"Rick, you're not going to get a confession."
"I know that! I'm not foolish. If we get one, it'll be in a note found near the body. And the odds are against it. We'll start nudging him. You're in the best position to give him the first little push. Let's figure out what you should say to him. What are you after? What do you want?"
"We'll have to write some kind of a script that will play."
When one of the new nurses leaned over his chair to adjust the volume on the television set, old Matthew Meadows reached up and squeezed her left breast like an old-time motorist honking the bulb of the horn on his vehicle.
She yanked herself away, glowered down at him and gave him a ringing slap across the face. His look of mischief faded slowly into hurt and shock, and he began to sob into his hands.
"Maamaa," he cried brokenly through his sobs.
"Maamaa, oh maamaaa."
Mickey Oshiro and Glinda Lopez were ordered to meet with Harold Sherman in the small lounge on the second floor of Communications at 5:00 PM on Thursday. Oshiro arrived five minutes early and found Harold Sherman already there, sitting on the big blue Naugahyde couch, leafing through the papers on a composition clipboard. They said hello and Oshiro went over to the coffee machine and got the steaming cup of black, too hot to drink, as usual.
"I never drink coffee," Sherman said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said I never drink coffee."
"Well... some do, some don't." He sat in a straight chair against the wall. It had one wide arm like a lecture-room desk in a school.
"Coffee has as yet unknown effects on body chemistry," Sherman said.
2-99 Oshiro frowned at him.
"Are you trying to make me give it up or something?"
Sherman looked mildly surprised.
"I was making conversation. I was making general comment. Would you prefer to talk about the weather? It is very hot here this time of year."
"Which also has an unknown effect on body chemistry."
"Is that a joke?"
"Take it any way you want, Mr. Sherman."
"I was curious. I hadn't heard that you people had much sense of humor."
"Computer consultants?"
"You're Japanese, aren't you?"
"Racially, yes. But I was born here. I am an American computer consultant of Japanese heritage, and I sometimes make jokes."
"Are you trying to get our little meeting off on the wrong foot, Mr. Oshiro?"
"Heaven forbid!"
"Miss Lopezislate."
"Mrs. Lopez. And my watch says two minutes past the hour."
' "Mrs"? Excuse me. Ah yes. Here it is. It is indeed Mrs. Lopez. And, of course, late is late. How much late is a secondary consideration."
"Here she is," Mickey said.
"Hi, Glinda."
"How you, Mick? Hello, Mr. Sherman."
"Please be seated, Mrs. Lopez. I have been reviewing your special project. I have listened to the tapes made at intervals over the period of this project, and I have noted the improvement as time passed. Mr. Efflander brought me up to date on the details of the inception of the plan, and so forth. And I have made my own study of the cost effectiveness of the experimental program as it is now constituted. I see no special reasons for any further tinkering with the program, which of course means that we can terminate Mr. Oshiro's consultant contract and save sixteen hundred dollars a week."
"Now wait just a minute!" Glinda said.
"Allow me to finish, Mrs. Lopez. From the telephone records I find that during this experimental phase you have been calling delinquents on a schedule of four hours each working day, and you have not been training more operators. You began and then stopped. Why?"
They couldn't do it."
"I don't understand. If you can do it, they can do it."
Oshiro answered the implied question.
"Mrs. Lopez has some very rare and special qualifications for this kind of procedure, Mr. Sherman. She is quick-witted, inventive, very fast and she has a useful grasp of what Doctor Matthews would have said under almost any sort of circumstance. She has to concentrate totally, so much so that I am surprised she can handle it properly for four hours. I don't think I could last two hours."
Sherman stared at him for a time without answering, and then said, "No one else has this earthshaking talent you attribute to Mrs. Lopez?"
"No one else working here," she said.
Sherman leaned back and put his clipboard aside.
"Let me make an observation. Let us put everything in its proper perspective. In my years of varied experience I have learned that whenever people from factory workers to executives become involved in a new technique, they tend to think of it in terms of it being some sort of mystique. And that, of course, is nonsense. We have a tendency to humor ourselves, and while doing so, make routine tasks seem far more important and difficult than they are."
"I would like to see you try to ' "Hush, please, Mrs. Lopez. Mr. Efflander ran a very loose operation here. That is becoming more evident everywhere I look. He was, as you know, a very relaxed and languid person.
