Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“Go ahead and tell me,” Bruce said.

Milt said, “Imported portables.”

“The Italian thing? The Olivetti?”

“There’s a Japanese portable coming on the market. Electric. The first one in the world that I know of.”

“Smith-Corona puts out an electric portable,” he disagreed.

Milt smiled. “But that has a manual carriage return. This Jap machine is all electric.”

“How much?”

“That’s the big problem. They were going to have dealers and sell direct. Import them on a direct basis. But a couple of the big U.S. typewriter manufacturers got scared and started negotiating. Meanwhile, the machines have never gotten onto the market. They’re holding them up until they work out the franchise basis. There’s supposed to be at least one warehouse of them around here somewhere.”

“I never heard that,” Bruce said, his trading blood aroused.

They discussed it awhile, and then they finished their coffee and walked back to the R & J Mimeographing Service.

At the curb, Bruce saw a car unknown to him, a light gray sedan with an old-fashioned but highly classic radiator grill. The car had an archaic quality to it, but its clean lines implied recent concepts in design. Leaving Milt he walked over to inspect the car. A three-pointed star insignia attracted his attention. The car was a Mercedes-Benz. The first he had ever seen.

“There’s a car I wouldn’t mind having,” he said, drinking in the sight with satisfaction. “It’s about the only foreign car I can see. Look at the leather inside there.” To him, thick leather seats were the last word in elegance.

Milt said, “That’s mine.”

“It is, is it?” He did not believe him. Surely the short, rumpled paper salesman was kidding again.

Producing a peculiar-looking key, Milt unlocked the right front door of the Mercedes. In the back of the car piles of paper samples had been stacked up; some had slipped down onto the floor. “I’ve got thirty thousand miles on it,” Milt said. “I’ve had it all over the fourteen Western states and never had a bit of trouble with it.”

“Is it an eight?”

“No, no,” Milt said sharply. “A six. This is a real road-holding car. It’s got swing axles in the back. Synchromesh in low. They cost new about thirty-four hundred.”

Bruce opened and shut the door. “Like closing a safe,” he said. The door fitted perfectly.

After Milt had locked the car again, they walked on into the office. “I thought if I got a car like that,” Milt said, “I’d enjoy all the driving I have to do. But it doesn’t make much difference. A little. What I really need is another job.”

“You want to come in and work here?” Susan said, overhearing him.

“That’s the only thing worse,” Milt said. “Retail selling. Of all the degrading occupations in the world.”

She gave him a pale, serious look. “Do you feel like that? I wish I had known. I had no idea. What do you think it does, corrupt?”

“No,” he said. “It just corrodes your self-respect. You start looking down on yourself.”

“I don’t consider that I’m in retail selling,” Susan said.

“Sure you are. What are you in, if not?”

“Performing a professional service.”

Milt smiled. “That’s a laugh. You know better than that. You want to sell something and make money like everybody else. That’s what this street is for. That’s what I’m for. That’s why you hired McFoop here, to make your business pay.”

“You’re too cynical,” Susan said.

“Not quite cynical enough. If I was cynical enough I’d quit this business. I’m just cynical enough not to like what I’m doing. Remember, I’m a great deal older than you, so I know what I say. You just haven’t been in business long enough.”

Bruce had no doubt that Lumky was kidding. But Susan took it all absolutely seriously; she went around the rest of the day with the grim tense look on her face, and with such preoccupation that at last he asked her if she was all right.

“She’s all right,” Zoe spoke up. “She just can’t stand hearing the facts of life.”

“He was just kidding you,” Bruce said.

“I think he was,” Susan agreed. “But it’s so hard to tell with him. He has that ironic way.”

Of course, by that time Lumky had driven off in his Mercedes, dour to the last.

“He’s a very intelligent person,” Susan said to Bruce. “Did he tell you he graduated from Columbia? A B.A. in European history, I think it was.”

“How’d he get into the wholesale paper business?” Bruce said.

“His father is one of the partners in Whalen. You saw his car and his clothes. He has quite a bit of money. He’s a strange person…he’s thirty-eight and he’s never gotten married. He’s about the loneliest person I’ve ever know, but it’s impossible to get close to him; he’s so bitter and ironic.”

Over at her desk, Zoe de Lima clacked away at her typewriter.

“She doesn’t like him,” Susan said.

“You bet I don’t,” Zoe said, without pausing. “He’s vulgar and foul-mouthed. He’s the worst of the salesmen who come in. I’m afraid to turn my back on him for fear he’ll pinch; he’s that kind.”

“Has he ever?” Susan said.

Zoe said, “He’s never had a chance. Not with me, anyhow.” She raised her head and said meaningfully, “How about with you?”

“He’s not vulgar,” Susan said to Bruce, ignoring her. “He has extremely good taste. It’s an outside shell, some of the language he uses. I think he’s satirizing the men he has to work with. It’s his bitterness against the business world and salesmen in general. And many short men are unhappy and lonely. They keep to themselves.”

“Do you know him very well?” he asked her.

“We have coffee,” Susan said. “When he’s through here. One time he asked me to have dinner with him, but I couldn’t. Taffy was sick and I had to get right home. I don’t think he believed me. He was sure I wouldn’t do it anyhow. I just proved he was right.”

As he and Susan drove home that evening she said, “You didn’t mention anything to Milt about your staying at my house, did you? I know you didn’t.”

“No,” he said. He was well aware that salesmen carried tales from one end of the state to the other.

“We have to observe caution,” she said. “I’m tired. We really didn’t get much sleep. And this tension with Zoe… I’ll be relieved when she’s finally out. I saw you going through the invoices. Did you come across anything important you want to change?”

He outlined different matters he had discovered. Mainly he dealt with the need of buying in quantity. Halfway through, while stopped at a light, he glanced over and saw that she had her mind on something else; the rapt, faraway expression had again appeared on her face and he knew that she had heard little or nothing he had said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, when he managed to attract her attention. “But I’ve just got so much on my mind. I’m worried about Taffy’s reaction to not seeing Walt. He had become a father in her mind. I hope you will. That’s how it has to be. I really can’t interest myself in these little petty business details. I think Milt is right; it corrodes your self-respect.”

He said, “I don’t feel like that. I enjoy it.”

Leaning over she kissed him. “That’s why you’re no longer living in Reno. You know, we have a wonderful future to look forward to, you and I. Isn’t that how you feel? I feel as if I’m coming to life. I know that sounds corny, but that’s the way I feel. There’s probably a perfectly sound physiological basis for that sort of feeling…probably the whole metabolism is affected. The endocrine system, too. New enzymes unlock untouched energy.” She clutched his arm with such force that he almost lost control of the car. “Let’s stop and pick up something special for dinner. You know what I’d like? A can of crêpe suzettes. When I was getting cigarettes over at the supermarket I noticed that they sell them there.”