Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

“Thanks. Many thanks.”

“And thanks. I was on the bandwagon, baby. I cleaned up, hanging right onto your skirts.”

“Oh. I’m glad of that.”

“Some skirts.”

I got back in the bathtub and tried to figure. As well as I could make out, I had made something more than $20,000 on the deal. Counting what I had made before, it left me over $40,000 for my stay in Detroit. When I had finished bathing I went to the phone and rang Mr. Holden. “If you feel like some lunch, now I think we’ll celebrate.”

“You bet we’ll celebrate. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

The rest of that winter was one mad jumble of trains, hotels, strikes, meetings and worry. On account of his success with Geerlock Mr. Holden was made a sort of general supervisor and moved about from one place to another as he was needed. After we left Detroit he concentrated on steel mills and we went first to Chicago, then into Indiana and finally to Pittsburgh, where the plan was to move in on Penn-Duquesne, one of the large independents. I made about $10,000 during these hectic days but I was curtailing my operations more and more. For one thing, the nervous strain was becoming so great I wasn’t sure I could stand it, and for another thing, some instinct told me I had ridden a great run of luck and was about due for a fall. I dreaded that. I had made enough money to pay back Mrs. Harris every cent I had taken from her, and still have enough to live on for years. Or I could even travel, something I had always secretly hoped I would be able to do, in order to broaden myself. So I determined to return to New York. My decision was hastened, perhaps, by the increasing difficulty of my relations with Mr. Holden. Almost nightly now he was making love to me and insisting that we get married. Then, also, he was becoming more and more puzzled at my attitude, and hurt by it, for which I could hardly blame him, considering everything. But I wished above everything else to avoid a big farewell scene with him and so pretended that I wasn’t saying goodbye at all. I merely said I had been called to New York to wind up some details of my financial settlement with the Harrises and told him I would call him by long distance every night. This, I am a little ashamed to say, I fully intended to do, for I had made a little $1,000 commitment against Penn-Duquesne, on the short side, I mean, and I wanted to keep track of things so I would know how to handle it. He suspected nothing. He rode with me to the airport, for by this time I went everywhere by plane, and was very affectionate and urged me to get back as soon as I could. “I’ve a hard nut to crack this time, Carrie. I need you.”

“I’ll call you — every night.”

“I’ll be standing by — every night at twelve sharp.”

I reached Newark at one o’clock. I took a taxi at once to the hotel where I had reserved a suite. Then I rushed down to my bank, which I hadn’t visited in more than three months, and went over both my balances there, the checking and the savings. Most of my money was on deposit with Mr. Hunt, but I still had several thousand here from the original $25,000 I had deposited before I left New York. As soon as I had checked over my books with them I drew $5,000 cash and took a taxi over to Fifth Avenue. The rest of the afternoon I spent buying clothes, for I wanted to look quite smart when I made my appearance at Harris, Hunt and Harris the next morning. I looked up Miss Eubanks, the lady who had been so helpful to me before, and she outfitted me again.

When I told her what I wanted she at once advised black. This I agreed to, as I had never had a black dress, and I was quite excited to know how I would look in it. She picked out a model made of sheer wool and I loved it. It made me look slim, but it was very severe and I wanted something to relieve it a little. But when I mentioned this Miss Eubanks became quite upset and said the whole point of the dress would be lost if I added anything to it whatever. She then lectured me on the need for simplicity, which was something I always tried to remember but sometimes forgot. So I took it as it was, and she helped me pick hat, shoes and stockings to go with it, as well as a smart black handbag. Then we picked out two evening dresses, one light blue, the other cream white, and again they were completely simple and unadorned.

When we got through picking the shoes and stockings to go with these it was nearly five o’clock and then I got to the main thing that was on my mind. I wanted her to go with me to pick out a fur coat, and as I already spent so much money with her store I thought they might let her off. So she spoke to the head of her department and he said all right and she called one of the leading furriers to make sure they would be open when we got there. So then we took a taxi and went down there. But next door to the furrier’s was a perfume place, and before we proceeded to buy the coat I dashed in and bought some perfume I had always loved and had never been able to afford. It cost $25 for a little bottle, and I would have taken it if it had cost $50.

At the furrier’s they brought us into a private room and paraded models in front of me. Finally I decided on a mink coat, so dark and so beautifully made that it looked like sable. Miss Eubanks advised the three-quarter length, as she said it was smarter and more becoming to me. It cost $2,500 and I paid cash and took it with me. I asked Miss Eubanks to come around to the hotel with me for dinner and when we got there the package from her store had been delivered and we spent the next two hours trying on my things and even after she had gone home that night, which was around ten o’clock, I tried them on all over again and finally stood in front of the long mirror in the bathroom door in my new black street dress, big black hat and beautiful mink coat for more than an hour. I hated to go to bed.

Harris, Hunt and Harris were in a gigantic office building on Broad Street, one of the places I had gone into at the time I was considering a restaurant business of my own downtown. They occupied one whole floor. I had not phoned Mr. Hunt I was coming, as I could not quite resist the temptation to burst in on him as a big surprise. But when I stepped out of the elevator and gave my name to the girl at the window she looked up quickly and reached for her telephone. I had barely sat down when a gentleman appeared who said he was Mr. Hunt’s secretary and invited me inside. “Mr. Hunt stepped out, Mrs. Harris, but he’s in the building and I’ll have him located at once.”

He opened a door and began leading me through a very large room with bright lights and rows and rows of desks where people were busily working. A stir went over the place as soon as I appeared. Nobody stared but I could feel that I was an object of great curiosity and that they were all aware of me, from the girls, who started talking to each other with an elaborate appearance of casualness, to the men, who kept shooting little glances at me over papers they pretended to examine.

That is, all except one. Behind a desk at the far end of the room where I would have to pass him, sat Grant, and I could tell that he hadn’t seen me or noticed any of the commotion I had caused. My heart stood still when I saw him and I almost turned around and ran out. However, I kept following the secretary, and then suddenly I wanted to cry. Because he looked so insignificant there, with a green shade over his eyes and a pipe in his mouth, writing something on a piece of paper. Most of the sunburn was gone and he looked sallow and seedy. It flashed through my mind what he had once said about being a slave, and I wished he would at least take off the green eyeshade, which depressed me most of all.

But I kept sailing bravely along, and then I remembered my perfume. As I passed his desk I opened my coat quickly so he would get a good whiff of it as I went by. He looked up and our eyes met. “Oh, hello!” I said, just as gaily as though nothing had ever happened between us at all. Then I zipped through a glass door marked “Mr. Hunt,” and the secretary was bowing me into a big leather chair. But all I could think of was the amazed look on Grant’s face, and I began fumbling in my handbag so I wouldn’t show how much I wanted to cry.