“Without fixtures,” Schilling said.
“You’re a merchant? You have a California Retail Sales License?”
“I’m in the music business.” Presently he added, “I used to be in the publishing end; now I’ve decided to try my hand at record retailing. It’s been a sort of dream of mine—to have my own shop.”
“We already have a record shop,” Greb said. “Hank’s Music Bar.”
“This will be a different type of thing. This will be music for connoisseurs.”
“Classical music, you mean.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Wetting his thumb, Greb began spiritedly turning the stiff yellow pages of his listings book. “I think we have just the place for you. Nice little store, very modern and clean. Tilted front, fluorescent lighting, built only a couple of years ago. Over on Pine Street, right in the heart of the business section. Used to be a gift shop. Man and his wife, nice middle-aged couple. He sold out when she died. Died of stomach cancer, as I understand.”
“I’d like to see the place,” Joseph Schilling said.
Greb smiled slyly back across the counter at him. “And I’d like to show it to you.”
2
At the edge of the concrete loading platform of California Readymade Furniture an express truck was taking on stacks of chrome chairs. A second truck, a P.I.E. van, waited to take its place.
In faded blue jeans and a cloth apron, the shipping clerk was lethargically hammering together a chrome dinner table. Sixteen bolts held the plastic top in place; seven bolts kept the hollow metal legs from wobbling loose.
“Shit,” the shipping clerk said.
He wondered if anybody else in the world was assembling chrome furniture. He thought over all the things people could be imagined doing. In his mind appeared the image of the beach at Santa Cruz, the image of girls in bathing suits, bottles of beer, motel cabins, radios playing soft jazz. The pain was too much. Abruptly he descended on the welder, who, having slid up his mask, was searching for more tables.
“This is shit,” the shipping clerk said. “You know it?”
The welder grinned, nodded, and waited.
“You done?” the shipping clerk demanded. “You want another table? Who the hell would have one of these tables in his house? I wouldn’t give them toilet space.”
One gleaming leg slipped from his fingers and fell to the concrete. Cursing, the shipping clerk kicked it into the litter under his bench, among the bits of rope and brown paper. He was bending to pluck it back out when Miss Mary Anne Reynolds appeared with more order sheets ready for his attention.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, knowing how clearly he could be heard in the office.
“The hell with it,” the shipping clerk said, as he got down a fresh leg. “Hold this, will you?”
Mary Anne put down her papers and held the leg while he bolted it onto the chair frame. The smell of his unhappiness reached her, and it was a thin smell, acrid, like sweat that had soured. She felt sorry for him, but his stupidity annoyed her. He had been like this a year and a half ago, when she started.
“Quit,” she told him. “Why keep a job you don’t like?”
“Shut up,” the shipping clerk said.
Mary Anne let go of the completed table and watched the welder fuse the legs in place. She enjoyed the sputter of sparks: it was like a Fourth of July display. She had asked the welder to let her try the torch, but he always grinned and said no.
“They don’t like your work,” she said to the clerk. “Mr. Bolden told his wife that unless your work picks up, he isn’t going to keep you on.”
“I wish I was back in the army,” the clerk said.
There was no use talking to him. Mary Anne, with a swirl of her skirts, left the work area and returned to the office.
At his desk was elderly Tom Bolden, the owner of California Readymade; and, at the adding machine, was his wife. “How’s he coming?” Bolden asked, presently aware that the girl had returned. “Sitting around loafing, as usual?”
“Working very hard,” she said loyally, seating herself before her typewriter. She didn’t like the shipping clerk but she refused to involve herself in his downfall.
“You have that Hales letter?” Bolden said. “I want to sign it before I leave.”
“Where are you going?” his wife asked.
“Up to San Francisco. Dohrmann’s says there’s defects in the last load.”
She found the letter and passed it to the old man to sign. It was a faultless page she had done, but she felt no pride; chrome furniture and typing and the problems of a department store blurred meaninglessly into the clatter of Edna Bolden’s adding machine. She reached within the material of her blouse and adjusted her bra strap. The day was hot and empty, as always.
“Should be back by seven,” Tom Bolden was saying.
“Be careful of the traffic.” That was Mrs. Bolden, who was holding the office door open for him.
“Maybe I’ll bring back a new shipping clerk.” He had almost left; in the girl’s ears his voice receded. “Ever seen out there? Filthy as a pigsty. Rubbish everywhere. I’m taking the panel truck.”
“Go up El Camino,” Mary Anne said.
“Whatsat?” Bolden halted, cocking his head.
“El Camino. It’s slower but a lot safer.”
Muttering, Bolden slammed the door. She heard the panel truck start up and move off into traffic . . . it didn’t really matter. She began examining her shorthand notes. The noise of the power saws filtered through the walls into the office; and there was a series of taps as the shipping clerk pounded at his chrome tables.
“He’s right,” she said. “Jake, I mean.”
“Who in the world is Jake?” Mrs. Bolden asked.
“The shipping clerk.” They didn’t even know his name. He was a pounding machine . . . a faulty pounding machine. “There has to be litter around a shipping bench. How can you wrap without litter?”
“It’s not for you to decide.” Mrs. Bolden put down her adding-machine tape and turned toward her. “Mary, you’re old enough to know better—talking this way, as if you’re in charge.”
“I know. I was hired to take dictation, not to tell you how to run your business.” She had heard it before, a number of times. “Right?”
“You can’t work in the business world and behave this way,”
Mrs. Bolden said. “You’ve got to learn that. You simply must have respect for those above you.”
Mary Anne listened to the words, and wondered what they meant. They seemed to be important to Mrs. Bolden; the heavyset old woman had become upset. It amused her a little, because it was so silly, so unimportant.
“Don’t you want to know things?” she asked curiously. Apparently they didn’t. “The men found a rat in the fabric shed. Maybe rats have been eating the fabric rolls. Wouldn’t you want to find out? I should think you’d want somebody to tell you.”
“Of course we want to find out.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
There was an interval of silence. “Mary Anne,” the older woman said finally, “both Tom and I think the world of you. Your work is excellent—you’re bright and you’re quick to learn. But you must face reality.”
“What reality is that?”
“Your job!”
Mary Anne smiled, a slow, meditative glimmer. She felt light-headed, filled with a buzzing sound. “That reminds me.”
“Reminds you of what?”
“I think I’ll pick up my brown gabardine coat from the cleaner.” With deliberation, she examined her wristwatch; she was conscious of Edna Bolden’s outrage, but the old woman was wasting her time. “Can I leave early this afternoon? The cleaner closes at five.”