explained. “The office isn’t run right, I’ve neglected it. How about
coming in as office manager?” He turned sharply toward Larry. “The
practice is growing--I could offer you something substantial.”
Larry swallowed. “It’s swell of you to think I can do it----”
“It would mean security for you,” Bemrose interrupted. He tapped the
table with the end of a fresh cigarette, shaking out the loose tobacco.
“The way I see it, some years a fellow with a small practice makes out
all right, and some years--” He shrugged. “This would mean a steady
income for you. There wouldn’t be any bad years.”
With effort Larry located his voice. “It’s swell of you, but I have to
think about my clients.”
“Go ahead and work for them. On the side. I don’t want any cut in your
practice.”
And you aren’t planning to cut me into any of yours, Larry thought. A
few years with Bemrose, and he might end up by not having a practice.
“It’s a big step, closing up shop. I’ll have to have plenty of time to
think it over,” Larry said.
Bemrose surveyed the living room with his hand. “What does it cost you
and Bessie to live? As high as eight or nine thousand?”
“I’m not sure about going into business,” Larry tried to explain. “At
your shop I’d be taking care of detail, handling routine matters.
I sort of like plugging away at the law and helping people. Office
routine doesn’t sound like a helluva lot of fun.”
“You’re the one man who could run the place right. I could make the
money interesting--I could do better than nine thousand. As a matter of
fact, I could underwrite considerably more.”
“Let me think it over,” Larry promised. “You’d make a swell boss, but
I’ve been on my own for a long time.”
Worry cut into Arthur’s forehead, and Larry felt sorry for him.
“Haven’t we always gotten along like silk?” Bemrose asked. “In the old
days at school we used to talk about practicing together. I don’t see
why----”
“A fellow gets used to working for himself. He gets used to doing
things his own way. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If I decide that it’s
too late now to come with you, I’ll help you find someone else. I’ll
start looking around for you. There must be someone who’d jump at it.”
“How about Bessie? When is she coming home?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Well, ask Bessie. And don’t forget to tell her I’ll make the price
right. Have a long talk with her.”
Larry nodded. “I’d come in a minute if I didn’t have things set up for
myself. There isn’t another office in town I wouldn’t quit to work for
you, but there’s something about practicing for myself--well, you ought
to know.”
Arthur buttoned the damp collar of his shirt. He stood up and put out
his hand. “If you should happen to hear from Janice, I’d appreciate
your letting me know.”
* * * * *
The next day Larry went swimming with Bessie at the Rockaways. The
beach was a honeycomb of flesh that shaded from bright pink to
bronze, and every inch of neat, fine sand had been disarranged by the
bathers. Next to the narrow oblong that Larry and Bess had marked for
themselves, a yowling infant who wouldn’t eat the banana it was being
offered kept them from talking. By the time Larry finally got around to
telling Bess about Bemrose’s proposition, his mind was just about made
up. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that a junior
partnership might have saved face for him and made the deal possible,
but it was too great a defeat at this point for him to give up his
practice for a straight salary. If Bemrose had thought it through, he
would have seen it himself. A junior partnership would have been the
thing to offer him, Larry decided.
On this Sunday afternoon at home, Larry went over the pros and cons. He
had been arguing them with himself the past few weeks and began to see
why Bemrose’s offer failed to interest him. He shied away from it, not
for the reasons he had suggested to Arthur, that it was a blind alley
which cut him off from the active practice of the law. The real reason
he wanted to turn it down was _because it came from Bemrose_. It was
rather startling to find out that he felt that way. He must be afraid
of Bemrose. He must be scared of being pushed around by him. Thinking
about it, here on the sofa, he felt the moisture on his forehead turn
clammy. Was he also worried that Bemrose would try to high pressure him
when he found out he was turning him down? Was he afraid that he might
not be able to stand up to Bemrose? It was an uncomfortable thought.
“Feel any cooler?” Bessie flopped on the end of the sofa, and shoved
the damp curls off her forehead.
“I think I’m going to turn down that offer,” Larry said.
“You’re not worried about the stories Liz told, are you?”
“No-o-o. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t be happy taking orders. It’s the
queerest thing, Bess. I always thought I wanted to practice with
Arthur. For years I’ve dreamed about it, and now when it’s offered
to me, I don’t want it. Maybe I never really wanted it. I guess if I
really had, I would have wormed an offer out of him long before this.
What do you suppose made me stay away from it?”
