“Well... I don't know how long I'll be with Harry....”
“Hon, I'll wait.”
Miss O'Brien said crisply, “Mr. Loughlin will see you now.”
Flo winked, said, “Don't forget, I'll be waiting.”
The receptionist began, “Mr. Loughlin is waiting...
I pushed Flo away, my hand touching a lot of soft cool skin and Flo looked at Miss O'Brien and repeated the four-letter word—loudly—and the woman blushed a deep red as she buzzed the door for me.
I went through a small room, a kind of foyer, lined with big metal filing cabinets, the fireproof expensive ones, with a thick lock on each cabinet. There was also a desk with a bronze nameplate: Thatcher Austin, Jr.
The creep came complete. On the wall behind the desk there was a small American flag with a scale model sub-machine gun hung under it. It was a good model and I was about to stop and examine it, when Harry opened the door of his office.
He hadn't changed: wiry, dapper, the thin-featured face all clean-shaven and with a trace of powder and nice smelling after-shave lotion. He had the same small hands, soft and well manicured, as always. Sometimes when he was on a real good binge, he'd paint his nails a mild pink.
“You big thug, you look fine!”
I said, “That's what everybody has been trying to sell me.”
He sat down behind his big metal and dark mahogany desk and I sat on one of these ultra-modern chairs that's supposedly molded to the shape of your behind. After the first few seconds, it was comfortable.
Harry said, “That wound and the hospital didn't do you any harm, you look fit. Those nurses as tail-happy as the jokes go?”
“Stop it.” Harry, knew more dirty jokes than any man alive, or maybe dead. And all of them funny—to a high-school kid.
“But you do look fine. I don't know, expected you to limp in with half an arm. Never did get that wound business straight—where were you hit?”
“In the head. Forget the wound and the war. What did you want to see me about?”
Harry gave me a small grin, examined his nails. “Same thing you wanted to see me about—get us both straight. Thought we might start off by getting things settled. Righto?”
“You're talking.” The “righto” was a new word for Harry.
He pressed a button and the bottom drawer of his desk gently slid open. He fumbled around with some papers—a few of our old letterheads—tossed them on the desk. “That's all that remains of our old agency.”
He waited for me to say something, then added, “Got a hundred and twenty bucks for the office furniture, but we owed that much in back rent, phone. Have it all itemized if you care to see it.”
“Take your word.”
Harry filled a straight-grained pipe and lit it. He puffed on the pipe greedily, watching me. He was smoking something that smelled like a mixture of sugar and Under The Arm No. 5. The whole pipe idea must have been part of Harry's new “executive” look. Finally he said, “What I'm saying, Matt, is, you're not a partner in this new set-up I have. But that doesn't mean you're not in. Want to work for me? Hundred a week to start.”
“No dice.”
“You mean you expect to get a slice of this deal? It's all mine, you want a job, okay, but no partnership.” His voice grew shrill like it always did when he was angry.
“You can have it—all of it.”
He looked at me like I was bulling him, then leaned back in his red leather chair, sent out a big cloud of smoke that stunk up the room. I thought how odd it was that a weak character like Harry, a bag of bones, knowing almost the same people I did, going the same places, never got the bug. And with all my muscles, I had to get it.
“Matt, you're not sore about anything?”
“No.”
“This job is a snap and...”
“I'm not going to work—for a while.”
“Loaded?”
“Just my pension. Rising prices are cutting it to hell, but I'll manage.”
Harry sucked on his pipe again, studied me. “There's one more thing—Flo. I took over while you...”
“You can have her too, along with the letterheads.”
“Matt, you've changed.”
“That's right.”
“Flo fits in with my plans. I like a stupid girl, just a plain stupid one, not one of these educated stupid broads that drive you nuts with their complexes. Flo is...”
I stood up. “So long, Harry. I got to get some sleep.”
“Wait a minute. Sit down. I canceled two appointments so we could chat. Matt, I'll level with you, I have a gold mine here, but I need somebody I can trust to work with me. Give you a hundred and fifty a week, and it's no work. Sit down, let me show you something.” He took a four-page printed newsletter from the top of his desk, handed it to me. I read the first paragraph which had some hooey about “inside trends in America.” Across the top in big red letters was printed, CONFIDENTIAL! Destroy This After Reading!
Harry said, “I write that. Got a guy at the printers who goes over it for mistakes, does a polish job.”
“What is it?”
“Costs fifty bucks a year to subscribe to my newsletter, and I got over 1,800 suckers. Send it to them registered mail—big deal. Was going to charge them thirty dollars, then I thought of the registered-mail angle, added twenty to pay the postage. Impresses the hell out of 'em.”
“Out of who?”
“Businessmen. And if they don't subscribe, or let us screen their employees—for from five hundred to a grand, depending upon the number of workers—why then I smear them in the newsletter. It's surefire.... I can put a small concern out of business within three issues of my newsletter.”
“Screen their employees for what?” I asked, tossing the newsletter back on the desk.
“For Reds, or anybody they want to call a troublemaker. I don't care, I'll screen anybody for anything— long as there's a bundle of that green stuff on the line.. Hell, Matt, this makes the old strike-breaking racket look like small time...”
“I never went in for fink work.”
“Maybe being in the hospital you don't know it, but the whole atmosphere of America has changed. Everybody is scared stiff. There's a magic word—red. Hint that anybody is a Communist and their goose is cooked. Got to be very careful what you think and read these days. Notice those files in the other room? They're worth a million bucks to me, and I'm not just blowing off. Last year I stumbled on a joker called Thatcher Austin, a fanatic on the...”
“I saw him.”
Harry grinned—he'd even straightened out his teeth. “Something for the books, isn't he? Comes from one of the old blue-blood families—minor key society stuff. Except they been stony since way back to the '29 crash. Thatcher was never exactly all there....”