In Milton Lumky Territory Read online

  “I’d be willing to bet that even that wouldn’t faze you.”

  “It would,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t even notice,” Milt said.

  He began gethering up his things from the bathroom, packing them into the opened suitcase.

  “Maybe it would be a good thing after all,” Milt said. “The bomb, I mean. Maybe it would wake people up.”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “I doubt if it would be a good thing.”

  “People have to face reality sometime.” He said it with bitterness and conviction.

  After he had packed up his things, Bruce went down to the motel office and told the owners the situation. He gave them Cathy’s phone number, and, as an afterthought, Susan’s and his own in Boise. To wind it up he wrote out the name and address of Milt’s company. And he made it clear to them that Milt had enough money to maintain himself; he wanted to be sure that Milt would be well-treated after he left.

  “Don’t worry about him,” the woman said, accompanying him to his car. “We’ll keep our eye on him.” Cheerfully, she helped him unload Milt’s things.

  He carried the bundles and suitcases into the cabin. “Well, I’ll see you,” he said to Milt. He paused in the doorway. “Take it easy.”

  “Take it easy,” Milt said, not looking at him. “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

  Presently he had driven out onto the road, leaving the motel and Milt behind.

  13

  HE REACHED SEATTLE that evening and at once parked at a gas station and telephoned Phil Baranowski at the number Milt had given him.

  “It’s pretty late,” Baranowski said, when he had explained what he wanted and who he was. “It’s ten o’clock.”

  Not having realized how late in the evening it was he said, “What about early tomorrow?” Anyhow he needed sleep; he did not feel fit enough to talk business after having been all day on the road.

  They agreed to meet at nine-thiry in the morning at a downtown street corner that Baranowski assured him he would have no trouble finding. Baranowski gave him no clue to his chances; he simply said that he would be willing to discuss the machines and that was that.

  Hanging up, he felt disappointed. All the distance he had covered … here he was now, face to face with the man who actually owned a warehouse of the machines. And it was an ordinary voice on the other end of the phone, a business-like voice much the same as any other.

  The next morning he parked at me corner and waited for Baranowski to show up.

  At a quarter to ten a thin, dark-haired man wearing a shiny blue double-breasted pin-stripe suit came striding along the sidewalk toward the Merc. He appeared to be in his middle forties. Waving to Bruce he leaned down to the window and said, “Want to go in your car or mine? Might as well take yours.” He jumped in beside Bruce, and they drove off, Baranowski giving him directions. The man had an animated, terse manner; his eyes shone and he gestured continually. He seemed honest but overworked. Bruce had the feeling that to Baranowski the stock of typewriters did not amount to much. The man had a fixed idea of their worth and he would not let them go for less. But to him the amount was small; it was one inventory from among many, and as they drove from downtown Seattle toward the warehouse, Baranowski gave him an idea of some of these other involvements. Evidently the man’s main interest lay in the direction of imported optical equipment from Japan and Europe, lenses and prisms and binoculars and microscopes. He told Bruce that he had started out years ago as a lens-grinder for a Portland firm that made eyeglasses; eventually he had opened his own shop in partnership with an optometrist, and then he had gone into warwork during the ‘forties, and now into this. He no doubt had direct contact with exporters in Japan who supplied him his lenses, and the typewriters had shown up as one of their sidelines.

  “Milt thought I could pick them up for around fifty dollars each,” Bruce said, as he parked near a large wooden warehouse across from a chemical company which had its tanks up on stilts. The pavement was irregular, broken down by trucks.

  “Milt was being optimistic,” Baranowski said, getting out of the car. “Did he mention that they’re all in original cartons?” With a key he unlocked a side door of the warehouse and the two of them entered.

  The place was dark and dry. Baranowski switched on several overhead lights. “I can give you up to four hundred of them. Absolutely identical.” He reached up to the top of a pile of small square cartons and lifted one down; handing it to Bruce he showed him the stencilled code markings. “You’d be surprised how many times we run across other stuff in cartons, not what it’s supposed to be. But these are what it says. We had them checked over before they left the shipper.” He told Bruce, then, about a wealthy retired broker who had ordered a case of Cutty Sark Scotch, and when it had come he had opened it and found the wood crate filled with bricks. “And that was from Scotland,” Baranowski finished up.

  “Can I open this?” Bruce asked.

  “Please do.”

  He opened the carton and lifted out the typewriter. Sure enough, it was what he had seen in the store window in San Francisco. “Can I plug it in and try it?” he asked. The machine seemed unexpectedly light. No heavier than a book. And smaller than he remembered. But the workmanship appeared good; he examined the various screws, and they had all been driven in properly and finished up with the heads evenly countersunk.

  Baranowski patted him on the shoulder.”Take it along with you,” he said. “I’m in kind of a rush. You go back to your motel or wherever you’re staying and give it the works. Give it the hardest treatment you can. I’ve got one I’ve been using for six months; no trouble at all with it. They’re beautifully built.” He switched off the lights and led Bruce toward the door. On both sides of them, in the gloom, the cartons of Mithrias had been piled up, one on top of another, an entire cavern of them. And, beyond them, he saw larger cartons, other machines. “You make certain you’re satisfied and then you give me a buzz. Okay? You know where to find me.”

