The Magician's Wife

9

Twenty-four hours later he was staring at the sea, from the depths of a rocking chair, on the porch of a small hotel at Ocean City, Maryland — having driven there in flight from the frustration the holiday forced upon him. He had spent a sleepless night in a passion of high intention, with all sorts of fine schemes spinning around in his head, finding himself in the morning helpless to carry them out or even to do anything about his wrecked apartment. For fear his morale might ebb, and perhaps to preclude any call to Sally, he had packed his bag in a hurry and driven across the bridge that spans the bay, at length winding up at the sea. Here, to his relief, high purpose didn’t recede, but gave way to dogged resolve, and so he had had a swim, in water just a bit cold, a dinner, and a nice, brooding sulk, and now was about to retire. However, he was joined by Mr. Reed, the hotel’s proprietor, who took his meat and rated a sociable chat. In a quiet, easy way he made a standard gambit: “Nice place you got here — nice town, nice house, nice ocean” — but was just a bit startled at Mr. Reed’s sour reply. “Was nice,” he growled. “That’s all we can say, Mr. Lockwood — we had a nice place once. Now all we got is a mess — a roughhouse, nothing else but.”

“Oh? You mean this holiday thing?”

He was alluding to the problem at Ocean City, as at other summer resorts, of teenage boys swarming in, so police have a job on their hands.

“That’s the climax of it, yes.”

But there seemed to be more, and Clay knew he must listen. “You know what it puts me in mind of?” Mr. Reed went on. “California, during a brush fire. Fellow was telling me, guy that lives out there, what it’s like when they have one of them. It wasn’t threatening him — it was up the slope a ways, where it couldn’t possibly reach him. But his place was a short cut to it, so first comes it the bums, the extra help hired on by the state, to smack at it with their shovels, chop fire breaks, drag hose, squirt foam, and so on. Next comes it the bums’ girl-friends, and turns out they have quite a few, very noisy and not very well behaved. Then comes it the ice-cream trucks, the beer vendors, and the hot-dog brigade, ringing bells and sticking pennants up in the grass. Then comes it the Iowa tourists, who never saw a brush fire, out to take pictures of it. Then comes it the TV bunch, out to take pictures of everything, including the Iowa tourists. So what can this guy do? He didn’t start it — has nothing to do with it, really. But an Act of God is up there, a roaring, terrible fire. So maybe it does have beer cans around the edges, but if he squawks he’s a heel — maybe an atheist, yet. So all he can do is get tromped — and that’s how it is with us. We have an Act of God too — also with beer cans in front, an ocean that can roar as loud as a fire. And coming to see it are bums — not like in California, but bums just the same, in a way, boys. Not just a few, Mr. Lockwood, not just hundreds — thousands. And not only them but their girl-friends — what kind, I give you one guess. And not only them but the fly-by-nights, same as in California, with their ice cream, beer, and hot dogs. And tourists, and TV — giving the place a bad name. Three months from now, by Labor Day, when things come to a head, I don’t blame our cops for cracking down or our judge for getting tough. Why should it happen to us? Can you tell me, Mr. Lockwood? We weren’t doing nothing. We were just—”

“Hold on, Mr. Reed!” said Clay suddenly, taking his feet from the railing. “Hold everything! You’ve just given me an idea!”

“I sure hope so. What idea, Mr. Lockwood?”

“If you can’t lick ’em, jine ’em!”

“Jine ’em? How?”

“Sell ’em! Ice cream. Beer. Dogs.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Unfortunately I’m in the hotel business — I sell a shore dinner, two-eighty-one with tax. And would those kids pay that? I give you one guess. On top of which, the way most of them dress, I wouldn’t let ’em in. So—”

“In my business I sell what sells.”

“You’re leading to something, Mr. Lockwood. What?”

“I don’t have the details yet — just a general idea, but as far as it goes, it’s clear. As I see it now, the kids tromp you, the fly-by-nights take their money, and all you get is beer cans out on the edge of the ocean.”

“That says it, that’s exactly it!”

“Why don’t you go for their money?”

“But how? I sell a shore dinner! I—”

“Wait! It’s beginning to come!”

