The men looked up from their packing tables as the elevator door swung open. "Wait a minute," he said to the elevator operator. "I’ll go ask Wagner where he wants these."
He walked down the aisle to the foreman's empty desk. He turned and saw the men watching from their tables. "Where's Wagner?"
They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. Finally, the Sheriff answered him. "He's in the can, sneaking a smoke."
David thanked him and walked down the back aisle to the washroom. The foreman was talking to another man, a cigarette in his hand. David came up behind him. "Mr. Wagner?"
Wagner jumped. He turned around, a strange expression on his face. "What's the matter, David?" he asked angrily. "Can't you get those heralds up?"
David stared at him. The foreman was in on it, all right. They were all in on it. He laughed bitterly to himself. And Uncle Bernie had said it was going to be a secret.
"Well," the foreman said irritably, "if you can't do it, let me know."
"They're up here now. I just want to know where to put them."
"You got them up here already?" Wagner said. His voice lost the faint note of sureness it had contained a moment before.
"Yes, sir."
Wagner threw his cigarette in the urinal. "Good," he said, a faintly puzzled look on his face. "They go over on Aisle Five. I'll show you which bins."
It was almost ten thirty by the time David had the racks empty and the bins filled. He pushed the last package of heralds into place and straightened up. He felt the sweat streaming through his shirt and looked down at himself. The clean white shirt that his mother had made him wear was grimy with dust. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and walked down to the foreman's desk. "What do you want me to do next?"
"Were there five hundred bundles?" the foreman asked.
David nodded.
The foreman pushed a sheet of paper toward him. "Initial the receipt slip, then."
David looked over the paper as he picked up a pencil. It was the bill for the heralds: "500 M Heralds @ $1.00 per M-$500.00." Expensive paper, he thought, as he scribbled his initials across the bottom.
The telephone on the desk rang and the foreman picked it up. "Warehouse."
David could hear a voice crackling at the other end, though he could not distinguish the words. Wagner was nodding his head. "Yes, Mr. Bond. They just came in."
Wagner looked over at David. "Get me a sample of one of those heralds," he said, shielding the phone with his hand.
David nodded and ran down the aisle. He pulled a herald from one of the bundles and brought it back to the foreman. Wagner snatched it from his hand and looked at it. "No, Mr. Bond. It's only one color."
The voice on the other end of the telephone rose to a shriek. Wagner began to look uncomfortable, and shortly afterward, put the receiver down slowly. "That was Mr. Bond in purchasing."
David nodded. He didn't speak.
Wagner cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Those heralds we just got. It was supposed to be a two-color job."
David looked down at the black-and-white handbill. He couldn't see what they were so excited about. After all, they were only throw-aways. What difference did it make whether it was one color or two?
"Mr. Bond says to junk 'em."
David looked at him in surprise. "Junk 'em?"
Wagner nodded and got to his feet. "Get them out of the bins and downstairs again," he said. "We'll need the space. The new ones will be here this afternoon."
David shrugged. This was a screwy business, when something could be junked even before it was paid for. But it was none of his concern. "I’ll get right on it."
It was twelve thirty when he came out on the loading platform, pushing the first rack of heralds. The platform boss yelled. "Hey, where yuh goin' with that?"
"It's junk."
The platform boss walked over and looked into the elevator. "Junk, eh?" he asked. "All of it?"
David nodded. "Where shall I put it?"
"You ain't puttin' it no place," the boss said. "Beat it right back upstairs an' tell Wagner to shell out five bucks if he expects me to get rid of his junk."
Again David could feel his anger rising slowly.
Wagner was at his desk when David got back upstairs. "The platform boss wants five bucks to get rid of that junk."
"Oh, sure," Wagner said. "I forgot." He took a tin box out of his desk and opened it. He held out a five-dollar bill.
David stared down at it. "You mean you really got to give to him?" he asked in disbelief.
Wagner nodded.
"But that's good newspaper stock," David said. "My father would haul that away all day long. It's worth a dime a hundredweight. That batch would bring fifty bucks at any junk yard."
"We haven't the time to bother with it. Here, give him the five bucks and forget about it."
David stared at him. Nothing in this business made any sense to him. They junked five hundred dollars' worth of paper before they'd paid for it, then didn't even want to salvage fifty bucks out of it. They'd rather pay five bucks more just to get rid of it.
His uncle couldn't be as smart as they said he was if he ran his business like this. He must be lucky. If it wasn't luck, then his father would have been a millionaire. He took a deep breath. "Do I get an hour for lunch, Mr. Wagner?"
The foreman nodded. "Sure. We all do."
"Is it all right if I start my lunch hour now?"
"You can start right after you take care of the heralds."
"If it's all right with you," David said, "I’ll get rid of them on my lunch hour."
"It's O.K. with me, but you don't have to. You get a full hour off for lunch."
David looked at the telephone. "May I make a call?"
Wagner nodded and David called Needlenose at Shocky's garage. "How quick can you get here with a truck?" he asked, quickly explaining the deal.
"Twenty minutes, Davy," Needlenose said. There was a moment's silence, then Needlenose came on again. "Shocky says he'll only blast yuh ten bucks for the truck."
"Tell him it's a deal," David said quickly. "And bring along a pair of dusters. We might have a little trouble."
"Gotcha, Davy," Needlenose said.
"O.K., I’ll be out in front."
Wagner looked at him anxiously as he put down the telephone. "I don't want any trouble," he said nervously.
David stared at him. If they were all so afraid of him they wouldn't let him do his job, he might as well give them something to be afraid of. "You'd know what trouble is, Mr. Wagner, if Uncle Bernie ever finds out you've been spending five dollars to lose fifty."
The foreman's face suddenly went pale. A faint beading of perspiration came out on his forehead. "I don't make the rules," he said quickly. "I just do what purchasing tells me."
"Then you've got nothing to worry about."
Wagner put the five-dollar bill back in the tin box, then put the box back in his desk and locked the drawer. He got to his feet. "I think I'll go to lunch," he said.
David sat down in the foreman's chair and lit a cigarette, ignoring the no-smoking sign. The men at the packing tables were watching him. He stared back at them silently. After a few minutes, they began to leave, one or two at a time, apparently on their way to lunch. Soon the only one left was the Sheriff.
The old man looked up from the package he was tying. "You take my word for it," he said. "It ain't worth you getting killed over. That Tony downstairs, he's a Cossack. You tell your uncle to give you a different job."
"How can I do that, pop?" David asked. "It was tough enough talking him into this one. If I come cryin' to him now, I might as well quit."
The old man walked over toward him. "You know where they went?" he asked in a shrill voice. "All of them? They didn't go to lunch. They're downstairs in the street. They're waiting to see Tony kill you."
David dragged on his cigarette thoughtfully.
"How come five bucks is that important?"
"From every tenant in the building he gets a little payoff. He can't afford to let you off the hook. Then he loses everybody."