Ordinary People Read Online Free PDF Page B

had no right to meddle in the financial affairs of campus sororities (her stand was based on rights of privacy, as he remembered it), he had fallen abruptly and thoroughly in love with her. It was, on looking back, as good a reason as a tennis ace.
    “Nothing is hanging over our heads,” he says, as much to himself as to her. “Don’t worry. Everything is all right.”
    She looks at him, reaching out to gather the colored sheets of paper into a neat pile, slipping them into the envelope. “Then, I don’t understand you at all,” she says.
     
     
    He sits at his desk, working on the papers Ray has left there for him. At three-thirty he has a meeting with Sandlin. They will discuss a new angle on their annuities. A germ, Ray calls it. His ideas are always referred to as “germs”; his figure estimates are “in the ball park.” Cliches. They jump out at you from everywhere, but you never see your own. Howard called again today, to talk about the Mercedes dealership opening up in Evanston. “Things are looking up, Cal. Light at the end of the tunnel. People buying expensive foreign cars again. Hell of a good sign, wouldn’t you say?”
    Yes, he had agreed with this spot analysis of U.S. economy, his mind automatically registering the old favorites. Where was Out of the woods? It was missing today.
    He gets up to stretch and look out the window at the North Shore Channel; the fringes of Northwestern’s campus; down below, Evanston proper. The offices of Hanley and Jarrett, Attorneys at Law, on the eighth floor of the State National Bank Plaza, overlook the whole of southwest Evanston. He has always wished they were on the eastern side of the building, preferring to look out on frozen cliffs of water in winter, rather than dirty streets, dirtier cars; it is not a pleasant corner in the midst of the gray Chicago winter. Other than that, it is a good location. The atmosphere on the eighth floor seems cleaner; steadier. Years ago, when they were getting started, their one-room Chicago office was hot and crowded; their look-alike, cramped apartments on the near north side were hotter and more crowded, yet. No more. Now Ray and Nancy live in Glencoe, and he takes the train in from his English Tudor castle, walking to the Plaza from the station. He tells Cal he is crazy to drive. The train is the only way, he says. But Cal prefers his car. It gives him control over his schedule, and, besides, riding the train has always made him nervous. He can’t work, as he has seen some men do; he can barely read the paper. Riding the train gives him too much time to think, he has decided. Too much thinking can ruin you.
    Ray knocks on the open door; sticks his head inside. “Got a minute to run this around before the meeting?”
    “Sure. C’mon in.”
    “I just want to clue you in about Sandlin. Christ, I tell him twice a week he ought to go to law school. He thinks I’m kidding. I swear, he thinks he’s the only account we have.”
    “You got the annuities straightened out?”
    “Yeah, I think so. Have a look.”
    They go over the file together, Ray explaining the alternative tax consequences he has assembled, while Cal scans the stack of letters from G. Sandlin Corp., dating back over the past months.
    “Looks okay to me. What’s his problem?”
    “No problem,. really. He fancies himself this big wheeler-dealer and it frosts hell out of him that his transactions are not unique, that they have actually been performed many times before in the history of tax law.”
    “So what are we seeing him for?”
    “Hell, I don’t know—so he can tell his partners at lunch that he pointed out a few loopholes to those hotshot lawyers up on eight. Do me a favor, will you? Get him to stop calling every day. You’re good at that. Closing doors politely. If I tell him, he’s going to get offended, but it’s the goddamn, pathetic truth, if I had a buck for every time he calls me about junk, just niggling items, you know?”
    “Okay,