Under the circumstances, Vic supposed it was all-right to get loaded.
Now, as the main rush of the restaurant's lunchtime clientele came in, the three of them sat in their shirtsleeves at a corner booth, the remains of their burgers on waxed paper, beer bottles scattered around the table, the ashtray overflowing. Vic was reminded of the day he and Roger had sat in the Yellow Sub back in Portland, discussing this little safari. Back when everything that had been wrong had been wrong with the business. Incredibly, he felt a wave of nostalgia for that day and wondered what Tad and Donna were doing. Going to call them tonight, he thought. If I can stay sober enough to remember, that is.
"So what now?" Rob asked. "You hanging out in Boston or going on to New York? I can get you guys tickets to the Boston-Kansas City series, if you want them. Might cheer you up to watch George Brett knock a few holes in the left-field wall."
Vic looked at Roger, who shrugged and said, "On to New York, I guess. Thanks are in order, Rob, but I don't think either of us are in the mood for baseball."
"There's nothing more we can do here," Vic agreed. "We had a lot of time scheduled on this trip for brainstorming, but I guess we're all agreed to go with the final spot idea."
"There's still plenty of rough edges," Rob said. "Don't get too proud."
"We can mill off the rough edges," Roger said. "One day with the marketing people ought to do it, I think. You agree, Vic?"
"It might take two," Vic said. "Still, there's no reason why we can't tie things up a lot earlier than we'd expected."
"Then what?"
Vic grinned bleakly. "Then we call old man Sharp and make an appointment to see him. I imagine we'll end up going straight on to Cleveland from New York. The Magical Mystery Tour."
"See Cleveland and die," Roger said gloomily, and poured the remainder of his beer into his glass. "I just can't wait to see that old fart."
"Don't forget the young fart," Vic said, grinning a little.
"How could I forget that little prick?" Roger replied. "Gentlemen, I propose another round."
Rob looked at his watch. "I really ought to--"
"One last round," Roger insisted. "Auld Lang Syne, if you want."
Rob shrugged. "Okay. But I still got a business to run, don't forget that. Although without Sharp Cereals, there's going to be space for a lot of long lunches." He raised his glass in the air and waggled it until a waiter saw him and nodded back.
"Tell me what you really think," Vic said to Rob. "No bullshit. You think it's a bust?"
Rob looked at him, seemed about to speak, then shook his head.
Roger said, "No, go ahead. We all set out to sea in the same pea-green boat. Or Red Razberry Zingers carton, or whatever. You think it's no go, don't you?"
"I don't think there's a chance in hell," Rob said. "You'll work up a good presentation--you always do. You'll get your background work done in New York, and I have a feeling that everything the market-research boys can tell you on such short notice is all going to be in your favor. And Yancey Harrington. . . . I think hell emote his fucking heart out. His big deathbed scene. He'll be so good he'll make Bette Davis in Dark Victory look like Ali MacGraw in Love Story."
"Oh, but it's not like that at all--" Roger began.
Rob shrugged. "Yeah, maybe that's a little unfair. Okay. Call it his curtain call, then. Whatever you want to call it, I've been in this business long enough to believe that there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house after that commercial was shown over a three-or four-week period. It would knock everybody on their asses. But--"
The beers came. The waiter said to Rob, "Mr. Johnson asked me to tell you that he has several parties of three waiting, Mr. Martin."
"Well, you run back and tell Mr. Johnson that the boys are on their last round and to keep his undies dry. Okay, Rocky?"
The waiter smiled, emptied the ashtray, and nodded.
He left. Rob turned back to Vic and Roger. "So what's the bottom line? You're bright boys. You don't need a one-legged cameraman with a snootful of beer to tell you where the bear shat in the buckwheat."
"Sharp just won't apologize," Vic said. "That's what you think, isn't it?"
Rob saluted him with his bottle of beer. "Go to the head of the class."
"It's not an apology," Roger said plaintively. "It's a fucking explanation."
