John D. MacDonald

A Good Judge of Men

McGarron, the sales manager, issued the invitation.

Four of us were being broken in at the home office before being sent to the regional offices of the Dillon Construction Equipment Company. There’s a lot of money in moving dirt, and in selling the stuff that moves it. It’s the cream of all sales jobs. They prefer civil engineers, but some of the old boys, like McGarron, started in before Dillon started to get particular.

McGarron said, “I’ve got this camp. It’s in pretty rough country. We can go out and maybe get ourself a deer. I’ll take care of the grub and the liquor and the guns and the transportation. You guys get licenses. We’ll leave from here Friday afternoon.”

It was as much an order as an invitation.

McGarron had made it pretty clear that he could turn the thumb down on any one of us, or the whole four, if he felt like it. I didn’t think much of him from the minute I met him. A big-bellied citizen with a weather-red face and what his wife probably told him were twinkly little blue eyes. He was one of those people who keep sticking you with their thumb to emphasize a point, or knuckling you on the chest. But he knew equipment, and he had a 30-year card file in his head of everybody who’d bought anything from Dillon.

I wanted the sales job and I wanted it badly. I’d been seven years with Kimball and Stroud Construction, the last four as superintendent of road jobs in the field. I made the mistake of showing a real nice profit on a Georgia job, and that sort of turned me into their Georgia expert. It looked like I was going to be stuck down there for the rest of my life.

Peg and I had a little reserve to carry us until commissions started coming in, and I figured that after three years with Dillon I ought to be racking up $20,000 a year. But if McGarron decided that I parted my hair in the wrong place. I knew I could always go back with Kimball and Stroud.

So there was me, Ralph Buckler — and there was Jake Reigen, and Tom Durboldt and Allan Archer, The four hopefuls.

Jake Reigen was a tough, swarthy, bandy-legged little guy in his early forties. He had a wide white-toothed grin and a world of practical experience in the road-building game. I figured Jake as having too crazy a temper to ever make a salesman. If a prospect said no to Jake, Jake would want to clock him with a cement form.

Tom Durboldt was a quiet, big-shouldered blond who was a transfer from Dillon’s Manufacturing Division. He was steady, likeable, but without experience in problems in the field.

For a long time I couldn’t figure out Allan Archer, the fourth member of our little quartet. I’ve hired kids like him out in the field. You always hire them with misgivings. They either last a few days and quit, or they get stubborn and turn into pretty good hands. He was 21 or 22, a dark boy with a good build.

I remembered hearing about the Archer Corporation, and how they recently landed the fat airfield construction contract in North Africa. I asked Allan a few indirect questions and found out that it was his family.

So on Friday, on the last day of our three-week training period, we carried suitcases out to McGarron’s big gray Cadillac sedan. The guns and liquor and food were in the trunk. We had to put the bags inside, so it was pretty cramped.

“Another day, another dollar,” McGarron said, shoving his thumb into Tom Durboldt’s ribs. McGarron was full of original cracks like that. We got in, and I sat beside McGarron, with the other three in back. Archer in the middle.

McGarron’s driving made me nervous. He bullied his way through traffic, cursing everybody who wouldn’t move over.

“I suppose I got a bunch of dead shots with me,” he said.

“I can hit the ground with my hat every time,” Jake said.

We bulled about previous hunting trips. I’d done a little, not much. Tom was a woodsman from way back. Jake and Allan Archer had never shot at anything except tin cans on fence posts. You could feel the strain in the car. McGarron knew just what his recommendations were going to be, and he could have taken the pressure off by letting us know. But that wasn’t his way. He was going to talk about everything in the world except those four sales openings that we wanted. I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hinting around, and I guessed Tom felt the same way.

But Jake brought it up, and I sort of liked the way he did it. We were about an hour from the city and had turned off onto narrow, pot-holed asphalt. Jake said, out of the clear sky, “Look, McGarron. We all want to relax and have a time. So tell us. Do we have jobs or don’t we?”

