Shaking the Nickel Bush (18 page)

It was the middle of the afternoon before the tailor had Lonnie's suit altered to please him, and as soon as he'd put it on we crossed the bridge into Mexico. I'd only intended to buy a suitcase in Juarez, but the shops were full of hand-tooled leather goods, and with a little haggling the prices were a lot cheaper than in the United States. While I was dickering for the suitcase Lonnie found a real nice tooled-leather handbag that he wanted to buy for his sister in Wyoming. It was a good bargain, so I told him to go ahead and buy it. Then I bought one just like it for Mrs. Larsen, one for Mabel, and some little trinket for everyone at home.

We mailed everything from Juarez, so the packages would have the foreign postmark on them, but I didn't notice the address Lonnie wrote on the one for his sister. I couldn't forget what the barber had told me about pickpockets, and was too busy trying to address my own stuff while I kept one hand on my roll. I made up my mind right then and there that I'd never let myself be caught that way again. If the money had been left right in the cuff of my Levi's, hanging in the hotel closet, it would be as safe as if it were in a bank. No thief would ever steal a pair of jeans the size of mine, and nobody would ever think to look in the cuffs.

I had only one fifty and a ten left when we got back from Juarez, so I didn't want to pay an extra night's rent on a hotel suite. Still, I couldn't phone the attorney and tell him where to come for his sittings till I knew the number of the suite. The only thing I could do was to go and make a reservation. The clerk said I'd need only a sitting room, not a suite, but even at that the price was eight dollars a day.

As soon as I'd made the reservation I called the attorney, but I didn't like his voice or what he said. When I told him who I was he snapped, “Oh, the artist fellow. You may call at my office tomorrow morning at ten sharp.” Then he said, “sharp,” a second time, gave me the address of his office, and hung up.

After supper Lonnie wanted us to go out and do the town, but I got him to settle for a movie instead. The one he picked was a rip-roaring cowboy-and-Indian picture, and there were some pretty good horse falls in it. They were in two short strips, spliced into a half-hour film, but they were taken at the Wickenburg movie lot. I recognized the location the instant it was flashed on the screen, and a couple of the Hollywood cowboys' horses, but I couldn't be positive about any of the fall riders. Lonnie swore that one of them was me, so we stayed to see the picture a second time, even though I knew he was wrong. Both runs had been made on the flat set, and I took all my falls on the one that plunged down the mesa side.

The next morning Lonnie helped me carry an armature, the clay, and my new tools over to our sitting room, then I gave him five dollars and told him to enjoy himself while I was busy with the attorney.

16

Two of a Kind

T
HE Arizona banker who had given me the attorney's name was a kindly old gentleman, but his son-in-law was no gentleman in any sense of the word. His name was painted on his office door in big gold-leaf letters, and under it COUNSELOR AT LAW. Then, down in the corner of the frosted glass panel, was the smaller word ENTER.

I did. We looked straight into each other's eyes for the barest fraction of a second, then he looked down at his desk. In that bare fraction of a second I took a dislike to the man, and if I'd had the amount of sense given geese I'd have left in a hurry, but I didn't. I'd promised the old banker I'd make his son-in-law's bust, and just because I hadn't fallen in love with him at first sight was no reason for running out on my promise.

The office wasn't in the best building in town, and it wasn't a very big one, but three-quarters of it—the part with any windows—had been walled off to make a private office. It was through the open doorway that I caught a glimpse of the attorney. Half the space not taken up by the private office was cut off by a heavy railing, with a settee at one side and a couple of straight chairs at the other. Beyond the railing a birdlike little woman of about fifty sat at a typewriter desk. She looked up nervously when I came in, rather as though she expected me to be cross with her, and she didn't answer when I said, “Good morning.” Then when I told her my name and that I had a ten o'clock appointment, she acted as if she didn't know what to do with the information. She glanced around toward the open private-office doorway, back at me, and toward the doorway again. Without saying a word to me she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, fidgeted them a bit, got up as if she weren't yet fully decided, and went to the open doorway—just as I'd have gone to the one in the lions' den if I'd been Daniel.

She didn't go in, but I heard her mumble something, half under her breath. With her in the doorway I couldn't see the attorney, but I couldn't help hearing him say, in a voice that sounded as if he were holding it deep in his throat, “Oh, it's that artist fellow. Let him come in.”

She did. And I went. But I still don't know why. I, too, stopped in the doorway, because the pompous little man didn't look up at me for at least two minutes. He was sitting behind a huge golden oak desk which was covered with a sheet of plate glass, and seemed to be studying a long, closely typed page in front of him.

