Norman said, "Look, Henny, dynamite doesn't cost much. We can blow the place up and you can restore it."
Mrs. Ball laughed through her teeth and said that was a lovely thought; then, her long face sobering, she added that she had some rather glum news for Norman. Another buyer for the Gull Reef Club had appeared; three partners, actually, from Chicago. The men had visited the place a week ago and had decided straight off to buy it. She had not notified Paperman because the deal hadn't yet been concluded. "I don't know why not, exactly," she said, her voice shaken by the bumping of the car. "I'm a complete nitwit about these things, but there seems to be some involved haggling over the financing. For all I know you can still buy the Reef. I rather hope it'll be you, because these were rather coarse fellows, but you'd better talk to my solicitor today."
Norman's glance at his wife showed his shock. If the deal fell through now, after the story had appeared in half a dozen columns in New York and Hollywood, what a fool he would seem!
"Will you drop me at your lawyer's office, then?" he said. "Henny can go on to the Reef with you."
"Nothing easier." Mrs. Ball drove into Georgetown and parked on Prince of Wales Street by an arcade of shops. "His office is on the second floor," she said. "Let me just dash up and see if he's free."
Prince of Wales Street lay parallel to the ocean front. No breeze penetrated its rows of two-story stone buildings. The morning sun beat down white and fierce. Paperman felt the sweat rolling under his worsted suit, and he expected Henny to start complaining. But she was taking in the pink plaster arcades, the quiet street almost empty of automobiles, the black natives strolling by, with lively pleasure. "My God, the peace," she said. "I'd either be the happiest woman on earth, or I'd go absolutely nuts. Say, there's Little Constantinople!" Henny climbed out of the car. "Got to see Little Constantinople. Got to tell the Turk how I love my bracelet."
The proprietor, whose name was Hassim, greeted them with great ogles, bounces, and smiles. He was a rotund bald man in a striped sport shirt and orange slacks, with a scraggy mustache, a complexion of shiny khaki, and a bottom swaying like a woman's. He produced strange baritone twitters about Paperman's fine taste and ruthless bargaining, making no mention of Mrs. Tramm, but rolling his large humid brown eyes slyly at Norman, and licking his lips. Henny said when he flounced away into the back of his shop, "Gawd, I do believe he has designs on you." Hassim returned and pressed a little gray-and-white porcelain cat on her. She was ashamed of herself, and reluctant to take it-it was a fine Danish piece-but Hassim was importunate and charming.
"It is pure selfishness. We want people like you and Norman on the island. I will cheat you of ten times the value of it in due course."
Henny said as they left the shop, "He's nice, after all. Like so many of them." Behind her back, Hassim bestowed on her husband an obscene grimace, wallow, and wink.
Mrs. Ball was at the wheel of the Land Rover. "Hi. He's waiting for you," she called. "Through the alley, straight up the stairs. The firm is Collins and Turnbull. You want Collins."
Paperman entered a sunny courtyard brilliant with flowers, and climbed old steps of cracking red cement. In a roasting-hot anteroom lined with brown law books, a man stood holding out a meaty hand. "Hello. I'm Collins." He had a big cheerful face, remarkable for a baby nose and a heroically large chin. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, a ribbon tie, and dark trousers. "Come on inside. Sorry I don't have an air-conditioner. Never saw a November this hot. My inside office is cooler, we get the sea breeze."
Norman did not notice any sea breeze in the small whitewashed stone room, but a clanking fan disturbed the air a bit. Feet on desk, head cradled on interlocked fingers, the lawyer disclosed that he was from Philadelphia, that he had played left tackle for Penn State, that a hack injury developing into arthritis had compelled him to seek a warm climate, and that this had been the luckiest thing in his life. He had been living in Amerigo for twelve years now, and loved it more every year.
"About the Reef, now. Here's the story." He tossed Paperman a four-page letter from the attorney of the Chicago men. Glancing at the pages, Norman couldn't understand all the verbiage, but it was obvious that the negotiation was real, and far along. An arrangement of bank loans was the only remaining problem.
