Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [57]
Listen, I can t wait another minute. I m catching the ten-twenty-five and I have about four minutes. I ll be back next week. He ran through the office. Julian thought of going along with him to the station, but rejected that plan. He couldn’t get anything said to a man who had four minutes to catch the train. On her own hook Betty Fenstermacher was calling the station and telling them to hold the train; Julian became conscious of this, and when she finished he said: What s it all about?
I don t know. I heard him shoot off his mouth about a lot of railroads going together. You d think he was the one that was getting them together, the fuss and fury we been having around this office this morning. I hear you gave him the shiner, Ju. What was he, making passes at your wife or something?
No. Good-by, darling, he said. Ordinarily he would have stopped to kid Betty, to whom you could say anything without insulting her, but now he was still blank from Harry s breezy walk-out. It wasn’t like Harry. On the way back to the car Julian recalled that he had heard some talk about a merger of the New York Central, the Chesapeake & Ohio, Nickel Plate, Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania, and such merger certainly might have an effect on Harry Reilly s fortune. Harry had large holdings in Virginia and West Virginia, in the soft coal fields. But Harry was a teller of elaborate lies, too; and he might be using the merger as an excuse to leave Gibbsville until the black eye was less black. Julian wished he knew whether the merger really was going through. Not that he would do anything about it now, but he still had the curiosity about such things that anyone who has traded in the stock market never quite loses: inside dope is fun to have, and he might risk a hundred or so on it. No, he guessed he wouldn t. If he knew anything, there was not going to be any merger; Harry Reilly was still a four-flusher; couldn’t even leave town without making it appear that he was leaving on an errand of big business. Driving out to the garage he could think of only one thing that occurred so far this morning that wasn’t especially designed to annoy him; and that was that the fact of Harry Reilly s going away, the fact that Harry was going to be away with a legitimate reason would keep people from talking when he did not show up at the party tonight. Considering the way things were going today, that was a good break. ... Yes, there was one other good break this morning; he had not been given a ticket for parking. At that moment a cross-link on the tire chains broke, and he rode the rest of the way to the garage with the link banging, cack-thock, cack-thock, cack-thock, against the left rear fender. He blew the horn at the garage door, and it was fully two minutes before Willie, who washed cars and was an apprentice mechanic, opened the door. Julian had left orders at least fifty times that no one was to be kept waiting at the door, and he was going to bawl Willie out, but Willie called out: Merry Christmas, boss. How d Santa Claus treat you?
Yah, said Julian. Well, thanks for the Christmas present, said Willie, who had received a week s pay. That fifteen bucks come in handy. Willie was closing the door and talking above the sound of the idling motor and the sounds of the mechanics working upstairs. I said to my girl, I said
Cross-link busted on the right rear chain, said Julian. Fix it.
Huh? When d it break?
Right now, at Twelfth Street.
Well, say, it held up pretty good. Better n I thought. Remember, I told you Wensdee already, I said you better leave me fix them cross-links.
Uh-huh. Julian had to admit that Willie had told him. He went to the office, which was in the rear of the big show room on the street floor. Good morning, Mary, he said. Good morning, said Mary Klein, his secretary. What s doing?
Pretty quiet, she said, adjusting her spectacles. Have a nice Christmas?
Oh, it was all right I guess. My mother came downstairs in the afternoon, but I guess the excitement was too much for her. She had another spell around a quarter after five and we had to have Doctor Malloy out.