"You see it that way," Rob answered, "but will he? Ask yourself that. I've met that old geezer a couple of times. He'd see it in terms of the captain deserting the sinking ship ahead of the women and children, giving up the Alamo, every stereotype you can think of. No, I'll tell you what I think is going to happen, my friends." He raised his glass and drank slowly. "I think a valuable and all too short relationship is going to come to an end very soon now. Old man Sharp is going to listen to your proposal, he's going to shake his head, he's going to usher you out. Permanently. And the next PR firm will be chosen by his son, who will make his pick based on which one he believes will give him the freest rein to indulge his crackpot ideas."
"Maybe," Roger said. "But maybe he'll--"
"Maybe doesn't matter shit one way or the other," Vic said vehemently. "The only difference between a good advertising man and a good snake-oil salesman is that a good advertising man does the best job he can with the materials at hand . . . without stepping outside the bounds of honesty. That's what this commercial is about. If he turns it down, he's turning down the best we can do. And that's the end. Toot-finny." He snuffed his cigarette and almost knocked over Roger's half-full bottle of beer. His hands were shaking.
Rob nodded. "I'll drink to that." He raised his glass. "A toast, gentlemen."
Vic and Roger raised their own glasses.
Rob thought for a moment and then said: "May things turn out all right, even against the odds."
"Amen," Roger said.
They clinked their glasses together and drank. As he downed the rest of his beer, Vic found himself thinking about Donna and Tad again.
George Meara, the mailman, lifted one leg clad in blue-gray Post Office issue and farted. Just lately he farted a great deal. He was mildly worried about it. It didn't seem to matter what he had been eating. Last night he and his wife had had creamed cod on toast and he had farted. This morning, Kellogg's Product 19 with a banana cut up in it--and he had farted. This noon, down at the Mellow Tiger in town, two cheeseburgers with mayonnaise . . . ditto farts.
He had looked up the symptom in The Home Medical Encyclopedia, an invaluable tome in twelve volumes which his wife had gotten a volume at a time by saving her checkout slips from the Shop 'n Save in South Paris. What George Meara had discovered under the EXCESSIVE FLATULENCE heading had not been particularly encouraging. It could be a symptom of gastric upset. It could mean he had a nice little ulcer incubating in there. It could be a bowel problem. It could even mean the big C. If it kept up he supposed he would go see old Dr. Quentin. Dr. Quentin would tell him he was farting a lot because he was getting older and that was it.
Aunt Evvie Chalmers's death that last spring had hit George hard--harder than he ever would have believed--and just lately he didn't like to think about getting older. He preferred to think about the Golden Years of Retirement, years that he and Cathy would spend together. No more getting up at six thirty. No more heaving around sacks of mail and listening to that asshole Michael Fournier, who was the Castle Rock postmaster. No more freezing his balls off in the winter and going crazy with all the summer people who wanted delivery to their camps and cottages when the warm weather came. Instead, there would be a Winnebage for "Scenic Trips Through New England." There would be "Puttering in the Garden." There would be "All Sorts of New Hobbies." Most of all, there would be "Rest and Relaxation." And somehow, the thought of farting his way through his late sixties and early seventies like a defective rocket just didn't jibe with his fond picture of the Golden Years of Retirement.
He turned the small blue-and-white mail truck onto Town Road No. 3, wincing as the glare of sunlight shifted briefly ac
ross the windshield. The summer had turned out every bit as hot as Aunt Evvie had prophesied--all of that, and then some. He could hear crickets singing sleepily in the high summer grass and had a brief vision out of the Golden Years of Retirement, a scene entitled "George Relaxes in the Back Yard Hammock."
He stopped at the Millikens' and pushed a Zayre's advertising circular and a CMP power bill into the box. This was the day all the power bills went out, but he hoped the CMP folks wouldn't hold their breath until the Millikens' check came in. The Millikens were poor white trash, like that Gary Pervier just up the road. It was nothing but a scandal to see what was happening to Pervier, a man who had once won a DSC. And old Joe Camber wasn't a hell of a lot better. They were going to the dogs, the both of them.
John Milliken was out in the side yard, repairing what looked like a harrow. George gave him a wave, and Milliken flicked one finger curtly in return before going back to his work.
Here's one for you, you welfare chiseler, George Meara thought. He lifted his leg and blew his trombone. It was a hell of a thing, this farting. You had to be pretty damn careful when you were out in company.
