There was no sound from inside and he looked for the bell, but the button was buried under layers of paint. From nowhere, it seemed, two small black boys had appeared to clamber over the long-necked yellow machine. Barnes knocked again.
This time there was the sound of feet, and the doorknob moved. After a moment, the door itself opened a bit and a round, red face topped by a Panama hat showed at the crevice. “You a patient?” The speaker had a bad head cold.
Barnes nodded.
There was a pause. “Me too. Want to come in?”
Barnes nodded again.
“You got a appointment?”
Barnes was maneuvering the toe of his shoe into the door. “No,” he said. “But I have to see the doctor. It’s important.”
The red-faced man nodded. “Well, if you don’t have a appointment, I guess you can come in.” He opened the door.
Barnes stepped inside and found himself in a dreary little waiting room. Nine worn chairs of heavy wood dotted with senile magazines stood against its walls. The walls themselves were covered with dark paper and darker pictures: a little girl who stood by anxiously while an elderly man listened for the heartbeat of her doll, dogs shooting pool.
The red-faced man sneezed and looked doubtfully at Barnes’s sample case. “You’re a patient?”
Barnes nodded.
“You’re not a salesman?”
“I
The red-faced man hesitated for a moment, then sat down in one of the chairs. In addition to his Panama, he was wearing an aloha shirt, Bermuda shorts, and sandals.
“How about you?” Barnes asked pointedly.
“A mental patient—that’s what you mean, isn’t it? No, I’m not crazy. I’ve got a cold.”
Barnes was diplomatic. “I just thought maybe you lived here. I mean, you wouldn’t go out dressed like that.”
“Like hell,” the red-faced man said. “You want to know how far away I’m parked? A block and a half.” He pushed two fingers into his shirt pocket and produced a card case from which he extracted a business card. “Sim Sheppard’s the name. I represent Sunshine Estates down in Florida. You got your retirement home picked out yet?”
“I certainly do,” Barnes told him. “The little lady and I are going to Arizona—we already own a house there. She’s got asthma bad. I took her to Florida once, and she damn near died. They make you dress like that?”
For a moment Sim Sheppard seemed to ponder the question. “I wouldn’t say they make me—I could always quit or something, and really there’s no rule about it. It’s just that everybody does it, and you sell so much more that way. They see you coming up the walk like this and freezing to death, and they say to themselves, hey, he could be there now and he’d be perfectly comfortable dressed like that. Hey,
“I guess I shouldn’t put you down,” Barnes told him. “You probably make twice what I do. You don’t wear long-johns with the legs and sleeves cut off or anything?”
“Absolutely not.” Sheppard unbuttoned his shirt and parted the front to show an orange T-shirt reading SAND IN MY SHOES COME TO SUNSHINE. “This isn’t some kind of trick, especially warm T-shirt either. That’s what people think sometimes. No little wires, no batteries.” He wiped his nose again and snuffled. “Just plain cotton, the kind you’d be wearing now yourself if you had accepted one of our invitations to visit free of all charge except for your plane fare. Two free nights at Sunshine Manor—swimming, fishing, tennis, and badminton, all meals included.”
“If my wife ever gets over her asthma, I’ll take you up on that,” Barnes said.
“Hats are my biggest problem. You want to wear one because they do cut the wind a little and help keep your head warm, but they can’t take the snow. Up until yesterday I had a coconut straw I liked a hell of a lot, but when I put it on this morning, half the brim came off in my hand. I had to dig this Panama out of the closet. You have to buy hats and everything in advance, you know. You can’t get this kind of a thing in the winter, at least not before Valentine’s.” Sheppard coughed.
“You have many guys working out of your agency?”
“Only three now. We started with seven before the weather turned cold. Winter is the best time to sell because that’s when everybody wishes he was the hell out of here. That’s what the manager tells us, and it’s God’s own truth. ‘When the weather gets cold, the bold gets going and the gold gets flowing.’ But as soon as it drops below freezing we’ll lose somebody sure as hell, and when it gets below zero we always lose one or two more.” He pulled a dirty handkerchief from the hip pocket of his shorts and blew his nose.
“You don’t happen to know a lady called Mrs. Baker?” Barnes asked.
“Yeah, I think so. Old lady that owns a cat, lives across the street. I was in her place yesterday. Why do you want to know?”
“Just wondered.” Barnes glanced again at the card he had been given. “Salary plus commission?”
Sheppard shook his head. “Straight commission.”
“Oh.” Barnes stuck the card into a pocket.
