“Ralph Redwing came to my office today. The big man himself. To talk to me.”
His father could not reveal what to him was surpassingly good news without gloating—his news was an insuperable advantage over the person to whom he presented it. He took another swallow of his drink, and grinned absolutely mirthlessly. “The Redwing building is a block away from my building—but do you think Ralph Redwing walks anywhere? Like hell he does. His driver brought him over in his Bentley—that’s serious business, when Ralph uses a car. He bought two five-dollar cigars at the stand in the lobby. ‘What floor is Pasmore Trading on?’ he asks—like he doesn’t know, see? He just wants ’em to know that Ralph Redwing respects Vic Pasmore.”
“That’s great,” Tom said. “What did he want?”
“What’s the only reason Ralph Redwing pays a call on Vic Pasmore? You don’t know me, Tom—you think you know me, but you’re fooling yourself. You don’t. Nobody knows Vic Pasmore.” He leaned over his plate and showed two rows of small peglike teeth in what was less a smile than the gesture of a disagreeable dog guarding some nasty treasure. Then he straightened up, looked at Tom as if from far above him, and cut a bit of meat. He began chewing. “You still don’t get it, do you? You don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you? Who do you think Ralph Redwing visits? Who do you think he gives five-dollar cigars to?”
Whoever he wants to bamboozle, Tom thought, but said, “Not too many people, I guess.”
“NOBODY! You know what your problem is? You don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on. The older you get, the more I think you’re one of those guys who never gets anywhere. There’s too much of your mother in you, kid.”
“Did he offer you a job?” Tom said. His father had no awareness that what he was saying might be insulting; he had the air of offering great impartial truths.
“You think a man like that comes waltzing into an office and says, hey, how about a new job, Vic? If that’s what you think, you got another think coming.”
This was what his father was like when he was really happy.
“He says he’s been noticing how well I run my little business—maybe not the past few years, when things haven’t been so good, but right up to that. He hints. Maybe he needs what he calls a good general businessman—someone who isn’t wearing blinders, like most of the assholes on Mill Walk. Maybe he was thinking of buying my business and letting someone else run it, so I can handle bigger things for him.”
“Is that what he said?”
“He hints, I said.” More chewing; more swallowing; more bourbon. “But you know what I think? I think I’m gonna finally get out from under the thumb of Glendenning Upshaw. And there isn’t a good goddamned thing I’d rather do than that.”
“How are you under his thumb?”
“Oh, Jesus.” His father shook his head. The triumph had left his face, leaving only the sour temper. “Let’s just pretend it takes a lot of money to live on Eastern Shore Road, okay? And let’s say this—when I first came here, Glen sort of got me started—but how did he do it? Did he make me vice-president of Mill Walk Construction, which is what I thought he’d do? Is that how he takes care of people? Hell, no. I kept my nose clean for seventeen years, now it’s time for me to get some of the gravy. I goddamn deserve it.”
“I hope it works out,” Tom said.
“Ralph Redwing has this island in his hip pocket, don’t you kid yourself about that. Glen Upshaw is an old man, and he’s on the way out. Ralph has things worked out.”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know, kid, I just know that. Ralph Redwing sets things up way in advance. You think he’s gonna let Buddy go on being wild? Buddy’s on a shorter leash than you think, kid, and pretty soon he’s gonna find himself with responsibilities—gonna wander into the honey trap. The man doesn’t take any risks.”
The look of malignant triumph was back in full force now.
“What do you mean, the honey trap?”
“Finish your dinner and get out of my sight.”
“I’m finished now,” Tom said. He stood up.
“You get one more year in this house,” his father said. “That’s it. Then you go to the mainland, and Glen Upshaw pays a quarter every time you take a piss.” He smiled, and looked as if he were going to take a bite out of something. “Believe me, it’ll be better for you. I told you that already. Take what you can get, as long as you can get it. Because you don’t exist.”
“I DO!” Tom yelled, pushed too far now. “Of course I exist!”
“Not to me, you don’t. You always made me sick.”
Tom felt as if he had been bludgeoned. For a second all he wanted to do was to pick up a knife and stab his father in the heart.
“What do you want?” he shouted. “You want me to be just like you? I wouldn’t be like you for a million dollars! You lived off your father-in-law all your life, and now you’re happier than a pig in shit because you think you got a better offer!”
Victor overturned his chair standing up, and had to catch himself on the table to keep from falling down. His face had turned red, and his eyes and mouth seemed to have grown smaller—he did look like a pig, Tom thought, a red-faced pig staggering away from the trough. For a second he thought his father was going to rush at him. “You keep your trap shut!” Victor bellowed. “You hear me?”
So he was just going to yell. Tom was shaking uncontrollably, and his hands were in fists.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Victor said, still loudly but not quite yelling.
“I know enough,” Tom said, louder.
“You don’t know anything about yourself, either!”
“I know more than you think,” Tom shouted at him. His mother began to wail upstairs, and the ugliness of this scene made him want to cry. He was still shaking.
His father’s whole manner changed—he was still red-faced but suddenly much more sober. “What do you know?”
“Never mind,” Tom said, disgusted.
Upstairs, Gloria settled into a pattern of steady, rhythmical wails, like a desolate child banging its head against the crib.
“On top of everything else,” Victor said. “Now we got that.”
“Go up and calm her down,” Tom said. “Or does that stop too, now that your buddy Ralph bought you a cigar?”
“I’m going to take care of you, smartass.” Victor grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped his face. Remembering the cigar and Ralph Redwing’s visit had restored him.
The telephone began ringing in the study. His father said, “You get that, and if it’s for me say I’ll call back in five minutes,” and pushed through the door.
Tom went into the study and picked up the phone.
“What’s that, the television?” came his grandfather’s voice. “Turn it down so I can tell you something.”
Tom turned off the television.
“We have to talk about Eagle Lake,” said his grandfather. “And what were you doing at the hospital this morning?”
“I wanted to find out what happened to Nancy Vetiver.”
“Didn’t I call you back about that?”
“I guess you forgot,” Tom said.
“She’ll be back on duty in a day or two. Seems she called in sick four or five days in a row. Dr. Milton scouted around, found out she was staying out too late, probably drinking too much, and bawled her out. She gave him a runaround, and he suspended her for a couple of weeks. Had to make an example of her, or they’d all be doing it. None of those girls have any background, of course. That’s the whole story.” He coughed loudly, and Tom pictured him holding the receiver in one hand, his cigar in the other.
“She gave him a runaround?” Tom asked.