— What? Well but why, if they really saw what they’ve got there they might not be so ready to see a lot of outsiders coming in and…
— Simply getting them in to a desolate place like Astoria, it wouldn’t impress them they’d be horrified.
— Well but… he stood up rattling the ice in his glass as he raised it. — Wait, you come to think of it now they must have nearer thirty, maybe twenty-seven shares altogether, that Jack Gibbs he took five shares with him when he quit didn’t he?
— Took? And she did half turn, more to pull the blanket back to her shoulder as his weight sank the edge of the bed.
— I don’t mean to sound like he stole it Stella, your father wanted to give it to him for all the help he’d been with those ideas he had I went right along with it, but that was just the thing with him you know? How he’d work out some crackerjack idea right to the point you could do something with it then he’d just leave it there, like it wasn’t worth just getting down and doing it… he brought the glass down shaking nothing but ice in it. — A while after he left there I’d look in book stores when I passed one to see if there was a book with his name on it, he said that’s what he was doing writing a book. If you ever heard him talk about these ideas he had about random patterns and mechanizing you name it but if he ever wrote that book, I sure never saw it… he rattled the ice again staring into the glass. — I used to think he must be the smartest man I ever met, why he’d…
— He probably was. Is that what you came in to tell me?
— Well no Stella I just got off on it talking about those five shares, you figure if these death taxes take maybe up toward half this forty-five percent of the company your father had that leaves maybe twenty-five coming to you, with my twenty-three we’re still on top of things and if anything comes out of this old lawsuit that just came back to life with that jukebox company there’s no telling where it will take us. You see but now if you have to split what comes down from your father with Edward there and he takes up with what your aunts and your Uncle James hold, well that could give them a maybe four percent margin for control so where these five shares that Jack Gibbs had fit in that could turn the whole, Stella…?
— What is it.
— I just wasn’t sure you were listening to me Stella, I mean I thought going out there to see them like we just did we’d at least get a clearer line on things even if we didn’t dig up these papers but your aunts, I just couldn’t get across to them, your Aunt Anne there talking about somebody called the young planter whose father was an undertaker part of the time I don’t think they even knew who I was. And Edward there, I can see how he’d be that upset coming into the place like he did but standing up there singing like that, talking about going into the shoe business someplace nobody’s heard of… he swirled the ice in the glass, drank off the bit of water to rattle it again. — Stella? I mean I just don’t know what you meant saying maybe he’s suddenly scared James isn’t his father, did he say if…
— I just mean he’s a rather selfish boy, that’s all.
— Yes well that’s what I mean he certainly looks like he can use the money, that’s…
— Well it’s not what I mean! her sudden turn lost her the sheet from her shoulders, — he’s a boy with a lot of romantic ideas about himself and everything else I tried to help him get rid of that’s all, now please…
— Well but Stel…
— And please stop calling me Stella! she pulled the sheet up as though it was the force of his stare that had abruptly bared her breast spilled toward him there, turned on her back to reach the light.
— But, but that’s…
— Oh I just mean stop saying it… the light went out and the mass of her thighs rose again under the blanket as she turned away.
Back in the kitchen half tending his eggs he poured some more bourbon finally settling down to eat with his left hand, a blunt pencil in his right sketching, adding, subtracting, crossing out on a kitchen pad he brought with him into the living room when he was finished, moving among the furniture like a stranger looking for a chair large enough, a lamp bright enough, moving Spring in Derby biscuit and Brassaï Retrospective to make space enough for his forms and papers and the latest catalog of Ardo Heavy Duty Stamping Equipment and Parts List, squeezing off his shoes and working on a larger yellow pad until the telephone rang. He looked down the hall as he crossed the room to answer it to what appeared to be light under the bedroom door, but it continued to ring until he answered it, and then went dead in his hand.
