Chapter 39

On Tuesday afternoon, the small bell at the end of Malik’s desk rang. Opening the tube, he said, “Yes?”

Peng Delan’s voice came back, “Mister Malik, Missus Beatrice Nowak is here and is asking for a moment of your time.”

After a brief pause, he said, “Thank you, Miss Peng. Please show Missus Nowak to the stairs.”

Malik stood and walked to the stairwell doorway, waiting just inside the second floor reception office. The conference room had been relocated next door, to the former dress shop, his office had been widened by two feet, and the former conference room converted to a second floor reception-cum-clerical work area.

When Nowak reached the landing, he said, “Missus Nowak, it’s pleasant to see you again. Won’t you come sit in my office? I have some chilled water, if you’d like some.”

Nowak looked a bit uncomfortable, and had yet to make eye contact, but she said, “Thank you Mister Malik, that would be appreciated.”

Peng, at her desk in that reception office, had a notepad in hand and was rising from her chair. Malik gave her a surreptitious shake of his head, and Peng sat back down.

In his office, he held a chair for his visitor while she seated herself, then he went back behind his desk and sat down. As he reached for the water carafe, he said, “If you’d prefer something warm, I could arrange for coffee or tea?”

“No, thank you, a glass of cool water would be good, right now, despite the season.” The day was chill, though not unpleasant, as it was, as usual, sunny, and there was little wind.

Malik retrieved a clean glass from a tray atop the filing cabinet behind him, then he filled it from the carafe, and set it at the edge of the desk near her. He then topped up his own glass.

“How may I help you, Missus Nowak?”

She took a sip of the water and finally looked at him. “Mister Malik, I’m afraid I’ve embarrassed myself with you. I was very hasty, on Saturday morning, and quick to react to something I knew nothing about. I apologize for my abrupt and unkind comments.”

Malik did not say anything for several seconds, but just looked at her, until her eyes fell away again.

“You have nothing to apologize for. It was a very normal reaction to an unusual situation. I’m not sure I would have behaved any differently, had I been in your place.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Mister Malik, but still, you’d been nothing but reasonable and polite in our dealings, and it was thoughtless for me to assume that you were, well...” She hesitated.

He said, “Cruel? Malicious? Brutal? Sinister?”

She looked flustered. “Well, I, uh, I didn’t mean, uh, that you were, uh, any of those things. I was just, well, uh, confused.” She finished the glass of water.

“Would you like more water, Missus Nowak?”

She looked surprised to be holding an empty water glass. But she set it on the desk and said, “Yes, please.”

Malik filled the glass, then he said, “Missus Nowak, I’m curious. If you’ll indulge me, what made you change your mind?”

Now she looked even more uncomfortable. “Ah, well,” her relatively pale face had grown decidedly red. “I, uh,” she began wringing her hands, “I was worried about Miss Peng, so I, uh, asked some people.”

“Ah. The sheriff?”

“Well, no,” Her eyes met his again. “I talked to Missus Garcia, at the hotel, and Doctor Kagan.”

Malik nodded. “I see. And what they told you reassured you?”

“Well, yes, yes it did. I was reassured. And decided I’d not treated you fairly.”

“What kind of work does your husband do, Missus Nowak?”

“Huh? My husband? Oh, I’m not married. I mean, I’m divorced. My husband and I. We’re divorced. Three years ago. He, uh, sells building materials, nuts and bolts, hinges and door knobs, and such hardware. He represents a manufacturer in Pittsburgh. But we’re divorced.”

“I see.” Malik said. Then, with a quick breath, he asked, “What was the rift that caused your divorce?”

Her color, which had faded to pink, deepened once more. She sat, hand wringing renewed.

In a small, quiet voice, she said, “My husband...,” she took a deep breath. “My husband ... did not satisfy me”

“Ah. In bed, you mean?”

She replied with a nearly inaudible, “Yes.”

Another quick breath, and he said, “Just ‘yes?’ Yes ... what?”

Hesitant, she replied, again in the quiet voice, “Yes ... sir.”

“That’s better,” he acknowledged. “So you divorced your husband?”

“No, sir. He divorced me.”

“Why would he have--”

The small bell rang. Malik gave it an annoyed look, but leaned toward the speaking tube, “Yes?”