I looked at McGarron’s blunt profile and saw his lips tighten. Then he grinned. “Sure, Jake. I’ll tell you. As far as I can see, three of you fellows are going to work out fine. I’m not sure about the other guy. I thought I’d make up my mind this weekend which three to choose.”

“So who might not have a job?” Jake demanded.

“Hell,” said McGarron, “I wouldn’t want to spoil the weekend for one of you.”

I had my arm along the top of the seat. I looked back at Jake. His eyes had a narrow smoky look, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. It was pretty obvious that McGarron wanted to run it like one of those TV shows, with $20,000 a year for the jackpot.

We got to his camp. It had a little one lung generator to pump the water and run the lights. There was a gasoline stove in the kitchen. The camp wasn’t sealed, and you hung everything on nails sticking out of the studding. The porch overlooked the lake.

As soon as we got organized. McGarron broke out the liquor and made it evident that he expected every one of us to get just as tight as he was going to get. And he planned to get thoroughly boiled. Things were getting pretty fuzzy by the time we ate, and after the table was cleared, McGarron organized a poker game. By then Jake’s eyes looked pretty bloodshot. Tom’s mouth was sliding all over his face, and Allan Archer was as pale as death.

McGarron just got louder and redder. He demanded that we play table stakes pot limit, which is a rugged game in any man’s league. Drunk as I was. I knew what Jake held every time. Tom played a steady game, but unimaginative. It was the Archer kid who surprised me. I don’t know where he learned his poker. Jake went broke in the first hour, stumbled over to a bunk, fell in and began to snore. Tom was losing steadily. I was trying like hell to stay even. McGarron and Archer were splitting Jake’s money and Tom’s.

We’d killed three fifths by midnight, and one of those big pots came along. I opened with two pair and found I’d opened into McGarron’s pat hand and into a one card draw by Archer. I didn’t fill and checked, then folded as McGarron bet. Tom had already folded. He yawned and said, “Enough for me,” and wandered out into the night.

McGarron had bet small, considering his pat hand. Allan, with his face like chalk, made a substantial raise.

“Sucked you in that time, son,” McGarron said heartily. He matched the raise and bet big.

“And another raise to you,” Archer said tonelessly.

“I sure like to take money away from stubborn people,” McGarron said, betting right back. They had shoved the pot up above five hundred dollars by then. I knew it didn’t mean much to McGarron, and probably less to Allan Archer.

Archer calmly pushed everything he had left out. Two or three hundred I guess it was. As it was table stakes, that was all he could do. And it was going to take just about everything McGarron had in front of him to call.

“Excuse me,” Archer said in a strangled voice. He put his cards face down on the table and stumbled to the door. In a moment we heard him being sick at the end of the porch.

I sat there and McGarron sat there. He fiddled with his cash and kept looking over at Archer’s cards.

“Hate to take the kid’s money,” McGarron said jovially.

I didn’t answer.

“He’s betting right into me.”

“He knows the game,” I said.

McGarron leaned forward. Archer had been sitting on my left. McGarron looked hard at me. “What has he got, Ralph?”

I stared at McGarron. “Are you kidding?”

The man was drunk. Pig-drunk, but under enough control to know what he was doing. He smiled, and it was a peculiarly womanish smile. “Ralphie, how do you know who it is that I’m wondering about? You want the job?”

“I don’t want it that bad, McGarron. I don’t want any job that bad.”

He could see I meant it, and I could almost hear his mind ticking over. He leaned back and grinned expansively. “And we wouldn’t want any man working for us who’d do a thing like that, Ralph. Jus’ a test. Jus’ a li’l test.”

Archer came back in, his eyes watery. He sat down and shuddered.

McGarron said. “Well, it won’t do any good to raise you again. Only thing I can do is call, I suppose.”

“Or fold,” Archer said evenly.

“With this hand? Son, you seldom see a hand like this.” McGarron pushed the money out. “I’m calling,” he said.

Allan Archer flipped his cards over casually. Four lovely bullets. “Got one on the draw,” he said.

