Authors: James Jones
And Frank talked to all of them. Both singly, and in groups, at meetings. Because there were innumerable meetings. He talked to just about every businessman’s club in town: the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary (his old pals), the Kiwanis, the Lions, everybody. He made speeches to them all. And invariably his speeches were the same: He took the line that the new shopping center was mainly to be based on tourist business. This would mean, of course, that it would not actually take business away from town; at least, not too much, anyway. And he always pointed out that the motel and the theater were the priority items of the next things he intended to build.
All this was not, of course, the truth. And what was more, everybody knew it was not the truth—though they all pretended that they thought it was. But there was nothing anybody could do about it. They either had to come in, and go along, or else get out and risk losing a lot of business. The result was that, with one or two exceptions, all the leases for business places were for branch stores to be opened by already established hometown merchants. Only the very top business houses in town were even being considered: Frank had discussed this with the Greek and the old man, and both agreed with him that he should keep the level—and the price—up just as high as they could possibly make it. Consequently, all the second-rate competitors were out from the start. And of the top-rate ones, it was made quite plain to them the high level of the stores they were expected to maintain, and this was written into the leases. The leases themselves, naturally, since everybody was scrambling for one, came very high.
Together with the Greek and the old man, Frank had planned it so that once it was in operation, the Parkman Village would be as nearly completely an autonomous business section as it was possible to make it with only twelve business sites. In other words, there would not be two hardware stores, for instance; or two drugstores; or two jewelry stores. (Frank himself, of course, was taking the lease for the jewelry store; and intended to move Al Lowe out there as manager and let someone else run the old store in town.) But take hardware stores, for example. In Parkman, there were actually already three hardware stores. Two of these were pretty good; the third a poor one. The poor one was out, but the other two both badly wanted the lease in the shopping center. Consequently, Frank was able to play one off against the other. And, in the end, the hardware store lease brought as much as any other lease in the unit. And it was the same way with the other businesses they decided they would let in. In short, the Parkman Village Shopping Center Corporation was in a very enviable position.
And Frank himself, at least from Frank’s viewpoint, was in the most enviable position of all. There were times, when he would stand out where the black-topped parking lot would eventually be, and look up at that beautiful green-and-yellow facade with its attractive legend: Hirsh Block, that Frank could hardly believe it had all really happened. The dream he had held for so very, very long in his secret heart was at last a reality:
HIRSH BLOCK—1949
. Just like Madin Block or Wernz Block or Parker Block. Hirsh Block. He could not get enough of saying it, or of seeing it.
He had had, in the end, to take out offices after all. Trying to work at the store just did not work out once the local business owners began to descend on him. Also, there were the conferences necessary with the architect and the contractors. So finally, he had wisely succumbed to the increasing pressure. The offices he took, with the notice painted immediately on the glass door, at his order—Frank Hirsh & Son Enterprises—were upstairs over the drugstore on the west side of the square directly opposite from his own store on the east side. When he first moved in, he seriously debated moving Edith Barclay in right along with him as secretary; but at the last minute, he decided, with some wary instinct, not to do so. He could always move her in later on; and, in fact, she was badly needed at the store now that he himself was having to take his hands off of the running of it entirely. So instead he hired a new girl, a pretty little thing, just out of business college, but green as a gourd.
One of his reasons for doing so, was that he had become increasingly nervous about Agnes, lately. She just didn’t seem to be as warm as she had been. He didn’t see where there was any reason for her not to be, but some instinct kept telling him to be careful.
Of course, a lot of it might be due to how hard he was having to work now that the Parkman Village was going up. He was forced to spend a great many more evenings away from Agnes and young Walter, and away from Edith, too. Hell, it seemed he hardly ever got to see Walter anymore. He did get to take him to three big league games in St Louis; Frank saw to that. Even though it meant throwing up his work schedule entirely on each of the days they went, and having to work like hell to catch up after they got back. But outside of those days, he really got to see his new son very little anymore. Almost every night, it seemed, there was some damned meeting he had to go to. Some deputation of salesmen who could not be squeezed in during the day; some group of damned businessmen who wanted to be reassured about the Parkman Village Shopping Center; some sudden emergency with the architect that had to be taken care of immediately.
Sometimes, when these things happened, as they did increasingly after June, Frank wished he had never gotten started in on this damned thing. It was at those times that he felt he might very well be suffocated by the cloth of success. But then, a look at those beautiful green-and-yellow tiles reading
HIRSH BLOCK
always reassured him.
And, of course, all these busy evenings meant that he had to spend much less time with Edith than he would have liked. And damn it all, especially now—when they had got her house for her. He loved to go there, and sprawl around on the couch in the tasteful living room, have a flock of drinks, and then go to bed with her in their own bed.
He had been especially careful in the handling of Edith’s house. The Greek, in Springfield, had gladly handled it for him. His boys, the Greek’s boys, could do just about anything. The Greek had handled it all very shrewdly. The money had been paid to Edith in a lump sum check drawn on a Springfield bank, and using the official name of one of the Greek’s business fronts, which might very easily be taken for the name of some obscure insurance company. Edith had deposited it personally in the bank in Parkman. Nobody seemed to think a thing about it. And she had begun the fixing up and redecorating of her house. Frank, of course, could not be with her; but on the nights when they still met in some motel room somewhere, she would tell him all about what she was doing. He wished he could have helped her select things. But, when it was all finally done, and Frank himself went there for the first time (he always parked the Cadillac uptown and walked the three blocks to the house), all that discomfort faded away in his enjoyment of his mistress and his mistress’s house.
