“Why?”
I felt annoyed at having to explain the obvious. “In his way, he’s a great guy. Point him out a target, and he’ll go steaming and clanking after it. He’s earnest. But I hauled him up too far. This latest goof arose from a great desire to be of help to me.”
“I’m sure it did, but I don’t give marks for good motives.”
“Anyhow, it’s a very special case.”
“What makes you think you won’t adopt a new Lew Wales after you chuck this one, Ellison?”
“Because I never needed a Lew Wales before this one came along, Mr. Flannigan. When I was about eight, right here in Youngstown. I figured out all by myself there are four kinds of people in the world. Some start with it and keep it. Some start with it and lose it. Others start low and stay low. I knew I was in the last group, the ones that start with nothing and keep climbing until they die. I’ve learned a lot of different ways of climbing. There are more to learn.”
“Right now, you’re lugging dead weight along.”
“I know that.”
“So you cut it loose.”
“There’re some places in the company where he’d really work out all right.”
He smiled again. “Maybe I am interested in motivations, William. Yours. And how strong they are. I’ll be through here in another year. I’ll leave some of my team here. It always happens. They get a little bit fat and secure. I’ll need people who can travel light and travel fast, and not waste time looking back over their shoulders. I need twenty-hour-a-day men, the smiling ones with nerves like bandits.” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s something to think about. Your staff is your own problem, of course. If you make any changes, let me know.” He nodded and reached for his phone.
I walked out and grinned at his girl and went briskly down the corridor. But when I came to the fire door. I pushed it open and went out onto the cement-and-steel landing. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the roughness of the wall and hit the wall very gently many times with my fist. I moved for a moment into an impossible future where I had all the cards, all the weight, all the edge, sitting behind my desk, smiling, telling Flannigan three different ways he was through, watching his eyes as I told him.
I pulled myself back out of the dreams and went back to my own shop. Nancy told me Lew was anxious to talk to me. I told her to keep him the hell away from me, and to get me Alice on the phone. My wife likes to know when all plane rides are over. She can’t get it through her head that it is the same as calling her after every ride on a city bus.
She told me the car was making a funny sound, that the black dirt had been delivered, that we were going to the club tonight with Lew and Janey, and that she was glad I was home.
I said I would be late and she said I could join them at the club whenever I could make it.
It was after seven before I let Nancy go, and I kept working for another hour. By that time I had enough pain in my middle to make the club food a bad risk, even if I could have arrived in time to be served. I could thank Lew for the recurrence of the symptoms which, they keep telling me, can turn into a nifty ulcer if I don’t pace myself. While I had a bland meal in town, I read over my first draft of the Detroit agreement. By the time I had driven home, changed, and driven on to the club, it was nearly eleven.
The bar was crowded and noisy. I found Alice and Janey right where I expected them to be, in the alcove off the bar, making a concerted attack on one of the dime slot machines.
I kissed Alice, then Janey. Alice had to make certain I’d gotten something to eat. They said one jackpot had put them way ahead of the machine.
“Have you seen Lew?” Janey asked.
“Isn’t he here?”
“Sure, he’s here, but he’s got the uglies. He thinks you’re sore at him, Bill.”
I found Lew out by the service bar on the terrace, trading combat lies with Rick Greer who cannot seem to forget he was once a Marine. Both of them were a little loud and blurred by drink. Lew excused himself and we went down to the far end of the terrace and sat on the low stone wall that overlooks the eighteenth green.
Lew Wales is big, and his blond hair is thinning fast, and he isn’t watching his weight the way he should. He sweats heavily. I have learned that every man has one characteristic attitude which becomes his social and professional armor against a cruel and indifferent world. Mine, perhaps, could be described as an attitude of ironic challenge. Lew’s is one of jovial apology.
“I tried all day and I couldn’t get to see you,” he said, accusingly.
“Flannigan kept me on the jump.”
“I guess you’re sore at me.”
“Suppose you tell me how you happened to do something so stupid. If you were a Chem-Land spy, you couldn’t have done a better job.”
“Listen, Bill, dammit, we started to work up the materials list and I went into the file to check delivery schedules. I found that original draft in there, signed by Flannigan and all, and our file copy with it. I looked at the distribution, and saw where the other ten copies went, and figured by some mistake this one hadn’t gone to the Chem-Land attorneys. So... I sent it.”
“All the other copies were destroyed as soon as we made a better deal. Why didn’t you ask Nancy at least?”
“I work for you,” he said in a surly tone. “I don’t work for your girl, Nancy.”
“With you on my team, I don’t need enemies, Lew.”
“You know I didn’t mean to mess you up, Billy! You know, in my whole life I never had anybody chew me like Mr. Flannigan did. When I walked out of there, my legs were so weak I could hardly stand up. How was he with you?”
“We tickled each other into fits of helpless laughter. Lew, what I don’t understand is how you could have been around our shop for the past eight weeks and have been unaware of the series of deals we worked out with Chem-Land. Hell, you worked up some of the figures.”
“Well,” he said uneasily, “there’s a lot of tricky things to remember. Things change pretty fast. And you don’t always get a chance to brief me, Bill.” He paused and then said, with more confidence, “I’ve got on top of the Production Control setup, just the way you wanted it lined out, Bill. We can run in to the office tomorrow and go over it.”
“Have Nancy put it on my desk. I’ll check it out Monday.”
I didn’t want Lew explaining to me what he had done on a project I had originally explained to him. He belabors the obvious. He hammers it to its knees. And if there is any interruption, he goes back and starts at the beginning. There is a usable value in such men. They thrive on familiar detail. They give loyalty and expect trust. They have an incurable belief in the decency of man, and they have that terrible capacity to forgive.
“I guess I’d better be more careful,” he said, and I knew he yearned to be punished.
“If you’d promise to do absolutely nothing all day every day, I’d feel a lot safer,” I said.
In the silence, he decided how he was expected to react to that. He made the only choice permitted by his own pride. He laughed. He punched my shoulder and said, “You can’t get along without ol’ Lew out in front of you knocking the tacklers down, boy.”
“This time you got in my way and dropped me for a loss.”
“What does that make it? Third and eight? Just show me which way you want to go, pal, and I’ll make a hole so big you can stroll through it. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”