"Suppose, for argument's sake, I offered you a check this minute?" Paperman said, handing the letter back, and concealing his dismay with, he hoped, a nonchalant air.
Collins, sucking on a cold pipe, narrowed his eyes at Paperman. "My dear sir, these people have done a lot of talking, cabling, and writing, but we haven't seen their money yet. My client can't let a sure sale go for a possible one."
"How large would the check have to be?"
"About ten per cent is the usual binder. If you give me a check for five thousand dollars before they do, Gull Reef will be yours."
"May I call New York? I'll reverse the charge." Paperman gestured at the old heavy telephone on the desk.
"Please."
Placing an overseas call in Amerigo was not simple. The local operator did not answer for several minutes, and the overseas operator didn't answer at all. Collins sent his secretary, a pretty Negro girl in a yellow cotton frock, to hunt for her. The girl flushed the operator out of a nearby ice-cream parlor, and she came on the line rather out of breath and surly. She took the call and reported back in a little while that the New York office of Mr. "Ot-loss" said he had gone to Butte, Montana. He would be at the Capitol Hotel about five in the afternoon, Amerigo time.
Collins said cheerfully, "Well, that's probably time enough. I don't see these Chicago fellows coming through with a binder by then. Why don't you just go along to the Reef, and have a swim and enjoy yourself?"
Norman placed the call to Montana, and told the operator he would be at the Gull Reef Club. Collins walked with him through the anteroom, and shook hands with Paperman in the sunshine at the top of the staircase, in a doorway festooned with a vine of yellow flowers. "You know, this island isn't for everybody. I don't know about those Chicago fellows, but you strike me as a real Kinjan."
"Oh? Why?"
"It's a question of human quality." Collins squinted at him through the blue smoke of the pipe clenched in his oversize jaw. "Of course, if those Chicago fellows do come through today, there are other properties here. Hogan's Fancy just came on the market. Tell you what. Why don't you and your bride have a drink tonight with me at Hogan's Fancy? Say sixish? The sunset is out of this world up at Hogan's Fancy."
2
Henny waved a tall red drink at him; not her first, to judge by her furtively gay grin. She sat at a table in the bar with Mrs. Ball and a lean, tanned man who badly needed a shave. Architects' sketches lay scattered on the table. Everything about Gull Reef and the bar was the same-the peace, the dusty sea fans, the dazzling beach, the azure water, the frangipani-and more charming, with Lester Atlas out of the picture. "Hi, dear," Henny said. "We're having our elevenses. Old tropical custom. I think I'm going to like the tropics. Meet Tex Akers. He's a builder. Tex, this is Norman."
The man arose, with ramshackle unfolding motions, until he stood six and a half feet high. He had unkempt fringes of graying hair, an engaging smile, and hollow tapering jaws like a nutcracker. He held out a long brown arm streaked with yellow paint; there was also a dab of the paint on his cheek. Akers looked even taller than he was, because of his costume: a khaki shirt, paint-stained khaki shorts stopping well above the knee, and bare brown legs all the way down to little white sweat socks and mud-caked work shoes. "Hi, there, Mr. Paperman. Your little lady here sure does know construction."
Henny laughed. "Amateur stuff."
They plunged back into their talk, and Norman saw that she was showing off. Henny helped all her friends in decorating or remodeling their apartments. During a couple of Norman's leanest years-a period now seldom referred to-she had brought into the house what money there was by working for a decorator, while Norman lay around the house sunk in gloom, or tried to write short stories for the New Yorker, or went out and made a quick conquest of some Village slut to keep up his self-esteem.
"Do have a beer, Norman." Mrs. Ball waved at the bartender, who sat at the bar with the fat little Negro accountant, working over ledgers. The ragged Viking gave Norman a friendly smile, and brought the beer at once. "Welcome back, Mr. Paperman."
