“How do you mean, George?”
“At this stage of the game, we need one man’s entire enthusiasm, all he can muster. You have other things to do, so have I. Other irons in other fires. My original enthusiasm has begun to dwindle, hasn’t yours?”
“Well, maybe to some extent. Neither one of us are in the candy business. As far as I’m concerned, it could be the fertilizer business, just as long as I saw money in it.”
“Exactly. But Ringwall mustn’t be allowed to have such treasonable thoughts. I’ve been wondering whether we ought not to dangle a few carrots in front of his nose. Incentives.”
“I’d wait a while before we do that. So far we don’t have to,” said Charley.
“Well, you see him much more than I do, but don’t wait till he needs it. Try to anticipate the lessening of enthusiasm.”
“What were you thinking of offering him?”
“What does he make?”
“I’d guess around twenty thousand a year,” said Charley.
“Well, when we have our own advertising manager, won’t we pay him twenty-five, and various extras based on production?”
“I don’t know. Will we?”
“We’d better,” said George. “Our advertising manager is going to have to be the hardest-working man we have. Anybody can make candy. Fill a vat with fudge and sprinkle a few raisins in it, and there’s a product. But you have to give it a name, and get people to buy it. That’s the advertising man’s job. Incidentally, that wouldn’t be a bad candy, a fudge with a few raisins in it. We might try it later. It might turn out to be better than what we have.”
“Did you just think of it?”
“Just this minute.”
“I can pretty nearly taste it,” said Charley.
“Not bad, is it? Who knows, we may expand before we sell our first piece of candy. Then we’ll need some financing. What do you know about Glassman Brothers?”
“Probably no more than you do. Not in the same category with Julie Bache and Otto Kahn, but one of the older Jewish houses. But why do you want to let the Jews in on it? I never heard of them going out of their way to make us rich.”
“True, but I was thinking ‘way ahead and I happened to hear their name this morning. Do you know a fellow there named Hyme?”
“Oh, I know Leonard Hyme. He’s a great old fellow, but he retired a couple years ago and lives in Europe. Vienna. I think he was born there. Why do you ask about him?”
“Oh, somebody mentioned his name, and I’d never heard of him.”
“He has two sons in the firm, but I’m not acquainted with them. They’re members here, but I wouldn’t know one from the other. Oh, we won’t have trouble raising money in the present market, especially if we get off to a halfway decent start. They’ll come around and try to buy us out, but if we have another candy that we haven’t even put on the market, we’ll be sitting pretty.”
“How much are you worth, Charley?”
Charley burst out laughing. “I’ll be a son of a bitch! You know you’re the first guy ever asked me that? All the years I’ve been in business, nobody ever asked me point-blank. All right, how much do you think I’m worth?”
“Three million,” said George.
“More.”
“Ten million,” said George.
“Less.”
“Between three and ten.”
“That’s as close as I’ll let you get. But why did you ask?”
“I’m always curious,” said George.
“Huh. I know fellows would give you a punch right in the nose if you asked them that question. That’s a pretty personal question, George.”
“They’re the only kind worth asking.”
“All the same, you’re supposed to be a gentleman,” said Charley.
“I have a little way to go yet, so I’m not bound by gentlemen’s rules.”
“Well, I always understood you to be a gentleman, you and Pen.”
“Pen may be. He’s four years younger than I, and that may have been just long enough. A very interesting notion, you know. Just those extra four years may have made the difference. Yes, I believe Pen is a gentleman, the first one under the wire.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Charley.
George redirected the conversation into channels more familiar to Charley Bohm. They agreed to meet again on the soth of the month, for the purpose of dangling a carrot or two in front of Ringwall. What had promised to be no more than a dull lunch with a dull man at a dull club turned out to produce an interesting theory: that four years of Lockwood family history had benefited Pen. Pen was a gentleman because there had been their grandfather, their father, George himself, and those four years to make him one. Four less years of their rough-diamond grandfather’s influence could have made some difference; and there was no doubt at all that at a place like St. Bartholomew’s a boy whose older brother and father had been there before him was more acceptable, therefore unperturbed by the need to fit in that tortured boys at school and college. Rivalry often existed between brothers, but George now saw that if there had been any rivalry it had been inconsequential and confined to small envy on Pen’s side, envy of his older brother and not a lack of assurance of his position in the school community. Some day, when they were older, when they could look back on their lives and their relationship calmly, George would question Pen about that. It was quite possible that Pen was so stupid that he would be unable to recall his boyhood emotions, but it would be worth a try. Pen was stupid; gentlemen often were.
George returned to the office to pick up his suitcase. Neither Pen nor Marian Strademyer was back from lunch, and he left word with the girl at the switchboard that he was on his way to the Carstairs. He took a taxi uptown, checked in at the hotel, and took a long, hot bath. “To pretty myself for Miss Strademyer,” he muttered. “I’m sure she intends to do the same for me.” At four o’clock he telephoned her at the office.
“Are you at your own desk?” he said.
“Yes I am,” she said.
“Good, then you won’t be overheard. Shall we say six o’clock at your apartment?”
“Make it half past,” she said.
“Seven, if you’d rather.”
“That would be better. I’ve had trouble getting out of my previous engagement.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” she said.
“Don’t let it upset you. I’ll see you at seven,” said George.
Trouble getting out of her previous engagement, hence her and Pen’s late return from lunch. George wondered where they went for lunch when they lunched together. But the city was so full of speakeasies that they could be a fifteen-minute taxi ride away from a Chelsea meeting-place and avoid acquaintances from the financial district.
With almost three hours to kill, George dressed slowly and walked to the Racquet Club. He watched, then played in, several games of bottle pool with some men who always seemed to be there. He had one light Scotch and water, which he nursed along until it was time to leave and at five past seven he mounted the steps of the Murray Hill house in which Marian Strademyer had her apartment.
She took the chain latch off the door and let him in. She had changed from her nun’s habit to a print dress.
“You’ve done things to this place since I was here last,” said George.
“Yes, I have, and it’s done things to me, too,” she said.
“What kind of things?” he said.
“Very bad things,” she said. “Made me realize what fun it would be to spend a lot of money. A lot.”
“Nobody could hold that against you,” said George. “I’ve seldom enjoyed anything as much as building my house. Not that I’d ever want to do that again, but it was an experience worth having.”