Damn it all, he didn’t see why Agnes had to be so damned old-fashioned about these things. He would have liked for them to be friends, Agnes and Edith. He would have liked to go places with them together. Hell, here they were, just about to move up into the very highest rank in Parkman; why the hell couldn’t they be sophisticated about it like other people and do like they did. Hell, if they were going to be rich, they ought to act rich. But not Agnes.
Edith herself, he was quite sure, wouldn’t have minded being known as his mistress—not since Old Janie Staley’s death. Frank had never seen a person change so much. He did not know what had caused it, but he was certainly all for it.
There was still that strange turbulence about Edith—that strange sort of double-naturedness, was the only way he could describe it—that had been in her, back when he had first seduced her: that whatever-it-was that had made her seem so cold, outwardly, but when sex itself came up changed suddenly into a sort of heated franticness. Frank remembered still, how she had groaned so strangely that first time he had kissed her in the car. Well, these things were still in her—but now, somehow they had changed their quality: She was, if anything, more cold and far away, outwardly; but then when they went to bed now, there was an almost hungry wild rapaciousness about her, was the only way he could describe it. And she would not let go of him until long afterwards. And as far as the sex itself went, she was wildly the leader of it. Frank was, naturally, pleased. He had never known anything like it. It was as if she could not get enough of him. He had never thought he was that attractive. Naturally, he did not intend to lose this kind of love for anything in God’s earth.
By contrast, Agnes had been getting cooler and cooler when they went to bed together. He had noticed it for some time now, and it bothered him. It was almost like the way she had acted before she broke him off from Geneve Lowe, and he wondered if she could possibly have found out about Edith? But how could she have? Everything had gone off as smooth as silk, about the house. Nevertheless, he worried about it.
He wanted his wife to love him. Love him as she had been the past year or so that they had been so very happy together. Love him as his mistress was loving him. She still went to bed with him, of course, Agnes did. But there still was, he felt, this noticeable cooling of her ardor.
Frank wished he could talk to her about it; but he was afraid to. He was afraid she might get her feelings hurt in thinking he didn’t find her desirable anymore. But that wasn’t it, at all. He just wanted her to desire
him
more. If he could only talk to her, maybe he could find out what was bothering her. But he was scared to try to, because then she would know that he had recognized this cooling of the ardor between them. So he just pretended that he did not notice it at all. And as long as he did that, he could not, of course, bring it up.
He wished he could talk to her about other things, too, for that matter. He wished he could just sit down calmly with her and explain to her what it was to have a mistress. How it didn’t really mean anything: Hell, lots of men had mistresses, and they and their wives clearly deeply loved each other. Frank was sure of that. Why did she have to be so damned old-fashioned about it? Here they were, with the whole world by the tail, just preparing to make more money than they had ever dreamed. Here they were, all set up in an operation that within two or three years could very easily make them—he almost breathed the magic word, not even really daring to say it—make them Millionaires. Yes, by God, Millionaires.
What did it matter if he had himself a mistress, like other—other—Millionaires? He would still be her husband, he would still take care of her, give her all the money she ever wanted, and look after and live with her and Walter. He would still love her, and be her lover. Her own dear sweetheart husband lover.
If he could only dare talk to her and explain it. But the very thought was unthinkable. It panicked him down to the very depths of his soul to even think about it.
Once again, for the first time since that wild strange night in Springfield not quite a year ago when he had walked the ratty backstreets of the city all night long, Frank began to have vague stirrings to get up at night and walk the streets. Not for any special reason. Just to see. Just to feel the strange, nervous excitement as he looked at houses and lights and wondered what their occupants might be doing?
Just to be out there, alone and unknown, where there might be adventure. Where there might be—danger. And as July slipped on into August, he took to getting up and going out at night. He would get himself real drunk beforehand, knowing excitedly what he was going to do later; then he would lie in bed staring at the ceiling tinglingly excited, until he knew Agnes was sound asleep; then get up quietly and dress and go out and walk up and down the streets of Parkman. He never did anything. He never approached any houses. He just walked. And when he was up in Springfield on his frequent trips, he took to going out at night like that again up there. Gee, if he could only talk to Agnes about Edith.
As it turned out, Frank was to talk to her about it much sooner than he knew.
A
GNES
H
IRSH FOUND OUT
definitely that her husband was having an affair with his office girl Edith Barclay just a few days after Dave drove out to look at the new shopping center in early August.
She had been waiting for the news almost a month—and hoping desperately that what she suspected was the truth would not turn out to be so. And, in fact, when she started the machinery rolling that would either prove or disprove what she suspected, she could not help but believe fervently that it would prove her wrong. They, she and Frank, had been so completely happy the last year or so, that she
couldn’t
believe anything else. And as a matter of fact, she had started her investigation more to allay her own fears, and prove to herself what a meanly suspicious woman she was, than for any other reason. If she proved herself wrong, it would put her mind at rest, and she could begin her act of contrition. But, it had not proved her wrong. It had proved her suspicious mind was right. And the proof just very nearly tore her apart.
There were times when Agnes wished fervently that she were not so smart—or else that Frank was not so dumb. If she could only be a dumb, trusting, ignorant housewife, who went along her dumb ignorant trusting way, without ever realizing how her smart husband was hoodwinking her. But she was not that. And Frank was not that smart husband.
Although she had to admit, painfully, that he was pretty smart; this time. The trouble was, he just wasn’t smart enough. It seemed to Agnes that the more rich and influential they got, the more this kind of a thing receded to other, more impersonal levels. For instance, in the affair of Geneve Lowe: Agnes had done all her fieldwork herself: buying the glassware, going down to Dotty Callter’s, etc. But this time, she merely sat back, did her planning, and then simply wrote a couple of letters. She supposed it must be the same way with wars or politics: The higher up you got, the more removed you were from the actual field operations, and the more theoretical it became.