Sheba, page 11
“Don’t defend him,” he said. “He isn’t worth it.”
“I’m not defending him.”
“You are, in a way.”
“Maybe I am,” she admitted.
“Of course, you are. You think if I make you sales manager and I push him down to salesman it’ll create complications. It won’t — unless there’s something between you two.”
“There isn’t,” she said.
“Anyway, it makes things easier.”
“Does it?”
“From this moment on you’re the sales manager,” Mr. Wise said. “You take over everything — advertising and the rest of it. Gregg is working for you, not you working for him. You get an over-ride on everything he sells. It’s up to you to see that there’s always one of you in the showroom until closing. You do things the way you see them and I’ll back you up one hundred percent.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I don’t have the experience.”
“What is experience? Experience is doing a job and doing it well. You’ve been doing that. You’ve showed me that you can sell cars. What more could I want?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
He sat down again and rubbed his forehead.
“Get to work on it right away,” he told her. “Figure out a gimmick that will bring prospects in here. Something big and different. Something that’s so startling that everybody in Mayville will want to pack our showroom.”
It was a chance, a big chance, one that she might not ever have again.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, both gratefully and reluctantly.
“Good!” He shuffled the papers on his desk again. “Your first job is to tell Gregg.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes. When you take on a job you take everything that goes with it. How do you think I built Wise Motors? If there was a job to do, even though I didn’t like it, I did it. The same goes for you. I could call Gregg in and dress him down, but that wouldn’t be half so effective as your kicking the props out from under him. He’s been too cocky and sure of himself and he’s got to wake up. He can do a good piece of work if he wants to. It’s part of your responsibility to see that he does.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she murmured.
“Let him know that if he doesn’t produce he’s finished.”
“All right.”
“We’re here to sell cars, not to read dirty books. You ever see some of those magazines he reads? How do they get away with them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing but sexy women and sexy stories. There has to be more to life than that. First thing you do is make him get those things out of the showroom. What would a woman think if she saw them?”
“Not much,” Sheba admitted.
“You can say that again. And, in selling, you have to play it smart. You can’t offend anybody. You flatter everyone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can do that easily with a man just by smiling at him. You don’t have to say a word. All you have to do is smile. And dress the way you’re dressed.” Mr. Wise smiled. “If it wasn’t unfair I could go for you myself.”
“Now you’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. I’m serious, dead serious. I’ve got a young wife, a pretty wife, but what does it mean? She’s as loose as pennies in a blind man’s cup.”
Sheba felt nervous. She didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Wise or anything else. All she wanted to do was get straightened out with Gregg and make certain that he wasn’t angry with her. Gregg could sell when he had the urge to sell and she needed his help. This was something new to her, terribly important, and she had to make a success of it. Being a success meant money and that meant she could help her mother. She was sorry for her mother, stuck out there with Luke and a husband who was lazy. Her mother deserved some of the good things in life, not just the things that someone else didn’t want.
“I’ll talk to Gregg,” she said, turning toward the door.
“Sheba.”
She paused and swung around, the hem of her dress floating up to her knees.
“Yes?”
“You’re very lovely,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I thought we might have dinner together tonight — to sort of celebrate.”
She hadn’t really expected this but somehow she knew that the idea had been there all along. He was giving her a boost and expected her to be nice to him.
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I already have a date.”
She didn’t have a date but she wasn’t going to go with him. He wouldn’t be expecting just dinner, she knew.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “Some other time?”
“Perhaps.”
He was sorting papers on his desk when she left and she was glad to get away from him. Mr. Wise was all right to work for but she couldn’t think of him beyond that. She couldn’t think of any man beyond that.
Gregg was sitting in the showroom, reading one of his magazines.
“Neat,” Gregg said, pointing to a picture of a nude. “You wonder where they get them from, don’t you?”
“Some girls will do anything for a few dollars.”
“Will they?”
“Or so I’ve heard.”
He leafed through the magazine glancing at the other pictures.
“Mr. Wise wants you to get rid of these books,” Sheba said.
“He looks at them as much as I do.”
“Maybe he does, but he doesn’t want them in the showroom.”
Gregg shrugged. “Okay. I’ll take them over to my room.”
Sheba took a deep breath. How should she tell him? How could she begin?
“There’s something else,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“He just made me the sales manager,” she blurted out.
Gregg was silent for a long moment.
“It figures,” he said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. A girl can give the boss what a man can’t give him and she’s bound to come out on top.”
She was furious.
“That’s an ugly thing to say.”
He stared down at the stack of magazines on his lap.
