I found her mouth with my lips, and a comet caught me in its grip, then burst inside me like a shooting star. There was a startling moment of stillness and then I was tumbling into a bottomless void, a crazy thought trailing through my mind.
What a way to get even with Matt Brady for costing me half a million bucks!
THE sound of running water woke me up. I lay there quietly, letting my eyes get used to the strange darkness. Instinctively I reached for my cigarettes. They were not in their usual place. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized where I was.
I rolled over to the edge of the bed and sat up. I turned on the lamp on the night table and looked at my watch. Nine o’clock. Marge would be worried. I picked up the phone and gave the operator the number.
I could hear the dial clicking as the bathroom door opened and Elaine came out. She stood there a moment looking down at me, framed by the light in the doorway behind her. There was a small towel around her head and a large turkish towel wrapped around her body.
“Calling home?” It was more a statement than a question. I nodded.
She didn’t answer. Just then Marge’s voice came on the phone. “Brad?” “Yeah,” I answered. “Everything okay, baby?”
“Yes, Brad. Where are you? I was worried.”
“I’m okay,” I said into the phone, looking up at Elaine, still in the doorway. “I been out drinking.” “You sure you’re all right?” she insisted. “You sound funny.”
“I said I’m all right,” I replied impatiently. “I just had a few drinks.”
Elaine went back into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. I picked up a cigarette and tried to light it.
“Where are you?” Marge asked. “The office has been trying to locate you all afternoon.” “I’m in a bar on Third Avenue,” I lied. “What do they want?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Chris said it had something to do with the Steel Institute. He said for you to call him at home.” She hesitated a moment. “What happened, Brad? It didn’t go so good, did it?”
“No, it didn’t,” I answered brusquely.
I could almost see her smile encouragingly through the phone. “Don’t feel bad about it, Brad. It’s not that important. We can get along without it.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Chris said you might have to run down to Pittsburgh to their main office. He didn’t know, when I spoke to him last, but I packed your bag and sent it down to your office in case you need it. Are you going to call him now?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
Her voice brightened. “You’ll call me back and let me know what’s happening, won’t you?” “Of course, baby,” I replied.
“I hope you didn’t drink too much,” she said. “You know how sick it makes you.”
“I didn’t,” I answered. Suddenly I wanted to get off the phone. “I’ll call Chris now and call you right back.”
I put the phone down while her good-bye was still ringing in my ear. As if it were a signal, the bathroom door opened again and Elaine came out.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “It wasn’t private.”
Her eyes were very wide and thoughtful. “I couldn’t stand here and watch you lie.”
I tried to make a joke of it. “No guts, eh?”
A shadow crossed her face. “No guts,” she answered seriously. “I told you that before.”
I reached towards her but she stepped around my outstretched hand. “You have another call to make, haven’t you?” she said pointedly.
“It can keep,” I said, catching up to her. I kissed her mouth. Her body was warm through the towel. Her arms were around my neck. “Brad. Darling Brad.”
I kissed the hollow on her throat where there were still beads of water from the shower. “I love you, Elaine,” I whispered. “Like I never loved before, like I never thought I’d feel.”
I could hear her contented sigh as she snuggled closely against me. “Tell me, Brad, tell me. Make me feel that you’re not lying, not playing with me. Tell me that you love me like I love you. Tell me.”
Chris’s voice was excited when I finally called him. “Where the hell have you been?” “Drinking,” I answered succinctly. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon,” he said. “Brady wants to see you at his office in Pittsburgh to-morrow morning.”
His excitement began to run through me. The old pitch had crossed the plate after all. I was a fool to try to outguess the umpire. “I’ll get right out and get plane tickets.” I said.
“I got ’em already,” he replied quickly. “They’re out at the airport in your name. Flight one-oh- four, leaving at eleven-fifteen. And your valise is out there too, in the checkroom.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost ten o’clock, I would have to hurry. “Okay, Chris. I’ll get going.”