“Don’t take it if you feel like that, Larry.”
“But it might not be the best thing for _you_, Bess. If I took it, we
could afford a place in Westport maybe, for the summer. We wouldn’t
have to go to Woodmere, or swelter in town. This is no fun for you.”
“Don’t you worry, Larry. Papa likes to have us come to Woodmere.” She
plucked her flowered housecoat to let the air through.
“If I had the money to be independent, I’d cut loose from Tammany, and
we’d move out of the district. This furniture would look a lot better
in an apartment uptown. We ought to give some thought to that angle,
Bess.”
“Don’t take something you don’t want on account of me.” She fanned
herself with the sport section of the Sunday paper.
“I might not accept it for your sake, but I’d be _turning it down_ for
both of us. Say the word, and I’ll--” He took her hand.
“I always thought you didn’t care much about practicing law.” She held
on to him and soothingly stroked his arm.
“Most of the time I don’t. Not my type of practice. But every once in
a while I have fun. That Brunswick case I handled last week-- It takes
time to build the right kind of practice, but I’m not in any hurry, am
I?”
“You’d rather do it yourself,” she said thoughtfully. “I understand.”
“Arthur H. Bemrose needs me like a hole in the head,” Larry laughed.
“Wait and see, when he hears I’m turning him down. He’ll make me think
I’m indispensable. Only who is? I know some fellows think there is such
a thing, but the country’s too big. It takes more than one man to make
any part of it click. Where do you find men that are indispensable? In
business? In Washington? Where? No one individual is needed that bad,
I don’t care _who_ he is. HAYNES and BEMROSE is going to get along
fine without me. You’ll see. In a few years--hell, next year at this
time--it won’t matter a damn whether I work for Bemrose, or he works
for me.
“That’s the way I feel. If it’s all right with you, kid,” he added.
“We have a nice life, Larry. Would you like to go to an air-cooled
movie?” Bess asked, with the homely irrelevance he loved. It subtracted
the universal from tough situations. It always made big decisions
easier for him.
Later on the subway he told her, “Your friend, Liz, is a swell girl,
but I’m glad you’re you.”
She rested her hand on his knee. “I’m glad you’re not Arthur Bemrose.
Keep on being a Little Shot, Larry. I like Little Shots. They’re nice
to live with.”
She sighed. “Warm, isn’t it?”
_Chapter 9_
Bemrose’s secretary was on her way to the washroom when Larry stopped
her in the corridor. “Keeping you busy?” he asked.
Even for a woman who didn’t use makeup, she looked drawn and abnormally
white. The fine lines under her eyes seemed to have reproduced by
dividing, and heavy purple lined her lower lid. “I’m so glad you’re
going in to see him, Mr. Frank,” she said. “He’s not himself lately.”
“You look done in yourself.”
“That’s what _he_ says.” She nodded toward the office door. “He just
gave me money to buy a new hat. He says I need it to pick me up.” She
shook her head miserably. “It won’t keep me from worrying about him. I
tell you, he’s not himself, Mr. Frank.”
Larry flipped his hat against her plain flannel skirt. “Buy yourself
that bonnet and cheer up.”
“I didn’t want to take the money, Mr. Frank. I don’t need a hat.”
“Take it anyway,” Larry advised. “To make _him_ feel better.”
Plaintively she said, “But, Mr. Frank, I haven’t worn a hat in three
years.”
Larry had been avoiding Bemrose, not wanting to come to grips with
him about the office-manager deal, but he couldn’t put off seeing him
forever. He opened the reception room door tentatively. It was after
five, and no one seemed to be around; so he went on through to Arthur’s
room.
“Hello.” Arthur blinked up from some papers. “Thanks for coming over.
I’m just finishing up.”
“Take your time.” Larry walked to the window. Three camouflaged cargo
ships, about ten thousand tons each, steamed up the River. They were
probably Lend-Lease. We must be sending a whale of a lot of stuff
overseas. The poor devils over there certainly needed it--this past
month the Heinies had stepped things up. If the newspapers were
telling it straight, half of London slept underground, taking it
unmelodramatically on the spine.
The ships seemed to be moving right along. They had passed Forty Wall
and were headed for the Empire State building, doing a good seven or
eight knots.
The brief Bemrose was reading crinkled as he turned the pages.