He was a little man of about forty, with pig eyes, cheeks as round and smooth as an apple, a wrinkleless forehead, and a chin that faded away in shapeless waves till it joined his fat neck and was lost in the V of a wing-tipped collar. A carefully trimmed little mustache bristled between his characterless mouth and equally characterless nose. He wore oval-shaped glasses with heavy gold rims, the lenses held together by an ornate spring the size of a quarter. One of the lenses had a little handle at the side, from which a pair of black ribbons dangled down across the man's chest and looped around his neck. I didn't need anyone to tell me he'd just had his hair cut and prettied up to look like Francis X. Bushman's—one of the waves was scorched a bit by the curling iron.

Between the two small windows beyond the desk hung a terribly poor oil painting of my prospective client. It was at least three by four feet, and I had to be careful not to grin when I caught sight of it. It wasn't a painting of a man; it was a painting of a pair of glasses with bright yellow rims and a flowing black ribbon, a mass of wavy golden-brown hair, and a pair of rosy cheeks.

At either side of the room there were two heavy, straight-backed, leather-upholstered oak chairs. At one side of the room two children—a girl about eight and a boy about ten—sat on a single chair; spilling off a bit over each side, but looking very prim, with their hands folded in their laps. The little girl peeked up at me; but she didn't smile when I winked at her, just looked down at her hands again. A rather pretty woman—not much more than thirty—sat straight on the other chair, hands folded on her lap, eyes down, and looking as though she might be waiting out a long, dry sermon at church.

I'd just glanced around at an elderly couple, sitting at the opposite end of the room, when the attorney ahemmed loudly, and said, “Come in, young man!”

I did—foolishly—and walked to the front of the desk. The man let me stand there another minute or such a matter while he played at studying the long typewritten page on his desk. I knew it was some kind of a legal document, because every paragraph began with a long word or two in capital letters.

If the little man's pomposity hadn't been so ridiculous as to be comical, I'd have become furious, told him for the benefit of his wife, children, and parents that he was a fourflusher, and got out of there. But it suddenly occurred to me that the paper was a contract—and that the contract was for me. For some reason I couldn't even be furious with myself for having been such a fool as to spend most of my money in getting ready to make one twenty-five-dollar bust. Instead, I had to hold my tongue tight against the top of my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Here we were—two of a kind—both holding four-card flushes and trying to run a bluff. While I'd been standing in the doorway I'd made up my mind that I wasn't going to make the little man's bust, but it seemed to me it would be fun to play the hand out.

After giving me plenty of time to become impressed with the seriousness of the proceedings the little attorney took a fountain pen from his breast pocket, unscrewed the cap without looking up from the document, and marked an X before the second of two blank lines at the bottom of the page. With an air of finality he flipped the paper around so the blank lines were toward me, pushed it across the desk, held the pen out at arm's length, and demanded, “Sign there, young man!”

I could either call his bluff or raise. I decided to raise. I didn't reach for the pen, but let him sit there holding it out for about the same length of time he'd kept me standing in front of his desk. In the meantime I picked up the contract and put on the same kind of an act he had, but all I did was to glance down the WHEREFOREs and WHEREASes till I came to the NOW THEREFORE. I read that paragraph all the way through, and wish I could remember it all, but I can't. It started off with, “The said party of the second part shall execute in durable material which shall closely emulate carrara marble, a true and faithful reproduction of the countenance of the said party of the first part.”

I stopped when I'd gone that far, and said, “This isn't written in proper form.”

The little man took off his glasses, waved them languidly, sighed resignedly, and said, “Quite proper, young man! Quite proper! I have perused the instrument diligently.”

“So I noticed,” I told him pleasantly, “but Carrara is generally spelled with a capital C. It's a city in Italy, you know.”

For a moment he looked as though he might explode. His face turned scarlet, he gasped for breath, then bawled, “
MISS BEGGS
!”

“No need to call her yet,” I told him. “So far, it seems to be full of mistakes, but just hold on a minute till I finish reading it.”

“Preposterous! Preposterous!” he barked, but it had the sound of a dog that's run back into his own yard before turning to make his challenge.

I knew I had him where I wanted him right then, and though I didn't look up from the paper I knew he was watching me, so I let myself smile as much as I wanted to as I read on to the bottom of the page. There were a dozen more “said parties” and “without recourses,” but what it amounted to was that he'd pay me twenty-five dollars after I'd made a reproduction of his countenance to his complete satisfaction, with as many sittings as he deemed necessary, and at such times and places as he might find convenient. The best part was the last. It said that if I breached the contract in any manner whatsoever it would “constitute a confession of judgment,” and I'd owe him for whatever time and inconvenience my failure had cost him.

I pretended to go back and begin reading the whole thing again from the top, but my prospective client snapped, “Come, come, young man! I can't waste the whole day on this little matter.”

