Free Now and on Earth by Jim Thompson Page B

books wouldn't balance, we'd start copying from one ledger into another until, when we reached our mistake, our pencils warned us of it. And I've tried to do much the same thing here. Without anticipating any problem, I've tried to-
    And it's no go. I've just wound up as usual. Too rattled to know my head from my hatband.
    You're probably wondering about Gross. So am I.
    All I can say is he's been a lot more decent-on the surface-than I would have been in the same circumstances; and that I feel tremendously sorry for him.
    When I left the plant today, Saturday, he said that he had to go to town anyway and that, if I wanted him to, he'd drive me home. I accepted. I wouldn't have, if Moon had been around, because I'm pretty sure that anyone who is friendly with Gross won't be with Moon. But Moon had already gone.
    On the way Gross said, "I'm glad you took over the books. I wanted Moon to let me off of them."
    "Glad I could help you out," I said. "They are pretty much of a headache."
    "Haven't got them straightened out yet, huh?"
    "No."
    "I thought Moon said you were an A-1 bookkeeper."
    I didn't say anything.
    "I guess you think I don't know how to keep books. I suppose you told Moon you couldn't fix up the books because I made so many mistakes."
    "I haven't discussed you with Moon," I said. "If you want to let me out I'll walk the rest of the way."
    "No, you won't either," he said. "I was just talking." When we reached the house, I thanked him and started to get out.
    "Wait a minute," he said. "I want to show you something."
    While I watched, he took an old envelope and a fountain pen from his pocket, and, after several preliminary gyrations of his hand, executed a picture of a bird with one flourish.
    "Can you do that?" he asked.
    I admitted that I couldn't.
    "Well-keep that, then," he said regally, and tossed it into my lap.
    Of course, I had to ask him to autograph it. And I'll be damned if he didn't do it!

11
    My fifth week-more accurately, the beginning of the sixth.
    Things at the plant are in a worse tangle than ever; I've got a raise; Shannon has been very sick.
    There's not much use talking about the first item.
    The raise I got last Friday. I was working away at the books for dear life-I mean that literally-when Moon and a little fellow I'd seen wandering around the plant but had never paid much attention to came up to my desk.
    "Dilly," said Moon, "Mr. Dolling wants to talk to you. Mr. Dolling is the superintendent of all the stockrooms."
    There wasn't the slightest change in his voice or expression, I'm positive; he was as lackadaisical and phlegmatic as always. And, yet, somehow, I sensed a sneer, and I think Dolling sensed it also.
    Dolling is barely five feet tall, pot-bellied, sandy of hair (what little he has), and he has a voice that would awaken any dead who weren't completely decomposed. There is a rumor that he owns a big slice of stock in the company, but I don't know whether it's true.
    He looked at Moon sharply. "All right. Thank you." Moon said, "Don't mention it," and walked away. Dolling turned back to me. "Mr. Moon," he said, in his rodeo-announcer's voice, "tells me that you are a very conscientious worker."
    "Well-thank you," I said.
    "I've noticed a small improvement in things myself," he continued, bellying up to the desk so that he was at my side instead of facing me. "Did you understand the conditions under which you went to work here?"
    "Why, I don't know exactly what you mean," I said. "I believe I understood them."
    "According to company policy-a long-established policy-any man who passes our thirty-day probationary period is entitled to a four-cent raise. We state this very clearly in the company rule book. But we don't run this company any more; the union runs it. They gave us a contract and we signed it with a gun at our heads. And the contract-the union contract, mind you, not ours-specifies that any man who has worked here sixty days and is not drawing fifty-eight cents an hour is