Philip Dick: Humpty Dumpty in Oakland

Tell me to my face hell, he thought. If Harman knew I knew, he’d probably turn black and fall down in a faint.

It was a wholly new idea for making money, the blackmail idea. What had Mrs. Lane said to him? Some damn thing about you got to act or you miss out. Maybe, he thought, she’s a prophetess. What’s it called? A medium, looking into the future. A fortuneteller.

This was the ideal business opportunity.

It took no capital. No stock. No fixtures. No investment of any kind. Not even ads or business cards. Nor a State Tax franchise.

But blackmail was wrong. And yet, so was the used-car business. Everybody knew that. Nothing was lower than selling used cars, and he had been doing it now for a number of years. Was blackmailing a dirty-record manufacturer worse than selling used cars? It was hard to tell.

While he sat at his desk in the little house in the center of his lot, he saw an old brown Cadillac draw up to the curb. A large colored woman stepped out, wearing a cloth coat. She walked toward him, smiling, and he recognized her as Mrs. Lane.

Rising, he went outside to meet her.

“How do you do, Mr. Miller?” she said, in a pleasant and yet somehow slightly mocking voice. “How are you? Seems to me I just saw you not an hour ago, and here I am to visit.” Her smile broadened.

“Come on in,” he said, holding open the door of his office.

“Thank you.” She entered, stood while he arranged a chair for her. “Thank you,” she repeated, and sat down, crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. “Mr. Miller,” she said, when he had also seated himself, “you was in talking to me about a lot? For your used-car sales business?” Frowning, deep in thought, she said, “I have called several persons and I have come up with several locations, one of which I think has special importance possibly to you. It would be ideal for a used-car sales lot, although it never been used that way before.” Her voice, soft, slurred, came over him like a cloud; he sat listening, letting it happen to him.

Outdoors a passerby stopped to examine one of his cars. But Al made no move; he did not stir from his chair.

“This lot,” Mrs. Lane said, “is in downtown Oakland, around Tenth Street. In the real business district where you don’t see so many lots. I mean, it isn’t on no used-car lot row.”

“I see,” he said. And then, drawing himself up in his chair, he said, “I’ll tell you; I’ve been considering another line of business entirely. A new business opportunity that came my way since I talked to you.”

Glancing up at him doubtfully, she said, “You mean since you saw me? An hour ago, when you was in my office?”

“Yes,” he said.

She eyed him for a time. “My goodness,” she said.

“It’s an entirely different line,” he said. “I was sitting here giving it some thought.”

“You haven’t decided,” she said. “For sure.”

“No,” he admitted.

She said, “Mr. Miller, of course I don’t have no idea in the world what line it is you talking about. I know you could go into it however and do a bang-up job; I know that. However, I do point out to you that used-car sales is what you have been doing for some time, and in my opinion there’s no doubt but what that your chosen profession.” Her voice trailed off; she did not seem certain, now; she seemed to be trying to probe him, to draw him out. The notion of the new business opportunity had clearly thrown her off. She went on, “I like to drive you to the location in question, if you would be willing to permit me. For me, that’s an offer always good. I always be willing to do that.”

“I know,” he said. “Thanks.”

With what seemed almost anxiety, she gazed at him and said, “An’ no obligation to you. That for sure, Mr. Miller.” She opened her purse and fished around in it. “I want you to get the very right thing. So many people, they go wrong at this point. In relocating. It such a big thing. They don’t know how to do it, and they get worried; they get apprehensive.” She trailed the word out.

“I guess they jump at the first thing,” he heard himself say. But it was a perfunctory remark; he did not really care about this, now. He was still thinking about Harman.

Mrs. Lane said, “Your whole life depend on a decision of this kind. I tell my clients that. They don’t see that, even though it they who going to be affected for years to come. I know more about them in that regard; I see it all in the almost fourteen years I been a licensed real-estate broker in the state of California. There people right now who buy a particular piece of property through me, thinking of it as a way of making money or an investment . . . and it change their lives. They not the same now. I could give you one for instance after another, but I know you a highly intelligent man, Mr. Miller, and I don’t have to go into the particularities. Like look how you get to know Mr. Fergesson and it make you a different person because of.” Her voice had a low, earnest quality, not like a sales voice at all; he was back once more, as he had been in her office, listening to the mother-lecture, or whatever it was that she did. Whatever it was, it had no relationship to the conventional business interchange, at least as he knew it among whites.

“I think you’re right,” he managed to say, feeling sleepy, almost unable to keep his eyes open.

Mrs. Lane shut her purse and held it upright on her lap with both her large oddly-light hands. What fine hands she has, Al Miller noticed. Almost like a man’s. Completely competent, as if all the possible muscles and tendons had been used for every skill there was. As if the hands had been everywhere, done everything. And how wrinkled they were. The rest of her was smooth; she had the flesh, the skin of a young girl. Now she had taken off her coat. Again he paid attention to her bare arms. She did not even seem to perspire. Amazing, he thought. And, back to her hands . . . in texture, in color, in size they bore no relation to the rest of her. Hands joined on to her, he decided. The palms had an almost pinkish quality. The skin there, he thought, was quite thick, almost like leather. And very dry.

Studying him with her large smoky eyes, she said, “I see someone I know drop by here. You may have had the experience from your office like I have from mine; you can see up and down the street, and when nobody visiting you keep looking out for curiosity. Don’t it was Mr. Harman who come by in his Coup£ de Ville not so long ago, after you talk to me?”

At that he nodded.

“I know him,” Mrs. Lane said. “Let me ask you.” In a halting, preoccupied voice she said, “It is he you going into a business opportunity with?”

Al Miller made a sound that was neither yes nor no. He woke up now. So Mrs. Lane knew Harman; it made him aware and interested. And also cautious.

“I decipher from your tone,” she said, “that you been in a negotiation with Mr. Harman, and you had reference to that when you say a new business possibility come your way since you saw me in my office. Well, I want to tell you something.” She looked now, it seemed to him, actually a little frightened. She wet her lips, hesitated, gripped her purse with both hands and shifted about on the chair. “This a little chair,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“I know him,” she said, “something like five year. Naturally I hear a lot of things. That my business. He come up in my business, the real-estate business, all the time. He buying and selling, like they say. He get in on things. What they call an operator.”

“I see,” Al said.

“He got quite a lot of—” She paused. Then, with a sudden broad smile, showing her ornamented gold front teeth, she continued, “Well, he ain’t like you, Mr. Miller; I mean, he ain’t worried he doing the world wrong.”