Authors: Harry Bingham
He sat with his legs dangling from his cheap metal bed, looking down at the floor, doing nothing at all.
Exhaustion, fear, hard work, poverty, tension, danger.
Those were the ingredients of Willard’s life, the flour, yeast, salt and water of his daily bread.
Charlie Hughes had gone. He hadn’t been replaced. No replacement had been spoken of. And all the time those hateful files came flooding in. More than before. Powell Lambert’s business was increasing and the poor saps in the engine room had to keep the great machinery moving.
Weekends disappeared. Saturday was no longer a day off, a day to spend in the country or at the races or playing tennis or at the shops. Saturday was a regular working day. In the office by seven-thirty. Out again twelve or thirteen hours later with a briefcase still bulging.
But the long working hours were a relief. Because Willard’s money had run out. His bank account had emptied, and then some. Lucinda and Laura, his two elder sisters, were beginning to make difficulties over lending him still more money. To his acute and unrelenting shame, Willard had sought to pawn or sell items for which he’d paid collectively thousands, and for which he seemed set to receive a few meagre hundreds. His long hours at least gave him an excuse for tight-fistedness. He began to walk sooner than go by cab. He refused invitations. For the first time in his life, he counted his change.
But while Willard felt besieged, he was also frightened. For one thing, his fears had become more tangible. Long-nosed, brown-eyed, yellow-toothed Greyhound-face was tracking Willard’s movements. Willard had now seen the man five times, five different locations. And it wasn’t only Greyhound-face. Willard thought he’d identified one or two others, only he’d become so jumpy and suspicious, he couldn’t be sure.
And not only that. He was now certain that his phone was listened to. One day, he’d made a date with Rosalind by phone, then made his way there, changing cabs, running the wrong way down one-way streets, ducking into alleys, waiting in doorways. At the end of it all, he’d have sworn that nobody could have kept pace with him, not even a team of pursuers. But when he’d got to the restaurant, to join his beautiful Rosalind, there was Greyhound-face, chomping his matchstick and training his mournful brown eyes on Willard. Willard hadn’t yet mentioned any of this to Rosalind, but would of course, some day soon.
Meanwhile, on top of his regular work, he’d started to add his own.
The files. Arthur Martin had collected four files then died before he could use them. Why those? What was the riddle of those bland and tedious documents? It was possible that Willard’s life depended on his ability to find out.
So he went to work. Every two or three days Willard went to the bank archive. He needed archive files for his work downstairs and the archivists already knew Willard well. But as well as asking for the files he needed for work, he slipped in additional request slips for files relating to the ones that Arthur Martin had died to collect.
He was interested in any transactions where either the buyer or the seller had been the same as the ones in Martin’s collection. That amounted to a lot of deals: forty-five where the manufacturers were the same as Martin’s; sixty-two where the customers were identical.
So day by day, week by week, Willard filled in his little pink request slips and collected his precious files. Day by day, week by week, Willard carried these files out of the bank and took them to Rosalind. Together they copied them, trusting no one else to share the work. Page by page the information accumulated, its owners not knowing what was precious and what wasn’t. Once each file had been copied, Willard returned it, innocent as the first day of spring.
But Willard’s mammoth hours on Wall Street left Rosalind with plenty of time. And she had calls to place, trips to make.
Today, for instance. She’d just come back from the New Hampshire porcelain factory. The place had looked like a sweet little ceramics manufacturer, as sweet and bright as its candy-soft advertising. But the business was also the seller in one of Arthur Martin’s deals. It was nine-thirty in the evening. Willard had just got home, exhausted and low. They kissed cheek to cheek. Rosalind had martinis already mixed and offered him a glass.
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, no. D’you mind? I thought I’d shower first. Then eat:’
She looked at his briefcase. ‘I’m growing to hate that thing. Do you have…?’
‘Yes. More tonight. Another hour or two, if the papers are OK.’
Rosalind said nothing, but put her hand to his face, to the soft area beneath his eyes where the skin was puffy and dark. ‘If I can help…’
He showered. Hot for two minutes, as hot as he could stand. Then cold, half a minute under the full stream. He jumped out gasping and shivered on the bed holding a towel. The door to the living room was open a few inches and Rosalind spoke to him from outside.
