The Winter of Our Discontent (Penguin Classics) by John Steinbeck

Author:John Steinbeck [Steinbeck, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2008-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

On Monday perfidious spring dodged back toward winter with cold rain and raw gusty wind that shredded the tender leaves of too trusting trees. The bold and concupiscent bull sparrows on the lawns, intent on lechery, got blown about like rags, off course and off target, and they chattered wrathfully against the inconstant weather.

I greeted Mr. Red Baker on his tour, his tail blown sideways like a battle flag. He was an old acquaintance, squinting his eyes against the rain. I said, “From now on you and I can be friends on the surface, but I feel it only right to tell you that our smiles conceal a savage contest, a conflict of interests.” I could have said more but he was anxious to finish his chores and get under cover.

The Morph was on time. He may have been waiting for me— probably was. “Hell of a day,” he said, and his oiled-silk raincoat flapped and billowed around his legs. “I hear you did a social turn with my boss.”

“I needed some advice. He gave me tea too.”

“He’ll do that.”

“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.”

“Sounds like investment.”

“My Mary wants some new furniture. When a woman wants something she first dresses it up as a good investment.”

“Not only women, either,” said Morph. “I do it myself.”

“Well, it’s her money. She wants to shop around for bargains.”

At the corner of High Street we watched a tin sign tear loose from Rapp’s Toy Store and go skidding and screeching along, sounding like a traffic accident.

“Say, I heard your boss is going to make a trip home to Italy.”

“I don’t know. Seems odd to me he never went before. Those families are awful close.”

“Got time for a cup of coffee?”

“I ought to get swept out. Should be a busy morning after the holiday.”

“Oh, come on! Live big. The personal friend of Mr. Baker can afford time for a cup of coffee.” He didn’t say it meanly the way it looks in print. He could make anything sound innocent and well-intentioned.

In all the years I had never gone into the Foremaster Grill for a cup of coffee in the morning and I was probably the only man in town who didn’t. It was a custom, a habit, and a club. We climbed on stools at the counter and Miss Lynch, I went to school with her, slid coffee to us without spilling any in the saucer. A tiny bottle of cream leaned against the cup but she rolled two paper-wrapped cubes of sugar like dice so that Morph cried out, “Snake eyes.”

Miss Lynch—Miss Lynch. The “miss” was part of her name by now, and part of herself. I guess she will never be able to excise it. Her nose gets redder every year, but it’s sinus, not booze.

“Morning, Ethan,” she said. “You celebrating something?”

“He dragged me in,” I said, and then as an experiment in kindness, “Annie.”

Her head snapped around as

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