the quantity and kind of ingredients wanted for a dough batch: bread, cake, piecrust, doughnuts and so on.
'Read them all, all right, Mr. Bigelow? Everything clear to you? Let me see you set up the sponge on that whole-wheat bread mix.'
I picked out the card, and shoved the others into my pocket. I looked at the list of ingredients and started for the substoreroom. Then, I remembered and picked up a pail instead.
'That's right,' he smiled briskly. 'The flour's just there for the record; they can draw that themselves. Pretty hard to over or under-draw on sacked flour. All you're concerned with is the sponge. Sugar, first, remember. Then-'
I remembered.
I scooped sugar from a barrel and weighed it on the scales. I dumped it into the pail, and weighed in salt and powdered milk. I wiped the scales clean, dribbled some of the plaster-ofParis compound on them, and emptied it into a glassine bag. I tucked the bag into the pail, up against the side of it. Then I carried the pail into the cold-storage room.
I'd worked up a light sweat, but it was gone the second I stepped inside. He stood watching me, holding the door open.
There was another set of scales in there. I weighed lard onto them and dumped it into the pail. I punched a depression in the lard with my fist, measured a pint of malt syrup into the depression, and carried the pail outside. Kendall let the door slam shut, nodding approvingly.
'Very good, Mr. Bigelow. Just drop the batch card in at the side, there, and you have it done… Now about that door-you can't be too careful about that. Be very sure it's off the latch when you go in, or better still block it open slightly. One of those barrel scrapers should do the job.'
'I'll be careful, all right,' I said.
'Please do. You'll be here alone most of the time. You could be locked in there several hours before you were discovered, and it would be of very little use to discover you even after a much briefer lapse of time. So… Oh, yes. Speaking of doors.'
He motioned to me, and I followed him into the substoreroom. He led me to the street door-the one he'd hinted I might use as a private entrance-pulling out a key ring.
'I've had a key made for you'-he took it off the ring. 'We receive flour and other supplies through this door, so regardless- uh-So you'll doubtless find use for it. We'll just see how it works, now, and-'
It didn't fit too well, apparently. Kendall had to twist it back and forth and push up on the knob before the door finally opened.
'Well,' he frowned. 'I suppose we'll have to make it do for the time being. Perhaps with use-'
His mouth came shut, tightening with distaste. I looked across the street where he was looking- staring-and I saw Jake Winroy duck his head quickly and speed up that sagging, lopsided lope of his by a notch or two.
He passed out of viewing range.
Kendall slammed the door, jerked on the knob, testing it, and handed me the key.
'I don't know'-he shook his head-'I don't know that I've ever met anyone I so thoroughly detested. Well, we can't waste our valuable time on him, can we? Any questions? Anything that's not clear to you? If not, I'll get back to the floor.'
I said I thought I had everything down pat, and he left.
I went back to the main stockroom.
I lined up all the sponge pails in a row, measured the dry ingredients into each of them, and carried them into the coldstorage room. I measured in the lard and malt, tucked in the batch cards, and set the pails just outside the entrance to the baking room.
I came back into the stockroom, studying the cards for the sweet doughs.
I was kind of breathless. I didn't need to, but I'd been rushing my head off. Not out here, but in there. In the cold-storage room.
I lighted a cigarette, telling myself I'd better take it easier. I wouldn't last long, rushing. Hard work-steady hard work- well, I'd given my lifetime quota on that a long time ago.
Aside from that, it would be easy to screw things up if I hurried too fast. I didn't know the job good yet. Working with all those different ingredients and measurements, a guy wouldn't have to be even pretty careless to get a little too much of one thing and not enough of another. And there wouldn't be any way of spotting the mistake until the stuff came out of the ovens-as hard as brick-bats maybe or as tough as shoe leather.
I glanced at the cold-storage room, and I shivered a little. So it was cold. What of it? I didn't need to stay in there, like I'd done on the sponges, wrapping up everything at one time. I could stay in, say, for five minutes, come out and go back in again for another five. Why stay in there, freezing my tail off, trying to do everything at once?'
I knew why, and I made myself admit it. The goddam place kind of gave me the creeps. I wanted to get through in there as fast as I could. It was so damned quiet. You'd hear a noise and sort of start, and then you'd realize that you'd gulped or one of your muscles had creaked and that was the noise you'd heard.
The door was so thick and heavy that you seemed locked in even when you knew you weren't. You kept looking at the scraper to see if it was still in place. And everything was kind of greasy and damp in there- everything seemed about the same shade-and you could look two or three times and still not be sure.
If you could have propped the door wide open-but you couldn't do that. Kendall had warned me about keeping the door open any more than was necessary. It would be a hell of a cold-storage room if you did that much.
I coughed, choked back another cough. The bug wasn't active again, I was sure of that, but I was glad I hadn't had to produce a health certificate.
I dropped the cigarette butt, stepped on it, and looked at the cards for the sweet doughs. They were more complicated than the others, the sponge mixes, and the extra-refined flour had to be weighed out with the other ingredients. They didn't just draw what they wanted as they did on the bread.
If I took my time on this stuff-and I'd damned well better- I probably wouldn't have it ready a hell of a lot sooner than I had to.
I took the scraper out of my pocket. I pulled the cold-storageroom door open, and went inside. I laid the scraper handle against the jamb, letting the door settle against it. Then I turned my back on the damned thing and got busy.
There were eight batches in all. I decided to do two, and go out and get the dry stuff ready for them. Then, I'd come back and do two more, and so on until I was through. And if! didn't like it in here, I knew what to do about it. There was an easy way to save time. I could snap out of the creeps and stop checking on the door every ten seconds.
I got busy, I put two pans on the work table, leaned their batch cards against them, and began pouring and dumping and weighing. And the creeps stayed right with me, but I didn't give in to them. I never looked once at the door.
The work went pretty fast. It didn't seem to, but according to my watch it did. I finished the first two batches-the wet part of them-took them out and set up the dry stuff, and came back in again.
I did another two and another two. And started on the fourth pair. The last two I had to do.
I got them done, and somehow they seemed to take longer than the others. It seemed like I'd never get through with them. Finally, though, they were ready, and I tucked the batch cards into the slits at the end of the pans.
Then, I picked them up and turned around and pushed against the door.
I pushed-pretty easy at first. Easy because I couldn't bring myself to push hard. I just sort of leaned against it, because if I did more than that-if I pushed hard and it