He drove on up the road to Gary Pervier's, produced another Zayre's circular, another power bill, and added a VFW newsletter. He tucked them into the box and then turned around in Gary's driveway, because he didn't have to drive all the way up to Camber's place today. Joe had called the post office yesterday morning around ten and had asked them to hold his mail for a few days. Mike Fournier, the big talker who was in charge of things at the Castle Rock P.O., had routinely filled out a HOLD MAIL UNTIL NOTIFIED card and flipped it over to George's station.
Fournier told Joe Camber he had called just about fifteen minutes too late to stop the Monday delivery of mail, if that had been his intention.
"Don't matter," Joe had said. "I guess I'll be around to get today's."
When George put Gary Pervier's mail into his box, he noticed that Gary's Monday delivery--a Popular Mechanix and a charity begging letter from the Rural Scholarship Fund--had not been removed. Now, turning around, he noticed that Gary's big old Chrysler was in the dooryard and Joe Camber's rusting-around-the-edges station wagon was parked right behind it.
"Gone off together," he muttered aloud. "Two fools off hooting somewhere."
He lifted his leg and farted again.
George's conclusion was that the two of them were probably off drinking and whoring, wheeling around in Joe Camber's pickup truck. It didn't occur to him to wonder why they would have taken Joe's truck when there were two much more comfortable vehicles near at hand, and he didn't notice the blood on the porch steps or the fact that there was a large hole in the lower panel of Gary's screen door.
"Two fools off hooting," he repeated. "At least Joe Camber remembered to cancel his mail."
He drove off the way he had come, back toward Castle Rock, lifting his leg every now and then to blow his trombone.
Steve Kemp drove out to the Dairy Queen by the Westbrook Shopping Mall for a couple of cheeseburgers and a Dilly Bar. He sat in his van, eating and looking out at Brighton Avenue, not really seeing the road or tasting the food.
He had called Handsome Hubby's office. He gave his name as Adam Swallow when the secretary asked. Said he was the marketing director for House of Lights, Inc., and would like to talk to Mr. Trenton. He had been dry-mouthed with excitement. And when Trenton got on the old hooter, they could find more interesting things than marketing to talk about. Like the little woman's birthmark, and what it might look like. Like how she had bitten him once when she came, hard enough to draw blood. Like how things were going for the Bitch Goddess since Handsome Hubby discovered she had a little taste for what was on the other side of the sheets.
But things hadn't turned out that way. The secretary had said, "I'm sorry, but both Mr. Trenton and Mr. Breakstone are out of the office this week. They'll probably be out most of next week, as well. If I could help you--?" Her voice had a rising, hopeful inflection. She really did want to help. It was her big chance to land an account while the bosses were taking care of business in Boston or maybe New York--surely no place as exotic as LA, not a little dipshit agency like Ad Worx. So get out there and tapdance until your shoes smoke, kid.
He thanked her and told her he would ring back toward the end of the month. He hung up before she could ask for his number, since the office of the House of Lights, Inc., was in a Congress Street phone booth across from Joe's Smoke Shop.
Now here he was, eating cheeseburgers and wondering what to do next. As if you didn't know, an interior voice whispered.
He started the van up and headed for Castle Rock. By the time he finished his lunch (the Dilly Bar was practically running down the stick in the heat), he was in North Windham. He threw his trash on the floor of the van, where it joined a drift of like stuff--plastic drink containers, Big Mac boxes, returnable beer and soda bottles, empty cigarette packs. Littering was an antisocial, antienvironmentalist act, and he didn't do it.
Steve got to the Trenton house at just half past three on that hot, glaring afternoon. Acting with almost subliminal caution, he drove past the house without slowing and parked around the corner on a side street about a quarter of a mile away. He walked back.
The driveway was empty, and he felt a pang of frustrated disappointment. He would not admit to himself--especially now that it looked like she was out--that he had intended to give her a taste of what she had been so eager to have during the spring. Nevertheless, he had driven all the way from Westbrook to Castle Rock with a semi-erection that only now collapsed completely.
She was gone.
