Please Write for Details

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Book: Read Please Write for Details for Free Online
Authors: John D. MacDonald
the expression … drawing a horse.”
    “All of you look like bums. I have made over three hundred thousand dollars from my paintings!”
    “A monstrous tribute, madam, to the cultural level of our society.”
    She whirled toward Miles. “I will not have
my
students confused and misled by this … this … Communist.”
    “And I,” said Torrigan, “will not be a party to any conspiracy that pours over the inquiring souls of my students this … vast heritage of molasses.” Torrigan stalked off. Agnes Partridge Keeley snatched up the tools of her trade and trotted off in the opposite direction.
    By three in the afternoon, Miles felt as though he had covered endless miles between Torrigan’s room and Agnes’ room. But he had effected a compromise. Agnes would take all the students all morning. Torrigan would take them all during the afternoon. At the end of the first full week of instruction, each individual student would elect which group he would belong to for the rest of the Workshop period.
    On Tuesday the red VW bus was released by the
mecánico
. Fidelio Melocotonero, sitting proudly behind the wheel, drove Miles Drummond around town on his errands. Because Miles could not drive, he could not properly appraise Fidelio’s skill. But it seemed to him that Fidelio stalled the bus rather often, that he excited more than the customary number of horn soundsfrom other vehicles, and that several times he bumped up over a curb unnecessarily when rounding a corner. And, when parked and waiting for Miles, he liked to make the motor roar.
    When Fidelio drove him to the post office, Miles found two more acceptances. Two new students, both men. Paul Klauss of Philadelphia, and Harvey Ardos, also from Philadelphia. Thirteen students in all. And close to four thousand dollars for Miles. Seven female and six male. He wished one more male would sign up. It would make it so … neat.
    After depositing money, Miles drew out some cash and, accompanied by Felipe Cedro, who had been his houseman for many years, and Alberto Buceada, the stringy and ineffectual hotel janitor he had hired, Miles took the red bus to the public market to acquire the first large block of supplies as indicated on the list Gloria had helped him prepare.
    He had expected the job to take an hour or so, but it was late afternoon before he had finished. He was certain he had gotten the wrong quantities of many items and had overlooked others. Yet even the luggage rack on the roof was full of supplies. The red bus complained sullenly about climbing the long hill to the Hutchinson with such a load, and it went very slowly indeed, to the disgust of Fidelio who, from time to time, indicated his irritation by banging the horn button with his fist until Miles ordered him to stop. Felipe Cedro rode with them in remote dignity, isolating himself with a perfect indifference. Felipe was a strikingly handsome man … from the waist up. But he had been cursed with small, knotty, bandy legs that reduced him from the height that should have been his to an inconsequential stature.
    He was the son of a gardener, and in his childhood had aspired to be a
torero
. But when he had acquired sufficient skill and knowledge of the animals to appear, at fifteen, in his first
novillero
fights at small village festivals, he found that not only did his physical construction make him an object of derision, but he was not sufficiently fleet of foot to avoid horrible buffetings from the horns. He had sense enough to quit before he was seriously gored. And, with reluctance, he had given up his dream. He told himself that had he been able to be a great bullfighter, he would have been rich, and noble and honest. The most suitable revenge on the world was to become rich, through ignobility and dishonesty.
    He thought his employer a fool. He knew that during thesix years of his employment by Miles Drummond, the servant had surpassed the master in worldly goods. On the back streets of

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