The swimmer listened, with a twisted little grin, nodding now and then. "Well, I sure go along with you on New York. But this place is a real big change."
That's the idea," Paperman said with vehemence. "A real big change. I guess you're like my wife. She thinks I've slipped my trolley."
Laughing, the frogman got off the chair. "Hell, no. To live here, to be the boss, to have this"-he swept his arm around at the beach and the hotel-"three hundred and sixty-five days a year? It's heaven, if you can swing it. Our unit goes back up north in March. Right now, I know three guys that aren't going to make the plane." He picked up his mask and spear gun.
"Thanks for the drink," Paperman said. "Let me buy one for you tonight. And for this babe."
"Sure thing. My name's Bob Cohn."
"I'm Norman Paperman."
"Right. See you in the bar around seven. Look, don't swim alone in deep water, Norm. Water safety rule number one."
"You were out there alone."
Cohn was putting on the green shirt, which had a gray parachute emblem over the breast pocket. "Do as I say, not as I do. Navy leadership rule number one." He grinned amiably, and went trotting up the beach with his spear gun.
4
Paperman could hear Atlas as he walked up the red concrete steps to the bar.
"Just an old truth teller," Atlas was saying. "All I do is tell people the truth about their own business."
Paperman's spirit sank. Yes, there it was, the same old issue of Time with Eisenhower on the cover. Two Negroes in dark blue city suits were sitting forward in low wooden armchairs, glancing at the story. Lester sat sunk in another such chair, a glass of beer in one fat paw, a torpedo-shaped cigar in the other, his hairy white legs spread apart, his paunch resting on his lap, pince-nez glasses perched on his heavy nose. His tropical costume was an orange shirt covered with scarlet-and-green watermelons, creamy linen shorts that were much too brief and looked like nothing but exposed underwear, brown city shoes, and drooping black cotton half socks.
"Hello there!" Mrs. Ball waved a beer glass from a square lounge chair for two, on which she was curled in a pose too kittenish for a big woman. "We're having our elevenses. Come join us."
"I'm all sand and salt. I'd better shower first."
"Nonsense. Give him a beer, Thor. How was your swim? Why didn't you tell us your partner's a celebrity?"
"Just an old truth teller," beamed Atlas.
Paperman suspected the woman was being sarcastic. The Time article was an acid attack on corporation raiders. Lester came out almost worst of all the nine men whose brutal shifty faces bordered the story. But all Lester cared about was that his picture had appeared in a national magazine. He had a leather-bound copy of the issue in his office, another in his home, and a reserve pile of them which he was using up one by one in ignorant boasting.
"Do meet Walter Llewellyn, Mr. Paperman, he's the president of our bank," Mrs. Ball articulated through immobile jaws. "And my accountant, Neville Wills."
The two Negroes stood, arms at their sides. When Paperman put out his hand they took it, and he experienced the limp hesitant handshake of the West Indian. The banker was a round-faced slight man with gray hair. The accountant was tubby and young, with a couple of gold teeth showing in a shy smile. Both men were quite black; indeed the banker, perhaps because of the gray hair, looked purple-black.
"Norm, I was telling Amy here, and these gentlemen, that my only stock in trade is truth. Now, to give you an idea, Amy, let's say there's this Corporation X-" Paperman sank into a chair, resigned. Lester was not a man to be diverted.
On he went with it, the old tiresome fable. Corporation X had been making money on rubber belting and tires, but losing its profits because of a subsidiary that manufactured buggy whips. Lester Atlas became a stockholder. He studied Corporation X, saw the truth, and told it to the board of directors. They could get rid of the buggy-whip plant for a big cash profit, because the building and land were valuable, and thereafter they could stick to making products that were in demand, and earn large dividends. But the directors, a decrepit old family group, ganged up against Atlas, because they were sentimentally attached to making buggy whips. They called him a wolf and a raider, and threw him out of their office. Then, and only then, did Atlas go to the other stockholders, and tell them the truth. The stockholders started a legal fight, threw out the directors, and elected a new board. The new board sold off the buggy-whip building, and turned the corporation into a big money-maker.
