“Makes what?”
“Hub caps. For cars? They have a pisspot full of dough, and they’re afraid Lenny’s marrying her for her dough. Jesus, I got him five big ones for three years. He don’t need any of her goddamned dough.”
Mickey smiled uneasily, as he thought again of the enormous difference between negotiating a contract for the professional services of someone who was damned near the Most Valuable Player in the American League and a police reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin.
A few minutes later, two waiters rolled into the suite with a cart and a folding table and set up breakfast.
“I told you, I
think,” the Bull said, as he shoveled food onto his plate, “that you can’t get either Taylor ham or scrapple on the West Coast?” Scrapple, a mush made with pork by-products, which was probably introduced into Eastern Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Dutch (actually Hessians) was sometimes referred to as “poor people’s bacon.”
“Yeah, you told me,” Mickey said. “How do you think we stand, Casimir?”
“What do you mean, stand? Oh, you mean with those bastards from the Bulletin?”
“Yeah,” Mickey said, as Antoinette came back into the room, and Casimir stood up and politely held her chair for her.
“Thank you, darling,” Antoinette said. “Has Casimir told you, Michael, that they don’t have either Taylor ham or scrapple on the West Coast?”
“I could mail you some, if you like,” Mickey said.
“It would probably go bad before the goddamned post office got it there,” the Bull said, “but it’s a thought, Michael.”
“I never heard of either before I met Casimir,” Antoinette said, “but now I’m just about as crazy about it as he is.”
“Casimir was just about to tell me how he thinks we stand with the Bulletin,” Mickey said.
“Maybe you could send it Special Delivery or something,” the Bull said. “If we wasn’t going from here to Florida, I’d put a couple of rolls of Taylor ham and a couple of pounds of scrapple in the suitcase. But it would probably go bad before we got home.”
“Of course it would,” Antoinette said. “And it would get warm and greasy and get all over our clothes.”
“So how do you think we stand with the Bulletin?” Mickey asked, somewhat plaintively.
“You sound as if you don’t have an awful lot of faith in Casimir, Michael,” Antoinette said.
“Don’t be silly,” Mickey said.
“It would probably take two days to get to the Coast Air-Mail Special Delivery,” the Bull said. “What the hell, it’s worth a shot.”
He reached into his trousers pocket, took out a stack of bills held together with a gold clip in the shape of a dollar sign, peeled off a fifty-dollar bill, and handed it to Mickey.
“Two of the big rolls of Taylor ham,” The Bull ordered thoughtfully, “and what—five pounds?—of scrapple. I wonder if you can freeze it.”
“Probably not,” Antoinette said. “If they could freeze it, they would probably have it in the freezer department in the supermarket.”
“What the hell, we’ll give it a shot anyway. You never get anywhere unless you take a chance, ain’t that right, Michael?”
“Right.”
FOUR
The Philadelphia firm of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester maintained their law offices in the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society Building at Twelfth and Market Streets, east of Broad Street, which was convenient to both the federal courthouse and the financial district. The firm occupied all of the eleventh floor, and part of the tenth.
The offices of the two founding partners, Brewster Cortland Payne II and Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, together with the Executive Conference Room and the office of Mrs. Irene Craig, whose title was Executive Secretary, and whose services they had shared since founding their partnership, occupied the entire eastern wall of the eleventh floor, Colonel Mawson in the corner office to the right and Mr. Payne to the left, with Mrs. Craig between them.
Although this was known only to Colonel Mawson and Mr. Payne, and of course to Mrs. Craig herself, her annual remuneration was greater than that received by any of the twenty-one junior partners of the firm. She received, in addition to a generous salary, the dividends on stock she held in the concern.
Although her desk was replete with the very latest office equipment appropriate to an experienced legal secretary, it had been a very long time since she had actually taken a letter, or a brief, or typed one. She had three assistants, two women and a man, who handled dictation and typing and similar chores.