The Pay-off

After two years of working for Sam Tanner I had almost stopped being sensitive about the job. I had almost forgotten a lot of dewy-eyed ideals about government by the people, picked up from professors of political science in college.

From the very first Tanner let me in on everything. A man named Blessing had been his right-hand man for many years. Then Blessing had died of a strep throat, and Tanner told me later he couldn’t find anyone in the organization that he felt could handle the Blessing job.

I had answered the ad in the paper, and Tanner had interviewed me in the cream-colored office on the third floor of the Tanner Building. It had been an odd interview. He had sat behind his cheap oak desk, a great, raw, lean man with black hair curled tightly on the backs of his square white wrists. His mouth was twisted down on one side in sardonic good humor. His black eyebrows met above the bridge of his sharp nose. His long face gave an impression of angularity. I guessed his age at forty-five.

“Your name is Walker Towne. You are trained in methods of local government. You can type. You can keep your mouth shut. You can handle yourself in a rough crowd,” he said. They weren’t questions. They were facts. I nodded.

“What do you know about the city administration here in Harthaven?”

“Not a great deal, sir. I understand you take — an active interest in it.”

“I run it,” he said quietly. “I like your looks. I’ll have you investigated. Report back here in three days. I’ll tell you then whether I want you. Fifty a week to start.”

He had wanted me. I had gone to work. It wasn’t easy work. There were two of us in the outer office — Bess Proctor and myself. She did all the routine stenographic work. I did everything else. Bess is black-haired Irish, tall, casual and hard as nails. She helped me get the hang of things.

I remember her first serious words of advice. “Look, Towney,” she had said, “you are going to be his man Friday. He’s quite a guy. He turns on the charm with all the strangers, but with his own people he’s like tool steel. Don’t try to kid him. Don’t trade on his name. Lots of jokers will think that just because you work for him, they can ask you to get him to do things. Report all those requests to him, but don’t try to do anything about them unless he tells you. He’s in this office about two hours a day. He’s afraid of women. Once in a while he’ll drink sherry. He smokes two cigars a day. His only hobby is making Sam Tanner the biggest thing there is.”

It didn’t take too long to find out how he managed to run Harthaven, a city of over a hundred thousand. He paid no attention to party lines. He merely did every favor that was asked of him. Everyone for whom he did a favor was automatically indebted to him. He traded on the indebtedness. If he had loaned John Smith a thousand in 1930, then in 1933 John Smith’s cousin on the zoning board would help Tanner get around a local ordinance so as to help Henry Brown. Then in 1935, Henry Brown would, at Tanner’s request, speak to his brother on the liquor board about helping Jim Jones get a license. Then in 1938, Jim Jones would hire the son of another of Tanner’s friends. This other friend would end up on the draft board in 1942 and get the son of another client deferred for a while. This other client’s cousin would be writing specifications for county road contracts, and slant a specification toward the equipment of still another client. His gratitude to Tanner might take the form of cash. It was a confusing, tangled web, and Tanner kept it all clear in his mind. Small initial favors had pyramided to such an extent that his influence was felt in every meeting of the Common Council. His men were in office, and he kept them in office. The American public are too lethargic to inform themselves about the relative merits of candidates for office. The voters of Harthaven knew that there was a political boss. They knew Sam Tanner. And yet the city was reasonably clean; taxes weren’t too high; and the pay-offs were handled in a discreet fashion.

Sam Tanner maintained three office staffs. Bess and I were one — the political and patronage angle — public affairs. The second was down in the Magnum Brewery which he owned. The third was in the Excello Construction Company, which handled a good many city and county contracts and also handled the rentals on the Tanner Building. As Bess said, the Boss spent only two hours a day with us.

I remember the first conversation I had with Tanner about ethics. From time to time, quiet men would come into the Tanner Building office, and I would have no clue as to their purpose. After I had been there about six months, Tanner called me in just after one of the quiet men had left.

He told me to sit down. There was a white envelope on his desk. He tore it open with a blunt thumb and spread a sheaf of bills on his desk blotter. He took out five twenties and handed them to me.

“This is a bonus, Walker,” he said. I took the money a bit uncertainly, wondering about social-security deductions and withholding tax. He saw my hesitation and said, “Stick it in your pocket and forget it, son. It won’t bite you. There’ll be other bonuses.” I stuffed it into my wallet and it looked good to me, even though I did feel a little uncomfortable about it.

