5:02 P.M.
After his wife had left, Ray Fleck paced the flat in rage and despair. With rage, at first, predominating. Damn her, damn her, he thought. What kind of wife would flatly refuse to help her husband when he was in a jam, a real jam? The bitch, she could give him the money so easily, and never feel it. All she had to do was cash in that accursed insurance policy. What did she need it for? A policy on herself. And it had a cash surrender value of over three thousand dollars—maybe almost four thousand by now; several payments had been made since they'd last argued about it.
Or she could at least borrow against it, and all he needed was five hundred bucks. Four hundred and eighty, to be exact, but he'd made it a round figure. But no, that damned policy of hers was sacrosanct; she wouldn't even borrow against it. Sacrosanct for what, for God's sake? Sure it was her savings, her stake, and she'd taken it out herself, had started saving that way, before they were married. But now that she was married and had a husband to support her, why should she feel she needed a stake? Unless she was planning to leave him, or thinking that she might decide to do so—that was possible. They had had some pretty bitter quarrels, the past two years out of the three they'd been married. But she'd fought to keep that policy even during the first year, and they'd been pretty happy at first. He'd been in a lucky streak, riding high, and they'd both been in love. Women love you when you're in the chips. When it comes to money, women are a one-way street. You can spend it on them, but try to get some of it back. Just try.
Besides, some of the money in that policy was his, rightfully his. Hadn't he, for most of that first year, given her money to pay the premiums on it? Under protest, of course; he'd tried to talk her out of wanting to keep on carrying it. "Honey," he'd said, "what do we want a policy on you for? I don't want you to die, and if you should die I don't want ten grand out of it." But she'd had an answer for that. Women always have an answer.
"Ray, darling," she'd said, "I'd agree with you if this were just an insurance policy—but it isn't. It's a ten-year endowment policy, and that's a way of saving. A good way. I've carried it for over four years now and in less than another six years we'll have ten thousand dollars in cash. Won't that be nice?"
"Yeah, but it's a long time away—and those are damn high premiums. Why short ourselves now to have money when we're old? What good will ten thousand do us then?"
She laughed. "We won't exactly be old in six years. I'll be twenty-nine and you'll be thirty-five. As to what we can use it for—a house, if we haven't already bought one by then. It doesn't have to be big or expensive, but I want us to have a home of our own someday; I don't want to live in furnished flats the rest of my life. Or if we already have our own home by then, maybe it would be enough to let you start in business for yourself; you've said you would like to, if you had capital."
That had made sense to him. Not the part about "a home of our own"; he was a city dweller and wouldn't live in a house in the suburbs if somebody gave him one, but he could talk her out of that idea when the time came.
But with ten thousand capital, all at once, he could do himself a lot of good. He was a liquor salesman and seldom made less than a hundred a week in commissions: he averaged considerably higher than that. He worked for J. & B. Liquor Distributors, and he had a good following among taverns and liquor stores all over the city. And he had at least some contacts with salesmen for wholesalers and distillers; they knew he was a good salesman. If he could set himself up as an independent distributor, make a profit on what he sold instead of just a commission, he'd be on his way toward making big money instead of peanuts. But it would be a long, slow pull. He'd need capital, all right.
He'd made only one more effort. "But wouldn't it be better to put that much money in the bank instead? Then if there was an emergency, we could get at it easier."