McGarron’s little blue eyes squeezed almost shut. He ripped his five cards in half and threw them at the fireplace and stumped out. I went over and looked at the pieces. He’d had kings full. A tough one to lose.

Archer said, “It’s me, you know. He doesn’t want me hired.”

“Hell, you can’t be sure.”

“I am sure, though.”

“Does it mean a lot to you?”

He stood up slowly. “It means... more than I can tell you, Ralph.”

“Maybe it would have helped if you folded that hand.”

“I thought of it.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”...

McGarron was up at seven, bellowing around, sending out repulsive waves of morning good cheer. Jake was grim, Tom was sleepy, and I had a head like a hippo’s gall bladder. Breakfast helped a little. Afterward, McGarron issued the firearms and ammunition and acted like a top kick. We walked for two miles and then McGarron posted Jake and Tom and myself in the flats where two creeks came down a long slope.

McGarron said, “Archer and I will go around the hill and come down those creek beds. Chances are we’ll either get a shot up in there, or drive a couple out. You guys take it easy this time. You ready, son? You’re going to have to make tracks to keep up with me.”

Archer nodded and away they went. McGarron setting a fast pace.

I moved over toward Tom. Jake joined us. We had a cigarette and I told them about McGarron and the cards. Jake made a few juicy comments about McGarron’s parentage.

“I think we’re safe,” Tom said. “It’s the kid he’s down on. And the kid doesn’t know how to play up to him. McGarron thinks he’s the world’s complete man, and the kid acts like he doesn’t go along with the estimate.”

“I hate to get a job from a bastard like McGarron,” Jake said. “And for my money, the kid is all right.”

“McGarron likes his war of nerves,” I said. “I wish we could make him feel as insecure as he’s making us feel.”

Tom ground out his cigarette. “You might have an idea there, Ralph.”

“How do you mean?” Jake demanded.

“There might be some risk in it. I mean there’s an outside chance it might make him so upset he’d turn the whole lot of us down,” Tom said.

“I don’t give a damn,” Jake said. “Do you, Ralph?”

“Let’s hear the idea first.”

Tom hitched himself forward and instinctively lowered his voice. “I’ve been working for Dillon for a long time. The big boys in manufacturing hate McGarron’s guts, but they respect him because the changes he demands usually go over big in the field. But he rides rough-shod over so many people in the company there’s always been a bunch trying to get rid of him. McGarron knows it, and he knows he’s safe because P. J. Dillon thinks McGarron is the best in the business.

“Dillon is the guy who saves McGarron’s bacon every time. He’s a tough old cookie and he’ll probably live to be a hundred and six. If he ever retired, McGarron would last about ten minutes, and McGarron knows it. Hell, if P. J. retired, every regional sales office would declare a public holiday and burn effigies of McGarron. Now, I think if we very carefully manufacture a rumor about P. J. Dillon, it will spoil the hell out of McGarron’s weekend.”

“Lovely!” Jake said reverently.

“I know the company well enough to make it sound good,” Tom said. “Now let’s set it up.”...

The deer were conspicuous for their absence, and we plunged around in the brush until we were as hungry as wolves. It was easy to see that McGarron was trying to wear us out. Jake and I kept up as well as he did. But Tom and Archer began to show serious signs of wear. The more their butts dragged, the happier McGarron acted.

We ate a heavy meal and then went out onto the porch. There was a wind blowing out toward the lake. McGarron collected the empty bottles, put some water in them so they’d float low, and heaved them out.

While he was getting the guns Jake groaned and whispered, “Now he’s got to show us he’s the world’s best shot.”

McGarron made us wait until the bottles were well out. The neck of a bottle at 150 yards isn’t much of a target. There was no danger of stray shots because the mountain on the opposite shoreline was too steep for anybody to stand on it, much less build camps.

McGarron said, “Six shots apiece, fellows. You take all your shots in a row. Get a bottle and everybody else owes you five bucks. Okay?”

“This is turning into an expensive weekend,” Jake said unhappily.

