Nothing but Blue Skies

13

Frank went straight to his breakfast meeting with Doctors Jensen, Popelko, Dumars and Frame in the dining room of the Dexter Hotel. They were his renters. He got there a few minutes late and the doctors were telling stories over their first cup of coffee. Dr. Popelko, an obstetrician who had taught his specialty, explained how he had tried to get his university to hire prostitutes. He chuckled, his little round face completely wrinkled, his bow tie bobbing and the shoulders of his loud plaid sport jacket shuddering. “How do you teach students to do a vaginal?” he bayed across the dining room. “It’s no different than learning to ride a horse. You need vaginas! Where are you going to get them? In the old days, we used poor people’s vaginas in exchange for medical treatment. Now everyone has insurance. The chancellor’s wife isn’t going to let you use her vagina, is she? The chairman of the English department is not liable to suggest that the medical students train on his daughter’s vagina. The only answer seemed to be prostitutes. But when I suggested this as a budget item to the university, I damn near lost my job. It made the papers and the born-agains were marching. I went into private practice. I had to!”

“Morning, Frank,” said Dr. Dumars. Frank carried his own coffee and roll and set it among the more complete breakfasts of the doctors. Dumars was an older doctor, close to retirement, and bore himself with the gravity old doctors sometimes had as a result of all they had seen. Jensen and Frame were young and ambitious, with huge split-level homes. Jensen, the seducer of Phil’s wife Kathy, had blond hair which he had arranged in pixieish bangs, a modern and alert young man with staring eyes. Frame was somber; the skin under his eyes was dark and his lower lip hung in a permanent pout. He was staring at Frank.

“Been fishing, Frank?” Jensen asked.

“Yeah, I went Saturday over on the Sixteen. It was pretty darn good,” Frank said. Jensen knew he fished with Phil. This was a way of taking Phil’s temperature at long range.

“Huh,” said Jensen, “we went to the Big Horn over the weekend. Sixteen-foot leaders. Antron emergers. Size twenty-two.”

“A little tough for me, sounds like.” Frame was still staring at Frank.

Jensen shrugged. “I wanted to get a couple of days in. There’s a marathon in Billings next weekend, then a prostate seminar in Sun Valley the following weekend, and so on, and there goes your life.”

Dr. Frame spoke abruptly. “Do you uhm know what?” He was trying to look right through Frank.

“I shudder to think.”

“The rent at the uhm clinic is too high.”

“No, it’s not,” said Frank.

“Too high, too low, it’s more than we’re uhm willing to pay.” Frame was teaching Frank the ABCs of running his building.

Frank sipped his coffee, peered over the top of the cup at the other doctors, who were not tipping their hands, letting Frame run point. Popelko had a purely inquiring look on his face; he wanted a factual outcome. Jensen was just being serious about whatever it was. No one was going to mediate on Frank’s behalf, that was clear. Frank said, “Why don’t you move out?”

“We haven’t paid last month’s rent.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“We just wanted to uhm send a signal.”

“I don’t understand signals. I understand English.”

“I tried English,” said Dr. Frame. “You didn’t seem to uhm understand.”

“I understood. I was short on information. I didn’t realize you hadn’t paid the rent last month. You’re evicted.”

At this the other doctors clamored. Dumars immediately pulled Jensen toward him by the coat and spoke into his ear. Frank stood up. The doctors were all trying to look like one unit, a little tribal dance group or something. Frank knew they didn’t want to move out; they just wanted to improve their deal. Frank read once that ninety percent of doctors went to medical school for business reasons. That made it easier for him to keep the rent where it ought to be than to imagine they were sheltering sick orphans.

“Get your stuff out. Or hand deliver last month’s rent. I’ll be able to give you the new figures for next month, if you decide to stay. I don’t see last month’s check in my office today, you’re going to have to work out of your upstairs bedrooms.”

Frank walked out into the street. The sunshine hit him. He could never think about property, or its problems, if the sun was in his face. A ranch couple walked by in matching denim; she had a dramatically tooled purse and he wore a bandanna. They were gazing around at the buildings and gesturing to each other with show-business savvy, projecting their feelings. What a big town this is! they seemed to say.

Frank turned and went back into the hotel, feeling his thoughts roll forward like a barrel going down a hill. The doctors were still at their table. Frank stood at its edge.

“That building is killing me,” he said. “Six percent of its capitalization before expenses. Why don’t you buy it? No, hold it, I know why. Because the return is so low. We’ll let Frank Copenhaver go on owning the sonofabitch. Let me tell you something: nobody’s getting such gentle rent treatment in this whole town. But don’t be greedy, don’t be greedy.”

Outside, the sun was still shining. He saw crisp newspapers in their stand and smelled the bakery on Reno Avenue. There was a white vapor trail angling upward in the blue sky. He returned to his office in bounding spirits and gave Eileen Joanie’s, June’s and Lucy’s names and asked her to get them on the phone for him. He went to his desk and waited. His desk phone rang and Eileen told him none of the three was in. He suddenly wanted company. It was painful.