“Mister Wilber Shea and Mister George Pongonis are here for a two o’clock appointment, Mister Malik.”

Malik paused, looking at Nowak. Then he pulled out his watch and saw the time indicated as a minute past two. He spoke into the tube, “Thank you, Miss Peng. Please ask the gentlemen to come up.”

Malik looked at Nowak, who cast a quick look at him, then dropped her eyes, again. “You’ll stay, won’t you, Missus Nowak?”

She said, in a quiet voice, “Yes, uh, Mister Malik.”

“Good. You may find this interesting.”

With a sideways bob of his head toward the kneeling Peng, Andy said, “Are you sure you want to discuss this right now, Emil?”

Malik turned to look at Peng, who was near the door to the basement apartment’s bedroom. She was wearing a white silk robe and was on her knees on the floor, but sitting back on her heels. Her hands were clasped, fingers entwined, resting on her abdomen, and her head was bent slightly forward, eyes downcast. He turned back to Andy, who was sitting across the small dining table. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to her. She’s fine,” he said, dismissively. “Where was I?”

“You were saying how she’d called you ‘sir’,” Andy replied, his eyes glancing nervously toward Peng.

“Oh, yes,” Malik said, “And when I asked her to stay for Wilber’s presentation, she immediately agreed.”

Andy was shaking his head. “I don’t get it, Emil. What are you up to, here? I mean,” he again nodded his head toward Peng, “why are you, well, to say it plainly, why do you seem to be involving yourself with another woman?”

“Involving myself? I’m not involving myself. I was just describing an interesting encounter I had with her.”

Andy gave him a skeptical look. “Emil, I have never in my life heard you describe an ‘interesting encounter’ with a woman, before, except for...,” and Andy again nodded toward Peng. “But, tell me, what were you doing to embarrass her so that she kept blushing and stammering? What was your purpose in all that?”

Malik shook his head, a slight frown betraying his consternation. “I’m not really sure. I seemed to be sensing with her that ... I suppose I got the same sense from her that I get from Yan. With Beatrice, I had the impression that both her initial reaction on Saturday and her apologetic approach today were part and parcel of her attraction to me.”

Andy looked startled. “Big brother, that’s crazy. You can’t just encounter a woman like you would a stray puppy, then say she followed you home and can you keep her. I mean, what about Yan. My god, she’s having your child.”

“What about her? I’m looking forward to her becoming a mother.”

Andy stood up and started pacing. “I don’t get it. Even my strangest dreams aren’t this wild.” He stopped and looked at Malik. “Just what are you after? What is it you want, here?”

Malik heaved a quick sigh and shrugged. “I want the same thing Beatrice wants.” Then he hooked a thumb toward Peng. “And the same thing she wants,” he insisted. Andy looked more carefully at Peng, who was, herself, blushing and breathing more rapidly.

Then he returned to the table and sat down. He leaned forward on the table, supporting his upper body with his forearms. “Emil ... Emil, five months ago you were deep in a depression as you grieved for Gabriela, to the point you were confused when you were drawn to Yan. Now you’re ... I don’t know ... you’re like a stud horse that can smell every mare in season.”

Malik sat back in his chair, scratching his head. “I don’t think I’m that bad. Look, this situation just opened up before me. Somehow, I knew what this woman wanted. I wasn’t looking for anything.”

He went on, “I know, I know. It’s all pretty odd. I reckon that’s why I’m talking to you about it. None of this seems natural.” He shook his head, then added, “On the other hand, somehow it feels ... right.” After a pause, he said, “Or maybe it’s the other way around: It doesn’t seem right, but it does feel natural.”

“Why are you talking to me instead of to Yan, anyway?”

“I have talked to Yan. You can ask her. Yan, tell him what you said.”

Without raising her head, Peng said, “As you wish, Master.” Then she was, once more, silent.

Andy waited a moment, then looked at Malik. “Why won’t she tell me?”

“She did. That’s what she said when I told her I was drawn to Beatrice: ‘As you wish, Master.’”