I have the hunch he was a person of limited energies. He let all of you go your own way. He allowed too much free rein. That is not my way of directing complex operations. I intend to keep on top of every detail, every bit of procedure and policy. In your case, Mr. Oshiro, and in yours, Mrs. Lopez, Efflander permitted a slackness I will not stand for. Your free ride is over, Mr. Oshiro, as of the end of the business day tomorrow. You have not made any changes in the last week in the basic synthesis program. And as for you, Mrs. Lopez, from now on you will operate the program as an ongoing and permanent aspect of our solicitations, getting your prospect list each day from Deets's people based on degree of delinquency. You will work the program for six hours each day, and during the remaining two hours you will train two more operators. I estimate that ten hours of training should suffice for each one.
Deets's people will set up the new work stations when you get the other two women trained, and we will then have a man hour total of twenty-four hours a day of solicitation using voice synthesis. I have thought this through very carefully, and I am willing to reward you, Mrs. Lopez, for special effort, say a ten percent pay raise. Please be on time the next time I want to meet with you."
As Sherman started to rise, clipboard in hand, Oshiro said, "Can you believe this clown, Glinda?"
She shook her head.
"I can hear him and I can see him but I don't believe him. Where did they get him anyway?"
"Listen, Harold baby," Mickey said.
"I've been assembling a work manual as we went along. It's all there, right beside the work station. I wouldn't want to take it away and give you a lot of excuses. So you go right ahead, bone up on it, break in some new people, have your fun. You'll really know how it works when you get through."
"Are you people trying to tell me you are irreplaceable?"
"I'm not trying to tell you anything," Glinda said.
"The only reason I kept going was because I was trying to please Mickey here. I mean, he worked it all out and I guess I was trying to please him by making the darn program work. But every day I've been hating it a little bit more. I couldn't have kept going.
Those poor people, losing their houses and their cars. Sick kids. Death in the family, hospitalizations. Car accidents. And there I am, sucking up to them in the old man's voice, wheedling, telling them that their tithe is their prayer to the Lord, and when they are having hard times, that is the worst possible time to stop giving, because if they keep giving to the Lord, He will help them out of their troubles. And, Mr. Sherman, that is a crock. A real crock. The worst of it is, they believe him. They promise they'll get the money somehow.
And when I hear that I want to bust in with my own voice and say, Hey, don't listen to that shit! Get yourself out of the hole first. Pay your bills. Save your house. And then come back to the Church and make your tithe." She spun and looked at Micke
y.
"The old broad that needed the operation, you remember her, on Monday?"
"Yes. I remember her."
"It's wicked work I've been doing, Mr. Sherman, and I couldn't have kept on much longer with or without Mickey."
"I'm glad to hear that," Oshiro said quietly.
Harold Sherman said, "Those people who touch your bleeding heart pledged their support. They made an agreement. If they can't live up to it, they should resign from the Church.
And I believe you owe the Church some consideration, Mrs. Lopez. From your personnel records I believe you came here to us because you were emotionally disturbed, and we found work for you."
"And I did more than enough to clean the slate."
"Mrs. Lopez, I find your attitudes distasteful and unpleasant, and not in keeping with the discipline I intend to establish in this organization. You are really not a person I would wish to have working on delicate and confidential matters. Two weeks' termination pay will be arranged. Do you have any personal things in this building you wish to retrieve? Either of you?"
They shook their heads.
"Then I will go with you to the gate, and leave orders you are not to be readmitted to this area."
"He didn't even realize I'd already quit!" Glinda said wonderingly.
"I told you he's a comic. He's got a great routine there."
"Wow, he's really going to keep this place on its toes, isn't he, Mick?"
"Right up there on tippy toe, saluting every minute."
As they got to the doorway, it was evident that Harold Sherman actually intended to accompany them to the gate.
Oshiro spun, went into a half crouch, hands all poised for the judo chop.
"Try to follow me, round eyes," he said, 'and you have a long painful recovery, if you recover."
"You are threatening me!" Sherman said in a thin small voice, backing away.
"Damn right."
When they got to the stairway they looked back. Sherman had not come out of the room.
"Hey," Mickey said, 'that stuff is pretty good. I keep seeing it in the movies but I never tried to use it before."
She giggled all the way past the security station and she finally had to stop, breathless, and lean against the concrete wall, hugging her stomach.
"Oh, I haven't laughed like this in so long, Mick. Oh boy.
That was absolutely wonderful.
"Round eyes"I Did you see his face?"
"Hell yes. I wondered what I'd do if he knew judo. They say you're supposed to watch their eyes. But what do you watch for?"
As they strolled on, the laughter died away and she said, "Okay, so what am I laughing at? Unemployment insurance?"
"What do you plan to do anyway?" he asked.
"Find work, but not here, and not up home either. Bad memories up there, my friend."
"Tell you what. I'm willing to invest in a plane ride for you.
Coach. I'm basically a cheap Jap."