A note of relief came into his voice. “Bring home the bacon, boss. Get that job and we’ll all eat high off the hog.”
“Hog meat is for peasants,” I grinned. “Trot out the fatted calf.”
I put down the phone and turned to Elaine. “You heard?” I asked. She nodded. “Better hurry,” she said. “There isn’t much time.”
“You better hurry,” I smiled at her, “and throw some things in a bag. You’re coming with me.” She sat up, startled. “Brad, don’t be a fool. You can’t do that.”
I was already gathering my things together. “Doll,” I said joking, “you don’t know me. I can do anything. You’re my good luck piece, and you’re not getting out of my sight until this deal is signed, sealed and delivered.”
I called home while Elaine was packing her valise. “I’m grabbing the eleven-fifteen plane to Pittsburgh,” I said.
“I was wondering why you didn’t call right back,” Marge replied.
“I couldn’t,” I said hurriedly. “Chris’s line was busy and I just caught him. Brady wants to see me.” “Wonderful,” she laughed into the phone. “I’m so proud of you, Brad. I just know you’ll do good.”
Chris had taken care of everything. There was a note attached to my bag informing me that I had a suite reserved in my name at the Brooke in Pittsburgh. I signed the register and we went up to our room at about two in the morning.
She stood in the centre of the living room while the bellhop checked the suite. At last he came back
to me, the key in his hand. I gave him a dollar and the door closed behind him.
I turned to her and smiled. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” She didn’t answer.
“Don’t be so grim, doll,” I said. “Pittsburgh can’t be that bad.”
At last she answered. “I must have been crazy to let you do it. What if you run into someone you know?”
“What if you do?” I countered.
“I don’t have to explain anything to anybody,” she replied. “But you——” I didn’t let her finish. “I’ll do the worrying for me.”
“Brad,” she protested, “You don’t know what people will say, how they are, what they do——” “And I don’t care,” I interrupted her again. “I don’t give a damn about people. All I care about is you. I want you near me, close to me. I don’t want to be away from you now that I’ve found you. I’ve
spent too long a time waiting for you.”
She came very close to me, her eyes searching my face. “Brad, you mean that, don’t you?” I nodded. “We’re here, ain’t we? That’s answer enough.”
Her eyes were still on my face. I don’t know what she sought there, but she must have seen what she wanted. My voice stopped her before she got to the door. She turned to face me.
“Wait a minute, Elaine,” I said. “We gotta do things right.” I scooped her up in my arms and carried her across the threshold.
THE administration building of Consolidated Steel was new and shining-white, just inside the steel wire grating that fenced their property. Behind the building lay the black, soot-covered foundries, their chimneys belching flame and smoke into the clear blue sky.
A uniformed special officer stopped me as I came through the door. “Mr. Rowan to see Mr.
Brady,” I said.
“Do you have a pass?” he asked. I shook my head.
“An appointment?” “Yes.”
He picked up a telephone on a table near him and whispered into it, all the while watching me carefully. I lit a cigarette while waiting for him to pass me. I had time to take just one pull when he put the phone down. “This elevator, Mr. Rowan,” he said politely and pressed a button on the wall.
The elevator door opened and there was a second uniformed special officer in the elevator. “Mr.
Rowan to Mr. Brady’s office,” said the first officer as I went into the elevator.
The doors closed behind me and the elevator began its ascent. I looked at the operator. “This is almost as bad as getting to see the President,” I smiled.
“Mr. Brady is Chairman of the Board,” the special officer dead-panned.
For a moment I fought an impulse to tell him that I was talking about the President of the United States but it would have been wasted so I kept my mouth shut. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. I stepped out.
The special officer was right behind me. “This way, sir.”
I followed him down a deserted marble corridor, past a series of pine-panelled doors. Between each door was an electric light in the form of a torch in the hand of a classic Greek figure. At almost any moment I expected one of the doors to open and an undertaker to come out to direct us to the remains.
