The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy Page A

Mr. Sheer began reluctantly to dissolve, as I perceived that there was no possibility of reform because there was no practical basis for it, because, in other words (and now I knew it), there was no merchandise. I saw the nub of Mr. Sheer’s business tragedy: he was continually being forced, by the impatience of a creditor, to sell somebody else’s property below cost. In order to make good in the Bierman case he had had to sell an eight-hundred-dollar bronze for six hundred, and to make good for the bronze he would have to sell a thousand-dollar tapestry for eight hundred, and to make good for that he would have to sell a twelve-hundred-dollar chalice for a thousand, and so on—in short, every time he sold a picture he not only ran the risk of a jail sentence, but he lost money. Of course, in reality, it was not Mr. Sheer who lost money (since he had none to lose); it was always the last creditor who was the potential loser, and if that chain of debt were ever to break, it would be the ultimate creditor who would have to bear the accumulated losses. Mr. Sheer did not allow himself to imagine that the chain could break; rather, he looked forward to a time when by a Big Sale he would loosen it voluntarily; meanwhile he clung to it as a lifebelt. “If I can only keep two jumps ahead of the sheriff, I’ll be all right,” he said.
    But I could not make myself believe in the Big Sale, and the sheriff, it seemed to me, was gaining. The landlord, the telephone company, the stationers were pressing in; Elmer had not been paid and he looked sullen and hungry. We had a gallery full of objects that nobody wanted, and that, in any case, it would be criminal to sell. Billie was drunk and telephoning every fifteen minutes, threatening to commit suicide. Mr. Sheer’s jocular brutality (“Go ahead, Billie, I’m glad to hear it; I’ll give you a fine funeral”) reminded me of something I had been trying to forget, the picture of a little, white, pug-nosed chorus girl weeping and struggling in the Negro detective’s grip. The day was hot, the dog’s cage needed cleaning, and I thought that perhaps I had better quit.
    But how was Mr. Sheer going to get the eight hundred dollars to pay for the bronze? I would see him through this difficulty, I resolved, and then go.
    He was walking up and down in front of a very large Japanese silk screen which showed a deer hunt in progress. It had started out in life as a hanging and had been cut up into panels by Mr. Sheer himself, so that, as he said, it would not take up so much space. In spite of this mutilation, it was probably the most authentic thing we had, and all summer we had been asking twelve hundred dollars for it.
    “If I marked that down to eight,” he said in a meditative tone, “Mrs. La Plante would jump at it.”
    Mrs. La Plante was the lady with the toy spaniels, the widow of a theater operator, who always looked as if she were going through the customs. She dearly loved a bargain, and various merchants had so overstocked her with possessions that she wore a dozen rings, strung five or six necklaces around her neck, pinned odd bits of priceless lace at her bosom and wrists, and carried two fur stoles even on the hottest summer days. Mr. Sheer could have sold her everything in the gallery, if he had put his mind to it, sold her the things and then kept them on display, since previous purchases had left not an inch of free space in her house, and whenever she made an acquisition nowadays she simply left it with the dealer, dropping in from time to time to enjoy its beauties.
    In fact, this fat old lady was the perfect customer. She was passionately hospitable with her comfortable house in Long Beach, where there was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, and a swimming pool to cool off in. Early in the summer Mr. Sheer had spent several week ends there, and it was then that those abortive negotiations for the toy spaniel crystal necklace had taken place. But all at once he had stopped