"To where?"
"Out to this little company I told you about. Macro Mix I want you to meet my partners. I want to set up a rig like we had here and you give a demo."
"No solicitations!"
"Nothing like that. Well, maybe some kind of advertising. If we could line up the rights, suppose some lady answers the phone and it is Paul Newman inviting her to come down to her what sis agency and drive one of the new models."
She looked sidelong at him.
"What am I being so picky about? I'm unemployed, right? And I've never set foot in California, ever."
She put her hand out and once again they shook hands, grinning at each other.
At ten o'clock on Thursday night, Jenny Albritton sat Buddha fashion on her bed, wearing a brief yellow nightgown, facing Jenny MacBeth, who lay supine on her own bed, telling about Harold Sherman's conversation with her.
The single light was behind Jenny Albritton, leaving her lovely face in shadow. The coolness from the air-conditioning duct in the wall behind her stirred the strands of long blonde hair.
"He's such a self-satisfied little turd," Jenny MacBeth said.
"I
have tried to tell myself that management theories and practice differ from one manager to another. But I can't believe he is any good at all."
"It makes me furious to think anyone could be rude to you."
"Wait until he gets around to Public Relations. Then you'll find out what he's like. He just doesn't have the slightest idea how good Finn was, how he was subtle and tough and elegant all at once and how much fun it was working for him and pleasing him. I think it is going to be pretty terrible around here from now on. Old Matthew would never have hired a man like that, and certainly never have put him in charge. What is John Tinker thinking about?"
"I heard that Finn Efflander recommended Sherman."
"Not so. He wouldn't do that to us after how hard we've worked for him. I've got it right from the source. Finn wanted thirty days to bring in somebody and train them but John Tinker turned him down and appointed Sherman. And everything is going to go to hell, no pun intended, while the preachers learn their sermons."
"And that'll give Sherman time to really mess it up."
"Are you happy here?"
Jenny Albritton took her time thinking it over. She shook her hair back and sighed.
"Well, on balance, yes. I guess I'd be pretty happy anywhere with you. But I guess there could be better places for us in the world."
"I'd like to leave. That damn man took all the fun out of it in five minutes by the clock. There are places where we'd be more accepted, hon. San Francisco, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale. Colonies where people would understand and be glad for us. But before we go, I would really like to clip that money room for a very large chunk."
"Hey now, Jenny Mack, anywhere doesn't include jail."
"Oh, I won't do it if there is the slightest chance of our getting caught. I say "our" because I think I am going to need your help. I mean, a very vague plan is taking shape. It is going to take weeks and weeks to work out all the details. There will have to be a couple of dry runs. Both of us, you and I, will have to agree that it is going to be worth the chance. I'm going to depend on you to look at the plan like some kind of cop, and punch holes in it."
"How much are you going to try to take?"
"Three hundred thousand in fives, tens and twenties."
"This is probably a very dumb question, but won't they miss it?"
"You can bet your sweet whatever they'll miss it. It'll be like kicking over a beehive. What has to be worked out is the absolute and complete impossibility of my having taken it, or arranged for it to be taken."
"You can do that?"
"I don't know yet. I won't know for weeks and weeks. But until I either decide I can or decide it's too risky, I am going to keep my head down. I am going to be humble and cowed, and I am going to tell Harold Sherman what a great man he is, how bright, how intelligent, how shrewd. Over and over. That's what will work with him. I can tell. And you and I, we'll go over my plans. Over and over and over, as I refine them. You are very bright, honI need your advice. There may be things I can't see because I am too close to them."
"But what does it involve?"
"Substituting one money bag of newspapers for one money bag of money. And some indirection. And some way I can manage to be in two places at the same time. And some way of implicating one of the security men. I have a nasty one in mind.
He leers and smirks and, on occasion, gives my roller-skating Angel a little pinch on the fanny."
"But if we leave right after that, won't they..."
"Leave? That would be dumb. We'll plan and plan and plan, and then we'll walk through it a few times until we know it's foolproof, and in the meanwhile we'll have worked out a good place to hide the bag of money, where nothing can harm it.
And then, say six months later, while they are still sniffing around after the money, and they have interrogated me five hundred times, we might get just a little bit
careless about our personal life. And they'll throw us out into the street, believe me, with Mrs. Macy calling the signals. And we go away without the money and maybe get jobs and work for six months or a year. And then we come back here, quietly and carefully. We make certain we're not followed, we go gather up all that money and repackage it somehow, maybe into cute stuffed animals, and off we go into the sunset. Palm trees, beaches and rum collinses, dear."
John D MacDonald - One More Sunday Page 37
