Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

“Not particularly.”

“I have to have it soon. Tomorrow, maybe,”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know what you’d call it. An estimate of costs, something like that. For a man that may back me in business. But I want it all written down, with the right words for what I mean, so it looks businesslike.”

Wally, snapping his cigarette ashes into the fireplace, turned around and blinked. “What kind of business?”

“Just a restaurant.”

“Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute.”

He squashed his cigarette and came over to her. Then he pulled up a chair and sat down. “Start all over again. And at the beginning. Not in the middle.”

Haltingly, feeling suddenly self-conscious about it, she told him her plan: a small restaurant, where she would do the cooking herself, and sell nothing but chicken. “They have steak places. And fish places. And I thought — well, down where I work practically every other order is for chicken, so it looks to me as though I ought to have plenty of customers. And then I wouldn’t have to fool with all those à la carte prices, or bookkeeping, or menus, or leftovers, or anything like that. Everybody gets a chicken-and-waffle dinner, or chicken and vegetables, if they want, but all at the same price. And then I’ll have pies to take out, and keep on getting all the wholesale pie business that I can, and — well, it looks like one would help the other. I mean, the pies would help the restaurant and the restaurant would help the pies.”

“And who is this guy?”

“Just an old fogy that eats lunch with me every day. But I think he’s got money. And if I could show him it was a good investment he might let me have what I need.”

Wally took several turns around the room, looking at her as he went. She was so accustomed to think of him as a fat blob that she occasionally forgot what a cold little eye he really had. Presently he asked: “You really think you can put that across?”

“Well — don’t you?”

“I’m asking you.”

“It seems as though it ought to pay. I’ve worked it all out in my mind and I’m pretty sure I’ve thought of everything. I can certainly cook. And I’ve studied the business down there, every little thing I could think of. I mean, the system. And how to save money. That’s the main thing, Wally, about this idea of mine. What costs in a restaurant is waste, and the extras, like printing, for the menus, and the people you have to have, for every little feature you put in. But this way, there wouldn’t be any waste. All the leftovers would go into gravy and soup, and there wouldn’t be any printing, or extras of any kind. I certainly think I can put it across.”

“Then if you can, I might be able to put you in on a deal. One that would start you off with a bang. A deal that would leave you sitting so pretty you wouldn’t even need a backer.”

“Wally! If you don’t look out, I’ll cry.”

“You do the crying later and listen to what I’m going to say to you. You know that model home we had? That dream house that Bert built, so we could take the prospects in there and show them what their place was going to look like if they spent twice as much dough as any of them had?”

“Yes, of course.” She had special, rather romantic reasons for remembering the model home.

“O.K. They got to get rid of it.”

“Who?”

“The receivers. For Pierce Homes, Inc. The outfit that pays me to be their attorney, and messenger boy, and thief, and anything else they can think of. They’ve got to get rid of it, and if you’ll take it over and put this chicken place in it, it’s yours. And believe me, Mildred, if that’s not a natural for a restaurant, I never saw one. Why, that place even smells like chicken. Right there under the trees, with the old colonial architecture that Bert spent all that dough on — is that a place to gnaw wishbone! Dump a little gravel on one side — free parking for everybody that comes in. That big reception room — perfect for the restaurant part. The model Pierce bedroom — there’s your pantry. The streamlined Pierce office — there’s your kitchen. Every stick in the place complies with the fire law and the health law, even to the toilets, and there’s two of them, not just one. If you really mean this, I can get it for you for four thousand bucks, house, lot, and every improvement that’s on it.”

“Wally, now I am going to cry.”

“Was I asking if you had four thousand bucks? I know what you’ve got and what you haven’t got, and I’m telling you, if you want it, it’s yours.”

He leaned down close, looked melodramatically around, as though to make sure nobody could hear. Then, in a low voice: “They’ve got to establish losses.”

“Who?”

“The receivers! On their federal income tax, the return due next March, for the year 1931, they’ve got to show losses. If they don’t, they’re sunk. That’s why it’s yours, for four thousand bucks.”

“Wally, I’d still have to have money!”

“Who says you would? That’s the beauty of it. Once you take title to a piece of property around this town, that’s all they want to know — you can get all the credit you want, more than you can use. You think those supply houses aren’t feeling this Depression too? They can’t give the stuff away, and all they ask is: Do you own property or not? They’ll deliver anything you want, and connect it up for you, too. You need a little cash, two, three hundred dollars, maybe, I can take care of that. All you’ve got to do is take over that property and get going, quick.”

For the first time in her life, Mildred felt the quick, hot excitement of a conspiratorial deal. She comprehended the credit aspect of it, once Wally explained it, and she didn’t need to be told how perfect the place was for her purposes. In her mind’s eye she could already see the neon sign, a neat blue one, without red or green in it:

But it all seemed too good to be true, and when she asked eager questions about it, Wally explained: “There’s no catch to it. They’re in one hell of a hole. On those other properties, even if they did get rid of one, the federal rulings leave them worse off than they were before. I mean, when we didn’t build the houses, even if we had to recapture when the buyer defaulted, there’s no way we can show losses. But on this, there’s the twenty-five hundred the corporation paid Bert for the lot, that not even a government auditor can question. And there’s the eleven thousand five hundred that Bert spent on the house, and the corporation’s money, not his. Fourteen grand all together, and if we let you have it for four, there’s a loss of ten thousand dollars that just about takes care of every little thing for 1931, and then some.”

“But why me?”

“Why not? Who else wants it? Nobody can live in that dump, you know. All Bert was building was a real-estate office, but for some reason nobody seems to want a real-estate office right now. It’s got to be somebody that can use it for something else, and that means you.”

“I know, but before I get too excited about it, you’d better make sure. Because if they’re just giving it away, it looks as though there’d be somebody, on the inside—”

“Oh — I see what you mean. As a matter of fact, a couple of them did have that bright idea. I put my foot down. They were original incorporators, and I’ve dealt with the government enough to know that if some fast stuff like that was pulled, we’d all land in jail. On a thing like this, it’s got to be bona fide, and that’s where you come in. If the government agent don’t like it, he can go up and see your place, and eat the chicken, and satisfy himself you’re using it for the purposes you said you were going to use it for. And then he can take a look at our files and see that we took the best offer we could get. It’ll be on the up-and-up. You’re no insider. You’re no original incorporator. You’re—”