Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [40]
"Not particularly."
"I have to have it soon. Tomorrow, maybe."
"What is it?"
"I don't know what you'd call it. An estimate of costs, something like that. For a man that may back me in business. But I want it all written down, with the right words for what I mean, so it looks businesslike."
Wally, snapping his cigarette ashes into the fireplace, turned around and blinked. "What kind of business?"
"Just a restaurant."
"Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute."
He squashed his cigarette and came over to her. Then he pulled up a chair and sat down. "Start all over again. And at the beginning. Not in the middle."
Haltingly, feeling suddenly self-conscious about it, she told him her plan: a small restaurant, where she would do the cooking herself, and sell nothing but chicken. "They have ste-ak places. And fish places. And I thought—well, down where I work practically every other order is for chicken, so it looks to me as though I ought to have plenty of customers. And then I wouldn't have to fool with all those a Ia carte prices, or bookkeeping, or menus, or leftovers, or anything like that. Everybody gets a chicken-and-waffle dinner, or chicken and vegetables, if they want, but all at the same price. And then I'll have pies to take out, and keep on getting all the wholesale pie business that I can, and—well, it looks like one would help the other. I mean, the pies would help the restaurant and the restaurant would help the pies."
"And who is this guy?"
"Just an old fogy that eats lunch with me every day. But I think he's got money. And if I could show him it was a good investment he might let me have what I need."
Wally took several turns around the room, looking at her as he went. She was so accustomed to think of him as a fat blob that she occasionally forgot what a cold little eye he really had. Presently he -asked: "You really think you can put that across?"
"Well—don't you?"
"I'm asking you."
"It seems as though it ought to pay. I've worked it all out in my mind and I'm pretty sure I've thought of everything. I can certainly cook. And I've studied the business down there, every little thing I could think of. I mean, the system. And how to save money. That's the main thing, Wally, about this idea of mine. What costs in a restaurant is waste, and the extras, like printing, for the menus, and the people 'you have to have, for every little feature you put in. But this way, there wouldn't be any waste. All the leftovers would go in-to gravy and soup, and there wouldn't be any printing, or extras of any kind. I certainly think I can put it across."
"Then if you can, I might be able to put you in on a deal. One that would start you off with a bang. A deal that would leave you sitting so pretty you wouldn't even need a backer."
"Wally! If you don't look out, I'll cry."
"You do the crying later and listen to what I'm going to say to you. You know that model home we had? That dream house that Bert built, so we could take the prospects in there and show them what their place was going to look like if they spent twice as much dough as any of them had?"
"Yes, of course." She had special, rather romantic reasons for remembering the model home.
"O.K. They got to get rid of it."
"Who?"
"The receivers. For Pierce Homes, Inc. The outfit that pays me to be their attorney, and messenger boy, and thief, and anything else they can think of. They've got to get rid of it, and if you'll take it over and put this chicken place in it, it's yours. And believe me, Mildred, if that's not a natural for a restaurant, I never saw one. Why, that place even smells like chicken. Right there under the trees, with the old colonial architecture that Bert spent all that dough on—is that a place to gnaw wishbone! Dump a little gravel on one side—free parking for everybody that comes in. That big reception room—perfect for the restaurant part. The model Pierce bedroom—there's