We matched odd man and had to flip about eight times before Jake was elected to try first. He shot quite a group around the nearest bottle. You could have covered his group with a freight car. I was next, and I did better, but not well enough to get myself a bottle. McGarron won the next flip and got a bottle on his third shot. He gave a yelp of triumph and switched his aim to the next one. He was very, very close with every shot, but he missed. Tom did about as well as me.

Archer shot last.

He missed with his first, got a bottle with his second.

“Nice going,” McGarron said, meaning it not at all.

Archer got the third and last bottle with his fourth shot. McGarron got some more bottles. The rest of us begged off. He shot it out with Archer, and Archer was clearly the better shot. That was another mistake.

McGarron wasn’t even subtle about it. He was so sore he didn’t let a decent interval elapse before he said, “I might as well tell you, Archer. I’m not going to recommend you for the job.”

Allan looked at him steadily, lips compressed. “Why?”

“Son, it’s nothing personal. You just haven’t got a sales personality.”

“You mean I don’t bellow at people and keep shoving them while I talk to them like you do, Mr. McGarron?”

“Don’t get snotty with me, son,” he said in a dangerous voice.

I glanced at Tom. Tom gave an imperceptible nod and said, “McGarron, before you get too hasty, I think I better talk over something with you.”

McGarron wheeled on him. “You trying to tell me my job?”

“No. We all like you, McGarron. We’d hate to see you get clobbered up. Doesn’t the Archer Company buy from Dillon?”

“Sure, but that doesn’t make any difference. You trying to tell me, Durboldt, that I got to hire this kid so they’ll keep buying equipment?”

“Not at all. I just thought maybe Allan here could help put the Archer Company behind you this month, and that might help.”

McGarron stared at him. “Behind me? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t you know about P. J.?” Tom asked with bland surprise.

I saw McGarron’s hands tighten on the porch railing. “What about P. J.?”

“Poor health. He’s retiring at the end of the month.”

McGarron laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Why, that old coot is as tough as saddle leather!”

“Bad heart, they say. Dolmer is taking over.” Tom shrugged his shoulders sadly. “As long as you as much as told us, McGarron, that we’re hired, I think I can speak frankly. I’ve heard Dolmer cussing you out. Harkness told me once that Dolmer told him that if he ever took over the firm, his first act was going to be to fire you and make damn well sure that you didn’t wangle any pension out of the Board. So when you tell Allan here you can’t use him, I wonder if maybe you’re letting your own ammunition get damp.”

“Why, old P. J. wouldn’t let Dolmer or anybody else can me! By God, I’ve been with the firm for thirty years and I know more about...”

“How did Dolmer sound when you and he were going around and around last winter? The way I hear it, he doesn’t think you’re indispensable, McGarron.”

Jake came in nicely, right on cue. He snapped his fingers. “Say, now I get it! Is Dolmer a little fat guy with a starched collar? Sure, then. The other day when I met him in the hall he asked me how I was getting along with Mr. McGarron. I said okay, I guessed. Then he told me not to worry, that McGarron wouldn’t be bothering me once I got out in the field. That didn’t make much sense at the time, but now I get it.”

Jake had given the last little shove necessary. A hell of a lot of bluster went out of McGarron in seconds. His face looked as though something behind it, some structural members, had suddenly collapsed.

He said, in a low voice, “What the hell would I do? I’ve got some money, but... Just what the hell will I do?”

“Can’t you put the pressure on Dolmer?” Tom asked.

McGarron looked through us. He said, very softly, “It had to be Dolmer, didn’t it? It couldn’t have been anybody else. You do what you have to do to run your job and then...”

He got up suddenly and left us there, sitting on the porch. When he was out of hearing distance, Tom said. “I almost feel sorry for the old foop. Want to let him off the hook?”

“Let him squirm,” Jake said. “I love it.”

“What’s going on?” Allan asked. We told him. He didn’t look either approving or disapproving.

About an hour later McGarron told Archer that he was going to “give him a chance to prove himself.” Allan thanked him politely. Tom and Jake and I shook hands and told Allan he was going to have to give us the usual employment agency fee.