Otherwise the room was quiet as Sunday at Salem Fields cemetery. Larry
felt clammy cold, although it was exceptionally mild for after Labor
Day. The sun was setting in geometric orange strips, and black smoke
from the Jersey factories turned the sky into a modern, mechanized
painting. The quiet was ominous. Larry realized the phone must be shut
off and wondered why Bemrose hadn’t asked an operator to wait. He kept
thinking about the job Arthur had offered him and wondered if pressure
would be used on him to accept it. Larry examined his blue suit for
lint, locating a few specks on the cuff. He wished Bemrose would say
something and break the silence.
“With you in a second.” Bemrose made a margin note on the long sheet
and took off his glasses. He walked over and stroked Larry’s back
affectionately. “How are you doing, boy?
“I have to clean up the work on hand,” he apologized. “I don’t want to
leave the clients high and dry.”
“Going somewhere?” Larry asked.
“To war.”
Bemrose’s left shoulder twitched, a new form of the lip tic. Larry
watched the moving tweed of Arthur’s coat, so preoccupied with the
jumping muscle that he didn’t realize what Bemrose had said.
But the sense of it finally came through to him. “So you’re saving me
the trouble of turning down that job you offered me, huh?”
“That’s right! I won’t be needing you now.” Bemrose grinned.
Along with a sense of relief, Larry felt somewhat let down. He had
been fighting round after round with himself and came out winner. Now
Bemrose made the victory unimportant. While he had chewed over the
offer of the summer, Arthur was three jumps ahead of him. Ahead of him
by months. Maybe years. Larry admired the hell out of Bemrose’s sixth
sense of what was going to be important, his way of smelling things out
ahead and giving them priority. As far back as Larry could remember,
Bemrose had done priority thinking, long before the word, priority,
had come into general use. In anyone else he would call it vacillation
perhaps, but in Bemrose it was something else. Flexibility, foresight.
“Did the Army finally take you?” Larry asked.
“Nobody will promise me anything. I don’t know what they need to get
going. The facts were in when the Nazis marched into Poland. If a
business man sat around waiting for facts and more facts--” Bemrose
threw up his hands. “The facts are in, and they sit around, tied hand
and foot. 1941, the year of the great sitting paralysis--that’s how
they’re going to write about it someday.” He turned on Larry angrily.
“Well, let the rest sit around paralyzed. Let the rest of them enjoy
warming their fannies. I’m going to get in. The only question is how.”
“Have you put out any feelers?” Larry asked.
Bemrose nodded absentmindedly. “Listen to this.” He shuffled in his
middle desk drawer and pulled out a folded notepaper. “Judge Haynes
wrote it in 1918,” he said. “We were one helluva time getting into
_that_ war, too, and this was an answer to a letter he received from
Didier saying the French liked Wilson’s new policy.” Bemrose squinted
at the faded writing, tracing the lines until his finger reached the
middle of the yellowed paper. “‘Every night I thank God that we are in
it with you. I pray we have not come in too late. We must prepare for
setbacks because we waited long. I sorrow to think of the days, the
months, and the years we allowed to slip by.’”
He read the words solemnly. His deep, full tone crowded the spacious
room.
“It could have been written today,” Larry admitted.
“Whenever I have a question, that’s what I do--look back to the Old
Man. Nine times out of ten he had already answered it.”
It was curious, his saying that, when Larry had just been thinking
about Bemrose looking forward, not backward. He supposed ideas had
to come _from_ something, go through a process of change to fit the
times, take on the color of a fresh personality, and come out pointing
_toward_ something different. Bemrose’s came from Judge Haynes but
pointed toward a philosophy of his own. He had a sense of history along
with a view of the future.
“I wonder how he’d think I should get in,” Bemrose said wistfully,
slipping the Judge’s letter into a corner of his blotter pad.
“What about asking your friend, Tom Newton?” Larry inquired.
“I haven’t seen any of that Washington crowd for months.” Bemrose
frowned. “I’ve written Tom twice to get in touch with me when he’s in
New York. We wanted to have him up to the house. I can’t figure out why
I haven’t heard from him.”
The phone rang, and Bemrose grabbed the receiver as if it were a
lifeline. “Don’t give it a thought,” he said. “We’ll make it another
time.” His voice sounded tired.
“Professor Storey,” he explained. “They were coming to dinner Friday
night, but he’s going out of town.”
Larry watched his shoulder twitch. It was too bad, Bemrose and Lucy in
the Brett-decorated house not quite able to organize a dinner party.