Now it was Malik’s turn to stand up and pace the floor. He said, “I felt that I’d stepped over the line with Beatrice, even though I never touched her or said anything suggestive -- at least not in the customary sense. Even so, I confessed my sins to Yan. She said, ‘You are my Master. Your happiness is my happiness.’ When I suggested I might see Beatrice in a social setting, that’s when Yan said, ‘As you wish, Master.’”

Malik stopped his pacing behind the ladder-back chair in which he had been sitting. He grasped the top rail on the chair’s back and leaned on it as he faced his brother. He glanced toward Peng, then back at Andy. “Truth be told, I think Yan wants me to seek, to have another woman.” He turned slightly and said, over his shoulder, “Don’t you, Yan?”

She raised her head, not enough to reveal her eyes, but just enough to show the vague hint of a smile on her lips. She said, in a steady, quiet voice, “As you wish, Master. Your happiness is my happiness.”

Malik shrugged resignedly and sat down at the table.

They were quiet for several long moments. Then Andy, sounding exasperated, asked, “What did Wilber and, uh, what’s-his-name want?”

“Pongonis, George Pongonis. That was very interesting.”

“Hopefully not as interesting as what we’ve been talking about,” Andy groused.

“No. Completely different.

“Pongonis is one of the principals in the Great West Concrete Products manufactory. They have begun using a process producing concrete elements that are reinforced internally with steel rods.”

“Is that how they plan to build the dam on the Isabella?”

Malik shook his head. “I don’t know. My discussions with Tim Page never got that specific. But Pongonis isn’t here about the dam. He has an idea for Sundown Ridge.

“Great Western Concrete has been looking for a demonstration project that they can tout throughout the southwest.”

“What kind of demonstration project?”

“What he proposes is to put vaulted concrete tunnels underneath the alleys throughout the development. All of the utilities would be distributed through these tunnels. Even the water pipes could be run through them, and they could be used to collect rain and snow runoff at every cross-street. The tunnels would have from forty-eight to sixty-inch clearance and would allow repair access to sewer, water, electric, and telephone lines.”

“Hold on. That’s got to be expensive,” Andy observed.

“Oh, it is. Darned expensive. But they’re willing to manage the job and provide the labor if we’ll cover material at cost. In turn, we’ll allow them to bring prospective customers to see it and we’ll give them some nice quotes to use in their advertising, maybe let them use our likenesses in their advertising circulars. Even then, it will still be expensive, but I think it fits in with what we’re trying to do up there.”

“And they plan to use this steel-reinforced concrete?”

“Exactly. It’s not so much a new process. I think he said it was first used about ten years ago. But the price of steel has come down, since then, and there has been rapid growth in the domestic utilities that can be provided community-wide. So, they came up with this idea.”

“I thought they had underground utility tunnels already in some big cities.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t the idea I meant,” Malik replied. “I meant that they were manufacturing a product that could be used in residential areas of detached homes. Underground utilities in built-up urban centers tend to go from basement to basement.

“What helps hold down cost and speeds up installation is that they manufacture the components at a mixing plant with reusable forms. They’ll set up a mixing plant where they can have railroad access right here in town. The Kanzona will bring in the sand, cement, and aggregate, Great West will make the parts and they’ll be hauled by wagon to Sundown Ridge.”

Andy said, “I like all those ideas. It’s just the cost that concerns me. What do you think?”

Malik arched his eyebrows. “Wilber says that Land Resources will go for it if we will. It will increase the price of the lots, but I think it will be a good sales point for any potential customer who’s seen the mare’s nest of overhead wires with which so many large towns are dealing. For that matter, it was going to cost us something to put all those utilities somewhere, in any event, and If we handled them all separately, it would have cost almost as much.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Andy yawned and stretched. “We need to figure what the real costs will be per lot. But not tonight.” He yawned again. “I’m for my room at Missus Kuiper’s.”

Malik said, “I’ll walk out with you. Yan, prepare our bed.”

Andy pulled on his coat and they left the basement apartment and took the stairs that led up to the Inn’s front reception lobby. There, they greeted Hilary Elgin, elder son of Moses Elgin, owner of Fever Bob’s livery stable. Hilary was at the front desk, balancing the day’s accounts, the bucket, as it was known among innkeepers. That idiom refers to an old taverners’ tradition of keeping customer’s tabs in an empty beer bucket under the bar.