He took Mr. Reed by the arm and led him out to the boardwalk, then down some steps to the beach and out to the thundering surf. Then, after staring, he led back up the steps to the town, now having the first gay night of its new summer season, with neon signs lit up and orchestras sounding off. He kept on to the town’s boat harbor, one much like Channel City’s, the long inlet called Sinepuxent Bay, where various craft were tied up, prettily reflecting the lights. And as he walked he dreamed out loud: “I see it now, Mr. Reed — a corporation, locally owned — locally owned, I said, by you and a few of your friends — a right little, tight little syndicate that’ll have a series of booths — awnings, pitched on the sand, with grills and freezers and counters where girls in candy-striped pants will wait on our teenage friends and throw the empty cans in a hamper. You sell ’em ice cream, hot dogs, and beer — while I sell you what you need, I and some of my friends.” Mr. Reed, after raising the question of cash, “the capital we’ll need,” and being told, “Don’t worry about it,” began to like the idea, and presently Clay went on: “I see something else, Mr. Reed: this thing has a civic angle. It’s going to help put an end to the trouble. Because, ‘stead of fighting these kids you’ll befriend them, and ‘stead of fighting you they’ll get with it! And on Labor Day what will it be? Just a sociable cookout, that’s all.”

The upshot of it was that when Clay drove back, early Tuesday morning, he took Mr. Reed along, and no sooner got to his office than he “set up” a lunch for that day, in the Chinquapin-Plaza Blue Room, for the two of them, with Mr. Lomack of Greenfield Dairies, Mr. Gordon of Gordon Bakeries, Mr. Katz of Restaurant Fixtures, and Mr. Heine of Chinquapin Brewery. By then, having it all clear in his mind, he was able to lay it out to these prospective purveyors in the briefest possible time, and almost at once to sell it, to Mr. Reed’s hypnotized wonderment. In fact, he took it for granted they would come in, “as it’s something that should have been started years and years ago.” When he knew he had them, he went on: “On prices, stock, deliveries, all that inside baseball — forget it. They’re nothing, and we’re all equipped for what’s to be done. So let’s keep our eye on the main thing — it’s a public-relations question, first, last, and all the time. We have to convince that town and everybody in it that this is their enterprise — it’s not run by the fly-by-nights. The money stays in the town. It’s new money, it comes to the town, it stays there! I would say, and I hope you concur, that before we set up one tent we should run a series of ads — in The Pilot of Channel City, which circulates down at the beach — laying the whole thing out, introducing ourselves, saying who we are, coming out in the open. Then we’ll be ready to go!”

All concurred.

“The thing is going to take dough. I’m putting Grant’s in for five thousand bucks — as a loan, Mr. Reed, repayable out of earnings, as, of course, I couldn’t claim stock without misrepresenting to those people in Ocean City. It’s their show, without strings. Are the rest of you guys in?”

After a startled moment, Mr. Lomack nodded and rapped with his knuckles. Mr. Gordon rapped. Mr. Katz rapped, and after thinking, Mr. Heine. “O.K.,” said Clay briskly, “that gives them twenty-five grand, which ought to hold them — anyway, to start.”

Back in the office, he learned from Miss Helm that “a Mrs. Simone called — wants you to call her, at Fisher’s.” Grace, when he got her, seemed upset, and asked: “Have you seen The Bosun today?”

“Oh? That columnist? On The Pilot?”

“You’d better have a look.”

“I will. Hold on a minute, Grace.”

He had noticed Miss Helm with the paper, and she let him have it at once, looking, he thought, rather sheepish. Finding The Bosun, he read:

“Well?” he asked Grace. “So what?”

“You don’t think it just happened, do you?”

“No, I think a bitch put it in, as part of a get-hunk campaign that you kindly warned me of. But don’t let it worry you, Grace. I’ve been busy selling meat, tons and tons and tons of it — but this I can handle too, and when I do I’ll ring you. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been fine, thanks.”

“I took a trip to the beach.”

“I hope you enjoyed it.”

Hanging up, he asked Miss Helm to call Mr. Iglehart, of The Pilot business office, and when Mr. Iglehart came on, he made himself most agreeable, recalling a previous meeting and bringing up the new project, with the space it was going to require for the ads in The Pilot. “And why I called,” he went on, “we’re going to need help, of course, your very valuable help, with layout and stuff like that, and I was wondering if I could come in? Take up some of your time and—”

“Come in? Mr. Lockwood, I’ll come to you.”

