— Look Whiteback I don’t want to know what America’s all about, just get her to the nurse.
— No please I’m quite all right I just…
— Yes well of course she might Dan you might just walk Mrs Joubert up to Miss Waddams’ office where she can ahm, of course she can’t lie down there though can she the ambulance hasn’t come yet for the ahm, the baby and its ahm, the baby that is to…
— I’m all right really Mister diCephalis, thank you…
— Yes well thank you for coming in to show us your ahm, coming in Mrs Joubert Dan you might just keep an eye on her down the hall there she did look a little ahm…
— Maybe she got in on these pregnancy sweepstakes you’re running, Whiteback. She’s certainly a better looking piece than that dried up little blonde who’s got your coach here up on assault charges.
— Yes well Vogel of course ahm, of course he was unaware he was really approaching the girl’s mother who seems to have been coming to school dressed as her…
— Her daughter yes, in other words if he’d shown an eighth grade girl where the horse bit him everything would have been fine. Put that together with these five pregnancies and your newspaper here would name him Father of the Year.
— Yes well the newspaper story on these pregnancies was all simply a mistake since we’d ahm, a mixup in the laboratory that is to say since the samples we’d sent to be tested for drugs got mixed up with some that were there to be tested for…
— If you’d sent them there for that in the first place you wouldn’t have had this scene in the girls’ washroom just now, newspaper called yet?
— No but of course they still seem to be occupied with this ahm, the tragedy of this little retarded…
— No problems at all then have we, Glancy and this Vogel story and your stag movie and everything else pushed off the front page when a narcotics agent shoots down a simple-minded boy with a cap pistol and everything’s fine.
— Yes well no apparently the boy caught him by surprise and of course the agent’s trained reflexes were ahm, yes excuse me hello…? Yes this is the bank’s, oh yes this is the bank? Yes… his name is Cibo Mister Cibo yes, as of yesterday his signature is required on all of Catania Paving’s checks yes he… as president of Catania Paving yes he, hold on my other phone is… Yes? hello…? Oh Gottlieb yes I was going to call you about… yes no we may not have to call your Ace Transportation loan at all no, I just had a call from ahm, a feeler that is to say from ahm, that could save the bank from ahm, wait let me finish this other call yes, hello…? No it’s c, cibo yes you’ll find the signature in the Cia Management account… Gottlieb? hello? No that was just the bank calling about this man Cibo who’s just… In labor relations and vending machines yes he’s just bought a third interest in Catania Paving from Parentu wait a minute, hello…? Mister Parentucelli yes I was… I just spoke to the bank about your Mister Cibo yes he… the Coke machines in the cafeteria? Yes Mister Cibo said something to me about… yes but you see with so many youngsters buying Coke our entire federal milk subsidy is in danger of… Yes I know Mister Cibo’s just as interested in the kiddies’ welfare as I am but… to Mister Pecci’s campaign yes I know he is but… Yes of course I agree people like a hero but… Yes I have another… yes but I have another call I…
— Come in Major, you and Dan here getting up an act together? Might call it the two white crows…
— Look Vern just…
— either shit or get off the pot…
— Just Parentucelli on the other phone yes, he’s… No Pecci’s political campaign he thinks they should either ahm, either fish or cut bait that is to say, this man Cibo is… Yes some sort of publicity stunt to give Pecci a new ahm, make him a hero yes but of course the… The smut issue yes but of course… Hyde yes in fact the boy’s father just walked in, he… To transfer the financing right into his name without going through the estate yes I’ll… no well at this price I don’t think he’ll mind the ahm; the smell you might say…
— Mind if I hang up this phone too Whiteback? Sounds like somebody left a toilet running.
— Yes no go ahead Vern come in Mister ahm Major that was Gottlieb down to the Cadillac agency, he thinks he can put the financing on the car right into your name without repossessing it from Glancy’s estate to handle it like ahm, like a used car sale that is to…
— What was that about a smell.
— No well of course it was used since Glancy did use it to ahm, I think the Cadillac people prefer to say previously owned yes and he’d only driven it seven miles but of course he’d been in it for a week when they found him down in the woods there and apparently they’ve been unable to remove the, to restore the smell of a new car interior that is to…
— Won’t mind a whiff now and then will you Major, be like driving Glancy around in the back seat where you can’t see his…
— Look Vern I don’t have time to…
— Yes well I think Vern just means the back seat would have been more ahm, of course we thought he’d taken off to look for his wife until Parentucelli’s men found him down there with that hose from the exhaust to the driver’s ahm, sitting behind the wheel yes even though he wasn’t going, wasn’t dressed to go anywhere that is to say, he…
— Yes what about his suit, I meant to…
— No well down to the bank of course Dan we knew none of his bills had been paid because his wife must have torn up all the checks he’d written against this last loan and then cashed one herself for the total before she disappeared but ahm, yes I don’t think anyone was suing Glancy yet they’d hardly…
— No no what I meant was my suit I think he…
— I think Dan means his wife’s suit don’t you Dan?
— No I don’t think she’s not suing anybody no no I just meant a brown tweed suit he got at the…
— You mean your wife hasn’t mentioned a lawsuit against me Dan?
— Yes well she may not have seen the ahm, of course she knows about the suit against Dan as driver of the other vehicle but she may not have seen the newspaper story about the keys being left in the death ahm, I have the clipping right here somewhere the death vehicle I think they call it suing for a million dollars on grounds of criminal negligence but of course…
— Prices like that maybe we all ought to sell out. What do they want for the one with the cap pistol.
— Yes well they’re only asking ahm of course they’re suing the government too but they’re only asking eight hundred thousand in their suit against the school claiming the boy had ahm, might have had a career in music if our testing program hadn’t ahm, of course this other boy who just came to the attention of the telephone company when they discovered he was calling Hong Kong and Sydney Australia without going through their ahm, through approved channels had scored near the bottom of Dan’s…
— Set up a testing program to weed out the bad risks and I end up with…
— Yes well he’d been weeded out too that is to say which was why he was home experimenting with the telephone in the first place, of course I’ve had to write the telephone company that he’s only eleven which will probably make them quite ahm, they’re already quite put out over our pay telephone booth out here of course being billed nine hundred forty-seven dollars in collect calls which can’t be this boy who broke into their long lines because of course he was at home doing a very fine ahm, offered him a very fine salary that is to say but of course I’ve had to write them that he’s only elev…
— Then will you tell me how I end up with this other bunch asking a million dollars for a kid with nothing ahead of him but forty years as a gas station attendant at fifty a week? That’s a hundred thousand tops if he’d stayed out of jail, I told you this testing program was going to blow up in our faces back when Dan started having trouble with his holes and now you’ve got every jobless welfare freeloading…