Sneaky People: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

roared. Ralph joined in the laughter. Jack did not, being a schoolteacher. But he prissily loosened the knot of his washable tie and opened his collar.
    Leo told Ralph: “Listen, you run up all the windows and lock all the cars, and I’ll drop you off.”
    “Is it closing time already?” Ralph grimaced at what he believed another failure of his inner clock.
    Though usually the steadiest of men, Leo had been made disorderly by Buddy’s unprecedented loss of control—as Clarence, no schemer, had been led by Buddy’s threats to an understanding of blackmail.
    “That’s right,” Leo said recklessly. “Your dad’s decided to call it a day.” He amazed himself as well as Jack, whose eyebrows arched. Jack had earned no commission whatever, this Saturday; yet, infected by Leo’s capriciousness, he made no protest. Instead, he opened the drawer, took out the pint of Seagram’s, unscrewed the cap, and boldly poured whiskey down his throat in full view of Ralph.
    Leo was hit hard by this seizing of the initiative. He did not himself imbibe.
    “Hey, Ralph,” he said desperately. “You want a drink?”
    Ralph said: “Sure.” He always enjoyed Leo’s badinage.
    But Jack cried: “Leo!” And put the bottle away posthaste, avoiding Ralph’s eyes. Better to ride it out than to ask Ralph to say nothing. Jack knew better than to put himself at the mercy of a schoolboy. But he struck back at Leo.
    “What about the receipts?”
    Leo decided Jack was getting too big for his breeches: he found the question even more insolent than the drinking.
    “You just let me worry about that,” said he. “You can take off now if you want.” In the absence of Buddy, Leo considered himself boss. Jack flipped his hands and went into the little washroom in the far corner; already he had begun to feel the effects of the whiskey. If he went home having earned no money and with alcohol on his breath, his wife would think the worst.
    Leo went to the short, squat safe behind Buddy’s desk. Its door was never closed, the only valuables, the checks and cash of the day, being kept within in a green metal box, locked by a key of which Buddy and Leo had examples, but not part-time employee Jack. Before leaving the lot each evening, Buddy emptied the box and prepared a deposit slip, then drove to the bank and dumped the tan envelope in the night chute. As Buddy himself had said just before the run-in with Ballbacher, Leo had seen him do this many times.
    Yet having now to do it himself made Leo uneasy. He liked money but feared its physical reality. He paid all bills immediately, in cash, going in person to the Light & Power and Bell Telephone offices. His expenditures for living were modest; his invalid mother did not cost him as much as he let people assume, the doctor having long since announced that her ailments were imaginary and prescribed only sugar pills. It would have been much more expensive to keep her in a madhouse; she was harmless enough, all the more so when she believed she was dying and stayed in bed. Leo’s earnings averaged out, give or take, at thirty-five per week.
    He took the cashbox from the safe and put it on Buddy’s desk, saying to Ralph: “Your dad’s still working on his first million.”
    Jack could be heard urinating. Embarrassed by the sound and fearful that the schoolteacher would also fart, as some men did while so engaged, Ralph said: “I’ll lock up the cars,” and exited.
    Leo found a deposit slip and, having opened the cashbox, began to record the amounts of the cashiers’ checks therein. This done, he turned to the greenbacks, some crumpled and almost black from use, others so crisp and fresh as to look bogus. His first count came to $387. Incredulous, he recounted and arrived at the even more unlikely sum of $429. He had himself made only one cash sale all day: a ’33 Ford station wagon, with sides of rotten wood, for an adjusted price of $85. Buddy, and perhaps Jack as well, must have sold several