A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

I went into a booth and called the number, wondering whether it would be a hospital or the jail. It was neither. A velvet feminine voice answered the telephone.

“Someone calling Mr. Lam?”

She laughed. “Oh, yes. This is the office of the Silk-wear Importation Company calling its president.”

“Indeed.”

“You have a letter and a telegram here.”

“Business is picking up,” I said.

“Isn’t it! Know what happened? Listen to this. We send out two form letters, one by air mail, and we get two replies back, one of them by wire.”

“That’s the way to write sales letters,” I said.

“It was on account of the excellent job of mimeographing,” she retorted.

“I’ll take your word for it and be right up.”

I took a cab up to the office. Ethel Wells seemed really glad to see me. “How’s everything this morning?” she asked.

“Not so hot.”

“No? What’s wrong?”

“I started out last night to show a tourist the town.”

“You look as fresh as a daisy.”

“I feel as though someone had pulled my petals off to see whether she loves me or loves me not.”

“Don’t feel badly about it. Perhaps the answer was that she really loves you.”

I didn’t have any answer for that, so I tore open the telegram.

It read: Silkwear Importation Company. Send five dozen pair express collect size ten and one-half, color four your chart.

The telegram was signed, Bertha Cool, and the address given was that of the agency.

The letter was in a tinted square envelope. The stationery inside matched it. There was a faint scent. The postmark on the envelope was Shreveport, Louisiana . The letter bore the date line, Shreveport . It read simply, Send me six pair of your hose; size eight and one-half, color number five according to your chart.

The letter was signed Edna Cutler, and there was a street address.

I put the letter in my pocket, said to Ethel Wells. “When would I be able to get a train for Shreveport?”

“Must it be a train?”

“A bus will do all right.”

She reached into a cubbyhole beneath the counter which ran on one side of her desk, pulled out a bus schedule, opened it, and handed it to me.

“I see where I made my mistake,” she said.

“What?”

“I should have ordered my stockings by mail and given my home address.”

“Why don’t you try it?” I asked.

She was holding her lead pencil in her right hand, making aimless little diagrams across the page of her shorthand notebook.

She said, very demurely, “I think I will.”

I handed her the bus schedule. “I’ll be out of town today. Miss Wells,” I said very importantly. “If anyone wants to see me, I’m in conference.”

“Yes, sir. And if any more letters come in, what shall I do?”

“There won’t be any more.”

“You wouldn’t want to bet on it, would you?”

“I might.”

“A pair of silk stockings?”

“Against what?”

“Anything you want. I’m betting on a cinch.”

I said, “It’s a bet. I want to see what’s in the letter. I have to have a residence address, you know, or I can’t fill orders.”

She smiled. “I know. Watch your step in Shreveport”

It was around eight o’clock in the evening when I rang the buzzer on the apartment at the address given me in Edna Cutler’s letter.

A feminine voice came drifting down through the little telephone set. “Who is it, please?”

I placed the transmitter to my lips. “A representative of the Silkwear Importation Company.”

“I thought you were in New Orleans.”

“We have branches all over the country — special field representatives.”

“Couldn’t you come tomorrow?”

“No. I’m making a swing through this section of the state.”

“Well, I can’t see you tonight.”

“Sorry,” I said in a tone of finality.

“Wait a minute. When can I see you?”

“When I make my next trip through here.”

“When will that be?”

“Three or four months.”

There was an exclamation of dismay. “Oh, hang it — I’m dressing. Wait a minute. I’ll throw something on and open the door. Come on up.”

The buzzer sounded, and I climbed a flight of stairs and walked down a long corridor, looking at door numbers.

Edna Cutler, attired in a blue dressing-gown, stood in the doorway waiting for me. She said, “I thought you shipped by mail.”

“We do.”

“Well, come on in. Let’s get it over with. Why did you come personally?”

I said, “We have to conform with the regulations of the F.I.C.”

“What’s the F.I.C.?”

“Federal Importing Commission.”

“Oh. I don’t see why.”

I smiled and said, “My dear young woman, we’d be subject to a fine of ten thousand dollars and imprisonment for twelve months if we sold to other than private individuals. We aren’t allowed to sell to any dealers, or to any person who intends to resell our merchandise.”

“I see,” she said, somewhat mollified.

She was dark, although not so dark as Roberta Fenn. She was expensive. Her hair, her eyebrows, the curl of her long lashes, the enamel on her nails showed the sort of care which costs both time and money. Women lavish that type of care on themselves only when they are property which is well worth the investment. I looked her over carefully.

“Well?” she asked, smiling tolerantly as she noticed the excursions made by my eyes.

I said, “You still haven’t convinced me.”

“ I haven’t convinced you ?”

She looked like a young woman who knew her way around. Sitting there in her apartment wearing a negligee, which showed enough bare leg to demonstrate clearly that she was entitled to an AAA1 priority on stockings, she was neither forward nor in the slightest degree embarrassed. So far as she was concerned, I wasn’t a human being. I was simply six pair of stockings at a bargain price.

“I’ll want to see samples,” she observed abruptly.

“The guarantee protects you.”

“How do I know it does?”

“Because you don’t pay anything until you’ve not only received the stockings, but have worn them for a full thirty days.”

She said, “I shouldn’t think you could afford to do that.”

“The only way we can is by having a very select mailing list. However, we want to get down to business. I have half a dozen other calls to make. Your name’s Edna Cutler. You want these stockings exclusively for your own use?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Now, I understand that you aren’t in business. I’m taking your assurance that none of these stockings will be offered for sale again?”

“Why, certainly. I want them for myself.”

“And perhaps some friends?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“We’d have to have the names of the friends. That’s the only way we can keep our import permit from the Federal government.”

She studied me curiously. “That sounds just a little fishy to me.”

I laughed and said, “You should try doing business now — even an ordinary business is bad enough. But try doing something where you have to import merchandise from a foreign country and see what happens.”

“How did you get hold of these stockings down in Mexico?”

I laughed. “That’s a secret.”

“I think I’d like to find out more about it just the same.”

I said, “A Japanese ship was carrying a load of hosiery. The Japs raided Pearl Harbor. The ship, like nearly all Japanese ships, was intended for commerce in time of peace, but in time of war it had a certain military mission to perform. The captain put ashore in Mexico on the coast of Lower California, picked a sandy place, dug a long trench, and buried the bulk of the silk goods from his hold. My partner happened to own the tract of land where the stuff was buried. He also happened to have some pull in Mexico City. As a result — well, you can gather—”