‘Do you want to hear about my trip? New England Porcelain, Inc.’
‘Oh yes? That was today was it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And – I found a pottery factory.’
Willard rubbed his legs with a towel. He was getting no exercise now. He wasn’t exactly out of shape. He’d always been blessed with the kind of body that looked good no matter how little he attended to it. All the same, sitting on his butt all day long was no help. Willard wondered if his calves were getting thinner, and decided they were. Outside the door, Rosalind shifted her weight. Willard realised some further question was expected.
‘A pottery factory, huh? Bona fide, you think?’
‘Think? They offer tours for visitors. They whizz you around a couple of kilns, show you the plates and things being made. It’s all surprisingly smelly. The dyes and glazes, that sort of thing. I hadn’t realised. Then you wind up in the factory shop where a greasy little salesman tries to sell you some kitchenware you don’t want. Succeeds, actually, in my case. I spent forty dollars.’
‘Get anything nice?’
‘You’re eating off it tonight.’
‘Hmm.’
In his better days, one of Willard’s greatest gifts had been charm. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking. Looks could get you to first base, but if the rest of the package was missing, no looks in the world would get you further. But Willard had been charming. He could make women laugh. His own laugh, insincere but easy, made everyone around him feel like they were being funny too. But that had been then. A tired man isn’t charming, or if he is, it’s something that flickers on and off like power in a thunderstorm. He rubbed his legs again and tried another question.
‘So we strike out again, I guess?’
‘Well… It was a big site and I only toured a piece of it. Maybe there was a room somewhere where red anarchists were plotting to blow up the President, but if so, I didn’t see it.’
‘Still, they make pottery. That’s the point.’
So far, every time they’d attempted to test Arthur Martin’s files or any of the sister files they’d collected, things seemed to check out. They’d found porcelain companies which made porcelain. They’d found engineering companies which engineered things. They’d found paint companies which asked you how many gallons you wanted. Willard lay back on the bed, completely naked except for the towel. He stared at the ceiling, tired and defeated.
A moment passed, then another.
Rosalind was silent. So was Willard.
Then he began to lever himself up, when he stopped dead. Rosalind had come into the room and was standing, staring down at him. They looked at each other in silence.
Willard was very conscious of his nudity – his private parts were covered, even if only just – but something in the way Rosalind looked at him made him say and do nothing.
‘Maybe it’s too much,’ she said at last.
‘What is?’
‘This. All of it. Everything. There’s a limit to how much one person can manage.’
Willard managed a smile. ‘I’m not one person, though, am I? I’ve got you.’
‘You could quit.’
‘The loan, Ros, the loan.’
‘Your father? If you explained everything?’
‘You don’t know my father. He wouldn’t help.’
‘You haven’t asked.’
‘He wouldn’t help. I won’t ask.’ Willard spoke sharply.
‘You know, that’s not the only way out.’
‘Oh?’
‘You could…’
‘Could what?’
‘You know … declare yourself bankrupt.’
That word raised Willard’s anger like a storm cloud. In his social circle, a man could get by with leprosy more easily than with bankruptcy. He’d be an outcast. A nobody. ‘Never.’ His anger forced the word out like a fat little bullet.
Then Rosalind did something unexpected. She was wearing an evening dress in soft blue. Her hair was combed and bobbed and gleaming gold in the lamplight. She kicked her shoes off and bent down, close to Willard, holding his knees. Her touch was so sudden, so unexpected, that Willard’s member stirred under the towel. He twitched the towel back into position, excited.
‘Why?’ she asked.
Something in the atomsphere of the room guided Willard’s answer. If his anger had had its way, the answer would have been something short, rude, unkind, petulant. But that wasn’t how he answered. Instead he said simply, ‘We’ve got a job to do. We’re not finished. Think of Arthur Martin. Think of Charlie Hughes.’
‘Oh.’