He leaned his elbows on the desk and said, “Now listen to me for a minute, Walker, and remember what I tell you. This city, or any American city, is set up in such a way that it is very easy for one man or group of men to run it. I’m running Harthaven. You might call me a political boss. That word doesn’t sting. I’m not too greedy. I take risks and I get paid for them — paid well. I don’t grab too much. Suppose I died tomorrow. Somebody would step into my shoes. I imagine he would be greedier than I am. He would take bigger pay-offs. The city would suffer. I take a little, and I have the interests of the city at heart.”

I got courageous and said, “You thinking along the lines of the greatest good for the greatest number? Isn’t that a rationalization?”

He smiled at me, twisting one side of his mouth downward. “You’ve still got some damp idealism behind your ears, Walker. But now you’re sharing in it — in the pay-off. Just remember that.”

I did remember it. I kept wondering just how the money had got into my pocket — where it had come from. I had some ideas. But I had taken it, and I had bought a suit, hat and shoes with it; it was no good wondering. At times I detested the roundabout, sneaking methods of the game, the small furtive men, the crumpled bills changing hands. At other times I felt smart and proud and happy to be on the inside, while the suckers milled around in the street and paid their taxes like little angels.

I tried to date Bess, but she told me something that I couldn’t quite forget. “No thanks, Towney. I go out with you, and all I’ll be able to smell is changed assessments, construction contracts and the damp rotten wood in the City Hall. This is a business, and it’s no pleasure. When I go out I want to go with a clean kid in the grocery or chicken-farm racket. Then I can pretend to be a lady.”

“I didn’t know you felt like that, Bess!”

“I don’t, Towney. I just like to picture myself as a gal with enough sensitivity to dislike the whole business. You keep asking me; one of these days I’ll say yes.”

I remember the morning when things first started to go wrong. Tanner had Bess in for a while for some routine dictation, and then he called me in. There was nothing unusual about the assignments. I scribbled in my pocket notebook as he said, “Go over to the mayor’s office and tell that clown not to use a city employee as a chauffeur when he goes out to get drunk. This is the second time, so tell him in a rough way. Then stop in and see Vince at the sales agency, and tell him that the next sedan he gets goes to Harold Vogler over at Consolidated. Tell him I don’t care who the hell is on his list. Vogler gets the next one. Then call on a Mrs. Mary Hanrahan at 16 Otter Street, and tell her that her assessment has been reduced to three thousand. Tell her that I arranged it and tell her to keep her big mouth shut about it. Don’t tell the neighbors. Then go see Lamonte on the park board. Tell him that I’ve decided that the tree-surgery contract should go to Watson. Tell him to check Watson’s equipment and write the specifications around them. Call up Watson, and tell him that I’ll stop in at his club at five for a drink with him. Then...”

He was about to continue when Bess rapped once on the door and came in. Tanner scowled at her, and she said quickly, “Farrell is out here, and he’s excited. He says it’s urgent.”

“Send him in. Walker, you stick here.”

Farrell came bustling in, a small graying man in a rumpled brown suit. He had an air of importance, and he was chewing on his lip. He looked at me cautiously.

“Come on, Farrell. Shut the door behind you. Walker Towne sits in on this, whatever the hell it is.” There was no charm in Tanner’s manner. Farrell was one of the group, a small cog, full of self-importance. Nobody cared much for him, but he had never stepped far enough out of line to be brushed off.

Farrell said in a high nervous voice, “Sam, there’s all hell to pay. There’s a kid named Santosa in the City Engineering Department, and he got hold of a list of the fake overtime pay, and his name was on it, and he’s asking Mike Florence where the hell the money is.”

Tanner’s eyes narrowed. He said, “I told you a long time ago that your fake overtime is a clumsy damn way of making dough. Who let Santosa see the list?”

“This Santosa has been pestering Mike, asking when he’s going—”

“Answer the question, Farrell. Do you want me to call Mike up?”

Farrell came apart at the seams. His hands shook, and he dropped his hat. He swooped it up off the floor, and his face flushed with the exertion of stooping over. “Sam, it was just plain foolishness. You see, I had all these papers in my hand and I passed Santosa, who was heading toward the treasurer’s office, and I—”

“Yeah,” Tanner interrupted, in a voice that was dangerously soft. His face was expressionless. “You get too lazy to walk with the papers yourself so you let a guy carry them, and his name is on the list. You’ve been in the City Hall for over twenty years, Farrell. Resign this afternoon. Go buy a farm or something. You’re all through as a public servant.”

