“Have you got a metal-fatigue problem?” I asked him. He shook his head.
“Do you think I don’t remember last night?” I had a little trouble getting rid of a prune pit, so he went on. “I told you all about my research laboratory, right?” I was still tonguing around my mouth for the prune pit. I kept nodding like a lunatic. “Did I mention the toilets in the new lab—how elegant they were?” I found the prune pit and bootlegged it onto my plate.
“Have you got a metals problem?” I repeated. Was this one of those no-fee lab visits?
“We must have a metals problem somewhere, but that’s not why I’m hiring you. I want to show you around and get your reactions,” Hurlbet said.
“Dr. Hurlbet, you know very well there are consulting companies who do nothing but help increase personnel efficiency.”
“Dr. Fairley.” He copied my tone, but it was all right, not nasty. “I just finished with the biggest in the business. They sent me a high-powered ‘task force.’ There was a fat man who claimed to be a physicist and talked like Sigmund Freud. He was very intense about ‘research operations in terms of the psychoanalytical model.’ There was a sociologist who talked like a mathematician. He kept giving me the statistical probabilities of an immigrant inventing the atomic bomb. And there was another man who said he was a chemist, but I couldn’t pilsh him beyond expressions like ‘in-group,’ ‘out-group,’ and ‘the dynamics of innovation.’ Do you know how these sophisticated consultants operate, Dr. Fairley?” I didn’t know. “They come in and talk to everybody—to me, to my deputies, to group leaders. They’re smart, very smart, but they believe everything my people tell them. And you know what’s worse? These men on the task forced—they never call each other anything but ‘Doctor,’ by the way—these men are as bad as my people. They’re all part of the Research-O-Rama Guild, and they have an agreement about not showing each other up. After about six months of this they presented me with a report eighty pages long, in three parts.” I was getting fidgety. We were in the outskirts of Portland already. Dr. Hurlbet let his eggs get cold. “Three parts. Part one said how morale was good, how comfortable the lab was, how everybody loved me. In fact, except for the parking place, everything was perfect.”
“I better get back to my compartment,” I said.
“They told me there should be a ‘status-oriented’ parking space—that’s how they talk! Status-oriented, so that senior staff people could leave their cars nearest the lab, with the shortest distance to walk. If I would see to this, I wouldn’t have a thing to worry about. Can you meet me on the platform?” I said O.K., I would, and hurried back to my compartment to pack.
The porter had put away my stuff, so all I did was shut the bag. When we pulled in, I overtipped the porter and jumped down onto the platform. There was Dr. Hurlbet. He started right out where he had left off a few minutes back. As we walked down the platform he put his non-bag arm through mine. He had a stride like a Maine guide. I had to hop a couple of times to keep up.
“These personnel consultants made me feel that they were really working for the FBI, that if they cleared me, I should feel good—and I was paying them. Part two of their report said there should be more communication between basic research and development and engineering. It took forty pages to give me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Let me tell you something, Dr. Fairley. Once the Consult-O-Rama boys zone in on the communication problem, they’ve got you! And they told me what to do about it. ‘Make it better,’ they told me.” He squinted into the morning sun. Way down the street was a big, low sports car. “There’s Mother,” he said. That was like him, I thought, calling his wife “Mother.” I wondered what she’d be like. He was lean and tough. She ought to be on the plump side. What the hell! I know my Rockwell Kent.
“But part three was lovely.” He took a step out in front of me. I had to stop quickly to avoid bumping into him. “They suggested I remove one particular person because he didn’t have ‘growth potential,’ because he was not ‘scientifically sophisticated.’ They wanted to be sure that a ‘certain level of technical competence’ was maintained. The person they wanted me to get rid of is the only man in the lab who really pushes his nose right down there and produces. But he isn’t a guild member, no Ph.D., so they dared attack him. Here we are.” Dr. Hurlbet opened the trunk of the snappy car. He threw in his bag and reached for mine, gently. He smiled at me. He was asking whether I’d come out to his lab with him. I let him take my bag, and he said, “Good.”
When two people who are fond of each other meet after a considerable separation it makes me nervous to be around. Dr. Hurlbet hadn’t seen his wife for quite a while, so I fiddled in the trunk, giving them time to say hello. But he hailed me from up front. “They’ll ride all right, Dr. Fairley. The lab’s only a couple of miles from here.”
I slammed shut the trunk and stepped around to the front. “This is Mother. Dr. Fairley—Mother.” The car was so low that I simply stuck my arm in the window and waited for a handshake.
“How do you do, Mrs. Hurlbet?” I couldn’t find her. I was waving my hand around inside hoping she’d grab it before I hit her in the teeth. She did. For an older woman, she had quite a grip. I couldn’t get a look at her until I fitted myself into the little buckboard seat in the back. Dr. Hurlbet got in the front alongside Mother, who stayed behind the wheel. He put his arm around her and drew her close. They kissed. Man! It was like an old movie. A real kiss. Not just hello. It was sexy. I squirmed a little. Then I got a good look at ‘Mother.’ What a bimbo! About forty, full lips and everything. Hurlbet was at least sixty, but these two had what they call a Relationship.
She put the car in gear, and they held hands—not a la St. Petersburg, Florida; shuffleboard; retirement for older citizens. I mean they held hands. The old man and the bimbo. She was fine. A nice laugh and easy way. She was wearing a big diamond bracelet and driving the fancy car. Maybe Dr. Hurlbet was disgusted with his research personnel, but he wasn’t starving. And with Mother to support, he had better not throw up the whole thing and go back to inventing in a cellar. They talked about kids and ponies till we got to the lab.
The lab! It was out in the country. A lot of lawn to cut. A monument to research. Out in front some sculptor had nailed together a thing about thirty feet tall—big balls, all connected with rods. Great! It was an outsize molecular model. Mother let us off in front of a glass-and-aluminum entrance. I gathered up my bag and said good-bye to her. There was a man who opened the door for us and touched his hat to Hurlbet. Like El Morocco. We hurried down the hall to Hurlbet’s office. His secretary swarmed all over him, wanting to know if he had a good trip and how things were in Washington, and had he given her regards to the President, hah, hah. No joke, by the way. He sees the President all the time. He hung up my coat and said, “Follow me.” Out we went and turned in at a men sign. Hurlbet led me up to a row of W.C.’s.
“Look at the doors,” he said. “See? No measly half doors! Down to the floor and up to the ceiling.” He knocked on one to show how solid it was, then he went over to the washbasins. “Look at the towels—it’s the Ritz! No paper towels in Research-O-Rama. Last night you thought I was exaggerating, didn’t you? Come on, I’ll show you around.” And we left the ritzy men’s room.
We were going down the corridor. “I told them we needed a research center, and we’ve got one—from Cartier’s!” Hurlbet waved his hand down the hall. It was spotless and quiet, like a hospital. As we walked along I looked into the open doors. The people were nice and clean in their lab smocks, very serious and busy-busy, and they whispered together. Over each door was the group name: Operations Research, Physics, Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering—the works!