“Well?” Frank said.
“Well nothing.”
“You’re worried.”
“I’m not worried,” she said gayly. “I think he’s nice. And a hundred and fifty dollars is very nice.”
“You are worried.”
“Oh, don’t be so damned subtle about everything! What if I am worried, the world’s not going to fall apart, is it?”
“Mine might.”
She put both her hands on his shoulders and smiled up into his face. “I love you, too.”
The older of the two boys cocked his head sardonically. “Mush, mush, mush.”
11
The sign across the front of the grey concrete building said Horace M. Goodfield Doll Corporation, San Francisco, California. Standing stiff and flat-footed on top of this sign was a wooden doll twenty feet high. Years of sun had bleached away her smile and left her hair a dusty grey, and the fog that rolled in from the bay had blurred her eyes. They stared vacantly out at the passing ships, like the eyes of a heathen idol watching without interest or concern its foolish worshippers. The doll’s name was printed across her flat, faded chest: Sweetheart.
Frank knew from the noise of machines that the factory was operating, but he had the impression that it would stop at any moment, freeze into immobility like the wooden doll. The building itself bore the marks of neglect, as if no one cared enough about it to replace broken glass or repaint the sills or patch up the holes in the concrete.
The old man sitting in a chair at the entrance gate matched the building. No one cared about him either. His face was the same color as the concrete, and his eyes had the dinginess of unwashed windows. He looked at Frank, rubbing the arthritis-swollen knuckles of his hands.
Frank noticed that he was wearing a shoulder holster. “You work here?”
“Worked here for twenty-two years.” The old man spoke in a monotone. “First I was inside. I painted their faces for them. Delicate work, but I had good nerves. My hands got bad, though. So then they gave me this here chair and this here automatic and says, now you’re a guard, Charley. Charley’s my name.”
“Mine’s Clyde. Know how to use the gun?”
“Sure I do.”
“Ever used it?”
“Once. A fellow broke in and I shot at him. I missed. Turned out he was a maniac crazy about dolls. They put him away in some place, I heard. It was the first maniac I ever saw, didn’t froth at the mouth or nothing, looked as normal as you and me.”
“You’ve worked for the Goodfields a long time, eh?”
“Twenty-two years, like I said. Why, I gave Sweetheart up there her first coat of paint.”
“She looks as if she could use another.”
“That’s what I keep saying, but nobody takes mind of me. Nothing gets done around here anymore at all since old Horace died. Not that Horace was any great shakes as a businessman, but he cared. He was an artist. Why, single-handed, him and me designed Sweetheart, clothes and everything. Horace,” he repeated, “was a real artist.”
“What happened after he died?”
“They buried him.”
“You have quite a sense of humor, Charley.”
“I could always look on the funny side of things.”
“Now try looking on the other side. What happened to the factory after Horace died?”
“Nothing happened except one day a guy shows up with a lot of begonia bulbs. Planted a dozen of them in this here very spot where I’m sitting.”
“Why begonias?”
“Because Horace left the whole factory, lock, stock and barrel, to his wife, and she thought it’d be kind of pretty to have some flowers growing around.”
“Did she take over the factory?”
“Well, for a while she came in bright and early every morning and said hello to everyone. Inside of a week she knew more about the people who worked here than they knew about themselves. Like a mother to them, Mrs. Goodfield was. Only they didn’t need a mother, they needed some new machinery and better washrooms and a heating plant that didn’t go on the fritz twice a week.”
He spat on the ground where the begonias had once been planted. Then he looked up at the wooden doll again, squinting, though there was no sun.
“No sir, poor old Sweetheart don’t have much of a future. One of these days the termites will find her and then, phhhtt.”
Frank wondered whether the termites hadn’t already found her. He said, “Have you seen Mrs. Goodfield recently?”
“She don’t come around no more. Lost interest, I guess, when she found out nobody needed an extry mother. Also she got sick, had to rest a lot. That’s when she divided all the stock up and gave it to the children.”
“Who runs the business now?”
“Who runs it? Everybody runs it. Willett runs it. Jack runs it. I run it. Hell, if you stick around long enough, you’ll be running it, too. This pie has got so many pinkies in it that there ain’t going to be any pie left.”
“Is the place losing money?”
“No sir, we get the same volume of business year after year. Same customers wanting the same thing, a good cheap doll.”
“What’s the beef then?”
Charley peered at him out of his unwashed eyes. “You a businessman?”
“No.”
“I thought not or you wouldn’t ask silly questions. A business can’t stand still. If it don’t move forward it moves back like the tail of a clock. And with a small business like this, it don’t take much to ruin it. A few extra taxes here and a few wage increases there, and where are you? Flat on your butt, wondering what hit you. That’s where I landed back in twenty-nine. Horace gave me a job. He used to be one of my customers when the wife and me still had the laundry.”
The old man lapsed into silence, a puzzled expression on his face, as if he was wondering how it had all happened; where had the years and the laundry and Horace gone, and how did he come to be here, in this chair, with a gun, guarding a senile giant of a doll?
The fog was beginning to blow in from the bay, like dirty grey sheets on a moving clothesline. Somewhere close by, a fog horn bellowed. Charley shivered, and turned up the collar of his leather jacket.
“I saw Willett Goodfield and his wife last week,” Frank said. “They’re in La Mesa, down south.”
“So I heard.”
“They seem to be living very comfortably.”
“That’s the only way they know how to live. Yet. Yet,” he repeated. “They’ll be pulling in their horns one of these days. Wait’ll the old lady dies and they got inheritance taxes to pay.”
“If she’s already given them the stock, there won’t be any inheritance taxes.”
Charley stared at him with reluctant approval. “By George, you’re right. Never thought of that myself. But there’ll be other things, make no mistake about that. When the old lady dies, there’ll be a good old-fashioned bust-up. Want to bet on it?”
“Not particularly.”
“I’m not a betting man either but I can read the handwriting on the wall. Do you know Shirley?”
“No.”
“Shirley’s the Goodfield girl. Woman she is now but she was a girl when I first saw her. She’s the only one of the family with a head on her shoulders. Takes after Horace, even in looks. But Shirley couldn’t stand the old lady. Left home when she was seventeen and got married. She don’t come around here no more.”
“Why not?”
“No time. She’s a widow with four kids.”
“Where does she live now?”
“Home.”
“Whose home?”
“Horace’s place up on Nob Hill. It’s a good big place with plenty of valuables and antiques in it. When Mrs. Goodfield left to go traveling around, she didn’t want the house to be empty, so Shirley and her kids, they have the first floor, and Jack, he has the second. That way it saves rent, and the valuables and antiques get looked after.”