He paused in front of one of the doors, knocked lightly, then opened it and waved me in. I blinked my eyes at the light in the room after the gloomy corridor and heard the door close behind me.
“Mr. Rowan?” The girl at the large semicircular desk in the centre of the room looked up at me inquiringly.
I nodded and walked towards her.
She got up and came around her desk. “Mr. Brady is tied up at the moment and extends his apologies. Would you care to wait in the reception room, please?”
I let out a silent whistle. After this, nobody could tell me that the only thing Matt Brady had on his mind was steel. Not with a babe like this for a secretary. This kid was built for long-distance hauling and she had the equipment that went with endurance.
“Must I?” I smiled.
The smile was wasted, for she turned and led me to another door. I followed her slowly, enjoying the clock-work. This was a dame who knew what she had and made no bones about it. As a matter of fact I couldn’t see a bone anywhere. She held the door open for me.
I stopped and looked at her. “How come you ain’t wearing one of them special cop uniforms?” I asked her.
“Is that legit?” I grinned.
For the first time an expression appeared on her face. She looked puzzled. I laughed aloud. “D’you mean that?” I translated.
The puzzled frown vanished. “Of course,” she replied. “Cigars and cigarettes are in the humidor on the table. Magazines and papers on the rack beside it.” She closed the door before I had a chance to say anything else.
I looked around the room. It was richly and quietly furnished. The walls were oak-panelled, the heavy furniture of comfortable leather. The carpets were thick and seemed to come up to your ankles. My eye was caught by a group of photographs neatly framed, hung in a cluster on the wall opposite the door.
I walked over to them. Some very familiar faces looked down at me. Seven photographs all autographed to Matt Brady personally. All Presidents of the United States. Woodrow Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, F.D.R., Truman and Eisenhower.
I ground out my cigarette in a tray. No wonder the operator hadn’t gone for my joke. Presidents come and go but Matt Brady went on forever. I sat down and stared up at the photographs. Tough little man, Matt Brady. Smart. He didn’t keep these pictures in his office like any other man would, where he could point to them or ignore them consciously to impress his visitors. He kept them in his waiting room as if to keep them in their place.
I began to wonder what I was doing here. Any guy who had as highly developed a sense of public psychology as Matt Brady seemed to have didn’t need a guy like me for anything. I looked at my watch. I had already been in the room about five minutes. If I had it figured right, it would be ten minutes before he would call for me. By then I would have had time to absorb the psychological effect of the waiting room.
I grinned to myself. For a moment he almost had me. But two can play at that game. I got out of the chair and opened the door.
The girl looked up at me, a startled expression in her eyes. I picked a magazine from the rack. “Where’s the washroom?” I asked.
Silently she pointed to a door opposite mine. I crossed the office quickly. As I opened the washroom door her voice caught me. “But Mr. Brady will be free in a few minutes.”
“Ask him to wait,” I said, quickly closing the door behind me.
I had been in the can almost ten minutes when the door opened and someone came in. From under the tile booth door I could see a pair of men’s shoes stand hesitantly in front of the booth. They were cops’ shoes. I didn’t have to see the grey trouser cuffs to know that. I grinned and kept silent. A few seconds later the shoes went away and the door slammed again.
It had taken a long time, but one of my father’s predictions had just come true. Years ago I remembered him saying to my mother that the only way they would ever get me out of the bathroom was to get the cops after me.
I sat there and flipped the pages of the magazine. About five minutes later the door slammed again.
I looked down under the booth. A pair of small shiny black shoes went past. I smiled grimly to myself. This round was mine.
Quickly I dropped the magazine to the floor. A second later I came out of the booth and crossed
over to the washstand.
The little man standing there looked up at me questioningly. I grinned down at him in apparent surprise. Mr. Brady,” I said, “What nice offices you have here!”
Matt Brady’s own office was big enough to serve as the lobby for Radio City Music Hall. It was on a corner of the building and two of its walls were large picture windows through which one could see building after building, all bearing the gleaming stainless steel signs reading Consolidated Steel.