No; the car was gone. One thing didn't necessarily prove the other, did it?
Steve looked around himself.
What we have here, ladies and gents, is a peaceful suburban street on a summer's day, most of the kiddies in for naps, most of the little wifies either doing likewise or glued to their TVs, checking out Love of Life or Search for Tomorrow. All the Handsome Hubbies are busy earning their way into higher tax brackets and very possibly a bed in the Intensive Care ward at the Eastern Maine Medical Center. Two little kids were playing hopscotch on a blurred chalk grid; they were wearing bathing suits and sweating heavily. An old balding lady was trundling a wire shopping caddy back from town as if both she and it were made of the finest bone china. She gave the kids playing hopscotch a wide berth.
In short, not much happening. The street was dozing in the heat.
Steve walked up the sloping driveway as if he had every right to be there. First he looked in the tiny one-car garage. He had never known Donna to use it, and she had told him once she was afraid to drive her car into it, because the doorway was so narrow. If she put a dent in the car, Handsome Hubby would give her hell--no, excuse me; he would give her heck.
The garage was empty. No Pinto, no elderly lag--Donna's Handsome Hubby was into what was known as sports car menopause. She hadn't liked him saying that, but Steve had never seen a more obvious case.
Steve left the garage and went up the three steps to the back stoop. Tried the door. Found it unlocked. He went inside without knocking after another casual glance around to make sure no one was in sight.
He closed the door on the silence of the house. Once more his heart was knocking heavily in his chest, seeming to shake his whole ribcage. And once again he was not admitting things. He didn't have to admit them. They were there just the same.
"Hi? Anybody home?" His voice was loud, honest, pleasant, inquiring.
"Hi?" He was halfway down the hall now.
Obviously no one home. The house had a silent, hot, waiting feel. An empty house full of furniture was somehow creepy when it wasn't your house. You felt watched.
"Hello? Anybody home?" One last time.
Give her something to remember you by, then. And split.
He went into the living room and stood looking around. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, his forearms lightly slicked with sweat. Now things could be admitted. How
he had wanted to kill her when she called him a son of a bitch, her spittle spraying on his face. How he had wanted to kill her for making him feel old and scared and not able to keep on top of the situation any more. The letter had been something, but the letter hadn't been enough.
To his right, knickknacks stood on a series of glass shelves. He turned and gave the bottom shelf a sudden hard kick. It disintegrated. The frame tottered and then fell over, spraying glass, spraying little china figurines of cats and shepherds and all that happy bourgeois horseshit. A pulse throbbed in the center of his forehead. He was grimacing, unaware of the fact. He walked carefully over the unbroken figurines, crushing them into powder. He pulled a family portrait from the wall, looked curiously at the smiling face of Vic Trenton for a moment (Tad was sitting on his lap, and his arm was around Donna's waist), and then he dropped the picture to the floor and stamped down hard on the glass.
He looked around, breathing hard, as if he had just run a race. And suddenly he went after the room as if it were something alive, something that had hurt him badly and needed to be punished, as if it were the room that had caused his pain. He pushed over Vic's La-Z-Boy recliner. He upended the couch. It stood on end for a moment, rocking uneasily, and then went down with a crash, breaking the back of the coffee table which had stood in front of it. He pulled all the books out of the bookcases, cursing the shitty taste of the people who had bought them under his breath as he did it. He picked up the magazine stand and threw it overhand at the mirror over the mantelpiece, shattering it. Big pieces of black-backed mirror fell onto the floor like chunks of a jigsaw puzzle. He was snorting now, like a bull in heat. His thin cheeks were almost purple with color.
He went into the kitchen by way of the small dining room. As he walked past the dining-room table Donna's parents had bought them as a housewarming present, he extended his arm straight out and swept everything off onto the floor--the lazy Susan with its complements of spices, the cut-glass vase Donna had gotten for a dollar and a quarter at the Emporium Galorium in Bridgton the summer previous, Vic's graduation beer stein. The ceramic salt and pepper shakers shattered like bombs. His erection was back now, raging. Thoughts of caution, of possible discovery, had departed his mind. He was somewhere inside. He was down a dark hole.