Larry remembered what Steve Holmes said about Bemrose not making the
client-friends happy. Maybe Liz Brett’s stories had made the rounds,
and the others were uneasy. A man taking it out on his wife, his wife
of three months, was no fun to be around.
“When I get into the War, we’ll close the house,” Bemrose said.
“But you just finished remodeling.”
“Hell, if they _came_ to dinner, she would be scared. She’s never been
around anyone much except that Aunt and Uncle.”
Larry pulled a shabby piece of yellow copy paper out of his side coat
pocket, and shoved it toward Bemrose. The note was from Janice.
While Arthur read, the shoulder quieted down. The large ears stood out
when he reached the last paragraph where Janice had casually sent him
regards. It was as though he were straining to catch the tone of her
voice.
“You could cable her,” Larry suggested. “She knows people in London.
There may be something over there with Lend-Lease----”
“I’d rather try for the Army,” Bemrose said. “The Army will be in it
longer.” He handed back the letter. “Good to hear from her.”
His face was lonesome between the oversized ears, and his ample frame
looked lost in the outsized tweed coat. The sound of him was humble,
too. Larry had never seen a man take to marriage harder. He wanted to
say, “Look, it’s a business deal. If it’s grinding you up, why not get
out of it? Don’t tear yourself to pieces.” But he kept still.
“I’d like you to hear a part of this brief.” Bemrose pulled some papers
from under a jade paperweight. “I won’t try to read the whole thing to
you, just parts of it. Lucy’s picking me up in twenty minutes.”
Arthur had told him about the case once, and Larry knew that it
involved an appeal from an order of the N. Y. Supreme Court, Special
Term. The order granted Bemrose’s client, a Times Square hotel,
permission to join an insurance company as party defendant in the suit
brought by a guest who had lost valuable papers which were stored in
the hotel vault. The insurance company claimed that the jury would be
prejudiced in the plaintiff’s favor if it knew the hotel were insured.
Juries notoriously brought in thumping verdicts against insurance
companies. The companies were fighting the court order desperately,
Bemrose explained. If a precedent of impleading them as third parties
were established, it might result in huge future losses.
Larry could see the point. There was a settled rule in negligence
cases that insurance companies could not be brought into court. It
practically amounted to an invitation for heavy damages. The companies
in this case had ganged up against Arthur’s client, and he was sweating
over his reply brief. He had struggled with the case since spring and
won his motion in Special Term on a section of the Civil Practice Act
which he unearthed, a section no one else had used for years. While
Larry didn’t grasp all the subtleties of Arthur’s argument, there was
really no need to. In his practice, he’d never come up against a pack
of insurance company lawyers. Anyway, he understood enough to know that
Bemrose had turned in a job.
Bemrose paced around Larry’s chair. “_Now_ the so-and-sos have some
unofficially reported English cases. They’re going to claim that if the
Judge at Special Term had seen these cases, he’d never have granted the
motion. Take a look.” He picked up the appellant’s brief from his desk
and handed it to Larry. “The English citations start on page ten.”
Larry concentrated on the text, and saw the cases _were_ fairly
damaging. “I wouldn’t worry. The Appellate Division won’t reverse it,”
he said reassuringly.
“You can never tell with that court. That last English case worries
me. It says the real issue should be decided on the merits without
supervening and prejudicial circumstances being interposed. The Judge
couldn’t say it any plainer. It’s right there.” He pointed to the
brief from across the room. “A third party procedure which brings the
insurance company before the Court is objectionable.”
Larry turned back to page ten and saw that Bemrose was quoting
_verbatim_. In a few minutes he’d be tossing volume, section, and page
numbers at him, not only of this case but all the others. Larry had
heard of people who memorized railroad timetables. Arthur probably
could if he ever had to. If it meant winning a case. His mind was
superspeed film which recorded case references infallibly. The boys at
law school used to say, “Don’t bother to look it up. Ask Arthur.”
“When the Army finds out about your fantastic memory, you won’t have
to worry whether the Idlewild Hotel Corporation impleads an insurance
company,” Larry said. “They’ll stick you in a uniform before you can go
out and buy mothballs for your other clothes.”
“The insurance company walked out of the case,” Bemrose complained.
“We gave them plenty of chance to defend the action, and they wouldn’t
touch it. Said they weren’t liable. Now what do they do?” He motioned
helplessly. “Raise a howl because we have this order to implead them.
