"Thompson, Jim - Criminal, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

Well, we had a fine time that weekend. Monday morning I took Bob and Martha to the station, and we had breakfast there before they caught their train. Martha asked me if I wasn't afraid I'd be late for work.
"So I'll be late," I said. "What of it?"
"But won't Mr. Henley say something?"
"I hope he does," I said. "He gives me a little trouble, and I'll tell him where to head in."
Bob's eyes got as big as saucers. He looked at me like I was John L. Sullivan, or someone like that.
I can't put my finger on the exact time when he began to change, but it was some time after the war. It wasn't much of a change at first--he'd just kind of avoid me, and not have much to say when I was around. And when I said something to him, he acted like I was picking on him. I couldn't say the smallest word to him about why he wasn't doing better in school, for Pete's sake, or why he couldn't comb his hair without being told sixteen times, without him getting sullen. Anything I said, it was that way.
He went on like that, getting a little more stubborn and mulish, it seemed, for every inch he grew, and then one day a couple years ago, just about the time he was thirteen and starting into high school, well.. . he changed completely. He really didn't seem like Bob after that.
On that day that Bob seemed to change, I'd had a pretty rough time of it. You probably think there's been plenty of building since the war ended, and there has been. But it's mostly residential stuff, and the money just isn't to be made in that kind of work. Oh, you make money, sure, but it's nothing like it was during the war. Even the commercial stuff you get now is a darned far cry from the governmentcontract jobs. You go to a man now and say, Sure, I'll do such and such a job for you. Cost plus ten per cent. You say that to him, and then you'd better start running because he's liable to throw something at you.
Well, so business hadn't been anything like it was during the war--and it still isn't, believe me, not in tile and terrazzo anyway--and getting along with Henley was like trying to get along with a bear with a toothache. He was after me every day about something. If he wasn't riding me, he was watching me, looking for something to hop on me about. I'm not exaggerating. It was like that, and it still is.
I'd prepare the bid on a job, and possibly we'd be low by as little as four cents a square foot. Just barely low enough to get the job. But that wouldn't be good enough for Henley, I'd lost the company three and nine-tenth cents per, to hear him tell it; if I'd been on the beam I'd have made our bid only a tenth of a cent low. Well, the next job, of course, I'd shave it too fine, and maybe we'd be a nickel high. And I guess you know how he'd take that. I'd lost him a nice contract: if I'd had any sense, I'd have made the bid low enough to cinch the job.
So I'd been getting pretty jumpy and nervous. Not eating or sleeping much, and living mostly on coffee. I was about fit to be tied (and I still am). When he wasn't riding me, he was watching me, staring out into the outer office at the back of my neck. And I could just put up with it so long, and then my kidneys would start cutting up and I'd have to go back to the restroom. That's the way it always affects me when I get jumpy and nervous. I know it's just the opposite with some people--they get bound up, But, me, it gets my kidneys every time.
This day I'm telling you about, I'd been to the restroom three times in less than three hours. The third time I came back to my desk, Henley jerked his head at me. I went into his office, and maybe my knees weren't knocking together but they sure felt like it.
"What's the matter with you?" he said. Just like that.
"What do you mean, what's the matter?" I said. Honestly, I didn't know what to say, I was too rattled to think.
"What are you chasing all over the office for? Can't you stay out of that restroom for five minutes? How can you ever get any work done if you're never at your desk."
"I manage to get my work done," I said.
"I asked you a question." He scowled at me. "You must have been back to the toilet six times in the last half hour."
I knew there was no use correcting or arguing with him. I knew I'd better think of something fast or I'd be in big trouble. And it was just about the worst time possible for _that_ kind of trouble. Mother--Martha's mother, that is--had been having some pretty hefty doctor bills, and it looked like Martha was going to need a new upper plate any day--it hadn't been much good since she'd got it mixed up with the garbage and put it in the incinerator--and Bob was just getting started in high school. Bob had gone right from the Kenton Hills Grammar School to Kenton Hills High School. He'd gone from grade to grade with the same kids, ever since he'd started to school, and I hated to think of how he'd feel if I lost my job and we had to move and he had to start into some strange school with a strange bunch of kids. He hadn't been doing too well in school lately, as it was. It might set him back seriously if he had to make a change now.
