She poses nude for Eddie for almost an hour, sitting on that stupid stool and trying to make her body as tense, muscular, and aggressive as he commands. Finally he slaps his sketch pad shut.
“That’s it,” he says. “I’ve got all the studies I need. Now I’ll start blocking out the canvas. This is going to be a good one, Sal; I just know it.”
“Make me pretty,” she says. “And about six inches taller and twenty pounds thinner.”
“You’re perfect the way you are.”
“Marry me,” she says. “And also pour me a wine while I get dressed.”
They’re sitting on the couch, drinking her burgundy, talking about their mother and whether or not they should try another doctor, when Paul Ramsey comes ambling in. He gives them a beamy smile.
“I didn’t get the job,” he reports. “They decided I wasn’t the strawberry laxative type.”
“Thank God,” Eddie says. “I don’t think I could stand seeing you in a commercial, coming out of a bathroom and grinning like a maniac.”
“Paul,” Sally says, taking the manila envelope out of her shoulder bag, “here’s thirty-six thousand in hundred-dollar bills.”
“Hey,” he says, “that’s cool.”
“You opened a brokerage account?”
“Oh, sure. No sweat.”
“Well, dump this lettuce in your personal checking account. Draw on it to buy nine thousand shares of Trimbley and Diggs. Your broker will find it on the Nasdaq exchange. I wrote it all out for you. Buy the stock today, as soon as possible. You’ve got five days to get a check to the broker.”
“Does this make me a tycoon?” Paul Ramsey asks.
“A junior tycoon,” Sally tells him. “But we’re just getting started.”
She sits in the one comfortable armchair in the apartment. Eddie and Paul sit close on the rickety couch. The three kid along for a while, chattering about this and that. But then Sally falls silent and listens while the two men, holding hands now, chivy one another as they plan what they’re going to have for dinner and whose turn it is to do the cooking.
She can see the intimacy between them, a warm bond that may be fondness, may be affection, may be love. Whatever, each completes the other. They are easy together, and no strains show. There is a privacy there, and Sally finds it disturbing. For that kind of sharing is a foreign language to her and yet leaves her feeling cheated and bereft.
The stock of Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc., is going up, up, up, and Sally is ecstatic. When it hits seven dollars, she has Paul Ramsey buy another 9,000 shares.
She also notes the trading volume of T amp;D is increasing as the value of the stock rises. She figures there’s either an inside leak at Snellig Firsten Holbrook or the arbitrageurs have ferreted out the takeover and are looking to make a bundle. So is Sally. And so, apparently, is Mario Corsini. He calls her at home, late at night, a week after their talk in her office.
“Good tip,” he says, his raspy voice revealing neither joy nor enthusiasm. “You buying more?”
“Thinking about it.”
“How high do you think it’ll go?”
“Who knows?” she says. “Ten. Twelve maybe.”
“Twelve?” he says cautiously. “If it hits twelve, you think I should bail out?”
“Hey,” she says, “I’m not your financial adviser. I gave you a good tip. What you do with it is your business. And what about my business? What’s going to happen to Steiner Waste Control?”
“I’m working on it,” he says. “Listen, one of the reasons I called: Tony Ricci will be late for work tomorrow. There’s a family funeral, and I want him to be there. He’ll show up around noon. Okay?”
“I guess it’ll have to be,” Sally says. “It’ll screw up my truck schedules, but I’ll work it out.”
“You do that,” Corsini says. “And if you get any more tips, let me know.”
He hangs up abruptly, leaving Sally staring angrily at her dead phone. It infuriates her that she’s enabling that gonnif to make even one lousy buck. It’s she who’s breaking her nails digging through garbage from Bechtold Printing. All Corsini has to do is call his broker.
She drives to work early the next morning, checks in at the office, then crosses Eleventh Avenue to the Stardust Diner. Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton are seated at the back table. Both men are working on plates of three eggs over with a ham steak, a mountain of home fries, a stack of toast with butter and jelly, and coffee with cream and sugar. Sally joins them.
“You’re both going to have coronaries,” she says, and tells Mabel to bring her a plain bagel and a cup of black coffee.
It’s payoff day, and she slips each man an envelope under the table.
“I thank you kindly,” Hamilton says, pocketing his hundred. “And the best part is my wife don’t know a thing about it.”
“How long is this going to last?” Mulloy wants to know.
“Till I tell you to stop,” Sally says. “What’s the matter-getting all worn out, poor baby? I can always find two other imbeciles to handle Bechtold Printing.”
“Nah,” Leroy says, “no call to do that. We like the job, don’t we, Terry?”
“Well, yeah,” the redheaded harp says. “The money’s good, but I’d like to know what’s going down. I don’t want to get my ass busted for a hundred a week.”
“You worry too much,” Sally says. “You know those three monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. That’s the way you monkeys should be.”
At about the same time, a silver gray Cadillac limousine pulls into a No Parking space in front of the marquee of the Hotel Bedlington on upper Madison Avenue.
“What’re we stopping here for?” Angelo asks.
“Vic,” Mario Corsini says, “we got plenty of time to get downtown for the meet. I figured we’d grab some breakfast. You like it here. The French toast-remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Angelo says. “Good idea.”
They get out of the car. The uniformed doorman comes forward, and Corsini slips him a sawbuck. “Take care of it,” he says. “You have any trouble, we’ll be in the dining room.”
“No trouble, sir,” the doorman says. “No trouble at all.”
The cavernous dining room is almost deserted; just one wimp by himself and two old ladies together, sipping tea and nibbling on dry rye toast. The two men take a corner table so their backs are against the wall. Vic Angelo orders a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, French toast with plenty of butter and syrup, and decaf coffee. Mario Corsini has warm blueberry muffins and regular coffee, black.
“Nice quiet place,” Angelo says, looking around.
“Yeah,” Corsini says. “You could plan a revolution in here and no one would be the wiser. Also, it gives me a chance to speak my piece.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Angelo says, groaning. “Not that Steiner thing again. Lay off, Mario. We been over that twice, and what I said still goes.”
“I gotta tell you, Vic, I called and leaned on her. She gave me that stock tip she told us about. I played it-on my own, Vic, on my own-and it’s almost doubled in a week.”
Angelo stares at him, face rigid. “That wasn’t very smart, Mario. I told you I want no part of Wall Street. We’re going to take over the Steiner dump and that’s it.”
“Vic, will you listen just for a minute,” Corsini says, leaning over the table. “She wasn’t conning us; she really does have an inside pipeline. Maybe I’ll triple my stake. Jesus, we can make more with her than we can from garbage and linen supply. And the-”
But then their breakfasts are served, and neither man speaks until the waiter moves away.
“And the best part,” Corsini continues earnestly, “is that we don’t have to kick anything upstairs. Let’s face it, Vic, we’re hired hands. Messenger boys-right? Sure, we collect plenty, but how much sticks to our fingers after we pay our dues and grease the lousy politicians, the cops, the union guys, and everyone else and their uncles? This thing with Sally Steiner is a nice clean deal. What we make is what we keep. No dues, no payoffs.”