Night Gallery 1 (14 page)

He bowed as he closed the door behind him. "How do you do, madam. Could I interest you in a line of plastics?"

Miss Alcott felt like a woman who'd lost her child on the beach and then found him again. First she wanted to hug him then belt him. "It's three o'clock," she said.

Lane brought his wristwatch to within an inch of one eye, focusing with difficulty on the dial. "Why, so it is," he said. "Inexorable time in its flight."

He walked across the room over to his desk. "But what the hell," he said, "this is a special day."

"I know," Miss Alcott said softly.

Lane looked up at her, squinting. "On this day, Miss Alcott," he announced, "twenty-five years ago, having conquered Europe for General Eisenhower and President Truman, I doffed my khaki—and I enlisted in the cause of Pritikin's Plastic Products. Twenty-five years, Miss Alcott. A quarter of a century." He moved around the desk and sat down, blinking a time. "So what the hell," he said, grinning. "If a man can't get a little sauced on this kind of an anniversary—where the hell does that leave the flag and motherhood?" He looked briefly around his desk, then across it to Miss Alcott. "Any messages?" he asked.

Miss Alcott tried to keep the concern out of her voice. "Mr. Pritikin was looking for the Carstair order. Mr. Doane took it in to him." She tried not to sound accusative, but the word "Doane" got spat out. Her dislike of Harvey Doane was no secret. From his carefully curled locks to the bottom of his bell-bottom trousers, he was a conniving little bastard, and both she and Lane knew it.

Lane smiled at her—a smile slightly worn around the edges. "Mr. Doane took it in to him," he repeated. He grinned again and shook his head back and forth. "Johnny-on-the-spot Doane! With assistants like him—who needs assassins?" He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, arms folded behind his head.

Lane shrugged. "What the hell difference?" Then he smiled again. "You see before you, Miss Alcott, a man much too old and set in his ways, and at the moment a little too deep in his cups, to give battle to the young Turk in the cubicle to my immediate left."

That young Turk, Miss Alcott thought but did not say, is made up of one-half brass and one-half elbow, and his mission in life is to ace you right out of the picture. She gnawed on her lip. "He's . . . he's damned anxious for your job," she said. "You're aware of that, aren't you?"

Lane's smile was wistful. He nodded, then turned in the chair to look out the window behind him. "You know where I've been the last hour, Miss Alcott? I've been watching them tear down Tim Riley's Bar." Again he swiveled around in his chair. "That doesn't mean anything to you, does it?"

"Should it?"

"Nope. It's an ancient, ugly, son-of-a-bitch eyesore," he said, "which will now be turned into a twenty-story bank building with an underground parking lot—and it'll have glass walls and fluorescent lighting and high-speed self-service elevators and piped-in music in the lobby." He leaned forward, elbows now on the desk. "And a year from now," he continued, "nobody will remember that Tim Riley had a bar on that corner. Or that he sold beer for a nickel a glass. Or that he had snooker tables in the back. Or that he had a big nickelodeon, and you got three Glenn Millers for a dime."

He laughed, looked briefly at his late wife's picture, then remained silent for a moment. "And while I was standing there," he said, looking up at his secretary, "with all the other sidewalk superintendents, the thought occurred to me that there should be some kind of ceremony. Maybe a convocation of former beer drinkers and Timothy Riley patrons to hang a wreath or say a few words."

He rose, and his smile was vague and wistful. There he stood in the garbage dump of the past two decades, looking across the wreckage of twenty lonely years, and he knew—clearly, rationally, achingly—all the martinis on God's earth couldn't bring it back; the objects of a man's love weren't pawned for a future desperate moment—they were buried and could only be mourned.

"Farewell, Timothy Riley's Bar," Lane said softly. "Home of the nickel beer. Snooker emporium. Repository of Bluebird records, three for a dime. We honor you and your passing. Farewell. Farewell, Timothy Riley—and terraplanes and rumbleseats and saddle shoes and Helen Forrest and the Triple-C camps and Andy Hardy and Lum 'n' Abner and the world-champion New York Yankees! Rest in peace, you age of innocence—you beautiful, serene, carefree, pre-Pearl Harbor, long summer night. We'll never see your likes again."