Henley was waiting for me to say something. He was hoping I'd tangle myself up, give him an excuse to fire me. I think he was, anyway.
"Well," he said, "how about it? For God's sake, are you deaf and dumb?"
And all of a sudden I had an inspiration.
"No, I'm not deaf and dumb," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "and I'm not blind either."
"Huh?" he grunted. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that restroom was getting to be a kind of play room," I said. "People have been hanging around back there, smoking and swapping jokes, when they should be out here working. I'm putting a stop to it."
"Well, say, now." He leaned back in his chair. "That's all right, Al! Been giving 'em hell, huh?"
"They get out fast," I said, "when they see me coming."
"Who were they, Al, some of the worst offenders? Give me their names."
"Well . . ." I hesitated. And I thought about Jeff Winter and Harry Ainslee and some of the others that had tried to knife me every time I turned my back. One of their favorite tricks was to loaf along until they saw I was tied up on something, then spring some deal that had to be settled right away. You know, trying to make it look like I was slowing down. Like I was a bottleneck and they couldn't get their jobs done on account of me.
But I wasn't going to be lowdown just because they were. I wouldn't be like them for any amount of money.
"I think one's been about as bad as another," I said. "I wouldn't want to name anyone in particular."
"Mmmm. Uh-huh," he nodded. "Well, I'll tell you what you'd better do, Al. You lock the place up, and keep the key at your desk. Make 'em come to you for it whenever they want to go."
So that's what I did. That's how I squeezed out of one of the tightest places I'd ever been in. And there wasn't anything wrong with it, was there? After all, I was supposed to be in charge of the outer office. The men should get permission from me before leaving their work.
Henley didn't ride me about a thing for the rest of the day, and he stopped watching me. Then that night, as I was getting ready to leave, he called me into his office again.
"Been thinking about you, Al," he said. "Looks like you're more on the ball than I thought you were. You keep it up, and maybe we can boost you to three-fifty."
"Why, that's--that's fine!" I said. My salary was three twenty-seven-fifty a month (and it still is). "I'll certainly do all I can to deserve it."
"Three-fifty," he said, his eyes veiled, smiling in a way I didn't understand. "That's pretty good money for a man your age, isn't it?"
"Well," I laughed. "I'm not exactly a Methuselah, Mr. Henley. I won't be forty-nine until next--"
"Yeah? You don't think it is good money?"
"Yes, sir. I mean--I was just going to say that. . . . Yes, sir," I said.
"You agree you'd be damned lucky to get it, a man your age?"
"I'd be . . . be darned lucky to get it," I said. "A man my age."
I went on home, not feeling too good although there wasn't any reason why I shouldn't have. I'd done the right thing, the only thing I could have done. I hadn't hurt anyone and it looked like I might have got myself a raise, so everything was all right. But I guess I kind of wanted someone to tell me it was.
We had pickled beets, peas, and sweet potatoes for dinner that night. It seemed that Martha had taken the labels off the cans to make some candlestick shades, and she didn't know what was in them until she opened them up.
I said it was a dandy dinner, the very things I liked. Sometimes I forget myself and scold her, but I try not to. She can't help it, you see, according to the doctors. She's been a little giddy ever since she started going through the change of life. Maybe even before.
Well, so we all started eating, and I brought up the matter of the raise in an offhand way. I mentioned that first, and then I just sort of dragged in the other things, the restroom and so on.
Martha said it was wonderful; she carried on for a minute or two about how smart I was. "I guess you showed them," she said. "They have to get up pretty early in the morning to get ahead of my Al."
Bob looked down at his plate, He didn't eat anything.
"Didn't you hear your father?" Martha frowned at him. "All those people have been picking on him, and now he's got _them_ in hot water. And maybe he'll get a raise besides!"
"I'll bet he don't," said Bob.
"Well, now," I said. "I really didn't get the boys in any trouble. Nothing like it. I simply.. . What makes you think I won't, Bob?"