Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“Hi,” he said. “I’m making progress,” He had discovered the accounts receivable file and was tabulating the total outstanding.

“You look so busy,” Susan said.

From her desk, Zoe said, “If nobody objects I think I’ll go and eat.” She covered her typewriter and put her smock away.

“Go ahead,” Susan said, in a preoccupied voice. As soon as Zoe had left the office, Susan sat down across from him. “How did it go?” she asked urgently. “Did she say much?”

“Very little,” he said. He felt a certain amount of coolness at having had to enter the office alone; it seemed to him that she should have accompanied him.

“Good,” she said, with relief. “She knows she has to accept your presence here.” Leaning toward him she said, “Did she tell you that we tried to get the Underwood franchise and they wouldn’t grant it to us?” She studied him anxiously.

“No,” he said. “But I was wondering about franchises.”

“If we could raise enough money to put in a genuinely big initial order, they’d give it to us. Don’t you agree? You know all about that.”

“We’ll see,” he said.

“I’m counting on you to get things for us to sell.”

“I know you are,” he said. “But I can’t scare up the money.”

“But you can arrange deals so it doesn’t cost us so much. And you can get things on consignment. Don’t you suppose?”

“It depends,” he said.

“What do you think of the counters? If we get new portables we’ll need a place to display them.”

He said, “Speaking of money, am I officially at work for you?”

“How… I mean,” she said, drawing herself up in her chair and frowning in a hectic, worried fashion, “yes, of course, you started to work this morning, as soon as you got here. I consider you an official member of the firm.”

With great caution and tact he said, “How are we going to arrange my pay?”

“You get to draw from the receipts, the same as we do. Up to a point, of course. And we always write it down; we have a regular form we fill out, like a receipt, which both of us sign.”

“But how much?”

“What—do you think you need?”

He found himself, with her, at this point, up against a blank wall. “It isn’t a question of that. It’s a question of settling the arrangement so we know where we stand.”

That immediately troubled and confused her. “You decide,” she said, in an impulsive rush. “Anything you say is all right with me. Especially if—” She broke off and looked behind her. “If we proceed in our plans, which I really hope we do.” Her voice sank down. “Bruce, I want you to be free to decide what you want. I’ll get out the books and you can see what Zoe and I have been drawing.”

After she had shown him the books, and they had discussed it at length, they decided that he could draw up to three-fifty in the thirty-day period.

“Am I robbing you?” she demanded anxiously.

“No,” he said, glad to get it settled.

“I want to pay you more. You’re worth more. Maybe later on, when we have something to sell.” Clenching her fists she said loudly, “God damn it, we have to have something to sell!”

A customer had entered, and Susan got up to wait on him.

Later in the day he strolled across the street to the dime store to see for himself what they did and did not sell.

The paper and typewriter supply counter ran along one side, not visible from the street; the next counter sold imitation jewelry and buttons, and the store seemed about evenly committed between typewriter supplies and buttons. Their ribbons were heaped together in two cubbyholes. Each ribbon sold for 89¢, an unfamiliar brand, and he recognized them as inferior extra-short ribbons, good only for typing letters, absolutely unfit for office machines. He saw, too, that the store did not stock ribbons for all model machines. Their typing paper came in 10 and 25¢ packs, not reams. It, too, was cheap second-quality stuff, no rag or linen watermarked bond that typists like for their first copy. That cheered him up. And their carbon paper was blue.

He strolled down to the drugstore.

Sure enough, the drugstore carried four brands of popularly-priced portables, and each was well-displayed, the machines were placed at the end of the photo supplies counter, next to cameras and inexpensive tape recorders. He noticed that the drugstore stocked only the lowest priced portable in each line, and no office model machines.

When the girl meandered over to wait on him he asked about the guarantee on the portables. It was a flat ninety days, she told him.

“And I bring it in here?” he asked. “If something breaks?”

“No,” she said, without concern. “You have to take it over to this repair place…” She dipped down behind the counter for a much-creased folder. “They don’t do any service here. It’s out on the highway to Pocatello.”

He asked, “Do you know if there’s any place around here that I can get professional typing done?”

“I think there’s a place down the street,” the girl said.

Thanking her, he left the drugstore.

Obviously they had not gone heavily into typewriters. They aimed mostly at high school students and businessmen who needed some sort of machine around the house for occasional typing. His knowledge of the franchise system came into play; he recalled that often a franchise was let that permitted a dealer to sell only the low-priced items in a line, not the complete line. He could easily find out if the drugstore had a franchise to sell larger machines, were they to want to. Possibly they did not.

He recrossed the street to the office.

Standing in the middle of the office behind the counter was a short, swarthy, round-shouldered man wearing a natty gray single-breasted suit and bow tie. A cloud of cigarette smoke surrounded him as he puffed away. Noticing Bruce he squinted at him through horn-rimmed glasses, grimaced, spat out a bit of cigarette paper, and said in a hoarse but friendly voice, “I can’t wait On you. I don’t work here.”

Near the man Bruce saw a leather briefcase, a satchel with handles. The man evidently was a salesman from some manufacturer. He watched Bruce with an ironic brusqueness, as if he wanted to wait on him but considered himself incompetent and certainly out of place. As if, by being behind the counter but not working there, he was flying false colors. He seemed apologetic.

“That’s okay,” Bruce said, going past him.

The man’s eyes opened wide. “Ha,” he groaned. “A slave.”

“That’s right,” Bruce said. He saw no sign of Susan, nor even of Zoe. “Where are they?” he asked the man.

Shrugging, the man said, “Zoe went to the bathroom. Susan isn’t here. My name’s Milt Lumky.” He stuck out his hand, and Bruce saw that the man had short arms, short legs, and a wide, flat hand, gnarled but absolutely spick and span, with the nails professionally manicured. The skin of his face was pocked. But he had well cared for teeth. His shoes, black and imported-looking, were scuffed but polished.

“Who do you represent?” Bruce said, as they shook hands.

“Christian Brothers Brandy,” Lumky said in his gravelly voice. And then he ducked his head in a grimace and muttered, “Isn’t that a stupid thing to say? This is one of my off-days. It gets me to come in and find nobody around. No wonder there’s a recession. I’m from Whalen Paper Supplies. But imagine, a liquor company named ‘Christian Brothers.’ Sort of like the Jesus Christ Firearms Works. I noticed the display in the grog shop across the street. It had never struck me before.”

He told Lumky his name.

“How long have you been working here?” Lumky said. “I don’t get in here more than once every second month.”