He felt the familiar ache the lonely air pocket inside of him—and he wished at that moment that he hadn't had so much to drink. He finally raised his head, took a deep breath, grinned at her. "There is nothing," he said lightly, "nothing as remotely embarrassing as a middle-age crying jag! And I humbly ask your forgiveness for having been exposed to one."

Jane Alcott tried to say something. She wanted to tell him that he could deliver up crying jags, four-letter Anglo-Saxon words, and anything else that might please him. All she could do was smile at him, and she hoped—oh, God, she hoped—he'd understand.

"Just bear with me, will you, Miss Alcott?" Lane said, seeing the look on her face. "They knocked down the walls of Timothy Riley's Bar. And as silly and as Goddamned sentimental as it sounds I lost something."

Harvel Doane's voice intruded into the room like a race car slamming into a bleacher full of spectators. "What do you say, sport?" Doane said, entering the room. "Have a good lunch?"

Lane and Miss Alcott exchanged a look. She very quickly moved past Doane and out to her desk, closing the door behind her.

Lane sat back down in his chair. "The question again? My lunch? Dandy."

Doane walked across the room and sat on the corner on the desk. He examined his nails. "I took the Carstair stuff into the old man. He was kind of anxious."

"Good of you," Lane said.

Doane looked at him ever so briefly. "And I added a few embellishments. Hope you don't mind."

Lane shrugged. "Be my guest."

Doane was opening the can, and he was three quarters of the way—slight change in tone now. Just a little incisive. "And the sales pitch you had in the opening · . . I had to touch that up quite a bit." This time he look straight at Lane, waiting for the explosion.

"Touch away, lad," Lane said affably, "touch away."

There was a silence. "You putting me on?" Harvey Doane asked.

Lane pointed to himself. "Me? Put you on? Why would I want to do that?"

Doane stood up from the desk. "Usually when I try to be a little independent—you step on me."

Lane studied him very carefully. "Usually," he said very softly, "when you try to be a little independent you're also a little too flamboyant, a little too artsy-craftsy and a little too dishonest." he leaned across the desk. "I put my foot on you, Mr. Doane, to keep you within ten feet of Mother Earth. I know you're one helluva hot-shot peddler—but if you don't get mildly restrained along the way, you'll be selling Brighton Beach sand and calling it moon rocks."

Doane's smile looked like a puckered-up fist. "Takes

awhile, doesn't it?" he said.

"To do what?"

"To get a rise out of you. Ferdinand the bull."

Lane cocked his head, studying the younger man. "My son, the matador." He pointed to Doane. "Young Master Doane who simply has to draw blood before the six-o'clock whistle, or the day is shot down." Again he pointed to Doane. "Give yourself a point. You pricked me. You got the old bull filed." He stood up and moved out from behind the desk. "I would ask that you keep one thing in mind, Mr. Doane. There is still a pecking order around here. You're still outranked. You're still my assistant." His voice rose as he stood a half an arm's length away, so close to Doane that he could smell his cologne. "And until such day as you are no longer my assistant—I want you to keep your frigging, bloody, hungry little hands off my desk, away from my business, and—"

The sound of the door opening stopped him abruptly. Both men turned, to see Mr. Pritikin standing there. He looked from one to the other. "Is this a private altercation?" he asked. "Or may I involve myself?"

As he turned to close the door, he saw Miss Alcott at her desk, white-faced and frightened. He very grimly and pointedly closed the door, then turned to face the two men again. "Well, Doane?"

Doane turned into a West Point plebe, standing straight, tall, and honorable. "it really wasn't anything, sir." His voice was low, like a man dying bravely and uncomplainingly from a dum-dum bullet wound. "Mr. Lane was simply reminding me of his seniority." Try that, Randolph, he thought to himself. Keep the knife in and squirm—or pull it out and bleed to death.

"Perhaps Mr. Lane should be reminded," Pritikin said, "that seniority doesn't come from merely putting in time. Not on this ball club." He looked meaningfully toward Lane. "I judge a man by his current record. Not last season's batting average."

Harvey Doane's sigh was almost audible. It was working. The Doane Master Plan for Ultimate Advancement was zooming down the track on schedule.

Randy Lane simply smiled. There was no bite in his voice. And no defense. "What have you done for me lately, huh?" he said.

Pritikin, like Doane, needed opposition. When he took on a man, it had to be nose to nose. Belligerence he could shout down, and weakness he could tear to pieces. But blandness . . . that was another thing.