Farrell got dead white. “But I can’t. I haven’t got...” His voice trailed off.

“Resign this afternoon. If you don’t I’ll get your son fired at Consolidated. That’d be too bad. He’s got more on the ball than you ever had. And if I remember, your daughter’s husband works over at Sindley’s. Maybe he can find another job as good.”

Farrell stood for a few seconds staring at Tanner. Then he turned, fumbled for the doorknob and lurched out. We heard the outside door slam behind him.

Tanner said to me, “I bet you’re thinking I was too rough. I’ll let him stay out of work for six months or so, and then we’ll stick him back in some place where he can’t do any harm. This is no game for guys to be careless in. He won’t be careless again.”

I agreed and then he said, “I don’t know this Santosa. Forget the other stuff I gave you to do and go see him. Patch it up. Get Mike Florence, the treasurer, to give this Santosa the money for overtime that he saw on the list. You see, every two weeks over there, they run through a fake overtime list, make out checks, pay themselves off out of petty cash, fake the endorsements and then cash the checks at the bank to reimburse petty cash. When the checks come back in the statement, they get hidden real deep in the files. Tell Mike to fix up his books so it won’t show. I don’t care how the hell he does it. Maybe he better pay it out of his own pocket.”

On the way over to City Hall, I had to stop in a drugstore and phone Tanner and tell him that I had passed Farrell on the street. I told Tanner that he was right about Farrell not ever being careless again. One of the rear wheels of the truck he walked into went right over his head. I recognized the brown suit and cracked shoes. Probably was worrying so hard that he didn’t see the truck. Tanner sounded mildly shocked, then he told me to hurry up and see this Santosa.

I found Santosa behind a drawing board in the engineering department. He was a soft-looking Italian kid with big liquid eyes and a trembling chin. I told him to come along with me, and I took him out to the water fountain in the hall where we could talk. “I’m Walker Towne,” I told him. “I work for Sam Tanner. Mr. Tanner heard that there was a little trouble here about some overtime pay; he wants to know if he can help you out.”

The kid looked puzzled. “It’s like this,” he said. “Last month I take a list down to the treasurer’s office. Mr. Farrell give it to me to take down. I happen to see my name, John Santosa, and after it, it says twelve bucks. On the top of the list it says overtime. I don’t say anything about it, and I wait for a while to see if I get the check. I don’t. So I go see Mr. Florence, and he acts funny. He tells me that

I imagine it. He laughs and says I am nuts, to go back to work and don’t bother him. I don’t like no run-around like that. Something’s fishy, and I want to know who gets my twelve bucks, see.”

The trembling chin firmed up, and he suddenly looked very stubborn. I told him that I’d see what I could do. He went back to work, and I went down to Mike Florence’s office. Mike is a beefy citizen with crisp white hair, a ruddy face and a twinkling smile. He was able to see me right away. He shut the door to his office, and I pulled a chair up close to his desk.

He leaned toward me, and the twinkle was gone. “Does Sam figure I had anything to do with this?”

I made my voice quiet like Tanner’s and kept all expression off my face. “Not at all, Mike. Sam wonders why you didn’t pay the kid his twelve bucks and shut him up. By the way, Farrell’s dead.”

He arched his eyebrows and said, “Politically? Wasn’t he always?”

“No, Mike,” I said patiently. “D-E-A-D. As in corpse, coffin, undertaker. A truck wheel ran over his jolly little head.”

I waited while he absorbed it, wiped off his glowing face with a big crisp handkerchief. Then he said, “Damn it, Walker! You’re getting as cold as Sam.”

“You want me to tell Sam that you think he’s too cold?”

“Hell, no. What’s the matter with you? That was between friends.”

“I have no friends,” I said. “Now get back to the point. Why didn’t you give him his twelve bucks?”