"Now sometimes it happens, Amy, that these people offer to elect me as a director, or even as chairman of the board. Just out of gratitude for telling them the truth. Well, if I can accept, I do. But I'm a busy man. Usually my only reward is the knowledge that once more I've told the truth and saved a sick corporation. That's what I do. That's all I do. If that makes me a raider, I'm proud of it."
The banker said, "Why, I feel you are performing a genuine public saxviss, Mr. Atlas." He had a gentle, musical voice, and he hit the last syllable of every word, in the manner that had so amused Paperman for years in records of Calypso songs.
Paperman wondered how Lester had the gall to go on repeating this simple-minded story of his, when this very issue of Time that he kept flaunting described how he actually operated. Lester had recently bought into a Southern furniture company, which-it was true-had been badly run for years. He had gained control in a vicious stock fight, sold off all the buildings and timberlands, and pulled out with better than a million-dollar capital gain in cash. The family owners had also made money, but the corporation was now a gutted shell. Some four hundred people had lost their jobs. Time quoted Lester as saying, "All I did was wind up the affairs of a company that had to quit anyway. Instead of going bankrupt, those old fuds who were running it retired rich to Palm Beach. I did them a favor, didn't I?" To a question about the four hundred employees, Lester answered, "They were boondoggling. They were making bad furniture on bad machines at a bad price. When you get boondogglers off the government payroll you're a hero. When you do it in industry, you're a raider."
Time's story of Lester's stock fight depicted an operator who used any means short of crime to win votes: cash, cajolery, girls, threats, financial squeezes, and if necessary, his fists; an opposing lawyer at a rough meeting had called him a dirty name and Lester had knocked him unconscious. There was little trace of this violent brute in Lester now, as he sat beaming in his pince-nez glasses, watermelon shirt, and cream-colored drawers, describing his own modest altruism in the mellifluous manner he could turn on when it suited him. This honeyed craftiness, combined with his physique of a debauched gorilla, gave Lester Atlas in these moments a peculiar crude charm.
Mrs. Ball said, "Well, it's all utterly fascinating. Perhaps you'll tell us the truth about the Reef, too."
Paperman cleared his throat. "Isn't the place a money-maker?"
"Oh yes." Mrs. Ball pointed a long finger with a long orange nail at ledgers and blue-bound balance sheets piled beside her. "But it should make ever so much more. I haven't the foggiest idea why it doesn't."
Atlas said, "I've looked at those figures. I'd like to ask some questions."
"By all means. That's why Neville and Walter are here." The woman signaled with her empty glass at the bartender. He brought her more beer, and went back to doze on a bar stool. He wore ragged khaki shorts and a blue frayed shirt laundered almost gray, and he had a gold ring in one ear.
Paperman decided that if he bought the hotel he would keep this eight-fingered bartender. He was changing his notion that the Gull Reef Club needed smartening up. It was seedy, but-as in some of the best hotels in England and Paris-the idea might be to keep it so. Dowdiness was sometimes chic. This piratical bartender, snoozing on a stool, added to the color. The bar decor was fish nets, great sea fans painted white and gone a little gray, green glass-bubble net floats, dusty conch shells, and bleached coral. One solid wall was painted with amateurish pictures of fish. Nothing screened the corrugated iron roof but a few withered palm branches. A frangipani tree thrust limbs starred with pink flowers under the roof, and each gust of the breeze stirred a wave of perfumed air. It was certainly primitive; yet, Norman thought, authentic and right.
Atlas was questioning Mrs. Ball and the two Negroes about payrolls, off-season and on-season prices, and taxes. "Amy, tell me one thing," he said abruptly, lighting a fresh cigar, "what are you selling here?"
