Rolf ignored him, opened the folder and looked at the list of changes.
"You're putting almost a half million dollars into this United Industrial. I never heard of it. What do they do?"
"They made eleven percent on two hundred and fifty million in sales last year. There's over three million shares outstanding, so it isn't thin. They're into electronic defense equipment, coal stokers, surgical gloves and hospital supplies. Well managed, with a B-double-plus rating."
"So what is this Hillenbrand Industries? What's so good about that?"
Joe beamed at him.
"This is your kind of thing, Rolf, because we all know how you like brand names. This mother owns the Batesville Casket Company, the largest manufacturer of burial caskets in the country. They own a company that makes electric hospital beds and electronic bedside cabinets. And they own American Tourister luggage. Sales of four hundred and twenty mil last year with profits of a little more than sixteen percent."
As Rolf took out his pen to sign the approval sheet, Charley stood up and said, "I guess I'll take my dirty mouth out of these sanctified environs, guys. Someday, Reverend Wintergarten, I want you to tell me where you get your shirts stuffed. See you, Joseph."
As soon as the door closed behind him, Wintergarten jumped up and said, "Why do they keep that man on? He's disgusting!"
"You know the answer as well as I do."
"What answer? He's coarse and irreverent."
"All his life Charley has had the knack of making friends, good friends. He has good friends in county government, in the city council, in the state legislature, in both houses of Congress and in a lot of the executive branches. And regardless of what you think of him, Rolf, he is one of the most likable men I've ever known."
"Not to me."
"Let me give you some advice. Charley and Clyde have been with the old man for over twenty years. Whatever it is between you two, it's chemical. Too bad. You're both good men. If push comes to shove, you are the one they'll have to dump."
Rolf stared at him.
"You're serious?"
"Absolutely. So try to like him."
"I can't."
"Lately you're not acting like yourself."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It's an observation, pure and simple. You seem irritable and edgy. If there's something you want to tell anybody about here I am, a certified man of the cloth."
"There's nothing especially wrong, Joe. I keep getting involved in a lot of small idiotic problems. I could shed a lot of them if I could find an assistant good enough to take some of the load. Leases to renegotiate, key people off sick, and this damned weather, hot as furnaces, going on forever, it seems."
"Summer can't go on forever. Nothing goes on forever. And if you stay patient, problems tend to go away in time."
He saw a sudden wetness of tears in Wintergarten's eyes before the man turned away and walked across the office.
"You're probably right," he said.
"Don't try to force things. Just ride with the tide."
Thanks, Joe. Thanks for the advice. I'll... try to make myself unwind, let down a little."
Joe watched him. Wintergarten was moving slowly, shoulders slumped. Forgotten for the time being was his recent practice of moving quickly. Quick turns of the head. Macho swing of the shoulders. Rapid gestures. It was a contrived body language designed to match the blow-dried hair, the magic drugstore tint. Fifty years old aad into the second year of marriage to a twenty-six-year-old woman. Joe guessed that he had become suspicious of her. With cause. But too frightened of losing her to risk the sly investigations which would prove him cuckold.
Joe Deets had predicted the problem halfway through the party given by the Meadows family in the main lounge of the Manse a week after Rolf Wintergarten had brought his bride into the community, some three years after his childless wife, Angela, had died of electrocution when a sudden southern thunderstorm had draped live wires across her Mustang. Joe had liked Angela. She had been a narrow-faced, narrow bodied woman with a wry perspective on the world, and a knack of making her somber husband seem almost lighthearted. Molly was quite different. Round face, big round breasts worn high, fatty little mouth, Boston accent and a direct and challenging look.
Halfway through the party Joe Deets had found himself alone with her, over by the slate fireplace. They looked at each other and they carried on one of those prefabricated conversations. I think you will like it here... I certainly hope I will, everybody seems so nice... We do get a lot of hot weather...
I don't mind it hot; I hate snow and ice... I think you'll like the people here... They have been wonderful to me; I can see why Rolf enjoys it so much...
They made their mouths move, saying inanities, while they looked out of their caves, appraising each other, speculating two beasts on either slope of a deep ravine, lifting their muzzles to snuff all aromas, no matter how faint.
Yes, he had decided at the time. I could manage it. We could manage it. With care and guile. Not now, but within a couple of months. But not worth it. Too much risk for too little reward. The eyes had looked up and out at him from under the black curl of the thick bangs, and the tiny pink tongue tip had moistened a corner of the small mouth. Someday, maybe.
Depending.
Now, well over a year later, Deets had been hearing rumors.
Nothing really specific. Sly wink.
"Rolf's got maybe a little more than he can handle there."
As he walked back through the Mall, toward the exit where he had left his bicycle, he came face to face with a dark-haired young woman as she came hurrying out of a discount shoe store, carrying purse and shopping bag. She had an outsized mass of dark hair curled into small tight ringlets. She wore the white blouse, dark skirt and sensible shoes required of all female staff during duty hours at Administration, Communications and the University.
As she gasped and jumped back in surprise, he cried, "Patsy!
How great to see you! You're looking fantastic!"
"Sure, Joe. Sure. I'm really, really great," she replied, sour and accusatory.
"But I mean it!" he said, striving for conviction and almost but not quite succeeding. Patsy Knox had dark circles under her eyes and there were new lines bracketing her red mouth.
"How are you doing, Patsy?"
"How do you think I'm doing, you son of a bitch!"
"Hey!"
"Hey what? You got me moved over to that rotten Student Affairs Office. You got me moved off the kind of work I really like. You wouldn't return a phone call or answer a letter or anything. You humiliated me, you rotten little bastard!"
"Keep it down! Look, let's have a doughnut and coffee."
"I've got to get back. We're working on the files."
"What's ten minutes more? It's Sunday."
She thought, shrugged, said, "Why not?"
Where two corridors intersected there were small Formica tables behind a Chinese-red railing, and a self-service counter.