Figure it out, Larry. If we have to pay the judgment, then turn around
and sue the insurance company before we can collect a red cent----”
Larry glanced at the door.
It was Lucy. Bemrose motioned her to a chair without getting up to
greet her. She smiled at Larry and sat down rather stiffly. Larry
thought she looked tired, but he couldn’t tell whether it was fatigue,
or the weary gray hat and mannish wool overcoat. Some women looked
trim in man-tailored clothes, but not Lucy. They didn’t go with her
particular beauty which needed fluffs and bows. Arthur may have
insisted on the outfit, the way he handed her stripes for the bedroom,
Larry guessed. Whatever had done it, she looked years older than
Bemrose’s client of a few months ago.
Larry smiled at her. “Arthur tells me you’ve done a nice job of fixing
over your place.”
She looked quizzically at Bemrose, her head tilted slightly. “We want
you to----”
Larry waved away her apology. He turned toward Arthur. “I’ll go on down
with you.”
But Bemrose picked up his brief, pretending not to hear. “Tell me what
you think of this as a clincher under Point One. It’s from _Traylos_
versus _Commercial Union of America_, page three hundred fifty-nine.”
He read distinctly, giving each syllable its full measure. “‘The
purpose of this provision of the Civil Practice Act was to avoid
circuity or multiplicity of actions--’ That’s exactly our situation.
Just what section one hundred ninety-three is supposed to cover. For
the life of me I don’t see how they can claim--” His voice droned on.
Lucy shifted uneasily in her chair.
“Where’s the fire?” Bemrose turned toward her sharply.
“Maybe I’d better phone Marge and tell her we’ll be late.” She went to
the door. “I can dial the number out here,” she said.
“Sit down.” Bemrose swung sharply toward Larry.
The gray eyes clouded, but she sat down. She wet a finger and rubbed a
scratch in the mounting of her black calf handbag.
“What do you make of this nonsense?” Bemrose slapped a page of the
brief. “They maintain that the jury will misconstrue the issue. Instead
of concentrating on the plaintiff’s claim, the jury will try to decide
whether we’re liable or the Company. You’d think juries never had to
decide more than one issue. Why in the _simplest_ actions----”
Larry half listened, while he glanced at Lucy. The stiff thread
of tension held her erect. Larry felt his own neck warming with
embarrassment for Bemrose.
“Have you told Lucy about the case?” he asked. “It’s a question of
whether this insurance company that wrote the policies for Arthur’s
client can----”
“Is it the case about the hotel?” She let her eyes thank Larry.
“Yes, it’s about the hotel,” Bemrose answered. “It’s the matter that
I’ve been working on nights.”
“The decision will raise hell with insurance companies from now on
if the Judge’s order sticks in this case,” Larry explained to her.
“They’ll be in for a flock of nasty judgments. He’s really creating new
law, your old man.” Larry nodded toward Bemrose.
“Arthur, you didn’t tell me that.” Her voice climbed happily, ready to
be proud of him.
“Don’t pay any attention to what Larry says,” Bemrose broke in.
“You’ll have more fun paying attention to what _I_ say than what he
says. Let me buy you both a drink,” Larry offered. “This stuff is way
over our heads, isn’t it, Lucy?” He walked over and boosted her elbow.
“I have to phone Marge. Arthur promised we would get there early. She’s
planning dinner for six-thirty.”
“What are they running, a radio station?” Bemrose asked. “We don’t
always have to show up on time. I’ve told you we don’t. People ought to
eat when they’re hungry----”
“It will only take a minute to give her a ring,” Lucy said, stretching
her arm across his desk.
He pulled the instrument toward him, out of her reach. “We’ll go with
Larry and have a drink.”
They found seats down the street at a bar. Bemrose ordered a Martini,
rocking in an unsteady chair manufactured to look roughhewn. The place
with its stone floor, dim lights, and fake log cabin furniture had
the dreariness of an unaired cellar. It must have been the gloom that
fortified Bemrose, his troubles crawling into this smelly hole, its
dinginess hiding them. He had three Martinis while Larry finished two
and Lucy sipped a lukewarm Coca-Cola. The gin made him noisy. Three
lawyers Larry recognized from the County Lawyers’ smiled from the next
table, and while Bemrose loudly rehashed the details of the appeals’
brief, Larry saw them stop talking. One of them might work for the
insurance company-- Larry brushed Arthur’s foot, and he subsided.