. She’d barely finished putting the groceries away when the front doorbell sounded. She went to the living room, opened the door, and the man smiled, made a small bow, and said, “Mrs. Peters?”
He was about forty, very distinguished-looking, with a tiny Errol Flynn mustache and faint traces of gray at his temples. His dark suit fitted perfectly, and his black attaché case gleamed of expensive leather. He said, “I wonder if you could spare five minutes, or should I call back later?”
Mary frowned. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t under—”
“Oh! You think I’m a salesman!” He laughed, but as though the joke were on himself, not on Mary. “I should have shown you my identification,” he said, and from his inside coat pocket took a long flat wallet of black leather. From it he plucked a card, and extended it to Mary, saying, “Merriweather. Universal Electric.”
The card was in laminated plastic, the printing in two colors. There was a photo of Mr. Merriweather, full face, and his signature underneath. The reverse side gave the office locations of Universal Electric in major cities.
Mr. Merriweather said, smiling, “You have heard of Universal Electric, I hope.”
“Oh, of course. I’ve seen your ads on television.”
Mr. Merriweather accepted his card back. “If you don’t have time now—”
“Oh, I have time. Come on in.”
“Thank you.” He wiped his feet on the mat, and entered. “What a lovely home!”
“Oh, not really. We just moved in last month and it’s still an awful mess.”
“Not at all, not at all! You have charming taste.”
They sat down, Mary in the armchair and Mr. Merriweather on the sofa, his attaché case beside him. He said, “May I ask what make of refrigerator you now have in your home?”
“It’s a Universal.”
“Wonderful.” He smiled again. “And how old is it?”
“I really don’t know — it came with the house.”
“I see. And a home freezer unit, do you have one of those?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, fine. You may be just the lady we’re looking for.” Taking his attaché case onto his lap, he opened it and began removing brightly colored sheets of glossy paper. “A part of our advertising campaign for—”
Now she was sure. “Excuse me,” she said, and got to her feet. Trying to smile normally and naturally, she said, “My groceries. I just got home from the store and nothing’s put away yet. Your talking about the refrigerator reminded me.”
“If you’d prefer that I come back la—”
“Oh, no.” No, she didn’t want to frighten him away. “This won’t take a minute,” she assured him. “I’ll just put the perishables away, and I’ll be right back.”
He got to his feet and smiled and bowed as she left the room.
Her heart was pounding furiously and her legs didn’t seem to want to work right. In the kitchen she went straight to the wall phone and dialed Operator, her hand trembling as she held the receiver to her ear. When the operator came on, Mary said, keeping her voice low, “I want the police, please. Hurry!”
It seemed to take forever, but finally a gruff male voice spoke, and Mary said. “My name is Mrs. Mary Peters, two-twelve Magnolia Court, Pleasant Park Estates. There’s a confidence man in my house.”
“A what?”
Didn’t this policeman watch television? “A confidence man,” she said. “He’s trying to get money from me under false pretenses. I’ll try to keep him here until you send somebody, but you’ll have to hurry.”
“In five minutes,” the policeman promised.
Mary hung up, wishing there was some way to call Geoff. Well, she’d just have to handle it herself. Generally speaking, confidence men avoided violence whenever they could, so she probably wasn’t in any direct physical danger; but you could never be sure. This one might be wanted for other more serious crimes as well, and in that case he might be very dangerous indeed.
Well, she’d started it, so she might as well see it through to the end. She took a deep breath, and went back to the living room.
Mr. Merriweather rose again, polite as ever. He now had the coffee table completely covered with glossy sheets of paper. She said, “I’m sorry I took so long, but I didn’t want any of the food to spoil.”
“Perfectly all right.” He settled himself on the sofa again and said, “As I was saying, Universal Electric is about to introduce a revolutionary new type of refrigerator-freezer, with an advertising campaign built around the concept of the satisfied user. We are placing this refrigerator-freezer in specially selected homes for a six months’ trial period, absolutely free, asking only that the housewife, if she loves this new product as much as we are convinced she will, give us an endorsement at the end of that time and permit us to use her statement and name and photograph in our advertising, both in magazines and on television.”
What would a housewife say who hadn’t seen through this fraud? Mary strove for a suitably astonished expression and said, “And you picked me?”
“Yes, we did. Now, here—” he pointed to one of the papers on the coffee table “—is the product. On the outside it looks like an ordinary refrigerator, but—”
“But how did you happen to pick me?” She knew it was a dangerous question to ask, but she couldn’t resist seeing how he would handle it. Besides, if she acted sufficiently naïve, there wouldn’t be any reason for him to get suspicious.
He smiled again, not at all suspicious, and said, “Actually, I didn’t pick you, Mrs. Peters. The names were chosen by an electronic computer at our home office. We are trying for a statistical cross-section of America.”
It was time to leave that, and become gullibly enthusiastic. She said, “And you really want to give me a refrigerator for six months?”
“Six months is the trial period. After that, you can either keep the unit in payment for your endorsement, or return it and take cash instead.”
“Well, it sounds absolutely fantastic! A brand-new refrigerator for nothing at all.”
“I assure you, Mrs. Peters,” he said, smiling, “we don’t expect to lose on this proposition. Advertising based on satisfied customers is far more effective than any other sort of campaign.” He flipped open a notebook. “May I put you down as willing?”