“You were in there long enough,” he said.
“Gregg!”
“Well, you were.”
“You’re also forgetting that I sold some cars, aren’t you?”
“Luck. Everybody has it once in a while.”
“It wasn’t luck. I worked to sell those cars.”
“Where?” he asked. “On the flat of your back?”
She was furious with him but she could understand how he felt. He had been a wheel at Wise Motors and now he was just a cog in the business machinery that moved continually forward.
“Let’s not argue,” she said.
“There’s no argument. You start at the bottom and all of a sudden you’re at the top. Who am I to fight with you?”
“I’m counting on you, Gregg.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Or yours.”
“Don’t say that. You get paid for selling cars and that’s what Mr. Wise expects us to do. He doesn’t care very much how we do it just as long as we do.”
“He wouldn’t. Money is his god.”
“He has bills to pay.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Everybody does.”
Gregg opened the top magazine and leered at the picture of a girl hiding behind an umbrella.
“You could make a fortune posing for stuff like this,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want it.”
“No matter how much you make here it’s only peanuts. These girls get top dollars for what they do.”
She wasn’t interested. She couldn’t imagine any girl posing in the nude or near nude and then having her picture plastered all over the country.
“The thing for us to do is to work together,” Sheba said to Gregg. “You know lots of things I don’t know about selling cars and we can help each other.”
“Okay.”
“Over being mad?”
“Over it.”
“But you were at first?”
“Who wouldn’t have been? One minute I had a job and the next minute I didn’t.” He looked up from the magazine. “I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.”
“Thanks.”
“We ought to have a few drinks tonight and talk things over.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Afraid of me?”
“No, I’m not afraid of you. It just isn’t necessary.”
He closed the magazine and stared up at her and she felt conscious again of how the red sheath clung to her body.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
“Get rid of the magazines.”
“All right.”
“And you stay here until nine tonight.”
“As I said, you’re the boss.”
She hated to act like this with him but she felt there wasn’t any other way. He was in a rut and he had to get out of it.
“I think some new signs came in. Get them out and put them up in the windows.”
“Check.”
“There haven’t been any signs in our windows for weeks.”
“People don’t buy signs.”
“No, but they buy cars.”
“Okay, chief.”
She entered the office, saw that the redhead was doing all right, and told the girls what had happened to her.
“It’s wonderful,” Kathy Still said.
Neither the redhead nor Nora Cummings said anything. They just went about their work.
At lunch time Kathy and Nora left for lunch but the redhead stayed behind.
“About last night,” Monica said.
“I don’t want to think of it.”
“But you have to. You can’t just forget about a thing like that.”
“I can.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“No, you can’t. No one can. You felt something last night that you’ve never felt before and I know it.”
Sheba was irritated with Monica, sorry that she had gotten the girl the job. She would be around the redhead almost all the time and the mere presence of Monica would annoy her. She would remember last night and what almost happened and the cold fear of shame would sweep through her again. What did a girl do when she felt this way? Did she strangle every fierce desire or did she surrender to it in a blind moment of passion?
“I’m going out,” Sheba announced.
“Don’t hate me,” Monica said.
“I don’t hate you.”
“It’s just that I look at you and — ”
“Please!”
She left the garage and drove downtown in the demonstrator. It had started to rain and the windshield wipers wouldn’t work. She was glad when she finally reached the Flatiron Building.
Mr. Loven was in his office, alone, and he smiled as she entered. “Nice deal you sent me this morning,” he said. “That’s the kind I like.”
“Good.”
“And another fifty for you.”
“I don’t want the fifty dollars. All I want to do is pay off the loan we have here.”
“Pay it off?”
“Yes.”
“You must be doing all right.”
“I am.”
“Which is fine for both of us.”
Mr. Loven’s face was redder than usual, almost as red as the red tie which he wore.
“I don’t want your money,” she told him.
“You must be out of your mind,” he said. “The fifty bucks you get from me is gravy.”
“I regret that I ever started,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yes. If Mr. Wise found out about it he would fire me.”
“Probably he would,” Mr. Loven agreed.
“So I don’t want the money. I don’t even want the money you have credited to our account so far.” She placed the check on his desk. “Take out everything, the whole loan, and give me the change.”
He fingered the check and then pushed it aside.
“What about the money I’ve paid you so far?”
“Give it back to the people. Tell them you’ve made a mistake. They won’t mind getting a refund.”