There was another moment of stillness. Willard’s erection stirred again and he began to sit to hide it better. But Rosalind stopped him. She put her hand to his chest and pushed him softly back down. He was lying flat, breathing fast.
For one moment longer, Rosalind stood, some decision taking shape in the shadows of her face. Then she bent down and lifted the towel. Willard’s erection, not that small to begin with, jumped out like a minor lighthouse. His penis was good-sized. He liked her looking at it.
Rosalind hesitated for a moment longer, then put her hands to her dress. She slid off her dress, her slip, her stockings, her pearls, her panties. Her body was cream and gold, with nipples as dark as raspberries. Willard began to sit up again, ready to lead her down into his arms, but once again she motioned him back.
He lay down. Climbing onto the bed, she squatted over him, lowering herself slowly onto him. Aside from a little ‘Ah!’ as he entered her, both he and she were silent. She began to move, but slowly. Willard hadn’t made love for longer than he liked to remember and tiredness and lack of practice made him ready to burst almost straight away.
But she didn’t let him. Each time she rode him almost to climax, she stopped. She let the feeling dwindle until Willard, still lying, was ready for more. Her own face looked quiet, introspective, except that her lips never quite closed, her eyes were only half-open. She let Willard touch her wherever he wanted, but after a while his hands came to rest on her hips.
For a while longer, they moved together. Willard had never been in this position. He’d always been the master in bed, the one on top, the one in charge. This position felt new but just right. He let Rosalind have things her way until it was time to take control. Then, with his hands on her hips, he began to move her himself. He rocked her up and down, until she understood his intention and let herself be rocked.
Her head, which had been tilting down, began to arch backwards, exposing the long lines of her throat. Her panting came faster. Her outbreaths had a low moan, then not so low, then not low at all.
They climaxed together: Willard in one, long, starburst of colour; Rosalind in a long, dim, greenish-gold heave of pleasure. And from that moment, it was all different.
Before: something had been missing. Not just sex, but something more than sex.
And after? Well, it was different. The gap that had existed between them either vanished or (what was just as good) seemed to have vanished. Rosalind accepted Willard’s charm for what it was. She laughed at his jokes. She nestled into his caresses. She began to look at Willard the way he expected a girl to look at him: trusting, fond, adoring, his.
Atlanta, Georgia.
A rainstorm had just passed through and the air shone clean and brilliant. Gibson Hennessey, the storekeeper from Independence, walked quickly downtown from the station. He’d come by train, but a Southern Express locomotive had derailed just north of Macon and Hennessey was running late. He walked fast. His old black suit had too many shiny patches. Elbows, knees, seat and shoulders shone in the sun. The cuffs of his shirt were fluffy and soft.
The Southern Pride Restaurant was a pompous affair with big arched windows overlooking the burning sidewalk. Hennessey entered. Just inside, a girl sat at an over-sized mahogany hat-check kiosk. The girl was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and taller than Hennessey when she stood. A painted board just behind her right ear said
‘HAT CHECK – ZARAH HARRISON’
in big capital letters, as though the fact was too important to be ignored.
‘Good afternoon,’ said the girl, in an accent which placed her birthplace closer to Cork, Ireland, than to Atlanta, Georgia.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Hennessey.
The girl gestured at the book like Hennessey should know what to do next. He didn’t. The girl had a plate of cheese – no biscuits, no butter, just cheese – beside her. Hennessey found himself staring at it because he didn’t know what he was supposed to do or say. She twitched the plate away with an elbow, but managed to look longingly at it at the same time, as though she’d rather be eating cheese than talking to Hennessey.
‘Your name, please? You have a reservation?’
‘My name’s Hennessey. I don’t exactly have a reservation, though the person I’m meeting might do.’
‘Their name?’ Zarah Harrison persisted patiently.
‘You don’t have anyone in there calling themselves Aunt Polly, do you? This is going to sound a little strange, but the party I’m meeting may be a man.’
The girl looked at him like he was a freak, but a freak within her job description.
‘You’ll find your aunt at the corner table inside.’ She made a face, as though to indicate that whatever Hennessey might be up to was OK with her, as long as she had no further part in it.