McAllister made the necessary changes in the contracts and we signed them right there. It was after four thirty when we came out into the lobby. I started for the elevator when Amos Winthrop tapped me on the shoulder.
I didn't want to talk to him. "Can it keep until morning, Amos?" I asked. "I gotta get some sleep."
His face crinkled in a knowing smile. He hit me on the shoulder jovially. "I know the kind of sleepin' you want to do, boy, but this is important."
"Nothing can be that important."
The elevator door opened and I stepped into it. Amos was right beside me. The operator started to close the doors. "Just a minute," I said.
The doors rolled open again and I stepped out. "All right, Amos," I asked. "What is it?"
We walked over to a couch and sat down. "I need another ten thousand," he said.
I stared at him. No wonder he was always broke. He spent it faster than they could print it. "What happened to all the cash you got for your stock?"
An embarrassed expression crossed his face. "It's gone," he said. "You know how much I owed."
I knew. He owed everybody. By the time he got through with his creditors and his ex-wives, I could see where the fifty grand had gone. I was beginning to feel sorry I'd included him in the deal but I'd thought he'd be able to contribute something to the company. At one time, he was one of the best designers of aircraft in the country.
"Your contract doesn't provide for advances like that," I said.
"I know," he answered. "But this is important. It won't happen again, I promise. It's for Monica."
"Monica?" I looked at him. This was going to be good. "What about her?"
He shook his head. "I want to send her to her mother in England. She's too much for me. I can't control her any more. She's seeing some guy on the sly and I have a feeling if she isn't balling him already, she soon will be."
For a moment, I stared at him. I wondered if this wasn't a gentle form of blackmail. It could be that he already knew and was taking this way of letting me know. "Do you know the guy?"
He shook his head. "If I did, I'd kill him," he said vehemently. "A nice sweet innocent kid like her."
I kept my face impassive. Love is blind but parents are blinder. Even a cheater like Amos, with all his knowledge, was no smarter than Joe Doakes in Pomona. "You talk to her?"
He shook his head again. "I tried but she won't listen. You know how kids are nowadays. They learn everything in school; you can't teach them anything. When she was sixteen, I found a package of Merry Widows in her pocketbook."
He should have stopped her then. He was about three years too late. She was nineteen now and carried her own brass ring. "Guys like you never learn."
"What was I supposed to do?" he asked truculently. "Keep her locked in her room?"
I shook my head. "You could have tried being her father."
"What makes you such an expert?" he snapped. "You won't talk like that after you have kids of your own."
I could have told him. I had a father who was too busy with his own life, too. But I was tired. I got to my feet.
"What about the money?" he asked anxiously.
"I’ll give it to you," I said. A feeling of disgust suddenly came up in me. What did I need guys like this around me for? They were like leeches. Once they got into you, they never let go. "As a matter of fact, I'll give you twenty-five thousand."
An expression of surprised relief flooded across his face. "You will, Jonas?"
I nodded. "On one condition."
For the first time, caution came into his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I want your resignation."
"From Winthrop Aircraft?" His voice was incredulous.
"From Cord Aircraft," I said pointedly.
The color began to drain from his face. "But- but I started the company. I know everything about it. I was just planning a new plane that the Army will sure as hell go for- "
"Take the money, Amos," I said coldly. "You've had it." I started for the elevator. I stepped inside and the boy closed the doors in his face. "Going up, Mr. Cord?" he asked.
I stared at him. That was a stupid question. What other way was there to go?
"All the way," I said wearily.
Monica was lying across the bed in the tops of my pajamas, half asleep. She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Everything go all right?"
I nodded.
She watched me as I threw my shirt across a chair. "What did Daddy want?"
I stepped out of my trousers and caught the pajama bottoms she threw at me. "He just turned in his resignation," I said, kicking off my shorts and getting into the pajamas.
She sat up in bed, her brown eyes widening in surprise. "He did?"
I nodded.
"I wonder why?"
I looked at her. "He said it had something to do with you. That he wanted more time to be your father."
She stared at me for a moment, then began to laugh. "Well, I'll be damned," she said. "All my life I wanted him to pay some kind of attention to me and now, when I don't need him any more, he suddenly wants to play daddy."
"Don't need him any more?"
She nodded. "Not any more. Ever," she said slowly. She came off the bed and laid her head against my chest. Her voice was a childlike whisper of confidence. "Not now that I have you. You're everything to me – father, brother, lover."
I stroked her soft brown hair slowly. Suddenly, a surge of sympathy came up inside me. I knew how alone you could be when you were nineteen.
Her eyes were closed and there were faintly blue weary hollows in the soft white flesh beneath them. I pressed my lips lightly to her forehead. "Come to bed, child," I said gently. "It's almost morning."
She was asleep in a moment, her head resting on my shoulder, her neck in the crook of my arm. For a long time, I couldn't fall asleep. I lay there looking down at her quiet face as the sun came up and light spilled into the room.
Damn Amos Winthrop! Damn Jonas Cord! I cursed all men who were too busy and self-centered to be fathers to their children.
I began to feel weariness seep through me. Half asleep, I felt her move beside me and the warmth of her long, graceful body flowed down along my side. Then sleep came. The dark, starless night of wonderful sleep.
We were married the next evening at the Little Chapel in Reno.