He shook his head. “No can do.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would leave you free to go somewhere else, and I don’t intend for you to go somewhere else. Maybe you think lending money is the easiest thing in the world to do. It isn’t. Half who come in here haven’t got jobs and the other half are such dead-beats I wouldn’t get the first monthly payment out of them. When something like this comes along you hang onto it. You find the clients and I make the loan. What’s so wrong about that?”
“They have to pay extra.”
Mr. Loven loosened his tie.
“Everybody pays in this life,” he said. “Everybody.”
“With Old Reliable they do.”
“No, not just Old Reliable. The same goes for anything else. You get a break from me — I did give you a break — and you pay for it. Follow me?”
“Not exactly.”
“One way or the other, you pay for it.”
“I am,” she said. “I want to straighten up with you.”
“How badly?”
“More than anything.”
“Badly enough to be nice to me?”
She knew what he meant, and she was revolted by his suggestion. She looked at his fat face and at his fat body and deep into his eyes. She saw lust in those eyes, raw lust, and she felt herself shake. The predatory male.
“I didn’t come here for this,” she said quietly.
“I know you didn’t. You came here to buy yourself out of a jam. But I happen to see things another way.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“You will. Either you continue to play ball with me or I’ll take the next best thing you’ve got to offer.” He laughed. “And if I get the other thing you don’t ever have to worry about me going to Mr. Wise. I think you would make me happy.”
“You’re a fat slob,” she said.
“Call me what you want. But I’ve got you right where I want you and I intend to keep you there.”
An animal, she thought; Mr. Loven was an animal. He left her no choice, no choice at all.
“I’ll keep on doing business with you,” she said.
“At fifty bucks a contract?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Supposing I said nothing?”
“What could I do?”
“You give me all the business you can — or I go to Mr. Wise. He wouldn’t like that.”
“No.”
“And you don’t get a cent.”
“I don’t want a cent.”
“Or the other?” He laughed. “Or the other.”
“You may change your mind,” he said, getting up and crossing to the files. “I’m not the worst guy on the face of the earth.”
He figured up how much was due on the balance of the loan, had her sign the check and gave her the differeneein cash. Even that was more cash than she had ever seen before.
“It’s a pleasure to deal with you,” he told her.
“I wish I could say the same.”
Once she was outside of his office she began to feel better. He was an old man attempting to catch up with his youth, and she couldn’t blame him for trying. He wasn’t any different than Mr. Wise or the others. Each saw a pretty girl and each wanted her.
The rain was coming down harder and she got soaked running to the car. A fresh young kid in blue jeans whistled at her and she made a face at him. She was still wet when she returned to the showroom.
No one came in that afternoon.
Mr. Wise was right — she would have to do something drastic, and soon.
As she sat there, alone in the empty showroom, she had an idea. And she knew it couldn’t fail.
11
THE contest was an immediate success; it brought hundreds of curious to the Wise showroom and about one out of ten proved to be a prospect for a new car. Some of them had the necessary cash, some didn’t and she pushed a number of contracts through Mr. Loven’s office. Everyone was happy about the whole thing.
“I’ve got to hand it to you,” Gregg said one night as they were getting ready to close. “This idea of giving a Pacer away has really captured their imagination. But the best part of it is if they buy a new car and they win they get the money.”
“Let’s hope somebody wins it who needs the car.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s cheaper to give the car than it is the money.”
“That’s true.”
If they didn’t promise the money to a new car buyer everybody would wait to see how the contest went. Hardly anybody wanted to own two cars. This way, by giving the money, that objection was eliminated.
“How many cars have we moved this week?” Gregg wanted to know.
“Ten.”
“And it’s only Thursday.”
“Mr. Wise is pleased.”
“He ought to be.”
“And so should you. You sold five of them.”
“What about yourself? You’ll get the over-ride and your own commissions. If you don’t come out of this week with fifteen hundred it’s because you aren’t pressing your luck.”
“I don’t believe in pressing my luck.”
“Well, you are.”
“How?”
“Dealing with that fellow Loven. I don’t care much for him.”
“Neither do I but that hasn’t got anything to do with it. He takes stuff the bank won’t touch. If it weren’t for him we wouldn’t be selling half as many cars.”
“But cars that would stick.”
“How do you mean?”
“You get a car back and it hurts. Half the time the car is in lousy shape and you can’t get your money out of it. How do you think some of those folks are going to keep up two payments?”
“That’s up to them, isn’t it?”
“Wow, you’re hard.”
“No, I’m not hard. They want cars and we sell them cars. Isn’t that our job?”
“It’s our job, too, not to oversell — and to keep our eyes out for Mr. Wise.”