The woman looked startled. "Why-we sell drinks, of course, and food -we did try coral jewelry, but-"
Atlas shook his head. "You're selling sleep."
"Slee-eep?" Mrs. Ball's voice slithered up two octaves.
"Sleep. How can you make money when you don't know what your merchandise is? People come here in the winter to be warm. At night they have to lie down. Your bar and your dining room are frills. Your merchandise is beds. Sleep. That's your profit item." He stabbed two fat cigar-clutching fingers at the ledgers. "Those books say you're not selling enough sleep. A dozen more beds, and you've probably got a business here. He set his glass down hard, and pushed himself out of the chair. "Let's go."
Lester had authority. Mrs. Ball and the Negroes stood, and so did Paperman. The bartender turned his head on his arms, and opened one cold blue eye.
Mrs. Ball said, "Oh, I've often talked about building more cottages. We have the space, but-"
"Build? Here?" Atlas squinted at the banker. "This kind of construction in the States now is nine bucks a square foot. What is it here? The contractors promise it to you for about fifteen, right? And they bring it in at twenty to twenty-five, depending on what kind of bums they are."
The Negroes exchanged an amazed glance. The accountant burst into a rich and wonderful laugh, throwing back his head, slapping his thighs, staggering here and there, and showing red gums and gold teeth. "Dat de troot. I do declare dat de troot. Dem de figures for true."
The banker held his dignity, but he too was laughing. "Mistuh Ot-loss, you have done business before in the Caribbe-aw?"
Atlas thrust his cigar in his mouth and grunted. "I'm just an old truth teller. Let's see where we can put ten more beds."
As they crossed the lobby, Norman saw two girls batting a ping-pong ball back and forth in a gloomy room full of card tables. Tired as he was, Paperman felt a warm stir, for one girl wore a bikini that showed her whole naked back view, highlighted by a tiny shivering green triangle. It was a beautiful view. The Gull Reef Club was looking better and better! The ball flew into the lobby, and the girl turned to chase it. As she came wobbling nudely toward Paperman, the spell subsided. She had a big nose, a pear-shaped red face, freckles, and pink crinkly hair.
"Hey, Norm. Coming?"
Atlas and the others were mounting the stairway near the reception desk. Paperman followed, thinking that ten years ago the face might not have mattered. Possibly the gargoyle was Bob Cohn's "babe." She had the body for it. He wistfully recalled the raw appetite of youth that could enjoy such fare; and as he mounted the too steep and too long stairway at a slow pace-stairs bothered him a bit now-he thought that only waning energy, for which he deserved little credit, had made him harder to please.
Upstairs Mrs. Ball was unlocking doors and Atlas was glancing into the rooms.
"Where are your guests?"
"Most of them are out on a sail. November's our slow month, and the whole island's pretty dead."
"You've used up the space on this floor."
The banker said, "You could build out over the south side."
Atlas shook his head. "No, no. Nothing structural. Let's keep looking."
They went back down. Atlas was casting an appraising eye around the lobby, when a ping-pong ball rolled to his feet. Out galloped the naked pink-headed horror, quaking from neck to knees.
"So sorry," she giggled.
"My pleasure," said Atlas, handing her the ball with a leer. She marched back into the game room. Atlas watched her jellied dancing behind, then his interest faded as he took in the large room full of tables. "What's this? You must have fifteen hundred square feet here."
"I've never measured it," Mrs. Ball said. "It was the dining room, but now everyone eats outside, so we made a game room of it. But-"
Atlas crouched and rapped the wooden floor with his knuckles. "Partitions and plumbing," he said to the banker. "Not much to it. The rooms would be small, but all anybody wants here is a place to fall down at night. Throw in a toilet of their own and you got luxury."
"On the ground floor," the banker said, glancing around the room with a sudden shrewd cast to his gentle face. "So convenient."
Mrs. Ball said, "The room's never been used enough, that's true-possibly this idea should have occurred to me. As I say, I'm no businesswoman."