Pritikin felt the anger rise "Precisely," he agreed. "And what you've done for us lately isn't very damned much, Lane. You've put in time, but not much else. Protracted lunch hours—considerable martini drinking—and precious damned little mustard cut!" He nodded toward Doane. "Candidly, Lane, your assistant here has left you whinnying at the starting gate."

Again Lane grinned and waggled his finger at the heavyset, red-faced man. "Mr. Pritikin," he said gently, "you're mixing your metaphors. You want this baseball—or horse racing?"

Pritikin did everything but shake. "I want this
understood
is what I want. Your performance, Lane, has deteriorated. Your sales have slipped. Your entire attitude has become sloppy."

Harvey Doane held his breath. It was coming. It had to be coming.

"I suggest a trial period," Pritikin said, "during which both you and Mr. Doane will share the director's spot. He'll no longer be answerable to you. You can consult each other, but any ideas he has of his own, he's free to follow. That understood?"

Lane nodded. His voice was altogether affable. "Clearly."

Doane stood stock still. The humble hero just getting his Congressional Medal.

Pritikin moved to the door, then turned. He knew then, as he had pretty much guessed for the past year or so, that Lane was on his way out. He was sufficiently lousy as a judge of men not to realize that Harvey Doane on his best day was a plastic counterpart to a legal ambulance chaser. But though insensitive, he was not a vindictive man nor a cruel man. He coughed slightly at the door, looked a little indecisive, then blurted it out. "Incidentally, Lane—I'm reminded that this is your twenty-fifth year with the company. This little unpleasantry notwithstanding—I just wanted you to know that you have my congratulations."

He waited for a response. Lane said nothing. Pritikin opened the door and walked out, closing it behind him.

Lane walked over to his desk, opened up the drawer, and took out the bottle; then he looked across at Doane, who stood there looking uncomfortable.

"Something else, was there?" Lane asked. "Like maybe a funeral oration?"

Doane wet his lips. "I . . . I just wanted to assure you, sport, that I had nothing to do with this. It was just as much a surprise to me as it is to you."

Lane nodded. "Honest?"

"Believe it," Doane said.

Lane nodded again. "He just called you in, pinched you on the cheek, and promoted you—and you were shocked out of your skivvies—is that it?" He stared at Doane. "Young Mr. Doane," he said very softly, "why don't we level with one another? I'm on the way down, you're on the way up—and we're just passing each other in midair. I'm looking at a threat—and you're looking at an obstacle. And that's a lousy basis for any friendly mutual back scratching!"

It occurred to Doane at this moment that Randy Lane, age forty-five plus, and halfway to lushdom, could still be a formidable opponent. He tried to look humble and sound ingratiating. "Look, Randy," he said, "there's no reason why we can't work together—"

"No reason in the world," Lane replied, "except that we don't complement each other. I'm not a competitor, young Mr. Doane. I wear gloves. I observe ancient and archaic amenities. I'm an old-fashioned slob.
The fancy knifing I leave to commandos like you.
" He sat down in his desk chair. "Now, a favor. Would you please to get the hell out of here?''

Frozen-faced, Doane turned on his heel and walked stiffly out of the office, slamming the door.

Lane uncorked the bottle, looked around for a glass, and failing, tilted the bottle to his mouth and swallowed down just enough to make his eyes water. Then he corked up the bottle, put it back into his desk drawer.

There was a knock on the door, and Miss Alcott opened it and entered.

It was odd, Lane thought, as he looked up at her. She couldn't have been over twenty-five—bright, stacked and altogether lovely. She'd been with him for a little over a year. How could someone who looked like that grow so fiercely loyal to someone like him?

"Can I get you something?" she asked.

Lane had to laugh. "Why, indeed. I had in mind a gold watch. Properly inscribed for this anointed day. Something like 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' " He shook his head. "Short of that, my love, I don't think there is anything you can get me."

Miss Alcott took another step into the office. "You know," she said a little nervously, "on an anointed day like this, a guy shouldn't have to spend the evening alone. I've got a steak in the freezer saved for a special occasion. I've got two large Idahos suitable for baking, and a great salad dressing I make myself." There was a silence. "What do you say?"

Lane smiled. "I say—that you're a very dear young lady. I say thank you . . . but no thank you."