Not even imagination could get rid of the city for long.
Going through the outer office, he saw that Alice Grant, his secretary, already had her lunch out on her desk. She was a young thirty, not very tall and just inclined to plumpness. She wore her blonde hair pulled back into a knot that didn’t succeed in making her look severe, and her features were well-formed and regular, if plain. Amos noticed a new bruise on one cheek and wondered how long she’d stay with her sot of a husband. There were no children to hold her.
“I’ll probably be back late,” he said. “Anything for this afternoon?”
“Just Jim at two-thirty and the union agent at three.”
The lunch didn’t go too badly, lubricated as the customer liked it, and Amos was feeling only hazily uneasy when he got back.
A stormy session with his plant superintendent jarred him into the normal disquiet. Jim Glover was furious at having to take the fifteen-thousand-dollar claim, though it was clearly a factory error. He also fought a stubborn delaying action before giving Amos a well-hedged estimate of fifty thousand to equip for the new drug. He complained that Frank Barnes hadn’t given him enough information.
Amos was still trembling from that encounter when the union business agent arrived. The lunch was beginning to lump up and he didn’t spar effectively. Not that it made much difference. The union was going to have a raise or else. By the time he’d squirmed through that interview, then dictated a few letters, it was time to go home.
He hoped his wife would be out so he could take some of his prescription and relax, but she met him at the door with a verbal barrage. Their son, nominally a resident of the house, had gotten ticketed with the college crowd for drunken driving and Amos was to get it fixed; the Templetons were coming for the weekend; her brother’s boy was graduating and thought he might accept a position with Amos.
She paused and studied him. “I hope this isn’t one of your grumpy evenings. The Ashtons are coming for bridge.”
His control slipped a little and he expressed himself pungently on Wednesday night bridge, after a nightclub party on Tuesday and a formless affair at somebody’s house on Monday.
She stared at him without compassion or comprehension. “Well, they’re all business associates of yours. I wonder where you think you’d be without a wife who was willing to entertain.”
He’d been getting a lot of that lately; she was squeezing the role of Executive’s Wife for the last drop of satisfaction. Well, since he couldn’t relax with his indigestion there was only one thing to do. He headed for the bar.
“Now don’t get tipsy before dinner,” she called after him.
He got through the evening well enough, doused with martinis, and the night that followed was no worse than most.
At nine the next morning, the call he’d been expecting from Buffalo came through. “Hello, Stu,” he said to the president of the company.
“Hello, Amos. Still morning out there, eh? How’s the family? Good. Say, Amos; couple of things. This big factory charge. Production’s screaming.”
“It was definitely a bad batch, Stu.”
“Well, that’s it, then. Question is, how’d it happen?”
“Jim Glover says he needs another control chemist.”
“Hope you’re not practicing false economy out there.”
“We wanted to hire another man, Stu, but Buffalo turned it down.”
“You should have brought it to me personally if it was that important. It’s going to take a big bite out of your year’s profit. Been able to get your margin up any?”
Amos didn’t feel up to pointing out that Sales wanted lower prices and the union wanted higher wages, so that the margin would get even worse. He described a couple of minor economies he’d been able to find, then mentioned the contract with the Peach Association.
“Yes, I heard about that,” said the president of the company. “Nice piece of business. By the way, how you coming on that animal hormone?”
That was the main reason for the call, of course. Detrick had undoubtedly phoned east and intimated that Amos was dragging his feet on a potential bonanza. “I was going to call you on that, Stu. It’ll take a year to test and get registered and—”
“Amos, I hope you’re not turning conservative on us.”
The message was plain; Amos countered automatically. “You know me better than that, Stu. It’s the Legal Department I’m worried about. If they set up a lot of roadblocks, we may need you to run interference.”
“You know I’m always right behind you, Amos.”
That’s true, thought Amos as he hung up. Right behind me. A hell of a place to run interference.
He knew exactly what to expect. If he tried to cut corners, the Legal Department would scream about proper testing and registration, Production would say he was pushing Jim Glover unreasonably, and everyone who could would assume highly moral positions astraddle the fence. A ton of paperwork would go to Buffalo to be distributed among fifty desks and expertly stalled.
Not to mention that this was no ordinary product. He realized for the first time that the Government might not let him produce it, let alone sell it. Even as a minute percentage in feeds. If it was a narcotic, it could be misused.
His buzzer sounded, and he was surprised when Mrs. Grant announced Frank Barnes. It was out of character for Frank not to make a formal appointment first.
One look told Amos what was coming. He listened to Frank’s resignation with a fraction of his mind while the rest of it mused upon the purposeful way things were converging.
Barnes stopped talking and Amos said mechanically, “You’ve been part of the team for a long time, Frank. It’s especially awkward to lose you just now.” It was banal, but it didn’t matter; he wasn’t going to change the man’s mind anyway. He looked closer. The timidity was gone. So were the eyeglasses. A frightening thought struck him. “You’ve taken some of that drug.”
Barnes grinned and handed a small vial full of powder across the desk, along with a file folder. “Last night,” he said. “Between frustration with the job and curiosity about this stuff, I yielded to temptation.”
Amos took the vial and folder. “What are these for?”
“So you can destroy them if you want to. I’ve doctored up the lab records to make the whole thing look like a false alarm. You’re holding all that’s left of the whole program.”
Amos looked for signs of irrationality and saw none. “Do you feel all right?”
“Better than you can imagine. But let me tell you what you’re up against. I can at least do that for you, Mr. Parry.”
“Thanks. Don’t you suppose you could call me Amos now?”
“Sure, Amos. First of all, you were right about that pig trying to imitate the cat. He couldn’t