“Oh, would you? You mean, today?”

“Well — I can. I’ll come right over now.”

But Clay told Miss Helm: “When Mr. Iglehart comes, cool him off a while. It suits me that he waits.” So in twenty minutes or so, a good-looking young man sat, staring through the glass, while Clay stared back fish-faced, making no move to ask him in. At last he came in, or at least put his head in the door, smiling: “Mr. Lockwood? Jim Iglehart, of The Pilot.”

“Oh, yes,” said Clay. “Come in.”

“You called just now. About space.”

“Did I? You must learn to take a rib.”

“Rib? Mr. Lockwood, I don’t get it—”

“It’s O.K., don’t give it a thought. There’s always The Baltimore Sun, which has space for me too — and doesn’t print lies about me, like this thing that I saw, after talking with you.” He handed The Pilot over, and Mr. Iglehart read The Bosun. “Well!” he faltered. “I can see why you wouldn’t like it, but — after all, Mr. Lockwood, it doesn’t name anyone!”

“Oh, how considerate,” said Clay.

“And it doesn’t have to mean you!”

“Just what I told my girl — my secretary — just now. And yet they were both in, the magician and his girl. I never saw either one of them, before or since, but — they were here. And so, not only my girl but every girl in the place thinks I’m a wolf, a chaser, a—”

“Will you give me five minutes, sir?”

“Sure, I’ll give you till hell freezes over!”

“Will you give me a phone to use?”

“Help yourself, help yourself!” Clay said it sourly, waved at the phone, and walked out, winking at Miss Helm and telling her: “See that he gets his call — and let me know when he’s done talking. I’ll be down at the weighmaster’s desk.”

He clumped down the stairs and stood watching the meat go out, over the weighmaster’s scales. Soon the phone rang and Miss Helm told him: “He’s finished, Mr. Lockwood — and wants to speak with you.”

Going back, he found a demoralized young man wiping his brow and massaging his mouth. “Sir,” he said, “if you think that’s easy, getting a paper to take something back, you ought to try it once... They’re killing it in the five-thirty, and tomorrow they’ll run the retraction.”

“Tomorrow? Why not today?”

“Why — to catch the editions that had it.”

“I want it retracted now!”

“Well — that’ll suit them a lot better!”

Why Clay preferred one edition today, for people who missed the original item, to several editions tomorrow, reaching those who had seen it, he didn’t say, and perhaps didn’t quite know. But the question of immediacy, of a gloating call to Grace, before she left her office, may have bulked large in his mind. He stood by while Mr. Iglehart called The Pilot again, talked briefly, and announced: “It’s all fixed up — be in the five-thirty” — and then promised: “O.K., well talk about space tomorrow.” Then, until the 5:30 would come, he filled in the interim with calls to Mr. Gumpertz, the furniture people, and the rug dealers, to have his stuff taken out — and with one to Miss Homan, the day girl at the Marlborough, arranging to have them admitted next day when they came. Then he called the Chinquapin-Plaza to reserve a suite for the night, it occurring to him that since his bag was packed and already in the car, he needn’t go home just yet and look at the wreckage once more.

At last, Miss Helm brought the 5:30, and sure enough, the item was out of The Bosun’s column, and beside it was a box:

It didn’t really say much, wasn’t quite what had been promised, and perhaps left the waters more roiled than they would have been had nothing been said. But he had hardly finished it when he had Miss Helm call Grace, and when she came on the line blurted: “Read your five-thirty, Grace — you’ll get quite a surprise.”

“I’ve just finished reading it, Clay.”

“Proves something, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed — that you’re hardly able to talk. Whatever she does or doesn’t do, it seems to wind up the same way.”

“To me it proves she did not get away with a thing. She might just as well not have tried lousing me up. And, I am selling meat, did you hear me?”

“Then, if you’re satisfied, fine.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Why — nothing, I guess.”

“Dinner?”

“At your place? I won’t go out.”

“Temporarily I’m at the Chinquapin-Plaza.”

He explained about his arrangements, and she said: “Then, if it’s to be in your suite, and I’m not on public view, I’d like it very much.”

“You’ll come on your way from work?”

“I’ll go home and change first.”