“I tried to,” he complained. “It was after the pay period, and I couldn’t have another check made out. You know, we haven’t got everybody around here. Just key guys. When you make out checks you let clerks in on it, and they aren’t in the know. Besides, it would screw up the books. I can’t plumber them around, you know. These guys from the State Comptroller’s Office aren’t dummies. And this Santosa won’t take cash. He wants a check. I can’t do anything with him. Better see him and try to give him the twelve. Get him to take it; I’ll reimburse you.”

I went back and got Santosa out of his office again. He stood in front of me in the hall, a half head shorter. I counted out twelve dollars and tried to stick them in his hand. He put his hands behind his back.

“What’s the matter, John?” I asked him. “It was a little mistake. Here, you take the twelve bucks and forget it. Come on.”

“I can’t do it. I promised Bobby.”

“And who is Bobby?”

“My wife. An English girl I married when I was in London with the Army.”

“You don’t happen to know what she’s got in mind, do you?”

“Sure,” he said. “She says that by accident I found out where public money is going. It’s some kind of graft. She says that she has always heard about this country being a democracy, and she says I got to stick up for my rights. She wants me to make a big fuss about this. And I’m making a fuss.”

“You’re both wrong, John,” I said patiently. “This was just a little mistake. Tell you what I’ll do though. I’ll see that you get a raise of fifteen bucks a month starting next month. That ought to make it right.”

“No, sir. All I want is a check dated last month made out to me for twelve bucks. Over on the corner it’s got to say for overtime. That’s all I want.”

I looked down at him. He made me angry. It was such a small problem, and still he wouldn’t let me solve it. I walked away from him, which was a mistake, and phoned Tanner from Florence’s office. I caught Sam at the brewery I sketched in the details, telling why Mike didn’t want to risk making out a new check. Then I waited for instructions.

He sighed heavily and said, “What’s wrong with you, Walker? Is this little guy scaring you? Go see him where he lives tonight. See him and this wife of his and go up to a thousand to buy them off. If that won’t work, scare ’em off. Impress ’em with what might happen, and then we can forget the whole thing. They got no proof.”

I found the Santosa apartment on the second floor of a brown frame two-family house on lower Stanley Street. It was six o’clock, and kids were playing all over the street. The hall door was open, so I went on up and knocked.

Santosa opened the door. He had changed to a soft yellow sport shirt and gray slacks. He recognized me and said, “You got my check?”

I said that I hadn’t it on me and tried to walk in. He tried to shut the door in my face. I banged my shoulder into it enough to open it up and drive him back.

“I’m going to call a cop,” he said, his dark eyes hot.

“Go ahead. Call all the cops. Call the chief. Tell them that you want them to come and throw Sam Tanner’s man out of your house. Then stand back from the phone and give them room to laugh. I just want to talk to you and your wife.”

He stepped back, and I walked on in. The apartment was dark and airless. I sat on the couch in the front room, and his wife came in from the back of the house. They sat on chairs opposite me. Bobby Santosa was a medium-sized gal with soft brown hair and not a trace of make-up. She had that wonderful pink and white complexion the English seem to specialize in. The lines of her jaw, brows, cheekbones, were prominent — almost too firm. Her wide, steady, gray eyes were her best point. Never let a person with eyes like that catch you dealing from the bottom of the deck.

There was no introduction. So I said, “Now look, you two. You’re heading into trouble. You happened to find out something that doesn’t concern you. You can’t parlay that into a fortune, or even a headline. If you want to keep this apartment and your job, just take this twelve bucks and give me a receipt. That’s all.”

John looked at her. She looked at me. Without taking her eyes off me, she said, “Johnny, go out to the kitchen like a dear.” He looked surprised, but he got up and walked out. She stared at me silently. It made me oddly uncomfortable.

When she spoke, her accent was a peculiar mixture of clipped British and Stanley Street American. “I’m delighted that you’ve come to see us. It shows that you and your chums are worried. And well you should be. In London I worked for a solicitor. When Johnny told me about the check he didn’t get, I went to the Towner National Bank where the city funds are kept. There’s a very sweet and important young man there. I won’t tell you his name. Over coffee I had a long talk with him. He agreed to take a chance. He let me have the overtime check with the forged endorsement long enough to have photostats made. I rented a safe-deposit box and put the photostats in there. You don’t know what name the box is under. You don’t know where the key is. Jolly interesting, isn’t it?”

I took my time answering her. She sat across from me, unsmiling, her wide gray eyes gentle but determined. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what would happen if the state comptroller’s office got hold of those photostats.