Mrs. Ball had told Tex Akers about Lester's ideas for adding rooms to the Club, it turned out, and Tex had worked up the sketches. Henny was volubly delighted with the Club, with Akers, with the sketches, with the island. Norman was not sure this rum-flavored approval would survive a solid lunch, but meantime she was rapping out ideas for colors, materials, and space-saving tricks, and reveling in the admiration of Mrs. Ball and the builder.
"By the way, how did you get on with Collins?" said Mrs. Ball.
"Very well. I've got a call in to Atlas."
"Oh, have you? Fine. Decent chap, Chunky. Best lawyer on the island. He didn't try to unload Hogan's Fancy on you, did he?"
"Well-he did invite us up there for a drink this evening."
Mrs. Ball laughed. "Poor Chunky. He bought Hogan's Fancy when he came here. He's never been able to get rid of it. But do go for the drink, the sunset is divine. Don't wear wooden clogs or anything, the termites will chew them right off your feet."
Paperman said to the builder, "How much would this job cost?"
"Hard to say. Your missus here is knocking off dollars by the minute."
"Well-ten thousand dollars?"
"Why, Mr. Paperman, I had it roughed out for five. I think your girl friend's got it down to three and a half, easy."
Henny beamed.
"See here," said Mrs. Ball, "if you're going to dig into these grubby details, why don't you join Thor and Neville over there? They're totting up last month's accounts. You can get a fair idea of how we run this silly place."
"Good idea."
The accountant and the bartender cordially took him into their conversation. Between the Scandinavian and Calypso accents, Paperman couldn't follow the arithmetic, but he soon perceived that Thor was the real manager of the Club. All money was collected right here at the bar, where Thor had his small business desk set up beside the cash register. Departing guests came here to pay their bills; outsiders who wanted to dine at the club bought dinner chits from the bartender. It was a simple system, and obviously easy to control. Thor knew to a dollar the receipts week by week from the hotel guests, the bar, and the outside diners. He kept account books, bought the liquor, and supervised the cook's food purchases. Mrs. Ball's work, Norman gathered, was answering the letters and wires for reservations, keeping track of the reservation board, and spreading charm and sympathy. Norman was sure he could fill that role well, if in a different style.
"Tell me, Thor," he said, "how long have you been working here?"
"Year and a half, joost about."
"Supposing the Club changed hands? Would you stay on?"
With a savage smile, the bartender said, "If I stay in Kinja, I guess I stay on. Vy not?"
"Well, will you stay in Kinja?"
"I dunno. I come here in a boad. I don't leave till I sail avay in a boad."
"Sailing boats leave here all the time, don't they?"
"I don't sail in a boad unless I'm captain. Dad's vy I sailed across the ocean alone. No competition for captain." Thor uttered a grim laugh.
"Would you do this same job for me? I mean, accounts and all?"
The bartender hesitated, a crafty look clouding the intense blue eyes. "Amy don't pay good money. I come here dead broke off a wreck. I make a bum deal."
"We could talk about a better salary."
"I be tarn glad talk about dad, dad's for sure," said Thor, and he and the accountant laughed.
Norman went back to the table, where Henny was holding a nearly empty glass high in one hand, and running the other across a sketch. "Why break down the whole wall, Tex?" she was saying. "Suppose you just cut a doorway here for access?"
"Say, that could work real good, Mrs. Paperman." Akers made a pencil scrawl on the sketch.
"Henny, how's for a swim?" Norman said. He still wore his dark New York suit, and he was damply uncomfortable.
Amy Ball stood at once. "Now you're talking. Business before lunch gives me a headache. And after the swim, how about drinks and hamburgers for everybody, on the beach?"
Akers laughed. "That's for the leisure class. I've got to tool out to Crab Cove." He rolled up his sketches and handed them to Norman, saying that there would be no charge. He was glad to accommodate Amy Ball, but he couldn't do the actual construction himself. He was too busy with his development at Crab Cove, where he was finishing up twenty-five large houses. This remodeling of the game room was a routine little job; any of a dozen island contractors could handle it. He wished the Papermans luck and ambled off, covering ground like a giraffe.