I kept right on—running my eyes back and forth across the page, but not reading a word—for another minute or so, then I tossed the contract on the desk and said, as if I'd just made a big discovery, “Oh, I see what the main trouble is. You've got your parties of the first part and parties of the second part twisted around. A man's apt to do that when he has so many of them.”

His face turned fire-red again, and he made a grab for the paper, but caught himself and pulled his hand back. It took him a few seconds to get back into his act, but it must have been an old one, for he knew it by heart, and I never saw a man who could get a more perfect sneer into both his smile and his voice. He took his glasses off, with one pinky lifted gracefully, waved them, and said, “My dear young man, it is apparent that legal terminology confuses you.”

“That's right,” I told him, “but you've still got your parties turned around. You see, it is I who will decide what material the bust is to be cast in, the competence of the workmanship, the price, how many sittings will be required, and when and where it will be convenient for me to have them. It is you who will sign a confession of judgment agreement to make good any loss of time or inconvenience you may cause me. The price will be fifty dollars, in advance, and before you make up your mind about so large an investment you should understand that the finished bust will neither emulate nor simulate Carrara marble. It will be plaster of Paris, just as your father-in-law's was. Now, sir, if you would like to draw up a contract saying exactly that, and nothing more or less, I'll be happy to sign it. If not—Good morning.”

All the way through I had kept my voice at the same tone I'd have used if I were telling the little boy he must be good or Santa Claus wouldn't come. And before I was finished that attorney wasn't a bit sure but what he was the little boy. That's why I put the “Good morning” on the end. I knew as well as if he'd told me that he'd bragged to everyone who would listen, telling them he'd engaged a famous artist to come to El Paso solely for the purpose of executing his portrait bust, and I knew he'd eat whatever amount of crow he had to before he'd let me get away.

Before I'd finished he was sitting with his mouth open—like a newly-caught fish gasping for air—peeking nervously, first at the old folks and then his wife. But I'll have to give him credit for being a cracking good little actor. He caught himself before I could turn away from the desk, put on his best synthetic smile, and burbled, “Let's not be hasty. Good business should be done in good humor. I'm afraid the legal verbiage may have been upsetting to you. We in the profession sometimes forget that . . .”

“Oh, I didn't mind the verbiage,” I broke in, “it was only the order in which the words were arranged that I objected to—and the price.”

He ha-ha-ha'd as mirthfully as if he'd lost his best client, waved his glasses, and said, “Possibly it would be as well to forgo the formality of a contract to cover so small a transaction, but I believe there is a slight misunderstanding. I was informed that the . . . ah . . . the emolument . . . ah . . .”

“Would be twenty-five dollars,” I finished out for him, “but that's my rural price. If you want one it will cost you fifty dollars, cash in advance, and you can have a contract or not, just as you please.”

He pleased not to have a contract, and I pleased not to accept his check—not because I was afraid it would bounce, but just to make him eat a little more crow before I had to take him for a sitting. It was probably a kiddish thing to do, but an ornery nag will usually handle better if you give him a taste of the spurs before you start out on a difficult trail. The hardest part of our meeting was finding something to say while Miss Beggs was out getting the check cashed. Just as I left I reminded him to be at my hotel suite at two o'clock sharp. Then looked back and added another, “Sharp,” just as he had done on the phone.

The little man didn't try to bluff at all when he came for his first sitting—or any other—but he couldn't get it through his head that he wasn't posing for a photograph. I'd blocked out the shape of his head, the V of his coat collar, his hair, and the general features of his face before he came the first time. He seemed quite amazed that I should have been able to do any part of it without his being there, looked at it from one side, then the other, touched the clay with a fingertip, and said, “I fancy you superimpose the glasses as . . . ha-ha . . . sort of the finishing touch.”

“I don't superimpose them at all,” I told him. “In bronze, I could do it. In stone, they could be simulated. But in a plaster of Paris casting I wouldn't attempt it. Just put them in your pocket and sit over there by the window while I try to catch the expression of your mouth and eyes.”

For half a minute the little man looked almost sad enough to weep, but he was a genius at pulling himself together after a disappointment. He went over to the chair, sat as bolt upright as though he had a crowbar for a backbone, threw his shoulders back, straightened his tie, patted his hair, and put on his professional smile.

“Just relax,” I told him. “Try to think you're all alone in your office—maybe thinking about where you'll go for lunch.”

He gave it too much consideration. Either that or lunch was a lot more important to him than to a man on a diabetic diet. Anyone might have thought he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, considering an infringement upon the rights of Man.

When I found that wouldn't do, I tried half a dozen other tacks, but none of them worked. Acting was so much a part of him that he couldn't stop, and I'd never had a chance to look at his face for a single minute when he wasn't either scared or acting. After wasting half an hour I told him he might go, then come back again at four—sharp.