Carney was about to fall asleep when it occurred to him that Linus’s overdose was not an accident. “Mother of fucking God,” he said, out loud this time. Elizabeth put a pillow over her head.
Where was Freddie?
He grabbed a blanket from the linen closet and spent the rest of the night on the couch.
* * *
*
For all the worry that the man from Bella Fontaine might cancel, that the protests might prevent it from proceeding, the meeting was on. Events had left little time to prepare. Carney had Rusty and Marie arrive a half hour early for a run-through. Rusty delivered his Argent and Collins-Hathaway pitches while Carney listened for holes. Mr. Gibbs doubtless maintained a mental conception of how a Negro furniture salesman walked and talked, of what the store would look like; he and Rusty would show him that he didn’t know shit. He was ashamed at his relief that six years in the city had sawed the edges off Rusty’s hick accent.
Marie had stopped bringing in baked goods last year, but this morning she blessed the store with a tray of caramel apple cookies topped with chopped pecans, “like they eat out there, or so I’ve heard.” Out there meaning Nebraska. If this was the kind of treat they went for, Carney thought, who knew what other primitive customs the whites out there claimed as their own?
Carney tidied his desk and stiffened when Linus’s cold, contorted body appeared in his mind. He shook it off. He’d seen a dead body in this very room—Miami Joe. But the bathtub—it reminded Carney of a picture of a womb, the way Linus was curled up and pressed against the cast-iron sides. “You guys ready?” Carney called out.
Marie gave him a thumbs-up, like an ace pilot in a war movie.
Mr. Gibbs arrived at five minutes after eleven.
He was younger than Carney had imagined, slim-built, freckled in a band across his nose and cheeks. Gibbs kept his brown hair in a close, hayseed crew cut, and he wore a white short-sleeve shirt with a dark brown tie. He gripped a black satchel in his right hand and hooked his seersucker jacket over his back with his other hand.
Carney welcomed him. “Hot enough for you? How’s the weather in Omaha?” In the back of the store, Rusty leaned over Marie’s desk, the two of them engaged in a fake conversation.
Mr. Gibbs smiled and looked over his shoulder at 125th Street. Carney wagered he’d seen more Negroes in five minutes than he had in his whole life.
The sales rep had a friendly manner as he recounted the dull details of his semiannual trip out East. A simple phone call took care of most client relations, he said, but it was good to put names to faces. “You know how it is, Mr. Carney.”
“Call me Ray.”
“Nice operation you got here,” Mr. Gibbs said. It was paramount to visit prospective dealers in person, for obvious reasons. For the right fit. Bella Fontaine had a corporate personality; sometimes certain personalities didn’t mix as well as others. And of course there was the problem of geography, he said. You didn’t want to turn local establishments into rivals so that they’re cannibalizing one another’s business.
The euphemisms made Carney dizzy and he’d have to check with Elizabeth over whether the cannibal thing was a slur.
Mr. Gibbs asked how long he had been in business and Carney gave him the lowdown. The seed money had been a “dedicated savings plan,” instead of a bunch of his father’s stolen money hidden in an old tire. The importance of repeat business, maintaining the customer relationship, intimate knowledge of the neighborhood. Carney alluded to last week’s unrest—“The city may change, but everybody needs a fine-quality sofa”—as a segue to opine on the waves of Southern transplants. “They’re here for good. They’re raising a family and like any other family, they need to furnish their house.”
Carney had taken Gibbs on a small circuit around the showroom and now directed him into his office. He was about to redirect his pitch to the specific virtues of Bella Fontaine, and then take a brief foray into racial harmony, when Marie distracted him.
Two white cops—they had to be cops—lumbered toward Carney’s office.
“Please, sirs, you have to listen,” Marie said. They breezed past her.
Rusty asked the men if he could assist them. The cops materialized in the doorway of the office, with sour expressions. They were simultaneously doughy and sturdy, like TV wrestlers, moving quicker than you’d think, given their lumpy physiques. “I’m Detective Fitzgerald of the 33rd Precinct,” the taller one said, “and that’s my partner Garrett. We’re investigating a death that occurred last night uptown. A deceased person.”