"I have to," I say with a grin.
He grins back sympathetically. "We'd find another good job for you somewhere else in the company if you found you wanted to stay here, unless you did something disgraceful or dishonest, and I'm sure that wouldn't happen. You don't have to decide now. This is just an idea of mine, and it's anything but definite, so please keep it secret. But we are trying to look ahead, and we'd like to know what we're going to do by convention time. So give it some serious thought, will you, and let me know if you would take it if we did decide to move Kagle out and give it to you. You don't have to take it if you don't want to — I promise you that — and you won't be penalized if you don't." He smiles again as he stands up and continues in a lighter tone. "You'll still get your raise this year and a good cash bonus. But we think you should. And you might just as well begin preparing yourself while you make up your mind."
"What should I do?"
"Keep close to Kagle and the salesmen and try to find out even more about everything that's happening. Decide what realistic goals to establish and what changes you would have to make to achieve them if we did put you in charge."
"I like Andy Kagle."
"So do I."
"He's been very good to me."
"It isn't your fault. We'd move him out anyway. He'll probably be happier working for you on special projects. Will you think about it?"
"Of course."
"Good. You'll keep this quiet, won't you?"
"Sure."
"Thank you, Bob."
"Thank you, Art."
"What did Arthur Baron want?" Green demands, the instant I'm out in the corridor.
"Nothing," I answer.
"Did he say anything?"
"No."
"Anything about me, I mean."
"No."
"Well, what did he say? He must have wanted to see you about something."
"He wants me to put some jokes in a speech his son has to make at school."
"Is that all?" Green snorts with contempt, satisfied. "I could do that," he sneers. "Better than you."
Up yours, I think in reply, because I know I could squash him to the ground and make him crawl like a caterpillar if I ever do find myself in Kagle's job. But he does believe me, doesn't he?
"What did Arthur Baron want?" Johnny Brown asks.
"He wants me to put some jokes in a speech his son has to make at school."
"You're still a liar."
"A diplomat, Johnny."
"But I'll find out."
"Should I start looking for another job?" asks Jane.
"I've got a job you can do, right here at hand."
"You're terrible, Mr. Slocum," she laughs, her color rising with embarrassment and pleasure. She is aglow, tempting. "You're worse than a boy."
"I'm better than a boy. Come into my office now and I'll show you. What boy that you go with has an office with a couch like mine and pills in the file cabinet?"
"I'd like to," she says (and for a second I am in terror that she will). "But Mr. Kagle is waiting for you there."
"What did Arthur Baron want?" Kagle asks as soon as I step inside my office and find him lurking anxiously in a corner there.
I close the door before I turn to look at him. He is shabby again, and I am dismayed and angry. The collar of his shirt is unbuttoned, and the knot of his tie is inches down. (For a moment, I have an impulse to seize his shirt front furiously in both fists and begin shaking some sense into him; and at exactly the same time, I have another impulse to kick him as hard as I can in the ankle or shin of his crippled leg.) His forehead is wet with beads of perspiration, and his mouth is glossy with a suggestion of spittle, and dry with the powdered white smudge of what was probably an antacid tablet.
"Nothing," I tell him.
"Didn't he say anything?"
"No. Nothing important."
"About me?"
"Not a word."
"You mean that?"
"I swear."
"Well, I'll be damned," Kagle marvels with relief. "What did he talk about? Tell me. He must have wanted to see you about something."
"He wants me to put some jokes in a speech his son has to make at school."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"And he didn't say anything about me, anything at all?"
"No."
"Or the call reports or the trip to Denver?"
"No."
"Ha! In that case, I may be safe, you know. I might even make vice-president this year. What did he talk about?"
"Just his son. And the speech. And the jokes."
"I'm probably imagining the whole thing," he exclaims exultantly. "You know, maybe I can use those same jokes someday if one of my kids is ever asked to make a speech at school." He frowns, his face clouding suddenly with a distant distress. "Both my kids are no good," he reminds himself aloud abstractedly. "Especially the boy."
Kagle trusts me also. And I'm not so sure I want him to.
"Andy," I call out to him suddenly. "Why don't you play it safe? Why don't you behave? Why don't you start doing everything everybody wants you to do?"
He is startled. "Why?" he cries. "What's the matter?"
"To keep your job, that's why, if it's not too late. Why don't you start trying to go along? Stop telling lies to Horace White. Don't travel so much. Transfer Parker to another office if you can't get him to stop drinking and retire Ed Phelps."
"Did somebody say something?"
"No."
"Then how do you know all that?" he demands. "Who told you?"
"You did," I bark back at him with exasperation and disgust. "You've been telling me about all those things over and over again for months. So why don't you start doing something about them instead of worrying about them all the time and taking chances? Settle down, will you? Control Brown and cooperate with Green, and why don't you hire a Negro and a Jew?"
Kagle scowls grimly and broods in heavy silence for several seconds. I wait, wondering how much is sinking in.
"What would I do with a coon?" he asks finally, as though thinking aloud, his mind wandering.
"I don't know."
"I could use a Jew."
"Don't be too sure."
"We sell to Jews."
"They might not like it."
"But what would I do with a coon?"
"You would begin," I advise, "by finding something else to call him."
"Like what?"
"A Black. Call him a Black."
"That's funny."
"Yeah."
"I've always called them coons," Kagle says. "I was brought up to call niggers coons."
"I was brought up to call Negroes coons."
"What should I do?" he asks. "Tell me what to do."
"Grow up, Andy," I tell him earnestly, trying with all my heart now to help him. "You're a middle-aged man with two kids and a big job in a pretty big company. There's a lot that's expected of you. It's time to mature. It's time to take it seriously and start doing all the things you should be doing. You know what they are. You keep telling me what they are."
Kagle nods pensively. His brow furrows as he ponders my advice without any hint of levity. I am getting through to him. I watch him tensely as I wait for his reply. Kagle, you bastard, I want to scream at him desperately as he meditates solemnly, I am trying to help you. Say something wise. For once in your mixed-up life, come to an intelligent conclusion. It's almost as though he hears me, for he makes up his mind finally and his face brightens. He stares up at me with a slight smile and then, while I hang on his words hopefully, says: "Let's go get laid."
The company has a policy about getting laid. It's okay.
And everybody seems to know that (although it's not spelled out in any of the personnel manuals). Talking about getting laid is even more okay than doing it, but doing it is okay too, although talking about getting laid with your own wife is never okay. (Imagine: "Boy, what a crazy bang I got from my wife last night!" That wouldn't be nice, not with gentlemen you associate with in business who might know her.) But getting laid with somebody else's wife is very okay, and so is talking about it, provided the husband is not with the company or somebody anybody knows and likes. The company is in favor of getting laid if it is done with a dash of йlan, humor, vulgarity, and skill, without emotion, with girls who are young and pretty or women who are older and foreign or glamorous in some other way, without too much noise and with at least some token gesture toward discretion, and without scandal, notoriety, or any of the other serious complications of romance. Falling in love, for example, is not usually okay, although marrying someone else right after a divorce is, and neither is "having an affair," at least not for a man.