  They drove back to the downtown business section, and Baranowski told him where he wanted to be let off. The last Bruce saw of him he was striding off into an office building, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. The Mithrias remained on the car seat beside Bruce. The man, without hesitation, had left it with him, without ever having laid eyes on him before.

  IN HIS MOTEL ROOM he set the typewriter up on the bed, plugged it in, and placed a batch of typing paper and carbon paper beside it. Too bad, he thought, that I’m not a typist. He switched it on and the thing began to hum. But he did know something about machinery. Almost at once he could see that a great deal of ingenuity had gone into it. The carriage return intrigued him; it did not operate by means of a pulley, but by the use of a simple spring and lock system, like the release of a crossbow. Two strike pressures could be obtained, light for one carbon, heavy for several. The key-touch pressure could not be changed except by adjusting a screw from the back. Tabs had to be set from the back, too, and manually, as on the old pre-war machines. That did not matter, however. The main thing was the sturdiness of its construction and the general swiftness and dependability of its action. Rolling in two sheets of paper he began to type. The thing was noisy - the keys struck with a sharp clack - but such was the case with all electrics. He discovered that once a key had been pressed down, the letter would not restrike until the key had been let completely up. So there was little chance of accidental multiple strikes. With two fingers, the best he could manage, he began typing the letters f and j as rapidly as possible. He found that he could not confuse the action; it kept well ahead of him. So it represented a genuine electric, in its speed and in its light touch.

  With a screwdriver he removed the bottom plate and inspected the works. The machine used an old kind of rubber roller that threw the key up and simultaneously released it. The belt from the roller to the tiny electric motor seemed to involve a good deal of friction; probably it would have to be replaced from time to time. In fact, throughout the
works many friction points could be noticed. The motor would be under considerable strain. Wear would be fairly intense. He left the machine on, with its motor running, for a good part of the day. It did not get especially hot. Keys left jammed, he realized, would probably set up a process of binding that would burn out the motor in an hour or so. But that was a risk in most electrics.

  The style of type, although not unusual, was effective. Copied no doubt from conventional American machines.

  Making himself comfortable he began to load the machine up with work; he pressed the carriage return button again and again, for over an hour. The carriage shot back and forth, causing the machine to lurch gradually across the bed. But the mechanism never failed to operate. In the same fashion he repeatedly tried every control. It stood up perfectly, although several times, when he started to type, he jammed the keys and had to shut off the motor to unjam them.

  The carbon impression appeared to be uniform enough. The keys all hit with equal force. He tested the strength of the type-bars. They seemed somewhat flimsy. Probably they would have to be realigned from time to time. The n, he discovered, had already gone out of alignment.

  Putting in a fresh sheet of paper he laboriously typed a letter to Susan. Two-finger typing was a slow business, but at last he had what he wanted. He informed her that this was a sample of the work put out by the Mithrias, and that it was up to her to make the judgment on it; his knowledge began and ended with the mechanical aspect. After all, she had been making her living as a professional typist. As to the sales possibilities, he believed that if he could get the machines cheap enough, nothing stood in the way of their unloading them. Then he told her to phone him as soon as she had decided. He typed out the phone number of the motel, sealed up the letter plus a first and fifth carbon, carried it downstairs to the main postoffice and mailed it off to Boise special delivery air mail.

  The next day he carried the machine to a typewriter repair agency that offered service on “all makes and models.”

  The plump, curly-headed young man behind the counter examined the machine and said, “What the hell is it? One of those Italian portables? The Olivetti?” He turned it upside down and peered up into it.

  “No,” Bruce said. “It’s Japanese.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just want to find out if you can service it when it needs service.”

  “Wait’ll I get the repairman,” the curly-headed young man said. He went off behind a curtain, and when he returned he had with him a massively-built older man with dark hair and bare, hairy-black arms. The man wore a blue apron and he had ink and grease on his hands. Without a word he picked up the machine, plugged it in and turned it on, listened to it and poked at it.

  “It’s built in Japan,” Bruce said.

  The repairman scrutinized him. “I know,” he said. “Where’d you get hold of it?”

  “In San Francisco,” he said. “In a shop there.”

  “What kind of guarantee did they give you?”

  He said, “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “None,” he said.

  The repairman said, “Well, I’ll tell you. I wouldn’t have one on a bet.”

  “Why?” he asked. This was why he had brought it here, to get an opinion from a trained typewriter repairman.

  “You can’t get parts. Where’re you going to get parts? Write to Japan? Does anybody in this country stock parts?” He turned the machine on and off, jiggling the switch.

  “I guess not,” he said, acting out his role.

  “It’s not badly put together,” the repairman said, shaking the machine and operating the carriage return. “Those people are clever and they’ve got little fingers; they can get in and assemble where there’s no space for a white man to stick his thumb. Look at this.” He showed Bruce how close together the moving parts had been placed. “That’s why they can build it so small. But hell, when you want service, how’s anybody going to get a tool into it?” He stuck the end of a screwdriver down and showed Bruce that it could not be fitted into some of the visible screws. “You practically have to disassemble it to clean it.”