At three in the afternoon McGarron started getting drunk. Not drunk like the night before. This was a morose, brooding drunkenness. He sat in a chair with a bottle between his feet and looked at distant ghosts. I got sick of watching him and went down to the lake shore. Tom joined me a while later.

“I tried to water down that rumor to take him off the hook, Ralph, but now he’s convinced himself. Now he thinks they’ve been looking at him in a funny way for the last few weeks. Damn it, I wish we hadn’t done it.”

“Why not? Give the guy a taste of his own medicine.”

“They never had any kids and his wife died about five years ago. He works fifteen hours a day because he just hasn’t got any other interests.”

“Well, maybe he’ll remember how it felt and take it easier on the next guys he trains. We’re doing a public service.”

At dusk McGarron fell off the chair, out like a light. We hoisted his bulk into a bunk and played some listless bridge until it was time to turn in. When I woke up in the morning he was back at the table with another bottle in front of him. He looked at me and through me.

“Thir’y years,” he said thickly. “Thir’y years an’ sall a gra’tude a man gets.”

“Cheer up,” I said. “It isn’t the end of the world.”

“Thir’y years,” he said. And he looked as though he’d aged 30 years.

“When are we going back?” I asked him. I had to ask it three times before it got through to him.

He flapped a big hand. “Go anytime.”

We had a conference in front of him. He didn’t hear a word. We decided to load him into the car and drive back. It had worked too good. Too damn good. And he was making us nervous. Like little kids who tried smoking and burned down the barn.

He lurched out heavily while we were packing. “Let him go,” Jake said. “We’ll round him up when we’re ready to start.”

It was Allan who saw him through the window. Allan made a funny sound and raced for the door, but before he could reach it, we heard the shot, turned and saw what he had seen.

McGarron had held the muzzle in his mouth with both hands and pulled the trigger on a nail sticking out of one of the porch posts. It was very messy. We knew enough not to touch him. The body smashed one of the porch chairs as it fell and the Winchester miraculously still hung from the big nail. As in most suicide cases, there had been a loss of control of bodily functions in the split second of death.

Archer and Jake stayed with the body after we had decided on a story. Tom was all for telling the complete truth. We told him that nothing would be gained thereby. We told him that it proved that McGarron was mentally unbalanced, anyway.

None of us believed it, but we said it with conviction. And we all wanted those sales jobs. Dillon wasn’t going to give any sales jobs to people who talked his sales manager into killing himself.

We brought Tom around to where he agreed to stick to the story that McGarron had been depressed and drinking and we didn’t know why he’d done it.

It was funny the way we avoided looking at each other’s eyes.

Tom and I found a phone and got in touch with the state police and gave them directions. They arrived back at the camp ten minutes after we did, bringing the county coroner with them. We answered all the questions and got permission to take the Cadillac back to the city.

Sunday night I told Peg the whole story. I sat in the hotel room and looked at the floor and told her everything. I wanted to be punished the way a kid sometimes wants to be punished, hoping it will take away the knowledge of having done wrong. But I knew that there was no one to administer the punishment.

Peg asked me if I wanted to go back with Kimball and Stroud, if that would help at all. We decided it wouldn’t. Jobs like this one don’t grow on trees.

So the new sales manager came in from the regional office where he’d been in charge, and he assigned me to the New Orleans District and I was glad that I was sent there alone so that I wouldn’t have Jake and Tom and Allan around to remind me of what we had done.

The whole incident made me think, somehow, of a package tied up, but with the dangling strings uncut. During the first few months on the new job I felt as though I were waiting for something. You wish, sometimes, for an impartial fate to come along and cut the strings off close to the knot.

In April, P. J. Dillon died of a heart attack and Dolmer took over. That seemed to help a little.

But a month later Allan Archer got the bounce because, according to rumor, he didn’t have the personality for the job. And that didn’t help a bit.

Content

John D. MacDonald
A Good Judge of Men