"Last name?"
She shrugged and fished in her purse for a cigarette. "What does it
matter? Mind if I sit down?"
"Go ahead," I rumbled. "But don't stop talking!"
"Oh," she said, "we've got plenty of time to straighten things out."
She lit the cigarette and walked over to the chair by the window. On
the way, she gave the luggage a good long look.
Arthur's eyestalk cowered back into the suitcase as she came close.
She winked at me, grinned, bent down and peered inside.
"My," she said, "he's a nice shiny one, isn't he?"
The typewriter began to clatter frantically. I didn't even bother to
look; I told him: "Arthur, if you can't keep quiet, you have to expect
people to know you're there."
She sat down and crossed her legs. "Now then," she said. "Frankly,
he's what I came to see you about. Vern told me you had a pross. I
want to buy it."
The typewriter thrashed its carriage back and forth furiously.
"Arthur isn't for sale."
"No?" She leaned back. "Vern's already sold me his interest, you know.
And you don't really have any choice. You see, I'm in charge of
materiel procurement for the Major. If you want to sell your share,
fine. If you don't, why, we requisition it anyhow. Do you follow?"
I was getting irritated--at Vern Engdahl, for whatever the hell he
thought he was doing; but at her because she was handy. I shook my
head.
"Fifty thousand dollars? I mean for your interest?"
"No."
"Seventy-five?"
"No!"
"Oh, come on now. A hundred thousand?"
It wasn't going to make any impression on her, but I tried to explain:
"Arthur's a friend of mine. He isn't for sale."
* * * * *
She shook her head. "What's the matter with you? Engdahl wasn't like
this. He sold his interest for forty thousand and was glad to get it."
Clatter-clatter-clatter from Arthur. I didn't blame him for having
hurt feelings that time.
Amy said in a discouraged tone: "Why can't people be reasonable? The
Major doesn't like it when people aren't reasonable."
I lowered the gun and cleared my throat. "He doesn't?" I asked, cuing
her. I wanted to hear more about this Major, who seemed to have the
city pretty well under his thumb.
"No, he doesn't." She shook her head sorrowfully. She said in an
accusing voice: "You out-of-towners don't know what it's like to try
to run a city the size of New York. There are fifteen thousand people
here, do you know that? It isn't one of your hick towns. And it's
worry, worry, worry all the time, trying to keep things going."
"I bet," I said sympathetically. "You're, uh, pretty close to the
Major?"
She said stiffly: "I'm not married to him, if that's what you mean.
Though I've had my chances.... But you see how it is. Fifteen thousand
people to run a place the size of New York! It's forty men to operate
the power station, and twenty-five on the PX, and thirty on the hotel
here. And then there are the local groceries, and the Army, and the
Coast Guard, and the Air Force--though, really, that's only two
men--and--Well, you get the picture."
"I certainly do. Look, what kind of a guy _is_ the Major?"