The move was obvious. I said, “Five hundred bucks will buy you some pretty new clothes.”

She shrugged delicately. “Quite. I really enjoy spending money. But don’t you find that selling your self-respect is a bit difficult? I’d much rather see how one of your taxpayer’s suits against local government works, you know. Educational.”

“How about a thousand?”

She smiled a little. “If I wished to sell, you’d have been told the price. Just tell your people that we can’t be purchased.”

“A couple of idealists, hey?”

“If you want to call it that.” She stood up — my signal to leave.

I used my last weapon at the door. I said, “It might not be healthy, you know.” The door closed quietly and firmly. The Tanner machine in Harthaven was endangered by an odd girl with gray eyes — and a brain behind those eyes. I had to find Tanner quickly.

He was at Watson’s club. The steward showed me into the waiting room, a dim place with leather chairs, potted plants and recent magazines.

Tanner looked surprised when he walked in. “What’s wrong now, Walker? What a hell of a day!”

I gave him the whole thing, word for word, without advice or interpretations. He paced back and forth in front of me, his big white hands locked behind him. He stopped in front of me and leveled a finger. “Okay. Forget it. Skip it. I’ll see that it’s handled. Go and catch up on the other stuff I gave you.” He walked out, and I left.

Rumors get around. When I hit the office the next morning, Bess came over and draped herself on the corner of my desk, her eyes round and inquisitive. “Come on, Towney,” she begged, “let Bess in on the dirt. What went wrong yesterday — beside Farrell getting it?”

I didn’t tell her a thing, but she kept trying until Tanner came in. He looked older, and there seemed to be new lines on his face. He called me into his office and shut the door.

“Walker, last night I made a mistake, and I’m frightened. I gave a job to the wrong man, to an excitable man. I should have given it to you.”

“What happened?”

“John Santosa is in the hospital, and that wife of his is going to be tough to deal with. Go see her. Here. Take this, envelope. It’s got fifteen thousand in cash in it. Go see her and see what you can do.” Bess glanced up at me as I walked through the outer office. She wore a smirk. Bobby Santosa wasn’t home. I went to the hospital. I checked in the office and found that Santosa was in Ward E. His wife wasn’t up there. A cute little black-haired nurse bustled over to me.

I pointed to the curtains around Santosa’s bed and said, “How is he?”

She shook her head. “Not so good. Concussion with possible fracture. Eight teeth missing. Sight of one eye damaged. Broken ribs. Possible internal injuries. Somebody nearly clubbed him to death.”

I turned and walked blindly out of the hospital. I felt sick. There was an acid taste in the back of my throat. The money felt bulky in my inside jacket pocket.

I didn’t find Mrs. Santosa until the middle of the afternoon. I hadn’t felt like having lunch. A car stopped in front of their apartment. She got out with two men and went into the apartment. I waited for a few minutes and then crossed the street and went up the stairs. When she came to the door, I took her wrist and gently drew her out into the hall. Then I closed the door behind her.

Her eyes were puffy from weeping. She stared at me coldy. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Mrs. Santosa,” I said. “I didn’t have anything to do with this. We know how you feel. I’ve got fifteen thousand dollars here for you if you call off whatever you plan to do.”

She looked at me and then she began to giggle. It changed into a kind of hysterical cackle that left her hanging against the door frame. I shook her, but she couldn’t come out of it, couldn’t speak. Finally she said, “Johnny was trying to be an idealist. He talked about cleaning things up. I just gave the man from the State Comptroller’s Office the photostat. Johnny gave him a description of the men who beat him up.” She pulled away from me and went into the apartment.

I stood for a time outside the closed door. The king was soon to be dead. Long live the king. I knew that I would be pulled down along with him — that when the whole machine blew up in his face, it would blow Walker Towne to bits along with it. Days without end behind gray walls. I remembered movies. This was where my studies in local government had taken me. I was at the end of the road — unless...

I knocked on the door and when Mrs. Santosa opened it again, I walked in. There were two men in her front room, both grave and somber. I walked up to the oldest one of the two and said, “I’m Sam Tanner’s confidential assistant. Here is the fifteen thousand he gave me to bribe Mrs. Santosa. I want to give evidence against him and the machine.”