  “Have you had any in here for service?”

  “A couple,” the curly-headed younger man said.

  “Better stick to American products,” the repairman said. “It’s like anything else; buy a brand you know.”

  Picking up his Mithrias, Bruce thanked him and left the repair shop.

  For the heck of it he tried one more shop. A moody-looking man waited on him. Apparently he had never seen a Mithrias before; he viewed it from every angle, saying nothing, not plugging it in or asking anything about it. Finally he turned his head and said, “Is this something new they’re bringing out? Some of the bolts are metric. We’re going to have trouble with these.”

  “Can you work on it?”

  “Oh sure, we can work on it. What’s the matter with it?” Now he plugged it in and ran a piece of folded paper around the roller.

  “Nothing right now.” he said.

  “Oh, you’re just getting the news in advance. Is it yours?”

  “Not quite,” he said. “It may be. How much do you think I ought to pay for it?”

  “Is it new?” The man tapped at the rubber roller. “It’s been used. Look at the key-strikes in the platen.”

  They discussed it and decided that the Mithrias electric portable, when new, was worth about two hundred dollars. Probably he would have perpetual trouble getting service on it. But it seemed well-built and if he was lucky he would get a lot of use out of it. The repairman tapped out laboriously a few words, with one finger instead of two, jamming the keys and at last giving up.

  “I’m not much of a typist,” he admitted.

  “Neither am I,” Bruce said. He thanked the man and departed with his Mithrias under his arm.

  So it could be worked on, if the repairman was willing. The problem was no greater than with foreign cameras or cars; maintenance was a calculated risk. That cheered him up. They could sell the Mithrias in good conscience.

  He drove to the downtown address at which Phil Baranowski operated. The legend on the office door read WEST COAST OPTICS, and when he opened the door he found himself facing an illuminated and velvet-draped display table of optical equipment.

  “Made up your mind?” Baranowski said, from somewhere out of sight. He appeared, his sleeves rolled up, carrying a pry bar. Off the office Bruce saw a small store room; Baranowski had been getting the lid from a packing crate. “Don’t mind if I keep on working.” He returned to the crate and picked up a cigarette that he had left lying on top of it.

  Bruce said, “Depending on what you want for them, I’m definitely interested.”

  “They’re nicely put together, aren’t they? Overseas they don’t have assembly lines like we have; they don’t shoot them out one after another. The things are made stationary. First one man works on it and then he goes down to the the next one and the next man takes his place. They can turn out professional-quality equipment in a garage. In a basement. With a couple of belt-driven lathes. During the war they hand-ground lenses and mirrors in bombed-out cellars. They made the most intricate electronic equipment with a hundred dollars’ worth of bench tools. If a Japanese shop had had what the average do-it-your-selfer has in his garage today, they would have got the A-bomb before we did.”

  “How much do you want for the portables?” he said.

  “You want them all?”

  “No,” he said. “I couldn’t hope to unload them all. At any price. Too much of a service problem.”

  “There’s no service problem.” Baranowski paused in his work and gestured with the pry bar. “What do you mean?”

  “No parts. And metric bolts. And no space to work; everything packed in tight. You can’t get at anything.”

  “Do you expect them to break?”

  “Every machine breaks. Any electric typewriter needs constant maintenance.”r />
  “Leave that up to the customer.”

  “We have to put some kind of guarantee on them.”

  “Don’t play up the imported business. You’re not going to notify them that they’re made in Japan, are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Well, that’s fifty percent of it. If they think they’re made in this country it won’t occur to them to worry about service.”

  “We’re not a schlock outfit,” he said. “That’s not the way we do business.”

  “And this isn’t a schlock typewriter,” Baranowski said sharply. He gave up his unpacking and came back into the office, swinging his pry bar around. “It’s a good sound piece of workmanship and anybody who knows anything about machinery’ll recognize that.”

  “How much?” Bruce said, feeling that he had the man on the defensive.

  “For how many? I don’t want to break the warehouse down. If I keep it intact I can offer somebody an exclusive. If I sell you some and somebody else some, you’ll be in competition.”

  “I’m not selling them in this area,” he said.

  “Where, then?”

  “The southern part of Idaho.”

  “Around Boise?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Anywhere else?”

  “No.”

  “I could sell you two hundred.”

  “At how much?”

  Baranowski sat down at his desk and began writing figures. At last he said, “Fifteen thousand.”

  It stunned him. He computed it and arrived at a figure of seventy-five dollars a machine. “Too much,” he said, “and too many.”

  “How many, then? That’s as low as I can cut it.” Baranowski scowled.

  “What about fifty of them?”

  In a quiet voice Baranowski said, “Are you kidding? That’s almost a retail quantity.”

  “Nobody walks into a retail outlet and buys fifty typewriters.”

  “What sort of price do you think you can get on a quantity like that? What sort of selling are you in? Evidently you have no experience in this.” Baranowski started back to the store room.