Vital Parts Read Online Free PDF Page B

what I am, and expect others to be the same.”
    â€œYou’re a Claude Humbold with class,” said Reinhart. “He’s the real-estate man I worked for years ago, except his ideas were ahead of their time. For example he predicted that meadow and woods would be a perfect location for a supermarket, but nobody bit in his day. He’s been in California for years.”
    Sweet was not interested in former personalities. He impatiently reminded Reinhart of the waiting airplane. “I have lingered here,” he said, “for this sentimental motive. I have thrown you a few ideas in retailing because you seem to be a local sort of man who might feasibly operate on that level. But you haven’t been eager to field them.”
    â€œMaybe I’ve tried it,” said Reinhart. “Maybe I went into television too late in the early days, a few months before the market was saturated for black-and-white and color had not yet been developed. Maybe I tried other things on the eve of various recessions, which I couldn’t weather because of lack of capital. Maybe I had—”
    Sweet shook his head. “Let’s drop all profitless precedents. What do you have right now?”
    â€œThe last thing I tried,” said Reinhart, “was a gas station on old state route 215. That whole thing is now bypassed by the superhighway. I didn’t get a dozen customers in a week.”
    Up front the old chauffeur looked asleep. Reinhart suddenly wished him dead, in which event Sweet would have to consider him, Reinhart, for the job. He was now reluctant to leave his powerful ex-schoolmate.
    â€œLook, Bob, if you are serious about helping me, maybe you have a place in your organization.”
    â€œThat’s the trouble,” Sweet told him. “I function essentially alone, except for lawyers and accountants. I don’t have a plant to my name or even much of an office force. I have to work quickly, often, and in a certain secrecy.” He removed his sunglasses and nibbled on a temple piece, his shrewd dark surveillance on Reinhart’s beseeching gray-blue eyes. “What I had in mind was, frankly, a loan.”
    â€œNo,” Reinhart avowed, “I never borrow money from an individual.” He didn’t count his mother as such. His sincerity made him breathless for a moment and he stopped to pant. “All I ask is to be allowed to earn an honest living.”
    Sweet threw back his head all at once and poured a glance down over his forceful chin. Reinhart was larger than he but sitting in a crumpled fashion.
    â€œOK,” Sweet said. “Give me a call when I get back.” He wrote a number on a serrated quarter-leaf from a pocket secretary bound in glistening lizard. He gave it to Reinhart with one hand and clasped him with the other. “Two days should wrap it up.”
    â€œYou won’t regret this, Bob.” Reinhart dared not say more, on pain of offending Sweet and disgusting himself, on reflection, with maudlin whining. He left the car but, unlike the teen-ager, remained at the curb, big hands in twisted pockets, sweating again in the sudden heat and inner expectation.
    The exquisite automobile diminished down Main Street and flowed left at the light into the superhighway access road, disappearing behind the concrete wall, already fissured, of the ramp.
    Bentley, eh. Reinhart was vaguely troubled by the two-tone effect. Was it not a bit vulgar? His would be monochrome, all silver-gray.
    The teen-ager returned. “Hi there,” said Reinhart.
    â€œHi,” she answered heedlessly and crossed the street.
    Reinhart did not have an office in the old business district, being temporarily at liberty, but Genevieve worked there as manager of a dress shop. He did not want her to see him at large. The best place to go was, ironically, home: empty, quiet, cool, and dark on a merciless day in July. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/Thou art