It was eleven o’clock at night when I was through. More men had been called in. I had given names, dates, places, amounts. I had their assurance of immunity in exchange for the information I had given them. They let me pack a bag, and they took me away to a neighboring city and had me register at a hotel under a different name. They told me that it would be safer that way.

I should have felt cleaner than I did. I wanted to feel washed and pure. After all, hadn’t I mended my ways? Hadn’t I killed the machine?

On the third night I called up Bess. I remembered what she had said about being clean. I knew that she would understand. She agreed to drive over and meet me in the hotel lobby.

I dressed and waited for her. At last she walked in, smiling, tall, casual and confident. She took my hand warmly, and we went into the hotel bar and sat at a small table in the corner. She had heard about what I had done.

After I gave her the whole story and my reasons, she sat back in the chair and inspected the end of her cigarette. She didn’t look at me. She said, “Towney, if you’d done all this before the Santosa thing came up, then you’d be okay for my money. But you didn’t. You waited until it was too hot on one side of the fence, and then you jumped the fence. Can’t you see it? All you did was squeal, which isn’t good no matter what the end result is. Tanner will get about ten years, I think. That’s the general theory. The trouble with you is, you can’t see yourself. You think you’ve done something good for your country. Nuts, Towney! You’re dirtier than you ever were.”

I tried to explain to her how, all along, I had been growing more disgusted with Tanner’s methods. She didn’t seem to listen. Finally she said, “Let’s get out of here. My car’s out front. We’ll take a drive while you talk.”

She drove, and I talked. She stared straight ahead into the night, her hands tight on the wheel. Finally she pulled up onto the shoulder of a narrow, unlighted road. I reached for her, but she took the keys and slid out her side.

She turned to someone standing in the night and said, “He’s all yours, boys.”

I locked my door on the inside, but the window was open on the driver’s side. They had white handkerchiefs tied over their faces. There were three of them. They hauled me out, and two of them held me by the arms. A short, stocky one stood in front of me. I didn’t see the first punch, but I felt my teeth go, and the world reeled as the salt blood seeped into my mouth. There were sharp, smashing blows I couldn’t count — an infinity of pain as the stocky one grunted with each swing. At last the blows began to grow dull, as though I was standing behind thick cushions. I felt them let go of me, and I floated off into space...

I was walking along Kimball Street in Harthaven the other day, browned off because Bess Proctor had just passed me without even the flicker of a smile, when I saw Bobby Santosa walk slowly out of a store. I took one appreciative look at the gray-green dress which suited her perfectly, and walked over. Her gray eyes looked up into my face. “So it’s Mr. Towne!” she said. “How are you today? Public-spirited?”

It was my chance to let her know how little she knew about politics. “Listen, Bobby,” I said, blocking her way so that she couldn’t walk on as Bess had done, “maybe you don’t know it, but a slick apple named Hickock is ready to pick up right where Tanner left off. All you did was switch the pay-off into new pockets.”

She studied me for a moment, and the fact that she looked more amused than annoyed stung me a little. I was conscious of my need for a haircut, shoeshine and new suit. “You consider yourself a realist, don’t you, Mr. Towne? A rather cynical chap with an eye for what you people call the angles.”

“I’m not a joker with stars in his eyes.”

“Shortsighted would be a better description, I believe.”

“I don’t get you.”

“Mr. Towne, you don’t startle me with this talk of a person named Hickock. It’s inevitable that in your American cities there will always be Tanners and Hickocks trading on inertia, building themselves up in all sorts of nasty little ways.”

“So knocking Tanner down was pretty pointless?”

“Not at all, Mr. Towne. It’s just as inevitable that there will always be little people like Johnny and me who can’t be bought, who will come along and spoil the most powerful and complicated setups. It has to be that way.”

The gray eyes bothered me. I had to look down at the sidewalk. When I glanced up at her, she was smiling a little. “I’ve known that from the start.” She hesitated.

“You’re not all you pretend to be, Mr. Towne,” she said gently. “I’m working in the new mayor’s office. If you have no other plans, stop in... There’s lots of work to be done. We need trained men.”

She walked away down the street. I walked to a diner and sat down to a cup of coffee. It’s a bitter job, looking squarely at yourself — wondering if deep inside you there are enough untarnished bits to fit together — wondering if you have the guts...

I had just short of two dollars. Enough for that haircut, shine, press. And enough time to get to City Hall by three o’clock.